All client cases are confidential and will not be revealed here or elsewhere. Having said that the following case is presented with permission from the client...me! It is my story.

From the outside looking in I was seen as a success: a happily married man; a father of two young healthy pre-teenaged daughters; a successful long-standing corporate career with a well established international company; well compensated; a home owner and a person with many friends and outside interests. And yet I felt stuck, flat, and un-alive.

I was mired in a career that didn't fit, each day 'acting' as though I was someone else rather than living as who I really was. Always defaulting to 'being nice' instead of being aware of how I really felt and what my own needs were. I was unable to feel real emotion, rarely spontaneous with laughter yet never capable of feeling sadness either. I was just kind of plodding along my journey's path, pretty much flat-lining on automatic pilot, unaware that my life was about to change dramatically.

In my university days I'd had a fairly keen interest in Psychology and since then had experienced several life events that resulted in me becoming kind of an amateur therapist...the person that people in the family or in my circle of friends would turn to for advice. One of those friends of mine had been seeing a Gestalt Therapist and was making some noticeable, positive shifts in his life. I was curious about his process and got from him the name of his therapist. Six months later the name and number were still on a scrap of paper in my wallet. I hadn't made the call.

One night as I was driving to a dinner engagement I found myself 'stuck' again, this time quite literally. I was already late and now I was in the middle of a major traffic jam. I had been having another stressful day- sales results were not as expected and, as the Director of Sales, I knew I had the impending unenviable pleasure/pressure of explaining our disappointing performance to the President of the company. In that moment I was very frustrated with my life and as I sat there in traffic I said out loud 'I feel like screaming'. Seconds later I decided to do just that. I let out a roar that would have done a grizzly bear proud! I quickly looked around to see if anyone had noticed...thankfully darkness had provided cover.

This 'event' gave me the push I needed to make the call to my friend's therapist. Of course I told myself that I was doing so only because I wanted to know more about the Gestalt methodology, not for any therapeutic reasons. Well, we met and after my hour was up I realized that not only had I just experienced my very own first therapy session but that I also wanted a few more!

To make a long story short, I embarked on a personal growth journey that has been truly remarkable. Over the course of the next year or so I rediscovered my feelings; I became able to laugh heartily and to shed tears for the first time in more than 20 years. Most importantly I found the courage to make changes in my life, the most significant of which was to leave my 'successful' career behind and pursue Gestalt as a Therapist.

I have completed the four year training program at the Gestalt Institute of Toronto (www.gestalt.on.ca) and am a fully accredited Gestalt Therapist. I established my individual and group therapy practice in 2003 and am located in the Yonge and St. Clair area of mid-town Toronto.