Meet Veronica – our Counselling Services Coordinator

Our expanded counselling programme now has a fantastic coordinator to provide supervision to students on placement with us, and to match women seeking counselling with the best-fit counsellor for them.

We’re delighted that our inaugural counselling services coordinator is Veronica Cusack, one of our very first placement students (after a career change), now graduated! Veronica (Ngāti Korokoro, Ngāti Wharara, Te Pouka) is also one of our two registered counsellors (the other being the wonderful Jane Tyrer).

It was Jane who invited Veronica to the Centre as a student four years ago. “I couldn’t believe my luck I had a placement where my political leanings were appreciated!” says Veronica.

She immediately appreciated the Centre’s holistic approach to counselling, enabled by the wraparound support available, including our free Women’s Support referral service.

And she felt nurtured herself also: “When I let [then co-manager] Kaitlin know I was hoping to be pregnant I thought the response would be disappointment and irritation –  typical commercial backlash – because I’d previously worked in corporate. But she gave me a hug!”

Warm and engaging, Veronica describes her counselling approach as “creating an environment where as the counsellor, I am decentred. Allowing the client to take control of the space and their own journey regardless of where they’ve come from. I act as a kaitiaki [carer/ safety maker] and guide them through their journey in a way that is centring them. Manaakitanga is essential –actually caring about their wellbeing, and showing it.”

For Veronica, all of the above is about her having a te Tiriti o Waitangi lens – which also means being open to the use of indigenous therapy modes, “which generally are more holistic in approach, more whanau-focussed, and with a heightened importance of spirituality and connection.” Te Whare Tapa Wha – an influential Māori model of wellbeing by Tā Mason Durie, which encompasses physical, mental, spiritual, physical and family wellbeing – is a cornerstone for Veronica.

Veronica embraced her own whakapapa Māori after taking a hauora Māori (Māori health) course at university. “It affected me so deeply. I got the flu and I had fever dreams for two days about my Māori identity. It shifted something fundamental in me.”

It had been difficult for her to reconcile her whakapapa Māori with her “very Pākehā” upbringing and her light skin. “It was the very common whakamā [shame] you get from colonisation essentially.” She knows her own whānau history of cultural alienation, which accelerated for her grandfather’s generation – a history which is a direct result of forced assimilation policies. But since university – with the support of her brother and sister, who are more connected to Māori communities in an everyday way – Veronica has really pushed herself “to reconnect and to sit comfortably within both worlds with my mixed heritage.”

A few years ago, Veronica and her family moved back to Pukekohe, where she grew up, to be close to whānau, particularly the older generation. Now mother to two children aged 2 and 4, Veronica loves cooking, and also spending time outdoors: “my husband calls me Moana, my wairua is filled the more time I spend close to the water,” she says.

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Initially interested in radio broadcasting, Veronica had already had a stellar “accidental” career in marketing, when she had an epiphany during the first Covid lockdown. Her employer had made a commitment to look after their employees but they “got overruled by overseas corporate overlords,” says Veronica. She was tasked with the comms to the people who would be let go from their jobs, letting them know that, after all, they would not be looked after. “I threw my computer. I thought ‘this is it – I cannot represent a system that cares more about money than people.’ And I quit.”

She had already been looking for a more meaningful job – something where she could work with people and help them – and she already knew personally how powerful therapy could be. “I had been in eating disorder therapy myself for many years from the age of 12 or 13. I was self-hating but the therapy completely changed my life.” While she still occasionally has complex thoughts about disordered eating, the therapy enabled Veronica to (in her own words) “change the assumptions I made about the world and myself and how the world looked at me – it was revolutionary.”

As Veronica puts it in her Centre counselling kōrero: “My goal is for you to feel seen, heard and accepted with the hope that will help you to take on the difficulties that life produces.” Kia ora!

Veronica is available as a counsellor at the Auckland Women’s Centre on Mondays and Wednesdays, and is also a counsellor at the Grief Centre in Pukekohe and at Atawhai Counselling, an online Kaupapa Māori service.