Continuing Education

Being Gestalt Therapists in Times of War

What happens to our psychotherapy when the background of our work is the violation of all boundaries of civil rights, when we bear witness to our client’s loss of everything, when fear and terror are part of our shared field? How do we cross the line from our original purpose to enhance a person’s being in the world and support their human potential to the sudden need to integrate our clients into a creative way of living in a traumatized environment? And how do we as therapists remain clear-headed and neutral in the therapeutic role, to provide support and care in the face of such traumatic emotions without fleeing or being overwhelmed?

Date: Thursday, October 29, 2026
Times: 9:00AM - 3:00PM (EDT)
Fee: Regular: $260 | GIT Student & Alumni Fee: $225

Instructor

Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, Psychologist, Psychotherapist & Gestalt Trainer

Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb comes to us from Europe where therapists have taken risks and made sacrifices in order to work on the edge with clients in terrible turmoil and loss, connecting remotely from dangerous locations and refugees entering their shores from unbelievable suffering and loss. In Canada we become overwhelmed with the news and videos of mass deaths across the world, of children and women dying of starvation or bombed in full view of the camera,and we struggle with our ethic of being therapists against the constant pull of injustice. For both Europe and Canada Margherita helps us to find our resources in what we know about trauma and what we now know about the neurological and relational consequences of war, so that we as therapists can reground our hope in the possibility of human to human recognition – the antidote to war.

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