When I started seeing Martina in 2020,  I was experiencing emotional distress, anxiety, and burnout from work, loss, internal conflict, and years of unhealthy familial relationships. I felt quite open to speaking with her and knew I needed support with navigating the difficult emotional and mental terrain I found myself in. 

Since starting my journey with Martina, I’ve gained tools that continue to help me move through moments of crisis, emotional intensity and uncertainty with more awareness, grace and understanding for myself, I’ve become more confident, and feel more in tune with my needs, while nurturing more honest connections with the people I keep close to me.

One of the most important breakthroughs I’ve had is learning to recognize what part of me is impacted by something, and being able to step in with care and presence in order to access the support I need in the moment, coming to understand how much my past and childhood shape my beliefs, behaviors and responses has been a significant breakthrough as it’s helped me shed coping mechanisms that aren’t supportive to my wellbeing or the kinds of relationships I want to nurture. Martina has held such tender and reassuring space for me in moments when I’ve felt furthest from myself, her approach lands because of how practical and embodied it is, she’s constantly reminding me to trust what’s coming up in my body and has helped me really understand and clarify the messages that my body, dreams and emotions are offering me. It’s been a complete perspective shift. I appreciate her honesty, grasp of nuance in my personal experience and how well she’s able to connect different threads of experiences to help me see a clear picture and map ways to move through highs and lows while feeling held and supported.   

I’d definitely recommend her, especially to other queer and/or transgender people because she offers support that really helps mirror you back at yourself, in full consideration of who you are and what it means to exist as yourself in this world, she clearly draws from a wealth of knowledge, personal experience, and attentive care in order to offer the grounding support she does. Therapy with Martina has been an anchor through much change and uncertainty, a restorative and cathartic safe space that has changed my life for the better. My advise to anyone considering therapy is to meet themselves with curiosity as much as they can, consider what it might mean for you to have this one space where it’s all about you, and what you can tend to within yourself and life because you have that space where even your fears are welcome and can be witnessed without judgement, and that if you’re thinking about it, it’s worth a shot.

- Thandiwe, Zimbabwe

Working with Martina has been deeply meaningful for me. I initially reached out to her for couples therapy, without really knowing what I wanted from the process. I only knew that I did not want to keep circling the same narratives about my relationship. Very quickly, it became clear that the work was not really about our coupling, but about me, where I was, and what I needed to do to move forward.

At the time, I was carrying a significant trauma that had occurred just as the relationship began. Martina helped me find language for what I was experiencing and supported me in taking ownership of my healing in a way that felt empowering rather than overwhelming. One of the most impactful aspects of our work together has been her helping me understand that I do not need to pathologise myself. Instead, she invited me to recognise how my responses make sense within a world that is often deeply misaligned, unequal, and shaped by colonial ways of thinking. This shift alone has been profoundly liberating.

Her approach to counselling has expanded what I believed was possible in therapy. I often do not feel like I am speaking to a distant practitioner, but rather to someone I can genuinely relate to both politically and emotionally. With Martina, I have been able to share parts of myself that I previously felt I had to compartmentalise in other therapeutic spaces, because there were limits to how far those conversations could go.

Martina is clearly deeply skilled in her field, but she is also exceptionally thoughtful, well read, and expansive in how she understands the world. She thinks from unique angles, is open to uncertainty, and is willing to explore questions alongside me rather than offering fixed answers. At times, she has even gone away to research things I have brought into the room, which made me feel truly heard and taken seriously.

I feel held by her curiosity, her care, and her commitment to understanding the wider contexts that shape our inner lives. Working with her has helped me reconnect to myself with greater clarity, compassion, and agency.

- Naeem, United Kingdom

I’ve been supported by Martina for about 3 years now. We started regular sessions just a few months after my eldest brother passed. I was the most vulnerable and tender spirited I had ever been in my whole life. I felt like I was tumbling in a giant wave, not knowing which way was up.

Grief, and ptsd from my brothers passing, brought forward parts of myself to the surface that desperately needed to be cared for, parts of myself I had never inherited the language to acknowledge let alone the means to take care of. Martina has gently and patiently supported me in discovering these parts of myself that had been buried away, in my memory and in my body. Our sessions made room for me to let go of the shame, the parts of my past and my parents, and their parents I had been carrying that just was not mine.

I slowly started to uncover my voice, my most unburdened voice which has felt like quite an ancestral process. Martina’s practise feels unbound to western ideologies around therapy/counselling, which is something I’ve always needed. Our sessions allow for a meeting place of both my spiritual/ancestral practise as well as my human experience. 

Grief has changed me in almost every way possible. My sessions with Martina have reminded me that I can trust myself and in some ways trust all of these changes too. That knowing has been my one true lifeline. It’s been a slow and steady homecoming for sure.

- Anonymous, Cape Town, South Africa