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.

Thant 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.