Loretta Watt MSc

"THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY RESTS ON THE QUALITY OF THE RELATIONSHIP AND THE ADEQUACY OF THE UNDERSTANDING AND INTERVENTIONS OF THE THERAPIST" - Gary Yontef

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy is a therapy of awareness. Once we become aware of how we limit ourselves, we then have choices about how we might be different. I aim to provide a comfortable, safe, supportive environment where you can explore your existing patterns of feeling, thinking, behaving and experiment with new and more satisfying ways of being. I offer appropriate Counselling/Psychotherapy depending on my client's needs, working at relational depth. My therapeutic stance is one that values and respects individual differences. I provide long and short-term therapy.

Our Initial Meeting

As the relationship between therapist and client is a crucial factor in our working together; our first session is an opportunity for us to meet, for you to share with me what has brought you to therapy and what your expectations are. It is also an opportunity for you to ask me any questions you may have which would give you a better understanding of the therapy process. Each session will be for one hour on a weekly basis.

"For a genuine meeting to take place, the therapist must be present as a human being who endeavours to meet the patient, from the depth of one vital centre to another"

- Martin Buber

Couple Therapy

Couple therapy is normally on a weekly basis however this is negotiable. The sessions generally last one and a half hours. Depending on what is required, some of my work could entail enhancing the couple's way of communicating in order to enrich their relationship. At other times it's to help bring clarity to the ending of a relationship.

Group Therapy

Group therapy is often considered to be more challenging than individual therapy, due to the different personalities involved. Early group experiences, such as family dynamics and school, can be triggered and worked through with the support of the group members and therapists.

Together with Brian McMinn, a very experienced Gestalt therapist colleague, I co-facilitate an ongoing therapy group that meets for three weekends every year. The group has been running since 2009, meeting at a retreat centre in Thirsk, North Yorkshire. This group is for anyone interested in self-discovery and finding ways to lead a more satisfying and fulfilling life. Participants have the opportunity to reflect on their own lives, gaining a greater awareness into their habits of feeling, thinking and behaving, and from this can get a greater sense of themselves and others in relationships and in everyday situations.

Gestalt goup therapy can be both supportive and challenging; It requires commitment, a willingness to share aspects of ourselves and to engage with others. Each weekend the group meet is an opportunity to experiment how you relate. It is a laboratory to try things out in a safe and supportive environment, to voice the parts of us that are rarely heard, to confess to things that have contributed to shame and guilt, to try on different roles, to experience something that we may never risk doing in the world outside the group, to finish unfinished business, to confront fears, to open ourselves to love and intimacy.

The maximum number of the group is nine, this allows sufficient space for members to explore each weekend. We prefer that group members have had previous experience of personal therapy. The superb setting for our therapy group meetings is Holy Rood House, a ten-minute walk away from Thirsk Town Centre.