SOMA REMEMBERING


Gestalt Therapy
A holistic, relational, creative and integrative approach to psychotherapy - 1 to 1 & groups
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The German word ‘gestalt’ translates to ‘figure’, ‘pattern’, or ‘constellation’; to consider something in its wholeness. Gestalt therapy is a phenomenological-existential therapy founded by Fritz and Laura Perls in the 1940s. Fundamentally, the sole ‘goal’ in Gestalt therapy is growing awareness. We bring attention directly to what is perceived and felt in the present moment over explanations and interpretations. We focus on process and supporting a growing awareness of what we are doing, how we are doing it, how that can alchemise change, cultivate insight, growing capacity and a learning to take responsibility and to build our muscle for being more response-able in the world; to risk ourselves to live more fully, as we are, with others, and in relation. The four cornerstones of Gestalt therapy are Awareness, Here and Now, Contact, and Responsibility. Gestalt therapy’s integrative approach has its roots in psychoanalysis, holism, Gestalt psychology, psychodrama, field theory, phenomenology, existentialism, bodywork, and Eastern philosophy. There is an appreciation and sensitivity to the vast field of one’s history, including the transgenerational, and one's life experiences in the context of exploring the ‘Now’ together; the body-mind landscape, particularly in direct relation, in contact, as therapist and client, is where we place our attention. As a neurodivergent artist myself, with a love of nature and the outdoors, my approach to Gestalt is sensitive and creative, co-created, integrative, inclusive and nurturing. I draw on my work with voice, with theatre, with music, with dance, with shamanism, bodywork and Somatic Experiencing® in sessions and with groups. The dialogical relational emphasis in Gestalt is earthed in what it is to embody and step whole-heartedly into one’s life, and into one’s interconnectedness to everything and all living beings; to embody our physical existence, with each other, in a multidimensional world. There is space to experiment in Gestalt to find creative ways to come into contact together and with what is alive, seeking expression and witnessing. To meet in dialogue is to hone in on the art of listening together; ‘listening to the music’ as my teacher would say. Contact potentiates healing. “In the beginning is relation”~ Martin Buber I am currently in my third year- (of a four year training programme)- in Gestalt Psychotherapy with the Gestalt Institute of Scandinavia (GIS) in Denmark.