I started blogging in 2009 when I was asked to edit a newsletter for the Trauma Centre in Cape Town. In this blog I write about issues and experiences that interest me. I have been living in my hometown - Cape Town - for 15 years now after many years of living abroad; first in New York and then in London. Besides having lived on 3 continents, I have also had two careers - the first was in biochemistry.
I was involved in New Left politics in New York in the late 60's and became interested in the Women's Movement at that time. When I moved to London in 1970, I joined one of the early consciouness-raising groups. This is what got me interested in psychology and in how people can change despite their early conditioning. So I trained as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist at the Arbours Association in the early seventies and spent 6 years working part-time at the Women's Therapy Centre. Later I taught both at the Arbours and also at the Bowlby Centre. I was a member of Input, an organisation of SA mental health workers. It was helpful in creating links between South African mental health workers and the liberation movement in London. We also ran a big project in 1993-94, financed by the Canon Collins Trust which brought 14 black professionals from South Africa to train as counsellors. After I returned to South Africa in 1999, I worked part-time at the Trauma Centre doing trauma counselling, working with Khulumani and also with refugees. I now work part-time in my private practice.
