Oksana Shulha

Professional activity:

Certified gestalt therapist

Supervisor of study triads

Trainer of level one in gestalt at KIGiP

Leads therapy groups

Specialisation in psychological work with developmental trauma (bodynamics)

Specialisation in systemic family therapy

More than six years of practice in gestalt therapy

Oksana about herself:

«Once a client booked a session with me on a friend’s recommendation, and never came. She was put off by my red hair — when she saw the photo she decided I was not serious enough. A year later we did meet, because a therapist she trusted recommended me. You see, it all happened, only a little later!

It was the same with me and gestalt. I first came across this approach twenty years ago, but chose something else at the time. And now I am a gestalt therapist!

I believe that if you have set your mind on something, it will certainly happen. When you are ready.

I was always drawn to psychology: I worked in HR, as a company psychologist, I ran trainings… And then I burned out, and the time came to decide what to do next. There were many doubts. So I simply sat down, took a sheet of paper and wrote down who I wanted to be in five years and what I wanted to do.

Of course, it was gestalt. No sooner said than done!

I am glad that being systematic lets me set goals so clearly and follow them. And that I can help my clients do the same.

The principles of gestalt are very close to me; they fit my picture of the world easily, harmoniously and without resistance. It has always mattered to me to live through my feelings and to be aware of what is happening.

My greatest fear is to regret, before dying, that I had lived someone else’s life, left much unrealised and untried, been in the wrong place and with the wrong people.

And now I understand that I do what I like, with those I love. My life is not yet quite what I see as ideal, but I have already come a long way in that direction!

For two years, for instance, I dreamt of my own office in the centre of Kyiv, where people could meet, get to know different approaches to therapy and feel comfortable.

And at last it has happened! It is very good to have your own space. Not a room where both I and my clients are guests, as it is when you rent a consulting room by the hour. Now it is a home with its own atmosphere and its regulars. You are welcome to visit!

I work with these themes:

Relationships;

Separation. Emotional resilience and building your own life apart from your parents;

Crises of age and of life;

The sexual sphere: improving the quality of sexual life, sexual self-identification, sexual trauma and more;

Emotional pain, depression, emotional dependency;

Grief, loss, crisis states;

The crisis of moving and settling in a new place;

Psychosomatic disorders (health problems of psychological origin);

Loss of goals and of meaning in life;

Anxiety disorders (fears, phobias, strong anxiety, panic attacks);

Psychological trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD);

Loneliness, difficulties in relating to people;

Low self-esteem, a harsh inner critic, the search for inner ground;

Work with dreams and nightmares;

Time management, self-discipline;

Psychological difficulties at work;

Difficulties of professional fulfilment;

Developing your own practice (private practice, business and so on).

In my work I use the methods of gestalt. Depending on what the client needs, I also draw on bodynamics, body and art therapy, coaching, family constellations and metaphorical cards.

Groups are a separate love. I adore them and think that in future my work will be connected mainly with them. They give me enormous pleasure and even delight.

At the moment I lead several projects: as second trainer in a KIGiP level one group with Olena Marynushkina, the therapy group «Healing the inner child» with Mirabella Bilylovska, and my own project, the group «A granite pebble in the chest», where we look for what keeps us from feeling happy and work with it.

On Saturdays I also run the financial training game Cash Flow. Some people come to the game regularly, and I very much enjoy watching how their style of play — and of life — changes. They find new jobs, learn to manage their money wisely, increase their income and the number of their clients and projects. And I keep gathering groups for the game, because I see that it is not in vain!

For me personally, working as a psychotherapist is a chance to meet people, to be in real contact. When that happens, the feeling is extraordinary.

It is so moving and so wonderful that it almost makes you shy! Tenderness runs over the skin, and everything disappears except the moment «here and now» — so plain and so present.

For me that is life!

And when a client realises something, or manages to live through some difficult moment and their life changes, that makes me very glad.

I am happy that there are more happy people in the world.