Marko Talijan (they/them), belong therapy & workshops

Therapist Directory Listing Category: Online Therapy

About the Therapist

About the therapist:

My name is Marko Talijan. I work as a (psycho)therapist through my practice, belong therapy & workshops. I see adults and couples, both online and in person in Amsterdam and Arnhem.

My primary orientation is relational Gestalt psychotherapy. I am also trained in Schema Therapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples, and I draw on both when working with relational dynamics and attachment patterns.

My practice is LGBTQ+ affirmative and kink-affirming. I welcome people across the full spectrum of gender, sexuality and relationship diversity. Many of the people I work with are carrying the weight of minority stress, internalised shame, social stigma, or years of exclusion in families, communities or institutions. These are not disorders. They are consequences.

Alongside individual and couples therapy, I facilitate workshops and group spaces for LGBTQ+ people. The focus is resilience, connection and psychological growth.

Sexual identity:

Gay
Queer

Gender identity: I use another term

Gender history: Prefer not to say

Intersex: No

Neurodivergent: No

Personal pronouns: they/them

Qualifications - Links to websites:

Professional memberships:

European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP)

https://www.europsyche.org

European Association for Gestalt Therapy (EAGT)

https://www.eagt.org

Nederlandse Associatie voor Psychotherapie (NAP)

https://www.nap-psychotherapie.nl

International Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (IAAGT)

https://iaagt.org

Website:

https://belong.lgbt

markotalijan.com

Qualifications - Additional:

Award	Awarding body	Year of award

Experience and approach:

My primary orientation is relational Gestalt (psycho)therapy, which works with awareness, embodied experience and the quality of contact between people. I also draw on Schema Therapy when the work calls for understanding deeper emotional patterns and unmet needs, and on Emotionally Focused Therapy when working with couples and the way attachment shapes what happens between them. I do not follow one model rigidly. I follow what is most useful for the person in front of me.

I am attentive to what wider social structures do to people from the inside. Queerphobia, cisnormativity, sexism, racism, cultural displacement. These are not abstractions. They become the inner voice that says you are too much. Or not enough. Or wrong in some way you cannot quite name. Many of my clients have carried that voice so long they mistake it for their own.

In therapy we slow down. We look at those patterns together. The work might involve noticing what happens in the body when shame arrives, understanding what you do when someone gets close, or finding places where there is more choice than it seemed. But I am also here for what is hardest. I can sit with pain that has not yet found words, and I work toward repair where something has been broken, whether that is trust, connection to yourself, or the sense that you deserve to be here at all.

I do not prescribe resilience. I do not give homework. I try to offer a relationship in which something can be felt and understood that could not be felt alone.

Ethics is how I orient myself in every session. I do not work beyond my competence. I seek regular supervision. I refer when that is the right thing to do. I take seriously the power that sits in the therapist’s chair, and I try to use it carefully.

Before psychotherapy, I studied general linguistics and worked as a journalist. Both left their mark. Linguistics taught me that language is never neutral, that it organises power and meaning before we even notice. Journalism taught me to listen carefully and to not look away from what is uncomfortable. These are things I bring into the room.

Approaches: