Gabriel Boyer

Gabriel Boyer (he/him)

Professional Counselor Associate

MA, MEd

Supervisor: Daniel Schiff, PhD

Holistic relational therapy focused on healing at an emotional and bodily level--the heart of meaningful change.

Client Status

accepting clients

Contact

(503)4366647

1600 SE Ankeny Street

Portland, 97214

At a Glance

Me

Rate: $120-$180

Provides free initial consultation

Practicing Since: 2020

Languages: English

Services

  • Individual
  • Relationship

Insurances Accepted

  • Out of Pocket

My Ideal Client

You want a therapist who is engaged, compassionate and honest. Someone who will meet you. Someone who will be real. Someone who will value your life experiences and see your challenges as unique and meaningful. This is my practice. I focus on supporting those stuck with old trauma, grief, anxiety or sorrow. I also specialize--and especially enjoy--working with queer folk, non-monogamous people and other healers.

My Approach to Helping

Conventional therapy treats our sufferings as a disease--diagnosis, dissect, eliminate--rather than an important element of our lives. People feel anxious and depressed for good reasons: trauma, old wounds, or armor and patterns built up to avoid painful parts of our lives. Meaningful change occurs through connecting to deeper emotions and relational themes that keep coming up. This happens often by slowing down, connecting the dots between old patterns, and exploring how it exists for you in the present moment. This work requires building trust between us to create a genuinely safe, supportive therapeutic relationship, so you feel more comfortable to explore more deeply and loosen the knots keeping you stuck. This approach is deeply relationship based and processed orientated.

Techniques I Use

Specialties

  • Relational  External link

    I mix attachment theory with contemporary gestalt and relational psychoanalytic approaches. These approaches converge on the importance of relationships. These practices center on building a safe therapeutic relationship. This is a healing force itself and provides a foundation to explore more deeply, uproot core issues and create new ways to live and flourish.

  • Gestalt External link

    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.

  • Somatic Therapy (Body Centered) External link

    We are more than our words and thoughts, but a whole dynamic being with currents of sensation, impulses, and ways of moving that make up the fabric of our being. I have eclectic training in somatic therapy, primarily in contemporary Reichian therapy which explores a dual impulse (connect and resist) and aims to create fuller expressions of each. I use slow, exploration and presence from Hakomi, trauma informed tools from Somatic Experiencing, and my experiences in Yoga and Buddhist practice.

  • Psychodynamic  External link

    Relational psychoanalysis incorporates attachment theory, feminist and queer theory. Coalescing with Stephen Mitchell (ancestor to Esther Perel), healing is through a mutually collaborative exploration of the interplay between your inner process and the world you were born into. This includes your attachment history, relationship patterns, and leveraging our relationship towards your growth.

  • Depth Therapy External link

    I have a master's in depth psychotherapy for individuals, couples and families. Depth therapy is a matter of deep, engaged listening and holding aspects of life with sacredness. Different from pathologizing treads in therapy, we seek the unique support needed to courageously move towards deeper feelings in order to loosen the knots keeping you stuck. This journey connects us to our life spirit and paradoxically deepens joy and freedom.

Contact Gabriel

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