‘Gestalt’ means ‘whole’. In my practice this translates to us working with the whole of you as a person, including your thoughts, feelings, body sensations and imagination. We will explore your experience together in a safe, non-judgement and confidential space, in a creative way, suited to your needs and preferences. For example, we may talk using metaphors, or describing images, or drawing, or using small objects to help us talk about your experience.
I believe in your capacity to use your natural inner strength in service of living a fulfilling life and I support you to trust and build on this capacity.
I believe that via supporting you to raise your awareness and honour what happens for you in the here-and-now, change can happen in your life. With this in mind, I will invite you to become curious about your experience ‘right now’. We might experiment with some new behaviours and ways of being. I may gently challenge you to notice your habitual patterns and in doing so I will bear in mind your preferences, personality, and learning style.
We can safely explore your feelings and relational patterns in our therapeutic relationship, and you may find them to be connected with how you feel with others in the 'real' world out there. I may interweave breathing exercises, mindfulness practices, as well as exercises involving gentle movement into our counselling sessions.
As part of my Gestalt work with clients, I weave into my work an approach called Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy (DSP). DSP is a theory developed by Ruella Frank at the Centre for Somatic Studies in the USA. I have trained with Helena Kallner, who trains therapists in DSP internationally, and who trained with Ruella.
DSP informs us how we are in the world from a perspective of early developmental movement patterns. These movement patterns can be seen to unfold as early as in infancy in interactions with our caregivers, or even earlier than that, in our mother’s womb in interactions with the microcosm of the womb.
In DSP, we assume that as we move into the world, we meet the world and the world meets us, and so there is an inherent relationality and reciprocity in these movement patterns.
As adults, through attuning to our bodies’ wisdom, we can learn to be curious about these patterns and notice how they shape our being in the world and in relationships. Discoveries about our bodies’ wisdom can be made during psychotherapy sessions.
Please enquire if you would like to work with me using the Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy approach.
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Photos by Kim Manley Ort