Year Four
Training and Supervision in Gestalt Therapy

In Year Four the practical and the experiential meet to create the shift from doing Gestalt to being Gestalt. Students build on the previous three years of training to be the “participant witness” – able to utilize their own moment by moment phenomenological response to the other as information on which to build effective and safe interventions and ongoing relational assessments. Emphasis is on Gestalt therapy as the clinical application of phenomenology as applied to a range of diverse clinical applications in the field.

In November of Year Four, students become members of the Student Clinic in-house practicum after obtaining professional liability insurance and choosing an Approved Supervisor. The Student Clinic provides Year Four students with screened clients throughout the year for their beginning practice. Client and supervision hours gained will be counted towards their graduation requirement and also towards their CRPO designation following graduation at the end of Year Five. As active members of the Student Clinic, students undertake a supervised and mentored process of intake, screening and intrinsic and extrinsic risk assessment with prospective clients.

Once students begin their supervised therapy practice there is deeper and more immediate integration of the Gestalt approach to change, field theory and the practice of embodied relationality. Training is practical with the outcome that students develop confidence and ease in didactic, clinical and experiential practice.
 

Learning Outcomes Include:  

• Deepening skills of relational phenomenology and field awareness

• Apply skills of embodied relational practice in practicum with actual clients

• Intrinsic & extrinsic skills of risk assessment

• Understanding of situational ethics and the use of professional resources & legal concerns

• Ethical & legal concerns

• The aesthetic practice of Gestalt where “knowing” arises out of sensing which leads to Gestalt diagnosis of the field of suffering

• Gestalt approach to Psychopathology of the situation

• How to create experiments using what emerges between therapist & client

• Comparative psychotherapies and when Gestalt Therapy is not recommended or when to combine
• How to properly close with a client & how to make appropriate referrals.

Students are expected to complete:

• Oral and written assignments

• 160 hours of experiential and didactic learning

• 50 hours of intake training and practicum

• Client and supervision hours