Biography

Deborah (Debbie) Stone, LMFT (she/her/they) is the Clinical Director at Church Street Integral Counseling Center, was a founding member of the Bay Area Gestalt Institute, is an ongoing 30-year practitioner of Gestalt Awareness Practice, teaches Gestalt Therapy, does educational consulting and training using gestalt practices and values, co-facilitates a grief counseling program with UCSF Benioff for bereaved parents, is a clinical supervisor and has a psychotherapy private practice in the SF Bay Area.  

“I joined CIIS staff at Church Street Integral Counseling Center in 2011 after training here and graduating from the CIIS ICP master’s program in 2009. I love supporting students in the context of the Gestalt training community at Church St ICC, and this role was the fruition of a mid-life career change from a twenty-year career in corporate interior architecture, design, and consulting (BS Environmental Design, UCD). My passion continues to be Gestalt Awareness Practice (GAP), a practice model of Gestalt Therapy created by Dick Price (co-founder of Esalen) and Christine Price. This model is deeply informed by Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism, feminism, eco-psychology, humanistic and existential therapies, and is somatic as well as integral. The Church St. ICC program developed by Lu Grey, Derek Pehle and Gieve Patel has broadened and deepened my appreciation for the beauty of Gestalt and Gestalt Therapy, and for the truly integral, transpersonal, inclusive, holistic, trusting, relational, humility-infused, and respectful way of being with clients and ourselves.”

Debbie identifies as a learner, teacher and mentor, and as a white, older, mostly able-bodied, mostly cis, hetero passing, intersectional feminist with many parts, who loves the big questions. Debbie also loves to hike, cook, meditate, sing, dance, read, hang out with her partner, family and friends, and to be communing with nature as often as possible.