Carolyne Jamieson

 Offering safe and supportive individual psychotherapy, both long and short term. I work in person and online.

Why Psychotherapy?

We have a common human need to experience our lives as pleasurable, satisfying and meaningful. However, there may be times in our lives when we feel stuck or disheartened, overwhelmed or unfulfilled. Perhaps we feel dissatisfied with the quality of our relationships; our roles and responsibilities may feel burdensome to us, or events not of our choosing may threaten to engulf us. Maybe we simply want more from life than what we are currently experiencing. At such times it can be helpful to seek the support of a therapist.

What I Offer

If you are experiencing any of the following Gestalt psychotherapy can help:

• an episode of, or ongoing depression
• undue anxiety or stress
• lack of assertiveness and low self-confidence
• post traumatic stress PTSD
• the effects of sexual abuse
• relationship difficulties in your personal or professional life
• life transitions
• grief and loss
• problems with addiction
• physical symptoms with no medical cause

What Happens in Psychotherapy

In psychotherapy we work with whatever you bring to a session. The focus is on your present experience. We explore your relational world – what it is like for you to experience the people, events, situations and contexts of significance to you. You discover how your experience forms patterns through time, in response to the situations you find yourself in. Some of these patterns of relating and ways of being in the world may be outside of your awareness, and unconsciously shaping your experience. As the therapeutic process deepens your awareness and gives clarity over time, you can make healthier, workable and more satisfying choices in your life.

Problems can’t be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
– Albert Einstein

My Approach

I invite a collaborative approach to therapy. The initial session is an opportunity for us to get to know each other a little, and for you to tell me about what brings you to therapy. In this session we can evaluate together what you want from therapy and how to proceed. My role as therapist is to build a relationship with you in which you feel safe and enabled to investigate and express what is important to you. Using focused awareness we will inquire more deeply into your experience. Together we build the support necessary for you to experiment with ways of being that feel a better ‘fit’ for you. How you experience your therapy is important. What happens during the process of psychotherapy may both reflect and change how you organize your responses in everyday living. My long-term experience in body-oriented work has fostered a particular interest in working with body process – how body(s) express what is unsaid, held, or shows in body symptoms. I also bring 25 years experience as a student of various forms of mindfulness training.

We do not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
– Carl Gustav Jung

Philosophical Perspectives and Influences

Gestalt Psychotherapy is among the earliest and most enduring of ‘talking therapies’ and is humanistic and existential in approach. Thus people are seen as naturally self regulating and oriented toward growth. A person cannot be understood as separate or apart from the environment he or she inhabits. The philosophical roots of Gestalt psychotherapy are grounded in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, the dialogic approach of Martin Buber and the Field Theory of Kurt Lewin. More recent theoretical developments challenge the predominantly individualistic paradigm of Fritz Pearls (1893-1970) – the founder of Gestalt Psychotherapy. This response develops the relational and co-creational perspectives so central to Gestalt psychotherapy, and informs my practice. Perspectives from developmental theory, psychodynamics, mindfulness practice, neuroscience as well as body-oriented approaches to psychotherapy (Bodynamics) also inform how I work.

All real living is meeting.
– Martin Buber

My Background

I am New Zealand born and raised. I have lived, worked and studied for many years in the U.K. and Australia. During this time I also travelled extensively. I returned home when my children were young, to be closer to family. My working life spans social work, secondary teaching, directing and assisting in training courses (Alexander Technique and Gestalt) as well as working in private practice. I hold a Diploma in Gestalt Psychotherapy, a five year training program, from the Gestalt Institute of New Zealand. I am a fully registered psychotherapist and also a full member of The New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists. I am also a trained  Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, a body oriented trauma training originating from the work of Peter Levine.