Continuing Education Workshops 2024-2025
We offer Continuing Education hours to Social Workers, Mental Health Counselors, Creative Arts Therapists, Psychoanalysts and Psychologists for our workshops.
Since online workshops are participatory, CE’s will only be given if the participant’s camera is on during the workshop.
New York State requires that we post the following statement:
The Gestalt Center for Psychotherapy and Training is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Social Workers, (#SW-0201), by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychologists, (#PSY-0025), and by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychoanalysts, (#Psyan-0001), Licensed Mental Health Counselors, (#MHC-0079), and Licensed Creative Arts Therapists , (#CAT-0073).
How to Register
You can pay via Check or PayPal, using the Buy Now buttons or Pay by Check link below each workshop.
A minimum 50% deposit is required at the time of registration.
Refund Policy:
75% refund if cancelled more than 7 days in advance.
50% if cancelled less than 7 days in advance.
Cancellation Policy:
Occasionally, the Gestalt Center needs to cancel a workshop due to unforeseen circumstances. In such cases, we will inform you the Monday prior and provide you with a full refund.
For Information:
Call (212) 387-9429 or email gestaltcenter@gestaltnyc.org.
Introduction to Gestalt Theory and Practice
Next Intro:
Monday, December 2, 2024
6:00-9:00 pm (ET) Via Zoom
Presented by various faculty
This introductory class will provide a beginning understanding of Gestalt Therapy and practice. You will learn about Gestalt theory, methods and techniques, and about what is at the heart of our creative, experiential therapy.
In addition, we'll answer your questions about our training programs in Gestalt therapy. This workshop is particularly useful for those considering entering our training programs.
In this class you will:
Obtain a beginning understanding of Gestalt theory and practice.
See a video of a gestalt therapy session.
Witness a live demonstration of a Gestalt therapy session, followed by discussion.
Learn about our post-graduate training programs.
Meet one or more members of our faculty and students/alums of our training programs.
The class is free, but reservations are required. All introductions are being held online at the moment.
How to Work With Couples: 6-Week Hands-On Experiential Course
(Online Format)
Marla Silverman, Ph.D.
How do I make sense of the behavior between a couple? How do I understand what fears/hurts/wounds each member is protecting? How do I help them move to a place of greater safety and connection? This hands-on, practicum style, 6-week course is for therapists who want to develop or increase their skills with couples. Each 3-hour session includes: Didactic: principles and strategies of couples work; Questions: about your cases and the didactic material; Practicum: hands-on practice with couples role-played by group members, get feedback on your interventions - what did and did not work - and a chance to try other interventions
Objectives:
Help couples recognize their patterns that cause distress.
Help each partner connect to the beliefs, fears and protective mechanisms that fuel their reactive responses.
Personally experience, via hands-on practice, the client’s protective mechanisms and fear, different character structures’ internal life, and the impact of the therapist’s stance, openness and interventions.
6 Saturdays in 2025:
February 1
February 16
March 15
March 29
April 5
April 19
9 am – 12 pm (ET)
18 CE hours
Gestalt Therapy Supervision as Recognition of the Supervisee’s Intentionality
(Online Format)
Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, PsyD
This workshop introduces gestalt therapists to a specific model of supervision. It’s valuable for other methods as well, is focused on the recognition of the supervisee's intentionality, and is based on aesthetic tools of the supervisor. It’s based on a field perspective of supervision and provides clear guidelines for supervisors. Given that it’s focused on the therapeutic intentionality of the therapist, it can be an antidote to shame, a common unpleasant feeling of supervisees. I’ve been teaching gestalt therapy supervision since 2017 in international groups of psychotherapists from all over the world, and will share my reflections and practice with participants, in an experiential way.
Objectives:
Learn a phenomenological position as supervisor.
Learn how to focus on the supervisee’s intentionality rather than on the evaluation of the case.
Learn how to support what the supervisee already aesthetically knows about the therapeutic situation.
Learn how to avoid the feeling of shame in supervisees.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
8 am – 2 pm (ET) (with one-hour lunch break)
5 CE hours
$150
Voice Attunement for Therapists
(Online Format)
Voice is central to human experience and integral, while invisible, to the therapeutic process. Voice attunement opens therapists’ ears to deepen perception, connection, and intention with clients. Through a gestalt lens, we will explore voice as a window to inner states and processes using discussion, experientials, case examples, and demonstrations. Clinicians at all levels, as well as others, can benefit from exploring the nature of voice.
Objectives:
Understand the connection of voice, body tensions, and defenses.
Learn to use vocal cues to hear clients with greater attunement.
Learn to use your voice to nurture rapport, support, and co-regulation.
Access voice as an additional channel to inform therapeutic interventions.
Clinicians at all levels, as well as others, can benefit from exploring the nature of voice.
Sunday, April 6, 2025
11 am – 2 pm (ET) (no lunch break; bring your lunch)
3 CE hours
$100
One 25% scholarship available
Substance Use + Gestalt = Harm Reduction: Applying the Paradoxical Theory of Change and Evidence Based Practices to Our Relationship with Substances
(Online Format)
The paradoxical theory of change underlies both Gestalt and harm reduction practice and theory. A truly Gestalt approach to human beings’ relationships to substances is naturally aligned with the principles and practice of harm reduction. In this workshop, we’ll learn how to apply harm reduction principles to our work with clients from the very beginning, from intake to later phases, including how to create an environment that will allow clients to be honest and promote trust in the therapeutic alliance regarding substances. We all use various substances and always have. How can we best support our clients’ own goals regarding substances and create a space devoid of shame and judgment that encourages open and curious exploration of these relationships, their benefits and costs? Specific tools and practices will be presented.
Objectives:
Learn to apply the paradoxical theory of change to our relationships with substances.
Learn the principles of harm reduction.
Learn to create an open and non-judgmental stance toward substance use that will foster trust in your clients to be honest about their substance use.
Learn practical tools and practices for implementing harm reduction techniques into your work.
Sunday, April 13, 2025
10:30 am – 4:30 pm (ET) (with one-hour lunch break)
5 CE hours
$150
50% discount for all students
Some scholarships available
Exploring Identity in Gestalt Group Therapy
(Online Format)
Is identity fixed, or is it a continually co-created story we tell ourselves and others and they tell us? Or could both be true? In this workshop we will explore these questions in a Gestalt group therapy format as we experientially explore together our conceptions of “I am” in our histories, in our current lives and in the moment. Drawing on Gestalt Theory and framing our themes around building awareness of our identities and their meanings as our primary focus of attention, group members will co-create this unfolding together as we reach for authentic dialogue in the reimagining of ourselves in the moment.
Objectives:
Participants will be able to name 3 interventions that a Gestalt group therapist can make to enhance dialogue around identity.
Participants will be able to name 5 common themes that emerge for people around issues of identity.
Participants will gain a greater availability to their clients by working with their own understandings around personal identity.
Sunday, April 27, 2025
10 am – 4 pm (ET) (with one-hour lunch break)
5 CE hours
$150
2 scholarships available
Whom Shall We Steal from Next?
(In-Person Format)
What we know today as Gestalt techniques were often “borrowed” from other approaches of the time -- Moreno's psychodrama, Lowen's bioenergetics, and Charlotte Selver's sensory awareness exercises. We will review these and then introduce newer experiential methods drawn from contemporary therapies that are also fully compatible with Gestalt theory and practice. These will include methods from Hakomi Therapy, Psychomotor Therapy, meditative traditions and others. We will also explore more deeply the meaning of “experiment” in Gestalt therapy and the principles for adapting methods from other approaches. This will be an intensive, hands-on training useful for both beginning and experienced therapists.
Objectives:
Learn the historical development of Gestalt therapy methods.
Learn the meaning of “experiments” in Gestalt therapy and how to introduce them.
Learn guidelines for adapting methods from other therapies to be compatible with Gestalt psychotherapy theory.
Saturday, June 14, 2025
10 am – 4 pm (ET) (with one-hour lunch break)
5 CE hours
Past Workshops
Humanizing the Schizoid
(In-Person Format)
Catherine Hormats, MA, LP, GPCC
Welcome! Does the word “Schizoid” schiz you out?! If so, you’re in the right place. This workshop will help demystify what Schizoid Personality Disorder is, how to identify it in your clinical practice, and how to work with clients moving through this personality pattern. You will learn an innovative Gestalt- based framework for working with Schizoid-adapted people. This workshop is designed to empower you with tools and a framework to recognize and support your clients with confidence, clarity, and compassion.
Objectives:
Understand what Schizoid Personality Disorder is.
Identify the patterns of Schizoid Personality adaptations (creative adjustments) and how they show up in your clinical practice.
Learn a compassion-based, humanistic Gestalt framework for working with clients who are moving through schizoid personality adaptations.
Saturday, September 21, 2024
1 – 4 pm (ET)
3 CE hours
50% off for current GCPT students
Relational Gestalt Therapy: From Theory to Practice
(Online Format)
This workshop is for therapists who wish to become more familiar and comfortable with the relational approach to psychotherapy. Well-grounded in intersubjective field-theory, we will examine the very practical changes in method that serve to develop mutuality in the working relationship, including:
When to focus on the client’s manner of relating to the therapist rather than the intrapsychic material being explored.
How to introduce body awareness and experiments with firm instructions, yet in a non-authoritative manner.
Responding to personal questions, request to change the frame, gifts, and the pitfalls of self-revelation.
Objectives:
Learn the historical development and change from an intrapsychic to interpersonal perspective, both in psychoanalysis and Gestalt therapy.
Learn when to focus on the client’s manner of relating to the therapist rather than the intrapsychic material being explored.
Learn how to introduce experiments with firm instructions, yet in a non-authoritative manner.
Saturday, September 28, 2024
10 am – 4 pm (ET) (with one-hour lunch break)
5 CE hours
50% discount for current GCPT students
Radical Self-Care: Pathway to Empowerment
(Online Format)
The clear voice of women is essential for the healing of the world. When we pause and listen more deeply to our bodies we can align with our authenticity and feel empowered to presence ourselves wholly and unapologetically. However, most cultures carry messages that devalue the feminine and teach women to be “other focused”; thus neglecting their needs and disconnecting them from the inherent wisdom of their sensual bodies and divinity. This often leads to feelings of self-loathing and shame. Through somatic practices and relational mindfulness, we will slow down to support a deeper listening and a more intimate relating. We will create every day rituals, nourishing a sense of connection to the rhythms and reciprocity of the natural world while finding meaning and belonging. The work transforms loathing into loving, shame into empowerment, unworthiness into sufficiency. Offering deep regard for the body, emotions and spirit becomes part of our path of practice as we continue exploring more ways to bring generous, sacred care to ourselves, each other and the planet.
Objectives:
Understand how cultural messages influence the ability to express our needs.
Understand how relational mindfulness supports the awakening to our feelings and needs.
Understand how developing and practicing receptivity affects our reciprocal experience.
Saturday, October 5, 2024
10 am – 5 pm (ET) (with one-hour lunch break)
6 CE hours
50% discount for all students
Some scholarships available
Introduction to Couples Work
(Online Format)
Marla Silverman, Ph.D.
For the therapist who wants a way to understand how to work with couples. We will cover principles and methods of working with couples, how to structure a session, what to look for and how to intervene. This workshop is both didactic and experiential. Through role play we will demonstrate and practice interventions and discuss therapeutic choices. Bring a sense of wonder and fun.
Objectives
Understand what causes stuck patterns of stress in couples.
Understand how to set up a first session.
Understand how to create safety for both members of the couple.
Saturday, October 19, 2024
9 am – 12 pm (ET)
3 CE hours
Filling the Empty Chair
(Online Format)
In this workshop we will explore the underlying principles that will help you create, expand and/or refine your use of the “empty chair” method. We will cover how there are several different uses of this process, some of the common misunderstandings of it, how to introduce it to clients, and why there are no “parts” in “parts work.” Most of all, you will learn how to avoid confusing your patients (and yourself!) with your use of this technique. This will be an experiential workshop for both therapists-in-training and those who wish to learn or revisit the power of this approach.
Objectives:
Understand the history of “psychodramatic” methods in Gestalt therapy.
Understand how to use “chairwork” for projection vs. introjections vs inner child.
Understand how chairwork fits with Gestalt psychotherapy theory.
Sunday, November 3, 2024
10 am – 4 pm (ET) (with one-hour lunch break)
5 CE hours