Studying at Gestalt Therapy Australia is unlike any other training in psychotherapy. It maintains its roots as an experiential learning program that is intellectually and emotionally satisfying. It is a vital learning environment that contributes to the local community through the ConnectGround clinic. Through engagement, support and challenge, therapists emerge skilled, connected and ready to take the next steps.
Reputation and experience
Gestalt Therapy Australia (GTA) was founded in 1995, and the training program we deliver has become nationally and internationally renowned. We pride ourselves on remaining true to the experiential roots of gestalt training programs, whilst always striving to be at the cutting edge of contemporary gestalt thinking.
Our faculty members are highly experienced with a broad range of professional backgrounds and a commitment to relational gestalt practice and teaching. All faculty are practising gestalt therapists. They are trained in gestalt therapy and come from a variety of other professional backgrounds with many years of experience working in mental health and wellbeing, both in private and public practice, and are committed to their teaching and learning journeys.
Intimate and experiential
At GTA, students are immersed in an experiential learning process that is holistic, integrated and developmental. It is primarily designed to foster capacities essential for deep connection. In this way, it stands apart from other courses that can be more dryly academic or module-based.
There is freedom in our commitment to facilitating growth in this way. Because it is not didactic (content forward) teaching, class sizes are smaller and the facilitator to student ratio is low (usually 1 to 8). With small class sizes, students come together and form a learning group that becomes a source of rich growth during the program and beyond. As deep connections are made, the community is found.
We maintain the commitment to weekly delivery and in this way the course parallels the experience of weekly therapy. Class becomes a touch point and vital support for students in their learning. Our program privileges face-to-face learning and teaches within a community of students, faculty and staff that is currently in excess of 80 people. Stakeholders also include the many service users in the clinic and we are surrounded by an active graduate community. It feels very local and connected.
In the past decades, there have been many challenges to this teaching method. There have been multiple pushes to change us. Some are towards higher education status, pressures to offer faster or cheaper programs, and more influence from peak bodies wanting to change (standardise) the delivery towards a generic module based course.
In the face of that, Gestalt Therapy Australia has maintained a loyalty to the traditions of gestalt training, and we still teach as we (the faculty) were taught when we were students. We value the learning that comes from being with the emergent process and we recognise that it is in the relational approach that the teaching comes alive. The best way to learn to relate to others is in the somewhat complex, and rarely tidy, act of connecting.
Deep learning and personal development
Traditionally and internationally, Gestalt is taught in a 4-year group process, as it takes time to become a psychotherapist. Our program is a deep dive into an integrated therapeutic modality with meaningful support for understanding the human condition. Learning begins with experience, and training is understood to be developmental. The group process begins in the first year, deepens across the program, and gestalt therapists emerge in this crucible of lateral learning.
Gestalt training is often outside the traditional university and accreditation process, although the GTA program accredited within the community of gestalt training programs nationally and internationally. This is a recognition of the role and place that Relational Gestalt Therapy (RGT) has. It is markedly different from the mainstream 'treatment' modalities and instead offers a holistic approach to health and wellbeing. The field theory we teach supports thinking and working with groups, couples, families, teams and organisations.
ConnectGround clinic internship
The most significant development in our school and training has been the introduction of internships in the ConnectGround clinic. These placements allow students to practice with clients (under expert supervision) from the third year. This real-world experience comes back into the training groups and challenges and changes the teaching. It is an apprentice-style approach and a rare opportunity.
We are the only psychotherapy program in Australia that offers this rich real-world opportunity for practice development.
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