Sometimes we don’t need another way forward.
We need somewhere safe to stop and be still. So that - in time - something new can emerge.
Hello I’m Clare Rousseau
I accompany people through periods of distress, transition, uncertainty, and transformation.
My work is grounded in the view that our surface reality (symptoms, struggles, or stasis) is an invitation into a new way of seeing, understanding, and relating to ourselves, each other, and the world.
Together we explore the deeper patterns shaping your experience through careful attention to what unfolds between us, in your relationships, and in your life. Over time, this quality of close attending creates the possibility of greater coherence, freedom, and intimacy with reality as it is, as well as the emergence of new ways of being with yourself, your work, and others.
I’m a therapist based in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. I have an MSc in Consciousness, Spirituality, and Transpersonal Psychology, and an undergraduate degree in Economics and Philosophy. I am Māori (Ngāti Mutunga) and Pākehā. I have worked in private practice for the last six years, primarily offering containers for long-term transformational work, grounded in psychodynamic theory and somatic inquiry. I am currently in my second year of a three-year training in the Conversational Model of psychodynamic psychotherapy, which offers a pathway to registration as a psychotherapist at the completion of the third year.
I am a trainee member of ANZAP, the Australia New Zealand Association of Psychotherapy and a student member of APANZ, the Association of Psychotherapy Aotearoa New Zealand.
One-on-one Offerings:
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You might have the sense that something deeper in your life wants attention. Perhaps you’ve tried to push through, stay positive, or work things out on your own, but the same patterns keep returning. You may feel disconnected, unsure who you really are, or quietly questioning the life you’ve built. Sometimes there’s a longing for something more real or meaningful, even if you can’t quite name what that is yet. Psychotherapy isn’t a quick fix. Many of the people I work with come with a feeling that what they’re facing isn’t superficial. They’re looking for a space where they can slow down, explore honestly, and begin to understand themselves more deeply.
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A reflective space where your professional experience, inner life, and relational patterns can be explored in a new way, drawing on my training and practice grounded in psychodynamic theory and somatic inquiry*.
Many people who come here are navigating roles that carry responsibility, ambiguity, or emotional load — leadership, caregiving, organisational work, or systems-facing roles — and are looking for a place to slow down and make sense of what is moving through them. We pay attention to how you meet pressure, ambiguity, uncertainty, and relational complexity — not just as 'problems to solve’ but as signals of deeper patterns and emerging intelligence. Over time, this kind of reflection can support greater clarity, steadiness, and capacity to act without losing contact with yourself or the wider system you are part of.
*This work is not clinical or professional supervision, coaching, mentoring, or therapy. -
Some questions cannot be answered by thinking harder. Whether you're writing, researching, creating, or working with complex qualitative material, there often comes a point where analysis alone is no longer enough. Something in the work asks to be listened to differently.
This offering provides a reflective space to enter into relationship with your creative or research process itself. Together we attend to what is emerging through your material — images, tensions, themes, emotions, relationships, bodily felt senses, and moments of uncertainty — allowing the work to gradually reveal its own coherence rather than forcing premature conclusions.
My own Master's research drew on Intuitive Inquiry and Heuristic Inquiry, approaches that value careful attending to tacit dimensions of experience as their own source of knowledge. Alongside psychodynamic thinking and embodied inquiry, this continues to inform the way I accompany writers, researchers and creative practitioners.
This work may be valuable if you are:
undertaking complex qualitative research
writing creatively or performing and feeling "stuck" with a character, relationship or story
developing a body of work that feels alive but difficult to articulate
integrating complex material before writing or presenting it
looking for a slower, more embodied relationship with your own creative process.
Over time, this way of working often supports greater clarity, coherence, depth of expression, and trust in your own way of knowing.
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This space is for those drawn to deeper questions of meaning, identity, purpose and experience — especially when life no longer fits the frameworks you’ve been using to understand it. This is a reflective and exploratory space rather than a clinical or therapeutic service in the formal sense.
Together we attend to your lived experience as it unfolds — sensations, emotions, insights, relational patterns, inner imagery, and moments of insight — not to 'fix’ or ‘change’ anything, but to understand what it is revealing. We might also explore how you are understanding or conceptualising your unfolding experience and I might offer some gentle guidance.
For many people, this work becomes a way of meeting questions like:
Who am I beneath the roles I’ve built?
What is actually happening in my immediate experience, beneath analysis or interpretation?
How do I stay in contact with reality without tightening into control or collapse?
Over time, this kind of inquiry can support a more intimate, honest relationship with experience itself — and a gradual loosening of patterns that no longer serve you or life as it is unfolding.
Team, Group and Organisational Offerings
~ ACKNOWLEDGING THIS LAND & HONOURING TE TIRITI O WAITANGI
He mihi ki te whenua
The practice where I work is on the whenua of Te Whanganui-a-Tara. I acknowledge the whakapapa, mana whenua and kaitiakitanga of Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika and Ngāti Toa Rangatira, the iwi who hold mana whenua in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. I also acknowledge the deeper histories of this whenua, including Ngāi Tara, Rangitāne, Muaūpoko, Ngāti Apa and Ngāti Ira, and the many generations of tangata whenua whose relationships with this place reach back through time.
I recognise He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni (1835), which affirmed the rangatiratanga and independence of the United Tribes, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi (1840), which established an enduring relationship between Māori and the Crown. I recognise that Māori did not cede their sovereignty in signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and uphold the tino rangatiratanga of Māori and our right to determine our own futures.
My own whakapapa connects me to both Māori and Pākehā ancestry. I am Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Mutunga o Wharekauri, with further whakapapa connections through my tīpuna's maternal line to Waikato and possibly Ngāti Toa. My Pākehā ancestry includes Scottish, English, French, Portuguese and Germanic roots. I acknowledge these different strands of my whakapapa as part of my identity and relationship to Aotearoa.
I aspire to honour Te Tiriti as a living commitment, through deepening my understanding, relationships and responsibilities, and contributing to a truly flourishing Aotearoa.
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