Conference Organising Committees
Conference Organising Committee (G10):
Darren Cuskelly (New Zealand – Convenor)
Ian Rae (Conference Administration – GINZ Office Manager)
Lindy Elliot (GINZ Graduate)
Amanda Wilde (GINZ Graduate)
Brenda Levien (Conference Consultant - DOT GINZ)
Conference Facilitation Group (CFG):
Gabe Phillips (Australia – Convenor)
Dr Gordon Wheeler (USA)
Brenda Levien (New Zealand)
Stephen Parkinson (New Zealand)
Kerry Devine (Australia)
Conference Secretariat: New Zealand
Office Manager: Ian Rae
E: admin@gestalt.org.nz
T: +64 3 379 2040
Skype: gestaltinstituenz
The GANZ Office in Australia will not act as a secretariat but will be available to respond to general GANZ enquiries.
Office Manager: Theresa Roa
E: contact@ganz.org.au
T: +61 3 9489 2218
Office Hours: Monday and Tuesday 12.30-6.30 and Wednesday and Thursday 9.30am-3.30pm.
Roles and Profiles of the Conference Facilitation Group
The Conference Facilitation Group (CFG) has the primary responsibility for designing the conference program in advance of the conference and facilitating the program at the conference. The aim is to ensure that all events reflect the conference theme, are culturally sensitive and aligned with the conference process. The CFG will work in conjunction the conference guest facilitator (Dr Gordon Wheeler) in the design and facilitation process. In addition, the CFG will work with all those who are presenting experiential workshops as well as supporting pre-conference events in the GANZ community. This group will work with the emerging process at the conference in the various open experiential spaces that are part of the conference program.
Gordon Wheeler PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist with over thirty years of practice, teaching and training widely around the world. He is noted for his work using the Gestalt model to integrate relational, developmental, self, narrative, and evolutionary psychology, and his related work in integral education. As author or editor of some dozen books and over 100 articles in the field, he has focused on themes of co-construction of experience, lifelong relational development, intimacy and intersubjectivity, dynamics of support and shame, gender, narrative, values and culture, community, and multicultural work as well as post-Holocaust studies.
His edited works include a number of translations, and his own work has been translated into more than a dozen other languages. As Editor and Co-Director of GestaltPress (long publishing with Analytic/Erlbaum and now with Routledge Taylor & Francis), he has brought work by over 100 other Gestalt authors to print. Gordon serves as President of Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, which offers over 600 residential public and intern programs to some 15,000 students each year, and hosts the world's largest and longest-running Gestalt-based residential community, now nearing its 50th year. Gordon and his wife Nancy Lunney-Wheeler have eight children and a growing number of grandchildren, and make their home at Esalen and in Santa Cruz, California.
Gabriel Phillips BEd, PhD, FMGANZ, MAPS is the Co-founder of Gestalt Therapy Australia (GTA). He was the Director of Training and Managing Director of GTA from 1995-2009 and is currently a member of the GTA faculty. Gabe has served on the GANZ Council since its inception in 1998. He was the inaugural Chair of Training Standards and Course Accreditation; a position he held until 2004. Gabe was the convenor of the conference organising committee for the 5th GANZ International Conference in Melbourne 2006. He is currently the Chair of Liaison and Community Development and convenor of the Directors of Training (DOTS) for Australia and New Zealand. Gabe was elected a Fellow Member of GANZ in 2008. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the British Gestalt Journal.
Gabe is an ongoing student of the Diamond Approach to spiritual development (A.H. Almaas – Ridhwan School) and is engaged in synthesising the psychological and spiritual into his understanding of human experience. Gabe’s psychotherapy practice and long-term involvement in community development is grounded in relational philosophy and informed by gestalt, psychodynamic and diamond approach ideas and practices.
Brenda Levien NZRN, DipGPsych, MNZAC, MNZAP, FMGANZ, had her first experience of a Gestalt workshop in Canada in 1974 and was frightened, enchanted and knew it was for her. Since then Brenda has 30 years experience working with people as a nurse, counsellor, Gestalt therapist, supervisor, trainer and organizational consultant. She trained in couples and person centered counseling in the 1970s, which lead to her working in the drug and alcohol field and as Director of Counseling with Relationship Services in Christchurch.
Brenda began her Gestalt training in the early 1980s in Dunedin and finished training with the Gestalt Institute of New Zealand (GINZ) in 1992. She joined the teaching faculty in 1993 and has been Director of Training since 2000. Brenda works in private practice and within organizations. For ten years she was engaged with a team of Gestalt colleagues on the development of GANZ, serving 10 years on Council, four of them as President. Brenda was elected a Fellow Member of GANZ in 2006 and continues to serve as a member of the GANZ Ethics Committee.
Brenda is a registered psychotherapist and member of the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists (NZAP) with a keen interest in building links between different psychotherapy modalities. She has a passionate belief in people’s abilities to find creative solutions to the challenges of life. Brenda is particularly interested in how Gestalt principles can be used to develop the gestalt community in this part of the world, as well as finding ways to influence the wider community in which we live and work.
Stephen Parkinson Fellow AMI, CMGANZ, MNZAC, originally from the North of England, Stephen trained as a psychiatric nurse specialising in work with children and teenagers. He trained as a Gestalt Practitioner with Helen Mclean in Cambridge UK before moving to New Zealand in 1989. He is a Fellow of the Association for Music and Imagery, a form of music centred psychotherapy. Stephen has been a member of the training Faculty with the Gestalt Institute of New Zealand since 1991.
His past employment as a therapist has included Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, SAFE (an adolescent sexual offending program) and the Student Counselling Service at the University of Waikato. Stephen currently works full time with True Colours, a Charitable Trust supporting children and teenagers affected by serious, chronic and life threatening illness. He regularly presents at conferences throughout New Zealand including Psychosocial Oncology, Hospice and the Paediatric Society.
Kerry Devine BSW, GradDipOrgChgDev., CMGANZ, MAASW (Acc) is a
psychotherapist, organisation consultant, social worker and faculty member
of Gestalt Therapy Australia (GTA), where she originally trained as a
Gestalt therapist. Kerry has served on the GANZ Council as Victorian State
Representative and Secretary and was a member of the conference organising
committee for the 5th GANZ International Conference in Melbourne 2006.
Kerry's work over the past 25 years has focused on designing multi scale
organisational change, placing making, leadership development, team
building, strategic planning, and cross cultural initiatives, spanning the
corporate, government and community sectors. As a freelance consultant she
enjoys her roles as executive, leadership, creativity and life coach,
researcher/writer and facilitator of small and large group engagement
processes. She is particularly interested in what supports enlivened
unfolding in people and in creative, appreciative and celebratory whole of
organisation events.
In addition to this Kerry is studying Studio Textiles and Design Production
at RMIT and is also an ongoing student of the Diamond Approach to spiritual
development (A.H.Almaas). Both courses support, inspire, nourish and
energise her deeply.