My approach

After graduating from my Master of Educational and Developmental Psychology, I spent several years working in disability support services, with neurodivergent children and adults. I spent this time trying to make sense of the people I was working with, and to offer families and residential support workers insight and practices that would nurture closeness and connection and, ultimately, joy.

It was this vision that led me to the Neufeld Institute and Dr Gordon Neufeld’s attachment based developmental approach which, I feel, offers such a hopeful and respectful lens through which to view children. It is through this lens that I now predominantly work and I am part of the Neufeld Aotearoa team.

Increasingly, I am being contacted by parents who might be looking for an alternative approach to the current behavioural or medical paradigms. The Neufeld approach is a paradigm shift. The underlying premise is that behaviour is driven by emotion and instinct and we need to look underneath the behaviour and tend to the emotion driving it in order to create more sustained positive change.

Whilst I offer child, parent-child, and parent sessions, I work very closely with parents. My intention is to support and empower you to create the conditions for your child to grow emotionally mature, and to live with vitality and joy.

“Always put the relationship first and be creative with everything else.” Dr. Gordon Neufeld