EDUCATION AND BUSINESS EXPERIENCE
With a college degree in arts, and several years of psychotherapy training, I have a wide background in human development and creative industries, including graphic design, TV, and motion pictures.
SELF-HELP BUSINESSES
In my early twenties, shortly after graduation, I set up my first company, Mannraektin (Human Potential) in my native Iceland, offering a variety of human development courses, primarily focusing on workshops and products developed by myself for treating eating disorders, inspired by the internationally successful 12-step self-help programme of Overeaters Anonymous.
BOOK PUBLISHING
After a few years working in film, TV and graphic design, my next significant project was to co-found the publishing company Voxtur (Growth) for publishing human potential books. The first task of the new company was to translate and publish the international best-seller "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" by the American relationship expert Dr John Gray PhD. This book broke new ground in Icelandic book-publishing history by being the first self-help book to compete in the Icelandic general best-seller list. It went straight to number one on the overall national best-seller list in Iceland 1995. The next project was to translate and publish the tiny life-transforming book "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success" by the internationally renowned spiritual guide Deepak Chopra. This was also a significant success, achieving number four on the overall best-seller list in 1996.
PSYCHOTHERAPY TRAINING
This is when I left Iceland to study humanistic psychotherapy at Spectrum in London, where I completed the Spectrum Counselling Course and graduated from the One Year Course in Psychotherapy. After completing three years of intensive psychotherapy training, I remained a member of the Spectrum post-graduate continued education programme, as well as being a member of an on-going Men's Group and a couples' Group at Spectrum, until late 2008 when I moved to Cape Town, SA.
DAVIS TRAINING
While training at Spectrum, I also trained and qualified as a Davis dyslexia facilitator in 2002, and then successfully introduced the Davis methods in my native Iceland.
In 2004 I founded Gifted Dyslexic, which now operates in the UK, Iceland and South Africa, including offering online Davis programmes worldwide via Zoom video-link.
SCHOOL DIRECTOR
in 2010 I became a director and shareholder in Capella House, a small progressive school on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. Along with a few other dedicated families, we built up the school until 2018 when we passed it onto the current owner – a diligent principal who has worked her way up the ranks within the school. This school is now doing very well under her leadership.
DIRECTOR OF DAVIS AFRICA
In 2012 I founded Davis Dyslexia Association Africa, offering training and quality control of Davis facilitators throughout Africa.
DAVIS WORKSHOP PRESENTER: GIFT OF DYSLEXIA, GIFT OF LEARNING.
While in South Africa, I decided to train as a Davis specialist and workshop presenter, in order to be able to offer the Davis training in Africa. Throughout my time in Africa, I trained a number of Davis facilitators, and gave public lectures to hundreds of people, TV interviews and Gift of Dyslexia workshops to dozens of teachers, parents, and specialists.
Licensed to provide:
Licensed since: January 22, 2003
Travel: I am willing to travel to clients
Online services: I coach online or in person
Delivery Languages: IcelandicIcelandic (íslenska)
A fifteen year old boy reads the papers for the first time
"All his life my son had asked me to read the papers for him rather than reading himself. Already on the way home after his Davis programme he surprised me by asking to borrow a part of the newspaper to read. He didn’t look up from the paper for two hours on the way home, and since then he has gone from strength to strength. He is doing very well in school and his self esteem is very strong."
From a happy mother of a 15 year old boy
James learns to read in 3 days
At the age of 10, James was completely illiterate, despite having a mother who was a talented teacher of gifted neurodivergent children. When he attended a Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme with Gifted Dyslexic, he knew about 3 letters, recognised about 3 words, and he could not write his own name. On day three he started reading, but given his further challenges with autism, his programme ended up taking 10 days.
Read a detailed article from James' mother and view a video interview with his mother on my website:
https://www.gifteddyslexic.com/Dyslexia-and-ADHD-treatment-for-adults-and-children/Dyslexia-and-ADHD-Testimonials/my-looong-walk-to-success-with-dyslexia-and-autism
Sabre learns maths in five days
When Sabre started her Davis programme, she struggled with adding 2+2, but on her fifth day she was fluently doing long division.
She also learnt to ride a bike in 30 seconds.
A letter from her parents:
Dear Axel, I trust that you are well.
First and foremost, Sabre is certainly missing her time with you.
Although hard, she had a blast and she is coming out of her shell every day. Asking more questions for clarity and reading more. Her confidence has grown significantly and the change in her is HUGE.
As parents, we were not sure how to deal with Sabre, we weren't sure of her challenge. We took her to:
☑︎ a psychologist,
☑︎ a speech therapist,
☑︎ an occupational therapist,
☑︎ a paediatric neurologist,
☑︎ educational psychologists,
☑︎ psychiatrists,
☑︎ audiologists,
☑︎ ophthalmologists
... and of course this cost us a penny and time, and so much discomfort for Sabre -- now that I think about it; being exposed to the Gifted Dyslexic programme; it must have been torture for my little girl as this was not what she needed, she needed something completely different.
View a short video about her first bicycle ride and her impressive change in hand-eye coordination on my website:
https://www.gifteddyslexic.com/Dyslexia-and-ADHD-treatment-for-adults-and-children/Dyslexia-and-ADHD-Testimonials/sabre-learns-maths-in-five-days
18 year old Jadon was facing failure at Matric (A-level equivalent)
We tested Jadon's reading level before starting, and again after his first day. He went from being 7 years behind his chronological age, to being only 2 years behind in a single day.
View a video interview with Jadon and his mother on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/DxxVpBO1_EU?si=_kjgtssSNC64uf3p
From 14% marks to 90% in only 5 days
At the age of 10, Sam did not know why he was struggling at school, despite having had all kinds of interventions. The 5-day Davis programme showed him why he struggled, and how to succeed without much effort.
See a video with Sam, a decade later:
https://youtu.be/1Qr7JQnTfJg?si=Yv3zXy1phtDoLVAQ
