Audrey Birt

Trustee (Secretary)

Audrey is an Independent coach and consultant and health activist with a particular interest in health and social care and authentic leadership. She has extensive senior executive experience and was previously the Director for Scotland of Breakthrough Breast Cancer having set the charity up in Scotland and previously the National Director for Diabetes UK Scotland. Audrey was Chair of the Health and Social Care Alliance and was a founder member and is now a Champion of the Health and Social Care Academy which is focussed on transformation, learning and connecting the community of health and social care, with a focus on amplifying the voice of lived experience. . She is an Associate Director with Oasis School of Human Relations and has recently published research into workplaces and leadership of the future, called the 7 Principles of the Workplace of Tomorrow if People and Planet Really Matter. She is a fellow of The WEL a transformational approach to health and wellbeing. She has an interest in gestalt in organisations and in mindfulness. She is a regular blogger covering leadership, health and social care as well as her personal experience of breast cancer.

Claire Bruce

Trustee (Treasurer)

Claire graduated with a diploma from EGI in 2006. She then completed a two year programme in Gestalt in Organisations. Claire has been a director of Glen Tanar Estate since 1988 with particular involvement in the strategic development and marketing of the tourism related parts of the business. Claire is a founding member of Royal Deeside and the Cairngorms DMO (Destination Marketing Organisation); she was Chair for the first 3 years and is now Co-Chair. She is currently leading the business engagement and strategy for the DMO. Claire is a member of the Tourism Leadership Group, one of the Scottish Government’s Industry Advisory Groups. In January 2012 Claire was appointed as the tourism champion to the ACSEF (Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future) Board. She is Vice Chair of the Executive Group of the Aberdeen City and Shire Area Tourism Partnership. She is a  a Patron of the North East of Scotland Music School and a Director of Woodend Arts Ltd.

Andrew Hajducki

Trustee

Andrew Hajducki is an Edinburgh lawyer with an interest in the workings of the jury and of the psychological and emotional aspects of litigation in general and acquired brain injury in particular. A former safeguarder to the Lothian children’s panel, he is concerned that the law often fails to recognise that a holistic approach to matters often producers better results than purely legal analysis will achieve, and that in understanding human relationships especially those concerning children the whole is often greater than the sum of the parts. The father of two grown-up sons and  a daughter, he lives in a lively household with his wife Kate, a painter and qualified art therapist, three cats and two dogs.

Kaaren Haughton

Trustee

Kaaren Haughton trained in Gestalt therapy 1981-84 where the emphasis was on the gestalt contact orientated, phenomenological approach to therapy.
In the past 30 years Kaaren has had a private practice providing psychotherapy for individuals, supervision, training and unpaid professional counselling services, mentoring and consultancy for a wide range of people and organisations including The University of Edinburgh.
Her parallel career was being a senior manager in the City of Edinburgh Social Work Dept. Managing and developing a portfolio of services for people with a matrix of complex needs; mental health, addiction, Blood Borne Virus’, rehabilitation and accommodation services for service users. She worked collaboratively with NHS and the 3rd sector.
The combination of these was a creative, the one informing the other to support her practice and personal development. Bringing her therapeutic insights into organisational process and development, at times provided necessary support to enable her to continue to work within a large organisation.
The commitment of Social Work to social justice supported her supervision and therapy practice; it brought a wider perspective beyond the consulting room and informed her about the context of client’s lives.
Now retired she has time to take on other tasks: She has been elected onto the Southside Community Council and is very pleased to be a Trustee of the Edinburgh Gestalt Institute.

Andrew Pritchard

Trustee (Chair)

Andrew is a gestalt therapist and lecturer working in Edinburgh. He has a private therapy practice as well as working for a counselling agency in the city. He also teaches on an integrative counselling course at Edinburgh College. He also has an interest in the field of personal development, working with dialogue and reflective practice.

Andrew trained with the Gestalt Trust in Scotland, qualifying in 2001. He has an interest in how gestalt therapy’s integration of a holistic perspective with precise attention to detail can help to inform the wider, and rapidly evolving, field of popular psychological interest that is emerging at the moment.