Derek van Zoonen

My approach is simple in principle but radical in practice: I help you pay attention to yourself.

Through mindful, embodied self-study we explore how you have organized your inner world — the parts that carry shame, grief, and exhaustion; the parts that protect more vulnerable states; the parts that long for something different; the core beliefs you absorbed before you had any say in the matter, and the self that witnesses it all — and how this inner landscape shapes the world you find yourself in. I bring presence, depth, and curiosity. You bring yourself. Together we examine what we find with honesty and care.I particularly enjoy working with people who are living from their head but yearning to live from the whole of their being, body and heart included. People craving a more intimate connection with themselves and those around them. People preparing for or integrating transformative experiences occasioned by psychedelics, breathwork, or other high-impact modalities. People sitting with the grief of loss, heartbreak, missed opportunities, lost versions of themselves, or life’s stubborn impermanence. People grappling with questions of meaning—what matters, what is worth living for, how to live well. And people who are simply looking for something different from what conventional talk therapy offers.My background is in philosophy and psychology. I hold a PhD in philosophy and work at the University of Oslo. My research and teaching lies at the intersection of philosophy and positive psychology, exploring happiness, meaning, and the good life—questions that also animate my counseling practice.I’m a trained Hakomi practitioner — a mindfulness-based, body-centered approach to therapy that works by exploring present-moment experience rather than just talking about your struggles or the past. The Hakomi method taught me to listen not only to what people say but to what’s beneath, behind, and between their words and to provide an open and accommodating space in which their knots can begin to unwind.In addition, I bring more than a decade of meditation practice and direct experience preparing, guiding, and integrating journeys into altered states of consciousness.In our sessions, we slow down. I might invite you to notice what’s happening in your body as you speak about something difficult. We pause. We get curious about the tightness in your chest or the way your voice changes. We follow the thread of what is alive in the moment and what asks and needs our attention rather than analyzing things from a distance. We also work closely with the different parts of yourself—what IFS practitioners call the ‘internal family system.’ We might run small experiments in mindfulness to explore how a protective part shows up, or what happens when we bring gentle attention to a younger part that’s carrying old pain. The work is about meeting these parts with curiosity rather than trying to fix or override them.Over time, people often find themselves less divided inside. There is a growing sense of coherence, of being more at home in one's own body, mind, and life. They trust their experience more and feel less governed by unconscious beliefs. There is greater clarity about what matters most — what kind of life is worth living, and what it means to live it well. And for those seeking to digest their psychedelic experiences, there is the slow, steady work of anchoring what was revealed into how one actually lives — doing the laundry after the ecstasy.I am based in Oslo, Norway and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I work in English and Dutch. Sessions take 60 minutes and are available in person and online. For inquiries and pricing, please contact me at [email protected].