Matthew Baskott
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
Hello, my name is Matthew, and I go by he/him pronouns. As a kid, I was preoccupied with mysteries and the unexplainable. I am fascinated with the myriad of creative ways we employ to make meaning out of the strangeness sitting at the heart of our experience, the stuff for which there are no words.
Therapy is a collaborative art form whereby two or more partners, each with separate perspectives and tasks, create meaning together. It is an open invitation to delve into the unknowable and redefine who we think we are.
“Personality is a way of being and behaving in a world that exists for the person who has that personality” – Georges Wollants.
We become who we are through interactions with each other and our world. Our personalities are not ours alone and can be understood as the stories we tell each other about ourselves. There is security in experiencing ourselves as stable. We could not have ongoing relationships without some order to our sense of who we are. Order and chaos are present in every moment, yet we tend to ignore the chaos because it disturbs us.
When things go array, as they inevitably will and do, we can think something is wrong with us, something that is broken and needs fixing. This ‘wrongness’ we sense may be expelled and projected elsewhere onto other people, or we can fix it as part of our personality as we try to tame the chaos by inadvertently trapping ourselves and each other in narrow definitions of selfhood.
There is another way.
What if, instead of trying to master the wrongness, we open ourselves up to it? For it is in the giving over to the wrongness, the chaos, and the trauma, which is how change comes about. In my view, it is not about healing trauma and resetting to some perfect time before but about how we can create something new from our suffering.
How do we go about this?
Well, therapy is one such way. To be in a deeply empathetic and boundaried relationship with another who commits to being present with you, someone who is importantly unfamiliar to you, opens up the possibility for you to become unfamiliar with yourself.
While this can be an unsettling process, it can be experienced as a profound opening up to new potentialities with the proper support. After all, you are so much more than personality alone permits.
Training, qualifications & experience
I am a fully qualified adult psychotherapist accredited with the UKCP. I hold a diploma and an MA in Gestalt psychotherapy, an integrative approach.
Emerging as the radical offspring of psychoanalysis, Gestalt blends Western Existentialism and Eastern Zen philosophy to present a holistic understanding of human development.
I have been working in the mental health field for a decade and can accept clients who are in significant distress. I have a background in film and theatre, and I bring my creativity to the therapeutic relationship through images, fantasy, metaphors and dreamwork.
- Psychotherapy Practitioner Diploma the Gestalt Centre 2024
- MA in Gestalt Psychotherapy
London Metropolitan University / the Gestalt Centre
2021 - Postgraduate Diploma in Gestalt Therapy London Metropolitan University / the Gestalt Centre
2020 - Postgraduate Certificate in Gestalt Therapy
London Metropolitan University / the Gestalt Centre 2019 - Certificate in Humanistic Counselling London Metropolitan University / the Gestalt Centre 2018
Member organisations
school 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.
The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) is a leading professional body for the education, training and regulation of psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors. Its register is accredited by the government's Professional Standards Authority.
As part of its commitment to protect the public, it works to improve access to psychotherapy, to support and disseminate research, to improve standards and to respond effectively to complaints against its members.
UKCP standards cover the range of different psychotherapies. Registration is obtained by training or accrediting with one of its member organisations, or by holding a European Certificate in Psychotherapy. Accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.
Accredited register membership
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.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Therapies offered
Fees
£70.00 per session
Additional information
Individual sessions are charged at £70 per 50 minute session.
Couples & Relationships are charge at £140 per 90 minute session.
When I work
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My working hours are from 11am - 8pm, Monday to Thursday.