Helena Trebar:
Gestalt Psychotherapeutic Counsellor (UKCP, GPTI)
Hello and welcome.
I offer therapy to individuals and couples who struggle to navigate through a significant change in their lives or who may have come to experience psychological difficulties. We often benefit from understanding such challenges or patterns with a trained practitioner and are subsequently better able to address those in ways we see fit. I work supported by an existential understanding of our being and am thus committed to a genuine interaction between people and toward our environments.
Psychotherapy in different ways attends to our sense of being in the world, the origins of it and how we may have configured ourselves that hinders our lived experience. Gestalt psychotherapy is a holistic, relational, and embodied approach that comes under the umbrella of humanistic existential mental health therapies. It relies heavily on the exploration of our immediate experience – the here and now, which we have access to.
How one relates to the world is unavoidably recreated in the therapy room. Observing this, I gently encourage the growth of clients’ awareness: I actively participate in the process of gaining greater embodied experience; together we examine relationally the sense of power and powerlessness that you may feel; and explore needs and wants that might, at this moment in time, seem impossible to fulfil.
About me:
My initial interests lay in the arts and the creative expression, which continues to inform my perceptions and understanding of the world. As I grew and developed through my own personal therapy, I became intrigued by human relationships and their psychological components. I trained as a therapist at the Edinburgh Gestalt Institute (EGI) and the Gestalt Psychotherapy & Training Institute (GPTI). I obtained my certificate in Couples Therapy at the Existential Academy in London. I find that the philosophical and spiritual aspects of Gestalt and Existential Psychoherapy match my values and beliefs about life and our existence quite closely.
I was part of the counselling team at a mental health charity in Edinburgh for 6 years, initially as a therapist volunteer and later as one of their assessment counsellors. I have been working in private practice since 2022. During this time, I had the privilege to work with clients from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, including neurodivergent individuals and people from the LGBTQIA+ community. I hold an interest in various forms of life transitions, be it through an illness, a traumatic experience, ageing, or in another way.
I am registered with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and GPTI (mentioned above) and thus subscribe to their code of ethics – my work is supported by regular clinical supervision, I practise inclusion and welcome diversity. I actively engage in continual professional development by attending conferences, lectures, and workshops. I keep myself informed and expand my knowledge by wider psychotherapeutic and psychosomatic literature, enjoying work by authors such as Irvin Yalom, Ruella Frank, Peter Levine, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Janina Fisher, and Dr. Elinor Greenberg.
Individual psychotherapy or counselling 18+ (in-person)
Fees: a sliding scale between £80 and £95 for a 50-minute session.
Duration: short or long-term therapy options, ideally attended weekly, we would mutually assess what is best for your specific situation during the initial stages of our therapeutic process.
Psychotherapy or counselling for Coupes or Pairs, 18+ (in-person)
Fees: £120 for a 60-minute session.
Further info: includes couples in intimate relationships as well as pairs such as siblings or friends.
Duration: the length of the work is generally open-ended with periodic check-ins to assess your needs.
Please contact me via e-mail to discuss the possibility of working together.
***If you require more information and guidance about therapy, please use the contact form at the bottom of this page.***
