Gestalt Therapy AustraliaGestalt Therapy Australia

Student and graduate resources

Personal Abilities Feedback (PAF)

In 2018 we launched the Personal Abilities Feedback (PAF) and it has been re-written in 2023. PAF is a vital tool used by Gestalt Therapy Australia to facilitate feedback conversations around the attributes we believe are essential to being a gestalt psychotherapist.

PAF will support an assessment process about individual students’ personal abilities that will sit alongside existing assessments for the theory and practice of gestalt therapy. It consists of six personal abilities; Aware; Present; Receptive; Choiceful; Situated; Engaged.

These personal abilities are presented in a way that will support personal reflection; feedback between students; a structure for conversation between students and faculty; and a guide to conversations about readiness to practice, course progression or any other conduct related concern that may arise.  

Read more about PAF:

‍Preamble to PAF

PAF descriptions

PAF reflection questions

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Relational principles

What does it mean to say that GTA teaches Relational Gestalt Therapy (RGT)?  GTA co-founder Dr Gabe Philips has written a very useful article: Ideas and Skills for Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice Gestalt Relational Integrative Principles (GRIPTM) for exploring and understanding the experiential worlds of people: An integrative approach to psychotherapy and life here.

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Annual community event

In the first term each year we create a community event to welcome new students, re-connect with graduates and find a moment to congratulate the graduating students. Please contact the office for details of the next event.

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Library

The GTA library is located at Lygon Therapy. Students are welcome to borrow books.  There are more than 200 books currently held in the library. Important works include:

  • The Heart of Development: Gestalt Approaches to Working with Children, Adolescents and Their Worlds: Volume II. Edited by Mark McConville &Gordon Wheeler
  • ‍Relational Child, Relational Brain. Development and Therapy in Childhood and Adolescence. Robert G. Lee (Editor), Neil Harris (Editor)
  • Awareness, Dialogue & Process. Gary M. Yontef
  • Developing Gestalt Counselling. Jennifer Mackewn
  • Embodied Relational Gestalt. Michael Craig Clemmens
  • Gestalt Approaches with Organisations. M. Spagnuolo Lobb, F. Meulmeester
  • Gestalt Reconsidered. Gordon Wheeler
  • Gestalt Therapy. Dave Mann
  • Gestalt Therapy; Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. Frederick Perls, Ralph E. Hefferline and Paul Goodman
  • Mindsight. Daniel J. Siegel
  • Relational Organisational Gestalt. Marie-Anne Chidiac
  • The Myth of Normal. Daniel Maté and Gabor Maté
  • The Relational Heart of Gestalt Therapy. Peter H. Cole

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GANZ

Gestalt Australia and New Zealand (GANZ) is a membership organisation representing gestalt practitioners in Australia and New Zealand.  GANZ has a journal, bi-annual conference and provides professional development opportunities.  They offer a discount membership to students. Visit their website www.ganz.org.au.

VAGP

VAGP is our local member-based organisation for graduates, students and gestalt practitioners. Membership is open to anyone interested in gestalt practice, while registration recognises members who meet the professional training and practice standards established by the VAGP.

Read more about them on the VAGP website www.vagp.com.au.

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Therapy and group rooms for hire

At Lygon Therapy, independent practitioners offer counselling and psychotherapy for individuals, couples and groups.

Group and Individual consulting rooms are available to hire at both Lygon Therapy and Elie. We have 14 therapy rooms across two sites in Carlton North and Parkville. There are 5 group rooms for group sizes 8 to 40 people.

Find out more at www.lygontherapy.com.au.

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Places of reconnection

We offer professional development workshops throughout the year for mental health practitioners, students and graduates interested in gestalt theory and applying it in practice. Current students receive 25% discount to all workshops.

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In this section

General community resources
Student and graduate resources
Gestalt foundations
The 6 relational gestalt foundations underpin all we do at the Gestalt Therapy Australia.
Aware
Embodied awareness
Aware
Opposites: Unaware, constrained & frustrated

Awareness is the goal of Relational Gestalt Therapy.

Awareness supports connection, wisdom, spontaneity & health.We bring attention to our body (embodied awareness) because needs (longings & fears) emerge contextually first as sensation.

Beginning with embodied experience, we are more aware in the here-and-now and more likely to know what we need in any given moment and more able to act to satisfy these needs.

Awareness sets us up to be more receptive and responsive in all aspects of our life.

Present
Attuned & transformational presence
Present
Opposites: Absent, distracted & reactive

Presence is at the heart of Relational Gestalt Therapy.

Presence provides a way of being in the here-and-now with openness and flexibility, able to respond to the fulness of the moment.

In this place of presence, we are aware of the ways our history and other contextual conditions might organise our current experience.

From presence we are more able to confirm the humanity of others. With compassion, we hold others with deep care.

Gestalt training supports the development of therapeutic presence.

Receptive
Enlivened & responsive relating
Receptive
Opposites: Closed, denying & isolated

Tuned into our own experience, more present in the here and now, we can orient ourselves to others and the world we live in.  

We become more spontaneous and receptive to our needs, and the needs of others, as they emerge in contact.

We build interest in deep satisfying interpersonal relating.

We become curious about the ways we habitually meet others and the changes and challenges of life.

As we become more aware of our habitual patterns in relating to others and meeting our needs flexibly we begin to create change, healing, or transformation.

Choiceful
Compassionate & experimental living
Choiceful
Opposites: Rigid, blaming & shaming

In Gestalt, change often includes acceptance of our lived experience.  We understand that some of what causes distress is a response to earlier adversity and challenge (adaption).

With support we can identify and begin to let go of unhelpful pathologising narratives.  Instead of trying to be ‘someone else’, we can allow ourselves to be who we are.

We become more compassionate and curious.

We experiment in the world to create novel opportunities for growth and development.  We become more creative and flexible moment-to-moment.

Situated
Cultural & environmental sensitivity
Situated
Opposites: Unaccountable, self-interested & isolated

Our curiosity helps us to grapple with the ways we are situated in cultural and environmental worlds (contexts).

We develop in the context of complex relational worlds of family, school, culture, and environment. We recognise that these worlds inevitably shape how we relate to ourselves and others.

Gestalt therapy seeks to contextualise all experience, breaking down ideas of individual pathology, shame, and blame.

We ask the question ‘how does this make sense?’

We also seek to become more meaningfully engaged in responding to issues of ecology, diversity, power, and privilege.

Engaged
Ethical, just & community minded
Engaged
Opposites: Self-absorbed, disconnected & lonely

Within a relational Gestalt framework, the true goal of therapy is to be engaged in the world, with a developed sense of self and an understanding of the co-emergent experiencing in relationship, family, communities large and small.

Therapy supports more than the individual who attends; it builds capacity for community.

We support people to become more ethical.  Ethical in the sense of responsive, responsible, and willing to act for justice.

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The Gestalt Centre is an environment that is welcoming and inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) persons and communities.  The Gestalt Centre and Lygon Therapy are members of the Welcome Here Project.
The Gestalt Centre acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the traditional custodians of this land and pays respect to Elders past, present and future. We celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements as well as recognise the contributions that Indigenous Australians make to our country and our society. We support the Uluru Statement from the Heart and The Voice to Parliament.
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Phone
03 9489 6300
Clinic & Administration

622 Lygon Street, Carlton North, Victoria
Gestalt Centre Training Campus ‘Elie’

27 Royal Parade, Parkville
Mail

PO BOX 60, Brunswick West, Vic 3055

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