Gestalt

Gestalt therapy is a therapeutic approach that, like existential therapy, emphasizes personal responsibility and focuses upon the individual's experience in the present. The goal of Gestalt therapy is to enable the individual to become more fully and creatively alive and to become free from the barriers that lessen personal satisfaction, fulfillment, and growth. Gestalt therapy teaches clients healthy ways to cope with stressors and can help clients feel more calm and self-confident. Gestalt therapy can be an effective in treating depression, anxiety, substance abuse, PTSD and stress, among other things.

Local experts in Gestalt

Carol-Joy Brendlinger

Qualified Mental Health Professional

I have 20 years of experience working with clients as a spiritual director and bringing contemplative practices and mindfulness into sessions. Gestalt therapy is an effective theory that I work with to help clients come into the present moment and connect with movement and their bodies.

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Jonathan Joebgen

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

LCSW

Gestalt Therapy is a holistic and relational process in which change occurs through increased awareness of thoughts, feelings, and experiences as they occur. For example, I may help you notice when you talk softer while telling of a time you couldn't express yourself to a parent. This may be followed up with an experiment where you practice a new way of responding while maintaining your volume.

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Julie Osburne (she/they)

Professional Counselor Associate

M.A.

Gestalt therapy is a dynamic approach that posits that all of our traumas and histories can be found in the present moment. To access and process these experiences, we direct our attention to what we notice moment by moment in our minds, bodies, and emotions. This approach involves somatic experiencing, mindfulness, and authentic relating between the therapist and client. My graduate program focused on Gestalt therapy and I have taken a year of experiential coursework and training in Gestalt.

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Mary Bruce-Owenby (she/her)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

LGBTQIA-affirmative couples therapist

I have trained in Gestalt therapy, a strengths-based, non-pathologizing approach, for the past eight years with the Gestalt Therapy Training Center Northwest (GTTCNW). Gestalt's emphasis on the importance of being aware of and accepting your current emotions without judgement and paying attention to here-and-now experience lays the groundwork for co-regulation and interactive regulation, a process we focus on in couples work that helps partners stay attuned and connected.

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Michael Running (he/him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, MS, NCC

I have been in Gestalt Therapy training groups since 2018, including the integration of Buddhist Psychology and Gestalt Therapy, and find Gestalt to be a natural theoretical home for me. Gestalt therapy values the exploration of your present experience and curiosity around what gets in the way of engaging fully with the world.

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Jennifer Rocks, MA, MS, PsyD (she/her)

Clinical Psychologist

MA, MS, PsyD

Conceptualizing from a contemporary Gestalt orientation means that I think about an individual as self-regulating and intrinsically moving toward health. Sometimes we get stuck in this process and develop ways of being that aren't helpful. My job is to help you gain awareness and understanding of obstacles to your goals and find more satisfying ways of connecting with yourself and others.

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Gabriel Boyer (he/him)

Professional Counselor Associate

MA, MEd

Relational Gestalt Therapy is a process orientated, experiential approach, centered on your lived experience. It is practical and optimistic approach. The central question is how do you connect to yourself, to others, to your environment? What strategies did you create to adjust to the life you've had? By creating a safe space to deepen into your experience, awareness expands, core issues clarify. Space emerges for a new response, a new way to move and connect with life.

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Kendra Smith (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MA, LPC, NCC

I am naturally a curious person who likes to observe the world around me. Gestalt Therapy is a counseling approach that looks at the way people interact with their environment, which includes relationships with others. People creatively adjust to survive, and as we develop, not all strategies are effective for us. It promotes curiosity and gives clients room to experiment with ways they might shift their responses to the world around them to better represent themselves and get their needs met.

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Annie Vail (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Certified Hakomi Therapist (CHT)

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Neil Panchmatia (he/they)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MS, NCC, Licensed Professional Counselor

I have extensive training in Gestalt therapy as a therapeutic modality that has an existential-humanistic leaning.

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Jami Howell

Clinical Psychologist

Gestalt therapy helps people get in touch with and talk honestly about their unfulfilled needs. It raises awareness of the patterns people have established in their lives that can be problematic and lead to being stuck. Gestalt is a strengths-based perspective that does not reduce people only to a diagnosis or set of issues.It’s an approach that helps us expand ourselves and increases confidence

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Henry Cameron (He/Him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

I have studied for over 5 years with the Gestalt Therapy Training Center NW in Portland.

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Kevin Sadler (he/him)

Professional Counselor Associate

MA

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Eric Nielson

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

One of my primary influences is Gestalt Therapy and Gestalt Awareness Practice (a practice based in the Gestalt Therapy developed by Fritz Perls, and evolved by Richard and Christine Price). A primary tenet of Gestalt therapy is that, as we are able to come to greater awareness and acceptance of our experience in this moment, we allow the possibility of real and lasting growth and change.

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Ofelio Resendiz (He/Him/Él)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MA

I have been in Gestalt supervision, consultation, and training in Portland since 2018. I am also in post-graduate advanced clinical training at the Pacific Gestalt Institute in Los Angeles, California.

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Lucius Wheeler (He/him/his)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Gestalt is not only a type of therapy, but also a way of understanding human experience and the process of change. As a Gestalt therapist, my goal is to help you become aware of your needs, interests, and habitual patterns, and to support you to make choices that are meaningful and satisfying for you. I receive ongoing Gestalt training and supervision from multiple organizations and trainers.

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