Dr Lize has been a psychologist in private practice for 22  years. She specializes in treatment of trauma, bereavement, depression and anxiety. Dr Lize Wolfaardt has been a psychologist in private practice for 18 years. She completed her Masters degree in Psychology at the University of Pretoria, and subsequently her doctorate at University of Johannesburg. Dr Wolfaardt has a special interest in the treatment of trauma, bereavement, depression and anxiety.  She believes experiences to be traumatic whenever the individual who went through it feels that it was traumatic.  It is the ongoing debilitating effects of an experience that identifies it as a trauma, rather than the specific nature of the incident itself. She feels very privileged to be a practising psychologist during this era as there has never before been such a range of effective treatments available to psychologists. These treatments are backed up by an ever-deepening understanding of the nature of the mind as well as its disturbances.  

Her preferred methods of intervention are hypnotherapy (Ego State Therapy and Medical Hypno-analysis), Eye Movement Integration (EMI), Brain-spotting, Somatic Experiencing (SE) and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE).  She also assists her clients in the development of mindfulness. She uses Rob Nairn’s definition of mindfulness: “mindfulness can be defined as knowing what is happening while it is happening, no matter what it is”. It is a deep broadening of the mind that increases sensitivity and perceptiveness. It increases one’s self-awareness, which is the capacity to see and know and understand what is going on inside one’s own mind, and then around oneself. Through the development of mindfulness the ground for profound inner growth is prepared, and we experience deeper states of consciousness.

Egostate-Therapy (EST) is a psychotherapy that views the human personality as being composed of a number of parts, or sub-selves, that constitutes something like an internal family. It was developed by John and Helen Watkins as a form of hypno-analysis and is mostly conducted when patients are in formal trance.  It is a highly effective treatment modality. One of the advantages of EST is that it can deal with deep unconscious structure. It also has the capacity to produce deep changes in personality structure in a relatively short period of time.

Medical Hypno-analysis has as a basic premise that a symptom represents the survival response of the subconscious mind  to a perceived threat. Analysis is done in formal trance to identify the perceived threats which have become frozen within the subconscious mind. When the subconscious mind, which is compelled to ensure our survival, realizes that these threats no longer exist, it can let go of the symptom/survival response.  

Eye Movement Integration (EMI) - EMI is a brief therapy technique involving the use of eye movements in the treatment of trauma. It is amazingly rapid in its effects, freeing clients from the burden of unresolved memories of almost any form of trauma.  EMI provides a method to facilitate access to the client’s traumatic memories, incorporating all the fragmentary recollections of the trauma into an integrated whole with ameliorating life experience. This enables the client to place the trauma in perspective as part of their personal history, not an ongoing source of distress in the present.