Procedural and Relational Approaches in Working with Embodiment

This three-hour virtual workshop is intended to highlight the inherent polarity of pattern and relationship in Gestalt Therapy. Through discussion and experiential exercises, we will explore the value of focusing on client’s embodied patterns (nervous system, body structure and developmental movements) while remaining curious and immersed in the dynamic of the relationship. In recent decades a wave of nervous system-based approaches has influenced the practice of trauma treatment and therapy. This has led to some tension between the integration of somatic pattern in Gestalt and other therapies. We will focus on this inaccurate rift through embodied phenomenology using present embodiment understanding and the Gestalt practice of figure ground formation.

Some Themes:

• • The Myth of the Objective and Challenges of the Relational Approach in working with Physical Process.
• • How to hold curiosity of the client in embodied practice as more than a symptom.
• • How to see “the forest from the trees”: staying attuned with the organizing ground of the client’s pattern.
• • How to approach pattern from a relational stance.
• • The importance of Mutual Patterning between the client and therapist.

Cost:                   GANZ Student Members: $15. GANZ Members: $55. Non-GANZ Members: $95.

Date:                   Saturday 6^th September   

Time:                   8:30am – 11:30am (Melbourne/Sydney)

About your Presenter:  

Michael Craig Clemmens is a psychologist and trainer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is a faculty of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and teaches at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Michael is the author of Getting Beyond Sobriety (1997), the editor of Embodied Relational Gestalt: Theory and Applications (2019) and numerous articles on Gestalt therapy, body process, and addiction. His main interest is the complex interaction of our bodies and the multi-layered field.

Purchase your ticket here!