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I began my journey of becoming a psychologist and a psychotherapist at the University of New York in Prague, where I received my Bachelor’s degree. Afterwards, I continued my studies at the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, my specialization being clinical psychology. It was at this department where I later also received my Ph.D. in social psychology.
Even when I was still pursuing my studies in psychology, I worked as a volunteer therapist in several wards of the Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital. I eventually also got my first job at this institution after completing my master’s degree. I worked as a diagnostic psychologist and a psychotherapist first in the acute admission ward and then in the addiction treatment ward. Among our patients in the acute ward were people with personality disorders, mood disorders and adjustment disorders, people who had attempted suicide, as well as people with psychotic disorders. I met with patients as part of comprehensive and specifically focused differential diagnostic evaluations and also in my role of a psychotherapist. In the acute admission ward I conducted group psychotherapy, group art therapy and individual psychotherapy sessions. The Addiction Treatment Unit saw people who were, as the name suggests, struggling with addictions of all kinds, from alcohol through drugs to gambling. The ages ranged from adolescents all the way up to elders. There too I conducted group psychotherapy and art therapy as well as group relaxation sessions and both family and individual psychotherapy. In addition, I also carried out various differential diagnostic psychological examinations with the patients.
years of experience in the field
scientific publications
hours of experience as a supervisor
In the course of my employment at Bohnice, I joined a systematic five-year training in Gestalt psychotherapy and after its completion I built upon it with a postgraduate psychotherapeutic training in the Gestalt modality focused on psychotherapeutic work and counselling with child and adolescent clients. I am therefore a qualified and certified adult psychotherapist as well child/adolescent psychotherapist.
During my first job, I realised that I was not particularly fulfilled by test-based psychological diagnostics, and so I decided to devote myself fully to psychotherapy and psychological counselling. I worked as a psychologist in a low-threshold centre for children and youth between the ages of 12 and 22 in Nymburk in the Semiramis organisation. I organized group therapy and individual counselling-therapy interviews with our clients, as well as various educational programmes in the field of psychology.
After that I worked as a psychologist/psychotherapist at the Centre for Psychological and Social Counselling in Nymburk, where we focused on family work and couples therapy. My workload there, however, continued to involve individual psychotherapy with children, adolescents and adults.
Having spent many years working in various institutions, I decided to become a private psychotherapist and established my own private psychotherapy practice in Poděbrady, where I have been working for eight years. In parallel with this private practice I worked for a long time as a lecturer and assistant professor at the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology of the Faculty of Education at the University of Hradec Králové. I taught specialist psychological subjects to students of teaching at primary schools (2nd level), secondary schools, to students of special pedagogy, social pedagogy, etc. In addition, I was the coordinator of internationalization and taught certain psychology courses to foreign students within the Erasmus programme. I also worked as a lecturer during my doctoral studies at the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University.
Currently I am an in-house lecturer at the Institute for Training in Gestalt Therapy in Prague, where we train future psychotherapists.
I participate both actively and passively in specialist conferences and further education. Together with my colleagues I jointly publish in the field of supervision, psychotherapy and educational psychology.
During my time at university I also started to work as a freelance supervisor and lecturer. I developed my supervision skills in a supervision training course led by Semiramis, and completed it by passing a supervision exam. Currently I continue to deepen my supervision skills and knowledge by attending a supervision training in the Gestalt modality organized by the Gestalt Plus institute.