Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy is oriented around building awareness: of ourselves, of our thoughts & behaviors, of our choices, and of our physical systems that are constantly sending us invaluable data about our experiences. Through the gestalt process, clients learn to become more aware of how their own negative thought patterns and behaviors are blocking true self-awareness.

I am a Certified Gestalt Therapist and trained at the Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy 4 year Clinical Fellowship Program.

Be here now, with me, talking. Gestalt therapy draws on the power inherent in creative dialogue grounded in embodied awareness of the present moment. This style of therapeutic interaction grows out of earlier psychodynamic styles as they encounter mindfulness traditions from Asia. After training five years, I became credentialed as a certified Gestalt therapist and psychoanalyst. Before and during that, I did a lot of meditating, retreats, and ran a dharma center. Still do, still no expert.

Sometimes just talking about a problem doesn't quite get the job done. By engaging in "safe experiments" in session, Gestalt therapy helps us to release ourselves from the bondage of old emotional wounds.

In my work with gender diverse folks, I use Gestalt therapy to help you stay grounded in the present while exploring your identity. Together, we’ll focus on raising your awareness of who you are right now and breaking free from judgments that no longer serve you. Therapy is political, especially for marginalized identities, and we’ll tackle the societal pressures shaping your experience. My goal is to empower you to reclaim your identity, resist harmful norms, and embrace your personal freedom.

This therapy uses a phenomenological approach that focuses on awareness in the ‘here and now’. Gestalt therapy is very present-central, without concentrating on the past or future, allowing personal growth through insight and clarity of an individual’s needs, goals, and values. This phenomenological approach explores a person’s subjective meaning of existence in the world through the awareness of their own movements amidst their personal life experiences.

Gestalt Therapy focuses primarily on the mind-body connection & grounding yourself in the present moment. Most clients, despite their varying symptoms, are in someway disconnected from their physical body. This is a rudimentary defense mechanism we're all equipped with. When we feel negatively emotionally, we attempt to disconnect from that unpleasant sensation by escaping into our own mental world, or through some type of distracting/mind-numbing behavior.

It can help you increase your awareness of what you are experiencing (psychically and emotionally) in each moment.

With this approach, we will work together to focus on your experience in the present moment.

As a relational body-centered gestalt therapist, I believe in the power of embodied presence, creative resilience, and the application of here-and-now approaches to counseling/psychotherapy. My approach allows us to get to the heart of how your past may be living in your present and manifesting in ways that may once have been helpful but are currently maladaptive and counterproductive.

Nearly seven years of clinical experience using gestalt therapy.

I use a Gestalt therapy framework to help clients focus on the 'here and now,' bringing awareness to their present moment experience. Through this process, we explore the awareness continuum, noticing thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations as they arise. This approach fosters greater self-awareness and empowers clients to recognize patterns, deepen their understanding of themselves, and make more conscious choices in their lives.

Trained in the Laura Perls-tradition of Gestalt Therapy.

Gestalt Therapy is a psycho-dynamic, present-centered and relational approach to talk therapy. I believe that a person’s history colors how they experience the present, but that few are fully aware of this process in day-to-day life. We’ll work together to move from judgment to curiosity, so that we can notice what reactions are based on historical assumptions, or grounded in our actual, shared experience of one another in the here-and-now.

Gestalt Therapy is a counseling approach from Germany which centers around "emotional catharsis" and directing clients toward more authentic ways of being in the present moment. I love this approach because it is really great at surfacing blockages in a way that pushes clients to work through them. Without the focus on the "here and now," therapy can get lost in distant, hypothetical conversation that doesn't create the desired change brought people to therapy in the first place.