The new contemporary Gestalt · A world-class program
A four-year, part-time training delivered in China by Gestalt Therapy International, accredited with the China–Australia Gestalt Association (CAGA), under the umbrella of the Derimu school of psychology. The course is in two segments — a Diploma of Gestalt Therapy followed by a Masters of Gestalt Therapy.
The basis of Gestalt as it is practised today.
Grounded in the here and now. Each person is responsible for their own destiny. The client is the best expert on themselves.
Focused on the client’s perception of reality. Works with the “what is.” Change results from being more fully oneself.
The therapist is an active participant. Known as “therapy without resistance.” The therapist is willing to not have the answers and to sit in the creative void.
The wider field is taken into account — past, present and future; individual, family and culture. A focus on integration, re-owning all parts of self.
Experiential learning rather than interpretation. How rather than why. Creative experiments embody abstract ideas in the present moment.
A way of seeing that encompasses the whole picture. Past, present, future; family, culture, society. By attending to interconnectedness, we understand the problems an individual faces in a larger context. A small movement in the right place can lead to surprisingly fast, dramatic and long-lasting change in the rest of our lives.
Through being more fully present to our body and immediate environment we experience life with more depth. Awareness of what is — the obvious — can lead to change without pushing. Each person confronts the choices that led them to their predicament, and discovers the range of choice that is possible.
The focus is not just on the client. The personhood of the therapist contributes to the aliveness and realness of the therapeutic relationship. Resistance is treated as a creative force rather than something to push through. The result is often transformation within the therapeutic relationship, providing a template for growth elsewhere.
The dimension that differentiates Gestalt from talking therapies. Abstract ideas are manifested in creative experiments, and familiar ways of doing things are expanded by trying out something new. Immediacy, freshness and playfulness; new possibilities and new skills in the supportive atmosphere of the therapeutic relationship.
Each segment is approximately 500 hours of face-to-face training, delivered as intensive six-day sessions, four times a year. Students are exposed to two international trainers of outstanding experience.
Foundation and Phase I — building the theoretical framework, awareness practice, and the experiential grounding of contemporary Gestalt.
432 + 96 training hours
Phase II — supervised practice and advanced topics. By fourth year, trainees are engaged in supervised Gestalt practice, honing their skills to a high level of competence.
288 training hours · 70 hours casework
Each session · 6 days residential
Being experiential, Gestalt training entails significant personal exploration and a willingness to risk being alive. The program is not solely therapeutic; participants need sufficient self-support to handle the intensity. Rather than instructions on how to do therapy, the learning is how to trust the process.
“I like the way theory is introduced and then applied. The demonstrations are fascinating, and I get a chance to put it into practice myself.”
Eligibility is determined by a number of factors — life experience, degree of self-awareness, academic background, personal stability, openness to feedback, and a capacity to reflect on and learn from experience.
This is designated as a professional program, but applicants come from all walks of life. It is not necessary to be a practising health professional or psychologist to enter the course. Sufficient life experience can constitute an admissible prerequisite as much as a formal academic qualification.
Applications are by invitation only, and are made by filling out a form on the webpage. Once accepted, applicants sign a learning contract; after commencement, fees are non-refundable.
Just as the melody is not made up of notes
nor the verse of words nor the statue of lines,
but they must be tugged and dragged
till their unity has been scattered into these many pieces;
so with the man to whom I say Thou.
I can take out from him the colour of his hair,
or the colour of his speech, or the colour of his goodness.
I must continually do this.
But each time I do it he ceases to be Thou.
Considering the 2027–2030 China program? Download the full prospectus, or write to us.