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Gestalt groups
Saturday Gestalt Group
This organically flowing Gestalt group meets monthly and is open to everyone. It attracts a stimulating mix of participants, including organisational consultants, coaches, trainers, therapists, counsellors, students and senior executives. The agenda is open, with themes naturally emerging from those present, addressing therapeutic, coaching and supervisory needs as the varying membership dictates. It enables participants to grow and co-facilitate in a relaxed and informal setting that is conducive to exploring whatever emerges.
Many people have found this group to be an invaluable aid to their personal and professional development. Some attend in order to supplement therapy sessions or workshops and further explore themes that may have arisen there. The Saturday group complements these well, providing a supportive and creative atmosphere in which to work through issues and receive quality feedback from peers. It may be used to explore relationships, check-out life plans, illuminate potential blind spots and release tensions. For those completely new to Gestalt, it provides an excellent taster of this way of working.
Whatever your motivation for attending, the Saturday Gestalt Group is designed to enhance awareness, support personal growth and help you become fully alive - now.
At each meeting there are always some regulars, together with occasional attendees and a few new faces. Acceptance is on a first come basis, with a maximum of ten places available. It runs from 10am until 5pm and members are expected to stay for the whole day. There are tea/coffee breaks and a sit-down lunch is provided, enjoyed in a convivial atmosphere.
Although this is referred to as a drop-in group, please phone or e-mail to book a place in advance, so we may know how much food to prepare and can ensure the day is not over-subscribed.
Gestalt Therapy Groups
We run two fortnightly therapy/personal development groups with a regular ongoing membership. Meetings take place on a Wednesday or Thursday evening and last for two hours. We allow our agenda to emerge from those present, and celebrate feast-days and other notable occasions with wine and snacks.
Members develop close attachments and experience the group as a supportive environment in which to explore emotions, current life situations and relationships. The group can become a symbolic family where issues arising from earlier life experiences might be addressed. Many appreciate it as a process to enhance their awareness and find the sessions are a spur to personal growth. Some, who are counsellors and therapists or coaches, value the opportunity it affords to acquire skills that naturally accrue from a long-term experiential engagement.
These are closed groups, limited to between six and eight members, but from time to time places become available. New members are admitted after an informal interview to assess suitability. A commitment of two years plus is to be expected. Members are required to give two full sessions notice after stating their intention to leave so that endings might be addressed in a healthy manner by themselves and their peers alike.
Facilitation style
Though a therapist and the primary facilitator of the groups and their dynamic, I facilitate in an open and transparent way. Personally, I desire less to adopt the role of therapist than to be a compassionate, interested and helpful presence who can offer insight born of Gestalt, humanistic, analytic and transpersonal practice. Employing an holistic model drawn primarily from Gestalt, I welcome the facilitative interventions of others and invite the same, for this is a truly co-created community where all are invited to experiment.
