Dear Colleagues
This week we continue with our series of posts re-introducing the GANZ Council members to the wider Gestalt Community, with the intention to make GANZ and the GANZ Council more visible.
This week it is the turn of Eric Houghton (International and External Relationships)
Eric writes….
I am a therapist and counsellor in private practice in Wellington, New Zealand. I am fortunate to practice with colleagues I met through Gestalt training. Alongside seeing individual clients, I have spent a fair amount of time doing group work. I have facilitated groups and trained facilitators in adolescent resilience, parenting through separation and grief by suicide. In my role as a facilitator-trainer I have run trainings in many locations around New Zealand. I also have worked as a guidance counsellor at a local high school.
Prior to entering the therapeutic field, I worked in various roles in the fields of communications, broadcasting and feature film. My most prominent work was as an assistant director, which has more parallels to being a therapist than you might think.
My interest in psychotherapy began with me engaging in my own personal work. This opened my own awareness and I developed an interest in using what I was learning to assist others. I began by completing a degree in psychology at Victoria University of Wellington. On completion I was scheduled to do a Masters in Counselling Psychology, though in a serendipitous turn of events found Gestalt instead. Currently, I am in the final stages of a Masters in Gestalt Therapy with Gestalt Therapy Brisbane. This follows four years of training with the Gestalt Institute of New Zealand.
I am very pleased to be involved with the GANZ council. I work in International Relations with a particular focus on New Zealand. My primary interests are to see our organisation strengthen as a collective and to help Gestalt therapy grow and flourish in the region.