The work of understanding oneself is perhaps the most important work one does in one’s lifetime. Understanding how our life experiences shape us, gives us freedom – the freedom to choose how to be in relation to others and to ourselves.
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Painful life experiences that overwhelm our ability to make sense of them, can result in fossilisations in our relationships, our minds and our bodies. These fossilisations bring about despair, a sense of meaninglessness and feelings of being stuck. The work of psychotherapy is to enter a relational space into which one’s emotional life is invited, in all its moods and hues, to be compassionately understood. It is through understanding that new space is created in which to love, work, play, and most importantly, to choose. My experience has been primarily in the treatment of complex traumas, both from a medium-term psychodynamic (mentalisation) modality, as well as in shorter-term skills-based therapies (DBT, mindfulness and containment of suicidality) and short-term therapy for bereavement and trauma.
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I am skilled in working with interpersonal difficulties in individual, couples and group therapy, and with issues of identity and its relationship with the client’s broader social milieu. Twelve years of work in public health nurtured my interest in ethics and psychology, human rights, mental health law and in engaging in psychotherapeutic practice which is relevant to our South African context. I am skilled in working pyschodynamically in medium to long term therapies (15 sessions and beyond). I also offer skills based short term therapies (3 to 6 sessions).
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Qualifications
M.A (Clinical Psychology ) PS 0099384; PR 086 000 0306320
2019 Diploma in Human Rights and Mental Health Law (Indian Law Society).
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2017 Diploma in Group Analysis (Institute of Group Analysis)
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2007 Master of Arts Clinical Psychology (Wits).
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2001 Bachelor of Arts Honors in Psychology (Wits).
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1999 Bachelor of Arts (Wits).
Publications
Esprey, Y, Croxford, H, Durrant, P, Eagle, G, Kometsi, K, Kühn, J, Langa, M, Mashigo, T, Masson, S, Mbele, Z, Radebe, Z, Stillerman, L, Zitha, P. 2018. “Raids on the inarticulate: A groups’ engagement with race” in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in South Africa 26(1) p. 54 – 93.
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Kadish, Y, Schon, J, Green, J, Hanson, S, Kühn, J. 2018. “Psychotherapy in the age of technology: the ethical challenges of online treatments for South African clinicians” in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in South Africa. 26(1).
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Kühn, J. 2008. “Countertransference reactions in psychotherapy group work with HIV positive children” in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in South Africa. 16 (1).
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Budlender, D & Kühn, J. 2007. Where is the money to address gender-based violence? Johannesburg: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.