Michelle Beneke

Clinical Psychologist

I am a registered Clinical Psychologist and Psychodynamic Psychotherapist in private practice in Pretoria. My practice is situated close to Loftus and is easily reachable from the CBT and Old Eastern suburbs as well as the Moot area. I specialise in working with children, adolescents and adults in individual psychotherapy and am also available for parental guidance. I am open to whatever the patient brings, no matter how seemingly small or big. The relationship that comes into existence between the individual who seeks help and me as the therapist is utilized to bring about understanding and healing in the here and now. Past experience are relevant in as far as it influences feelings, ways of thinking and how we relate to ourselves and others in the present.

I have a special interest in working with the effect of childhood trauma and its impact on current experience and relationships as well as the intergenerational transfer of trauma. I also work preventative through helping parents understand their feelings and actions in their relationships with their children. We parent as we are, not as we ideally would like to. Understanding oneself in this regard can help, not only to change how we parent our own children but also impacts on future generations.

My clinical experience includes practicing at a student counselling centre, psychiatric wards, a correctional facility, a factory and private practice.

• Children- through play
• Depression and Anxiety
• Characterological Difficulties
• Psychological Trauma (sustained in adult-or-childhood)
• Parenting
• Anti-natal depression and experience
• Bereavement and Loss
• Miscarriage and Fertility issues
• Interpersonal Conflict including divorce
• Existential Concerns (including a sense of hopelessness, meaninglessness, loneliness and fear of death/transitions)

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

I practice within a Psychodynamic framework in which I make use of whatever the patient decides to bring to therapy. A patient might come to a session with descriptions of difficulties, unmanageable feelings, symptoms, dreams, ideas, experiences from the past and or daily life and even silences. Within the therapeutic space we together strive to come to understand that which the individual has not noticed or known before in order to bring about symptom relief and more integrated living. The aim of psychotherapy is to improve relationships with the self and others, to gain self knowledge and insight, to bring about behavioral change and symptom relief as well as to create meaning.

Symptoms such as bedwetting, anxiety, ADHD, over-or under achieving, sleep difficulties and aggression are often ways in which children communicate to us that they are experiencing distress in their world. With children I work through observing and interpreting their play in order to help them with feelings and symptoms that they do not know how to cope with. Within a warm environment parents are given the change to share their experiences and to gain a different perspective of what their child is experiencing on an emotional level. Besides working in therapy with the child I attempt to find ways that are possible within the family to assist the child with his or her difficulties.

Affiliations

• Registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)
• Registered with the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF)
• Member of the South African Psychoanalytic Confederation (SAPC)
• Member of Johannesburg Association of Child Psychotherapy (JACP)

Fees

Consultations charged at a cash rate of R890 per 55 minute session – or at medical aid rates.

HPCSA registration number: PS 231215
Practice number: 08600231215