Colleague Profile – Mieke Smet

What drives Mieke most is witnessing the moment a young person starts to believe in themselves and realises they have what it takes to persevere through challenges in learning and personal growth. This is why she founded her private practice in 2013.

Mieke earned her Bachelor and Master of Science in Orthopedagogiek (special educational needs) with a focus on learning and development from the University of Nijmegen, and completed a Post Master in school psychology at the Radboud Center for Social Sciences in Nijmegen.

She is registered as a Child & Youth Psychologist with the Nederlands Instituut voor Psychologen (registration number 218944) and holds a GZ psychologist registration (BIG registration number 39934015825).

Her journey includes eleven years as a school psychologist at the International School of The Hague – Primary from 2008 to 2019, and ongoing work as a freelance school consultant for Bazalt Onderwijsbegeleiding since 2014.

Today, Mieke works with students in both primary and secondary education. She believes in working with the whole system, not just the student. Alongside the sessions with the student her therapy approach includes five separate sessions with parents to create self-awareness about what they bring into the family dynamic, focusing on exploring both conscious and unconscious patterns in how parents fulfil their basic needs.

Mieke offers indoor psycho-educational assessments and outdoor therapy sessions. There’s something powerful about working with children and adolescents in natural settings – it opens up different possibilities for connection and growth that traditional indoor spaces sometimes can’t provide. She is able to use a combination of ACT, Mindfulness and EMDR in her sessions.