My Account
23 February 1959 – 11 February 2022
Warkworth Counselling Centre co-founder Brenda Rawlings was remembered at a service at Ascension last month as someone who devoted her life to her family and her work. She was described as a person who had extraordinary gifts of wisdom, insight, intuition, graciousness, kindness and, especially, love. And over the course of nearly 40 years as a counsellor, psychotherapist and trainer, had touched the lives of thousands of people who had been helped by her compassion and ability to “listen without judging”.
Brenda and her sister Judy grew up on the Tamaki estuary, which may have explained Brenda’s love of the sea. The family had regular holidays at Orua Bay, on Manukau Harbour, where the girls learned to water ski. She did a social work degree at Massey University in Palmerston North and worked for several years with the Department of Social Welfare, before being bitten by the travel bug.
As in most pursuits in her life, Brenda was not content to just take a Contiki tour. She cycled through the United Kingdom and travelled alone through north Africa. Several years later, Brenda and husband Harry, who she had met at university, worked on grass roots projects alongside the most disadvantaged in Central America. On their way back to NZ, they spent three months in an ashram in India.
Back in NZ in 1987, the couple took on new positions as community social workers for Warkworth and Wellsford, collaborating with a group of other young and passionate health professionals. But tragedy struck when Harry was killed in an accident at Orua Bay. Brenda was eight months pregnant at the time. More than one speaker at the ceremony described her courage and resilience at this time of heartbreaking grief.
But she stayed in Warkworth and went on to buy a house in Kasper Street, creating friendships, building a community around herself and her young son, and beginning the work that would see her undertake further training in counselling/therapy.
She eventually met Peter McMillan, who she later married and together they enlarged their family with two more sons. Brenda always put her hand up for any activities that involved the boys including roles at Play Centre, serving on the Board of Trustees at Kaipara Flats Primary and Mahurangi College.
Together, Brenda and Peter founded the Warkworth Counselling Centre in 1995, now located in Bertram House. She was credited with supporting many Mahurangi initiatives, including the Women’s Resource Centre, Family/Whanau Support Services, Stopping Violence Services, a Youth Centre, Homebuilders and the Rodney Charitable Trust, which was the first home care service in NZ. In 2013, she was the recipient of the Harville Hendrix Award for Clinical Excellence.
Peter and Brenda started the Imago Institute for Relationships in 1999, which became Brenda’s passion for the next 20 years. She became a sought-after relationship therapist and she and Peter presented weekend workshops for couples about 150 times over the next 20 years, around NZ and in Australia. Brenda was also training counsellors, psychologists and psychotherapists in NZ and Australia during this time. She was co-dean of the Imago International Training Institute, based in the US, from 2011 to 2016, during which time she led a team of 30 relationship therapy trainers from throughout the world.
Brenda was diagnosed with a brain tumour two-and-a-half years ago. Despite two successful operations, she sadly succumbed to the illness. She is survived by her husband Peter, and sons Zachary, Michael and Liam.
