Clinical practice and the therapist’s political awareness
with Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, Stefania Benini, Larysa Didkovska, Joseph Khor, Ruella Frank, Pietro A. Cavaleri, Miriam Taylor, Peter Cole
April, 2024 – November 20, 2024
Registrations are still open, you get the recordings of the previous seminars.
For those who cannot attend a seminar live, a video recording will be provided.
After the pandemic experience and in the midst of war in many parts of the world, the most urgent need — for us psychotherapists as well as for our patients — is no longer to cope with trauma, but to navigate the politics that move the world. Patients live in an emotional and cultural atmosphere marked by the climate emergency and the threat of new pandemics, but above all by economic instability and the constant onset of unexpected wars.
New geopolitical scenarios make the balances of the past unstable and out of date. Politics is floundering and no longer provides the spaces for dialogue and integration needed to calm conflicts and polarizations that tear apart entire geographic areas and complex social contexts. Where politics is weak and backsliding, the economic interests of a few people and the cold logic of technology take advantage at the expense of the majority, to the point of undermining the very dignity of human beings. Social injustices are exacerbated and the psychological well-being of entire generations is compromised. We need to acquire a political awareness in order to identify with our clinical work and understand its purpose.
Today’s psychotherapists, together with their patients, are called to move beyond the “micro” space of the session to take a “macro” view that can give relational suffering a necessary political horizon.
The 2024 “Gestalt Therapy in Action” seminars will help to reflect on the political background and to address the clinical problems of our patients with a broader view. Space will also be given to the bodily experience, both of the therapist (resonance) and the patient, and how to integrate it from the clinical point of view.
The Series is aimed at clinicians who are interested in exploring new perspectives on clinical sufferings and with the possibility for supervision. The seminars offer a high level of professional development and an exciting and deep experience from a human point of view, with theoretical presentations, supervision or personal work, and experiential work in small groups with participants from all over the world.
Each seminar will include a main three-hour didactic part and a one-hour dialogue with guest trainers.
Main trainer
Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb
Psychotherapist and researcher, international trainer, Director of the Istituto di Gestalt HCC Italy (Syracuse, Palermo and Milan). In her clinical work, she has hermeneutically developed the principles of Gestalt therapy into a field-oriented, phenomenological and aesthetic approach. Her book The Now-for-Next in Psychotherapy is available in 11 languages. With Pietro Cavaleri, she has recently edited the book Psychopathology of the Situation in Gestalt Therapy: A Field Oriented Approach, published by Routledge in the Gestalt Therapy Book Series. She received the Lifelong Achievement Award from the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy – AAGT (Toronto, Canada, August 2018).
Guest trainers
Larysa Didkovska
PhD, Clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, trainer, supervisor of the Ukrainian Umbrella Association of Psychotherapy, member of the EAP, EAGT, OAMHP(Canada). Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine. She has worked as counselor and psychotherapist with refugees, soldiers and their families, as supervisor with psychologists and psychotherapists who work withanti-terrorist operators and displaced persons. She has authored writingson psychology and psychotherapy.
Joseph Khor
Contemplative Gestalt Therapist from Malaysia.He received Gestalt counselling training at Istituto di Gestalt HCC, Italy and obtained doctorate degree in psychology from Sophia University Institute, Italy. In his PhD study, Joseph did research on Contemplative Gestalt group therapy through the integration of Gestalt Therapy, Taoism, Heraclitus’s thoughts, Christianity and contemplative practice. This study also enabled Joseph to provide holistic (body-mind-spirit) counseling either individually or in group, and conducting workshops on Contemplative Gestalt Approach. He is particularly interested in providing group counseling and community to assist clients resisting oppressing voices from individuals, family, society and political authority.
Ruella Frank
PhD, is founder and director of the Center for Somatic Studies, faculty at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, guest faculty at Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy, adjunct faculty at Gestalt Institute of Toronto, and teaches throughout the United States, Europe, Eurasia, Mexico, South America and Canada. She is author of articles and chapters in various publications, and the book Body of Awareness: A Somatic and Developmental Approach to Psychotherapy, (2001, GestaltPress, available in 5 languages), co-author of The First Year and the Rest of Your Life: Movement, Development and Psychotherapeutic Change (2010, Routledge Press, available in 3 languages), and author of The Bodily Roots of Experience in Psychotherapy (2022, Routledge Press, available in seven languages). Her video Introduction to Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy, is available in three languages. www.somaticstudies.com
Pietro A. Cavaleri
Graduated in Philosophy and Psychology. He recently retired after serving many years as lead clinical psychologist at the Caltanissetta health service unit. He is a member of the Sicilian Order of Psychologists and has worked as lay judge at the Caltanissetta juvenile court. From 2014 to 2016, he served as Municipal Councillor for Social Policies in Caltanissetta. He has authored several books, among which are La profondità della superficie (Franco Angeli, 2003) and Vivere con l’altro (Città Nuova, 2007). He is the curator of the book Psicoterapia della Gestalt e Neuroscienze (Franco Angeli, 2013) and co-author of the book Il dono nel tempo della crisi (Raffaello Cortina, 2015). He has also extensively written for the “Quaderni di Gestalt” journal and the “Studies in Gestalt Therapy” international journal.
Miriam Taylor
UKCP registered Gestalt psychotherapist (non-clinical), supervisor and trainer. Having retired from clinical practice in which she specialised in trauma for over twenty five years, Miriam now includes aspects of collective trauma, social justice issues and climate change in her thinking on trauma. Based in embodied practice, her interest is in the formation of the traumatised relational field, leading to an ecological perspective. She teaches in the UK and internationally, and is on the Leadership Team of Relational Change. Publications include “Trauma Therapy and Clinical Practice” (2014); “Deepening Trauma Practice” (2021), and several peer reviewed and invited articles.
Peter Cole
LCSW, is a Certified Gestalt Therapist (Pacific Gestalt Institute). He served as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry with the UC Davis School of Medicine for 30 years (now retired). He is the co-director of the Sierra Institute for Contemporary Gestalt Therapy. He serves as an Associate Editor for Gestalt Review and is on the Scientific Board for The Gestalt Therapy Book Series. He is the co-author of New Directions in Gestalt Group Therapy and the editor of The Relational Heart of Gestalt Therapy. Peter speaks and gives workshops worldwide. He lives and practices psychotherapy in Northern California, USA.
Program
The program consists of 6 seminars, 4 hours each for a total of 24 hours.
Seminar 1
The organism/environment balance in contemporary society: between depression and violence
in dialogue with Larysa Didkovska
April 17, 2024
15.00 – 19.00 (Rome, Berlin, Paris UTC + 2); 9.00 AM – 1.00 PM (New York UTC – 4)
Seminar 2
The psychotherapist’s contribution to the current individual/society relationship: from political consciousness to the support of intimate relationships
in dialogue with Joseph Khor
May 15, 2024
15.00 – 19.00 (Rome, Berlin, Paris UTC + 2); 9.00 AM – 1.00 PM (New York UTC – 4)
Seminar 3
The therapist’s bodily experience: how to let confidence and courage emerge in traumatic situations
in dialogue with Ruella Frank
June 19, 2024
15.00 – 19.00 (Rome, Berlin, Paris UTC + 2); 9.00 AM – 1.00 PM (New York UTC – 4)
Seminar 4
Fear as an emerging emotion from new geopolitical scenarios
in dialogue with Pietro A. Cavaleri
September 18, 2024
15.00 – 19.00 (Rome, Berlin, Paris UTC + 2); 9.00 AM – 1.00 PM (New York UTC – 4)
Seminar 5
Intimate relationships in a desensitized and violent world: risk and gender-based violence
in dialogue with Miriam Taylor
October 30, 2024
15.00 – 19.00 (Rome, Berlin, Paris UTC + 1); 10.00 AM – 2.00 PM (New York UTC – 4)
Seminar 6
The therapeutic relationship in the current sociopolitical situation
in dialogue with Peter Cole
November 20, 2024
15.00 – 19.00 (Rome, Berlin, Paris UTC + 1); 9.00 AM – 1.00 PM (New York UTC – 5)
Language
English
Participants
Previous training in Gestalt therapy and a minimum of clinical experience is required.
Reference book
Spagnuolo Lobb M. & Cavaleri P.A. (2023). Psychopathology of the Situation in Gestalt Therapy. A Field Oriented Approach. London: Routledge
See book contents
Certificate
A certificate of attendance will be provided to psychotherapists who will attend the full program live or recorded.
Video recording
To those who will not attend a seminar, a video recording will be provided.
Information
Please contact us at [email protected]
Registration
The total cost for the whole course is 520 Euro
Registrations are still open, you get the recordings of the previous seminars
You can pay with your credit/debit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express,…).
If you wish, you can use Apple Pay, Google Pay, Bancontact, EPS, Giropay, iDeal, Przelewy24.
After payment we will use the order data to issue an invoice. Take care to insert your email, name, address correctly.
For any assistance after-order write to [email protected] attaching the order confirmation within 24 hours.
You will receive a link 4 hours before each seminar. Participants will be able to see the speaker and the slides via pc/tablet/smartphone. You can activate your webcam or microphone using the Zoom platform.
It is possible to interact to ask questions using chat or microphone.