Michael Ellis MA UKCP

Managing Director and Diploma in Professional Development tutor

Michael is a psychotherapist, trainer, supervisor and organisational consultant. He has a background in social work and youth work including therapeutic work with families and children. He also has extensive experience of training design and delivery, predominantly in the public and voluntary sector. His MA is in organisational consultancy from the Tavistock Clinic and he works with teams and organisations in the health service as well as the private sector and with voluntary agencies. He has been training counsellors and psychotherapists for over twenty years.

Post Graduate Certificate

Julia Wright MA UKCP 

Post Graduate Certificate core tutor

Julia Wright’s background was originally in fine art and performance although in the last decade or so she has worked within the voluntary sector mainly in mental health. Her experience includes managing an NHS/Mind counselling service for people with mental and emotional health issues, including depression, anxiety and loss and currently she is teaching on the Mary Ward Diploma in Counselling. She has a private practice based in London.

Postgraduate Diploma

Carmen Joanne Ablack MSc PGDip Psychotherapy MIHM(Sen)

UKCP Registrant and Honorary Fellow. Postgraduate Diploma core tutor; GCL Supervisor

Carmen is an integrative body psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer working with individuals, groups, couples and organisations. She is a trained mediator and coach and is accredited as a Senior Manager by the Institute of Healthcare Management. Her theoretical, clinical, consultancy and teaching experience includes integrative and relational approaches; gestalt body psychotherapy; intercultural, sexual and diversity work; working with creativity and performance; somatic trauma therapy and transpersonal approaches in the psychological therapies. Carmen has been teaching psychotherapy, counselling and other psychological approaches to therapy since the 1980’s in the UK and abroad and is a regular keynote speaker. She has published a book chapter and various articles on psychotherapy theory, contemporary practice, regulation and governance. She is a member of the UKCP psychotherapy council, an EABP accredited member and board member and a member of UKAGT

MA & Psychotherapy Practitioner Programme

Toni Gilligan MPhil 

MA and Psychotherapy Practitioner Programme core tutor

Toni has worked with the NHS psychiatric services for 13 years. She is now in private practice as a UKCP Registered Gestalt Psychotherapist and is a co-director of the Gestalt Centre. She has worked in the voluntary sector and social services, and on the professional guidance committee of an innovatory therapeutic community. She has extensive experience of people with substance misuse problems and other severe psychological disturbances.

Supervised Practice Extension Group

Gaie Houston MA (Oxford) UKCP 

Practice Group tutor

Gaie Houston is Emeritus Adviser to the Gestalt Centre London. She first trained in the US and has been teaching Gestalt and supervising since 1974. She has written a number of books on Gestalt, Brief work, Groups, Supervision and Integrative Therapy. She has written a number of plays, mostly for radio. She currently supervises senior trainees at the Gestalt Centre and works as a trainer in several countries outside the UK.

Visiting Tutors and Workshop Leaders

Visiting leaders are regularly invited to work in all years of the training. This gives trainees a wide experience of the theoretical understanding and practice of Gestalt and related approaches.

Jen Altman MA, PhD, ITEC (massage), Dip Therapeutic Healing

Jen’s career was in the neurosciences, researching into motor control and decision making processes for 35 years. She now reports on developments in the basic and applied neurosciences and related fields. In parallel, she practiced yoga and meditation, which, combined with involvement in women’s health issues, led her to train in massage, therapeutic healing and Systemic Constellation Work. Since 1996, she has practiced Integrative Healing, with a focus on trauma resolution. She taught healing to complementary therapists, developing Body Journeys as an experiential way of learning human biology. She now runs CPD workshops dealing with fears around dying, as well as facilitating constellation groups.

Jon Blend MA UKCP 

Tutor, Working with Children short course

Jon’s background includes thirty years working in mental health social work and in performing arts. After qualifying as a counsellor in 1997, Jon trained in psychotherapy at The Gestalt Centre, obtaining his Masters degree in 2006.

Jon is an author, a British Gestalt Journal Director and AAGT regional representative. He guest tutors with the Violet Oaklander Foundation and delivers training in expressive arts approaches to psychotherapy, at The Gestalt Centre, Terapia (also supervisor) and elsewhere. Jon offers psychotherapy to adults, children and families at his West London private practice (also supervision). He also works as a community musician.

Tony Fraser 

Having founded and led his own consultancy business from which he has retired, Tony is now chairman of Mayvin Ltd, an organisation consultancy specialising in OD.

He has held senior leadership positions in large corporations in Human Resources, Strategic Planning and Business Development.

This business track is complemented by psychotherapy training to enable him to work with people on emotional and relationship as well as business issues.

His current work includes:

• Consulting to large organisations on OD issues and assignments
• Coaching senior executives
• Leading the OD faculty at The London Gestalt Centre

Tony is the author of books and articles on interpersonal skills and management development including the Management of Interpersonal Skills Training and Gestalt in Management.

Carl Hodges 

Carl Hodges was the second President of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, succeeding Lore Perls, and was the second President of AAGT. He is a Trainer and a Fellow of the Institute.

He has taught in Graduate Programs at Fordham University, Hunter College School of Social Work, and Instituto di Gestalt in Italy. He does periodic training and special weekend groups at the Gestalt Centre London where he is on the Visiting Faculty, and he teaches Experiential Approaches to Psychotherapy in the Graduate Psychology Department at Brooklyn College. He sees private patients and does supervision in New York.

Tsafi Lederman

MA Gestalt, UKCP Integrative Arts Psychotherapy and Body-Psychotherapy 

Tsafi Lederman specialises in Integrative Art Psychotherapy, Gestalt and Body-Psychotherapy. She has had a private psychotherapy and supervision practice in London since 1989.

Tsafi has been running workshops and teaching psychotherapy, counselling and bodywork for over 20 years. At the Institute for Arts she is a trainer and lecturer on the foundation and MA courses as well as the co-director of the creativity and imagination and therapeutic play courses.

Tsafi is a Co-Director of CPDO, a postgraduate training organisation providing continuous professional development for physical therapists in the UK and internationally. She runs courses exploring the therapeutic relationship in clinical settings and has contributed to publications in this area.

Originally, Tsafi graduated from arts school and worked as an art teacher. She studied expressive movement and Butto dance theatre in Japan and was also part of an art performance theatre group in Israel.

Jane Puddy UKCP HCPC

Jane Puddy has a background in Drama Therapy, Family Therapy and Group Analysis.  She works in a variety of social work, psychiatric and forensic settings, contributing to the development of Counselling and Psychotherapy courses internationally. She is also an Organisational Consultant.

Her relationship with the Gestalt Centre spans 33 years so far during which time she has been both a Director and Faculty member. She currently runs our Diploma in Supervision along with her good friend and colleague, Gaie Houston.

As Chair of our Ethics Committee, Jane advises both the Centre and its members on ethical matters.

Jane also hold the title of Honorary Psychotherapist for the Centre for Psychotherapy and Human Rights.

Tommi Raisanen C.Psychol MSc MA UKCP 

Tommi is an HPC registered counselling psychologist, family systems therapist and UKCP registered Gestalt psychotherapist. He is part of the PsychD lecture team in Counselling Psychology at the University of Surrey where he supervises and teaches assessment and formulation, psychotherapeutic skills and lectures on psychopathology and human distress. Tommi has worked with individuals and groups in acute psychiatry in hospital and the HM Prison service. His current interests are psychological trauma, crisis, family patterns, health/illness, creativity and destructiveness. Tommi conducts regularly psychological assessments and offers both brief and long term psychological therapy.

Nimmi Ravi-Shankar UKCP 

Nimmi has an MA in Gestalt Psychotherapy and is UKCP registered. She holds a BA in Public Relations, giving her an exposure in the public sector, and an MA in Social Work with extensive experience in dealing with children, adults and families. She is a Senior College Counsellor and manages the college’s Counselling Placements offering in-house group supervision. She also works part-time in a GP surgery offering psychotherapy and cancer counselling. She has a particular expertise and interest in working with difference and diversity. Nimmi’s private practice is based in Surrey where she offers short and longer term psychotherapy, group support and supervision.

Christina Schuierer

Christina Schuierer is an OD consultant and trainer with 20 years experience of working with public and private organisations worldwide. She has helped development organisations and teams to become more successful in designing and implementing projects on economic development, environmental protection and organisational sustainability and has worked in more than 50 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia.

She is managing a small consulting company based in Berlin, teaches on the faculty of International universities and institutes and is responsible for staff care at the German headquarters of Médecins Sans Frontières. Christina applies the Gestalt Approach to consulting, training, coaching and therapy.

Jonathan Smith MA AFBPsS

Jonathan Smith MA AFBPsS qualified as a Gestalt Psychotherapist with the Gestalt Centre in 1987. He now works with individuals and groups as a therapist, supervisor and trainer. He also works for Birkbeck College, University of London, as a lecturer in psychology, and runs workshops and training events for a number of other colleges and institutes, including the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the Psychosynthesis Trust, and the City Lit. His therapeutic background includes bodywork and psychosynthesis and he is accredited with AHPP and UKCP.

Mike Turton MA UKCP

Mike has been practising gestalt therapy for more than 20 years both as a therapist and a client, and is a UKCP registered psychotherapist. He currently holds an adult psychotherapy post in the NHS. A trained supervisor, he also provides supervision for other clinicians. He has played an active role in the development of The United Kingdom Association for Gestalt Practitioners (UKAGP). He holds degrees in philosophy and religious studies and has enjoyed a lifelong interest in the study of mythology.

David Zigmond

David Zigmond trained initially in Medicine in the 1960s. From the 1970s he trained in both psychoanalytic and humanistic psychotherapies – he was among the first UK students of Gestalt and Transactional Analysis. For several decades he has worked as a frontline NHS Practitioner: as Psychotherapist, Psychiatrist and GP. His teaching has engaged a broad range of health professionals and psychotherapists. His wide-ranging publications explore neglected aspects of holistic psychological and social care. His practice, writing and teaching continue an imperfectable quest: how do we best combine art and science?

Core Management Staff

Jacqueline Wearn

Executive Centre Manager

Jacqueline has an eclectic wealth of experience in business organisation and administration. She was a partner in a piano tuning and repair company for over fifteen years and Business Manager to a pianist/composer for the final ten years of that period. She also has experience of establishing an Alcohol Counselling Service, managing paid and voluntary staff and liaising with a wide range of statutory and non-statutory agencies.

This background has prepared her well for the diverse nature of life as Executive Centre Manager at the Gestalt Centre. Jacqueline continues to introduce new protocols and procedures to enable the efficient running of the training programmes and our busy premises.

John Fitzgerald

Conference Manager

John is responsible for marketing the Gestalt Centre’s therapy rooms and conferencing facilities to prospective clients and ensuring that clients’ events run smoothly. With experience in marketing, both commercially and in the charity sector, John is a valued and enthusiastic member of the Gestalt Centre team.