Coaching

Coaching for growth and creative momentum.


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1-1 Coaching

Gülşen Özer and associates offer two complementary forms of one-to-one coaching, supporting people through both the thinking and doing of creative, professional, and personal practice.

Talk-Based Coaching

Clarity, strategy, mentoring, and creative development

Talk-based coaching with Gülşen or with Soft Systems Associate Gareth Hart is for artists, creative practitioners, community leaders, and professionals who are developing projects, navigating change, or looking for a trusted sounding board.

Sessions can support project design and planning, identifying funding pathways, advocacy, creative development, leadership, and professional decision-making. Depending on what you need, coaching might involve reflective inquiry and thoughtful questioning, practical mentoring, or drawing on our experience to help you work through a particular challenge.

We can support you across the lifecycle of a project — from an initial idea through to planning, partnerships, delivery, and reflection — or provide a few focused sessions to step back and look at your work from a helicopter-level view.

Sometimes the most useful thing is having someone listen carefully, ask the right questions, and help you see your work from another perspective. Other times, it's about drawing on experience to identify opportunities, anticipate challenges, avoid common pitfalls, and work out what to prioritise next.

Useful for:

Project development · Funding strategies · Creative leadership · Career development · Advocacy · Planning · Problem-solving · Mentoring · Reflective practice

Creative Movement Coaching

Embodiment, expression, performance, and personal growth

Gülşen Özer offers specialised one-to-one creative movement coaching and movement direction for people wanting to develop their physical expression, confidence, mobility, and connection to their body.

Drawing on her experience as a choreographer, performing and performance artist, and movement facilitator, Gülşen works with people through an embodied, arts-informed, and trauma-sensitive approach.

Sessions can support somatic awareness, mobility, creative expression, performance readiness, and personal agency. Rather than focusing only on technique or physical achievement, this work explores how we can become more present, expressive, and confident through movement.

Creative movement coaching may be useful for performers preparing for a role or performance, artists wanting to develop an embodied practice, or anyone interested in exploring movement as a way of building confidence, creativity, and connection.

Useful for:

Performance preparation · Movement development · Somatic awareness · Creative expression · Mobility · Confidence · Embodied practice · Personal growth

Different approaches, shared philosophy

Both forms of coaching are grounded in the Soft Systems Lab approach: curiosity over judgement, relationship over prescription, and practical change that responds to the whole person and their context.

Sometimes we need to talk something through. Sometimes we need to move through it. And sometimes we need both.

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who is this for?

We work with clients across the full spectrum of experience. Including people working in health and social services, community organisers and creative leaders, award-winning artists, early-career creatives, and those taking their first steps into artistic or embodied practice. Artists come to us for dramaturgy, creative direction, and an outside eye to refine their work. Community clients explore embodiment, expression, and creative risk-taking in a safe, trauma-informed space. We welcome people with disabilities (including NDIS participants), neurodivergent people, and those navigating mental health challenges, life transitions, or changing physical needs.

Coaching Packages

Packages are designed to suit varying client needs and commitments and are available in-person or remotely.

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Single Session

A focused 90-minute session for specific goals such as performance preparation or creative exploration

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Short-Term Package

Three 90-minute sessions over 1–3 months for ongoing support and skill-building

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Extended Package

Six 90-minute sessions over 3–6 months for sustained growth and practice

Talk-Based & Movemment Coaching Delivery & Structure:

  • Sessions typically run for 90 minutes

  • Pre-session intake questionnaire to personalise each experience

  • Optional follow-up materials such as reading or writing prompts, movement sequences, or other reflective prompts

  • Email support between sessions for clients on multi-session packages

  • Sessions can be delivered in-person or remotely via video conferencing

  • Additional Services: Progress reviews, bespoke movement plans, video feedback, and group coaching available on request

Important: The Soft Systems Lab team is not comprised of medical professionals. Our coaching complements professional healthcare and other therapeutic services by focusing on creative leadership, embodiment, and movement facilitation.

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Client James D’Alton

“In Gülsen’s presence, all fear dissolves. She fosters an environment of pure freedom, acceptance, and gentle encouragement, where self-expression feels as natural as breathing.

The imagery she offers is not just visual; it’s a journey inward, a quiet curiosity awakening parts of yourself you thought were lost to time.”

Client Dr Emiko Artemis

“I asked Gulsen to help me interpret the text I was using for my performance into a series of movements that I could use in my performance piece. Our session together was rich with so much information and ideas. Gulsen was able to show me how to use my body to create a visual language with meaning, how to engage my audience in the body-born narrative. Our session has helped me create a powerful performance piece.

Gulsen was completely accommodating to my access needs and was understanding of how my disabilities affected my movement practice, she incorporated this into how we worked. Gulsen is skilful, gentle and lovely to be around.”

Helen Briffa (parent of client, emerging artist Brenton Briffa)

“Brenton loved what you both worked on today—he cannot stop talking about it! I loved seeing the warm and inviting rapport you’ve already created with him.”

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Movement Coaching: What’s Included?

  • Movement coaching to improve mobility, strength, and somatic awareness

  • Creative practices that support emotional regulation, self-expression, and embodied storytelling

  • Tailored guidance for performers preparing mentally and physically for artistic work

  • Creative strategy, dramaturgy, and guidance in making new work

  • Tools, exercises, and movement scores to support creative practice

  • Embodied exploration for expression, grounding, and connection

  • Individualised sessions designed to meet each client’s unique goals and circumstances

  • Flexible delivery options, available in-person or remotely

Client James D’Alton

“Gulsen’s gift is profound: she gently guides you to meet the parts of yourself long buried beneath the noise of daily life. Her work is a gift, a dance of the spirit that leaves you feeling seen, safe, and profoundly alive.”

Client Brenton Ponza

“Working with Gülsen Özer has been an amazing experience for me. As someone living with cerebral palsy, I have always loved moving and exploring what my body can express, but until I worked with Gülsen, I did not fully realise how creative and free my body could be in movement.

Gülsen has an excellent ability to see beyond limitations and tap into a person’s unique movement potential. Her coaching has helped me produce sensitive, fluid, and expressive movements that feel both natural and powerful. Rather than focusing on what I cannot do, she explores what I can do — and invites me to expand on it with confidence and joy.

Through Gülsen’s guidance, I have learned to connect physical movement with imagination, imagery, and storytelling, using known stories or meaningful moments to prompt visual recollection and inspire movement that feels authentic to me. Her approach challenges me in the most encouraging way, bringing out creativity I did not realise was there and helping me express it with ease.

Gülsen’s work has not only supported my movement practice but has deepened my confidence, self-expression, and joy in my body’s potential. I am inspired by her insight, patience, and creativity — and I would recommend Gulsen to anyone looking to deepen their connection to movement, no matter their ability.

Interested in working together?

Get in touch