Partnering for Sustainable Health promoting work places
Sustainability is achieved by developing internal wellness structures and competence. Instead of offering a pre-made package, my interest is in working with companies to identify and develop wellness champions. These Wellness champions don’t sit in board rooms, they are those unseen individuals whom everyone trusts with their vulnerabilities. This unique company resource needs only to be identified and developed.
Trauma
Our past as South Africans has bequeathed us a legacy of violence. Violence which has left a traumatized society in its wake. In my career I have been confronted with the impact of trauma on individuals, couples and communities. My ongoing interest in trauma research and practice is aimed at doing my bit to bringing about healing to a wounded society.
Emotionally Focussed Therapy
In 2015 I was privileged to complete an externship in Emotionally Focussed Therapy with Kathryn de Bruin and Elmien. This has started a new turn in my journey as a couple therapist. For several years I have grappled with knowing if my work was reaching the depth that so many couples long for. In EFT I feel that I have found the tools to assist couples to reach out to one another from their deepest and most profound attachment needs. I am continually integrating these tools into my practice.
The light and dark of manhood
In coming to understand my own manhood as a white South African male I have started to appreciate the value that a man who stands confidently in his own skin brings to his community. My journey in men’s work has made me mindful of my role as a father, husband and friend. I have also come to appreciate that there is a price to be paid when men continually run away from those parts of themselves that they fear the most. That price is exacted in an inability to be fully invested in the lives of the people that surround them.
The Epidemic of Loneliness
The work of John T. Cacioppo suggests that their is a unseen epidemic killing more people than some of more well documented life style illnesses. That is the epdemic of Loneliness. As humans we have deep need to feel connected. Too often, life's relationship trauma's create walls that cut us off from this essential part of being human. For this reason I actively seek to work with my clients to understand those injures that keep them from connecting with the world around them.
Robbin Williams once said, "I used to think that worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel all alone."