Dr. Sinan Doğan

Children make sense of the world they grow up in through play. In play therapy we create the conditions for children to build strong social skills, to express their feelings freely and appropriately, and to develop psychological flexibility. Within the safe relationship they build with the therapist, children work through what they have lived, learn to self-regulate and develop new ways of coping. Play therapy is one of the interventions with the strongest scientific support for its positive effect on children’s well-being through difficult times such as anxiety, behavioral difficulties, trauma, grief and divorce.

Filial Therapy teaches parents the principles of play therapy and places them at the center of their child’s change. Under the therapist’s training and supervision, parents learn to hold weekly special play sessions with their child at home. Research shows that these parent-led sessions reduce children’s behavior problems and lower parents’ stress.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is an evidence-based approach built on learning to make room for difficult thoughts and feelings instead of fighting them. The aim is not to eliminate painful experiences but to keep moving in the direction you value without letting them run your life. In sessions we work on awareness, acceptance and the skill of stepping back from your thoughts. It has been shown to help with anxiety, depression, burnout and chronic stress, among others.

Coherence Therapy starts from the assumption that a symptom has a meaning and a function in a person’s life, often outside their awareness. An unwanted response such as anxiety, procrastination or a repeating relationship pattern comes from emotional learning acquired in the past that makes sense on its own terms. In therapy we find this implicit knowledge together and bring it into view. Built on memory reconsolidation, the process aims to transform the learning that produces the symptom rather than manage the symptom.

Narrative Therapy is based on the idea that people make sense of their lives through the stories they tell about them. The problem is treated not as the person but as something separate that affects the person’s life: instead of “I am depressed” we ask “What is depression doing to my life?” This makes room to rebuild one’s relationship with the problem and to see strengths and choices that have stayed in the shadows of the story. It pays particular attention to how social and cultural discourses shape our stories.

Systemic and Experiential Family Therapy looks for the problem not in a single person but in the patterns of family relationships. Distress in one family member is often part of the balance of the whole system. The systemic lens makes these patterns, roles and intergenerational transmissions visible, while the experiential approach uses what is felt in the session as the vehicle of change. Couples and family members can then experience relating to each other in new ways within the session itself.

Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy starts from the understanding that trauma leaves its mark not only on the mind but also on the body. In sessions we learn to notice bodily sensations, breath, posture and the responses of the nervous system. The aim is not to retell traumatic memories in detail but to strengthen, step by step, the nervous system’s capacity to feel safe and regulate itself. It integrates talk-based therapy processes with body-based work.