Philadelphia 2010
"CONTINUITY AND CHANGE: GESTALT THERAPY NOW"
Pre-Conference: June 1st & 2nd
Conference: Evening of June 2nd-Afternoon of June 6th
Pre-Conference Workshop Descriptions
A Painless Primer On Research: How To Help The Gestalt World Develop An Evidence Base
Philip Brownell, M.Div., Psy.D.
Abstract:
Research is not just for academics; it contributes to our understanding of how gestalt therapy works and is instrumental to the refining of our theory. Knowing how to do research and track one's own outcomes can help individual therapists improve their practices; it can help trainers and training institutes improve their methods. Gestalt therapy is entering a new phase in its development and that is being driven by the necessity of producing evidence to support practice. This workshop will provide an orientation to research, descriptions of research designs useful at the level of practice for tracking process and supporting individual clinical practices, opportunities to participate in actual research projects, and resources for study and networking. Didactic, experiential, and dialogical teaching methods will be utilized.
About the Presenter:
Philip Brownell completed a doctoral program in clinical psychology in which he was trained as a scientist-practitioner. He also completed six years of gestalt training and has facilitated the gestalt-focused discussion group, Gstalt-L, for thirteen years. Phil is the Editor of the Handbook for Theory, Research, and Practice in Gestalt Therapy (translation underway for French, Spanish, Czech, Korean, and Chinese editions) and author of Gestalt Therapy: A Guide To Contemporary Practice. He is co-chair of the AAGT's Research Task Force, is actively engaged in supporting research focused on gestalt therapy, and is leading in a current international research project exploring outcomes in gesatalt therapy practice at the level of the clinic (practice-based evidence).
A Gestalt View Of Power And “Its’” Field: And What We Can Do About It
Carl Hodges MSW and Toni Gilligan M.Phil
Abstract:
How do we apply core understandings of gestalt therapy theory to the nature and experience of power -- political and personal. How might such an analysis change the way we view our potential and what it is to be an active citizen? We will experiment with making visible the flow of power. We will examine the fixed gestalts revealed by this experiment. We will experiment with creating a way of being together that challenges these fixed gestalts.
About the Presenters:
Carl Hodges has been doing Gestalt Therapy since 1972 and teaching it since 1977. He was the second President of the New York Institute, and the second President of AAGT. He has taught in Graduate Programs at Hunter College, Fordham University, Gestalt Centre London, and Instituto di Gestalt in Italy. He has an abiding interest in the applications of Gestalt Field Theory.Toni Gilligan, B.Sc, M.Phil: is a Gestalt Psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer. She is a Director and Psychotherapy Training Co-ordinator of the Gestalt Centre in London, which celebrates 30 years of gestalt practitioner training in 2010. She trained originally as a clinical psychologist and worked for over ten years in mental health and psychiatry. Her other interests include gestalt and the political, engaging motivation, groups and group process, and more recently singing ,voice work and gestalt. And gardening….
Constellations And Gestalt: A Deeper Look
Ty Francis, MA, Gordon Wheeler, PhD, Deborah Ullman, MA and Nancy Lunney-Wheeler, MA
Abstract:
Systemic Constellations work, pioneered by Bert Hellinger, has often been regarded as antithetical to a Gestalt approach to personal and systemic change. A newer generation of Systemic Constellation facilitators, many of them deeply steeped in Gestalt training, are now developing this work in "Gestalt" directions, emphasizing awareness, embodied experience, emotion, relationship, intentionality, field sensitivity, choice, support, and meaning-making. Where traditional Gestalt work has often emphasized figure formation and self supports, Systemic Constellations tend to focus on issues and blockages of ground. These dynamics are only accessible inferentially and experimentally through the embodied awareness of the Constellation participants -- thus through a process of Gestalt-based inquiry and dialogue.
In this way a rapprochement and a complementarity of these two powerful approaches become possible. In this workshop, using live demonstrations and cases presented by participants, we will explore the potential for synergy of these two radical approaches, both of them known for their capacity to bring a fresh perspective on deeply "fixed" gestalts and unsatisfying life patterns. Our workshop goal will be collaboration between facilitators and participants as we articulate together the terms of this opportunity for reflective synergy, potentially adding power to each approach. Cases may be drawn from both work and family settings, exploring both large and small system dynamics.
About the Presenters:
Ty Francis, MA, based in Britain, is an independent Gestalt coach, consultant and constellator who draws on Gestalt and Systems approaches in his work with organizational and community leaders and project teams. Ty has specific interests and experience in the application of Action Research approaches to innovation management and change management in global corporations and in the UK and European public sector, having worked with groups including The European Commission, The Department of Trade & Industry, the Home Office, The Independent Police Complaints Commission, Nokia, Unilever, Shell and others. Ty has completed his PhD (thesis submitted: award pending) in Social Psychology on the subject of "Breakthrough" and is a Graduate Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.Ty has pioneered the application of Systemic Constellations Work in the UK for nearly 10 years and has a particular interest in using constellations in a variety of coaching contexts. He is on the Editorial Board of The Knowing Field (an international constellations journal) and business advisor to Constellations Work Trainings UK, and has written extensively about Constellations in a number of specialist business and psychology journals.Gordon Wheeler, PhD, teaches and trains widely around the world, using the Gestalt model to explore relationship, development, self theory, intersubjectivity, culture and gender, coaching, organizational systems, evolutionary psychology, and interpersonal neurobiology. Author or editor of some dozen books and over 100 chapters and articles in the field, Gordon is longtime Editor and Co-Director of GestaltPress, publishing jointly with Routledge Taylor Francis. His work includes several translations from French and German, and has itself been translated into over a dozen foreign languages. Since 2001 Gordon has also served as President of Esalen Institute, which hosts nearly 20,000 students, conferees, and other visitors in some 500 residential programs each year, very many of them based in Gestalt work.
Deborah Ullman, MA, is a Gestalt coach, therapist, and somatics-based practitioner who also brings to her work a long professional history in both community and large-market commercial radio. Deborah has been practicing/studying systemic constellations work for 10 years. She serves as Editor and Co-Director of GestaltPress, now publishing jointly withRoutledge Taylor Francis, which has brought the work of over 100 Gestalt authors to a wide professional market through a series of commercial copublishers. She is a founding faculty coordinator of the Evolution of Gestalt Study Conference series at Esalen, and author of a number of chapters and other presentations in the field, as well as lead editor of the new collection CoCreating the Field: Intention and Practice in the Age of Complexity. Deborah is a member of the Visiting Faculty of both Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and the Esalen Institute, among others. She is a native of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where she directs a group somatics practice and pursues her study of evolutionary panentheism as a process oriented spiritual practice.
Nancy Lunney-Wheeler, MA, is a licensed Marriage and Family Counselor who also has a long professional background in music. As longtime Director of Programming at Esalen Institute in Big Sur CA, Nancy has produced some 12,000 residential courses offered to over 10,000 students and others each year. Nancy is recognized as a world leader in integral and alternative education, and is a founding member of the governing circle of AWE, the international alliance of women entrepreneurs. Long a student of Systemic Constellations, she has presented her work in this field in the Abrahamic Family Reunion Conference series of the Fetzer Institue and the Esalen Center for Theory and Research. Her work combining Gestalt with music and song grows out of her years as a professional accompanist and singing coach with actors in Hollywood and New York.
The Secret Language Of Intimacy
Robert G. Lee, Ph.D.
Abstract:
In this workshop we will explore the hidden elements in couples dynamics, shedding light on couples darkest moments which are often mysterious and difficult to understand, seeming to defy the depth of caring and importance couple members feel for one another. Through experiential exercises, lecture, practice, and discussion we will learn Robert Lee’s gestalt model, based in shame and belonging, stemming from his thirty-plus years of experience, research, and writings (a model which he has presented around the world in places such as London, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sicily, Ireland, Slovenia, Esalen, and other us locations). We will explore how this practical gestalt model offers the opportunity to transform the often heart-wrenching effects of hidden shame—which, if left unattended, lead to disconnection and ultimate separation—into openings for greater connection and intimacy.
About the Presenter:
Robert G. Lee, PhD, a psychologist in private practice in Newton, MA, has written extensively and presented widely on shame and belonging as regulator processes of the relational field. His research on couples and shame led to a deeper understanding of the hidden dynamics of the intimate couple. Robert is author of The Secret Language of Intimacy (GestaltPress/Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2008), co-editor of The Voice of Shame (Jossey-Bass, 1996), and editor of The Values of Conneciton (GestaltPress/The Analytic Press, 2004) He is an editor at GestaltPress, a member of the faculty of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, and a visiting faculty member of Gestalt Institutes around the world. .
Elements In The Nature Of Dialogue
Philip Lichtenberg, Ph.D.
Abstract:
Dialogue involves the creation and support of individual particularity of all participants in the relation leading to communion among them at final contact. There are “four corners” each participant addresses in fulsome dialogue including: what each participant wants, how each is reacting to the other(s), including self, and how each seeks to learn how other(s) are receiving him or her. The overlap of defining self and building community is emphasized. Using presentation of theory and small group experiments, the presenter elucidates and clarifies critical issues such as strong feelings, “incomplete ‘i’ statements,” and the role of confident expectation in persons being open to being influenced.
About the Presenter:
Philip Lichtenberg, Ph.D. is co-Director of the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Philadelphia; member of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy; Mary Hale Chase Professor Emeritus at Bryn Mawr College; author of six books and numerous articles and chapters; presenter abroad and nationally; Principal Faculty of the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Philadelphia.
Women And Aggression
C Ann Bowman MSN, Gail Feinstein, LCSW and Judy Graham, MSc
Abstract:
For the last several conferences we have been exploring what we call "women's work" from empowerment and authenticity to intimacy of being a woman. Throughout this work the figure that repeatedly emerges concerns women in the face of conflict. This workshop goes deeper into the uniqueness of women’s experience of aggression within the context of a women’s group. Through didactic and experiential methods we will uncover how we creatively adjust to and defend against our aggression - and how we stay hidden. Participants will be invited to explore how aggression is held in our bodies and what support is needed to discover disowned parts of ourselves as we stay with the process to experience our edge (our boundaries) within a relational field.
About the Presenters:
C Ann Bowman MSN, APRN, BC, LMHC is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in private practice. She has extensive training in Gestalt therapy, group therapy and Integrative psychotherapy. She is interested in Relational Gestalt Therapy methods as well as Gestalt and Buddhist philosophy. She has published research on the effects of alcoholism on family dynamics. She has presented Gestalt therapy workshops locally, nationally and internationally.Gail Feinstein, LCSW, LMT is a somatically-based Gestalt therapist, supervisor and trainer, integrating ritual and spirituality into her practice in New York City and her international work. She is co-director of the Transfromational Training Institute. She has been doing Women's Work for 30 years and is committed to the process of setting women free and connecting to the wisdom of our hearts. She believes that all life will benefit when women come to love their bodies and live from their truth.
Judy Graham, MSc, LCSW based in London, she divides her time between private practice as a Gestalt psychotherapist and supervisor and providing short term counseling and promoting group work in primary care/national health service. She contributed a chapter on Gestalt for Humanistic Psychotherapy by Eric Whitton and is writing about her group work in primary care. She is a member of EAGT, on the committee of the British Gestalt Society (formerly GAUK), and UK rep for AAGT.
A Dramatic Approach To Gestalt Dreamwork
Sylvia Fleming Crocker, Ph.D.
Abstract:
This presentation demonstrates a purely gestalt version of psychodrama in working with recurrent and vivid dreams. Like classical psychodrama, gestalt drama has the dreamer choose members of the group to play people and other elements that appear in the dream. In psychodrama these persons attempt to improvise the several parts on the basis of the dreamer's description. This results in an admixture of psychological material. In contrast, gestalt drama uses role reversal throughout the process in ways that permit the dreamer to be the only speaker as the dreamwork unfolds. In this way, all of the psychological material belongs to the dreamer. The hidden existential meaning of the dream emerges as the work progresses, permitting the dreamer to address some important issue in his or her situation or in his or her self-understanding. Not only is this process remarkable and inspirational for everyone involved, it also involves the group deeply in the process, thus fostering a deepening group experience.
About the Presenter:
Sylvia Fleming Crocker trained with Erving and Miriam Polster and at the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Los Angeles. She is a full member of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy. She has a Ph.D in Philosophy and master’s degrees in both comparative religion and counseling. She has presented at many Gestalt conferences and has given training workshops in the USA, Australia, and Europe. The author of a number of Gestalt journal articles and book chapters, she has also written a book, A Well-Lived Life: Essays in Gestalt Therapy, now in its third printing. It is required reading for trainees in several Gestalt institutes.
Continuity and Change: Preparing Ourselves for the Conference Through Experiments in Reflective Writing
Christine Stevens PhD
Abstract:
A day to open up and engage personally with the themes of the coming conference. The time will be structured supportively to enable participants to play with words in creative ways, discovering personal and shared connections with continuity and change in their experience of life and work. You do not have to be an established writer or poet to enjoy this workshop. When we give ourselves the time and permission to “play” with creative media, we can release and learn from the wisdom and creativity of our imaginative energies which we all have as human beings.
About the Presenter:
Christine Stevens, Ph.D. is Editor of The British Gestalt Journal. She is a gestalt therapist living and working in Nottingham, UK, where she maintains a private and National Health Service practice. She manages a clinical training unit for psychotherapy in primary care and leads a postgraduate training in gestalt pastoral counselling at St. Johns College in Nottingham. She is an academic advisor for the DPsych in psychotherapy by professional studies and in public works at Metanoia Institute, London, and is an international trainer and teacher. She is a contributing author to What is Psychotherapeutic Research, D. Loewenthal and D. Winter, (eds.) 2006 Karnac; Handbook for Theory, Research and Practice in Gestalt Therapy P. Brownell (ed), 2008, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and to a book on Life Focus Communities, B.O’Neil (forthcoming), and has published several articles. Her research interests include creative methodologies in psychotherapy and supervision, and she is a member of the Gestalt Research Practice Network, managing the evidence database for the Gestalt CORE Project.
Exploring Nonverbal Processes Within Therapy: A Developmental Perspective
Ruella Frank, Ph.D.
Abstract:
Nonverbal expression is the basis of all interaction and is most clearly evident in the first year of life, where it is the primary mode of communicating and the root of all later dialogue. When psychotherapists familiarize themselves with developing interactions between parent and baby in this first year, they clearly see the organizing of contacting processes. Through this developmental lens, it is possible to observe and understand these elemental organizing actions as they continue to function in the interactive patterns of adult client and therapist. Through movement experiments, psychotherapists will be introduced to a lexicon of nonverbal descriptors and identifications that will refine their awareness --- what they see and what they feel -- within the relational field, thus enabling them to create more effective interventions.
About the Presenter:
Ruella Frank, Ph.D., is director and founder of the Center for Somatic Studies, NYC, on faculty at Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy, the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, and also teaches throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe. She is author of articles and chapters in various publications, as well as the book Body of Awareness: A Somatic and Developmental Approach to Psychotherapy, available in four languages.
Couples Therapy Revisited Two Become One And Then There Are None
Rita Resnick, Ph.D and Robert W. Resnick, Ph.D
Abstract:
After a presentation of their model of relationships, couples and couples therapy, the Resnicks will demonstrate their way of working with volunteer couples and/or video followed by relating the clinical work to the theory. The couples will be included in the entire discussion as well as the theory presentation, making the experience transparent and inclusive. Questions and comments will be encouraged as will comparisons with other couples therapy models – systemic, CBT, EFT, contemporary psychoanalytic, postmodern, other gestalt models, etc. Emphasis will be on two basic issues for couples: how to be with an other and maintain a self… and, dealing with differences. Bring your biases, your issues, your ability to perceptually reorganize and, most importantly, your sense of humor.
About the Presenters:
Rita Resnick, Ph.D., has been Faculty Chair of GATLA's European Summer Residential Training Program since 1991. In addition to her private practice, Rita is actively training psychotherapists in the United States, Australia and Europe in both Gestalt and Couples Therapy. Her professional interests include the exploration of innovative and supportive approaches to supervision (Rita has published an article with Liv Estrup, M.A. "Supervision: A Collaborative Endeavor" in the Summer 2000 issue of the Gestalt Review) and a devoted, passionate (and self serving) interest in the area of women growing older - menopause and mid-life vitality. An interview on Contemporary Gestalt Therapy with Rita and Robert Resnick will soon be published in the Tidskrift For Norsk Psykologforening – the Norwegian Journal for Psychologists. The Resnick's are frequently happily married.Robert W. Resnick, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, has been a Gestalt and Couples Therapist for 45 years and an international trainer for over 40 years. Trained (1965-1970) and personally certified (1969) by Drs. Fritz Perls and James Simkin, he is probably the youngest of the “old timers”. Proudly, Dr. Resnick was chosen by Fritz Perls (and invited by Nels In de Vid from Holland) to be the first Gestalt Therapist to introduce Gestalt Therapy to Europe in the summer of 1969 where he presented both a lecture and a training workshop. He has been presenting Gestalt and Couples training workshops in Europe continually since that time. His interview “Gestalt Therapy: Principles Prisms and Perspectives” defining his views of Gestalt Therapy at that time, appears in the summer 1995 issue of the British Gestalt Journal. “The Recursive Loop of Shame” appears in the Gestalt Review 1997. “Chicken Soup Is Poison” (Perls Festschrift) circa 1967. He is currently developing a series of contemporary Couples Therapy and Gestalt Therapy video demonstration and training tapes. His first clinical practicum (while moonlighting as a Columbia University graduate student) was driving a New York taxicab.
I-Thou as Transcultural Dialogue in Groups
Prof. Dr. habil. Cornelia Muth
Abstract:
For the last years I have been conducting groups of dialogue within my university teaching. One aim of this teaching is thinking together in comparison to debate against each other; another one is to widen students’ awareness of themselves and others which will ground their social work practice for the sake of people’s intercultural integration. The lack of mutual responding between the helpless and helping people especially challenges power of negative aggression which is a result of mistrust and resignation. According to the gestalt approach aggression can also be a constructive energy, but when it dissociates destruction follows: people stop investing in relation. Using Martin Buber’s insights i created my own dialogical setting which invites people to become interested in the otherness.
About the Presenter:
Prof. Dr. habil. Cornelia Muth–Highlights of Dr Muth’s career include:
- Master of Continuing Education
- PhD and Habilitation of Humanities (on Martin Buber, Phenomenology and Dialogical Education)
- Educational Gestaltist (IGG Berlin/Dr. Detlef Knopf)
- Tenure Professor of Humanities at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld/Germany
- Participant of Residential Program by GPI
- Work with Anke and Erhard Doubrawa
- Work with Talia Levine Bar-Yoseph
- Work with Reinhard Fuhr
Improvising A Relationship: Contacting Through Music
Gary Gray, MAT
Abstract:
Improvising music with others brings us fully into the present as we go about the complicated process of contributing our rhythm, our silence, our listening, our soloing, our supporting and our harmony. This workshop is designed for participants with no musical experience all the way to a lot of musical experience. We will engage in a variety of experiments, alone, in small groups or as a whole group all designed to make contact in the moment through our musical creativity (don’t say you don’t have any). Participants will learn simple techniques for bringing music into the therapy practice, they will practice awareness in an unfamiliar (non-conversational) context, they will experiment with their own anxiety and excitement, and they might discover something entirely new about themselves. Participants are encouraged to bring their own instruments, drums, etc., but plenty of music making tools will be provided.
About the Presenter:
Gary Gray, MAT, is a graduate of the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Philadelphia, he co-designed and co-directed, Looking Inward, Looking Outward, a week long residential workshop for therapists in Colorado (2008 and 2009). Gary is a certified Music for People workshop facilitator. and he has completed Level I and Level II training in the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music . Gary has been a teacher, instructional designer, and now, therapist.
Experiential Gestalt Group: Here And Now, What And How, I And Thou
Ansel Woldt, Ed.D.
Abstract:
This will be a small group experience (limited to 12) in which participants can experience the essential elements of a gestalt personal growth group. Participants will be invited to engage in activities that value six basic therapeutic processes of gestalt therapy. Group facilitation will focus on the ‘here and now,’ the ‘what and how,’ and the ‘i – thou’ of therapeutic engagement. Principles of existentialism, phenomenology, field theory and dialogue undergirding these processes will be explored in the safe emergence of this presenter’s 40+ years experience with gestalt pedagogy and psychotherapy.
About the Presenter:
Ansel Woldt, Ed.D., did his post-doctoral training at Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, 1970-73. He is Emeritus Professor at Kent State University where he has taught graduate students in counseling for the past 40 years while simultaneously maintaining a private practice as a psychologist in Kent, Ohio. Gestalt therapy, group dynamics and small group work are one of his specialty areas in teaching, having facilitated hundreds of small group experiences. Ansel is co-editor of Gestalt’s contemporary textbook: Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory and Practice (2005); Founding secretary, incorporating officer and continuous officer in AAGT; and creator of theGestalt Therapy Archives in Kent State University Libraries.
A Gestalt Therapy Group Process Marathon For Personal Growth
Jack Aylward, Ed.D and Bud Feder, Ph D
Abstract:
This personal growth marathon will emphasize gestalt therapy group process, though some hot seat work will be incorporated
About the Presenters:
Jack Aylward and Bud Feder have done personal growth marathons together for almost 30 years. They have also written and co-written articles and books on gestalt group therapy. Both are licensed psychologists in New Jersey in the USA and work in a private practice setting, which includes ongoing group.