This advanced workshop series is intended for Gestalt trainees and practitioners who want to hone their clinical skills and develop the practice of “Discernment”, distinguishing and adjusting our work in relation to the client’s internal and relational/contextual supports. In Gestalt training, students learn and emphasize the practice of contacting while primarily working with each other. Facing the daunting task of applying Gestalt methodology to a broad range of clients situated in unique and complex contextual grounds remains part of ongoing clinical development. The challenge in discernment is how to intervene with this client at this point given the present situation. As practitioners our challenge is to collaborate in a fresh sensory/thoughtful practice, using this discernment as a guide to our practice.

During this training we will focus on the importance of Co-Assessment, a model developed in the Working with Individuals training at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. This collaborative model supports the ongoing and mutual assessment of the client/therapist and their situation (Woolants,2000.). We will move beyond a pervasive split between relational and embodied patterns in situ, to include all aspects of the situation. Developing this horizontal and shared map of the work/dance of our Gestalt approach supports us in our clinical practices.

The workshop design includes experiential, theoretical and group discussion, "stop action" demonstrations, and lab practices. Participants will be asked to explore their own lenses and perceptions as a means of discerning interventions in collaboration with the client.

The training will be held over two weekends:
Weekend 1 - Co-Assessment and Advancing the Relational Intention in GT.
Weekend 2 - The Arc of the Therapy - Discernment Over Time

Learning Objectives:

• Describe working in a collaborative stance with clients;

• Recognize their own clinical preferences/theoretical lenses in assessing clients;

• Identify factors that may influence how we focus our understanding of clients (client, therapist, therapy relationship, race, gender, age, culture, difference in contact styles);

• Discuss the use of this co-assessment lens in relation to practice with clients;

• State the internal and relational supports needed for the development of the therapeutic process;

• Explore the situational context with the client;

• Demonstrate and discuss relational stances to enhance practice of Gestalt Therapy with clients in differing contexts;

• Illustrate the importance of a relational stance in the practice of Gestalt Therapy;

• Practice use of one’s own embodied attunement as an assessment to support the client;

• Describe factors that influence the therapeutic relationship over time; and

• Review the "arcs" of therapy over multiple sessions.