Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, Director of the Istituto di Gestalt HCC Italy (Milan, Siracusa, Palermo), is the first woman and the first European to receive the Lifelong Achievement Award from the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy, and International Community (AAGT). It has been a tradition at AAGT conferences to single out one person to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for his or her contributions over many years to the Gestalt therapy community. Ed Nevis, Ansel Woldt, Erving Polster and Bud Feder have been previous recipient of this prestigious award.
The award ceremony took place during the Biennial AAGT Conference. This year’s theme was: “Radical Respect. Contemporary Gestalt Therapy in Troubled Times”. The conference was organized in Toronto, by the AAGT, with the support of the local Institute directed by Jay Tropianskaia, from 14 to 19 of August, 2018. Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb had been invited to deliver an opening key note speech at the Conference.
Her speech, “Social Evolution and Gestalt Therapy: What and How to Respect Today?”, was highly appreciated by participants – 330 Gestalt psychotherapists from all over the world – for its intention to connect development of society with emergent clinical needs in the last 60 years. In her speech she also presented an integration of neurosciences, epigenetics, studies on the relational mind and psychoanalysis with Gestalt therapy.
At the end of her presentation the Lifelong Achievement Award ceremony took place. The AAGT current president, Toni Gilligan, from UK, gave the award, after an introduction by Dan Bloom, a Fellow of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, past-president of AAGT, and longtime friend, who has enumerated some of Margherita’s many contributions.
Margherita has then welcomed the award, and thanked Toni, Dan, Bud Feder and Lee Zevy and the Board of the AAGT. She has then expressed a special thanks to all Colleagues who belong to the staff of her Institute – the trainers and administrative people who work with her everyday and have greatly contributed to her work. She has finally dedicated this award to two women of her life: her mother, who has always supported her wish to study, and her daughter, a young woman who has grown beautifully, thanks also to the lovely care of her father, who has accepted Margherita’s challenging commitment to her work. Margherita has therefore wished that all women Gestalt therapists can be supported in their intimate bonds to fully develop their minds and hearts, and highly contribute to the international debate and development of Gestalt therapy.
Participants at the conference have taken part at this event with great interest. The ceremony has ended in a long, warm applause. Colleagues have then congratulated Margherita for the award and the stimulating lecture.
Margherita has then received many messages of congratulations of colleagues from all over the world.
See the video of the award ceremony