Dave Smits
Clinical Psychologist
About
Dave has worked in a variety of different areas including research, teaching, mental health and management. He is passionate about assisting young adults and adults through difficult and challenging periods of life. Witnessing people to grow in vulnerability towards a meaningful life at full potential is both a humbling and a rewarding experience, he says.
Dave started his professional career as an AOD clinician, but has since worked with individuals presenting with a wide variety of struggles: depression, anxiety, trauma, work related or relational or interpersonal distress. More recently, Dave is focussing on supporting people struggling with moral or existential dilemmas.
Dave’ s main treatment modalities derive from humanistic-experiential psychotherapy; He has a postgraduate certificate in Emotion Focused Therapy and is currently engaged in a course in Existential counselling. Key to his therapeutic approach is the focus on developing increased self-awareness and increased self-understanding within a safe supportive therapeutic space. The goal is to empower individuals to make well informed, value based and self-embedded choices on how to live a meaningful life.
Dave hails from Belgium, which he left with his wife and two sons, over 4 years ago. He currently lives in beautiful Lyttelton/whakaraupo, under the protection of the Port Hills overlooking whakaraupo inner harbour. He combines his work at The Psychology Hub with a part time job in a public Agency, while juggling busy live as a husband and father. In his remaining spare time, you may find him on a mountain bike, surf board or hiking some of the Aotearoa’ beautiful outdoors.
Dave prefers to have a chat over the phone with prospective clients to work out if he would be a good fit as a therapist and set up initial appointments. Please provide your cell number to Bex our Referrals Co-Ordinator when asking to see Dave.