Theory and Practice

Paul Allsop and Oriel Methuen

Gestalt is a theory and approach of personality integration developed by Fritz Perls. It concerns itself with the heightening of one’s experiences in the here and now, the completing of unfinished business, the acceptance of personal responsibility and the encouragement of change from environmental support to self support.

Gestalt therapy is an existential, non-analytical approach to human behaviour which focuses on what is, rather than what was, might be, or should be. It is an integrative process concentrating on the how and now of the present, rather than on the why and because of the past and future. The focus of gestalt is awareness, the lively uncritical receptivity to the here and now, awareness of ourselves and of our human and natural environment.

This series is organised as three three-day workshops. The first three-day workshop is a gestalt awareness workshop in which participants experience gestalt in action and develop self-contact through awareness work. The second and third three-day workshops will be presentations and experiential learning about boundary formation and disturbance. During these latter workshops participants will learn how to work with the mechanisms which contribute to boundary disturbance: introjection, projection, confluence and retroflection.

Paul and Oriel bring to this series a long history of training as gestalt therapists with some of the leading figures in the field of gestalt therapy.

The series is useful for practising therapists as well as people training and must be attended in its entirety.

The next series will be in 2011.