Welcome to my website.


I’m a Lacanian psychoanalyst  with a private practice in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. This website is a window on my clinical practice, my other work (lectures etc.) and psycho-analysis as such.


Trained as a psychologist and a psychotherapist (University of Ghent) I started working in 1990 with children and youngsters. A few years later I earned my post graduate in psychotherapy.


Gradually I took up the work with adults as well. So, ever since and kept on learing and became ever more experienced.


My work has been diverse but mostly psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

Besides my private practice I find some time to work on other porjects.


Currently I have a project with visual artist Lisa Matthys. She records testimonals of refugies, who tell their story using the psychothapeutic technique of Sand Play. (Exhibition: Chasing Flowers: The Survivor

@ Coup De Ville, Sint-Niklaas. 11 September till 11 October 2020


I did some team supervisions and give from time to time  lessons as a volunteer in the Red Cross Reception Centre for Refugees (Sint-Niklaas). Cultural differences are important. Yet we all try to find an answer (a savoir y faire) to the fact that we are speaking beings.


Some summers I am asked to participate as 'commentator' for the 'Artists Village. This is a project from the WARP, an organization to promote contemporary art. The idea of the village is to bring young artists together to show and talk about their work to professionals (renown artists, curators etc.) and amongst themselves. Évery time two psychoanalysts are invited as well (Lieven Jonckheere and myself). (an account in English)


And one may find more on my collaboration with Goeyvaerts Trio on the pages Music Matters.


In may 2017, I gave a lecture 'Beyond Silence' on the congres Arvo Pärt: Sounding the Sacred in Frodham University NYC. It was about the sometimes profound effects of 'silence' in Pärt's music on the listener (not unlike in psychoanalysis).


The visitor may find links to some texts of myself in English. 


What is Psychoanalysis?


Psychoanalysis is not just talking. It tries to find a particular answer to ones suffering. A symptom is not a mistake of twisted thoughts or an abstract inconvenience. It holds a truth about who one is or how one tries to take hold of life. It is like a clue to the puzzle of one’s life, loves, hates, longing, mourning, doubting, … 


Lacanian psychoanalysis does not dismiss the truth that lies hidden in the symptom. It dignifies the truth by listening to what it has to say. The analyst invites the subject to speak. To speak about concerns, anxieties,  things that make you angry, and whatever comes to mind. In this way one begins to work with the suffering, rather than against it.


The symptom will gradually loose its constraining grip and will make way to possibilities not noticed before. And thus the speaking subject finds his/her own solutions to his/her life. 


Copyright  ©  All Rights Reserved

Philippe Grisar  -  psycholoog  -  psychotherapeut


Vrouweneekhoekstraat 95, Sint-Niklaas

03 766 63 25


kinderen - jongeren - volwassenen