About Gestalt

You and I will work on our therapeutic relationship in the here and now of the therapy room. What transpires between us inside the room is usually a mirror for your relational patterns outside in your life. For me, relationship is at the heart of Gestalt: creating a safe enough space for you to speak to me about your wants and needs, your longings and despair, without judgement, and to be witnessed just as you are.

From the moment we are born we are born into relationship, and from here our ways of understanding and relating to the world emerge. Our difficulties stem from relational wounds - being neglected, mistreated or abused; living in a stifling atmosphere; living in a racist society; having to fend for ourselves; needing to please or be a caretaker to others. However, the good news is that we heal in relationship too.

I am here to work with you to support the aspects of yourself that haven’t been seen or heard, and to challenge relational patterns or habits that are no longing serving you.

“Contact” is the terminology used in Gestalt to describe how you engage and withdraw from the world and the people in it.

How you engage depends on many factors - your sense of safety in the current moment, habits and patterns you’ve learned, and what you want and need. All of this will contribute to how you engage, and will form your present experience of being alive.

You and I will look at your ways of engaging and see if they are serving you, or might be getting in the way of what you want in life. I work in an embodied way which means I will support you in getting in touch with what the sensations and feelings in your body are communicating. Similar to mindfulness practices, you and I will slow down and attend to what your experience actually feels like, here and now.

What does it feel like for you when you get anxious?

Or sad?

Or want to lash out?

Your unique ways of engaging have brought you this far and have served you, and will continue to do so. However, if you’re feeling stuck in your life, the therapy room can be a safe enough playground to experiment with new ways of engaging.

Gestalt therapy’s foundation lies in the premise that in order to move, you have to start from where you are. In therapy this can be tricky because people often don’t want to acknowledge where they are: where they are is suffering; where they are is hurting or full of rage; where they are is lonely.

Yet, without acknowledging your current experience as it is, it will continue to replay in the background, begging to be acknowledged, seen and understood. It will continue to be the boulder rolling back down the hill.

This is where therapy can help - you and I will work together to support your awareness of what it actually feels like to be you. What you might be needing and/or lacking in the moment, and in your life.

It can be scary and uncomfortable to feel into your emotions. We live in a society that doesn’t endorse that. We live in a society of grin and bear it, of pull your socks up, of don’t bring others down. Well, how long have you been grinning and bearing it?

If you’re wanting something different for your life, reach out. You don’t have to work on this on your own. I’m ready when you are.