Integrative Approaches

“Ka nunui te mihi aroha ki ōu Atua, me ōu whenua, ā, ōu tupuna hoki. Ka korero ahau i tēnei mihi i te reo māori tuatahi nō tēnei whenua, kei mua te reo pākeha tuarua. Ko tēnei te mihi ki te wāhi o tōku kainga. I nga wā o mua i tae mai ōku tūpuna kei te noho rātou ki te whatumanawa o kahurānaki, te wāhi whangāia o Heretāunga i te taha ō Tukituki. I tae mai rātou nō uropi kei runga i ngā waka City of Auckland rāua ko Westland, a, he Pākeha ahau. E tipu ana ahau i Heretāunga, ēngari, kei Ahuriri e noho ana inaianei.

I greet you this way to tell you that from under the eye of Kahurānaki and alongside the Tukituki is the land where I was born and that I call home. My ancestors are from Poland, England, Germany, Scotland and from the Shetland Islands. Some of these ancestors were brought to Aotearoa by two ships called “Westland” and “The City of Auckland” finding their way to the Hawke Bay. With my husband and children, I now reside in Napier.”

I am a fully qualified and registered Psychotherapist MNZAP & PBANZ and a Certified Hakomi Practitioner. I have been working with people in the Bay for the past decade and have worked with victims of all kinds of violence, predominately sexualised violence – through the ACC sensitive claims process. In my therapeutic approach I weave together a wealth of experience from Hakomi therapy and Response Based Practice which draws together principles of awareness, non-violence and dignity. I have been strongly moved by my training in kaupapa Māori approaches, for both their strength and appropriateness for working within an Aotearoa context. Alongside my private practice I have also worked within agencies that have strong kaupapa Māori frameworks. All these frameworks lend themselves to gathering together an understanding of how we are consistently responding to the world and how we make choices to live.

Education: I graduated with a Diploma in Psychotherapy and a Diploma in Integrative Psychology which led to also gaining a Bachelor of Applied Social Sciences; Major Psychotherapy. Since graduating I have become a certified Hakomi practitioner (CHT). As a full member of the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists I obtained the Advanced Clinical Practice in April 2014.