Can I Change?
By Clinical Psychologist, Sarit Swisa This is a question that I think inevitably many people are faced with at one time or another during their lives. The fear that change simply isn’t possible could arise for example, for that person who has been ‘planning’ to lose...
The Marshmallow Effect –Mastering Self-control
By Joanna Kleovoulou, Clinical Psychologist & founder of PsychMatters™ In the late 1960’s a Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel performed “The Marshmallow Experiment” on pre-schoolers to demonstrate the importance of delayed gratification. These children...
Enhancing Your Relationships with Love Languages
By Sarit Swisa – Clinical Psychologist One of the key outcomes of a successful relationship intervention is increased empathy. Empathy is defined as the ability to share or understand the feelings of another. Of course, this is only successful where followed by...
How to Talk so your Children will Listen
As psychologists we see so many parents who lament, “He just doesn’t listen”, or “I‘ve tried everything; timeout, taking away things, even hitting her and she doesn’t care, nothing changes.” “He goes berserk over the littlest thing, like I’m trying to kill him.” Being...
Childhood stress
As caretakers we tend to view the world of our children as fun-filled and carefree, as they don’t have debts to worry about, school fees to pay, a demanding boss, or difficult in-laws to contend with! The truth is that children today do feel stress and many are...
The meaning of loss and grief
By Sheethal Behari, Clinical Psychologist at PsychMatters Centre People expect one to grieve following the death of a loved one, however grief occurs in other circumstances as well. Loss can be defined in so many ways. Sometimes an event occurs and is not recognised...
Staying on the Mark
By Joanna Kleovoulou, Clinical Psychologist & Founder So it’s a new year a new beginning, January 2016, the mantra month that offers great aspirations and goals, pledging a potential for you to make things happen – to set last year’s record straight. Right? Well, for...
Abuse – Stop the cycle – in Honour of 16 Days of Activism
by Joanna Kleovoulou, Clinical Psychologist (as featured in the Sowetan Newspaper) The Department of Justice estimates that 1 out of every 4 South African women are survivors of domestic violence. According to POWA, 1 in every 6 women who die in Gauteng are killed by...
What is it about being Judgemental?
by Sarit Swisa, Clinical Psychologist What is more powerful than a negative judgement? Think about it.... You might have had the most productive, creative day, checking all the boxes off your list. But it seems that that one moment of failure or disappointment colours...
Are we getting smarter
by Tamarin Epstein, Educational Psychologist Research in the field of psychology indicates that our children are actually smarter than us! Since before 1930, studies conducted in over 30 countries found that, with every passing decade, people are becoming more...
How to make the best out of studying- useful study tips that will minimize exam anxiety.
By Zaakirah Mohamed, Educational Psychologist As we are approaching our third terms exams and nearing the fourth term many learners and parents are anxious about studying towards these exams. In order to benefit the most out of our studying time this article will...
Making a star appearance in your life
Sarit Swisa (Clinical Psychologist) Somehow, the VERY last things you want to be told when you’ve had an extremely stressful, hectic day are “calm down” or “just breathe” or “stop stressing”. Doesn’t it seem a bit...