Me in a minute

South Africa-born, I moved to Australia when I was five. I did International Finance as my first degree, hated it, and went traveling. I vowed never to return to university — but during my time away I stumbled upon Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and it changed my life. I returned to university to complete an undergraduate in psychology. Then I went to live in Chile for a year. When I came back, I did a PhD in clinical psychology, and then took a year off to do meditation retreats—eventually culminating in a three-month retreat in Nepal. Now I live in Adelaide. I work as a clinical psychologist at Adelaide Psychology and Co, a researcher at Spark Wave, and I co-wrote The 12 Levers with Spencer Greenberg.

Me in a few minutes

• For the last few years I've been writing a book with Spencer Greenberg called The 12 Levers. We extracted techniques from 106 self-help books and 23 therapies and found they collapse into 12 broad psychological strategies. The book is about what they are and how to do them.
• I did a PhD in clinical psychology. My dissertation was on self-compassion and social anxiety. I've now been working as a psychologist for more than six years. I use routine outcome monitoring with every client at every session. A couple of years ago I analyzed data from about 300 closed clients — if people are interested, I could write up the findings. You can see my academic publications here.
• With Spencer Greenberg at Spark Wave, we ran a study on nondual mindfulness by surveying users of Sam Harris's Waking Up app. We also created a website aimed at categorizing just about every meditation technique in the world.
• I used to do mixed martial arts — particularly Brazilian jiu-jitsu — the greatest hobby ever. I got my blue belt, then tore my damn ACL. I'm now learning Muay Thai to work on my lacklustre striking. I've just started sparring.
• I know AI might make it redundant, but I'm still really interested in the craft of writing.
• I've spent about a year and a half traveling or living in Spanish-speaking countries. I learned to speak Spanish fluently, though it's rusty now. My partner is Brazilian, so I now want to learn Portuguese (I've made a start using ChatGPT's voice mode).
• I've spent a total of nine months on full-time meditation retreats, mostly silent, ranging from a few days to three months. I've written retreat journals for most of them and might release these one day if people are interested. I still meditate using a mix of conventional mindfulness, nondual mindfulness, and loving-kindness. I want to figure out nondual mindfulness myself and then help others learn it too. I suspect I'll need to sit longer retreats to get it into my thick (no-)head. I'm planning one this year.
• I really enjoy clearly communicating ideas from psychology. I managed to win the People's Choice Award for the Three-Minute Thesis at Flinders University.
• I love New Zealand. As an Aussie, I know I'm not supposed to say this, but it's my favourite country in the world.

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