Samuel Waumsley Clinical Psychologist
M.A. Clinical Psychology (University of Cape Town, 2010), B.Soc.Sci. Hons (UCT); B.A. Hons (UCT); B.Soc.Sci. (UCT)
Training at the UCT Child Guidance Clinic in 2008 in psychodynamic and humanistic psychotherapy. These approaches acknowledge how much our social environments shape one's development - how our personal narrative and circumstances are central to us psychologically. Practice established 2012. Member of PsySSA.
Have an interest in social-economic contextual factors around mental health, as such existential psychotherapy is interesting to me, in that it deals with meaning and all factors relevant to our mental health, including the social sphere. Psychodynamic theory is also important to me in that it acknowledges the impact of childhood on a person, and our conditioning psycho-emotionally.
Published a review in 2010 of therapy done at the UCT Child Guidance Clinic between 1997 and 2007, focusing on therapy outcomes, social class and access to services in the South African Journal of Psychology.
Psychotherapy
Short-term work over a few sessions or longer-term meetings available. Therapy aims to provide a space for thinking about things calmly and helpfully. Sessions are scheduled according patient's own needs and pace. Being conscious of one's feelings, contemplations and values is important. I try to provide a down-to-earth, respectful and encouraging psychotherapy atmosphere.
Therapy process
1. Meeting and history-taking session.
2. We will appraise what area your challenges fall into; and start to build a framework of understanding around this symptom constellation.
3. Subsequent sessions work to familiarise you as the patient with our dynamic understanding of the issues at hand.
4. Preventative and ameliorative check-in on your day to day life patterns, and around ways to shift outcomes.
Therapy for:
- Panic attack: Heightened anxiety - panic includes symptoms like increased heart rate, feeling faint, sweating, panic and a feeling of impending threat, racing thoughts and shallow breathing.
- Esteem: Our sense of self and conditioned experience of self-trust is fundamental to us. We come from what we know and have seen, often that becomes internalised and repeated in ways that are not useful.
- Dream interpretation: In interpreting dreams the person's associations to images and to the story in the dream are useful.