Women and Shame: Healing Ourselves to Wholeness

Gail Feinstein, LCSW, LMT

Once upon a time, there were places where women were admired, revered and honored; where they were viewed as powerful, valuable and wise.  Since then, we’ve been born into a long history of devaluing, diminishing and disrespecting women, a culture that has bestowed upon us the collective identity of inadequacy and unworthiness and has led to depression, body loathing and a struggle with self-acceptance and visibility. Let us explore the nature of shame, how it lives in our bodies and influences expression and experience. Clinicians at all levels, as well as others, can benefit from exploring the nature of shame. We will look at the connection of shame trauma to anger, perfectionism and intimacy, as well as how it flourishes through secrecy, silence, judgment and disconnection. Through group-generated experiments, breathing and sensory awareness work and touch, we will learn how to help our clients transform shame into empowerment.                       

Objectives

  1. Learn how shame is held in women’s bodies
  2. Understand the influence of empathy on the shame experience
  3. Learn how to support clients to understand how the impact of secrecy and judgment contributes to the growth of shame.


Saturday, June 19, 2021
10am-5pm (with 1 hour break)

6 CE hours

$175



To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.

Transforming Your Beliefs on Diversity: Authenticity and Empathy in Cultural Awareness

Nancy Andino, LCSW

This workshop transforms participants’ traditional cultural and diversity training know-how, into an intimate experience; an experience that will allow them to apply skills learned in their day to day and professional lives. It will focus on learning how to acknowledge and be fully aware of their cultural differences in a vulnerable and authentic way, when rendering services to a diverse client population. During this workshop, participants will practice challenging and owning their micro-aggressions; acknowledge white fragility and prejudices against “OTHERS” and welcome curiosity. This will allow participants to welcome feelings of vulnerability, thoughts and body sensations experienced. Participants are strongly encouraged to sign up for both days.

Objectives

Day 1


  1. Acknowledge, challenge and face the discomfort experienced with other cultures and learn to transform this discomfort into awareness, empathy and curiosity.
  2. Acknowledge and transform the discomfort of cultural conversations while allowing the experience of vulnerability in an authentic and empathic manner.
  3. Learn the impact of microaggressions and lack of cultural awareness when working with clients who are considered “OTHER”.


Day 2

1. Learn to acknowledge white fragility and its role in the office and when services are rendered.
2. Learn how to maximize their cultural diversity awareness into successful client/customer support and interventions.
3. Apply lessons learned in the workshop to improve and grow multi-cultural competence.

Saturday, May 8, 2021
10am to 1pm

and
Saturday, May 29, 2021
10am to 1pm


6 CE hours (Participants must attend both days; no partial CE hours awarded)


$225



To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.


We offer Continuing Education hours to Licensed Social Workers , Licensed Psychologists, Licensed Mental Health Practitioners, Licensed Psychoanalysts and Licensed Creative Arts Therapists for our workshops.

New York State requires that we post the following statement:

The Gestalt Center for Psychotherapy and Training is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Social Workers, (#SW-0201), by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychologists, (#PSY-0025), and by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychoanalysts, (#Psyan-0001), Licensed Mental Health Counselors, (#MCH-0079), and Licensed Creative Arts Therapists , (#CAT-0073).


Please note that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all 2020-21 workshops will take place via Zoom video until it is safe to meet in person.

How to Register

You can pay via Check, cash or PayPal, using the Buy Now buttons or Pay by Check link below each workshop.

A minimum 50% deposit is required at the time of registration.

Refund Policy:

75% refund if cancelled more than 7 days in advance.  
50% if cancelled less than 7 days in advance.

Cancellation Policy: 

Occasionally, the Gestalt Center needs to cancel a workshop due to unforeseen circumstances.  In such cases, we will inform you the Monday prior and provide you with a full refund.

For Information:
Call (212) 387-9429 or  email gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.


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Introduction to Gestalt Theory & Practice

Presented by various faculty

This introductory class will provide a beginning understanding of Gestalt Therapy and practice. You will learn about Gestalt theory, methods and techniques, and about what is at the heart of our creative, experiential therapy.

In addition, we'll answer your questions about  our training programs in Gestalt therapy. This workshop is particularly useful for those considering entering our training programs.

In this class you will:


  • Obtain a beginning understanding of Gestalt theory and practice.
  • See a video of a gestalt therapy session.
  • Witness a live demonstration of a Gestalt therapy session, followed by discussion.
  • Learn about our post-graduate training programs.
  • Meet one or more members of our faculty and students/alums of our training programs.    


Sunday, September 20, 2020, 1 - 4 pm

The class is free, but reservations are required. 


Email gestalt@gestaltnyc.org or call (212) 387-9429.


How to Work With Couples: A 6-Week Hands-on Experiential Course 


(We're sorry but this course is full)

Marla Silverman, Ph.D
This hands-on, practicum style, 6-week course is for therapists who want to develop or increase their skills with couples. You will practice on couples role-played by the group members, get feedback on your interventions – what did and did not work, and a chance to try other interventions. When it is your turn to embody a member of a couple in role-play you will get:


  • The felt sense experience of the client’s protective mechanisms and fears
  • The experience of different character structures’ internal life
  • The felt sense impact of the therapist’s stance, openness and interventions


Objectives


  1. See the couple as a system.
  2. Make interventions that support both partners.
  3. Create a safe environment.
  4. Identify couples' dynamic patterns.
  5. Help couples recognize their patterns that cause distress.
  6. Help each partner recognize their part of the dance.
  7. Help each partner connect to the beliefs, fears and protective mechanisms that fuel their reactive responses.
  8. Help partners see and listen to themselves and each other with curiosity and compassion.


Saturday, Jan. 16

Saturday, Jan 30
Saturday, Feb. 13

Saturday, Feb. 27
Saturday, Mar. 13

Saturday, Apr. 3

9am-12pm

18 CE hours

$650



To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.

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Gestalt Therapy with Asian Americans - Guidelines & Special Considerations


Sil Si-Wei Chen, MA, LCSW-R

Come join us for a highly practical and engaging workshop that will supercharge you with knowledge and skills indispensable for providing quality therapy to your Asian-American clients. Through ample case examples and multimedia presentation, we will learn about important Asian values, worldview, and communication styles that inform our Asian-American clients’ way of being and relating and help us to re-conceptualize their presenting issues. We will also delve into key Asian-American issues and therapeutic themes and explore skillful, culturally-responsive ways of working with them that avoid potential pitfalls resulting from interventions informed by unexamined Gestalt concepts or individualistic values.

Objectives


  1. Understand who Asian Americans are and the urgency and necessity for therapists to learn to work with this much-neglected population sensitively and competently.
  2. Learn the 3 important dimensions of multicultural counseling competencies.
  3. Understand the important Gestalt philosophical foundations and guiding principles that inform our attitudes as Gestalt therapists and provide the ground for our work with clients from different cultures.
  4. Learn the major differences between individualist and collectivist cultures and Asian culture’s particular flavor of collectivism, including the foundational values and worldview that guides how individuals within Asian cultures relate to self and others and navigate the world.
  5. Understand how unexamined Gestalt concepts and individualistic values might negatively influence our work with Asian-American clients.
  6. Learn 4 key concepts from the field of Intercultural Communication that will help elucidate fundamental differences in communication styles and interpersonal contact between individualist and collectivist cultures.
  7. Learn how culture influences cognition, such as attention, perception, thinking style, memory, causal attribution, judgement, and decision-making, and understand its clinical implications in our work with Asian-American clients.
  8. Become informed about typical issues faced by Asian Americans, including concerns specifically related to their bicultural identities and values, as well as the detriments of sexual and non-sexual stereotypes, microaggressions, racism, internalized racism, and the “model minority” myth.
  9. Learn the various factors that need to be considered when assessing an Asian-American client’s identification with their Asian heritage.
  10. Learn 5 key therapeutic issues that frequently emerge in our work with Asian-American clients and how to work with these issues in skillful, culturally-responsive ways.


Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020
10am-4pm (1 hour break)

5 CE hours

$150



20% discount for current GCPT students



10% discount for GCPT alumni



To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.

CONTINUING EDUCATION WORKSHOPS 2020-21

Using DBT Skills to Ground the Relational Work with Trauma and Substance Abuse


​​​​Lee Zevy, LCSW

In cases where traumatic history and/or substance abuse is present, there is a diminished capacity for novelty and growth as the relational/environmental field is filled with fear, anxiety and misperception. In addition, both are exemplified by poor script formation which adds a serious element to social confusion. This can seriously impact the therapeutic dyad as the ability to experience and examine intense feelings becomes intolerable. DBT exercises are skills based training for emotion regulation and can be used in individual therapy to help clients ground intense emotions, learn social cues and find positive coping strategies within relationships. This workshop would be beneficial for any level therapist who works with trauma and substance abuse. It will combine a paper grounding the development and use of DBT and its current uses with experiential exercises that show the clinical uses of DBT in psychotherapy with individuals, couples or groups.           

Objectives


  1. Learn skills from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy to help clients regulate emotionally.
  2. Practice skills based exercises to work specifically with Trauma and Substance Abuse.
  3. Explore how Substance Abuse and Trauma are related to impaired script formation and their effect on relationships.                                     

Saturday, April 10, 2021
12am-5pm (with 1 hour break)

4 CE hours

$100



50% off for Gestalt students and anyone unemployed


To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.

A Multidimensional Approach to Trauma: Body, Mind and Spirit Alignment and Why it Matters


Judy Choix, LMHC
Matthew Whaley, LCSW

The body, mind, and psyche have a natural hierarchy that, when aligned, naturally orient the system toward health. When this happens, we are able to regulate and experience connection, support, and "flow" in daily life. We suffer and have a crisis in life not because we are broken, but because we are out of alignment and/or disconnected somewhere in this multi-dimensional field.

Through a Gestalt lens, using field theory and neuroscience, this workshop proposes a multi-dimensional diagnostic model for identifying what trauma looks like in a client's body, mind, and psyche, and offers concrete methods of treatment to restore vitality and wholeness.

Day 1 Objectives


  1. Define andidentify different types of trauma and its prevalence in society.
  2. Learn to identify the signs and impact of trauma on the different dimensions of a client’s body, mind and psyche, and understand how functioning is interrupted.
  3. Understand the biology of dysregulation in a client’s system caused by trauma and learn methods to begin to resource and repair.


Day 2 Objectives

​

  1. Begin to understand the science of attachment and the role it plays in relational trauma, and how therapy can begin to repair this primal wound through the therapeutic alliance and visualization.
  2. Define memory and the role it plays in the addressing, healing and integrating misalignment resulting from trauma.
  3. Define both phenomenological and ontological fields, and recognize how making contact with and orienting to misalignment is critical in the healing of trauma.


Saturday, Oct. 10, 2020
10am-6pm (with 1 hour break)

6.5 CE hours

Saturday, Oct. 17, 2020
10am-6pm (with 1 hour break)

6.5 CE hours

$175 for Day 1, $300 for both days. Day 1 is a pre-requisite for Day 2.


Day 1 only



                                                                                                         

Days 1 & 2 




To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.

Introduction to Couples Work

Marla Silverman, Ph.D.

For the therapist who wants a way to understand how to work with couples. We will cover principles and methods of working with couples, how to structure a session, what to look for and how to intervene. This workshop is both didactic and experiential. Through role play we will demonstrate and practice interventions, and discuss therapeutic choices.  Bring a sense of wonder and fun.

Objectives

  1. Understanding the couple as a system.
  2. Understanding balanced interventions.
  3. Understanding how to structure a first session.


Saturday, Oct. 31, 2020
11am-2pm

3 CE’s

$100

​​​

​​

To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.

Experimenting with (Family) Constellation Work: A Workshop for Therapists

​(This workshop has been postpone until 2022, as it is best taken in person.)

​Sara Hendrick, Certified Gestalt Therapist

Constellation work uses figures and floor markers to represent the situation of the client, and to attend to themes such as relationship dynamics, psychological development, loyalties, grief, and other inter- and intra-psychic issues.  Though constellation work typically happens in a group setting, an understanding of the principles and techniques of this practice can provide the basis for new and interesting experiments in the context of individual gestalt therapy.  This two-day workshop will provide participants with both an experience of constellation work, as well as the basic tools necessary to experiment with this approach from a Gestalt Therapy perspective.

This workshop is primarily intended for therapists and therapists-in-training. Any experience with constellation work may come in handy but is not necessary. Nevertheless it would certainly add value to have attended the workshop the weekend before on: Family Constellations: Untying the Knots.

Objectives

Day 1


  1. Give participants a basic theoretical framework for understanding constellation work
  2. Give participants an understanding of how constellation work can be used as gestalt therapy experiment in using figures and symbols
  3. Increase participants’ capacity to experiment with figures and symbols techniques as part of their therapy practice


Day 2


  1. Give participants a (further) basic theoretical framework for understanding constellation work
  2. Give participants an understanding of how constellation work can be used as gestalt therapy experiment in using floor markers
  3. Increase participants' capacity to experiment with the floor markers technique as part of their therapy practice


Saturday, May 22, 2021
10am to 5pm (with one hour break)

6 CE hours

Sunday, May 23, 2021
10am to 5pm (with one hour break)

6 CE hours

$150 per day.   (Participants are welcome to just attend the first day, but Day 1 is a pre-requisite for Day 2. People who have attended the first day last year, are welcome to come only for the second day.)


Day 1 only




Both Days


To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.

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The Enneagram - Discovering Character

Silvio Olivo, Licensed Psychotherapist

Discovering your own character with its passions and flaws is a voyage into yourself.   This exploration includes unveiling parts of your inner world and at the same time giving you a range of possibilities for growing and improving the quality of your life and relationships. The workshop will include theoretical as well experiential elements exploring Enneagrams as powerful tools for treatment. The participants will have experiences that will help them identify their “enneatypes”, discover processes about themselves and envision elements of change toward their potential best.

Day 1 Objectives


  1. Discover one’s own character.
  2. Learn how to recognize others’ character.
  3. Learn how to use the Enneagram in your work.


Day 2 Objectives


  1. Learn how to use the Enneagram in the clinical relationship.
  2. Learn how to use the Enneagram in group work.
  3. Learn how to use the Enneagram in couples therapy.


Saturday, April 24, 2021
10am-5pm (with 1 hour break)

6 CE hours

Sunday, April 25, 2021
10am-5pm (with1 hour break)

6 CE hours

$175 for Day 1, $300 for both days. Day 1 is a pre-requisite for Day 2.

​​

Day 1 only




Both Days



To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.

Family Constellations: Untying the Knots

​(This workshop has been postpone until 2022, as it is best taken in person.)


​​Sara Hendrick, Certified Gestalt Therapist

You don't get to choose your family, but you do get them for life. Your position and experiences in your family of origin are the blueprint for the relations in your adult life and your current family system. In this workshop, you can explore your own family dynamics and see how they are still at play in your current situation.

The methodology of constellations can reveal underlying family dynamics and themes. The aim is to see how entanglements can be loosened and how you can find a more comfortable place in relation to your family and the people close to you.

Objectives

Day 1

  1. Be able to present a factual family situation via the use of genograms
  2. Present a lived family situation via the use of family shields
  3. Understand how relational questions or problems can be examined via family constellations


Day 2

  1. Be able to give and receive feedback on experiences throughout the family constellations
  2. Understand the dynamics of constellation work and be able to see which themes and principles are underneath
  3. Understand how relational questions or problems can be examined via family constellations


Saturday, May 15, 2021
10am to 5pm (with one hour break)

6 CE hours


Sunday, May 16, 2021
10am to 5pm (with one hour break)

6 CE hours

$150 per day.  (Day 1 is a pre-requisite for Day 2)


Day 1 only




Both Days



To Pay By Check​, please email us at gestalt@gestaltnyc.org.


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FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY AND TRAINING

THE GESTALT CENTER