GestaltUK

01/03/2026

Walking the Tightrope in Adolescence: Depression as Relational Experience
Working with young people the Healing in Paradise organisation ( www.healingparadise.co.uk ) held their inaugural conference in Nottingham last week. This essay supplements other work and materials posted to www.getaltuk.com and soon to be included on the host website.
There continues to be a problem in providing clear, accessible, and functional support for young people and particular for those of Black African Asian and Caribbean heritage. This organisation wishes to change this and save our young generation

https://www.gestaltuk.com/post/walking-the-tight-rope-in-adolescence

Depression is grasped as a lived experience characterised by the surrender of the desire to be desired, the collapse of hope, and the impossibility of reaching the other

22/02/2026

Breaking the Silence — a new blog from Gestalt UK about the courage it takes to seek therapy and the power of emotional well‑being. ead more: https://wix.to/5nQGCbo

we believe in the transformative power of mental and emotional well-being. Here, we understand that seeking therapy is not a sign of weakness but rather a courageous step towards self-awareness and growth.

11/02/2026

I was surprised by the number of responses to my caricture posting, and thank you.
Working on another with ChatGPT to accompany my essay Living at the Boundary of War. This essay can be read here https://www.gestaltuk.com/post/living-at-the-boundary-of-war

08/02/2026

Experimenting with Chatgpt 😂😂😂

04/02/2026

This essay has been over a year in the making. The initial impetus came from a posting from New Gestalt Voices for responses on the topic 'My Therapist has Gone to War'. I made a submission of 'Living at the Boundary of War' and whilst this was accepted nothing further resulted. Thus I developed the writing further and here is the result. Thank you for reading this essay that lives on my website www.gestaltuk.com

Living at the boundary of war is a deliberate reference to Gestalt Therapy theory. After a number of conferences and like activities over the past years dedicated to the consideration of psychotherapy and its function in times of conflict yet specifically instigated because of the war inflicted on U...

05/01/2026

What time is it?

Time to wake up!

What time is it?

Time to unite against dictatorship

What time is it?

It is Eastern, Central, or Western EUROPEAN time

What time is it?

It is time to stop placating the narcissistic psychopath in our midst.

What time is it?

It is time to return from whence we came, from Normandy French, from Italian Romans, from the land of Danes, from the Vikings of Scandinavia.

What time is it?

It is time to be what we are, European and stand together.

What time is it?

Time to reject American in its fullest sense

10/10/2025

Today is World Mental Health Awarness Day. On the front page of my website, GestaltUK.com, I have included a panel that offers links to posting I have made in the past that relate to Su***de. Whilst not the theme of the day, I have chosen to highlight the posts I have on su***de since there is also, today, media coverage of the Prince of Wales and his promoting of awareness regarding su***de
https://news.sky.com/video/prince-of-wales-gets-emotional-in-film-on-world-mental-health-day-13447710
and
https://royalfoundation.com/national-su***de-prevention-network/

Gestaltuk.com was created at the beginning of my journey as a psychotherapist. My approach for psychotherapy encompasses a wide range of issues of anxiety and difficulties, dilemmas and confusions; depression, loss, change and relationships. I am mainly based in Lichfield

23/08/2025

Historic Parallels: Treaty Conflict, Greed, Power, Resources and Wealth

This question was put to President Zelensky during his recent meeting with President Trump, in the White House:

"Are you prepared to keep sending Ukranian troops to their deaths for another couple of years or are you going to agree to redraw the maps."

https://www.youtube.com/live/tTz6E_uCG6I?feature=shared

What a question! Rephrased "You want to keep killing Ukranian troops because you will not give up Ukranian territory attacked and occupied by your oppressor!

Equally, this sounds very much like what could have been said by Putin when Ukraine rejected the offer to become part of his new Russia; and very much equivalent to what Putin has done.

Maybe this attitude of domination y power represents a deeply implanted attitude within the American psyche becuase, for example, in 1868 a treaty was signed stating

No white person or persons shall be permitted to settle upon or occupy any portion of the territory, or without the consent of the Indians to pass through the same. —TREATY OF 1868
When the incursions and demands to occupy Indian territory continued the overtures to purchase the land from the Indians. The response from Sitting Bull was
"We want no white men here. The Black Hills belong to me. If the whites try to take them, I will fight."
—TATANKA YOTANKA (SITTING BULL)
In parallel:
Ukraine belongs to Ukraine, not Russia and we will fight to retain our country - President Zelensky to Putin.

So Putin used force to acquire the territory he wanted; as did President Grant, in 1875, after proposals to purchase the Black Hills were rejected.

Imagine Sitting Bull in the Oval Office alongside President Grant and a reporter saying something like "Are you prepared to keep sending you warriors to their death or are you going to sign over this land to us".

Perhaps it is necessary for President Trump to be supportive of Putin since the USA have acted again and again in the same way towarda the American Indian over the period 1795 to 1890; this is not the too distant past.

As then, this is about resources, power and wealth for both Putin and Trump.

On another matter, there is another historic record of American manipulation that seems to parallel claims and events in the Middle East.

In the earlier expansion of territory in 1829, President Jackson, known as Sharp Knife,
'recommended that all these Indians be removed westward beyond the Mississippi. “I suggest the propriety of setting apart an ample district west of the Mississippi … to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes, as long as they shall occupy it.” '
(written in Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 5). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.)

President had acknowledged the White Americans and the Indigenous American Indians could not live together and wished to separate and establish a seperate territory and the border would be the Mississippi.
These recommendations were passed into law May 28, 1830.

In 1848 gold was discovered in California. Within a few months, fortune-seeking easterners by the thousands were crossing the Indian Territory - and this leads to the Washington's claim of: MANIFEST DESTINY

To justify these breaches of the “permanent Indian frontier,” the policy makers in Washington invented Manifest Destiny ...
The Europeans and their descendants were ordained by destiny to rule all of America. They were the dominant race and therefore responsible for the Indians—along with their lands, their forests, and their mineral wealth. Only the New Englanders, who had destroyed or driven out all their Indians, spoke against Manifest Destiny. (In Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 8). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.)

In his second inaugural address, Trump directly referenced potential territorial expansion, and became the first U.S. president to use the phrase manifest destiny during an inaugural address (wikipedia)
reference:
"Trump's Second Term Begins - 538 Politics Podcast". ABC News. Retrieved January 24, 2025.
and
Spetalnick, Matt (January 20, 2025). "Trump vows to take back Panama Canal, talks of 'Manifest Destiny' in space". Reuters. Retrieved January 21, 2025.

Now, when my emotions simmer down from how they have been raised whilst reading of how other treaties with other tribes were broken and tribes annihilated by the invasion of 'white Americans' I will look to continue and expand on this writing.

08/08/2025

Beginning to develop my 'Library' pages. Following the help pages to understand dynamic list and item pages to get me to this point. Very pleased so far 👍 I am utilising existing tables of information and bibliographies to help build up the details of books and authors.

Clinical Practice: From Psychopathology to the Aesthetics of Contact (Gestalt Therapy Book Series 2). Gianni Francesetti, Michela Gecele, Jan Roubal, and Leslie Greenberg

31/05/2025

18/05/2025

Anthony Jannetti, a leading clinician, supervisor and trainer of the Dr. Richard Erskine Developmentally Based and Relationally-Focused Integrative Psychotherapy. Learn more about his work and insights here: https://wix.to/0UZarX6

an international presenter and clinician of the Richard Erskine Developmentally Based Relationally Focused Integrative Psychotherapy.

08/01/2025

A Gestalt therapy orientation to the “what” and “how” of dependent behavior and
treatment.
Trauma affects the wholeness of the person... some traumas surpass the range of human capability to process and to assign meaning to the experiences.
classification, description, analysis of the structures of the self are the subject matter of phenomenology.
the experience of self deserves a phenomenological scaffold to hang the features of dependence, addictive and self-medicating process.

Check it out! https://wix.to/k0LK9pX

Combining two chapter quotes/notes with reference to the treatment of Trauma