Hi, I’m Samantha. I recently returned back to South Africa after living in Hawaii and am excited to share my work as a Mental Health Occupational Therapist on home soil.

I have lived and worked in the United States for the last twenty years where I had the immense opportunity to study a degree in Human Biology and Psychology, and a Masters Degree in Occupational Therapy at the Ohio State University. I have worked in various settings across the lifespan as an Occupational Therapist over the last ten years. I have worked with children and adults with trauma and mental health concerns. I have worked in hospitals, schools and rehabilitation centers. Much learning took place outside of University too! I have learnt Non-Violent Communication or NVC from living in intentional communities and with NVC facilitators. I have engaged in wonderful training over the course of three years in Somatic Experiencing or SE Therapy.  

Why Occupational Therapy?

I first learned about Occupational Therapy (OT) after visiting a local clinic and seeing an OT in a rural clinic near my home. With the holistic approach of OT, all my interests in physiology, sociology, psychology, and creativity were connected so beautifully. I love how OT focuses on the fullness of a person and how they participate in life. In my own family, I observe how participating in the simple things brings a lot of joy, meaning, and health and how important it is to focus on the doing and being rather than just the thinking.

Why Yoga?

I went to my first yoga class when I went abroad to England in my early twenties. I did my first Ashtanga yoga class in a small ‘reading room’ on St. Martin’s island, of the Scilliy Islands off the coast of Cornwall, in England – 20 years ago! I have enjoyed practicing yoga ever since. I recently qualified as a Yoga teacher, and find teaching yoga a beautiful way to work on mental and physical health. I have enjoyed teaching chair yoga to stroke patients, the elderly and people with mental health concerns and have found it to be a profoundly healing. I love the feeling of stepping into a yoga class and reaching deeper into my body and my inner sense of spaciousness.

Why Non-violent Communication?

While in the United States, I happened to meet and date a Non-Violent communication (NVC) facilitator and Restorative Justice teacher. He valued the philosophy of NVC and intentionally lived it in his personal life with his two sons, in his relationships and his work. It was a radically transformative experience to live in an environment where there was a lot of effort placed on listening, understanding and connecting rather than blaming, shaming and punishing to get needs met. To me, after growing up in a home with a lot of violent language, to learn there was this different way of being and talking was so precious. I learnt that one can settle into a sense of trust that family can collaborate with mutual respect to meet everyone’s needs.

I also lived in intentional communities were we sought to live collectively and work together to meet needs and that was very inspiring too. NVC has transformed my connection with my family, friends, patients and with myself, and I love to teach people this powerful language tool.  I am currently on track to become a certified NVC trainer, and look forward to growing and learning as a teacher through mentorship and practice.

Healing from Trauma

Growing up I experienced mental illness in my immediate family, disability after my father was injured in a car accident and early childhood trauma in different ways, but largely in being separated from my biological parents and being placed in foster care for the first six years of life. I have a thought that this sounds a rather dramatic beginning to my story and worry how you, reading this might be a bit overwhelmed hearing all of that. And I make a conscious choice to share that because I think it is important to make connections with others who have had painful lives and experiences. I am a child of a family impacted by mental illness and I am healing from childhood trauma. I see these as my most fundamental wounds, but also my greatest source of learning and a gift in that I am able to contribute to the healing of others.

I never knew I had trauma until I worked with a group of youth who had come to the United States from Gaza for a year long high school exchange, after the bombings in Gaza in the summer of 2014. While doing a program with them, it was evident they had PTSD, and I wanted to better understand their experience and know how to help them. A friend had told me about Somatic Experiencing or SE, and so I initially started the journey of learning SE in order to work with youth with trauma. It was only once I started studying that I began to understand my own trauma and started the process of my own deep healing. SE is a modality helping people connect to and transform memories of trauma, that are often held in the body and show up as pain and emotional dysregulation.  In my own case I identify as having “global high activation” which means being highly anxious, easily triggered or activated, and having trouble fully settling or relaxing. I was fortunate to study SE in the United States for three years under Abi Blakeslee – a wonderful psychologist and teacher. I am also receive mentorship in SE and am on track to be a fully certified SE practitioner.