Clinical Psychologist

About Vossie Goosen

I’ve always had a curiosity about and interest in people. Along with my desire to help others, this passionate quest of mine took me in two directions.

First, it led me to journalism and publishing in NGOs and then, secondly, to the field of psychology. I started my private practice in 2000, after training at Wits and completing two six-month internships at Tara.

My journey to psychology took turns I really value now. Before I trained as a clinical psychologist, and while working in NGOs, I was a volunteer counsellor for five years. I so strongly believe that help should be available to all, even those of us who cannot afford it. It’s why I’m involved in a steadily growing low fee service since 2016.

Another pro bono project I participated in was the Life Esidimeni family interviews. Twenty colleagues took part in a thoughtful process of preparing psychological evidence for the Section 27 legal team who appeared at the arbitration led by former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke. Our project not only supported the arbitration successfully, it also earned us a Community Award from the International Psychoanalytical Association in 2019.

Until we have a national health system that fully provides mental health services, psychologists have to survive in their private practices. However, in the psychoanalytical model I work in we do believe that patients are more motivated to bring about change in their own lives if they are invested in the process. That is, if they work with the therapist and take responsibility, if possible, for their treatment payments.

Now that you had a brief glimpse into my journey of becoming a therapist I want to highlight three personal high points in my professional life.

• Working as the municipal correspondent at the former daily newspaper the Rand Daily Mail from 1983 to 1985 and truly learning what freedom of speech means;
• Co-editing The South African Women’s Health Book that was published by Oxford University Press in 1996 with Barbara Klugman and a host of collaborators;
• And, as I said, helping to establish a viable low fee service.

To end off this section I want to say that I also participate in the organisational life of my profession in which I’ve also taken on leadership roles.