ABOUT DR RUTH MCCONNELL
Eradicating relational poverty one encounter at a time
In her counselling, consulting and training, Ruth specialises in attachment and relationship issues both in adults and children. She has extensive experience in working with adults, teens and children experiencing anxiety, stress, relationship difficulties, depression, and self-esteem issues.
Ruth trained initially as a children’s counsellor and a family counsellor but now mostly works directly with adults and parents – consulting on behavioural and emotional issues in children and adolescents. Ruth is passionate about keeping adults healthily attached to their children so that emotional and behavioural issues do not sabotage the parent-child relationship. She has specialist training in supporting Partners of Sex Addicts who have suffered betrayal trauma.
Relational poverty is all around us. It can show up inside ourselves as self-bullying talk (at the roots of low self-esteem and depression); between us and others as inter-personal difficulties (eg. relationship problems or work place stress); or at a psycho-spiritual level (feeling disconnected spiritually, existential anxiety and ‘lostness’). Ruth offers help in all these dimensions of attachment wounding.
Qualifications
Ruth completed her MA (Honours) in Psychology at Aberdeen University, followed by a PhD in Counselling Psychology at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland. The focus of her PhD research was the counselling of children of divorce and helping children stay healthily attached to their parents.
Ruth later trained with Dr. Gordon Neufeld in attachment-based developmental psychology with a focus on children’s emotional and behavioural issues. She is a Professional Associate of the Neufeld Institute and offers training on attachment related topics (Neufeld Institute - Neufeld Institute).
As part of her dedication to her craft, Ruth maintains a high level of on-going professional development, with specialist training in Neuro-psychotherapy, healing betrayal trauma in Partners of Sexual Addicts Trauma Specialist (Home | Association for Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists). She is also one of the few New Zealand counsellors to be trained at Level 2 in Internal Family Systems therapy approach (IFS Aotearoa – Internal Family Systems).
Currently Ruth works as a counsellor in private practice, a supervisor, trainer as well as a conference speaker and retreat leader. She is also an effective and passionate communicator offering professional development workshops, and speaking at conferences, throughout New Zealand and Australia. She worked as a Senior Lecturer in Counselling for 8 years in Auckland and as an adjunct professor in Sydney.
M.A (Honours) in Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland (September 1985 – June 1989)
PhD (Counselling Psychology) The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland (September 1989 – December 1994)
Regent College, Vancouver, BC, Canada – audited courses – 1994-1997