Whatever your reasons for seeking therapy, feeling stuck, unsure, overwhelmed, or confused about the choices you have made, and where you find yourself now, I will help you open up the possibility of choice and change by exploring what patterns might be repeating, that are out of your awareness.
Therapy with me is an opportunity to process behaviours, events, thoughts and actions that puzzle you in your life and that you feel are getting in the way of living fully and flexibly.
You don’t have to wrestle alone.
Context matters. We impact and are impacted in turn by our environment (people, places, events). Unexpected events knock us sideways. Or we feel lost. Sometimes painful experiences from the past stop us from fully embracing and flexing with what’s happening in the present. Past ways of coping, which may have kept you safe, may no longer be serving you and are impacting how you show up, at home, at work, in relationships.
Gestalt Psychotherapy with Grania FitzGerald
Some of the reasons people seek therapy with me which may resonate:
Change: the breakdown of an important relationship, the fallout after a traumatic event or a change in circumstances such as leaving home, redundancy or retirement and needing support with making sense of a reconfigured world and a changed context.
Childhood emotional neglect: where and how do we get our safety or sense of belonging, how might we recognise some of the consequences of never having had a safe space?
Anxiety that gets in the way of living fully and negative thoughts or feelings that keep you stuck: Thoughts and feelings that spiral, increasing anxiety or hopelessness. Lack of meaning or purpose and loss of agency. Social anxiety, performance anxiety, anxious internal thoughts, anxiety avoidance, fear of anxiety and obsessive and compulsive patterns of behaviour or thinking.
Depression: feeling numb, disconnected and unable to access feelings, dissociating from what’s happening in challenging circumstances.
Unprocessed trauma from events in the past: A sense of not flourishing; feeling, stuck, unfulfilled, bored and restless and finding things are harder than expected or that there are resources to handle. Dwelling on past events which feel unresolved, leading to feelings of anger, anxiety, hypervigilance or depression.
Grief, mourning and loss: Loss of friends or friendships, for lives not chosen, for partners, pets, family, for ourselves and what might have been. I offer support for the sudden shock of life change and a space to mourn what was lost.
Unresolved regret and guilt: Regretting choices made or actions taken and finding it difficult to come to terms with the self you have become.
Existential questions of meaning and purpose: Needing support and safety to explore when feeling a little lost and alone with trying to work out what next, where next, with whom and how. Each stage of life brings its own questions of meaning and purpose and as we age we might begin to wonder about legacy or about courage to continue exploration, we might need to come to terms with what has been achieved and what has been left behind as well as rediscover our curiosity, excitement and agency about what might be to come.
Relationship and communication challenges: Difficulty recognising and voicing your needs to yourself and to others. Challenges with understanding repeating patterns in your relationships that no longer serve.
Self judgement and shame: An inner critic who offers you a harsh judgemental voice that gets in the way of self-support or self-compassion and contributes to feelings of low self-esteem and self-worth.
Overwhelm: Learning how to manage panic attacks and overwhelming emotions such as anger or anxiety. Managing anger, accessing anger, recognising anger and expressing anger. Exploring what unmet needs might lie behind some responses.
The non-judgemental, confidential and safe space I offer is where, together, with curiosity and empathy, we can explore what it means to be you, right now, in the life that you have.
Gestalt Psychotherapy with Grania FitzGerald
My Approach
I practice Gestalt therapy which has its underpinnings in existential philosophy, Zen Buddhism and embodiment, with a core belief that we carry within us the wisdom to know what we need to live authentically, given the right conditions and context. By staying close to your lived experience my aim is to help you explore and become aware of how you make sense of the world.
What might it mean to you to regain a sense of authorship and authenticity in your life? Sometimes support that was missing at important times of our lives needs to be grieved for or rediscovered and taken in. Or anger at what we endured or continue to endure be accessed and expressed. In other circumstances the right kind of compassionate challenge and kind curiosity can reignite a sense of wonder and possibility.
EMDR Therapy
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a standardised, eight-phase, trauma-focused therapy. It is intended to help your mind process difficult memories that still upset you. While targeting these memories you’ll follow movements with your eyes. It is an approach that is integrated into my existing psychotherapeutic practice. This means that we spend a number of sessions building trust and safety before we begin to process any disturbing memories.
How does EMDR Therapy work
Old disturbing memories can be locked into the nervous system and can get triggered over and over again which prevents integration and healing. Trauma causes an imbalance in the nervous system which creates blocks or prevents completion of information processing.
In another part of your brain you already have most of the information you need for resolution – but the two just can’t connect. EMDR helps with linking – new information can come to mind and resolve the old problems. This may be similar to what happens spontaneously in REM or dream sleep when eye movements help to process unconscious material.
Who I am and how I work
I work with individuals face to face or on zoom. We sit together and talk about what you bring or what might be most relevant at any one meeting – trusting in the process that what shows up or comes to mind in the immediate will be relevant. While being alongside you with empathy, I may share what I observe of our process of being together for our joint inquiry and curiosity. Gestalt therapy can shed light on patterns in relationships, being focused on process rather than exclusively on content. So what emerges between us as we meet will be part of what we explore together.
I believe that body and mind work together and are shaped together. Gestalt is an holistic practice and where relevant and if it appeals to you we might use more creative ways (drawing, use of metaphor, body movements) to express and explore collaboratively what is happening for you and the meaning you make.
If there is a concept of health underpinning my approach, it is about finding a way to live flexibly, responsively and authentically. Every ‘symptom’ serves or once served a purpose, the question is whether it still keeps you safe or is holding you back.
An abiding interest in how we make sense of our world and strive to be happy and fulfilled as well as a curiosity about what might sometimes stand in our way ultimately led me to train as a therapist, and so I bring my life experience as much as my formal training to what I offer
If you would like to meet to see if we might work together, please email or call me about availability and to arrange a date and time for an introductory session. Alternatively if you would like to get a brief sense of me and how I work I’m happy to offer an initial quick 15 minute phone chat or zoom prior to making any arrangements.
Having met once in an introductory session, if we then decide to work together our initial sessions will begin with exploring “why now” for therapy and what you hope to gain.
Areas I work with:
Some of the areas I work with include:
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Childhood emotional neglect
- Depression
- Existential questions of meaning
- Hypervigilance
- Lack of access to feelings
- Life stage transitions
- Loss
- Low mood
- Panic attacks
- Self-harm
- Self-esteem
- Suicidal feelings
Psychotherapy Qualifications & Training:
I am a registered member of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). I am also a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP Registered no 409220). This means that I abide by their codes of ethical practice.
I gained my MSc in Gestalt Psychotherapy as well as my Clinical Diploma in Gestalt Psychotherapy via a five year training course at the Metanoia Institute.
I have also completed the standard training in EMDR (Parts 1-4), a qualification validated by EMDR Europe. I’m a member of EMDR Association UK and Europe (Membership No. 176007).
As part of ethical practice I have a supervisor with whom I meet regularly.
A little more about me
As well as my MSc in Gestalt Psychotherapy and a Clinical Diploma in Gestalt Psychotherapy from the Metanoia Institute, I gained an Executive MSc In Organisational Change from Ashridge Business School, a BA in Philosophy from Birbeck College, University of London and a BA in Psychology from University College Dublin, Ireland.
While I originally studied Psychology and Philosophy, I have worked for years in business, starting out in book publishing and newspapers, ultimately ending up as a change and engagement consultant for large corporate transformations. So I have first-hand awareness of the challenges and stresses that often come with demanding business roles.
Prior to training at Metanoia I completed an introductory course at the Institute of Group Analysis and several courses in Gestalt Group Therapy.
I am currently training to integrate EMDR into my Gestalt practice.
I grew up in a small town in Ireland, have lived briefly in New York and Los Angeles and in London since the mid 80s.
Contact:
Rates:
My fee is £100 per 50 minute face to face session. I offer a reduced fee of £75 for an initial exploratory session.
My online fee is £75.
Sessions & Locations:
Psychotherapy sessions at City Therapy Space and Gray’s Inn Therapy Rooms:
Thursday
Directions to City Therapy Space
Directions to Gray’s Inn Therapy Rooms
Psychotherapy online availability flexible on other days of the week, including low cost spaces.
