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My work focuses largely therapy with individuals and families in distress. I work with adolescents, adults, couples and families. In addition, I offer career guidance and counselling including career assessment.

If you find yourself, a loved one or friend facing personal or relationship challenges then you’re in the right place. Choosing to see a psychologist is often a difficult decision for people because they are unsure where to start or what to expect. Trusting someone with your personal story can be a scary thought but for many people it is the beginning of a journey towards healing. For married couples, seeking marriage counselling can also be a difficult step to take and it is often one partner who initiates the process as they have reached a point where they don’t feel they can go on.

Each individual, couple or family I work with receives a unique and personal therapeutic experience based on my family focused, integrative approach and belief in “healing through meeting”. Through my experience over the years I have found this approach to be effective in working together with teenagers, adults, couples and families to find creative ways to explore and grow through a wide range of challenging personal experiences. These include coping with stress, depression, anxiety and trauma related to personal and relational challenges as well as struggles in the school and work environments.

For individual adults and teenagers, therapy with a psychologist can play an important part in the process of exploring and resolving deep personal struggles which almost always have some root in family legacies and childhood experiences. The ways in which we have learned to protect ourselves in early relationships can often be the same things that cause us pain today. Through therapy we learn to identify the destructive patterns of emotions and behaviours which we find ourselves caught up in and can learn the skills to change the patterns which are causing pain to ourselves and others.

For marriages and couples, couple counselling and marriage counselling provide a space where partners can explore their own personal story with the therapist and where the couple can come together and discover the painful cycle which they often find themselves locked into. This can be the first step towards healing and restoration as couples learn how to restore trust, vulnerability, openness and intimacy to their relationships.

Psychotherapy and professional counselling provide a safe and confidential space to explore powerful experiences and overwhelming feelings to identify and creatively utilise these as opportunities to work towards restoration and hope. Therapy is not only for those experiencing severe challenges but also for those seeking to understand themselves better in order to achieve greater satisfaction in their personal, social or work lives.

For high school learners and those seeking direction after studies, you may be interested in career guidance and exploration including career assessment. Career guidance and counselling provides individuals with specific career related insight to help with decision making as well as an opportunity for personal growth and development.

MPsych Counselling (NMMU)
BPsych Counselling (NMMU)
Practice number: 0860000321737
Registration number: PS0104957

Sally Davies is a registered Clinical Psychologist and an accredited divorce Mediator with the Family Mediation Association of the Cape (FAMCA) working in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She is registered to practise with the Health Professions Council of South Africa.

Her services include individual, couple and family therapy. She has a special interest in Health Psychology, and consults with people undergoing surgery or with chronic pain, and those struggling with eating, body image or weight issues.

Sally has an integrated approach to therapy, with a special interest in Narrative Therapy. She has initiated a professional Narrative Reading Group in Port Elizabeth.

Sally holds a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology (University of the Witwatersrand, 1996).

Services

Sally Davies offers psychology and counselling services to individuals, couples and families. She also offers group therapy for weight loss. Sessions last one hour, longer sessions are available by agreement and are usual for couples therapy.

Therapy Approach

Sally uses an integrated approach to therapy. She has a special interest in ‘Narrative Therapy & Community Work‘ which originated in Australia and is now practised around the world.

Narrative therapists assume that experiences of the people around us, of the world we live in and our personal hopes and expectations are shaped and conditioned to a surprising extent by the language and other forms of expression that our cultures make available to us. To experience significant change, we need alternative stories; and to give full expression to better stories we first need to recognise that “the person is not the problem”.

Sally’s preferred approach sets a high value on personal identity, on personal networks, and on the knowledge you already have about life (including things that you don’t yet know that you know). Our human community offers resources to strengthen, affirm and comfort us. Yet relationships can cause deep hurt, foster a sense of rejection or shame, or contribute to a loss of hope. Ideas as well as relationships can be ‘toxic’: the wider world constantly transmits powerful messages about who we can become and how we should live. As we explore the effects of “big ideas” that are not our own but that occupy space in our heads, it is often possible to discover new ways to be more ourselves.

Your rights and responsibilities

Therapy is an effective helping relationship that is guided by respect for each party’s rights and responsibilities. These guidelines enable both client and therapist to feel secure in our respective positions, which in turn helps you to express your thoughts and feelings, and to experiment with new ideas and behaviours. As a client in psychotherapy, you have certain rights and it is important for you to know about these rights because this is your therapy, whose goal is your well being. There are also certain limitations to those rights that you should be aware of. As a therapist, Sally has corresponding responsibilities to you.