Individual Therapy

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Psychologist Cape Town

For trusted Therapy and Counselling

Welcome to my practice! I have tried to make this website as informative as possible so that you can be sure that you will receive the service and help that you require when looking for psychologist Cape Town services.

Four key approaches to my work:

  • To assist each client to gain a better understanding of themselves, to increase their competency/skills, to develop within each client a sense of personal agency and to enable the client to make sense of and attach meaning to their pain or loss.
  •  To adapt my therapeutic approach to match the client’s specific request, characteristics and needs.
  • To have a supportive relationship within which the client can move closer to a life and relationships that is more meaningful and fulfilling.
  • To monitor the client’s response to the therapeutic relationship and ongoing treatment to ensure that the goals set are being achieved.

Contact Details

Cell: 082 491 6967

Contact us for pricing or to book a session

    Range of Services

    Psychotherapy & Counseling

    People decide to pursue counseling and psychotherapy for many reasons. Therapy provides a safe and supportive space for people to address major life changes, to seek help with mental health concerns such as depression.

    This helps to resolve a crisis, to improve a sense of well-being and to overcome behavioral, relationship and emotional difficulties.

    We assist with this to help with self-exploration, increased self-awareness, the development of skills and coping strategies and an increased sense of mastery.

    These tests/assessments are used if a person is having problems at school, work or in their personal relationships to measure and observe a client’s behavior, to arrive at a diagnosis and to guide treatment.

    For example, if a child is having problems at school, the tests will determine whether the child suffers with a specific learning disorder, an attention problem such as ADHD, or an emotional problem such as having difficulties with emotion regulation or impulse control.

    psychologist cape town

    Benefits of individual therapy:

    • Develop the ability to attach meaning to the repeated patterns of wounding.
    • Gain new perspectives to free yourself from anxiety, depression and self- criticism.
    • Deal with addictive behaviours including substance misuse, relationship issues, eating disorders, etc.
    • Reclaim your sense of personal power by understanding the dynamics in your relationships.
    • Learn how to move forward in your life rather than being stuck, helpless and hopeless.
    • Find ways to relate to emotional or physical pain so that the suffering brings wisdom and compassion rather than depression and anger.
    • Improve the quality of your relationships by developing more affirming behaviors.
    • Provide you with a set scheduled time to attend to your own needs and regain your sense of well-being.
    • Have a safe and interested listener who is non-judgmental and supportive.

    Benita Southgate Psychologist in Cape Town

    I am a registered Counselling Psychologist with over 18 years experience in higher education, corporate and private practice settings.

    I qualified at the University of the Western Cape initially as an Educator and thereafter proceeded to complete my Masters in Psychology at the same university.

    I worked at the Western Cape Education Department with at-risk young people. My career trajectory within education progressed to that of becoming the Principal Psychologist at the student counseling service of the University of Cape Town.

    My role involved counselling, management of the counseling service, management of psychiatric emergencies and the clinical oversight of a team of Psychologists.

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    benita southgate

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    Sign up for Relationship and Marriage Therapy and Counselling for Couples in Claremont, Cape Town by Psychologist Benita Southgate.

    Being a couples’ therapist requires a unique and specific set of skills. There is, as a result, special self-selection involved in becoming a couples’-, marital- or family therapist. Benita Southgate is committed to helping couples understand the dynamics in their relationship, and to find positive ways of relating.

    Benefits:

    Change the view of the relationship

    • Attach meaning to the conflict.
    • Helps clients to understand that the person they are in relationship with will inevitably cause wounding with the aim that the unconscious forces that cause a repeated pattern of suffering can be resolved.
    • Develop more adaptive ways of responding to the stress in the relationship.

    Modifies dysfunctional behavior

    • Therapy intentionally aims to change the way that the partners behave with each other.
    • Ensure that couples do not engage in a manner that can cause physical, psychological, or economic harm.
    • Incorporate procedures to stop the escalation of conflict.

    Decreases emotional avoidance

    • Couples often avoid expressing their private feelings for fear that they will be rejected resulting in them becoming emotionally distant and growing apart. As an attachment-based couples therapist, the partners are assisted to feel less afraid in expressing their need for closeness.

    Improves communication

    • Effective communication is central to the experience of intimacy in relationships. Couples’ therapy assists the clients to communicate more effectively and to avoid forms of communication that is abusive, sarcastic and ridicules the other.
    • Therapy assists clients to learn how to listen for actively and emphatically.
    • Therapy may involve coaching the couple to learn to speak to each other in more supportive and understanding ways.

    Promotes strengths

    • Reinforces the strengths in the relationship.
    • Builds resilience or hardiness.
    • Enables the couple to derive more enjoyment out of their relationship.

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