Recruiting for our next Gestalt Practitioner Diploma!
Our last group of Gestalt students have now become Gestalt Practitioners! The picture above shows them at our Year 2 residential in Corrymeela in October 2024, together with main trainers Bríd Keenan and Joëlle Gartner, and guest trainer Billy Desmond of the Gestalt Institute in Carlow.
And now we are opening the recruitment for our next 2-year programme! And we would like to explain the process of recruiting a Gestalt training group.
Importance of the group as locus of learning
The Gestalt approach is based on relationship, interaction, between individuals and within groups. This is how we learn as babies, as children, as adults: from the infant / close family relationship, to the child / wider family, community and beyond, we are constantly experiencing ourselves in relation, even when alone. And so we learn to become Gestalt practitioners through joining a group, experiencing being and belonging in the group, and through this, noticing lifelong patterns of relating and as we start feeling safer, taking risks in changing those patterns that have become constricting.
The group is also a microcosm not only of family, but also of community and society, and in Gestalt we look at those wider perspectives. Our students have come from across the island, not just Belfast. And so the wider historical and political context is present in the room, that of a country still decolonising, with a border across it that has shaped how people son either side of the border see themselves and the Other. The training takes place in the north, which despite the IRA ceasefire 30+ years ago, and a peace process which at times seems to stand still, still resonates with the trauma of military occupation and armed resistance.
The exploration of process in such groups requires trust - and some courage! - and this is why forming a training group is a very important pre-requisite to a successful training.
Meeting future colleagues in introductory workshops
With that in mind, the Gestalt Centre Belfast is scheduling an introductory workshop to the Gestalt approach, on 11-12 October 2025. It is in-person, and takes place in Belfast where the course is also being taught.
There will be further introductory workshops if needs be, until a viable group is assembled. There will be dates in November and December. It is hoped that the 2-year programme can kick off early in 2026.
People who attend these workshops meet one another as potential companions in a learning experience, meet the trainers with whom they will work, and also get a chance to ask questions about the 2-year programme. If they are interested, they will be sent an application pack to complete. There is an interviewing process.
The two year course is described more fully on our website, at https://www.gestaltbelfast.org/project/gestalt-practitioners-diploma.
Why Gestalt?
It fits well with what neuroscience teaches us about how we integrate experience. Louis Cozolino in his book 'The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy' described Gestalt as "a unique expression of psychodynamic therapy that is particularly relevant to neural integration".
In particular, Gestalt is one of the approaches which fit well with Somatic Experiencing (SE) - a somatic approach to working with nervous system regulation and the renegotiation of trauma. In the past quite a few Somatic Experiencing Practitioners have completed our Gestalt training, and a few that completed the training went on to train in SE.
Where to from there?
For those students who are already qualified counsellors in another modality, the Gestalt Practitioner Diploma can serve as access to Year 5 of the Master programme with the Gestalt Institute of Ireland, Carlow.
For more information, check the Gestalt Centre Belfast’s website at https://www.gestaltbelfast.org, and you can send an expression of interest by clicking on one of the two workshops on the Events page, https://www.gestaltbelfast.org/events.
Alternatively you can email us for information and an application form at info@gestaltbelfast.org.
