Gestalt therapy in
Burlington,
Ontario
Registered Gestalt-trained psychotherapists serving Burlington in-person and online — for relational depth, somatic awareness, present-moment work, and the integration of body, emotion, and meaning. Led by Olga Klimenkova (GIT Diploma, 7+ years), with a wider team of Gestalt-informed practitioners. Free 15-minute discovery call.
Our Gestalt-trained therapist in Burlington
Olga is the practice's dedicated Gestalt therapist — a Registered Psychotherapist with 7+ years of clinical experience and a Diploma from the Gestalt Institute of Toronto (GIT), the principal Gestalt training body in Canada. She has additional certification in Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy, which deepens the body-centred dimension of her work. Olga sees clients in-person in Oakville and online across Burlington and Halton Region. Her Gestalt practice centres on present-moment awareness, the quality of contact between therapist and client, figure/ground perception, and the integration of body, emotion, and meaning. She works particularly with clients carrying shame, complex trauma, relational difficulty, and the diffuse sense that "something is missing" that classic symptom-focused therapy has not reached. Sessions tend to be experiential and relational rather than protocol-driven — many clients describe her work as a place where what is happening in the room becomes the material of change.
While Alisa's primary training is in CBT and DBT, her integrative, trauma-informed practice draws on Gestalt-aligned principles of relational attunement, present-moment awareness, and the use of the therapeutic relationship as a site of change. She is the in-person option in Burlington for clients who want a relationally warm, body-aware therapy that holds practical skills alongside relational depth. Sessions in English, Arabic, and Russian.
Gestalt-informed therapists — online across Ontario
Donna brings 18+ years of clinical experience to integrative online work with Burlington clients. Her Person-Centred and trauma-informed practice aligns naturally with Gestalt's emphasis on the therapeutic relationship, present-moment experience, and trusting the client's own organising process. She also draws on Mindfulness-Based, Solution-Focused, and DBT methods, making her well-suited to clients whose distress sits alongside trauma history, addiction, or relational complexity.
Oksana works from a developmental and attachment lens that complements the Gestalt frame — both traditions take seriously the relational history that shapes how a client makes contact with themselves and others. She offers online work to Burlington and across Ontario, and is particularly effective with clients whose anxiety, self-criticism, or relational difficulty has deep early-relational roots. Sessions in English, Ukrainian, and Russian.
Gina's holistic, person-centred, mindfulness-aligned practice shares much of Gestalt's commitment to present-moment awareness and the integration of body, feeling, and thought. She offers online work to Burlington clients struggling with anxiety, burnout, and emotional dysregulation, holding a flexible framework that draws also on ACT and DBT. Sessions in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.
Justine offers integrative, attachment-based online therapy to Burlington-area clients and across Ontario. Her work shares with Gestalt an emphasis on relationship as the medium of change, while also drawing on CBT, DBT, and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. She brings particular depth with children, youth, and families, and with clients from Indigenous and culturally diverse backgrounds.
Our Burlington Gestalt-informed practitioner Alisa sees clients in-person at Anytime Anywhere Therapy. Olga, the practice's dedicated Gestalt therapist, holds in-person sessions a short drive away in Oakville and is available online to Burlington.
Visit clinic website →Gestalt therapy in Burlington, Ontario
Gestalt therapy is the practice's flagship modality — GestaltReview is literally named for the tradition. Developed in the mid-20th century by Fritz and Laura Perls and Paul Goodman, Gestalt is an experiential, relational, and body-aware form of psychotherapy that attends not to the content of what the client says about the past but to what is happening between us right now: the quality of contact, the figure emerging from the ground of experience, the held breath, the half-formed sentence.
Where many therapies pursue insight or behaviour change at one remove, Gestalt treats the present moment of the session itself as the primary material of change. The therapist's task is less to interpret than to support fuller awareness — of feeling, body, image, and the relationship in the room. Olga Klimenkova, our dedicated Gestalt-trained therapist (GIT Diploma, 7+ years), leads this work for Burlington clients in-person in Oakville and online to Burlington and Halton.
Our wider team of integrative therapists are Gestalt-informed rather than purely Gestalt-trained — they draw on relational, somatic, mindfulness-based, and person-centred principles that share Gestalt's ground. Sessions start at $140, are HST exempt, and all practitioners hold current registration with CRPO or OCSWSSW.
Is Gestalt therapy right for you?
Gestalt tends to suit clients who are looking for depth over technique — those who sense that their difficulty is not a thought distortion to be corrected but something more diffuse: a way of being in contact with themselves and others, a felt sense of disconnection from body or feeling, a long-running pattern that earlier therapy has not quite reached. Gestalt is well-suited to shame, relational difficulty, complex trauma, identity questions, life transitions, and the experience that something important is "stuck" without being nameable.
If you have tried CBT and found it useful but somehow too cognitive — too far above the neck — Gestalt can offer the missing register. Its work with body, breath, contact, and the present-moment field often opens material that protocol-based therapy can leave untouched. Many clients describe Gestalt sessions as quieter and slower than CBT, but with a different kind of weight.
Gestalt is less indicated as a sole approach in acute crisis or where a client specifically wants symptom-targeted, structured skill-building — though even there, Gestalt-aligned attention to the therapeutic relationship typically strengthens whatever protocol is used. The free 15-minute discovery call with Olga or any of our Gestalt-informed therapists is the best way to test the fit.
Gestalt compared to other therapy approaches
Understanding how Gestalt sits alongside other modalities helps you find the right fit for your presentation and goals.
| Feature | Gestalt | CBT | Psychodynamic | Somatic Experiencing | Person-Centred |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Focus | Awareness, contact, present moment | Thoughts & behaviours | Unconscious & early relationships | Body, nervous system, trauma | Self-actualisation, acceptance |
| Best for | Relational depth, shame, identity, embodied work | Anxiety, depression, OCD, phobias | Long-standing patterns, insight | Trauma held in the body, dissociation | Self-worth, exploring direction |
| Structure | Exploratory, present-focused | Highly structured, protocol-driven | Exploratory, open-ended | Semi-structured, body-led | Non-directive, client-led |
| Body-aware | Yes — central to method | Generally no | Rarely | Yes — primary focus | Sometimes |
| Therapist role | Present, encountered, real | Coach / educator | Interpreter, observer | Co-regulator, somatic guide | Empathic witness |
| Evidence base | Growing — strong for relational & complex presentations | Very strong — most researched | Moderate — long established | Growing — strong for trauma | Strong — long established |
Gestalt therapy across Halton Region and Ontario
Our dedicated Gestalt therapist Olga sees clients in-person in Oakville and online across Ontario. Alisa offers in-person Gestalt-aligned sessions in Burlington. The wider Gestalt-informed team is online province-wide.
Common questions about Gestalt therapy
What is Gestalt therapy?
Gestalt therapy is an experiential, relational, and body-aware form of psychotherapy developed in the mid-20th century by Fritz and Laura Perls and Paul Goodman. The German word Gestalt means "whole" or "configuration" — the therapy treats the person as an integrated whole of body, feeling, thought, and meaning, always in relationship with environment. Rather than analysing the past from a distance, Gestalt works with awareness of the present moment in the room: what is happening between client and therapist, what is figural and what is ground, what the body is doing while the words are being said.
What's the difference between Gestalt and CBT?
CBT works primarily with the content of thoughts — identifying distortions, testing them, building more accurate or flexible alternatives. Gestalt works with the process of contact — how the client meets themselves, the therapist, and the world right now. CBT tends to be structured, protocol-informed, and homework-based; Gestalt tends to be exploratory, present-focused, and relational. Neither is "better" in the abstract — they suit different presentations and different clients. Some of our therapists draw on both.
What's a typical Gestalt session like?
A Gestalt session typically begins with whatever is most alive for you in the present — a feeling, a body sensation, a recent event still echoing. The therapist will track not only what you say but how you say it, what your body is doing, what shifts in the field between you. Experiments may emerge — staying with a sensation, voicing what is unsaid, exploring a posture. The work is less about "talking about" and more about "being with" — and gradually noticing what becomes possible when awareness expands.
How long does Gestalt therapy take?
Gestalt is generally an open-ended therapy rather than a fixed-length protocol. Some clients work for a focused period of 12 to 20 sessions around a particular figure — a relationship, a transition, a stuck pattern. Others engage in longer-term Gestalt work over a year or more, particularly where complex trauma, identity questions, or long-running relational patterns are central. Olga reviews the work with each client periodically; there is no expectation that therapy continues indefinitely.
Is Gestalt therapy evidence-based?
The evidence base for Gestalt has been growing steadily over the past two decades, with studies showing effectiveness for depression, anxiety, relational difficulty, and personality presentations. While Gestalt has not historically attracted the volume of large RCTs that CBT has, the research that exists is generally favourable, and Gestalt-aligned principles (the therapeutic relationship, present-moment awareness, body-focus) feature prominently in process research as drivers of therapeutic change across modalities.
Who is Gestalt therapy not suited for?
Gestalt may be less suited as a sole approach for clients in acute crisis needing immediate stabilisation, or for clients who specifically want a tightly structured, symptom-focused, skill-building therapy and would feel frustrated by exploratory work. It also asks a degree of willingness to attend to the body and feeling, which not every client is in a position to do at every moment. The free 15-minute discovery call is the best way to test fit — Olga can also recommend an alternative practitioner from our team if Gestalt is not the right starting point.
Read GestaltReview — the practice's editorial home
GestaltReview is not only a directory of practitioners but a Gestalt-aligned editorial publication. Its essays sit close to the work that happens in the Gestalt therapy room — examining contact, awareness, shame, the rhythm of meeting and withdrawal, the body as the ground of feeling. For clients new to Gestalt, the articles offer a way to understand what kind of work this is before you ever book a session; for clients already in therapy, they often deepen what is happening between sessions.
Olga and the wider Gestalt-informed team draw on these same ideas in their clinical work. Reading a few of these pieces is genuinely the best way to know whether this approach speaks to you — more reliable than any brochure description.