VAGP Membership 2024-25

Join the Victorian Association of Gestalt Practitioners (VAGP) or membership or renew your existing membership

VAGP membership

The VAGP is here to keep you connected to the Victorian gestalt community and activities.

As a member, you will receive discounted access to all VAPG activities, including:

Gestalt Project seminars $40 members, $50 non-members
supervision groups, $70 members, $93.50 non-members (per session)
a small conference which is planned for early 2025.
community gatherings.

The half year membership fees are:

Full fee $90
Concession $50
Student $30

We’ve set the fees at a level we hope will encourage people to join, but we don’t want to exclude people on the basis of cost, so please contact us if you’re experiencing financial hardship.

Your new membership will be valid until 30 June 2025.

To receive discounted rates for events and activities, you will need to be a member at the time of booking and at the time of the event.

We look forward to your continuing support of the VAGP and seeing you at our next event. If you have any questions, please email us at vagp@gestaltcentre.com.au

For more details about VAGP

For other events offered by the Gestalt Centre

Privacy statement

The Victorian Association of Gestalt Practitioners Incorporated (VAGP) collects and uses the personal information you provide on the application form to administer your membership and to tell you about upcoming events, both of the VAGP and other organisations that we think will be of relevance. The information is shared with and stored on a system operated by Relational Skills Australia Pty Ltd ABN 67 154 789 527, trading as the Gestalt Centre. Its Privacy Policy is available on the Gestalt Centre website.

Gestalt foundations

The 6 relational gestalt foundations underpin all we do at the Gestalt Therapy Australia.

Aware

Embodied awareness

Aware

Opposites: Unaware, constrained & frustrated

Awareness is the goal of Relational Gestalt Therapy.

Awareness supports connection, wisdom, spontaneity & health.We bring attention to our body (embodied awareness) because needs (longings & fears) emerge contextually first as sensation.

Beginning with embodied experience, we are more aware in the here-and-now and more likely to know what we need in any given moment and more able to act to satisfy these needs.

Awareness sets us up to be more receptive and responsive in all aspects of our life.

Present

Attuned & transformational presence

Present

Opposites: Absent, distracted & reactive

Presence is at the heart of Relational Gestalt Therapy.

Presence provides a way of being in the here-and-now with openness and flexibility, able to respond to the fulness of the moment.

In this place of presence, we are aware of the ways our history and other contextual conditions might organise our current experience.

From presence we are more able to confirm the humanity of others. With compassion, we hold others with deep care.

Gestalt training supports the development of therapeutic presence.

Receptive

Enlivened & responsive relating

Receptive

Opposites: Closed, denying & isolated

Tuned into our own experience, more present in the here and now, we can orient ourselves to others and the world we live in.

We become more spontaneous and receptive to our needs, and the needs of others, as they emerge in contact.

We build interest in deep satisfying interpersonal relating.

We become curious about the ways we habitually meet others and the changes and challenges of life.

As we become more aware of our habitual patterns in relating to others and meeting our needs flexibly we begin to create change, healing, or transformation.

Choiceful

Compassionate & experimental living

Choiceful

Opposites: Rigid, blaming & shaming

In Gestalt, change often includes acceptance of our lived experience. We understand that some of what causes distress is a response to earlier adversity and challenge (adaption).

With support we can identify and begin to let go of unhelpful pathologising narratives. Instead of trying to be ‘someone else’, we can allow ourselves to be who we are.

We become more compassionate and curious.

We experiment in the world to create novel opportunities for growth and development. We become more creative and flexible moment-to-moment.

Situated

Cultural & environmental sensitivity

Situated

Opposites: Unaccountable, self-interested & isolated

Our curiosity helps us to grapple with the ways we are situated in cultural and environmental worlds (contexts).

We develop in the context of complex relational worlds of family, school, culture, and environment. We recognise that these worlds inevitably shape how we relate to ourselves and others.

Gestalt therapy seeks to contextualise all experience, breaking down ideas of individual pathology, shame, and blame.

We ask the question ‘how does this make sense?’

We also seek to become more meaningfully engaged in responding to issues of ecology, diversity, power, and privilege.

Engaged

Ethical, just & community minded

Engaged

Opposites: Self-absorbed, disconnected & lonely

Within a relational Gestalt framework, the true goal of therapy is to be engaged in the world, with a developed sense of self and an understanding of the co-emergent experiencing in relationship, family, communities large and small.

Therapy supports more than the individual who attends; it builds capacity for community.

We support people to become more ethical. Ethical in the sense of responsive, responsible, and willing to act for justice.

The Gestalt Centre is an environment that is welcoming and inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) persons and communities. The Gestalt Centre and Lygon Therapy are members of the Welcome Here Project.

The Gestalt Centre acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the traditional custodians of this land and pays respect to Elders past, present and future. We celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements as well as recognise the contributions that Indigenous Australians make to our country and our society. We support the Uluru Statement from the Heart and The Voice to Parliament.