Creating Together and Coming Together
Gestalt Network Scotland
Welcome!
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We are two Gestalt Therapists from Edinburgh, we trained with EGI between 2013-2017, and want to invite you to be part of a new network for gestalt therapists in Scotland. We hope you will join us in connecting, sharing passions, learning, debating and building new projects together.
We are two Gestalt Therapists from Edinburgh, we trained with EGI between 2013-2017, and in November 2022 we formed Gestalt Network Scotland.
Over the course of the year that followed we held five events bringing together gestalt therapists and some with other professionals with a gestalt background.
We took an experimental approach to ‘getalting’ these events. We wanted the process to be horizontal, not hierarchical, and dialogical.
So we began with the intention of beginning where we all were in Nov 2022. We explored what everyone hoped for in a network, what we feared, where we had all come from up until that point in our lives as gestalt therapists.
The following 4 sessions emerged organically from this point onward. We didn’t plan the whole agenda in advance, rather we allowed space in each meeting for the next step to emerge from what had happened that day. Sometimes there was a sense of excitement and possibility as people connected with their passions and ideas. Sometimes there were moments of discomfort as the group encountered ‘not knowing what to do next’. For us (Karen and Gillian) it was lively, rich, engaging and very gestalt!
The following themes emerged for the next sessions:
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Beginning and Connection
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Emergence
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Embodiment and Movement
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Money in therapy
Each session was partially facilitated by Karen and Gillian. Other therapists also made work-shop style offerings to allow us to reflect on these themes in ways which were embodied, linked with gestalt theory and practice and offered space for reflection of how these themes impact our personal development.
The events were all held in the beautiful light airey workshop space at St John’s Church at the West End of Princes st. This venue added something really special to the process.
At the end of the year, Gillian and Karen decided to take a break from organising these bigger events. Following this, a small peer group formed and is ongoing. If you’re interested in joining, please contact Gillian
We have also turned our attention to organising CPD workshops where we invite trainers to make offerings.
Last year Karen and Kay Young organised for Mary Turner to run a CPD workshop on ‘Working with dreams’ which was very successful.
This year we hope to run more. Please register your interest below if you’d like to receive our newsletter and keep up to date.
If you are interested in organising for a particular trainer to run a workshop in Scotland and would like to do it via the network, please get in touch. We are keen for others to do this too.
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Keep reading to hear more from Gillian and Karen about their vision
Gillian's Reflections
and Intentions
I love the sense of affiliation that I often feel when meeting other Gestalt Therapists - the feeling of being on a shared journey and having a level of common understanding.
I enjoy the opportunities the network offers to have more of that kind of connection in my life and I look forward to seeing how it develops in different ways at different times over the years. At the heart of this, is my sense that it’s important and valuable to be part of something bigger. Something which has more meaning as a whole, than the total sum of the individual parts - a community.
In the meetings we had I really enjoyed the chance to deepen my embodied understanding of gestalt theory and link it with practice. I know I want to make more offerings around this and am working on ways of doing it.
Coming together with people really helps me to enrich my sense of what gestalt therapy is and why the approach is important. I’d like space to reflect on the role of gestalt in my own personal journey. All of these activities feel much more meaningful when shared with others.
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Karen's Ideas
I’m interested in being part of a Gestalt community that is grounded in place. All of the zooming and other online opportunities the pandemic has stimulated has broadened our horizons greatly, and I am yearning for something more grounded, rooted and located in the HERE, not just the now.
Scotland has a long history of Gestalt practice, through EGI and its predecessor organisations and groups. I want to be a part of keeping this alive, vibrant and responsive and contributing to the wider community of which we are a part - located within the particularities of Scotland’s land, history, culture, politics, health services and civic society. What might we be able to contribute to our communities by coming together as a more local network?
And as Gillian talks about, I long for a place to explore, share and co-create with people who share my passion for therapy and have a Gestalt background. I’m excited about the potential for learning and creativity outside of formal qualification requirements and to engage in dialogue with a diversity of Gestalt practitioners and enjoy our uniquenesses and commonalities. I would love to create opportunities for ongoing training in Scotland so that we don’t all use up time, money and most importantly, the earth’s resources travelling far and wide. And, I’d love for us, Gestaltists in Scotland, to grow our own, nurture our talents, learn from and support each other.
I think we need each other and that Scotland needs us.
This is a bold vision! Stay with us as we develop it further and please do get in touch if you want to be involved