‘The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change’ (Carl Rogers)

Gestalt therapy, with its practical here-and-now approach, turns your therapeutic process into an adventure. Your sensations are the master key here, guiding you as we explore the unconscious mental associations which determine the thoughts and actions you wish to change. This exploratory curiosity is key to stimulating your creativity, that is, your ability to change the synaptic brain associations fuelling your uncertainty, anger, and unconscious fears. Bit by bit, you’ll let go of those identity-based prejudices, which no longer reflect who you really are, keeping you trapped in a limiting definition of yourself and the world around you. In this sense, Gestalt therapy is like a balm, freeing you from deeply unconscious mental ‘labels’ – those identity-based conditionings your mind has been absorbing since the day you were born. Thus, you’ll naturally start discovering your own resources to approach personal matters assertively. This more authentic way of managing your emotions changes your experience of what’s happening around you, all the while easing your inner tension.

Contructivist Systems therapy additionally enriches your individual therapeutic process, as you learn how to differentiate between your personal issues and those originated by external factors which are out of your control, or by tragic childhood events. As you gradually expand your awareness about those learned beliefs on ‘how things are done’, which interfere with your authentic way of being, you’ll start making sense of your personal history in a more authentic and meaningful way, rooting your identity in a deep understanding of who you truly are. This is the essential healing quality of Systemic techniques – integrating those aspects of your personality which differentiate you from the rest – your uniqueness, your personal inner strength. As these become the foundation of your self-esteem, you root your identity in key values of your Being, such as your confidence, your willpower, and your responsibility – your ability to respond coherently in every instance.

In my experience, the main interferences with personal growth are fear, anxiety, anger and loneliness, which primarily originate through traumatic experiences and the lack of recognition and acceptance as you are. These emotions can get stuck in your soul and interfere with your personal growth. When this persistently hinders progress in therapy, alternative therapies can optionally become an important support in overcoming the wounds of your soul, as they access those deeply unconscious emotions which the mind cannot grasp, and words cannot express. In addition to their natural effects, I particularly like to use Mediterranean flowers or Crystal therapy as a powerful therapeutic reinforcement. With their regular intake or touch, they act as a steady reminder, fostering the integration of your healing process throughout the week. This rhythmic persistence subtly liberates your traumas, even the most repressed ones.

Couple Therapy

More than ever, in today’s society, I believe the challenge for couples is the ability to find the right balance between the desires and needs of both individuals. Until not too long ago, social norms relieved us of this arduous task, by predetermining each partner’s role and responsibilities based on their gender. That rigid differentiation of assigning household tasks as a woman’s domain and the professional world as a man’s responsibility, established clear boundaries within social roles. It left little space for individual creativity. With the effort for women to become professionally independent, from the 1960s onwards this differentiation began to disintegrate.

Suddenly, with women’s liberation, both partners can hold the reins. And this expansive social wave didn’t stop here, a couple doesn’t even have to consist of a man and a woman anymore. Along with the many advances brought about by women’s emancipation, this new social constellation brings about a new form of pressures, as it introduces competitiveness into the core of many couples. The struggle for the fundamental right to Equality now inevitably burdens us all with such a volume of responsibilities, that both genders get to feel it as overwhelming in many ways. After all, what hasn’t changed is the reluctance to do certain things – this is an innate attitude! It arises from our reptilian impulses – from that tiny brain in our heads which still responds to animal instincts, beyond social differences and conditionings.

If the ballroom dances of yesteryear show us anything, it is that the moment both partners try to lead, the dance becomes considerably hampered. To enjoy dancing along with the music at ease, it’s essential for one partner to take the lead and one partner to give in to the experience of being led. I would argue that the challenge for contemporary couples lies in knowing how to transition to Latin dances, whose characteristic sensuality arises precisely from the synchronicity with which both partners alternate between control and adaptability. But where there is competitiveness, we tend to associate ‘being lead’ with submission. Indeed, this inference is true. The aggravating factor arises from the negative connotation attributed to this fact, which easily gets us entrapped in judgmental stigma. And there, the dance turns into a tedious struggle, making us loose the rhythmic flow of dancing together.

I understand my role in couples therapy as a way of transforming a competitive perspective into a complementary one. In this sense, the techniques of Constructivist Systems therapy bring to light the complex network of instinctive reflexes with which we react to certain stimuli. As neuroscience shows us, this network is 95% unconscious. Therefore, Systemic therapy provides us with an impressive amount of information about the different ways in which each partner’s personality evokes, in the other, the shadows of their past, which in turn reflect upon oneself one’s own shadows. It is the ebb and flow of these unconscious shadows that generates the expansive wave of incompatible beliefs and attitudes, which are constantly orchestrating the couple’s conflicts and desires. Taking this expansive wave as the focal point, couples therapy is about exploring different ways of sharing, and compensating for, each other’s strengths and weaknesses, thus creating a solid foundation for mutual support. This shared sense of reliance and trust is unique and specific, like a finger imprint – like a network, expanding as far as both partners feel supported by one another, while providing the support they are capable of, or willing to give, in each specific circumstance. 

This awareness of being allowed to be myself alongside my partner, creates the shared experience of ‘us’ as a stable and resilient unit, capable of facing life’s challenges. When a couple finds its own rhythm, it becomes this comforting and needed space of giving and taking, loving and being loved. It’s when, united, it becomes stronger than its individual parts, when both begin to dance to the sound of their jointly composed symphony. The mediating approach of Constructivist Systems therapy, combined with the sensory creativity of Gestalt therapy, facilitate this constructive shift in perspective, creating a solid foundation, which fosters the couple’s growth through the personal fulfilment of both. 

‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves’ (Carl Gustav Jung)

With this approach we don’t focus on the actual conflict, but on how to reinforce the family identity – the unity nexus – which includes and defines all family members equally. Obviously, this therapeutic approach works with the ‘win-win’ formula. Using metaphors and symbolism as a linking nexus, the family’s shared values start reflecting the tensions’ origin, thereby crystalizing the focal conflicts. These often go way back to experiences and traditions of previous generations, and to the ways in which successive generations managed to preserve, integrate and transform the family identity in their contemporary Reality. In this sense, the family is like a waving loom – every generation embroiders the social conditionings of their time. That’s how families adapt as life changes, preserving their own values, traditions and experiences through the passing of time and changing fashions and norms. This peculiarity of human life, seems to be the essence of our survival instinct, our social evolutionary adaptability, ensuring the survival of the family. An ancestral drive – the right to be recognised as a unique and independent unity.

The funny thing about our way of life is that each new generation provokes an earthquake. The famous transition to adolescence, as a law of survival, entails the mutilation of some family values, ​​to be able to accommodate new contemporary norms and fashions.

The tragic thing about our way of life is that each generation, when replaced by the next, offers resistance to the changes of youth. This is the focal point of family therapy. The challenge is the ability to preserve the linking nexus, by finding ways to safeguard the previous generation’s identitary references, so the new generations’ way of freely changing values ​​as they please, is not perceived as a tragedy, a betrayal, or at the very least, as madness or stubbornness. 

Systemic techniques achieve this by constructing and transforming the narrative, ergo the family history, and ensuring that the ‘updated version’ matches as coherently and harmoniously as possible with the reality of previous generations. This way of deeply diving into the unconscious of the family history, understanding their values and giving them a new meaning, a ‘revaluing label update’, is precisely the reason why Constructivist Systems therapy is one of the few in achieving good results even with psychotic and dissociative disorders. This is so, because we understand traumatising family disputes as a symptom of a deep void. As we reach all the way down to the symptom’s root, we allow for a coherent identitarian trunk to emerge, the core of a strong sense of belonging. As members gradually start understanding their individual stories from a different perspective, the family finds new ways of relating with one another and recognising individual differences for the potentially enriching possibilities they are.

Going back to my musical analogy of couples therapy, I like to think of the family as a symphony orchestra, in which each instrument – each family member – contributes to the grandeur of the masterpiece, by adding its own nuance. For better or worse, we carry our family of origin’s melody in our blood. It affects and determines the friends and work we choose, our leisure activities and even who we fall in love with. In turn, our personal dissonance and differences with our family define the degree of intimacy, commitment, and responsibility we are capable of sustaining. I understand family therapy as a space for each family member to tune back into their own rhythm within the family symphony. It is my job not only to detect and heighten the leading melody of the symphony – those shared identitary values ​​and nuances which build the family unity, but also the unique characteristics which differentiate each member. The sum of these individual differences is precisely what grants the family symphony its unique majestic character. 

Webinar What’s your Colour

In the webinar What’s your Colour I explore the relationship between tangible physical reality and the intangible reality of metaphysics, as a process of expanding consciousness. The focal point here are the brain synapses – those unconscious connections between external sensory stimuli and the mental associations and projections – through which you perceive your Reality. As we delve into the how and why of the origin of thoughts and perceptions, you’ll begin to understand the meaning of your own automated defence mechanisms – not only what they are subconsciously protecting you from, also the experiences you are thereby actually avoiding. Bit by bit, your uncontrolled reactions will become meaningful – those unconscious impulses, things you do and say without really knowing why. As you expand your level of Conscience, you gradually start living in the present moment, free from the mental noise of doubts and prejudice. You’ll discover the subconscious coherence of your way of being. You will realise that awareness – the absence of judgement and conditionings – is your personal empowerment.

All that energy you’re currently investing in frustrations, fears, anger, guilt, shame, depression, unfulfilled ideas, prejudices, and other defence mechanisms – all that energy will concentrate in the form of mental clarity, a broad vision of your personal purpose in life. And the greater this intrinsic drive, the greater your assertiveness, power of manifestation, and confidence in yourself and in life.

We will achieve this through the ancient symbolism of the Mayan Synchronarium, which has a magical way of integrating the physical and spiritual reality – the Conscious and Unconscious mind – creating a beautiful coherence. For this integration to happen, we will combine the 4 colours and 20 signs of the Mayan Synchronarium. Since they’re a visual, non-verbal sensory stimulus, they directly access your Unconscious, beyond your mental conditioning – a powerful way of creating the mental synaptic associations you desire.

As the name ‘Synchronarium’ itself reveals, the magic of this webinar lies in the dynamic between its colours and signs. The 4 colours will allow you to clearly differentiate between your thoughts, emotions, actions, and your way of interacting or reacting. Furthermore, the twenty signs symbolize certain human qualities associated with love, how you relate to your surroundings, your life purpose and free will. Through subtle awareness work, you’ll be integrating the essence of your personal Values and, without even realizing, you’ll be creating an emotional-rational inner structure, both dynamic and resilient. In essence, the Mayan Vision is about creating inner harmony, by synchronizing your mind and emotions. As if by magic, with this attitude towards life you’ll feel your energy increase, alongside your illusion and confidence. Life will turn more authentic, and you’ll notice how things begin to flow and resolve in sync with your surroundings.

I’ve been teaching and developing this webinar for over 13 years, motivated by my desire to unify the two main fields in which I work professionally: consciousness and the ethereal, what I like to call the soul. This personal humanistic and holistic interest has led me to explore their point of balance. For me, we experience the balance between mind and spirit in those brief moments when the present suddenly seems to expand into a timeless, luminous, and crystal reality, in which we feel intensely alive and in sync with our surroundings. Usually, these experiences are very brief and quickly dissipate in the hustle and bustle of daily life. We’ve all experienced these moments of fulfilment. This experience is, in essence, what What’s your Colour is all about. The more easily you learn to access this state of amplified and detached consciousness, the better you’ll be able to face life’s challenges, with such empowering mental clarity that you maximize your potential.

Returning to the symphonic analogy of the previous sections, the focal point in What’s your Colour is the conductor of the orchestra, or rather, the composer of the masterpiece – that is, you as the central point of convergence between your personal, identitarian, relational, and ancestral Reality – you as the creator and actor of the symphony you call your Life. In essence, What’s your Colour renders the power struggle between the Conscious and Unconscious mind meaningful. Thanks to its dynamic visual support, in this webinar you’ll be able to see how the complex unconscious synaptic network of your brain works and interconnects. You will visualise those synaptic joints in your brain which trigger your experience, your social conditionings, and the expansive wave of mental associations with which you generate your thoughts, emotions, and actions. You’ll begin to understand your life in colours. In a fun way, this colourful mental structure will sort of give you the ‘remote control’ of your mind – the ability to coherently choose and prioritize among your desires, dreams, and needs. Life will take on an integral meaningfulness, granting you a coherent panoramic front-row perspective.