Somatic Psychotherapy (Gestalt)
Somatic therapy is a warm, body-centred, and relational approach that helps you reconnect with yourself and others in the present moment. Through curiosity, growing awareness, and gentle challenge you’ll explore how your mind, body, and environment intertwine—rediscovering your authenticity, healing unfinished experiences, and nurturing more genuine, meaningful connections with yourself and the world around you. If you feel curious or want to know more about Somatic Psychotherapy, now available in the Dublin Wellbeing Centre, read the blog The Body as Compass: Exploring Gestalt as a Somatic Psychotherapy.
Linda offers in-person and online sessions.
Linda is an accredited therapist, registered with the Irish Association of Humanistic & Integrative Psychotherapy (IAHIP). VHI Healthcare, Laya Healthcare, and Irish Life Health offer plans that cover some, if not all, of the costs for psychotherapy and counselling sessions with an accredited therapist. Check with your individual insurer for details of your cover. You can claim tax relief (up to 20%) on counselling and psychotherapy fees.
What to expect
Gestalt therapy sessions are about experience more than about content. Gestalt therapy is known to be a process therapy rather than just talk therapy. What does this mean? The therapist may invite you to slow down and to notice the impact of what you are sharing. For example, you may be invited to notice the way you are breathing or tensing. If you reject this invitation the therapist will explore your choice with curiosity, rather than judgement. Each experience is welcomed and explored as an opportunity to support expression. All the while, the Gestalt therapist remains present to their own embodied experience, attuning to what resonates for them in the relationship. Experiments are introduced in collaboration with the client to facilitate expression and integration of emotions that may have been inaccessible before. The only goal of Gestalt therapy is to expand self-awareness and to restore choice-fullness. In time, as lost or rejected parts of us are integrated, we can start to feel more whole.
Benefits
Meet Our Therapists
Linda McConn
Counselling & Psychotherapy (Fully Accredited). Gestalt Psychotherapy. Gestalt Therapy. Somatic Psychotherapy.
"Linda’s style was very calm and measured and this meant that each session felt like a safe harbor. Her greatest strength was in offering challenges with warmth and the freedom to explore. She was particularly skilled at working with my metaphors, which we explored in depth.
Something that really stood out to me was that the insights from our work together stayed with me each time and were held in my mind between sessions. Each session led to new action, something that’s a credit to Linda’s coaching.
Linda is a coach who works with warmth and intuitive insight, whilst holding the space for challenge. Her greatest strength was in meeting me where I was. As a lover of language, visual imagery and metaphor, she embraced those elements of my thinking and worked with them."
Katie Poole, Coaching Client
"Linda became my coach at a time when I was stepping into a Senior Leadership position. From the beginning Linda was friendly, easty to talk to and empathetic to her coachee. Through our collaboration I learnt to notice not only my thoughts but also my body responses – she doesn’t only listen to words; she also listens to the unspoken body language. During our sessions I realised that all the answers I was looking for are within me. I also gained the confidence to speak my truth and to express my needs in order to reach my goals as a leader. I definitely would recommend Linda as a coach who I would like to work with again. Through her holistic coaching approach she managed to make me hear and understand myself."
Anna Kirikou, Coaching Client
Frequently Asked Questions about Embodied Psychotherapy/Gestalt therapy
What is embodied psychotherapy?
Embodied psychotherapy is therapy that works with mind, body and emotions together, helping you become more aware of what you feel and how you experience yourself in the present moment.
What is Gestalt psychotherapy?
Gestalt psychotherapy is a relational, experiential therapy that focuses on awareness, wholeness and how you are in relationship with yourself and others.
How does Gestalt therapy work with the body?
It may involve noticing posture, breath, tension, movement and sensation, using these as part of the therapeutic process rather than talking alone.
What happens in an embodied psychotherapy session?
The therapist may invite you to slow down, notice your body’s responses and explore your present experience through conversation and collaborative experiments.
Can Gestalt psychotherapy help build resilience and self-awareness?
Yes. Building self-awareness, resilience, acceptance and a stronger sense of wholeness are central aims of the work.