Dr. Leelt Retta Gebru

Dr. Leelt Retta Gebru is an English-speaking clinical psychologist and cognitive behavioural psychotherapist in Rome. She receives patients in person in Rome and works online with people living elsewhere in Italy and abroad, in English and Italian, with children, adults, couples, parents and families.

She graduated with great distinction in Clinical Psychology from LUMSA University in Rome, and completed a four-year specialisation in Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy at the Skinner Institute School of Psychotherapy, also in Rome. She has practised for the past five years across different settings, and has run her own private practice as a CBT psychotherapist since the third year of her specialisation.

Her approach is cognitive behavioural. In her own terms, the work is about replacing rigid, dysfunctional constructs with more flexible and adaptive ones, so that a person arrives at a healthier picture of themselves and stronger relationships. It is a practical method: you leave with something to do, not only something to think about.

She is trained in an unusually wide range of techniques and picks them according to the person rather than the label: REBT, CBT, DBT, MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction), ACT, cognitive behavioural family therapy, EMDR, biofeedback and autogenic training, progressive relaxation and problem-solving techniques.

She works with post-traumatic stress, mood and personality disorders, eating disorders, parenting problems, and relationship and couple difficulties.

A significant part of her practice is ADHD and specific learning differences, with children and with the adults around them. The aim is not to make a mind work like everybody else’s: it is to find the conditions in which it works well, and to give parents something more useful than the sense that they are handling it wrong.

She describes herself as patient, empathic, understanding and non-judgemental, and says her aim is that people feel accepted and respected in the room. Her stated conviction is simple: psychological wellbeing is the foundation of physical health and of a life that works.

Before psychology she worked as a nurse, including in Ethiopia, and she spent a period studying in Liverpool. She has therefore been the person arriving in a new country and a new language, and has worked in health systems very far apart from each other. For a patient explaining themselves in a second language, that history is not background colour.

You do not have to pick her yourself. At Therapsy every person is matched by a human being, not by an algorithm: our clinical team reads your request, and if Dr. Retta Gebru is the right fit for what you are bringing, they will introduce you. The first call is free, and it is there to check that the fit is real before anything begins.

Fewer than 1 in 100 therapists joins the Therapsy team. Dr. Retta Gebru was personally vetted by our Clinical Director, Dr. Francesca A. Boccalari, on three non-negotiable criteria: she shares our values, she speaks at least one language beyond Italian, and she has a physical practice in Rome where you can meet in person, not only online.

Leelt Retta Gebru does not work alone. She takes part in Therapsy’s internal clinical supervision, a standing group where therapists bring their most demanding cases, train together and ask for help when a situation calls for it. Every therapist in the network, Case Managers included, can turn to our Clinical Director for clinical questions and further training, and Therapsy runs regular professional training with senior therapists and external trainers. Scheduling, invoicing, payments and the rest of the paperwork are handled by Therapsy, so that her time with you stays clinical work and nothing else. On your side, the same platform gives you one place to see your sessions, invoices, payments and documents.

At Therapsy you do not have to pick your therapist from a list: you start by speaking with Dr. Francesca Boccalari, our Clinical Director, who listens to what you are going through and matches you with the therapist she believes is right for you: Leelt Retta Gebru, or one of her colleagues. Then you have a free introductory call with that therapist, and only after that do you decide whether to start.

And if the fit turns out not to be right, you are not back at square one. Dr. Boccalari and her team find you another therapist inside Therapsy, at no cost, without you having to tell your story from the beginning. Choosing a therapist while you are struggling, in a language that is not your own, is a lot to ask of a person. That is the part we take on.

Dr. Retta Gebru is registered with the Italian Order of Psychologists. She receives in Rome and works online with patients across Italy and abroad.