A little bit of my history
"Life is made like this, nothing ready. Nothing defined. Everything is always under construction. Everything still to be said... being born... sprouting."
- Nilson Furtado
I was born in a family that values caring for others, so I developed sensitivity to be interested and caring for people. And psychology was the tool that allowed me to be in the role of caregiver in a more differentiated and effective way.
After completing the Psychology graduation at UFC (1998) in Brazil, I acquired specialization in two areas. The first one was in the Clinic field, started in 2002, when I finished the training in Gestalt Therapy, followed by others. My second specialization, Legal Psychology, came from my admission to the Court of Justice of Ceara in 1995. There, I had the opportunity to mediate cases involving family problems such as divorce, parental guardionship dispute, alimony, etc. From this experience came my interest in couple therapy.
In parallel with my continuos search for professional improvement, I also invested in my personal development. After all, a good caregiver needs to heal his inner child and experience the client's position. That's how he can learn from own experience not to judge and to respect the other's time to find their path.
So I built my personal and professional security base and my life flowed more freely and creatively. That permitted me to take the leaps I longed for and brought me to Amsterdam in December 2015. And here I am, experiencing a start over, with all the pain and delights that it brings. But not from scratch, because everything I've lived has built the necessary ground to face challenges and continuosly reinvent myself, following the flow of life.
To learn more about my professional trajectory, access the link below:
My theoretical approach - Gestalt Therapy
Before talking about what Gestalt Therapy is, I invite you to experience, in a very simple way, this approach of work that prioritizes being present here and now, aware of yourself. Just click on the video below.
Click here to watch the video in English
What amazes me in this approach is its holistic view, the understanding of the human being as a whole, not diminishing anyone to a diagnosis. Thus, by accompanying you in your process, the focus is not only the disease or the difficulties you are dealing with at the moment. You are so much more than that! Besides, this perspective stimulates me to understand you from the situation in which you find yourself. What you are experiencing, anxiety or depression, for example, is closely related to your life context.
Its fundamental concepts guide me and, among them, i highlight Contact and Awareness. The basic precept is that the change you desire comes from expanding your self-perception through conscious contact with yourself. This perception implies recognizing your genuine needs, beliefs, your way of thinking and interacting with yourself and others. Our meetings will favor this conscious contact in an atmosphere of welcome, respect and encouragement. So, you can take the leading role in your life at your own pace and possibilities.
Another essential point is the therapeutic focus aims at the present moment, not excluding the past or the future temporal dimensions. When you talk about something that happened to you (past) or that you want/fear to happen (future), you experience it in the “here and now”. You can be sad, nervous, excited, apathetic, etc. Your way of speaking, gesturing, breathing, moving or standing still in the chair while narrating something emphasizes this. And this says a lot about you, what encourages or discourages you, what is difficult to face or simply unimportant and that often goes unnoticed.
That's why I often say that experience therapy from a Gestalt perspective is a process of seeing oneself from another point of view. The facts in someboody's life don't change, but rather the perception, the way of feeling, experiencing and positioning oneself in life.