Why Gestalt? My Story. And how it works. 

My story

I had suffered enough by directing this violence to myself with bulimia, negative self-talk & accepting abusive relating. I had no idea how to be part of healthy loving relationships. 

I knew I needed some healing through support, love & acceptance for my true self to show up.

While I was trying to find support in private psychotherapy for a few years, it wasn’t until I started my Gestalt training that I could feel safe, recognized & respected.

 It took me several years of feeling depressed, angry and worthless before I discovered my beloved Gestalt teachers & therapist (Bud Feder) who helped me to understand what was happening to me, and then to transform my life and create a new lifestyle of my choice by 

1) recognizing my feelings & being honest with myself fully

2) setting my boundaries & realizing my value in this life

3) realizing my needs & desires 

4) daring to express & cover my needs & desires respecting others

5) lead a life of peace, love, respect & excitement

6) appreciate the gift of life & align with my life purpose

The healing catalyst of Gestalt therapy is the combination of being present in every moment of our lives with accepting ourselves without judgment & interpretation. This point of view changed my life! Magic happens when we accept what is as it is & from that honest starting point we clarify where we want to go! 

Let’s start today to live our own life, purpose, energy, and values – here and now, together!

In my private and group sessions, I combine Gestalt therapy as taught by the Gestalt Institutes of San Francisco, New York, Japan, Paris (EPG), Vienna, Barcelona, and Gestalt Awareness Practice (G.A.P.) as taught by Tribal Ground.

This combination allows me to be your therapist & help you heal your traumas & reclaim new satisfying ways of living and also to help you cultivate your awareness as an everyday practice.

I want you to learn how to balance yourself in every moment on your own and not develop a dependency on the “therapy hour session”.

I want to empower you to the extent that you establish your everyday awareness practice & you come to our sessions for deepening your awareness & healing your wounds with my support.

We need each other to be seen, and we need to be able to support ourselves when we will be on our own.

Both aspects are part of life & we need both; self-support & support from someone we trust. 

Being self-aware & present to oneself is much more than therapy, it is a way of life.

Also, I am a Clinical Sexologist (MA) and I practice what I call Critical Sexology that fits perfectly with my Gestalt practice since we cannot solve our sexual & emotional problems if we don’t take the environment that creates & supports them into consideration.

The truth is that whatever the problems we focus on, our emotional & sexual awareness is crucial for a balanced way of life. 

Check out Healing Our Sexuality from Patriarchy 

What happens in a private session?

During private sessions, we work on the issues that come up first as a need to be processed here and now. The issues can be related to any part of your life. Sexology is part of my therapy practice since our sexuality is part of who we are every moment.

I will be totally present with you, giving you my support, acceptance, understanding & respect for your experience.

The main practices I use are, cultivating your awareness on the three levels of awareness (mind, body, environment) on here and now, giving honest feedback, mirroring phrases and movements, clarifying what happens based on the phenomenology, cultivating the accurate use of language in self-expression, exploring your self-awareness as it exists till now and exploring new expansions of awareness and practice.

You can ask for a session for a single issue (single or a couple of sessions), for a short-term therapeutic relationship (few months), or a longer one (one or more years).

Also, I offer couples sessions, family & team sessions.  When any of your team suffers I can support you.

Why choose Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy helps the clients to focus on the present and understand what is really happening in their lives right now, rather than what they may consider that happens based on the old patterns that repeat or seem to repeat themselves.

Healing can go deep and last longer since Instead of simply talking about past situations, we encourage clients to experience them through various practices of re-enactment.

Through the Gestalt process, clients become more aware of how they contribute to their unhappiness by their own negative thought patterns and behaviors that block true self-awareness.

A major focus is to help clients become aware of what they are doing, how they are doing it, and how they can change themselves, and at the same time, to learn to accept and value themselves. This combination gives longlasting results.

It focuses more on the process of how one experiences something than the content of what one says about it. Of course, the content may be used as examples of one’s process.As a result, what is directly perceived, felt, and experienced is considered more relevant than explanations and interpretations.

What is Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy is a process-oriented model of therapy that focuses attention on the healthy, integrated functioning of the total organism comprised of the senses, the body, the emotions, and the intellect.

It was originally developed by Frederick (Fritz) and Laura Perls in the 1940s and has at its base principles from psychoanalytic theory, Gestalt psychology, various humanistic theories, as well as aspects of phenomenology, existentialism, and Reichian body therapy.

From these sources, and some others, a large body of theoretical concepts, principles & practices have evolved to what the practice of Gestalt therapy is.