Meeting with Dione has been an extremely uplifting experience for me.  I’ve gone through counseling before and it’s been helpful, but her approach and the tools that she provided me with have been unparalleled.  She has really helped me find my purpose in life.  Before my sessions with her, I felt like I was being pulled in many directions, both positive and negative paths… Now I feel like I have the constructive tools that allow me to stay on a focused and constructive path.  It’s been one of the most positive experiences in my life.  It’s been a pure light in my life.  She’s taught me to use my creative energy in building me up as a person and putting away self defeating behavior.  Thank you so much for helping me!  

What I’ve loved about working with Dione –

Where do I even begin?

I’ve loved that she respects boundaries. Not once has she pushed me to share more information than I was ready to. She has always let me know that I can choose to answer a question or not, I can take her suggestion or not, and I can share – or not. Not once has she ever made me feel like she is prying. The care she has taken in working with me has helped me to feel that she is truly a friend, that she genuinely cares, and that this isn’t just a job for her. I’m thankful for that! I appreciate this very much.

She validates my feelings and experiences. I wish I had the capacity to accurately describe what this feels like, what it means, to have someone actively and patiently listen while you talk, and every now and then, ask just the right questions with the right balance of gentleness and curiosity. I’ve appreciated that she validates my feelings and experiences without making me feel pitied or helpless. That is so empowering!

For as long as I’ve worked with Dione, we have worked remotely and talked through video calls and e-mails. She’s always willing to accommodate whatever it is that I may have going on and work out a time to meet with me, even with time differences, and different personal, work things that may come up. She is always reminding me that we can always work something out. 

I write for fun and as a way of dealing or processing. Dione has asked me to write about experiences or thoughts every now and then.  I’ve even volunteered to share some writing with her. This has worked wonders for me because writing is my art; I feel that I can express myself best when I write. Sharing my writing with her has helped us both; me in expressing myself honestly and candidly, and her in understanding my thought process and feelings better, which in turn allows her to better help me, so really, I guess I’m one that’s really winning…. I appreciate that whenever I have shared writing with Dione, she has always taken great care to respond to each part of whatever it is I’ve shared. I can’t express how much I appreciate this! Sharing art can sometimes also be more calming and instinctual, I think, than just talking. 

I would recommend Dione to any person I love – I trust and admire her very much. I know that she loves what she does, she gets genuine joy out of helping others. She has a skill and a gift for listening to people, and making them feel heard. She always does her best to understand those she works with, which for many of us, is all we’ve ever asked for anyway. 

Here’s a pretty personal review ~ which I’m only giving so you will know how awesome this woman is.

If you need help. Help is here.

Before I got divorced I went to Dione for talk therapy counselling and she was AMAZING!!! She never judged, she never told me what to do but boy did she pose incredible questions which helped me to blow my own mind & see the truth of my situation (which I honestly hadn’t seen before).

Fast forward to after I was divorced and going through the PTSD of all of that. I had moved over to Papamoa (Dione was based in Hamilton). I heard she was now doing ‘art therapy’ and really felt like I needed her assistance – even if it was doing ‘art’ (I’m sooooo not an artist & pretty whakama about my feeble attempts). 
We sat at the table and she gently guided me to draw some basic shapes. I drew some stuff – meh.

She noticed and asked about my shaking leg. At least 1 of my legs is always shoogling & if anyone ever asks I laugh it off by saying something like, “I was a deprived child”. My cute response didn’t get a laugh out of Dione. She said something like “I wonder what would happen if your leg were still.” 
What happened next blew my mind. I kid you not.
I stilled my leg and it was as if the pressure build up was so great, it had to come out somewhere – I started bawling. Like hard out bawling! 
30 secs before that I was just drawing shapes and not ‘feeling’ anything.
Nek minit I’m bawling my eyes out & the shapes I’m creating have meaning & the counselling gets right to my heart.

This woman has skills.

I HIGHLY recommend her to any of you who feel like you might have some stuff that you need to let go of. Dione is kind, compassionate, completely non-judgemental & she gets it.

How lucky are we to live in a day & age where we don’t have to go to her table. She can come to us via the internet, in our homes in our jammies if we want, and do her magic.