Welcome to the Gestalt Center for Growth and Training
Psychotherapy and Training Center
Our mission is to provide low cost high-quality therapy to children, teens, adults, couples, and families
Now accepting Medicaid and most insurances
We have immediate openings for couples, individuals, and families
About
Founded in 2024 by Dan Baur and Ernest Mccoy, The Gestalt Center for Growth and Training PLLC is dedicated to providing high-quality psychotherapy to our clients and exceptional training to our Interns and Licensed Professional Counselors Candidates. We offer both individual and group supervision, fostering growth through awareness of self and other. We offer a supportive and experiential learning environment.
Co Founders
Dan Baur
Ernest A. McCoy
Ernest McCoy is a Gestalt therapist with over 50 years of experience. He is known internationally for conducting training across numerous countries and cities throughout the Planet Earth. Ernest specializes in assisting humans to develop their strengths and accept their limitations, guiding them toward greater awareness in the here and now.
2025-2026 Practicum/Interns Therapists
Ellie Sidebottom
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Samantha Mendel
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
As a master’s student studying mindfulness-based Transpersonal Psychology, I am passionate about supporting individuals navigate life’s challenges and achieve greater emotional well-being. I use a compassionate, client-centered approach to therapy and believe in creating a nonjudgmental space where clients can explore their thoughts and feelings, gain awareness, and work towards personal growth. My goal is to meet you where you are to overcome obstacles and build a healthier, more fulfilling life.
If you are ready to make positive changes or simply need someone to talk to, I am here to support you on your journey and assist you in taking ownership of the here and now experience as a path to growth.
Caitie Mcbride
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Kinz Kline
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
I’m Kinz (they/them) and am a therapist intern in my 3rd year at Naropa University studying Somatic Psychology and Dance Movement Therapy. I believe in each person’s inner power and aim to help you gain and broaden access to your own empowerment. I work to integrate the mind, body and spirit. I believe movement and work with the body gives us increased access to ourselves and our truths. My approach is deeply rooted in curiosity and creativity, as those have been the greatest healing agents in my own journey. I work from a strengths-based and social-justice informed lens, allowing the work to be centered around and led by the client. I am particularly passionate about working with teenagers, however love working with the broader LGBTQIA+ community, as well as couples and families. I consider myself therapist as teacher, therapist as creative and therapist as advocate.
Nicole Migacz
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Hi, I’m Nicole (she/her), a graduate student in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a concentration in Somatic Counseling: Dance/Movement Therapy at Naropa University. I bring a playful, direct, and encouraging presence to therapy, grounded in a deep belief in our capacity to grow through relationship and embodied awareness.
My approach is collaborative — we create the experience together. As a therapist, I see myself as a guide and fellow traveler, moving with you as we explore identity, navigate transitions, and move through grief and discomfort toward more meaningful, authentic, and honest connection to self and others.
My background includes working with at-risk teens, elders, and facilitating group spaces rooted in connection, creativity and self-awareness.
Jennifer Byrnett
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Nik Krause
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
I come to you with plenty of lived experience, shaped by a life across three continents, diverse cultures, and unexpected paths. These journeys—both chosen and unexpected—have deepened my understanding of resilience, connection, and the many ways of finding meaning, even in challenging times. As a teenager, I survived a severe traumatic brain injury and weeks in a coma, an experience that taught me the value of patience, presence, and, perhaps most importantly, a good sense of humor in the face of hardship.
As a Master’s student in Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling at Naropa University and a long-time practitioner of principled nonviolence, I bring warmth, steadiness, and lightheartedness into the therapy room. My approach blends mindfulness, Gestalt principles, experiential techniques, play therapy, and elements of nonviolence to create a collaborative space where clients feel supported, curious, and empowered. Grounded in my training and my diverse lived experiences, I am ready to work with people of most ages and backgrounds who are navigating life transitions, grief, difficult emotions, and those seeking to reconnect with who they truly are. Much of what I’ve written describes the counsellor I aspire to be, for you. Most of all, I look forward to meeting you and walking alongside you as you create a life that brings you alive.
Chris Chandler
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
I’m a student intern currently studying Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling at Naropa University. My clinical training has focused on cultivating therapeutic presence, present-centered awareness, emotional attunement, and trust in the organically unfolding healing process. Prior to starting my studies at Naropa University, I completed training in psychedelic peer support, hospice care, and self care—each shaping my capacity to meet people with empathy, groundedness, and respect for their inner world. My work is also informed by lived experience with a traumatic brain injury, which has shaped my capacity to meet clients where they are, and to trust in their resilience.
Summer Hagan
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Welcome! I am Summer and in my final semester at Naropa University where I am completing my Master’s in Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling.
Are you ready to move forward? Do you feel called to live the fullest, most authentic expression of your life? With your willingness, I believe it is both possible and worth it. No matter how you identify or where you currently find yourself, it would be my honor to meet you with compassion and support the unfolding of your personal path.
Many of us remain bound by habituated defenses and inherited value systems. When we don’t consciously update these, they can keep us from experiencing aliveness, connection, and autonomy. I am passionate about using the therapy room as a playground to discover your inner guidance, become intimate with your essence, and reclaim your freedom and joy.
My approach is rooted in deep attunement to your uniqueness and respect for all parts of you, and our direction is informed by your personal values and strengths. I have found Gestalt therapy to be one of the most effective and enduring frameworks for growth. It emphasizes present-moment awareness and creative experimentation based on what arises. To enhance this, I often integrate somatic practices and Internal Family Systems (IFS) techniques to help you move beyond conceptual understanding into direct experience and embodied becoming.
In addition to my counseling training, I bring an extensive background in teaching yoga, equine-facilitated coaching, and advocacy for survivors of abuse. I draw on my daily contemplative practices as well. Both my professional and personal lived experiences enable me to hold a heart-centered space with gentleness, spaciousness, and grounded presence.
Nailah Davis
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Nailah Davis is a graduate student studying Somatic Counseling at Naropa University and an intern at the Gestalt Center for Growth and Training. Her work centers on understanding how relationships, social systems, and ancestral histories shape lived experience through the body. Grounded in somatic approaches, Nailah views counseling as a collaborative process that integrates body awareness, mindfulness, and creative expression to support healing and authentic self-expression. She believes the body holds innate wisdom, and that increased awareness allows individuals to choose more embodied, liberated ways of being. Nailah strives to create a supportive, intentional space where clients feel respected as the experts of their own lives while navigating growth with care, curiosity, and compassion with laughs along the way.
Cindy Kane
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Hi! I’m Cindy (she/her) an intern therapist and graduate student finishing my master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling at Naropa University.
My approach is grounded in present moment awareness, and that healing takes place within an attuned, caring, and non-judgemental relationship.
I work together with clients in taking a deeper and more focused look at what they want to explore, their needs and desires, and what might be getting in the way.
Together we work to find your way to becoming more of who you are, and who you want to be, in order to experience more freedom and choice in leading a meaningful and fulfilling life.
I bring an encouraging, creative, and relational presence to the therapeutic relationship, and I am interested in working with children, teens, and adults in developing healthier relationships with self, others, and their environment.
I look forward to meeting you!
Jiayi Zhao
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
I’m Jiayi, a graduate student in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a concentration in Nature-Based Counseling at Naropa University. Prior to entering this program, I completed training in Hakomi somatic psychotherapy.
For me, healing extends beyond conversation within a counseling room. My personal practice includes yoga, meditation, and classical guitar. Through repetition and the willingness to learn something new, I find a sense of steadiness and a deepened connection to the beauty of the world.
Over the past decade, I have worked extensively in wilderness, places often experienced as hostile to humans, yet peaceful and deeply supportive of other forms of life. Witnessing the same landscapes again and again, I came to appreciate how differently each person perceives and feels the same environment. In this way, being a therapist means accompanying each heart as they explore their own unique inner landscape.
I believe that each of us carries an innate inner guidance to navigate challenging terrain. Therapy, for me, is a collaborative process of listening, connecting for that guidance while gently exploring new and unfamiliar territories.
Ashley Howisey
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Ashley lives in the mountains west of Boulder, CO with her husband, six year old son, and Australian shepherd. She is completing her masters in Counseling at Naropa University. Ashley is originally from Seattle and studied herbalism and nutrition at Bastyr. She has traveled to many places around the world via global medical brigades and studying global health at the University of Washington. She also leads medicinal plant walks in the mountains and enjoys backpacking, hiking with friends and family and swimming in alpine lakes.
Travis Cox
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Hello, friend! I’m glad you’ve found this site. Regardless of what brought you here, I’m a firm believer that *everyone* could benefit from therapy just by the nature of being human in 2026. I’ve been walking with people on the path of radical self-change for over a decade as a professor in bachelor’s and master’s degrees that specialize in transformational educational experiences. It has been my experience, and it is my belief that disconnection is at the source of most of our struggles—disconnection from ourselves, from those we love, from nature, and from meaning and purpose.
I’ve recently decided to focus on what I love best about my experience in higher education: working with the basic goodness that is at the core of every person to help them figure out their unique gifts and how to navigate life’s challenges so that they can give what they have to offer to a world that desperately needs it! I focus on person-centered and trauma-aware therapy that is compassionate, strengths-based, culturally sensitive, and spiritually informed. Additionally, I love bringing in humor and aspects of the natural world to promote healing.
If my style resonates with where you’re at, I’d love to discuss the possibilities of us working together. Feel free to contact me in order to schedule a free 20-minute consultation. It’s been shown that the therapeutic relationship is what’s most important and so even if I don’t get the pleasure of working with you, it will still be an honor to do what I can to help you with the next step on your journey.
Mikayla Moon Wilder
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
My approach is grounded in mindfulness, relational presence, and curiosity, with an emphasis on creating a compassionate and collaborative therapeutic space for my clients to explore their inner world.
Olivia Sophie
Counseling Psychology Graduate Level Intern
Olivia is a graduate-level counseling intern currently completing a Master’s degree in Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Naropa University. She brings curiosity, presence, and thoughtful attention to her work, offering a supportive and reflective space where adults are invited to slow down, explore their inner experiences, and develop greater self-awareness and self-compassion.
Olivia also holds a Master’s degree in Contemplative Religious Studies with a focus on Buddhism and has over ten years of experience as a Licensed Massage Therapist. These experiences have shaped her understanding of the mind–body connection and inform the way she brings awareness, grounding, and compassionate presence into the therapeutic space.
Her approach is informed by mindfulness-based and Gestalt-oriented frameworks and is rooted in present-moment, experiential work. Olivia supports clients in exploring emotions, habitual patterns, and bodily sensations through reflective dialogue and gentle inquiry, helping clients cultivate insight and awareness in the here and now.
Olivia is especially drawn to working with clients navigating life transitions, stress, anxiety, or patterns of thought and behavior that feel limiting. She aims to offer a space where clients feel seen, heard, and supported in engaging with the work that matters most to them.
Post Graduate Therapists
Ben Duffy
Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate
Incorporating psychotherapeutic modalities including gestalt, IFS, and depth psychology along side eastern contemplative philosophies and practices. I aim to leave no stone unturned in our exploration of how we can truly optimize our experience. My goal is to assist others in navigating life’s most trying difficulties. Primarily depression, loneliness, anxiety, and relationship troubles. While also making space for the client to increase their capacity for joy, ease, and understanding.
Shelby Kindem
Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate
Shelby Kindem is a pre-licensed mental health counselor with a master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling and a specialization in Somatic Body-Psychotherapy. She offers an embodied, trauma-informed, and humanistic approach, grounded in authenticity and relational depth. Shelby works with children, adults, and couples, supporting each client in exploring their unique histories, values, and aspirations—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
Shelby integrates Child-Centered Play Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, and Somatic Body-Psychotherapy. With children, she uses a playful, strengths-based approach to nurture confidence and self-trust. With adults and couples, Shelby draws on Gestalt and somatic methods to welcome the present moment, deepen self-awareness, and foster meaningful connection. Her work invites clients into a healing process through movement, creativity, and felt-sense exploration, within a space of safety, curiosity, and respect.
James Sims
Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate
Nate Jones
Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate
I have been working with individuals and groups seeking healing, transformation, and connection since 2016. I received a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Naropa University in 2025 where I studied Contemplative Psychotherapy and Buddhist Psychology.
To me, this work is, above all, about relationship. Whether it’s a relationship with oneself, other people, work, activities, or nature, life is an ongoing relationship. So, how do we operate in relationship with harmony, joy, wisdom, and love? The answer to that question is the essence of what this counseling work is all about. In the process we will become more naturally who we are, face our fears, find humor and purpose in the mysteriousness of life, and discover how we most naturally give our gifts to the world.
I love working with couples, family members, individuals, and feel great purpose in working with men. I welcome young men and see them as being at a prime stage in life to learn about themselves and begin to cultivate a way of being that the world needs tremendously right now.
I wish you the absolute best on your journey and would be truly honored to join you along the way.
Eric Novikoff
Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate
My passion is helping people struggling with difficult interpersonal relationships, interrupted careers, and symptoms like depression, anxiety, addiction, conflict, loneliness, and spiritual crises so that they can build the life they want. If you have been struggling with longtime patterns of not getting what you need in life despite trying really hard, and maybe feeling confused, exhausted, hopeless, abandoned, or that life has no meaning, I’d like to help.
I believe everyone has an innate ability and inclination to heal, and that the process of therapy is a joint exploration of awareness that allows you to activate your own healing capacity. In this process you learn to discern and meet your own needs through creative adaptation to your circumstances, to discover and fulfill your dreams, and to give your life peace, purpose and meaning.
I come to counseling after a career in high tech as an engineer, manager and company founder. I have also studied and practice non-dual spiritual self-inquiry. My greatest joy is watching someone flower into their full and integrated self, and build a life they are delighted by. I enjoy working with and have experience helping people of all backgrounds, ages, genders, and sexual orientations, individually or in couples settings.
I also enjoy meditation, cooking Chinese food, baking sourdough bread, and walking the trails in the beautiful mountains of Colorado with my partner and my dog, Grace.
Robert Wickersham
Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate
Robert Wickersham is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Clinical Psychology PhD candidate at Saybrook University. With over a decade of experience in mental health, he brings a warm, collaborative approach to supporting individuals through life transitions, grief, trauma, and identity development. His clinical work is grounded in client-centered, trauma-informed, and existential-humanistic frameworks, with an expanding emphasis on Gestalt therapy.
Earlier in his career, Robert worked extensively with older adults in both clinical and research settings—including time at the CU Aging Center. He has supported clients navigating retirement, caregiving, medical concerns, grief, and meaning-making in later life. He believes therapy can be a space for renewed connection with one’s inner vitality, emotional clarity, and embodied presence.
Robert is a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP-II) with advanced training in EMDR, CBT, and integrative approaches. His style is compassionate, respectful, and attuned to the unfolding process of each client’s experience.
Office Hours
Location
6610 Gunpark Drive, Boulder, CO 80301
Suite 202
Availability
Monday/Tuesday: 7am – 7pm
Wednesday/Thursday/Friday: 8:30am – 7pm
(Weekend availability is possible; contact us to discuss.)
Areas of Specialties
Rates and Insurance
Private Insurance: Aetna
Insurance: All Medicaid is accepted, including:
- Aetna(Post-Graduate Therapists) Medicaid – Health First Colorado
- Anthem (Blue Cross Blue Shield)
- Cigna
- Colorado Access
- Colorado Community Health Alliance (CCHA)
- Health Colorado, Inc.
- Health First Colorado
- Rocky Mountain Health Plan (RMHP)
- United Healthcare
Self Pay: We offer a self-pay rate of $75 for a 50-minute session, or $40 per session for groups.
Payment
All major credit or debit cards accepted for payment.
Cancellation Policy
If you do not show up for your scheduled therapy appointment, and you have not notified us at least 24 hours in advance, you will be required to pay the full cost of the session.
Emergency
If you are having a clinical emergency or are having thoughts of harming yourself or others, please call 911 or go to your nearest Emergency Room. For mental health crises, dial 988.
EMERGENCY CONTACTS
- Longmont Police Department: 303-651-8555 (non-emergency dispatch number)
- Boulder County Sheriff’s Office: 303-441-4444 (non-emergency dispatch number)
- National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK
- Safe Helpline Sexual Assault Support: 1-877-995-5247
- National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE
- Call Center for Homeless Veterans: 1-877-4AID-VET
- Colorado Crisis Services: Text “TALK” to 38255