Curriculum

We are examining our curriculum to ensure it reflects more diverse writings, and we are researching authors whose social locations reflect diverse racial, gender and other identities. Assigned readings are reviewed annually under the leadership of the Curriculum Committee and the Change Team. 

Curriculum Summary

Training sessions are held one weekend each month from September through May. The sessions run Friday evening (in September only) and from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Each weekend is divided into separate blocks:               

Saturday
9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. – Lectures, discussions, and demonstrations of theory
12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Lunch break            
2:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. – Practicum/Triads: Practicing and observing others providing individual psychotherapy under faculty supervision
4:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Checkout with your cohort

Sunday
9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. – Experiential individual and group therapy sessions with teaching faculty
12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Lunch break
2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Experiential individual and group therapy sessions with teaching faculty

Year One

  • Orientation: Awareness, Contact & Withdrawal
  • Intellectual History of Gestalt Therapy Theory
  • Phenomenological Inquiry and Therapeutic Presence
  • Field Theory
  • Development, Relationship, and Self-Regulation: Creative Adjustment to the Field: Introjection
  • Creative Adjustment to the Field: Confluence
  • Creative Adjustment to the Field: Retroflection
  • Creative Adjustment to the Field: Projection
  • Relational Embodied Gestalt Therapy

Year Two

  • Dialogic, Relational Gestalt Therapy: Employing 4 Corners, Getting to a Distinct I and You
  • Interactive Gestalt Group Therapy
  • Experimentation
  • Aggression and Self Conquest
  • Retroflection and Vulnerability in the Development of Shame
  • Encountering Bigotry: Socially Constructed Identities in the Field
  • Trauma                                    
  •  Embodied Healing

Year Three                           

  • Identification with the Aggressor and the Primed Vulnerable Other 
  • Values and Principles of Gestalt Therapy: Ethics of Experimentation and Use of Self
  • Diagnosis and Assessment                                    
  • Moments of Mutuality
  • Sexuality
  • Gestalt Group Therapy
  • Application of Gestalt Therapy Theory in Case Presentation
  • Change and Growth Through the Three-year Program: Personal Review by Each Student
  • Ending in the Here and Now: An Exploration of the Group’s Process Over the Three Years