Therapist in Muizenberg
MB ChB (UFS)
Pr. no. 0681652
MP 0260576
Welcome to the professional website of dr. Wilna van der Walt, registered medical doctor practicing in the field of psychotherapy in Muizenberg. She has a special interest in creative work in service of inner development.
I offer individual psychotherapy to adults. The decision to start psychotherapy is often a difficult one. Should you choose to work with me, it would be ideal to meet once a week. My sessions are fifty minutes in duration. In our work together we will focus on your experiences from daily life, memories from the past, your feelings and reflections in response to such memories, interactions between us in the therapeutic session as well as dreams, should they appear. Creative work may be incorporated into our work together, but remains an option only. I am no longer available as general medical practitioner.
Together we undertake a journey of self-discovery; we commit ourselves to this task. We pay attention to patterns that may be interfering with the natural unfolding of the personality. The good news is that within our psychological makeup there exists a beneficial natural process of inner growth. Inner growth may enable one to outgrow and rise above a difficult life situation. But first the seed has to break open in order to grow.
Breaking open is always painful, even traumatic, but necessary, for without it there will be no growth. Our lives are like trees. It roots us. The roots stretch away into the darkness of the earth, into the shadows. The tree may draw water from deep beneath the earth, from the well-springs of life, if the roots reach deep enough. The Swiss psychiatrist, dr. CG Jung, found that the unconscious part of the personality offers practical advice to the conscious personality, and that self-understanding leads to a full and productive life. He said:
“The unconscious always tries to produce an impossible situation in order to force the individual to bring out his very best. Otherwise one stops short of one’s best, one is not complete, one does not realize oneself. What is needed is an impossible situation where one has to renounce one’s own will and one’s own wit and do nothing but wait and trust to the impersonal power of growth and development. When you are up against a wall, be still and put down roots like a tree, until clarity comes from deeper sources to see over that wall.”
CG Jung, The Codex from the Dead Sea Scrolls
About creativity in psychotherapy
Creative work may also take on the role of a mirror; it can be an invaluable supportive tool and is known to assist the therapeutic process. I offer regular workshops about my approach to creative inner work. The workshop is also available as an individual short course.
“A patient needs only to have seen once or twice how much he is freed from a wretched state of mind by working at a symbolical picture, and he will always turn to this means of release whenever things go badly with him.”
Chodorow, quoting Jung, 1997, p. 93
“The psyche consists essentially of images. It is a series of images in the truest sense…a structure which is throughout full of meaning and purpose; mind and body are the expression of a single entity. This living body appears outwardly as the living body, but inwardly as a series of images of the vital activities taking place within it.”
Sarah Blum quoting Jung in Spirit and Life
Image Credit: Marc Chagall, Study to The Jacob’s Ladder from WikiArt.org.
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