About Gestalt Therapy
A Radical Approach to Healing
Gestalt therapy starts with a simple yet powerful idea: you can’t truly understand a person without understanding the context of their life. Who we are is shaped by our relationships, past experiences, culture, and the systems we live in. Rather than isolating a problem or a symptom like many individualistic approaches, Gestalt therapy invites us to explore the full picture of how we engage with the world—and how the world engages with us.
This relational, integrative and holistic approach recognizes that we are deeply connected to the environment around us. Together, we might look at the patterns and messages from your past, how they shaped the way you see yourself, and how they’re influencing your relationships and choices today. At the same time, we’ll examine the present—your current relationships, your body, your thoughts, emotions, beliefs and the wider systems you navigate, such as work, family, culture, faith, as well as socio-political influences. This is holistic awareness-raising is critical to empowerment and transforming ourselves as well as the socio-political conditions contributing to our distress.
Gestalt therapy invites us to become architects of our lives, learning how to influence the world around us as much as it influences us. This approach offers more than healing; it fosters transformation and helps us reclaim aspects of ourselves that may have been silenced to create a more fulfilling, authentic way of being in the world.
“The more we pathologise, the less we politicise”
Authentic change
Change happens most naturally when we embrace who we are rather than forcing ourselves to be different. In therapy, we focus on staying present and paying attention to our thoughts, feelings, and body in the here-and-now. This awareness helps us feel more connected, make intentional choices, and live a more fulfilling and genuine life. By accepting ourselves as we are, growth becomes easier and more meaningful, allowing us to deepen our relationships with ourselves and others in a way that feels natural and empowering.
Lived Experiencing
The phenomenological approach in therapy is about staying with your experience in the present moment, focusing on how you make sense of the world. With an open mind and genuine curiosity, my role is to listen deeply, valuing your voice without judgment or fitting you into predefined frameworks. This collaborative, humble stance avoids diagnosing and labelling and instead focuses on discovery, making it a decolonial and anti-oppressive approach that values your lived experience above all else.
Healing Together
The therapeutic relationship between us is at the heart of healing. Since so much of our pain happens in relationships, it’s also through relationships that we find growth and healing. As your therapist, I bring my authentic presence into our connection, creating a safe space where we can explore new ways of relating together. The space between us becomes a supportive environment where you can take risks, experiment and try out different ways of being, and discover what our work together means in the context of your wider life. This collaborative relationship can help heal past wounds and ruptures, but should also ripple out, inspiring change and deeper connection in your relationships beyond therapy.
Empowering Experiments
In Gestalt, we use the concept of the "safe emergency," which emphasises that deep healing often requires experimentation and risk-taking. However, this must be done within a supportive environment where there is a dynamic balance between support and challenge. I work collaboratively with clients to create this containing space between us, allowing for lively dialogue, creative expression and experimentation with new behaviours and perspectives. This is an experiential approach, where we do more than talk; we explore, experiment, and practice change in the moment, with each other.
ACCREDITATIONS
