For those who wish to explore a little of the content and some of the models discussed in the workshops they may read Barber, P (2006) 'Becoming a Practitioner-Researcher - A Gestalt Approach to Holistic Inquiry' (see the webpage entitled 'About the Facilitator' and the sub-heading 'Book Review'). In this text the following chapter especially address the above workshops:

Chapter 1 'Researching holistically' - A Gestalt Exploration of Spirituality

Chapter 2 'Appreciating the Energetic Whole' - Gestalt Coaching & Counselling

Chapter 3 'Moving from Awareness into Practice' - Inquiring in the Gestalt Way

Chapter 4 'Creating a Culture of Inquiry' - Facilitating Groups & Leading Teams

Chapter 5 'Towards a Holistic Model of Inquiry - Resolving Conflict & Healing Communities    

•  The above text 'Becoming a Practitioner-Researcher - A Gestalt Approach to Holistic Inquiry' can be purchased from the author (P. Barber @ 7 Ridgeway Road - Redhill - Surrey – RH1 6PQ) at a reduced cost of £21.

                  PROFESSIONAL  QUALIFICATIONS  AVAILABLE 

 

1) European Association for Gestalt in Leadership & Organisation Develoipment - Certificate in Gestalt Practice:

 To acquire a Certificate in Gestalt from the European Association for Gestalt in Leadership and Organisational Development (EAGLOD):- First, attendence at four workshops.  Second, submit an account of your learning 1,000-2,000 words (rough drafts maybe discussed with the primary facilitator prior to submission).

2) European Association for Gestalt in Leadership & Organisational Development - Diploma in Gestalt Practice:

First: attend a further 4 Gestalt in Action Workshops as a co-facilitator. Second: write-up a case study of your professional practice 4,000-5,000 words illuminating how you employ Gestalt principles to your work - be this coaching or counselling, management or teaching, group facilitation or team leadership, community healing or conflict resolution or self development or spiritual inquiry (feel free to send rough drafts to the workshop facilitator for help or advice).

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                                        Workshop Content

                      Resolving Conflict & Healing Communities

     (A Gestalt Approach to Facilitating Conflict in Consultancy Settings)

Aims and Outcomes

This workshop provides an opportunity to:

• Understand and experience processes of conflict resolution in one-to-one, group, team  and community settings
• Experience and practise a wide range of Gestalt informed consulting techniques through case study and live enactment
• Assess and develop your strengths in consultancy while identifying areas for your future development as an organisational consultant
• Receive shadow consultancy focused upon your consulting strategies, intentions, values, interventions and conflict resolution style

Learning Processes

Input will include orientation to a developmental model that accounts for physical, social and emotional engagement, plus the management of orientation, identification, exploration and resolution phases of the client-consultant relationship.

Within this workshop you will explore through case study and practical simulation how to illuminate an understanding of organisational processes, inclusive of the conscious and unconscious dynamics that cause distress.

The learning group will itself be approached as a mini-organisation and live conflict resolution will be enacted when issues arise which block forward movement and/or threaten the workshop’s peer-learning and community health.

Live supervision and coaching will also be made available.

Participant profile

Open to all those interested in advancing their conflict resolution, assertion and consultancy skills. This offering is appropriate to those who work in the private or voluntary sector, and who wish to explore the demands and delights of internal or external consultancy.

Key Concepts & Learning

• Conflict resolution;
• Assertion;
• Consultancy skills 

                         Facilitating Groups & Leading Teams

                              (An Holistic Model of Facilitation)

Aims and Outcomes

In this workshop we will:

• Explore Gestalt models that illuminate group processes and their management, while providing opportunity for you to profile your own leadership style
•  Work in depth with conscious and unconscious group process and the group dynamic
• Provide opportunity for experiencing group facilitation in the Gestalt inspired mode.

Learning Processes

You will be encouraged to explore numerous models of facilitation, to profile your own leadership style and its address of physical, social, creative and spiritual intelligence, and ability to communicate and relate to the whole group field.

You will also be invited to assess your strengths and weaknesses in facilitating groups and to increase your repertoire of options and skills through practical engagement.

An in-depth experience of group process and its facilitation will be provided, where the task will be secondary to what experientially unfolds, and where participants will explore "the group" as it happens - experimentation will therefore be a central feature.

Participant profile

This course is for all those who wish to refine their appreciation of group dynamics, and who wish to enhance the effectiveness of their leadership and facilitation style.

Key Concepts & Learning

• Leadership
• Facilitation
• Group dynamics

                                      Enquiring In A Gestalt Way
            (An Holistic Inquiry into Group Facilitation & Self Development) 

Aims and Outcomes

This workshop will provide:

• theory;
• experiential exercises to raise awareness;
• opportunity to integrate insights from field theory and gestalt therapy
• development of your own organisational consultancy and group facilitation style.

Learning Processes:

Gestalt raises awareness to the energy patterns that both facilitate and interrupt mindfulness. We appreciate from Gestalt how to "be" more and to "do" less and how to inquire into our perceptions and phenomenological reality.

Attending to what is organically evolving in the present, and trusting to the wisdom of uncertainty, this workshop will explore the organic and energetic nature of the learning group, while demonstrating how field theory and other modes of holistic inquiry may be used to inquire into individuals and teams, with a view to illuminating their deeper dynamics and needs so that organisations may become better homes for the human spirit.

The group will be run along the lines of a Gestalt informed peer-learning and inquiring community, and make use of case study plus live examples.

Participant profile

This course is for those interested in exploring methods of quality inquiry such as field theory, to illuminate the shadow-side of individuals and groups, and is suitable for trainers, consultants, teachers or students.

Key Concepts & Learning

• Inquiry;
• Field theory;
• Shadow-consultancy     

                                Gestalt Inquiry Into Spirituality
                  (A Collaborative Inquiry into the Transpersonal)

Aims and Outcomes

This workshop will:

• Stimulate reflection on the nature of the spirit and soul, and will engage you in  experiential exercises designed to help expand your awareness and mindfulness.
• Examine Zen, Taoist, Shamanistic approaches to  the development of spiritual consciousness.
• Encourage participants to craft for themselves an approach to the cultivation of  mindfulness which best serves their own personal preferences, needs and style.

Learning Processes

We will engage with various styles of reflective inner-facing methods of inquiry, inclusive of the more traditional approaches to contemplation and meditation which invite a focus upon the breath, an external object, a symbol or text.

We will be led by transpersonal aspects of the group process as a representative of the fertile void and unknowable.

After each experiential exercise we will pool together the fruits of our inquiry and evaluate its unique qualities and usefulness, in this way  we will conduct an ongoing and organically unfolding collaborative inquiry into the spirit.

Participant Profile

For those who wish to explore the territory of their intuition, the unknown and unknowable, and the place of the transpersonal in their everyday life.

Key Concepts & Learning

• Meditation;
• Mindfulness;
• The Nature of Soul

                       Gestalt Informed Coaching & Counselling
                              (An Emergent Model of Coaching)

Aims and Outcomes

This workshop will:

• Provide a one-to-one experiential intervention skills building opportunity;
• Enable participants to develop congruence between their coaching intentions, one-to-one facilitation skills and interventions;
• Encourage participants to assess their strengths against various models and criteria so as to extend their skills repertoire and their coaching/counselling style.

Learning Processes

Though focusing on the Gestalt model, this workshop will review the contributions of psychodynamic, humanistic and transpersonal approaches, with a view to illuminating what is unique and common within to each.

You will experience these models live, before being invited to work in pairs or to experiment with coaching and with being  coached yourself, after which you will have opportunity to receive quality feedback.

You will be given the opportunity to practise skills and awareness-building interactions and will receive feedback on your ability to recognise and to work with  verbal, non-verbal, emotional, attitudinal and behavioural agendas.

You may choose to work especially with negative and positive transference, challenge, or to experimentwith facilitative and authoritative coaching styles, depending on your unique needs.

Participant profile

For all professionals who facilitate one-to one development in an educational, training, management, supervisory, caring, coaching or a counselling capacity.

Key Concepts & Learning

• Counselling
• One-to-one development
• Coaching