gestalt therapist, lecturer, supervisor

Why therapy at all?

Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, things around us really don’t seem to work.

We seem not to work anymore.

We don’t fit in. Have we ever?

Whether it be stress in your workplace or frustration into your relationships, seek help before it all turns into despair and isolation.

Start a healing journey that will help you to overcome your doubts and hesitations.  

Seek help, for while alone you might do OK, with a professional unconditionally by your side, it is much easier and quicker.

What I can offer is

A safe space, confidential and protected, where you’ll feel heard and welcome. Where you can explore issues and feelings, and no matter how complex or how deep rooted they seem to be, you will end up in a place of clarity.

We will explore together all the possible blocks and blind spots that are holding you back from living your life to its fullest potential.

“Smettere la corsa. Restare dove si cade, unire le mani. Non fingere più. Guida tu”

Stop running. Staying where you fall, put your hands together.

Stop pretending. You lead.

 Mariangela Gualtieri

About me

I am a fully qualified Gestalt Integrative Counsellor and Psycho-Pedagogic Body Movement Therapist (a method that gives great importance to the body-somatic experience in order to achieve a greater awareness), a registered member of the BACP and accredited with the CNCP (National Council for Professional Counsellors).

In addition, I have specialist trainings in Attachment and Trauma focused therapy, Interpersonal neurobiology and in AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) a new psychodynamic approach which recognises how positive transformational moments in therapy can lead to profound change in remarkably short lengths of time.

More recently I have developed an interest in and undertaken further training in IFS (Internal family System).

I have experience in working with the NHS England, charities and schools, and with clients from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, ages, ethnicities and sexual orientations, and I believe deeply in the impact and importance of acknowledging culture and ethnicity on everyone’s wellbeing.

Alongside my private practice I lecture part-time on the Diploma in Integrative Counselling and the Foundation certificate in Counselling at The Awareness Centre, southwest London.

I am also a visiting professor at the University of Genoa, Italy, at the Faculty of Electronic and IT Engineering, where I teach emotional intelligence and the importance of failing in life.

Welcome to my practice

I am warm, easy to talk to and an empathic counsellor who takes care to establish an authentic and trusting relationship with my clients from day one.

I believe everyone’s experience is unique and important and I will provide you with a safe space and a sense of being held and understood, so that you become increasingly able to explore your difficult feelings and any possible burdens and can finally make sense of any emotional suffering you are experiencing.

Totally committed to you, my clients, I strive for your growth and empowerment, and to bring about long-lasting improvements to your well-being.

As a Gestalt Therapist I incorporate into my work elements of Mindfulness and breathing techniques to find the ways of regulating anxiety which work best for you.

In my practice I draw on Attachment-based approaches and on the latest research in the field of neuroscience, that means I am able to help you understand yourself from many different perspectives including looking at your patterns of attachment to important people in your past and present life, and what neuroscience and the field of interpersonal neurobiology is able to tell us about how our brains are wired for both survival and relationships.

I support clients in long-term open-ended practice and in short-term time-limited therapy, and have considerable experience helping clients dealing with depression, low mood, sense of loss, family or relationship problems, anxiety, sex, gender and sexuality issues, self-harm, concerns around work and career, self-esteem and self-worth issues.

With a background in education, acting and marketing & PR, I can easily relate to issues with the creative professions such as managing stress and self-worth.

I also offer supervision to trainees as well as experienced therapists, following mainly the seven-eyes model and believing in a collaborative, equalising space to foster professional and personal growth..

Education and Training

• BA, University of Genoa, Italy, magna cum laude, 1999

• Master in Gestalt Integrative Counselling, Gestalt Centre, Genoa, Italy, 2010

• Diploma in Psycho-Pedagogy of Drama & Movement. Teatro dell’Ortica/Ministero della Salute, Genoa, Italy, 2010

• Advanced Training in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), 2015, London

• Advanced Training in Attachment-based family therapy (ABFT), dr. Guy Diamond, London, London 2018

• Certified in Attachment and Trauma Therapy, London, 2017

• Advancement training in treating dissociative disorders, with dr. Kathy Steele MN, London, 2018

• Interpersonal Neurobiology, How Make Psychotherapy work, with Dr. Daniel Siegel, London, 2018

• Certified in Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT), ICEEFT

• Advanced training in Gestalt Therapy from a field-emergent perspective, with Dr. Dan Bloom, New York Gestalt Institute

• Certified in Internal Family System, PESI education, London, NY 2023/2024

To this I will add my plan on how to start our journey together.

But what this call is really about is to see if we click.

Regardless of technicalities and different psychological approaches, a healing journey might be a long one.

 And to go through such a deeply intimate journey with the wrong therapist might not only be difficult but really counterproductive.

So it is important we do get an impression of each other before we commit. 

If we decide to work together

Our initial meeting would be an assessment, and sessions usually take place weekly at a mutually agreed time. Monday to Thursday, daytime or evening.

The session lasts up to 45 min (Gestalt intervention might be very intense, not suitable for long sessions), and costs might range from 85£ to 125£ (some concessions available).

I also run a scheme based on your income, few slots available a year, no questions asked you pay what you can.

To make an initial appointment or ask any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Confidentiality will apply from these first contacts.

Telephone- 07435142633
email - patrizia@patriziavadala.co.uk
I practice in Twickenham,  Clapham and online.

Supervision

I offer supervision to either trainee (concessions are applied) and qualified counsellors or therapist.

The model I lean on and found so far being very solid, is the Seven-eyed model of supervision.

My approach is Integrative Gestaltic, but in the many years of practice also enriched with other therapeutic approaches, I can say that my supervision is too, integrative inspired.

Besides, exactly as in the seven-eyes model, all is explored in a relational and systemic way.

I have a very collaborative and equalising style, where I respect the supervisee’s sense of their client and the owning of their intervention, at the same time providing a safe, holding space for you and your caseload.

 Fee is 85£ for a 45 min session, 120£ for 1.5 h/month (according to last BACP requirements).

I abide to BACP ethical requirements.

I did not choose Gestalt therapy, rather the contrary.

After a major life crisis, when I was feeling a total failure, I bumped into a “Centre”, open and inclusive, where a guided relaxation was held weekly, no question asked, you could crush on those padded floors in an ancient building in the historical centre of Genoa, my hometown.

 I was benefitting from Mindfulness, since the very first session, and I did not even know what that was.

 That is the very (very) naïve start of what would have become my transformational life journey.

That centre was a school, of Gestalt psychotherapy and the teachers and founders were lead characters in the development of counselling in Italy.

 I graduated as a Gestalt Integrative Therapist in 2012 and in the same year as a Psychopedagogic -Drama therapist.

Already before my graduation, I felt strongly that the body was the leader, the temple, the keeper of many wise answers I was looking for, in my 40 years on this planet. And I started to research and to experience drama courses and body movement experiences.

From that research I met a number of theatre professionals, from different line of drama approach (existential, avant-garde, social and classical), from whom I drew as many tools as possible to access the body and foremost the emotions in the body.

 From these wonderful, at time discomforting but still enriching experiences, my drama-counselling course was born: at and for the Gestalt Centre, I run very successfully for 3 years a course that was putting together the counselling principle of personal development in a compassionate, non-judgemental way, with the Gestalt approach of placing the body, the emotions, and the experiential quality of it, at the very foreground. The tecniques applied were directly borrowed by the training of the professional actor.

I named it “fall in love with yourself” (Italians speak always of love!) a journey to discover your inner self-awareness”.

 From that invaluable experience, my very first courses, I learnt a lot, especially from my students, who attended with enthusiasm and commitment, generously accessing their utter vulnerability.

Still today I carry all of them in my heart with a great sense of gratitude.

Fees and contracts

I am happy to offer an initial consultation/ chat on the phone or preferably on Zoom; it will be important for the both of us, so that we have a “sense” of each other, and you will have the opportunity to explain what your main needs and problems are.

I will explain how I work, how exactly my therapeutic approach translates in the therapy session, what other theories I might use or infer in my work, and what can be expected from therapy. For example, we will certainly want a weekly meeting if we want to have the benefit of the therapy from the very beginning.

Today, I run similar courses, shorter, and more focused on “smaller” goals:

1 - Self-awareness, how to access, 5 sessions £120

2 - My body, my bestfriend, 5 sessions

3 - My voice, my compassion

4 - Body awareness, mine.

5 - Body awareness, others’.

Both online and in presence.

Please enquiry

Once a month, I run a group therapy session, mainly GT approach.

Please enquiry.