I will be using this space for informal and personal reflections. A few notes about this new website. Our previous website was a very formal affair that I found rather intimidating. I had no idea how to log onto the server. Making changes was a big deal, time consuming and expensive. This new website is entirely different. I have set it up with a program called WordPress that allows me to edit the site myself and to utilize tools such as the engine that drives this blog. My goal is to create a website that is much more conversational and informal than the previous site.

We are excited about our new Berkeley therapist group. We plan on starting the group in the fall of ‘09. Gestalt therapy involves living life fully – being in the present moment and making contact with those around us. We are looking forward to connecting with Bay Area therapists to share these timeless values in the context of a powerful group process.

The group will meet one Saturday per month from 10 – 2. If you are interested in being involved in this group, please give us a call or an email.

Peter Cole

After years of working in the traditional gestalt model, we pursued further group therapy training at the Washington School of Psychiatry in Washington DC, and learned a great deal about approaching groups from a variety of perspectives:  a Systems perspective, an Intersubjective/Self Psychololgical perspective, a Kleinian/Object Relations, a post-modern Lacanian perspective, Yalom’s interpersonal approach and Bion’s analytic orientation.   Reading in these areas and experiencing workshops led by experts in these approaches was truly a life-changing experience for us.

This immersion brought us back to our Gestalt Group work with new enthusiasm and perspective.   We were impressed with the common intellectual roots that Gestalt Therapy shares with so much in the area of group therapy – see Elaine Kephner’s classic article “Gestalt Group Process” in Beyond the Hotseat for more on Gestalt’s common roots with other group therapy approaches.   Gestalt therapists may also be interested in  the contributions of S.H. Foulkes – founder of Group Analysis – his life and work contain many fascinating parallels to Fritz and Laura Perls.

What we learned and have incorporated deeply into our work is a style of group work that is less centered on the leader, more interactive, more oriented to group development and less predictable than our earlier work. Paradoxically, we feel that our study of other group theories and styles of leadership has brought us to an approach to group work that is far more consistent with gestalt therapy theory than the more leader centered hot-seat work that we used to work in.

Of course we have not thrown out the baby with the bath water.  There are still times when a powerful piece of work emerges between an individual group member and one of the group leaders.  However, when all of the work in group relates back to the leader, certain shadow elements may come into being that can be problematic.  The leader may become too powerful and unapproachable.  Guruism can set in.  Too much of the wisdom and knowledge that should be distributed among all group members can get located in the person of the leader while group members can become deskilled.  We have found that addressing the group as a whole, working with the process of group development, understanding the roles that group members can get caught in, and working more with feelings toward the leaders has helped us to do better Gestalt Group therapy.

October 2009

“Humanity, ill-nourished in the foods of the soul, suffers from Failure to Thrive Syndrome.”

Sufi teacher Gayan Macher

Our struggles, challenges, addictions, fears and patterns of behavior can constrict our range and narrow us until our lives become a shadow of what they might otherwise be.

But when we hold those very same struggles and challenges, fears and addictions and in a sacred space then the path begins to broaden out – and we experience a life that has more range, more self-hood more connection, more contact.

The group then is a place where we create sacred space for each other. Each component of the group is meant to facilitate this sacred space. Centering helps to bring us to ourselves and into initial contact with each other. Drumming brings us from the every-day reality into the sacred. It is the transitional experience.

The Group is where we move most fully into the present moment. Everything we have done up to that point is intended as a support for the work that happens here. Here – every person in the group and everything each group member feels – whether articulated or not – is an honored part of the here and now. In group, all feelings are allowed in the context of behavior that is responsible to each other. We strive to put feelings into words. We agree to be physically and emotionally respectful of each other, to create a safe place by being responsive and responsible even when we are having strong feelings toward other group members and the leaders.

As a group member, the most valuable things you can bring are your willingness to risk being seen and heard, to be vulnerable, to be honest, and to give others feedback around how you experience them. While the social norms of everyday life importantly serve to help make society function, we need broader norms for the group process. In group we seek norms that facilitate growth

To be Honest

To be Compassionate

To speak fully and

To listen fully

To be present in the moment

To risk with others

To hang in there with each other – even when the going gets rough

It has been said that the wound to the spiritual body is the illusion of aloneness. (Dick Olney) Group is a place where we may begin to heal that wound.