Child Counsellors in Cape Town

Assessment, diagnosis and medicine sit outside counselling; ask who provides them where you are. Open the profiles below to compare experience, language, fee, and whether they work online. Ask how soon each one can see you.

Everyone on this page describes their work as counselling. A counsellor listens and helps you find your own solutions to problems.

The training emphasises the conversation itself. Sessions usually stay close to something happening now: a loss, a relationship, work, a decision. That focus is what most often separates counselling from longer psychotherapy.

A counsellor is not a medical doctor and does not prescribe or diagnose. Ask a counsellor what they work with, and for how long.

Groote Schuur Hospital - Psychiatry Outpatient Services. Phone +27 21 404 9111. Western Cape public hospitals charge on a means-tested scale. Patients in the lowest band pay nothing for specialist outpatient visits. Public patients are accepted by referral from a district or secondary service. Each specialty has its own eligibility criteria.

Practitioners see very young children too, in a different form. Play is a natural way for children to communicate their thoughts, feelings, experiences and trauma. The practitioner picks the method to fit the child, not the other way round. Say your child's age at first contact and ask what a practitioner would do.

Not all of it, and the arrangement is set before the work starts. Parents are treated as partners in the work rather than kept outside it¹. What is shared and what is held differs with the child's age and with local law. Ask a practitioner to set out their arrangement at the first meeting.

Often a practitioner meets the parents first, or the parents and child together. Play, drawing and games are the way in rather than a break from the work. Ask how parents or carers will be involved in the work. Ask before you book.

No. This filter lists practitioners who work with children therapeutically. Educational assessments, reports for schools and reports for courts are separate pieces of work, and not every practitioner does them. If a school has asked for a report, say so at first contact and ask whether a practitioner provides one.

The title you will see is Registered Counsellor. Search the register by name at Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). Check that the name and title match and that the entry is current. If they do not, ask the practitioner why.

In South Africa psychologists and social workers must be registered to practise. No statute protects the plain title counsellor.

See the South Africa page.