Esther Walker

I work weekdays (excluding Thursdays) and work Monday and Wednesday evenings. I have availability at the moment.

I'm a Gestalt counsellor based near Haymarket in Edinburgh.  I offer online and face-to-face sessions in a way that's both flexible and collaborative.  

My aim is to help you resolve distress by supporting your vitality (aliveness in body/mind) and personal resource (knoweldge, understanding, skills).

I work with three complementary practices: 

Gestalt Counselling  resolves patterns of experience (thought, belief, feeling, behaviour, movement) that echo the past and cause problems in the present.

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) releases somatic memories (related to trauma and attachment disruption) which your body remembers but which are outside your conscious awareness.

Swedish Massage Therapy (SMT) relaxes areas of your body that hold stress, and awakens your sensory experience.

Gestalt counselling...

Gestalt offers a practical approach to exploring and resolving difficult feelings and situations. We'll pay attention to the relationship we create together, to your physical experience (as well as what you think and say) and to helping you learn through experimentation and practice. In this way, you'll benefit from:

- greater self-awareness

- new understanding of how relationships work and of your own experience of relationships

- greater flexibility in how you approach and respond to the world

- greater access to feelings of satisfaction, hope, contentment, excitement, warmth and love.

At the outset we'll agree what outcomes you're looking for so we have a way of judging progress.

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)

DBR is a relatively new approach for addressing the deeply held, embodied experience of trauma (including attachment shock). Out of our awareness, these somatic patterns shape our responses but can’t be accessed through talking therapies.

DBR was developed by Frank Corrigan, a Glasgow based Psychiatrist who works with complex trauma, and it is being used successfully within trauma services and it's now becoming more widely known and used beyond UK.  https://deepbrainreorienting.com/

It's a powerful and effective way of helping clients who have problems with anxiety, attachment behaviours, phobias and depression.

Trauma-aware Massage Therapy

Massage therapy complements a Gestalt approach and DBR by supporting the client's connection with their bodily experience.  The aim of massage is to work physically to influence the body's systems and benefit the client by, for example, reducing stress, anxiety, muscular tension and increasing sensitivity and body awareness.

For those who with trauma, the body can feel like alien territory where unwanted sensations and feelings suddenly take over, or where little familiar, solid ground can be found.  By working slowly and collaboratively, massage can support a greater awareness of and connection with your body.