I am a qualified and registered existential and psychoanalytic psychotherapist, counselling psychologist and clinical psychologist. I am a registered member of the British Psychological Society (BPS), the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), the Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe (FETE) and the Turkish Psychological Association (TPD). I abide by all these professional establishments’ codes of ethics in my practice.
Education
I completed my bachelor’s level psychology education at Istanbul Bilgi University (Turkey) and Vassar College (USA), receiving my degree from the former. I was trained as a clinical psychologist and a psychoanalytic psychotherapist at the same university. Besides my master’s degree in clinical psychology, I studied international management and management of health care systems at Liverpool University (UK). I received my doctoral degree in counselling psychology and existential psychotherapy from Middlesex University – New School of Psychotherapy and Counseling.
Besides academic education, I received training in various fields of psychotherapy; e.g., psychodrama, Gestalt psychotherapy, as well as in classical hatha yoga.
Clinical experience
I have been working with individuals and groups since 2010 in a variety of settings. I opened my private practice in 2012, where I still work. In my private practice I work extensively with adults, who lost their direction in life and experience various predicaments as a function of this loss.
Alongside with offering psychotherapy, I provide supervision, both individual and group, to other psychotherapists.
Work experience
In 2012 I established Existential Academy of Istanbul (Turkey), where more than 20 psychotherapists provide therapeutic services to individuals, couples and groups, and over 100 trainees are trained in existential psychotherapy every year. I still lead all the clinical and educational affairs of Existential Academy of Istanbul.
I was on the faculty in departments of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Istanbul Bilgi University (Turkey), Bahçeşehir University (Turkey), Hasan Kalyoncu University (Turkey), Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy (TX, USA). Alongside with these, I founded Aletheia Books for publishing (2014-2019) and co-founded the Center for Psychodynamic Therapies (Turkey).
I wrote two books on existential psychotherapy in Turkish and translated several books by Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schopenhauer, Emmy van Deurzen from English and German into Turkish.
Currently I teach and supervise at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling – Middlesex University (UK).
Dr Jak Icoz 