Gestalt Therapy AustraliaGestalt Therapy Australia

Professional development

Bring gestalt thinking into your professional work with clients and develop a perspective that supports you to work well and relate well.

A young student smiles at a the camera.

What to expect

We offer a variety of professional development activities throughout the year for graduates and other practitioners interested in gestalt theory and applying it in their practice. These seminars, workshops and other activities are an opportunity to integrate gestalt theory and practice with experienced trainers.

Upcoming events

Enlivened Embodied Experiential Practice (EEEP)

Organiser:
Victorian Association of Gestalt Practitioners
Jul 20, 2025

Discover gestalt and GTA hybrid program online info session (July 2025)

Organiser:
Gestalt Therapy Australia
Jul 29, 2025

Foundations of relational gestalt therapy

Organiser:
Gestalt Therapy Australia
Jul 31, 2025

Group Supervision

Organiser:
Victorian Association of Gestalt Practitioners
Aug 7, 2025

Working with relational trauma: Adult Exploration of Attachment Interview

Organiser:
Gestalt Therapy Australia
Aug 14, 2025

Who do we notice? Who do we forget? Exploring community in Gestalt practice

Organiser:
Victorian Association of Gestalt Practitioners
Aug 21, 2025

Working therapeutically with pain and chronic illness: a gestalt approach

Organiser:
ConnectGround Clinic
Aug 30, 2025

Working with the Enneagram: Clinical tools for growth and insight

Organiser:
Gestalt Therapy Australia
Sep 12, 2025

To Lean, To Fall, To Fail: A Gestalt experiment in surrender

Organiser:
Victorian Association of Gestalt Practitioners
Sep 18, 2025

An essential guide to setting up private practice

Organiser:
Victorian Association of Gestalt Practitioners
Oct 16, 2025

Introduction to gestalt practice: skills-based workshop series

Organiser:
Gestalt Therapy Australia
Oct 17, 2025

30: VAGP Conference 2025

Organiser:
Victorian Association of Gestalt Practitioners
Nov 15, 2025

A gestalt approach to working with habits and addictions

Organiser:
Gestalt Centre
Nov 17, 2025

Gestalt supervision extension

Organiser:
Gestalt Therapy Australia
Nov 27, 2025

Events

View our planned PD events offered by each of our organisations across the year.  

Gestalt Therapy Australia

Upcoming course information sessions on how to become a therapist. Workshops in relational gestalt theory and practice.

View

ConnectGround

Upcoming professional extension seminars to support practitioners grapple with specific client issues.

View

Relational Skills

Tailored professional development activities for organisations and individuals

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Victorian Association of Gestalt Practitioners

Participate in an active community of Gestalt therapists and others interested in Gestalt thinking and practice.

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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.
Gestalt Therapy Australia
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Organisations
Gestalt CentreConnectGround ClinicRelational SkillsLygon TherapyVAGP
Contact

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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