Catherine Gilberd

Developing inner and outer wellbeing is a journey unique to each of us. Psychotherapy can assist by supporting you to become more present in your life, and attending to what is seeking to emerge at deeper levels of being. Finding out what really matters to you in life helps to get a clearer perspective and to create change.

Who is Counselling and Psychotherapy for?

Anyone who has an interest in their own wellbeing, increasing self awareness and is seeking a richer engagement with life.

If you are experiencing:

• a search for self direction, meaning and purpose
• a sense of emptiness
• desire for more connection with yourself and others
• feeling anxious and/or depressed
• inability to change old patterns of behaviour
• dissatisfaction with work
• loss and grief
• problems with relationships

My Approach

Endeavouring to provide a still and receptive environment, I encourage you to actively make choices for yourself. Our focus of attention will include developing awareness of what is occurring in body, feelings, mind and spirit, recognizing that they are distinct and connected. Through the therapeutic process I will seek to meet you where you are rather than introduce set methods. Taking time to listen to what it is that you bring to therapy and exploring hopes, fears and aspirations.

My formal accredited psychotherapy training is in an approach called Psychosynthesis which was developed by Dr Roberto Assagioli (1888 – 1974), who practiced as a psychiatrist in Florence, Italy. Assagioli took into account both western ‘depth’ psychology and eastern ‘height’ psychology. He emphasised that love, wisdom, creativity and will are all vital aspects of the human being. A basic premise of Psychosynthesis is that we all have a natural tendency towards evolution, unfolding and wholeness. For more about Psychosynthesis see www.psychosynthesis.co.nz

About Catherine

Experience:
Having been in private practice since 1998, I combined this with working for a district health board for 9 years within a Community Mental Health team. My original training and practice was in social work, and I have worked both in Aotearoa New Zealand and Britain with children and families. For a period of time I worked as a Manager of a community based child and family service. Other roles have included being Convenor of the NZ Association of Psychotherapists Wellington Branch for 3 years and Associate Staff Member of the Institute of Psychosynthesis NZ for over 10 years. I work in private practice alongside others within a small suite of offices in Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt.

Additional Training:
Whilst living and working in Britain I undertook a Gestalt based training in London. This training developed my ability work with a range of creative mediums including sandtray, drawing and painting, the imagination and dreams. Additional training undertaken includes Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), originated by Jon Kabat Zinn, as well as many mindfulness based retreats, which I continue to attend. I completed training in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), formulated by Marsha Linehan, and worked from this approach for many years within a public health setting, as well as a range of trainings and workshops in providing supervision.

Supervision

Supervision fulfils ongoing professional membership requirements and is an opportunity to reflect on practice with clients and within organisational contexts. In supervision we form an agreement as to how we will focus our work together. Generally this includes attending to the client-practitioner relationship, professional development, ethical dilemmas and self care needs. I describe the supervision I offer as “relational supervision”. I primarily offer clinical supervision to Psychotherapists, with limited spaces for professional consultation to other disciplines. For supervisees working with clients psychodynamically, there is a focus on what is happening in therapeutic relationships transferentially and at an unconscious level.

As practitioners in Aotearoa New Zealand we are working within a bicultural nation and a multicultural society, and therefore need to attend to how our ways of being interface with each other. We can explore this within supervision in relation to professional ethical codes.