Hi, I’m Jemma

Mental Health Professional · Digital Resource Creator · Dreamer

“You already know how to do the therapeutic work. I create the tools that help you bring it to life.”

I’m a mental health professional, designer, and the founder of Gentle Observations. Since 2013, I’ve worked across schools, private practice, community settings, and under-resourced clinics, so I know how much thought, energy, and invisible work goes into helping people well. I create practical, clinically grounded resources that are engaging enough for clients to actually use and beautifully designed enough that you will feel good bringing them into the room.

Start with the free resources

Sage-green garage doors on a sunlit street corner

How It All Started

The beginning of Gentle Observations

It did not begin with a grand business plan. It began with me sitting up late, planning groups for the next morning, searching for a “fun coping skills activity” and wondering why it was so difficult to find something that felt clinically useful, engaging, and actually good to look at.

I had been working in mental health since 2013, across private practice, schools, community settings, shelters, and under-resourced clinics. The setting changed, but the problem followed me everywhere. I could usually find a worksheet that covered the topic, but rarely one I genuinely wanted to use.

The first resource I made was nothing fancy. It was sketched in the few minutes between clients, with cramped handwriting and absolutely no design strategy. I shared it with a colleague, she shared it with someone else, and suddenly this very imperfect little tool was being used because it actually helped.

So I kept going.

I started turning psychological concepts into resources that felt clearer, warmer, more practical, and more human. Resources grounded in real theory, but designed for the reality of the therapy room. Resources you could pick up and use without spending your evening rewriting them, redesigning them, or trying to work out what the creator actually meant.

Gentle Observations slowly became the resource shelf I wish I had when I was carrying a full caseload. It brings together my background in psychology, group work, graphic design, and marketing, along with years of noticing what therapists and clients genuinely respond to.

Today, it exists to make your work a little easier. To help you walk into the room with something thoughtful and useful in your hands, without having to create every bloody thing from scratch.

The Human Stuff

A few fast facts.

Based in

Cape Town, South Africa

Home base

I live and work from Cape Town, usually with sunlight pouring in, several tabs open, and at least one new idea trying to distract me from the thing I am meant to be finishing.

Morning ritual

A heavy lift session at the gym

Before the inbox

Most mornings begin at the gym. It clears my head, settles my nervous system, and gives me one hour that belongs entirely to me before work, messages, and everyone else’s priorities begin.

My background

Psychology, design, and marketing

The unusual mix

Before psychology, I studied marketing and graphic design. For a long time, those parts of me felt completely separate, like I had changed direction and left the creative side behind. Gentle Observations became the place where it all came back together, and where I finally found a path that felt uniquely mine.

Loves

Waterproof jewelry, the ocean, deep conversations

Outside of work

I am happiest exploring somewhere new, finding a ridiculously good café, moving my body, spending time near the ocean, or getting completely lost in a conversation about life, business, psychology, and everything in between.

A lighter look

This or That.

Pick whichever sounds more like you. Mine are already locked in. Click around and find out where we agree.

The journey, so far

The seasons of growth

2013 — 2018

The Clinical Years

I worked across private practice, schools, community settings, shelters, and under-resourced clinics. These were the years of learning what actually helps in the room, what only sounds good in a textbook, and how often the best tools begin as a rough sketch made five minutes before you need them.

2019 — 2022

The Making-It-Myself Years

I kept creating the resources I could never quite find. At first, they were simply for my own sessions and groups. Then colleagues started asking for copies, strangers began finding them online, and Gentle Observations slowly grew from a creative side project into something that felt like a real path.

2023 — Present

The Building Years

Gentle Observations grew into a full resource library used by mental health professionals around the world. What began with individual worksheets has become a collection of practical tools, workbooks, games, cards, posters, and resources shaped by real clinical needs and the requests therapists send me every day.

A day in my life

Today, by the numbers

The Library keeps its own statistics. These are mine, and not one of them are on a business plan.

Reps before I email anyone

Tabs currently open

Cups of coffee before noon

Dogs under the desk

Steps, most of them to the kettle

New ideas created while trying to finish one

I would rather build a life that excites me than keep performing one I have already outgrown.

A Gentle Observation

What I believe

Things I believe

Rest is not the reward for finishing. It is part of the work.

You are allowed to change your mind, even when other people were more comfortable with the old version of you.

You can be deeply grateful for your life and still want more from it.

Nobody becomes their best self through shame.

The life you want is usually built through the small things you keep choosing, not one huge, dramatic decision.

Working, honestly

How I actually work

I am not naturally neat, linear, or particularly good at having one idea at a time. I usually have five things open, three new directions calling my name, and one project I am trying very hard not to abandon for something more exciting.

But I have learned how to work with my brain instead of constantly fighting it. I move first, protect the hours when I think best, and give myself enough structure to actually finish the ideas that matter.

01Move before I thinkMost days start at the gym. It clears the noise, settles my energy, and makes me feel like I have done something for myself before work starts asking things from me.
02Make before I manageMy best work happens when I can disappear into an idea for a few uninterrupted hours. This is when the writing, designing, problem-solving, and slightly obsessive refining happens.
03People shape the workMessages, member requests, customer questions, and real conversations often show me what needs to be created next. Some of the best resources have started with a therapist saying, “Do you have anything for this?”
04Finish enough to move forwardPerfectionism can make everything take forever, so I have had to learn that thoughtful and finished is better than brilliant and still sitting in drafts. I can refine something once it exists.

If you’re still here

You do not have to make everything yourself.

The Therapy Resource Library is the resource shelf I wish I had when I was carrying a full caseload. It holds more than 8,000 evidence-informed worksheets, workbooks, games, cards, visuals, and practical tools, all organised in one searchable place.

So when a client brings something unexpected into the room, or you are planning tomorrow’s group far later than you meant to, you already have somewhere to look. No frantic Googling, no redesigning another worksheet at 10pm, and no starting from a blank page every single time.

Explore the Therapy Resource Library

Right now