Overview
The Gestalt Training Program consists of five years of part-time study on evenings and weekends. The program is scheduled between the months of September and April, followed by a five-day residential workshop in a country setting early in May for Year Two and Three, and in June for Year One and Years Four.
The Five Year Training Program takes place inside a committed and supportive group that remains together through the five years. The first year forms the foundation for the Gestalt Phenomenological Approach in which students apply their personal life experiences to here and now experiential applications of theory. Year Two builds on this self awareness with others, to restore awareness and curiosity of the “unknown other”, a major step in development of a Gestalt therapist. Years Three, Four and Five, focus on professional development with Year Three developing skills of sitting in the therapist’s chair, Year Four in which students begin to see clients as supervised student therapists and Year Five in which students begin to build their practice and prepare for becoming a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) at graduation.
The Gestalt Institute of Toronto’s training programs continue to be committed to experiential and experimental learning within group process, an approach that has been our trademark since 1973. Real change is possible in a diverse group coming together to support each other and the process. We are committed to shared agreements to speak the language of responsibility, to the principle that
self-acceptance leads to greater acceptance of the other, to a willingness to make mistakes in the presence of others and to the awareness that we are each an implicit part of everything that occurs in our shared reality and therefore any change in pattern of one person affects the entire group.
One
Year One
Gestalt Therapy: Foundational Theory & Approach
Year One is a year unlike any other where a return to creativity and spontaneity are encouraged through experiential learning within a supportive, diverse and dynamic group. The emphasis is on working within the established framework of Gestalt theory as it is applied to one’s personal growth and life goals within and outside of the group.
Two
Year Two
Embodied "I Thou": Introduction to Relational Phenomenology
This year builds upon foundational work of Year One. Group members are challenged to apply embodied self-awareness to include awareness of the other. The group process becomes more figural, including awareness of and dissolving any fixed roles within the group. Students will learn to develop curiosity in their own patterns as well as in another’s difference, to understand and..
Three
Year Three
Embodied Relational Practice
This year is where students learn to experiment with the safe and effective use of themselves in deep phenomenologically based dialog with one another, as well as supervised practice with students in Years One and Two. In this way students begin to experience themselves at..
Four
Year Four
Training and Supervision in Gestalt Therapy
Students in Year Four are trained academically and experientially in the fundamentals of therapy practice and a range of diverse clinical applications of the work including Gestalt applied theory of clinical application of phenomenology, Gestalt approach to change, field theory and..
Five
Year Five
Advanced Training in Gestalt Psychotherapy
Year Five is a support year for therapists-in-training to complete their hours and supervision requirements for writing their final clinical paper to prepare for graduation in addition to meeting requirements to apply for membership in CRPO. Once students have substantially completed the requirements for graduation from the GIT, they may..