Betty Robb is honoured for her contribution to psychotherapy and to the lives of many hundreds of individuals and families.
In 1965 Betty attended a Leadership Course with the Federation of Parent Centres, and started on the path which has been a primary focus of her professional and personal life. In 1967 she and her family moved to Auckland, and she became a driving force behind the establishment and development of Parents’ Centres and Play Centres in the Auckland Region. Betty’s work has been informed by Donald Winnicott and Daniel Stern among others, and in more recent times she has worked hard on the establishment of mother/infant parenting groups to provide a service to mothers and their infants at the critical stage of early bonding and to deal with emotions and responses which may impede satisfactory development.
In the 1970s Betty became an accredited Marriage Guidance Counsellor. In 1974 she joined the Auckland Family Counselling Service, now the Auckland Family Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre, where she was a valued member of staff for thirty years.
Betty joined the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists in 1984 by presenting a paper at Conference on Transference and Counter-transference. She has contributed to the Association both regionally and nationally. She has been a member of the NZAP Council and of the Admissions Committee, has been Convenor of the Auckland Branch, and is a member of the Northern Region’s Supervisors Group. She has presented regularly at Conferences.
In 1990 she also became a founder member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and has been a member of the Committee on Psychoanalysis of the Federation of US Societies of Social Work and a member of the USA-based International Federation of Psychoanalytic Education.
As well as being a dedicated psychotherapy practitioner Betty is also a respected teacher. She has been an invited lecturer at the Department of Psychotherapy and Applied Psychology at AUT, a lecturer for the Foundation of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy programme at AFCP, and a lecturer for the Institute of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.
Betty has brought a tremendous energy and thoughtfulness to her work in all its aspects, and has a commitment to providing and developing services which enhance the lives of New Zealanders.