Learn The Skills To Create Joy And Intimacy – Forever
Break unhelpful patterns, build new habits, and understand more about yourself and each other.
Serafin Upton: Relationship Empowerment
Less neutrality, faster results
My approach is very different from traditional psychotherapy. Mainstream psychotherapy is largely non-directive and impartial.
I show you how to get dramatic change fast. I help you get to the heart of what’s holding you back from finding love, strengthening your relationship, or getting aligned at work. And once we know the issue we can fix it, permanently.
Transparency and transformation
Seeing one person for both your individual and couples therapy can be a transformational experience. It’s a transparent, open way of working – not to mention time- and cost-effective.
Unlike most traditional therapists, who won’t do individual sessions if they’re working with the person as part of a couple, shared therapy work is powerful. I will meet with you as a couple, separately as individuals if needed, and will also do individual therapy work in the presence of your partner.
My Services
Serafin’s Qualifications And Experience
I’ve worked in New Zealand and Australia as a family and couples therapist and coach for 20 years. On top of my extensive experience and qualifications, I have also trained under world-renowned sex and relationship therapists Esther Perel and Terry Real – the only NZ-based therapist to have completed their training.
Specialities:
Sex and couple therapy
Men’s mental health
Rainbow communities
Complex trauma
Autism spectrum disorders
Recovering from narcissistic abuse and codependency
Child and family therapy
Relational intelligence leadership for teams & organisations
Therapeutic disciplines:
Positive psychology
Hakomi
Family systems
Relational Life Therapy [Terry Real]
Qualifications:
Masters in International Relations & Human Rights
Masters in Social Work
Graduate Diploma (Psychology)
Graduate Certificate (Psychotherapy)
Bachelor of Arts
Completion of RELATE (Sex & Power Relationship Therapy training with world-renowned therapists Esther Perel and Terry Real)
RLT Level 1 with Terry Real
Qualified Yoga Teacher
Reviews
“Serafin was recommended to me by my sister, who had worked with her previously and found her to be very effective. She was easy to contact, and made the appointment process stress-free – I have really appreciated the option of online sessions. Serafin has been amazing – she is supportive, caring, and has a great sense of humour. She has a special ability to ask the right questions to prompt deep self-reflection and has helped me to address several issues I have faced recently. I would highly recommend Serafin and her services.”
Timothy – Auckland
“Serafin was recommended to us as a young, switched on, highly educated psychotherapist to help bring our relationship back on track - and that she is doing. We both have learnt how to ‘dance again’ meaning, working with each other and not against each other. With the expert guidance from Serafin, who has an amazing ability to see situations from both sides, we have got to know each others’ love languages and what makes us who we are. We can’t speak highly enough of Serafin and we continue to grow and learn new skills to even better our relationship with each other and others around us.”
Michael & Sharon – Nelson
“I began seeing Serafin for issues I was having with anxiety, which was negatively impacting on my personal relationships and my studies. Through working with her I was able to identify the source of my anxiety and develop strategies to manage it. She also helped me to work through past trauma, and learn to be more comfortable and compassionate with myself. I feel like this was only possible because of the relationship and trust she built with me, through her gentle kindness and sense of humour. Overall, while beginning therapy was a daunting prospect, Serafin managed to make it seem easy by taking it one step at a time. I am so grateful to her for all her work, as she helped me get to a much happier and healthier place than I had ever been.”
Charlotte – Auckland
“I engaged Serafin to facilitate my team and I to critically consider gaps and disconnects arising from data and qualitative conversations we had undertaken of a population group we are charged with providing a prevention initiative to. From this, we would build a tactical action plan and ensure that our focus had an evidence base - especially critical to ensure our resource is applied most effectively. We were able to do this with Serafin’s guidance as well as building trust within the Team, which at that time had been together for less than four months. I would engage Serafin again to do similar work or anything that enables a Team to become high performing. I believe that her strengths-based approach, in particular, helped to address and overcome some unhelpful perceptions the Team had of one another.”
Tracey – Christchurch
