About

Anna was born and grew up in Cape Town, but spent over ten years educating herself in Europe: First in Norway, completing the two-year International Baccalaureate; and later, once achieving her BSocSci (Hons) double major in Psychology and Social Anthropology at UCT, attending the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London, and completing an MA in Integrative Relational Counselling and Psychotherapy at Roehampton University, also in the UK.

Anna returned to South Africa where she spent time training further: In Co-Active Coaching through Coaching Development (ICF accredited); as well as in mindfulness through Cape Town Samye Dzong Tibetan Buddhist Centre, through Mindfulness Africa, and through Berkeley's Greater Good Science Centre and the Awareness Training Institute at the University of California.

In addition, Anna has established herself as a psychotherapist, coach, and facilitator. Her MA training is in relational therapy, an approach that draws on humanistic, psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapies. This method considers relationship as "integral to human psychological development, as central to the problems people bring to counselling, and as the most significant therapeutic tool in the process of psychological change". In brief, she works with her clients to understand and loosen the grip of unhelpful internal and external patterns, opening new pathways to relating to self and other, and through that finding greater peace of mind.

Anna uses mindfulness-based techniques in her work. By assisting her clients to increase their awareness, stop struggling with unhelpful thoughts, create room for emotions, and cultivate an attitude of deep acceptance; she facilitates the process towards ‘psychological flexibility’. This is a state of being which reduces stress, anxiety and depression and can lead to a fuller, more meaningful life.

Using the co-active coaching approach in her work, Anna and her clients engage in a process of dynamic collaboration to evoke positive transformation. She creates the results with her clients, her skills in insight and questioning guided by what is important to them. Considering any presenting problem as part of a wider picture, she works holistically with her clients, offering interventions that she feels are best suited to each person and engaging in a conversation for the purpose of growth.

Anna is passionate about the cultivation of mindfulness and integrating that in to a way of being in the world. She is a committed meditator, regularly attends retreats, and believes in the liberation that can be achieved through learning to manage our minds, through remembering we always have choice, and through learning to open to the present moment in its fullness with deep acceptance.

Although currently based in Namibia, she offers sessions online and sees clients internationally.