GestaltWorks

Psychotherapy, Counselling, Couples Therapy, Group Therapy, Supervision, London Hampstead Heath Therapy Practice - Practitioners, Events and Therapy Room Rental, Links to Gestalt and Psychotherapy Organisations and Sites, Stepfamily Relationships, Narratives of Stepfamily Mothers
Claire Asherson Bartram (was Salisbury)
I am a counsellor and supervisor, accredited by AHPP and UKCP registered. I qualified in Gestalt Psychotherapy in 1991 and now work integratively with a Gestalt base. I have a private practice, based at Hampstead Heath Therapy Practice where I see individuals and couples. I run a monthly group and work with Angelika Wienrich offering a fortnightly group for people in stepfamily situations and workshops on stepfamily issues. As a supervisor I work with trainees, experienced therapists and with counsellors working with refugees at the Mapesbury Clinic. In addition I have experience of working in a variety of areas including counselling administration for Brent MIND, staff team facilitation and basic Gestalt training.
I am undertaking a project based Doctorate at Metanoia Institute in which I am exploring stepfamily relationships and I have been interviewing mothers in stepfamilies. I am planning a book for the future. I have instigated the founding of an organisation StepIn asap Advancing Stepfamily Awareness through Psychotherapy. My focus is on the different biological and non-biological relationships in stepfamilies on the couple's relationship, how this affects the task of parenting and children's future relationship choices. I have co-written a short book and published various articles on stepfamilies. Among my personal interests are musicianship, and meditation.

What can be done with Gestalt psychotherapy
Past events are often lived on in the present through thoughts, feelings and physical responses. Attending to these can allow us to revisit events with a different eye, thereby creating new and more satisfactory resolutions to dilemmas and difficulties. In this way we can broaden our options, free up our energy, and become more available to ourselves and others.

How I work
I make the assumption that we are each experts on ourselves and given the right environment are able to make use of our expertise. I invite people to become aware of their strengths, limitations and personal resources, and to pay attention to emotional and physical responses, sometimes suggesting further exploration aimed at heightening awareness.

Among the issues people bring to therapy and counselling
Personal development, loneliness, relationships and family difficulties, depression, bereavement, stress, trauma, anxiety, eating disorders, living more easily with past events, difficult decisions.