Helena Trebar

Hello and welcome.

I offer therapy to individuals and couples who struggle to navigate through a significant change in their lives or who may have come to experience psychological difficulties. We often benefit from understanding such challenges or patterns with a trained practitioner and are subsequently better able to address those in ways we see fit. I work supported by an existential understanding of our being and am thus committed to a genuine interaction between people and toward our environments.

Therapy in different ways attends to our sense of being in the world, the origins of it and how we may have configured ourselves that hinders our lived experience. Gestalt therapy is a holistic, relational, and embodied approach that comes under the umbrella of humanistic existential mental health therapies. It relies heavily on the exploration of our immediate experience – the here and now, which we have access to.

How one relates to the world is unavoidably recreated in the therapy room. Observing this, I gently encourage the growth of clients’ awareness: I actively participate in the process of gaining greater embodied experience; together we examine relationally the sense of power and powerlessness that you may feel; and explore needs and wants that might, at this moment in time, seem impossible to fulfil.

Work focus

• Relationship Issues, Attachment Issues,
• Life changes and transitions, Health problems, Disability,
• Neurodivergence (Autism (ASD), ADHD, AuDHD, Dislexia),
• CPTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), Trauma

About me

My initial interests lay in the arts and creative expression, which continues to inform my perceptions and understanding of the world. As I grew and developed through my own personal therapy, I became intrigued by human relationships and their psychological components. I trained as a therapist at the Edinburgh Gestalt Institute (EGI) and the Gestalt Psychotherapy & Training Institute (GPTI). I obtained my certificate in Couples Therapy at the Existential Academy in London. I find that the philosophical and spiritual aspects of Gestalt and Existential Psychotherapy match my values and beliefs about life and our existence quite closely.

I was part of the counselling team at a mental health charity in Edinburgh for 6 years, initially as a therapist volunteer and later as one of their assessment counsellors. I have been working in private practice since 2022. During this time, I had the privilege to work with clients from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, including neurodivergent individuals and people from the LGBTQIA+ community. I hold an interest in various forms of life transitions, be it through an illness, a traumatic experience, ageing, or in another way.

I am registered with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and GPTI (mentioned above) and thus subscribe to their code of ethics – my work is supported by regular clinical supervision; I practise inclusion and welcome diversity. I actively engage in continual professional development by attending conferences, lectures, and workshops. I keep myself informed and expand my knowledge through wider psychotherapeutic and psychosomatic literature, enjoying work by authors such as Irvin Yalom, Ruella Frank, Peter Levine, Dr Bessel van der Kolk, Janina Fisher, and Dr Elinor Greenberg.

In-person Therapy for Individuals 18+

Duration: short or long-term therapy options, ideally attended weekly; we would mutually assess what is best for your specific situation during the initial stages of our therapeutic process.

In-person Therapy for Couples or Pairs 18+

Further info: includes couples in intimate relationships as well as pairs such as siblings or friends.

Duration: the length of the work is generally open-ended with periodic check-ins to assess your needs.

Please contact me via e-mail to discuss the possibility of working together.