Mary Jerram is honoured by her colleagues for her many years of dedication to the practice of psychotherapy and for her contribution to the development of psychotherapy in the Nelson/Marlborough region.
Mary initially trained in music and then studied philosophy, languages and education. She read widely in the psychoanalytic literature and had the experience of 3yrs of formal Freudian analysis, but her starting point as a psychotherapist was through an intensive course in Music Therapy. She worked for a few months as a music therapist at Braemar Hospital in Nelson in 1979 and then took a job as a Counsellor at the newly established Family Health Counselling Service. In 1981 she was appointed Manager of the service and continued in that role until 1993. She is now in private practice as a psychotherapist and supervisor.
Mary was one of the first people in the Nelson/Marlborough region to join the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists. She helped to set up the Regional Branch and is a founding member of the NZAP Regional Supervisors Group. Mary is particularly valued as a supervisor. She is able to provide supervision across many modalities, supports supervisees to find their own potential, and has had a leading role in the region in supervising people into membership of the Association.
As well as being a practitioner and a supervisor Mary has contributed as a teacher. She has tutored on Counselling courses and taught Family Therapy. She represents psychotherapists on the Advisory Board for Applied Counselling at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology.
Mary has impressive networking skills that enable her to draw together psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and counsellors for therapeutic discussions and co-operation. She is a strong intellectual force in discussions of topics relevant to psychotherapy and regularly presents papers at conferences and at Branch meetings. Her influence extends into the community, where she has had a role in establishing, training and supervising within voluntary agencies for more than 20 years.
On the national level Mary was a member of the original panel assessing counsellors to gain accreditation for ACC. She has served as Honorary Secretary for NZAP, has served on numerous assessment panels and marked many case studies. She is currently on the National Supervision Committee.
Mary has a deep belief in the benefits of psychotherapy and an absolute commitment to deepening and refining its practice in line with expanding knowledge.