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MA Gestalt Psychotherapy MBACP Psychoth. Counsell Supervisor
Limited availability
Limited availability

This professional is accepting new clients but may have a waitlist. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.

Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV31 1DT
Limited availability
Limited availability

This professional is accepting new clients but may have a waitlist. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.

About me

With 34 years experience, speaking two languages, and as supervisor, clients come to me with issues such as health, relationship issues, family issues, bereavement, sadness, depression, panics, anxiety, abuse, psychosomatic symptoms, stress, loss, anger, trauma,  cultural issues, fertility issues, work related issues, personal development,  with the potential for life changing results.

The location of my practice is close to the centre of Leamington Spa in a quiet street with ample free parking and within easy reach of main roads, bus stops and railway station.

My core training and practice is gestalt therapy - see below - which is a humanistic therapy. Other training and learning influences have become integrated in my work.
I work with individuals and from time to time I run groups.

You may be seeking counselling or therapy when you are:

- uncertain of your direction and purpose in life
- feeling depressed
- feeling isolated and unable to make meaningful relationships
- adjusting to economic changes

- troubled by environmental issues
- experiencing loss
- making a big life transition
- having difficulties in your current relationship
- affected in the present by past trauma
- suffering from (a) medically unexplained symptom(s)
- struggling with the effects of a health diagnosis
- recovering from addiction
- a student in therapy, counselling or life coaching
- interested in Gestalt for your personal development

Together you and I explore what is going on.
I work with your unique interests and concerns towards lasting changes.

For me, psychotherapy is a process of collaboration between client and therapist. My aim is to be with you, to listen and to explore how best to be of help. I offer you a safe place to speak and to express yourself freely, where you will be met with respect and sensitivity.


I OFFER

short term psychotherapy

culture sensitive and body-oriented psychotherapy

counselling

authentic movement

supervision
to counsellors; therapists; coaches; students in therapy, counselling and coaching; teachers; social workers and others working in the helping professions.

day time.

Are you interested? Then read on to get a sense of me and how I work. You can also visit my website www.psychotherapyleamingtonspa.co.uk or give me a ring to speak directly. I am happy to tell you more or go into anything you are unsure of.

ABOUT COUNSELLING AND THERAPY. You may feel that you are blocked in some aspect of yourself which reflects in difficulties in your relationships to others and/or yourself or with the world around you. In sessions, you and I explore together what is going on with you, at your pace, supporting you and bringing about greater awareness of what is happening. Together we work on resolving conflict and having more choices. My experience is that people can take the risks of profound personal change when they feel well supported in this way.

I practice gestalt therapy. My experiences of 35 years gestalt therapy mean that I live and breathe gestalt principles. I am passionate about it because gestalt works with the whole person - with feelings, body, intelligence, energy, emotions, imagination, creativity, spirituality, dreams - towards a more integrated self. Whilst using this holistic approach, I see people discover and develop a better sense of themselves and more awareness of options and choices in the way they live their lives.

Gestalt considers three manifestations: the person, his or her environment or context and the relationship between them.

One of gestalt's strengths is working with the body. I tune into what the body tells us and work with what emerges; I am interested in exploring the psychological and spiritual issues beneath somatic symptoms.
My passion is to assist you to reach the better sense of well-being that you are looking for by being there for you during sessions and working together in ways that enhance such well-being.


An Illustration of Relational Body Psychotherapy


Uncovering Anger. Here I describe therapeutic work through body communication, using an example from my practice, to illustrate the benefits of relational body psychotherapy. I have altered details to protect the client’s identity and confidentiality.

Relevant concepts of empathy, relational knowledge, anger, trust, expression and consolidation are interwoven into the story of this therapy session.

As psychotherapist, to become more aware what is communicated to me via the body and how and what we communicate with the body is vital and central to relationships.

The client, I will call him Tom (not his real name), has been in therapy for approximately one year. Today Tom and I agree to work with what his body and my body are communicating.

Tom sits in a chair at an angle and at some distance from me. I check how I feel about the distance between him and me and ask him to do the same. He wants to move and sit opposite me and a bit closer. I agree to this. He and I spend some time checking and moving, until each of us are comfortable within ourselves and in relation to each other with where he and I are sitting. Tom now sits almost opposite me, with some distance between him and me.
He tells me that he is aware that he does not know where this is going and that he trusts that I will draw from my knowledge. He and I sit together in a place of not knowing, knowing, trusting, shyness, for a while.
I notice my head has dropped forwards. I tell Tom that I notice this and that I am going to exaggerate this movement. As I do so, I become aware that my whole body wants to curl up and I do this. I ask Tom how it is for him to see me sitting like this. He says he identifies with this posture. I unfold and invite him to sit in the way I was. He does this easily and says immediately that this is a very familiar posture for him. His head is bent forward and he brushes his long hair across his face.
Now I am sitting with a body who, what looks and feels like, has ‘barricaded’ himself in and this has a powerful effect on me. At first, to me he looks as though I am meant not to notice him. Yet, this posture is very powerful to me.
I ask Tom how he is. He says he feels transported back in time and feels he is about five years old. Then he tells me that he is angry and he is not allowed to be angry by his parents. If he shows his anger he is told he is stroppy. He has been sent to the utility room, alone, for being angry. There, he feel isolated, alone, shut out, rejected and still angry.
Tom is talking to me from behind his long hair in his scrunched up position. I am glad he is able to stay in contact with me despite his barricaded posture. He and I explore further how he feels in this position. ‘No one can get to me now. And I’m still angry’

I ask Tom if there is anything he needs. ‘Yes’, he says, ‘I need to know that I have a right to be angry’. I want to respect Tom and his feelings and say that he is entitled to his anger. I ask if he can imagine himself being angry, what he looks like when he is angry and what he would like to do.

He imagines himself shouting and stamping his feet. I say “would you like to stamp your feet now?” He gently begins to move his feet up and down. I invite him to do it more, and more, and more. He vigorously stamps for a while and then stops. I wonder what is happening. He says his anger has subsided. My invitation to stamp more has ‘diffused’ his anger, Tom says. I ask if he is ready to sit up and look at me. When Tom sits up and brushes his hair from his face, I notice how lively and open he looks. I smile welcomingly to him.

Together, he and I further explore harsh treatments he experienced in childhood, how he came to feel ‘imperfect’, ‘invisible’ and ashamed. I also enquire how he expresses his anger now, as an adult.

Tom says today’s work has been very deep and he feels good about himself.

This work has emerged from paying very close attention to the body, to movements, memories, and feelings, moment by moment.

When I next meet Tom, he tells me the work had a very powerful effect, for hours afterwards. He felt his five year old younger self was sitting next to him in the car, as he drove away from the session. They talked. They went to Tom’s father’s house, his childhood home, where the incidents had taken place. Tom wanted to lay a place for little Tom on the table, for tea. He  kept this to himself so as not to disturb his father. Tom was aware he was parenting small Tom, acknowledging him, noticing him, caring for him and kept on doing so for the duration of the visit to his father.

Listening to Tom’s post-session experiences gave me the sense that Tom was reconciling and consolidating parts of himself. I offered these possibilities to him. He agreed something ‘strong’ had happened and that he was in good shape.

Tom has agreed to me publishing this material, knowing that his identity is kept safe and confidential.

Training, qualifications & experience

I have benefited from extensive, intense psychotherapy training programmes with ground breaking trainers from Europe and America. The programmes include:

Training and Courses:  

Bi- monthly Advanced Personal Development and Supervision Group 2019     onwards

* A Study in Trauma and Somatic Memory with Dr. Janina Fisher  2020        *Creative Writing, 2016
*Professional Gestalt Psychotherapy Continuing Training and Development 
  Course,
2006-2008;
*Supervision Practitioner Training at the Gestalt Centre London, 2004-2005;
*MA Cert Gestalt Psychotherapy at the Gestalt Centre London/London 
  Metropolitan University, 1997-1999;
*Assistant on Gestalt Training Programme in The Netherlands, 1993
*Cert Education in Gestalt Psychotherapy, 1987 -1991;
*CQSW, 1982-1984;
*Higher Vocational Training in Child Care and Pedagogy, 1975-1977 (in the 
  Netherlands)

Workshops and seminars:

  • *Perceiving and Understanding Enactment 2019
  • *Bibliotherapy/Creative Writing 2019
  • *Developing Embodied Awareness in the Psychotherapeutic Relationship 2019
  • *Family Constellations (Austria) 2017
    *Relational Living Body Psychotherapy, 2012
    *Butoh - movement and dance expression, 2010-2011
    *Exploring the Mind in the Body, University of Hertfordshire, 2010
    *Exploring the Relational Space - Professional Gestalt Psychotherapy Continuing 
      Training and  Development Course, 2010             
    *The Shadow – Conference on ‘Art and Psychotherapy’, 2007
    *A Gestalt Style in Movement/Dance, 2005
    *Sibling Relationships – The theatre as symbolic space – looking at sibling 
      relationships in drama, 2004
    *Family Constellation Work, 1996
    *Race and Diversity, 1996
    *Working with Couples, 1993

Ongoing learning and interests:

* Member of Oxford Advanced Supervision and Personal Development       Group with Michael      Soth and seven highly qualified, experienced       therapists (since 2019)

* Authentic Movement (since 2005)
* Advaita Vedanta and Non-Duality
* Buddhism
* Embodied Psychotherapy
* Meditation
* Mindfulness

Besides working in private practice, I have worked in different settings such as a Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy, a Groupwork Practice, three universities - as trainer on a counselling course and counsellor in counselling departments,.

I am accredited and registered with BACP and UKRCP.

My background is in a wide range of social work - mental health, child protection, adoption, fostering, elderly, residential care, family work, cultural issues (19 years). I am committed to ongoing training and personal development through reading, discussions and explorations with other practitioners, supervision and courses .

Member organisations

Registered / Accredited

Registered / Accredited

Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.

BACP
British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP)

BACP is one of the UK’s leading professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy with around 60,000 members. The Association has several different categories of membership, including Student Member, Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP, Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Accred) and Senior Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Snr Acccred).

Registered and accredited members are listed on the BACP Register, which shows that they have demonstrated BACP’s recommended standards for training, proficiency and ethical practice. The BACP Register was the first register of psychological therapists to be accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).

Accredited and senior accredited membership are voluntary categories for members who choose to undertake a rigorous application and assessment process to demonstrate additional standards around practice, training and supervision.

Individual members will have completed an appropriate counselling or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but they won’t appear on the BACP Register until they've demonstrated that they meet the standards for registration. Student members are still in the process of completing their training.

All members are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework and a Professional Conduct Procedure.

Accredited register membership

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
Accredited Register Scheme

The Accredited Register Scheme was set up in 2013 by the Department of Health (DoH) as a way to recognise organisations that hold voluntary registers which meet certain standards. These standards are set by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).

This therapist has indicated that they belong to an Accredited Register.

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy

Other areas of counselling I deal with

I am interested in working with creative and artistic people; university staff, students, and with people who have cultural and health related issues.

Fees

Health Insurance/EAP

  • BUPA

Additional information

The fee is £65.

Sessions last 50 minutes.

When I work

Currently I have no vacancy for a new client.

Further information

-   I am part of Bupa's Mental Health and Wellbeing Therapist Network.

Beaconsfield Street, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV31 1DT

Type of session

In person
Online
Phone

Types of client

Young people
Adults

Key details

DBS check

In England and Wales, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS, formerly known as CRB) carry out criminal records checks for individuals working with vulnerable groups, such as children. To find out more, visit gov.uk , or contact this professional directly

Additional languages

Dutch

Online platforms

Skype

Supervision

In person

I am a qualified and experienced supervisor, trained at the Gestalt Centre London and have supervised practioners' work since 1997.

View supervision profile

Hansje te Velde
Hansje te Velde