VERTICAL GESTALT

Harnessing principles and practices from Gestalt Psychology to support Vertical Development

Hosted by Simon Cavicchia

19 May

Adventures in Awareness

“Without awareness there is nothing, not even awareness of nothingness”

Fritz Perls

Overview

Cultivating the capacity to pay close attention to our experience moment by moment is a cornerstone of Gestalt theory and practice. Developing this capacity for awareness is considered in Gestalt to be a major driver in supporting development and change in individuals and the systems they create together. 

Developing and deepening awareness supports increased perspective on how our actions in the world are shaped by our inner life, sensations, emotions, development histories and, until we become aware of them, often unexamined beliefs and constructs we have formed from past experiences. With increased awareness comes increased perspective, increased choice over our motivations and actions and ultimately, increased flexibility for responding creatively to novel and challenging situations, beyond the fixed repertoires, habits and routines of our past conditioning.

Outline

Cultivating awareness is also key to exploring directly and coming to understand the contours of our different Action Logics. It is the foundation to developing perspective flexing capacity on the contents of our inner life, which in turn can lead to re-evaluation and experimentation in service of further expanding our current perspectives into the territory of later Action Logics.

Cultivating, refining and deepening awareness can be thought of a life-long process. 

In this workshop we will:

• Explore the nature of awareness and the different contents of our experience that can be observed.
• Explore and learn strategies for cultivating awareness in ourselves and others.
• Identify common impediments to awareness and how these can be worked with.
• Learn how to follow the flow of our experience moment by moment.
• Learn to track the relationship between sensations, movement impulses, our different senses emotions and thoughts.

Simon Cavicchia is a Gestalt Psychotherapist, Supervisor, Executive Coach and Consultant. He has been working in the field of vertical development for over a decade. He is currently on the faculty of the Ashridge Masters in Executive Coaching and for 8 years was the Programme Lead for the MSc in Coaching Psychology at the Metanoia Institute in London.

DATE:  19 May

TIME:   1400 - 1700 UK

COST:  £105 + VAT