Gestalt Birmingham

Counselling & Psychotherapy Supervision and Training

IN BIRMINGHAM CITY CENTRE, KINGS HEATH AND ONLINE

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About

Gestalt Therapy

Interconnectedness

Honest & Non-Hierarchical

Life Changing

Creative, Explorative, Compassionate

Gestalt Therapy a successful and well-evidenced humanistic and holistic approach to human living that developed in the mid 20th Century. Used within the NHS and with a large presence internationally, it takes the form of a respectful and graded engagement between client and therapist to sustain working at depth and developing the relational connection that is the basis of healing and development, growth and change.

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How Gestalt Makes A Difference

Gestalt therapy is a powerful process approach to transforming the unfinished issues of the past, acknowledging losses and supporting living in the present with resourcefulness and resilience.

Providing a highly confidential situation in which you can speak and be heard safely and clearly

Establishing a healing relationship, a supportive and growthful experience based in the theories of human development, neuroscience and the wisdom of Buddhism

Paying close attention to your life situations, past and present, and the conditions that have co-created your reality; we work to support more choice-ful living in the here and now

Raising awareness around the meaning-making process and supporting understanding of how meanings of life events are made and can be re-made

Working holistically with your mind-body unity, we work to access somatic (body) process to support feeling whole, undoing ‘splits’ and emerging into the vitality and peace that follows a stronger whole-person integration.

When Gestalt can help

Gestalt Therapy is effective both at times of crisis and when it’s become apparent that old patterns and habits are hampering living with satisfaction in the present.

Major Life Changes

Bereavement, moving home, illness, becoming a parent, starting a new job.

Ongoing Problems

Compulsive or addictive behaviour, depression, stress, panic attacks, anxiety, relationship problems, fertility issues, discrimination, sexual issues/sexuality.

Past Experiences

Coming to terms with childhood events, trauma, abuse, abandonment.

Core Issues

Issues of identity, belonging, diversity, meaning of life.

Training

For psychotherapy and counselling trainees, needing ongoing therapy as a part of their training requirements.

About Gestalt Supervision

Our approach

Our supervision approach is broadly similar having both been trained with the same organisation, CSTD. We bring experience in the voluntary and public sector, from education settings, NHS Primary Care, the University sector and from our personal journeys in life.

Whilst you may have a preference as to who you work with, and we do have our own individual styles, we frequently refer people requesting supervision to each other based on our availability and specific experience.

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Methodology

We find it important and useful to employ the ‘7-eyed model’ (Hawkins and Shohet ,2004) which is compatible with Gestalt theory and humanistic approaches. This supports a process approach to exploring the co-created relational fields of the client, therapist and supervisor as well as the work context.

This is a process model of supervision which enables a shift in focus as and when necessary in the awareness-raising activity which, for us, is at the heart of supervision. This approach allows for curiosity and builds trust in the working relationship between supervisee and supervisor.

We seek to ground interventions in our embodied experience and support supervisees in doing the same. Our experiences of meditation and mindfulness teaching are further supports for catching the inner experience as we work

We like to work creatively with, for example using metaphors, images or creative materials to help model some aspect of the therapeutic work being considered.

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Supervision with Trainees

We encourage appropriate openness and vulnerability by being transparent to our own process and by building a working alliance with supervisees, encouraging him or her to voice their experience in the relationship. Our experience is that in this way, over time, trainee supervisees learn to trust their own phenomenology, experience less shame and bring their experience forward with curiosity.

The support aspect of supervision often needs to be figural, but we also encourage trainee supervisees to use their personal therapy where this is necessary. We listen to recordings, suggest appropriate reading and support academic assignments as necessary.

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Collaborative Support Strategy

We negotiate links to tutors as part of our support strategy and collaborate with the training Institute as necessary including attending occasional meetings, completing the required paperwork and managing any serious concerns about a trainee in as transparent a manner as possible.

Risk Assessment Support

We consider it very important to support trainees in making a thorough risk assessment of those with whom they seek to work, with contracting and the building of therapeutic alliances and with the integration of theory into practice.

Contextual Work Exploration

We help the trainee value contextualising the work by exploring the field conditions that apply and linking these to what is going on in the client/therapist and therapist/supervisor relationships.

Identifying Growth Areas

We find that helping trainees to identify their growing edges aids them in knowing where to focus, in finding out what they need to research about their practice and in taking more clinical responsibility for their own work.

Supportive Intervention Guidance

Trainees often need help slowing down their interventions and in not trying to ‘fix’ an aspect of the client’s presentation, and we believe that being grounded in a supportive supervisory relationship is the key to this.

Workshops & Training

TBC

Get in touch

All enquires are usually answered within 24 hours, and all contact is strictly confidential and uses secure phone and email services.

Contact

Rod London

Based in central Kings Heath (B14).

Offering in-person, outdoor and online therapy.

Contact

Chris O' Malley

Based in Digbeth (B9) or B14 for supervisees.

Offering in-person and online therapy.

Contact

Matthew Lee

Based in Digbeth Court (B12).

Offering in-person and online therapy.

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