Robert Gebka
Member Status: Accredited
Member No: RG00P02
Location: Poole
My name is Robert, welcome to my therapist's page.
As we all know, life can be pretty hard and it takes courage to reach out for support. I really do believe that you have within you the resourcefulness you need in order to live a life with depth, meaning and self-compassion. I feel that my role is to help you recognize this and empower you to find a way of tapping into your own wisdom.
I have been practicing counselling and coaching for the last 25 years and am a qualified MBSR Mindfulness teacher having trained with the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, USA. I have worked both in a psychiatric hospital and a community setting offering my therapeutic services to people in need of support. I am the author of Managing Depression with Mindfulness for Dummies and am currently writing another book on men’s mental health.
I feel fortunate that I have had the opportunity to spend five years living at a Zen Buddhist monastery in South Africa where I studied mindfulness based psychology and human behaviour.
As for my own journey, I have in the past experienced my own mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression as well as PTSD and now continue to live well with these. I feel blessed that I can draw on this lived experience for inspiration and feel I can often empathize with my clients and their struggles.
My style is pretty casual, yet structured, relaxed and solution focused. I work in a trauma informed and compassionate based way and like to think that I offer my clients a safe and nourishing space in which to express themselves just as they are.
My counselling work includes the following:
# Emotional Resilience Coaching – A fantastic approach for people who wish to develop a greater awareness of their feelings as well as learn practical emotional regulation skills.
# Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) – Excellent for clients who wish to engage in cognitive attention training who might be struggling with light to moderate anxiety and low mood.
# Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) – A wonderful modality for people who struggle with chronic stress as well as illness and for those who simply wish to learn mindfulness meditation.
# FLASH Therapy – This is based on EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) and is an incredibly powerful intervention used to treat symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) as well as for the processing and releasing of difficult emotions.
# Mindful Self-compassion Training – This evidence based modality can be helpful for those of us who struggle with a strong inner critic as well as feelings of shame and wish to learn how to be kinder to themselves.
I am based in the UK and live in Bournemouth near the sea with my wife and our four-year-old daughter. Whenever time allows I enjoy drinking a milky coffee sitting in a coffee shop and watch the world go by. I’m also learning to play the piano and of course enjoy soaking up the sun at our beautiful local beaches.
I am an accredited member of the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society as well as the British Association of Mindfulness Based Approaches.
