I have been practising in the field of psychology for over twenty years. Trained as a counselling psychologist, my original specialisation was in sexual health, and my Master’s research focused on Discursive Psychology—the study of how reality, identity, and experience are shaped through language. Over time, my work extended into relationship therapy, counselling around severe illness and injury, and trauma-related work.
With experience, it became clear to me that sex therapy, relationship therapy, and trauma counselling are not discrete or specialised domains, but strands running through all therapeutic work. Therapy consistently returns to the same terrain: the tension between fear and desire, the ways we come into being through others, and the enduring influence of trauma—especially the trauma of love gone wrong.
At this stage of my career, I have worked across nearly every dimension of human struggle. This has led me to an increasing resistance to diagnostic thinking as a way of understanding our inevitable suffering. Rather than approaching distress as a malfunction to be corrected, I turned toward philosophy—specifically Existential Phenomenology—to develop an alternative way of practising therapy and addressing our struggles.
As part of this turn, I completed a PhD in Philosophy & Psychoanalysis at the Global Centre for Advanced Studies (GCAS). My doctoral research offered a critical comparison between secular Buddhist methods and existential psychoanalysis, and developed a form of contemplative existential analysis in which the self is approached not as an object or identity, but as the ongoing struggle to exist. I was subsequently awarded a certificate in Negative Psychoanalysis under the supervision of philosopher and psychoanalyst, Prof Julie Reshe.
Using this evolving approach, I offer existential group therapy, radical couples therapy, and intensive existential analysis. This work is available online and from my studio in Observatory, Cape Town. I also offer retreat-style therapeutic work at venues such as the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo, South Africa.
I currently work with clients in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, the United States, Dubai, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Contemplative Existential Analysis stays with what cannot be resolved, asking how one might live more honestly within the conditions of one’s existence.