I'm passionate about mental health awareness and strive to increase people's understandings around mental health, how and where to get help, whilst decreasing the stigma that surrounds mental illnesses.
About
Alexa Scher
Alexa Scher is a practicing clinical psychologist, mental health consultant, educator and advocate.
She works predominantly with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), depending on the needs of her clients. Mindfulness is at the core of these approaches and strongly informs her approach to mental health promotion.
Her intention is to create a safe space for clients to work collaboratively through uncomfortable feelings, leaving them with skills needed to cope with what life throws at them next.
01.
Alexa provides therapy online for individuals and couples from adolescents to adults.
02.
Whether in a school or corporate setting, the need to address mental health is becoming increasingly more important. As a clinical psychologist, Alexa can assist.
03.
Talking about mental health is something you actually have to stop her doing, as she’s so passionate about it.
Alexa's Approach
Creating Behavioural Change
"At some point, we're ALL faced with difficult times, leading to difficult thoughts and feelings. Where we've previously gone wrong is focusing on how to not think or feel 'bad', which isn't actually within our control.
If we could just take 'bad' feelings away, my profession wouldn't exist!
It's normal to not feel 'good' at times. The key is to focus on how to cope with these feelings, as managing difficult thoughts and feelings is within our control.
My goal is to assist people in refocusing on what they can control, providing them with the support, skills and tools needed.
CBT, DBT and ACT are all evidence-based approaches, which have been proven to provide a wealth of effective tools and techniques to achieve these goals.
Whilst I love the relationships I establish with my clients, my ultimate goal is for them to be empowered to continue implementing the skills and new patterns of thinking for themselves, to be able to cope and continue to grow on their own."
Cassey Chambers
SADAG Operations Manager
I've had the privilege and honour to work with Alexa for many years and her ability to relate, connect and be compassionate for others is unprecedented. She has the ability to connect with people from all ages and all walks of life, engaging with corporates around a boardroom table, or speaking to teens in a classroom, coordinating group sessions with NGOs or counsellors, hosting training sessions or running rural outreach programmes in disadvantaged communities.
She is passionate about helping people and she is a great mental health champion who advocates for mental healthcare for all!
She helps navigate difficult topics or heavy conversations and make them less overwhelming, easier to understand and shares helpful nuggets of info that leave you feeling empowered and equipped.
In my line of work, I have worked with many mental health professionals and attended many talks and conferences – I am always in awe when Alexa talks and shares her insights and different perspective which are thought provoking and moving – leaving me with many AHA moments.
Testimonials
Vanishaa Gordhan
SADAG Project Manager
Alexa has been one of the most valuable psychologists, who has always come to the aid when SADAG requested speakers or even a debriefing. She is keen to interact and discuss the details of the requests, so to ensure that the aim is met.
She is knowledgeable and has the ability to share insight and skills which highlight the ease of managing ones Mental Health.
Her keenness to be a part of projects regarding teens, has been inspirational. She is a bout of box thinker and will be a great addition to any team. She works well with others, is encouraging and empowering when in a group.
Her grasp on Mindfulness, her knowledge and passion to share helpful information to guide others to help themselves and their loved ones is motivating.
She is a kind person who shares kindness wherever she goes.
Mmakgosi Chaane
Investec CSI
Investec CSI ran Promaths online mentoring sessions to psychologically prepare grade 12 for their final exams and Alexa helped us achieve our objective. She understood that we working with anxious matrics whose academics had been heavily disrupted due to COVID-19 and spoke to where they are/might be and most importantly simplified how best to overcome negative feelings.
We hosted 1946 matrics in just 8 one hour sessions and I believe we were able to retain learners’ attention during each session purely because of Alexa’s expertise and delivery.
Thank you so much Alexa!!!
Dean McCoubrey
Founder - MySociaLife
I'm a big fan of Alexa Scher. She has added amazing depth and perspective to what we at MySociaLife do in supporting and guiding teens and pre-teens about their complex lives online.
But more importantly, she holds a compassionate approach that handles the sensitivities beautifully.
She possesses a rich interwoven set of skills through the diversity of her work experience in mental health, as well as her multi-lingual abilities, with gives her real depth and credibility in my view.
Dr Andrew Wooyoung Kim
Public Health Researcher at Harvard School of Public Health & WITS
Alexa is a passionate, committed, and hard working advocate for mental health. I've collaborated with Alexa on numerous projects and I can always depend on her to deliver high-quality work. Her diverse experience as a psycho-educator and clinician also ensures that the well-being of our stakeholders are top priority.
This does not come at the expense of the quality of her work - rather, her unique combination of diverse clinical experience, strong technical skills, and emotional intelligence will guarantee near-perfect outcomes, always. She will make great improvements to the mental health of our country and beyond.
Clotilde Angelucci
Youth Capital
At Youth Capital we worked with Alexa to deliver WhatsApp Webinars to ensure young people had the correct tools to look after their mental health at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first chat went so well that we asked Alexa to come back for more, in a series called #ItsOkayNotToBeOkay.
Alexa has great communication skills, which allow her to break mental health-related topics down and explain them to young people in a way that is simple to understand, yet very thorough, so not to leave any doubts in their mind. Even though the medium had quite a few constraints, Alexa skillfully addressed all the difficult experiences that young people brought to these chats. We can't wait to work with Alexa again in the future!