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the bristol therapista gestalt therapist in bristol Close

Home
About Me
- Training & experience
About gestalt
Therapies
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dream a little dream of me

April 15, 20110Comments

Dream a little dream of me

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thebristoltherapist

Gestalt therapist in Bristol focusing on anxiety, depression, trauma, and ADHD support.

It's been a year of big change for me and Year of

"jade is praised as precious, but its strength is

These head sculptures are from @annabel.merrett’

Survival You can survive it, yes, but can you to

Untitled; acrylic on canvas. Creativity is very p

I’m sitting with the complexity of Father’s Da

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The Bristol Therapist

Gestalt psychotherapist, practising in Bristol, in-person & online.

The Bristol Therapist is at Bristol UK.

2 months ago

It's been a year of big change for me and Year of the Snake has offered a useful metaphor for navigating the personal impact of it; particularly the idea of shedding.Snakes shed their skin in recurring cycles of ecdysis as they grow. In gestalt terms, the snake's old skin could be seen as a fixed gestalt, all the creative adjustments one has made that no longer hold vitality. Like the snake's old skin, they are old and dry, feeling tight and restrictive around the vibrant new skin that has developed within, a new way of being restricted by what has been outgrown.The cyclical nature of this process is such that any significant development of self will mean revisiting old wounds and familiar patterns. This often feels like regression, and comes with the exclamation "why am I back here again?". The truth is, old wounds and deep patterns don't go away; they reconfigure as the self reconfigures. Their meaning changes, sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically. And every shedding opens up a window of opportunity to draw wisdom and learning as what was old and known becomes for a while new and unknown.And as essential and fruitful as this may be, it can also be painful, frustrating, and strange. So I offer this poem for anyone having a bit of a moment as you peel away a layer of your own outgrown self.I see you.#therapistsofinstagram #psychotherapy #gestalttherapy #poetry #poetsofinstagram #poetryofinstagram #writing #poetryisnotdead #YearOfTheSnake Image credit: snakeskin by April Miller (upsidedownapril, Flickr, www.flickr.com/photos/prilmill/)Shared under creative commons: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en ... See MoreSee Less

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The Bristol Therapist is at Bristol UK.

2 months ago

"jade is praised as precious,but its strength is being stone" - Lao TzuThis is from Ursula K Le Guin's rendition ("this is a rendition, not a translation") of the Tao Te Ching, the foundational work of Taoism, and comes from the 39th verse, Integrity. This is one of those verses that gets to the heart of the Tao Te Ching for me. It is a book about the Way and it's nature (Te, usually translated as virtue, and rendered by Le Guin as power). Tao is the Way, and Te is how you recognise the Way in experience.In this context, jade is a great analogy because it zeroes in on the relationship between Te and Tao. The preciousness of jade (its te) emerges from its strength as stone (its tao). This te/tao relationship is setup earlier in the verse:"Heaven through its wholeness is pure;earth through its wholeness is steady;spirit through its wholeness is potent"Pure, steady & potent are emergent effects of the wholeness of heaven, earth & spirit. Te emerges from Tao, "their wholeness makes them what they are". And without that wholeness, the emergent effect collapses, "without what makes it pure, heaven would disintegrate".For me, this speaks to the heart of gestalt, the idea of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, recognisable by its emergent properties, but ultimately an emergent effect of the wholeness of those parts. All of which speaks to me of what it means to practice therapy. In the style of Lao Tzu I might say:"Therapy through its wholeness is healing,without what makes it healing, therapy would harm"So what gives therapy the Te of healing? What is its Tao? I would say:"Therapists are praised as healers,but their skill is being there"Being there means showing up every session to do the work; it's consistency, availability, and presence. Healing in a therapeutic sense is the emergent effect of the consistent dedication to being available to another person. #therapistsofinstagram #psychotherapy #gestalttherapy #ursulakleguin #taoism #laotzu #taoteching ... See MoreSee Less

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The Bristol Therapist is at Glenside Hospital Museum.

2 months ago

These head sculptures are from @annabel.merrett’s Mood States exhibition at @glenside_museum. Dotted around Glenside’s regular mental health care collection showing the history of care in the Victorian Asylum, each sculpture gives pause to consider mood through metaphorical expression. You can also paint a model brain to express your own mental health. Though the paints were gone by the time I got there so I took a blank brain home to paint in private… which was kind of apropos on reflection!The final exhibition date is Saturday 30th August, 10am to 1pm, tickets via eventbrite. #therapistsofinstagram #mentalhealth #gestalttherapy #ArtTherapy #bristol ... See MoreSee Less

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The Bristol Therapist is at Bristol UK.

4 months ago

I’m sitting with the complexity of Father’s Day. For me, its layers include:Celebrating my relationship with my son, which is full of joy and tenderness. Father’s day makes me step back and remember how big an influence I am in his life, which can be dizzying sometimes.Familiar feelings of grief around my own father. A strange double loss; I knew about him but for complex family reasons never knew him & he died before I got the chance.Acknowledging my discomfort with father’s day being rooted in my experiences with toxic masculinity & my own gender identity. I’m kind of in the process of quiet quitting manhood, so the father label sits more uneasily than usual.Gestalt therapy is about making space to explore the layers of context that make experience meaningful. These are my most prominent layers this father’s day. I’d love to hear about yours. Let me know in the comments, or by dm if it feels too raw.#FathersDay #FathersDay2025 #TherapistsOfInsta #psychotherapy #GestaltTherapy ... See MoreSee Less

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The Bristol Therapist

6 months ago

"An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour"Viktor E. Frankl; Man's Search for MeaningI love how obvious this is!And yet this insight poses a significant challenge to therapeutic models that seek to explain present behaviour by past experiences. Systemic oppressions become personal pathologies, and the frog that notices the water getting hot gets sedated.A good way of navigating this is to emphasise context. What is the relationship between the behaviour in question (figure) and the situation it arises in (ground)? Meaning emerges from this interplay between figure and ground, and allows us to make contact with the abnormal situation.#therapy #therapistsofinsta #frankl #viktorfrankl #logotherapy #existentialtherapy #gestalttherapy #gestalttherapist #meaningmaking{image of Frankl taken from wikimedia & shared under creative commons commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Viktor_Frankl2.jpg} ... See MoreSee Less

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