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The Academic History of Tups

The research which we originally began in 1996 focused on identifying - at that stage - woman who presented with health difficulties such as endometriosis, chronic fatigue, infertility and many other autoimmune illnesses.

We attempted to identify a commonality amongst these women which we could measure scientifically, and manage psychologically, thereby increasing psychological health and in the process, improve physical health. It was found that the women presenting with a specific personality type were living a lifestyle which served to compromise health- promoting behaviours including poor stress management skills, eating mismanagement, smoking behaviour and also having a negative impact on relationships and general lifestyle management.

  • The two traits identified in these women which have consistently remained salient over the years were time urgency and perfectionism. These women were perfectionists in their thinking and were individuals who were constantly hurried for time, impatient and so on. The specific characteristics will be listed later for your perusal. As the personality type was managed, so the health- promoting behaviours were improved as time progressed.
  • This programme has now been extended to include men, corporate companies, non-working mothers, and even younger adolescents.

Our research has been published internationally after being addressed in a doctoral thesis in 1996. The research and it's results were presented in a symposium in Spain in the year 2000. In addition, Dr Rodrigues, Edward Wolff and Mandy Rodrigues wrote a book entitled "Faster, better, sicker: time urgency perfectionism stress and women's health" in 1998. This book has sold 4 000 copies in South Africa and many abroad. The book is currently being updated and will be re-published internationally.

In addition, we have developed a "stress management" course which is very unlike the traditional stress management courses found around today. This course focuses on the specific personality type we are talking about, and it teaches the individual to manage stress and health-promoting behaviours via weekly group meetings. The results of the course pre-to-post intervention are remarkable, having an impact on all areas of health - psychological, physical, dietary, relationships. We have a measuring instrument which we have updated across the years and validated that can be used prior to and following the course. The course can be self managed or managed by a facilitator.

The TUPS courses are currently held at Medfem Clinic in Bryanston South Africa, and are facilitated by Mandy Rodrigues. Approximately 4500 people have gone through this course on a group, couple or individual basis. However, the demand for courses far exceeds the time available and the resources we had. This led to the development of this internet based self help program to manage TUP stress. The results of this self help internet based TUP stress course equal the results achieved by the facilitated TUP course . This internet based TUP stress management course is now available commercially on line from this internet site (www.tups.co)

Our Team

Mandy Rodrigues Clinical Psychologist

Mandy is a Clinical Psychologist specialized in Behavioural Medicine - the management of psychological factors in physical disease.

Antonio Rodrigues Gynaecologist

Antonio is a gynaecologist, specialized in fertility treatment including assisted reproduction and laparoscopic endometriosis surgery.

Edward Wolff Clinical Psychologist

Edward is a Clinical Psychologist specialized in Behavioural Medicine - the management of psychological factors in physical disease.

Mandy Rodrigues is a Clinical Psychologist specialized in Behavioural Medicine - the management of psychological factors in physical disease . She qualified at the Rand Afrikaans University, Gauteng, South Africa. She has a special interest in the treatment of the psychological causes of infertility, and is part of the treatment team at Medfem Clinic - the Institute for the Care of Women.

She is also involved in her own private practice. She was previously associated with the Transvaal Memorial Institute - more specifically it's Child and Family Unit - where she specialized in the treatment of children and their families. She was a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, and published and lectured internationally in the field of Behavioral Medicine.

Mandy is responsible for structuring the TUPS program. She developed the TUPS stress patterns that result from completing the TUP stress profile. She has created a logical sequence of building up a stress template that analyzes each and every stress episode that occurs in the individual. Once the stress templates are formed she introduces a specific management for each of the four parts of the template. She has facilitated more than 5000 courses. She has correlated the Internet based self-help TUPS course with her facilitated course. The correlation is excellent, making this internet based stress course unique and highly effective.

Mandy is responsible for the ongoing development and professional support of tups.co.

Antonio Rodrigues is a gynaecologist, specialized in fertility treatment including assisted reproduction and laparoscopic endometriosis surgery. He qualified at the University of the Witwatersrand, Gauteng, South Africa. He has a special interest in the causes of diseases and was part of the study team that carried out research at Medfem Clinic, the Institute for the Care of Women.

This research formed the catalyst for the book Faster, Better, Sicker. He also has an interest in the business world and especially human resource issues revolving around health in the corporate work place. He has completed an MBA through Henley Business School, London.

He has been responsible for integrating this course, creating the logical sequencing, developing a research based nutrient package to optimize the course's success and correlating the clinical symptoms and diseases.

Edward Wolff is a Clinical Psychologist specialized in Behavioural Medicine - the management of psychological factors in physical disease. He qualified at Auburn University, Alabama, United States of America. He is a former professor of psychology, Head of Department of Psychology, and Director for the Clinic and Centre for Behavioural Medicine at the Rand Afrikaans University, Gauteng, South Africa.

He is also a former Head of Psychological Services at the Lee County Youth Development Centre and staff psychologist at Lee County Hospital, Auburn, Alabama, and United States of America. He is a member of numerous international associations of psychology, but specifically the Society of Behavioral Medicine and the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy - of which he is the president of the South African chapter. He is also the representative for Africa on the World Congress Committee for the Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies. He has published and lectured extensively internationally in Behavioral Medicine.

He is responsible for ensuring the academic credibility and excellence of this course.