WORKSHOP 1:
Holotropic Breathwork and Gestalt
Mon 14 to Wed 16 A$ 440

This workshop is an opportunity to experience Holotropic Breathwork and how it works in a gestalt context. Holotropic (moving toward wholeness) Breathwork is a powerful approach to self-exploration and healing, developed by Stan and Christina Grof. It integrates insights from modern consciousness research, anthropology, various depth-psychologies, transpersonal psychology, Eastern spiritual practices and mystical traditions of the world.

This method utilises the spontaneous healing potential of the psyche induced by accelerated breathing, evocative music, focused bodywork, and mandala drawing. In experiential sessions, participants alternate in the roles of experiencers and assistants to their partners. Prospective participants will be required to provide a medical information form.

Ole Ry Nielsen, MD and psychiatrist. My gestalt training was with Jorge Rosner and the Toronto Institute faculty. I also trained with Stanislav Grof and am a training director of Psykoterapeutisk Center in North Jutland, Denmark and of the Gestalt Institute of Scandinavia.

Susanne Andres, psychotherapist, trained at the Gestalt Institute of Scandinavia and at Psykoterapeutisk Center in North Jutland, Denmark. Trained by Stanislav Grof as a facilitator of Holotropic Breathwork. Director of Psykoterapeutisk Center.

WORKSHOP 2:
From Organisation to Organism
Mon 14 to Wed 16 A$ 440

Today we carry a legacy from the past a mindset that views organisations as machines created and driven by leaders who are burdened by a language of objectives, targets, results, operations, productivity, and people as resources. Shifting away from this mindset towards organisations as living organisms which move and take shape through healthy functional processes, means developing a new language, new practices, and valuing people as human BEINGS rather than as RESOURCES.

Using my own case study material, real examples from the workshop participants, and the live group experience, we will explore the growing language of organisations as organisms. Together, we will discover and learn how to intervene in the fixed gestalt of deterministic practices using 'systemic' interventions that can enable growth and achieve magical results. The workshop is open to managers, business and organisation consultants and professionals, interested in unleashing the potential of people at work.

Sue Clayton I am a lead partner in 'the space between', a group of experienced professionals who work with organisations. A key role in my work is executive coaching. I am a Chartered Psychologist and a Gestalt practitioner, and a published writer on business strategy, supervision issues and workforce diversity. I run workshops and programmes in the UK on Gestalt in Organisations with Malcolm Parlett and Trevor Bentley, and I am Business Director for the British Gestalt Journal.

WORKSHOP 3:
Excellence in Psychotherapy - A Master Class.
Mon 21 A$ 165

The notion of a master class comes from the field of music and warrants introduction to ongoing psychotherapy training. This workshop is for practising psychotherapists and counsellors and aims to expand horizons and fine tune the art and skill of working with clients. I will use discussion, role play and a variety of creative techniques to explore those difficult moments from beginnings to endings. The aim is to leave feeling good, inspired, ready to return to work and impressed with the complexity and sheer beauty of good therapy

Dr. Barry Blicharski studied Medicine and Psychiatry at Queensland University and Edinburgh. He directed an Alcoholism Treatment Service in Brisbane before commencing private practice in Sydney. He was trained in Gestalt by the Polsters, and is trained in several other process oriented therapies. He established Psychotherapy centres in Brisbane in 1977 and Sydney in 1981. He now lives on the New South Wales South Coast and combines part time psychotherapy practice with conducting workshops in Gestalt and Sandplay and making wood fired pottery.

WORKSHOP 4:
Contact, Faith and Impasse - Religious clients and spiritual issues in Gestalt Therapy.
Tues 22 and Wed 23 A$ 310

This workshop, a full exploration of what takes place in spiritual growth from a Gestalt perspective, provides foundational principles for understanding spirituality and working with religious clients. The roles of contact, faith, and impasse are explored in terms of growth in general, and faith established as an essential principle of contact. Participants engage in experiential exercises and discussion. Issues in clinical practice with religious clients are explored, including working through the religious impasse - source of greatest growth and resistance, ethical considerations and varieties of spiritual traditions.

Philip Brownell, M.Div., Psy.D., is Program Coordinator and Clinical Supervisor at FamilyWorks, a county-funded resource center for children and families in Oregon, and a practicing Gestalt therapist. Phil trained with the Portland Gestalt Therapy Training Institute, and has a background that includes working as a neuropsychiatric technician; co-facilitating groups in the 60ís with members of the San Francisco Gestalt Institute, and Christian ministry. He is Sr. Editor of the electronic journal Gestalt!, and is involved in many AAGT activities.

Workshop 5:
A Hopelessly optimistic approach to Couples and Family Therapy
Mon 21 to Wed 23 A$ 440

An approach will be presented for conducting couples and family therapy that interweaves field theory, systems theory, and Gestalt psychology. The workshop will include demonstrations, exercises, discussion, and mini-lectures, framed on a model that, while compatible with contemporary family theory, is also uniquely Gestalt. Interventions are based on the shared interest in phenomenological data by both the therapist and the ëintimate systemí. Participants will practice describing couple/family process. We also address the differences within the world of Gestalt in working with couples and families, similarities and differences to other approaches, and explore cross cultural issues.

Joseph Melnick. Ph. D. is a clinical and organizational psychologist and member of the professional staff and the Board of Governors of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, and its Center for Intimate Systems. He has published extensively on issues of intimacy and is the editor of Gestalt Review a quarterly international journal. He has also conducted training throughout Europe and the United Sates.

Stephanie Backman, MSSA, is a social worker and member of the professional staff and Board of Governors of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, and its Center for Intimate Systems. She is the Co-Editor of On Intimate Ground, a book devoted to Gestalt approaches to couples therapy, and has recently published an article on Narrative therapy. She is an AAMFT-approved supervisor, and a member of the American Family Therapy Academy. She has also conducted training throughout the United States and Europe.

Copies of the Gestalt Review will be available at the Conference.