Key information
Dates | 3-5 April and 21-22 August, 9.30am to 4.30pm
Duration | 5 days
Location | Elie, Gestalt Centre Training Campus, 27 Royal Parade, Parkville
Fee | $2135 (includes GST)
Facilitators | Leanne O'Shea and Tony Jackson
Accreditation | PACFA accredited as Specialist Training
About this event
This 5-day course is spread over three days in April and two days in August. The course will explore supervision through the interconnected lenses of phenomenology (working with embodied awareness), dialogue (deepening capacities in interpersonal relating), and field theory (as a way of fully contextualising the work, including the clinical and supervisory settings). Using these lenses we will explore "The Relational Matrix Model of Supervision", which offers a comprehensive, nuanced and practical approach that will support all who supervise and/or manage the therapy work of others.
What can you expect?
Supervision is a relational practice, and our essential relatedness is central to the practice of supervision. In the relational paradigm, our sense of self emerges through our relationships with other individuals and broader social contexts. This program focuses on exploring the interrelatedness of the practitioner, their client, and the supervisor. Using the Matrix model, we will explore these relationships through the lens of context and culture.
Together, we will explore the multifaceted roles and responsibilities inherent in the supervisory relationship, including providing support and mentoring, ensuring duty of care, maintaining compliance with professional standards, and setting clear boundaries.
Over these days, we will create a space for engaged, collaborative learning through demonstrations, practice opportunities, and constructive feedback. Participants are encouraged to form practice groups and meet between teaching blocks—some of these groups from previous cohorts continue to meet to this day.
Last year, we introduced an annual series of extension workshops to foster a sense of community among gestalt supervisors and graduates of this program. We plan to run this again in late 2025.
Course structure
Day 1: Thursday 3 April
Morning: Introductions and beginnings. This introductory session will seek to cultivate the conditions that support resilient and robust learning environment in this supervision training group, and as it parallels in the supervisory relationship.
Afternoon: What is relational gestalt supervision? Refresher of core gestalt theory and the goals of supervision. Looking at models of supervision including the Relational Matrix Model of Supervision. Set up group goals, norms and practice groups.
Day 2: Friday 4 April
Morning: Figure and ground. Returning to the Matrix model we begin pay attention to the three foci of Self, Other and Situation, attending to what is ‘figural’ while also understanding ‘the ground’ of the supervisory experience. Using the matrix model, we will support participants to explore the areas of practice we attend to readily, and potential blinds spots, and be curious about the way that prior training and current contexts might shape this.
Afternoon: Exploring the supervisory ground. Attention will be given to the importance of contracting and the conditions for dialogical engagement between supervisor and supervisee that support a robust and resilient engagement. Issues of the immediate setting, cultural and environment factors (including privilege and power) will be considered as we explore supports, constraints and the changing role of supervisors. There will also be the opportunity to practice.
Day 3: Saturday 5 April
Morning: Embodiment and supervisory engagement. As we begin to identify and work with the supervisory figure, we focus on what is happening in the supervisory relationship (here and now), and how this might provide lenses to think deeply about ‘parallel process’ and ‘transference’ in the clinical work.
Afternoon: Practice and integration. Through demonstration and practice work, this session will focus on the application of the key principles taught over the preceding days.
Day 4: Thursday 21 August
Morning: Deepening the supervisory inquiry. As well as reconnecting as a group and reviewing participants’ experiences with the application of the key principles. This session will explore how the supervisory relationship is impacted by the dynamics of power and shame and how understanding and addressing these issues is a crucial support for the deepening of supervisory work.
Afternoon: Practice and reflection with a focus on working shame and power.
Day 5: Friday 22 August
All Day: Practice integration and reflection on learning. This is the final day of Becoming a Gestalt Supervisor; we will review the model and take a final opportunity for practice. Time will be made to reflect on the group's experience and individual learning and next steps.
Learning methods and assessment
The program seeks to create a learning community. Peer relationships will be supported by collaborative work and attending to the group process. The program will have a mixed delivery of didactic content presentations, large and small group conversations and experiential exercises, practice groups and demonstrations.
You will be encouraged to keep a journal throughout the duration of the program (not assessed) and submit a 1500 word reflection on yourself as a supervisor 4 weeks after the program ends. Leanne or Tony will respond to your reflection in writing.
Who should attend?
This training course is designed for professionals with over five years of experience in counselling, psychotherapy, coaching, social work, or other helping professions. While the course is rooted in relational gestalt principles, you don’t need to be a gestalt practitioner to participate. It’s perfect for those looking to deepen their supervision skills through a relational and awareness-based approach, whether you’re new to supervision or an experienced supervisor wanting to broaden your expertise.
About your facilitators
Leanne O'Shea
DPsych, BTheol., MSc, FellowMGANZ
Leanne O'Shea is a psychotherapist, supervisor and educator. She studied the Gestalt approach in Melbourne and London.
In addition to her private practice work, she holds a number of teaching positions, including the Director of Training at Gestalt Therapy Australia. She is also an Associate with Relational Change in the UK.
She is interested in creating greater awareness of and sensitivity to our relational responsibility and is particularly passionate about the place of sexuality and the erotic within the therapeutic relationship.
Tony Jackson, Managing Director, Gestalt Centre
B.Theol, BA.Psych, GradDip.Counselling, AdvDip.Gestalt Therapy, GradDip.Supervision, M.GANZ
Tony is a psychotherapist, facilitator and coach with over 20 years of experience. Tony works with people to support resilience and wellbeing and helps them develop a sense of vitality and choice in their lives. He provides supervision for psychotherapists which assists them to deepen their own personal and professional capacities. Tony also provides training for individuals and groups that focuses on building responsiveness to individual and group needs in emergent situations.
About the Gestalt Centre
The Gestalt Centre is the heart of Melbourne’s Gestalt community. We offer a four-year psychotherapy training program through Gestalt Therapy Australia, staying true to the experiential roots of Gestalt while embracing cutting-edge developments in contemporary Gestalt thinking and practice worldwide.
We also operate ConnectGround, a community-based counselling and psychotherapy clinic. ConnectGround serves as both a training facility for psychotherapists and a provider of low-cost individual and group therapy for clients. The clinic emphasises the therapeutic relationship between client and therapist as a key support for building awareness and adaptability. Psychotherapy interns and volunteers gain valuable hands-on experience, enhancing their skills and professionalism through client work.
