Dave Swart
Clinical Psychologist
MSocSc. (Clin.Psych.) UFS
Pr. No. 0493929
Derryn Swart
Clinical Psychologist
inneR HEALTH
MSocSc. (Clin.Psych.) UFS
Pr. No. 0493864
Between the Life That Was Possible Then —
and the One Asking to Be Lived Now.
This is where we listen for what’s changing, before it becomes language.
And walk with it, patiently.
Services
We work closely with a network of psychiatrists, and if indicated, facilitate private psychiatric hospitalisation. Dave provides in-patient therapy during hospitalisation at Life Hunters Craig Hospital and Mondia Sunnyside Hospital.
Individual Therapy
Not everything can be fixed with a mindset shift.
Sometimes, the most compassionate thing we can do is stop pretending we’re fine.
Individual therapy here offers a space for emotional coherence, not just coping.
We work gently but thoroughly — tracing the threads of your experience, naming what’s true, and building inner ground from there.
Common focus areas include:
- Depression (unipolar & bipolar mood patterns)
- Anxiety (work-related, social, obsessive, or panic-based)
- Grief, bereavement, and anticipatory loss
- Trauma — past or present, complex or unspoken
- Addiction (behavioural or substance-related)
- Emotional burnout, identity strain, life transitions (e.g. family immigration)
Couples Counselling
Sometimes the conversation you need isn’t the one you’ve been having.
We help partners step out of cycles of blame and silence — and into a new rhythm of listening.
These sessions aren’t about ‘fixing each other.’ They’re about discovering what honesty looks like when spoken with care, and how to repair trust, regulation, and relational space.
Expect a collaborative, attuned process. One that’s structured, but still human.
Hospital Admissions
Even in the clinical space, the human mind still needs recognition.
Hospitalisation — whether elective or emergency — can shake the psychological ground beneath us.
We offer in-hospital psychotherapy for people navigating acute emotional distress, medical transitions, or psychiatric admission.
Our work complements medical care by restoring emotional continuity —using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and other evidence-based approaches
to ease pain, fear, or disorientation.
Sessions may support:
- Health-related anxiety and medical trauma
- Diabetes adjustment and diagnosis integration
- Chronic pain and functional loss
- Surgery preparation and recovery
- Grief, fear, or psychiatric destabilisation
- Stabilisation of values and meaning
“I work in the in-between — where identity shifts, meaning bends, and something true begins to take shape. My practice lives at the intersection of psychology, systems thinking, and consciousness.”
- Dave Swart
I didn’t originally pursue psychology to treat symptoms. I pursued it to make sense of human systems — the visible and invisible architectures that shape our ways of thinking, relating, and surviving. My early academic path began at the University of Pretoria, where I trained in psychology and education. Alongside lecturing in health and developmental psychology, I collaborated with the Centre for the Study of AIDS (now the Centre for Sexualities, Aids, and Gender) to explore how trauma, identity, and cultural meaning interact. This experience reshaped my understanding of psychological distress — not as personal failure, but as signal: a rupture calling for narrative coherence. Following advanced clinical training in tertiary psychiatric units and forensic environments, I built a private practice that rejects medicalised over-simplification. My work honours the human experience in its layered, systemic, often contradictory nature — grounded in therapeutic presence but informed by deeper research into consciousness, narrative, and emotional cognition. Over time, this inquiry gave rise to the Quadrimorphic Model of Consciousness (QMC) — a framework I developed to integrate psychological insight with the evolving frontiers of AI, relational systems, and neuro-emotional intelligence. It forms the philosophical spine behind the MindLine ecosystem, an emotionally intelligent platform I co-architected to support human flourishing across clinical and non-clinical domains. I’ve worked across disciplines — from neuro-rehabilitation and tertiary education to psycholegal consulting and collaborative media-based psychoeducation, including the Visionology Project, created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. What I offer now isn’t “solutions.” It’s deep, adaptive listening — for individuals navigating thresholds, role transitions, or the quiet ache of becoming. Therapy with me isn’t about tidying up. It’s about restoring rhythm to the parts of your life that are still becoming whole.
Meet Us
“My work begins where words feel inadequate — where presence, permission, and psychological rhythm offer something more enduring than advice.”
- Derryn Swart
Derryn’s presence in the therapy room is quiet but unyielding—a kind of steadiness that allows what’s fragile, unspoken, or unresolved to surface without judgment. She doesn’t work in pursuit of closure or certainty, but rather in service of meaning-making. For her, therapy is less about answers and more about making contact—with one’s own life, one’s inner logic, and the parts of the self that have learned to stay hidden. As a clinical psychologist, Derryn is drawn to emotional spaces that resist simplification: burnout that doesn’t resolve with rest, grief that lingers beyond timelines, roles that no longer fit, and lives being lived in the tension between responsibility and yearning. Her work is particularly attuned to those who carry emotional labour quietly—especially women navigating caregiving, relational complexity, and professional fatigue. She draws from a broad clinical palette—narrative therapy, psychodynamic insight, trauma-informed care, systems thinking—while holding space for what no framework can fully contain. Her approach is non-pathologising and spacious, guided not by quick solutions, but by the slow intelligence of process. At Inner Health Centre, Derryn holds the therapeutic frame as a kind of ethical invitation: to listen more deeply, to return to what’s true, and to let go of the need to tidy up what was never meant to be resolved.