Sheelagh
Hickey

Sheelagh trained and works as a Gestalt Counsellor and Psychotherapist. This therapeutic approach encourages personal awareness through experience, rather than understanding, as the key to change.

Sheelagh is an accredited Psychotherapist with I.A.H.I.P. (The Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy), and an accredited Supervisor and Therapist with I.A.C.P. (The Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy).  She began her practice in 2007 by working with two Community based Centres in Tallaght and Tullow. She also started and maintains a private practice at in Co. Kildare.

Sheelagh has experience working with people of all ages with varied issues. Sheelagh also offers Couples Counselling, using the Resnik’s Gestalt Model, which is based on the most complex human dilema, “how to be connected with another and maintain a self”. This model encourages couples to stay as two individuals, suggesting a healthy relationship needs difference to be successful.

Sheelagh has enhanced her Gestalt knowledge by attending various seminars organised by the Gestalt Institute of Ireland over the years. Since 2017 Sheelagh has been attending International Trainings in Identity Oriented Psychotrauma Therapy, which takes account of early trauma and how we deal with this trauma. She has also been on trainings in the I.O.P.T. Method with Marta Thorsheim in Norway, and Vivian Broughton in the U.K. Sheelagh continues to attend ongoing trainings as often as possible.

Sheelagh provides a calm, safe and confidential space for clients to talk about any troubling thoughts, feelings and emotions they are experiencing. Sheelagh’s approach is varied, depending on the unique and individual needs of each client. She encourages her clients to see how they are in the world, and in some instances to see that behaviour learnt and needed as a child is no longer serving them well. With Sheelagh’s support you can identify old habits, and with self compassion you can learn new behaviour that will be helpful in your present life.

Mind, Body and Spirit need to be in unison, and when one part is out of balance we do not function as well as we might. Sheelagh understands that we all have ways of protecting ourselves emotionally, and sometimes with greater personal awareness – we can, with courage, honesty and determination, live life in a more fulfilling way.