Our approach
SPILEA offers psychological therapy to people who are going through a difficult time in their life, they are overwhelmed with negative emotions or simply want to understand themselves better. Our approach is based on the pillars of Gestalt therapy and positive psychology.
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Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt therapy is an experiential, existential, dialogical, and relational approach. It focuses on the 'here and now', how we live and understand our experiences at the present moment. It focuses on cultivating our self-awareness, how we experience and understand ourselves and the environment around us.
Awareness connects our experience with our emotions, thoughts, and sensations giving us a chance to fully experience and understand ourselves. We can then be in a meaningful contact and interaction with ourselves and others, recognize our behavioral and emotional patterns, and embrace all parts of ourselves.
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Together with the therapist, you engage in an authentic dialogue to increase your awareness, receive support, and try new paths in a safe therapeutic environment. The therapist is not an authority figure who knows it all, but an equal part in your therapeutic journey. The therapist is here to engage in a genuine and meaningful interaction with you, collaborate with you, and stand by you.
Gestalt therapy is a holistic therapy. We live and experience life with all of our senses. Gestalt therapy pays a lot of attention on our bodily experiences and incorporates these experiences into our awareness. We not only think but also feel, move, smell, see, hear with every part of our being. Gestalt therapy focuses on the 'whole' individual and integrates body and mind.
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The goal of Gestalt therapy is to increase self-awareness and self-acceptance. This way you will understand and integrate all parts of yourself, work on past situations that make you feel stuck, take personal responsibility for your life, find ways to make meaningful contact with the environment, and cultivate your internal support. By understanding and accepting how we are, we can use our energy and capabilities to live an authentic life.
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"Change occurs when one becomes what he is,
not when he tries to become what he is not."
Arnold Beisser
Positive Psychology
Clinical psychology has traditionally focused on psychological problems and the difficulties people face in their life. For many years, its primary purpose was to understand how and why people experience psychological problems and psychiatric disorders and then develop psychological interventions to help them overcome and deal with these problems.
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Positive psychology was developed to remind us that people are not only their problems. People have skills, capabilities, strengths, and characteristics that help them build relationships, achieve their goals, enjoy their life, and flourish. The aim of positive psychology is to build character strengths and promote well-being and human flourishing.
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Character strengths are human traits that come naturally to us, give us energy and contribute to our well-being. Among the character strengths, we all have some signature strengths. These are the prominent strengths we exhibit and they feel authentic. We feel like ourselves when we display them and they are an instinctual response to our environment. For example, being empathetic, fair, open-minded, hopeful, courageous, a team player or a leader, prudent, or optimistic can help us flourish and also cope with challenges.
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Positive psychology developed the PERMA model of well-being. This model incorporates the 5 pillars of well-being: positive emotions, engagement and flow, relationships, meaning in life, and accomplishment. When we focus and cultivate these aspects of our life, we can flourish and live a meaningful and authentic life.
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Therapy based on positive psychology aims to help the clients understand that they are not defined by their problems and see themselves through the lens of their strengths. Its goal is to shed light on and cultivate character strengths and positive emotions so the clients can use them to become more resilient, cope with their difficulties, and build an authentic life.
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“Treatment is not just fixing what is wrong;
it also is building what is right”
Martin Seligman