23 years ago while studying psychology I started working as a wilderness guide and noticed that when people spent time outside their anxiety dissipated, their mood shifted, their thinking changed and they experienced a greater sense of wellbeing. Training as a psychotherapist at the same time as guiding people outside, I wondered why mainstream psychology made not one mention of these significant shifts available when we go into wild, or simply more natural settings.

 

So while I am a psychotherapist I call myself a nature-allied therapist. For me it means that, unlike most mainstream therapies where the difficulties people experience are seen as largely isolated to their own heads, I see each person as an ecosystem, a living web of interconnected relationships, all of which effect our wellbeing.

 

I engage in “depth-oriented” therapy, as opposed to focusing solely on behaviours, thought patterns, or solutions. That is, I don’t work from a CBT, DBT, or Solutions Focused approach. I believe that working through the underlying adaptations that keep you feeling stuck has a much higher chance of successfully producing real growth. We all have had some degree of trauma in our lives that led to these adaptations, but we may not realise it; trauma comes in many shapes and sizes, and it may not be what you think of as “trauma.” 

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Trauma, from the Greek for “wound”, is not what happens to you; it is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you … It is not the blow on the head, but the concussion I get. That is the good news. If my trauma was that I grew up with an absent parent for example, that will never not have happened. But if the wound was that I decided as a result that I wasn’t worthwhile as a human being, I wasn’t lovable, that’s a wound that can heal at any time.

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Just a few examples of how trauma shows up in our lives are: 

-people pleasing

-persistently putting others’ need before our own

-being highly self-critical

-anxiety of all sorts, including social anxiety

-codependency in relationships

-depression

-fear of abandonment

-under-functioning

-over-functioning or perfectionism

-anger issues

-resentment

-burnout

-difficulty trusting others

-hypervigilance

-environmental sensitivities

-dissociation of all degrees and flavours

-substance abuse/numbing

-disordered eating

-self-sabotage

-chronic disease and pain

-intergenerational patterns of abuse

 

I weave nature-based, contemplative and somatic practices into my traditional therapy training and use, as a foundation, my clinical training in NARM (Neuro-Affective Relational Model working with developmental trauma, Complex-PTSD, intergenerational trauma and collective historical trauma).

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I also offer Constellations sessions - family, systems and nature - should this feel like a valuable lens into family dynamics, patterns and challenges.

 

I am based in Hoedspruit, Limpopo and work online as well as in person. Sessions can come in the form of meeting indoors, or through a walk outside.