Dr Sandy Hoffman – Counselling Psychologist

Put Your Health First. Shape a Mind That Works For You.

“Therapy requires talking openly about one’s ‘self’, aspects of one’s identity and how one fits into one’s community.”

Entering therapy is a self-affirming decision that takes courage.

People entering therapy usually have a concern they would like to resolve. Intentionally or unintentionally they are acknowledging that previous ways of managing some issues in their lives or relationship/s may no longer be that helpful or sufficient. New and different skills to engage with others, which help a person feel more true to themselves and their relationships, need to be explored.

There needs to be sufficient profound trust and feelings of safety for a person to risk being ‘real’ with another person. In therapy, one often exposes parts of one’s self that, in the past, one may have suppressed even from personal view.

“ You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. ”

Jon Kabat-Zinn

the therapy

I work in private practice with women, men, adolescents, couples and partners, from many different backgrounds.

Therapy may be one-to-one, group therapy, family therapy or partnership therapy. Therapy can be brief and deal with short-term situations or it may be long-term. Yet each therapeutic consultation seems to uncover more and deeper layers of fascinating, important and sometimes scary aspects of how we fit into life and our relationships.

Recent Publications

Hoffman, S. (2017). Smoke and Mirrors: Acknowledgement, Alienation, Antisocial Behaviour and Transformation.

Antisocial behaviour terrifies most, if not all, human beings. This fear triggers various, previously learned ways of trying to defend against it, resulting in disrespect in relationships, and wars between countries. On a professional level, it has given rise to resources such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to prevent this behaviour. This book uses case studies, client narratives and socio-political examples to show that, depending on how they are used, these different forms of defence can sustain and fuel antisocial and prosocial behaviour.

Testimonials

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Dr. Hoffman has an extraordinary ability to recognize and interpret the ways in which anti-social behaviour cycles through all facets of society. Her vision is a product of an honest examination of painful personal experiences and of her profession, along with a nuanced understanding of socio-political complexities. ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ should be required reading for students, for governing officials, and for any who work in a professional capacity.

From a professional perspective, it is not helpful to run away from the shame of people who are typically silenced in society (perhaps because it reflects our own fears and shame). The lives and narratives of these people can be a major resource base of insights that has not to date been explored. Mutual learning, respect and empowerment can be the long-term result of approaching and actively listening to these people.

This is an important and challenging book. Transformation is a word much used in South Africa but mostly at a very superficial level. Hoffman requires us to examine how little the authoritarian mindset and practices of apartheid have truly been transformed. Many of our institutions are still characterised by the punitive, oppressive, disrespectful and alienating behaviour that flows from this. Nowhere is this is more evident than in our prisons where both prisoners and staff are alienated and disempowered.

Through her own personal and professional experience Hoffman offers vivid insight into this largely hidden world. She calls for a truly transformative approach to antisocial behaviour that recognises the fundamental need all humans have for acknowledgement and personhood and how our failures to meet that need help to co-construct an anti-social culture.