We are two psychotherapists and counsellors living in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. We’re a married couple, and have been together since 1999. We believe deeply in therapy and counselling. We’ve been through it ourselves and continue our own personal inquiries.
We offer couples and individual psychotherapy and counselling from our offices in Double Bay.
We also offer online sessions for individuals and for couples.
We believe our work with couples and with individuals to be highly effective because we’re passionate about our approach.
Our Commitments
Psychotherapy, counselling and relationship work are for us practices in the widest and deepest sense of the word – commitments to another person, or to a couple, to be with them in the present moment and to join in a co-creation that is energising and rewarding for them.
To join in a co-creation that is energising and rewarding
We both come from a Fine Arts background. We’re energised by and understand the crucial importance of the poetic and symbolic underpinnings of the psyche – from which our life energies, our eros, can arise to enrich our lives.
We’ve also both been immersed in a range of spiritual traditions and practices. We understand that burning quests and fears about who we are can ultimately only be answered at the core levels of questioning identity and self-image; at an existential level.
Couples Counselling & Therapy
We’ve each had over 17 years experience in working with couples. We trained together in Gestalt psychotherapy and make full use of our training as well as other powerful modalities such as attachment theory and Jungian depth psychology.
Personal & Individual Counselling
We bring our own particular skills to work with our individual clients.
Amanda was a trainer at Gestalt training institutes for five years, and brings her rich understanding of the Gestalt approach to her work in the room. She also brings the unique experience to her work of having lived her early years in spiritual communities – understanding at a visceral and cellular level the importance of living a sacred and authentic life.
Ron brings his years of experience as a practicing and exhibiting visual artist, as an engineer and business analyst, and as a committed Gestalt practitioner, to his work with clients.
Sign Up for Our Articles
Use the form on our Home page to sign up for our occasional articles. We’ll keep you posted (by occasional email) on transformational practices we’re thinking and reading about, for both individuals and couples.
Let these emails be a reminder for your own practice. Or, if you’d like to take things further, contact us to make an appointment.
Our Backgrounds
Our formal training is in Gestalt Psychotherapy. We are both PACFA and ARCAP registered. We also both trained in Fine Arts, and Ron also in Engineering.
Amanda has also worked in the not-for-profit sector as a Volunteer Programs Manager. She has been a trainer of Gestalt therapists for many years and is a clinical supervisor of therapists.
Ron has worked in the past as an engineer, visual artist and IT business analyst. He has an on-line art and gnostic practice.
About Amanda
Amanda Gruhn, Gestalt Psychotherapist and Supervisor – vCard
Amanda comes from an unusual background, having had a upbringing in communes and on the high seas, rather than in High School.
Amanda’s early start in the human growth and wellbeing communities holds her in good stead for quickly and deeply understanding complex presenting issues in therapy and counselling. Her passion for the process means she is continually questioning the current modalities and developing these further if necessary to meet the needs of her clients. A recent example is her development of Depth Enquiry, from its basis in EMDR.
Before studying Gestalt, Amanda worked in the not-for-profit sector as a Volunteer Programs Manager. She was a trainer of Gestalt therapists for five years and is a clinical supervisor for therapists.
Qualifications
Amanda holds a BVA (Hons) degree and an Advanced Diploma in Gestalt Psychotherapy. She’s a Clinical Member of PACFA, Reg. 21766, and is a PACFA Accredited Supervisor.
Interests
Amanda’s primary interest is how people (whoever they are and however marginalised) can live happy, contented, fulfilled lives. Relationships are crucial to her, and the importance she places upon them informs both her work and her personal life.
Amanda has particular interest in Couple relationships, and in the needs of transgender and transitioning clients. She is a recommended therapist for referrals by The Gender Centre.
She subscribes to Taoist philosophies, and has been known over the years to utter the phrase “What you resist persists“.
See also: Amanda’s Services for Therapists.
About Ron
Ron Dowd, Gestalt Psychotherapist & Counsellor – vCard
Ron holds Engineering degrees, and worked in IT for many years prior to his interest in art and psychotherapy taking over.
He holds BFA and MA (Hons) degrees in Fine Arts, and an Advanced Diploma in Gestalt Psychotherapy. He has an on-line art practice.
Ron is a Clinical Member of PACFA, Reg. 21768. He has a current Australian police check and a current Working With Children check (WWC2553376E).
Interests
Ron’s approach has been influenced by Taoism and Zen (which were strong influences on the development of Gestalt Psychotherapy in its early days).
He has a long-standing interest in Jung, alchemy and depth psychology, and his MA (Hons) thesis was on the imaginal, on landscape and on the underlying nondual. He has been influenced by the philosopher and theologian Henry Corbin, and by the post-Jungian James Hillman.
He’s interested in creativity, energy, Taoism, Zen, the experience of Eros in life, and how we can live lives that are soulful and imaginative.
Areas of Focus
Ron’s areas of focus are:
C.G. Jung and Post-Jungian Thought
Mandala as Schema of Self
Ron began reading Jung in his 20s and this experience has significantly influenced his path from engineering to psychotherapy (through art-making).
Jung’s reverence for the dream life and for a poetics of living has been an ongoing guide in Ron’s psychotherapeutic approach.
Gnosticism
The God Abraxas
Knowledge-based (rather than belief-based) mystical systems are a research interest.
The lost inner roots of western culture are an area of particular focus, especially because feminine and gnostic elements were suppressed and written out of the orthodoxy of Western religion in the early years of the Common Era.
Sophia and the Feminine
The Goddess Sophia
The mythology and gnosis of Sophia as divine feminine is of significant interest. The loss of awareness of the psychological feminine (in both men and women) is a cause of emotional diminishment for many people, and a loss for our culture in general.
The concept of the syzygy, in which the Logos and Sophia are wed, is a powerful symbol and metaphor for the healthy individual (and for the healthy couple relationship as well).
Medieval Alchemy
The flowering of alchemy in the Medieval period provides endless riches for psychological investigation, and, taking Jung’s lead, provides a way of understanding complex psychological processes.
Alchemical texts such as the Lambspring series are often predominantly visual, and Ron has begun working in this manner, in his art practice, with several series of collages relating to Sophia.
Men’s Journeys
Men suffer in various hidden ways in this culture, and one significant psychological area is related to the loss of the inner feminine, the psychological anima. This loss plays out in a diminishment of emotional life, as well as in both positive and negative projections onto real women (the latter being evident in the recent #MeToo movement).
Ron works with men to recover a sense of authentic meaning in their lives, and find their own rightful place and honour in a complex world.
The Couple Relationship as Mystical Vessel
Alchemical Marriage
Ron works as a couples counsellor and sees the couple relationship as a symbolic vessel within which can be applied transformative and healing operations.
This follows the alchemical approach of gentle heating, nurturing, and respecting the source materials (the individuals involved!).
- See also: Ron’s Article To Take To The Road, originally published in the journal of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, No. 1, 2022.