Further Information

About Therapy

Gestalt Therapy is a Humanistic Therapy believing that it is the client who has the answers and not the therapist. The therapist will not interpret the client but will help the client to find their own solutions.

Gestalt Therapy draws on a wide range of philosophical and theoretical approaches to form an integrated framework reflecting our experience.

Its many influences include:

  • Taoism and Zen Buddhism
  • Field Theory
  • Reichian bodywork
  • Gestalt Psychology
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Holism
  • Systems Theory
  • Moreno’s Psychodrama
  • Phenomenology

The aim of Gestalt Therapy is to accurately reflect our experience of ourselves and how we relate to others and to the world. It believes that humans attempt to make meanings out of their experience helping to shape their understanding of themselves and their environment. We follow natural rhythms and cycles as with the rest of nature attending to our emerging needs as we become aware of them. When we do not bring something satisfactorily to a conclusion it can remain as unfinished business affecting or influencing our behaviour or attitude to subsequent events.

Gestalt therapy subscribes to the view that the more we try to be what we are not the more we will stay the same. The more that we are able to accept who we are the more we will be able to change. This view was first articulated by Arnold Beissner in the early 1970’s and is known as the Paradoxical Theory of Change; it has become integral to Gestalt therapy theory since this time.

A Gestalt Therapist works in a present-centred way believing that our past experiences and how they have shaped us will be available to us in the present moment. The therapist will help the client raise his or her awareness about what is happening for them not only on a cognitive level but also on an emotional and physical level.

This raising of awareness gives us an increased understanding and acceptance of ourselves and how we relate to others in turn giving us more freedom and flexibility in how we make choices and our ability to respond to events in our lives.

A Gestalt Therapist will focus on process; what is actually happening and what we can then do about it rather than what was or what could or should be happening.

One to One Therapy

I look at what is happening for you focusing on your main concerns and working with you to gain a clearer understanding of your situation. This will help you to find fresh perspectives and give you more freedom in the choices that you make. I take a holistic approach to therapy and to the person, looking at what is happening both cognitively, emotionally and physically.

Gestalt therapy is well suited to a wide range of issues and to more general issues such as lack of a sense of direction, purpose or meaning, a loss of focus or a sense that something is lacking or not quite right.

An initial session can be booked to see if this form of therapy would be suitable for you. Work can proceed on a time-limited basis (for example a contract of six sessions) which can be reviewed during the final session to see if you wish to continue. Sessions can also be booked on an ongoing open-ended basis.

Teaching

I am currently an associate lecturer on the B.A. in Humanistic Counselling at Chichester University facilitating personal development groups.

Previously been the Director of Study for Counselling for five year and have been teaching on the Bexhill College Diploma in Counselling for ten years.
I have also lectured on the Advanced Diploma in Integrative Counselling at Northbrook College in Worthing.

I have over twenty years experience teaching counselling from introductory through to professional level as well as running workshops. My background in teaching counselling is from a Humanist Integrative approach, incorporating Person-Centred Therapy, Gestalt Therapy and Transactional Analysis. Teaching both theory and the practical and experiential aspects of the subjects.

I am a great believer in personal development for its own sake and welcome enquiries from counselling and psychotherapy students.