I have had the privilege of fulfilling diverse roles in both academic and clinical settings, cultivating a rich and varied professional journey. My primary areas of expertise lie in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and diagnostic neuropsychology.

Within my neuropsychological practice, I specialise in the diagnosis and management of rare neurodegenerative conditions, including Frontotemporal Dementia, atypical Alzheimer’s Disease, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, and Corticobasal Degeneration, among others. I also hold a particular interest in the assessment and diagnosis of functional neurological disorders and their differentiation from organic syndromes.

The psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic service I offer is firmly rooted in the tradition of deep exploration and understanding. I provide individuals with a space to engage meaningfully with the unconscious forces shaping their emotional lives, relationships, and behaviours. This work is characterised by its depth, offering an approach that goes beyond symptom relief to address the underlying patterns that contribute to psychological distress.

My approach is well-suited to high-functioning individuals seeking greater self-awareness and insight, as well as those facing significant emotional challenges. These may include enduring depression and anxiety, recurring cycles of destructive relational patterns, or behaviours that deviate from conventional norms, particularly in intimate or sexual contexts. With a focus on the therapeutic relationship, individuals are able to engage with the complexity of their inner worlds, paving the way for transformative understanding and meaningful change.

Qualifications

M.Sc.Med. (Neuro) UCT; Ph.D. (Neuro) UCT; M.A. (Neuropsych) Cum Laude UCT

Post-doctoral fellowship in Neuropathology, Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Stellenbosch

Candidate in Psychoanalysis, South African Psychoanalytical Association

Professional Memberships

Candidate: South African Psychoanalytical Association

Member: Health Professions Council of South Africa

Member: South African Psychoanalytic Initiative

Member: South African Psychoanalytic Confederation

International Psychoanalytical Association Research Training Program Fellow

Member: Cape Town Society of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Member: Psychological Society of South Africa, division of Clinical Neuropsychology

Member: International Neuropsychoanalysis Society

Previously: Elected Member: American Association of Clinical Anatomists

Member: The International Cochrane Collaboration

Academic Positions

Current:

Consultant in Clinical Neuroanatomy, Neuropathology and Neuroimaging, University of Cape Town.

Previous:

Postdoctoral Fellow in Neuropathology, Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Stellenbosch.

Visiting Clinical Neuroimaging Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University.

Psychic life is rooted in embodied experience. It’s the human connections which shape the neural connections from which the mind emerges. From the developmental research we know that the first year of life is absolutely crucial in sculpting the brain. So the internal landscape of the individual has been wrought from a dynamic interplay between exogenous and endogenous forces which are themselves subject to growth and change. In great part, the inner affective landscape is wrought out of the experiences which have been offered and promoted, or withheld by early caregiving relationships.

Academic background and clinical training

I obtained my first masters degree and doctorate from the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of Cape Town, specialising in Neuroscience. My research involved state of the art clinical neuroimaging investigating the functional and structural neurobiology of Social Anxiety Disorder.

My clinical training and second masters degree was in Neuropsychology from the Department of Psychology at the University of Cape Town. I was supervised by Professor Mark Solms and my research involved examining the clinico-radiological relationship between parietal thalamo-cortical circuitry and dream cessation in patients with posterior cerebral artery territory infarction. During my internship, I was based in the Division of Neurology at Groote Schuur Hospital, where I rotated through the departments of Neurology, Neurosurgery, Internal Medicine, and Psychiatry.

I completed a three year Post-doctoral Fellowship in Neuropathology, in the Department of Pathology at the School of Medicine of the University of Stellenbosch where I developed a state of the art clinical neuroimaging protocol to detect active demyelinating lesions in patients with Multiple Sclerosis without using intravenous contrast.

Since starting my clinical training I have become deeply immersed in the South African psychoanalytic community. I am a member of the South African Psychoanalytic Initiative and have been involved in the infant observation program of the Institute of Psychoanalytic Child Psychotherapy. I have also had the privilege of entering into my own longterm personal psychoanalysis. Internationally, I presented at the International Neuropsychoanalysis Association conference in 2014 in New York. I am a member of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society, and in 2017 I became a International Psychoanalytical Association RTP Fellow, by completing the psychoanalytic research training program at the Sigmund Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, where I was supervised by Professor John Clarkin of the Department of Psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College.

I am currently a candidate psychoanalyst with the South African Psychoanalytical Association (SAPA), a component society of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), and am engaged in a rigorous and comprehensive five year programme of advanced psychoanalytic training. I have the privilege of Professor Mark Solms serving as my progress advisor.

Publications

  1. Herbert, E., Engel-Hills, P., Hattingh, C., Fouche, J. P., Kidd, M., Lochner, C., Kotze, M. J., & van Rensburg, S. J. (2018). Fractional anisotropy of white matter, disability and blood iron parameters in multiple sclerosis. Metabolic brain disease, 33(2), 545–557. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-017-0171-5

  2. Williams, T., Hattingh, C. J., Kariuki, C., Tromp, S. A., Van Balkom, A. J., Ipser, C. I., Stein, D. J., (2017). Pharmacotherapy for social anxiety disorder. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD001206.pub3

  3. Fouche, J. P., Du Plessis, S., Hattingh, C. J., Roos, A., Lochner, C., Soriano-Mas, C., Sato, J. R., Takashi, N., Nishida, S., Soo Kwon, J., Hoon Jung, W., Mataix-Cols, D., Hoexter, M. W., Alonso, P., OCD Brain Imaging Consortium, De Wit, S. J., Veltman, D. J., Stein, D. J., Van den Heuvel, A. (2017). Cortical thickness in obsessive compulsive disorder: a multi-site mega-analysis of 780 brain scans from 6 centres. British Journal of Psychiatry. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.115.164020

  4. Bas-Hoogendam, J.M., Van Steenbergen, H., Pannekoek, J.N., Fouché, J-P., Lochner, C., Hattingh, C.J., Cremers, H.R., Furmark, T., et al. (2017). Voxel-based morphometry multi-center mega-analysis of brain structure in social anxiety disorder. NeuroImage: Clinical. 16:678–688. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl. 2017.08.001.

  5. Howells, F. M., Hattingh, C. J., Syal, S., Breet, E., Stein, D. J., & Lochner, C. (2015). 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy in social anxiety disorder. Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, 58(C), 97–104. doi:10.1016/ j.pnpbp.2014.12.008.

  6. Hattingh, C. J., Ipser, J., Tromp, S. A., Syal, S., Lochner, C., Brooks, S. J., & Stein, D. J. (2012). Functional magnetic resonance imaging during emotion recognition in social anxiety disorder: an activation likelihood meta-analysis. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 347. doi:10.3389/fnhum. 2012.00347.

  7. Syal, S., Hattingh, C. J., Fouché, J-P., Spottiswoode, B., Carey, P. D., Lochner, C., & Stein, D. J. (2012). Grey matter abnormalities in social anxiety disorder: a pilot study. Metabolic Brain Disease, 27(3), 299–309. doi:10.1007/s11011-012-9299-5.

Awards and Honours

University of Cape Town Master’s Research Scholarship (2010)

University of Cape Town Master’s Research Scholarship (2011)

National Research Foundation Research Fellowship (2011)

Brain Behaviour Initiative Research Fellowship (2012)

European and South African Research Network in Anxiety Disorders Clinical Research Fellowship (2012)

National Research Foundation Doctoral Scarce Skills Scholarship (2014)

European and South African Research Network in Anxiety Disorders Clinical Research Fellowship (2014)

Mail and Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans in the Health Sciences Category (2017)

International Psychoanalytical Association Research Training Program Fellowship (2017)