The fourth Gestalt Network Scotland event will take place in August.  Sign up using the form below.

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Date: 26 August 2023

Time: 10:30 - 4pm

Venue: St Johns Church Hall, West End of Princes Street Edinburgh

Cost: TBC depending on numbers, somewhere between £20 - £45 to cover costs of venue hire and lunch. Costs are split between all participants so no refunds are available for non attendance.

 

Our theme is 'Embodiment and Movement'.  During our day exploring the concept and experience of emergence, embodiment and movement became figural for a number of people.  Rupert Spiers has volunteered to co-develop and co-facilitate this session with Gillian and Karen, given his particular interest in these themes.   This will be in keeping with our emerging structure of arrival/check in and theme exploration in the morning.  With a catered lunch.  Then open space to further develop interests that may be emerging, discussion of any next steps for the community and then a closing group process.  

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Gillian and Rupert offer their thoughts and interests for the exploration in August below.

 

Gillian

I'm are really looking forward to exploring embodiment together. I think there are probably some similar strands of questions many Gestalt therapists will have about embodiment.

 

For example, how do we work with embodiment with clients who have very little felt sense of their own bodies? In the trainings, we can become comfortable working with people who already know the terrain of the body well. In reality, in my experience in the therapy room, because the cultural field doesn’t value or necessarily support us to experience our bodies directly, many clients come with very little capacity for it. How do we turn ‘embodied experience’ from an abstract concept in the mind to the felt experience? How do we work with the enevitable resistance to this, especially when it is persistent? How do we do this without negating the importance of our cognitive and meaning making capacities?

 

I’m particularly interested in translating the theoretical concepts of Gestalt into embodied knowledge. It’s something I’ve experimented a bit within supervision and my own reflective time. For example, how do I experience the truth of the paradoxical theory of change in movement? Or how do I get to know, the id, ego and personality functions inside my body rather than solely as an intellectual construct?

 

I’d be really interested to hear what your questions are, if you’d like to send them in advance?

 

Equally, if you would like to offer an input – maybe an experiment or a short talk I’d love to hear from you.  

 

Rupert

 

I am delighted to be co-facilitating this network meeting exploring embodiment. Our sensing and knowing of our body is a fundamental pillar of Gestalt therapy and culture. In both joy and pain we all have our own lived experience of being our body. My aim for this session is to create a space that welcomes, supports and deepens awareness of these different experiences of embodiment. I notice I approach this theme through the lens of personal development and support. Yet I also sincerely echo Gillian's interest in how we use embodiment in our practice.

On a personal level, my sense of self embodiment in moving through, and relating to my environment so often brings me a sense of joy, energy and playfulness.  But in my life before training I experienced my body, at best, without much awareness and, at worst, as untrusted and unknown, a vessel for burning shame. Becoming a gestalt therapist brought an awareness of my body as a friend, an ally, a sense of self I could trust that no one else could deny. I discovered how much information and possibility I embody. Bringing this experience into the therapeutic relationship is more challenging and I look forward to exploring other people's experience of their personal and professional relational embodiment with a playful, lively and respectful approach.

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