Good Hope Psychological Service Paarl

Services

Individual therapy: One-on-one counselling for adults, adolescents, and children facing trauma, grief, depression, anxiety, relationship difficulties, family problems, and the sequelae of violent crime including rape and sexual assault. Therapists use a range of evidence-based approaches, matching each client to the most appropriate practitioner on the team.

Family therapy: Support for families navigating the ripple effects of trauma, GBV, mental illness, or other crises.

School-based counselling: GHPS counsellors work in schools serving communities in Stellenbosch and Paarl — including Franschhoek — providing support to learners with barriers to learning, emotional difficulties, and trauma.

Psychiatric support group (TC Newman, Paarl): A 70-member support group for psychiatric patients in Paarl, meeting monthly. The group has a specific focus on trauma including sexual violence — it was from this group that the 'Place of Reflection and Healing' garden was born.

The Place of Reflection and Healing

One of GHPS's most extraordinary contributions to trauma healing is the therapeutic garden at TC Newman Community Health Clinic in Paarl — created by members of the psychiatric support group, the majority of whom had experienced rape or sexual violence.

The garden physically depicts the traumatic impact of rape: the hollowing out, the silence, the loss of self. But it also extends toward healing: a labyrinth for mindfulness, plants that lift again toward the sun. The garden's creator, clinical pastoral counsellor Sara van Tonder, describes it this way: "People normally talk about before I was raped and after I was raped. The rape becomes a defining element of their life, as if everything stopped with the act. The garden challenges that."

Group members maintain the garden, propagate plants, and use it for meditation and reflection. It has been used in teaching 5th-year medical students about rape trauma, has won the James Claassen Integrated Service Award from the Department of Health, and has received visits from international healthcare management researchers. It is a small but profound example of what community-owned healing looks like.

How to access GHPS

GHPS provides services by appointment from within state hospital grounds — clients should be state patients or community members who cannot access private services.

Stellenbosch: Admin Building, Stellenbosch Provincial Hospital, 80 Merriman Avenue, Stellenbosch, 7600. Phone: +27 (0)21 887 7913 / WhatsApp: +27 (0)74 043 3234.

Paarl: TC Newman Memorial Hospital, 36 Rosary, Charleston Hill, Paarl. Phone: +27 (0)21 877 6400 / WhatsApp: +27 (0)81 378 2981.

Email: info@ghps.co.za

GHPS is not a crisis service. For acute GBV/rape crisis in the Boland: GBV Command Centre 0800 428 428 (toll-free, 24/7) / Stellenbosch Hospital Casualty (ask for forensic care) / SARCS WC 021 638 2461.

Good Hope Psychological Service: ghps.co.za / info@ghps.co.za / NPO 054 297. Free therapy. Stellenbosch: 021 887 7913 / WhatsApp 074 043 3234 (Stellenbosch Hospital, 80 Merriman Ave). Paarl: 021 877 6400 / WhatsApp 081 378 2981 (TC Newman Hospital, 36 Rosary, Charleston Hill). Individual, family, group and school counselling. Rape survivor support group at TC Newman. 'Place of Reflection and Healing' therapeutic garden. Mon–Fri by appointment.