Gestalt Counselling & Psychotherapy

Umina Beach & Online

Hi, I’m Carolyn Choy (Clinical Dip. Gestalt Psych., M.Sc. Gestalt Psych., B.Sc.(Comp. Sci.) PACFA Reg. Clinical #23201).

I am Australian born Chinese and a passionate UK-trained psychotherapist specialising in the Gestalt approach. I am located in Umina Beach (on the NSW Central Coast, near Woy Woy and Gosford) for face-to-face therapy and available online for those in further regions.

If you haven’t had counselling or psychotherapy before it can seem quite daunting but there really isn’t anything to worry about. Everything you say is welcomed without judgement. We talk about what you want and how you’d like your life to be different. It’s not about putting you under the microscope for analysis!

Together and in collaboration we create an honest, supportive and at times slightly challenging therapeutic relationship. The Gestalt approach is not about fixing you or telling you how to live your life or trying to make you be in a way that doesn’t feel true to you; it’s about enabling you to have more flexibility in how you feel and act so you can do things differently and not feel so stuck. Therapy will quickly come to feel more natural and familiar, and you’ll get so much you get out of it!  It’s your time and space.

What I love about Gestalt is the holistic approach of seeing a person as a whole: mind, body and environment/context, rather than just mind or body. Clients really feel that the experiential creativity that opens up in the moment really adds an extra dimension and depth to the therapeutic experience. When relevant, these experiential interventions can really reveal so much more – and are completely optional!

Conveniently located online and in Umina Beach on the NSW Central Coast, I hope to be able to share my passion for therapeutic change and growth with you and look forward to hearing from you.

What is the Gestalt Approach to Counselling?

Simply put, it’s a holistic (mind, body and environment), humanistic (people focused), relational (talking together) approach.

During therapy we can explore past experiences that relate to what you’ve come to therapy for, your current experiences as well as attend to your ‘here-and-now’ present moment experiences.

Gestalt follows the philosophy that change and growth will occur as a natural process through fully understanding and experiencing who and how you are right now. Gestalt is a proven and effective therapeutic approach.

What Clients Bring

I provide open-ended counselling and psychotherapy to individual adults (18 years+).  I work with a wide range of issues so please contact me to discuss and we can take it from there. Don’t fear that what you bring won’t be “serious enough” for us to discuss; anything that is making you unhappy or making your life feel difficult or is on your mind is good enough.

Some of what clients bring include, though not limited to:

• Difference: belonging and fitting in, cultural differences, loneliness, isolation, being in a minority, judgement, shame, anxiety.
• Relationships: work interactions, friends, family and personal relationships, setting boundaries, resolving fractures/disconnections, depression.
• Empowerment: improving self-confidence/self-esteem, understanding your response to and dealing with confrontation, how to feel better about yourself.
• Identity: finding your sense of who you are and how you fit in dealing with different issues such as faith and culture.

• Grief and loss: coming to terms with relational ruptures that can include experiences like infidelity, divorce, illness or bereavement.
• Big life changes and existential crisis: living with uncertainty, making big decisions and living with the impact of them, dealing with traumatic experiences, dealing with life and death, feeling generally overwhelmed, anxious, or stressed.

Meeting With Me

Once you’ve been in touch with me, we may briefly discuss what it is that brings you to seek counselling/psychotherapy. We’ll arrange an initial consultation where we can talk a bit more about what you’d like from therapy and you can ask any questions you might have about the process, etc. Following that if it feels right, we can arrange a start date and on-going weekly 50-minute sessions for as long or short a period as needed.

My practice is based in Umina Beach on the NSW Central Coast which is close by to Woy Woy, Gosford, Pearl Beach, and Patonga. I also am available for online therapy.

Please contact me for further details.