About Helen

Helen Palmer has a background in education. After some years in the UK she trained in psychosynthesis, and co-founded the Institute of Psychosynthesis NZ with her husband Peter Hubbard on their return to Aotearoa in 1986. The Institute closed in December 2018, after 32 years of offering psychosynthesis for self-development, as well as professional training for counsellors and psychotherapists. During this time she also completed a law degree, became an ordained Interfaith minister and marriage celebrant, and then wrote a Master’s thesis on Psychosynthesis in the South Pacific (awarded with Distinction) from Middlesex. It won the Emma Stavrou Thesis award and was then published as a Monograph by the London Institute of Psychosynthesis. Helen and Peter’s commitment to developing a psychotherapeutic understanding that is respectful of Māori cosmology and identity was deeply supported by their growing relationship with Joe Turner, who became the Institute’s kaumatua in 1996 until his death in 2014. Helen has been a member of NZAP since 1991, is a registered psychotherapist, and a Fellow of PAnzA. She is a Director of Psychosynthesis Education and Research. She has a private practice as a psychotherapist and as a supervisor. She is interested in the intergenerational transmission of resilience as well as trauma, which began when working with many cultural backgrounds in London. She is also following the emerging conversations about gender, identity and sexuality.