Heleen van der Pijl

Heleen van der Pijl is a psychologist, systemic therapist, healthcare consultant, lecturer, and poet who works at the intersection of care, meaning, and connection. At the Centre for Consultation and Expertise (CCE), she supports teams in complex care settings — psychiatry, neurorehabilitation, disability and elderly care — helping them understand challenging behaviour through a relational and contextual lens. She also teaches systemic consultation, known for translating complexity into human understanding and restoring collaboration where it has broken down. As a poet, Heleen writes about love, living loss, and the longing for connection. Her collection Elke wind waait jou naar mij (“Every Wind Blows You Towards Me”) gives language to the silence that often surrounds grief. Across all her work, she is committed to bringing empathy back into systems that have grown too narrow or rushed to hold people’s full humanity.