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Digital Seminar

Gestalt Therapy Training: Core Skills & Top Techniques for Trauma & More

Speaker:
Stephanie Goldsmith, PhD
Duration:
6 Hours 26 Minutes
Language:
Presented in EN, subtitles in EN, ES, DE, FR, and IT, handouts in EN, ES, DE, FR, and IT
Copyright:
08 Aug, 2025
Product Code:
POS150509
Media Type:
Digital Seminar
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Description

More and more clients are showing up to do deep work.

…therapy that goes beyond just talking about problems, work stress, or the crisis of the week.

Clients need therapists who can help them get to the root of their struggles.

That’s where Gestalt-trained therapists stand apart.

Gestalt is a present-focused, experiential, and relational approach that helps clients integrate the parts of themselves that feel disconnected or fragmented. By attending to the “here and now,” Gestalt therapy brings awareness to the body, emotions, and thoughts as they emerge in the session, creating opportunities for profound healing.

Whether it’s resolving inner conflicts, doing inner child work, repairing attachment wounds, implicit memories, meeting unmet needs, or expressing suppressed emotions, Gestalt therapy gives you a way to enter their client’s inner world WITH them – not just being a passive listener in the room.

Join Dr. Stephanie Goldsmith, a Certified Gestalt Therapist and Certified Complex Trauma Professional, to learn the core Gestalt techniques and skills through in-session demonstrations, experiential exercises and engaging lecture. Walk away knowing how to…

  • Strengthen client awareness in the present moment to expand choice and reduce rigid patterns.
  • Use somatic attending to integrate bodily, emotional, and cognitive experiences.
  • Work relationally to repair disruptions in contact and foster authentic connection.
  • Support change through acceptance with Gestalt’s Paradoxical Theory of Change.
  • Integrate parts of self to reduce fragmentation and promote self-leadership.

Plus, she’ll show you a framework for integrating Gestalt Therapy with IFS Therapy and parts work.

Become a therapist that is known for doing deep, life changing therapeutic work… get trained in Gestalt Therapy now!

Credit

Self-Study Credit

This self-study program consists of 6.5 clock hours of continuing education instruction. Credit requirements and approvals vary by country and local regulatory bodies. Please save the course outline, the certificate of completion you receive from the activity and contact your local regulatory organization to determine specific eligibility and requirements. 

Handouts

File type File name Number of pages
PDF Manual - Gestalt Therapy Training (817.8 KB) 54 Pages Available after Purchase
PDF Manual - Gestalt Therapy Training - French (817.8 KB) 54 Pages Available after Purchase
PDF Manual - Gestalt Therapy Training - Italian (817.8 KB) 54 Pages Available after Purchase
PDF Manual - Gestalt Therapy Training - German (817.8 KB) 54 Pages Available after Purchase
PDF Manual - Gestalt Therapy Training - Spanish (817.8 KB) 54 Pages Available after Purchase

Additional Info

Program Information

Access for Self-Study (Non-Interactive)

Access never expires for this product.

For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.


Objectives

  1. Describe the existential and phenomenological roots of Gestalt theory.
  2. Identify the three pillars of Gestalt therapy.
  3. Describe the Gestalt Formation and Resolution Cycle in case conceptualization.
  4. Illustrate the importance of experiential experimentation in Gestalt therapy.
  5. Summarize how Gestalt works with process to treat trauma.
  6. Describe how Parts work and Somatic work can be integrated into Gestalt therapy.

Outline

Introduction to Gestalt Practice today

  • Key historical influences
  • A bottom-up experiential approach
  • Somatic attending, how to notice the “the here and now”
  • Get collaborative, “contact” in Gestalt work
  • Focus on the whole experience
  • Dialogic and Relational in nature
    • Demonstration: Attending to the relationship, Intrusive thoughts, OCD patterns, dissociating in contact with others
    • Demonstration: “Here and Now” relational attending, contact

Gestalt Theory Concepts & Pillars of Therapy

  • Three Pillars: Field Theory, Dialogue, Phenomenology
  • See the client in context, nothing is irrelevant
  • Awareness: The Goal of Gestalt Therapy
  • Stop interruptions that get in the way of awareness
  • The difference between awareness and insight
  • Simple breakdown of Gestalt Formation and Resolution Cycle
  • Being a guide, not an expert
  • Defense styles: projection, retroflection, deflection, introjection
  • Paradoxical Theory of Change: Change through full acceptance

Gestalt Therapy Practice Basics

  • Focus on process over content
  • Therapist as observer and relational partner
  • Identifying patterns, memories, and characterological traits
  • Allow time for assimilation
  • Relapse prevention against old memory/characterological patterns
  • Diversity considerations
  • Research risks/limitations, ethics
  • Assessing client readiness for emotionally intensive work
  • View on diagnosis on pathology, “blocked awareness process”

Gestalt Therapy Demonstrations & 5 Key Gestalt Techniques

  • Create space and opportunity for discovery
  • Allow client attention to focus on their own process
  • Discussion and example of the following interventions:
    • Chair work – even in telehealth
      • Demonstration: Overscheduler, wants to “slow down and relax”
    • Exaggeration
    • Do the Opposite
      • Demonstration: Let go from long-time job, invited to exaggerate emotions, retroflection and deflection.
    • Doing the Circle
    • Pointing out the obvious
    • Awareness Exercise
      • Demonstration – transition point in her life, worried about making the wrong choice, dissociation
  • Demonstration: Paradoxical Theory of Change, body anxiety
  • Demonstration: Upcoming Milestone Birthday, life purpose, Figure Shaping

Neurobiology, Trauma & Memory

  • The limitations of “talk therapy” and trauma processing
  • How traumatic experiences change neurophysiology
  • Left versus right brain processing and what it means for therapy
  • Memory storage – how ordinary memories change over time
  • 2 parts of the Autonomic nervous system
  • Polyvagal explanation for trauma responses
  • Evolutionary advantages to trauma neurobiology
  • Somatic sense of self in the world

Gestalt Therapy for Trauma Treatment

  • What gets in the way of the work is the work
  • How trauma interrupts
  • The intersection of anxiety and trauma
  • Disconnection and memory impairment
  • Working with implicit memory system to create present moment choice
  • Holistic individualized approach: cognitions, emotions, sensations
  • Variations in your clients’ window of tolerance
  • Facilitating new learning

Gestalt Therapy & Parts Work Integration

  • Whole person versus part responses
  • Parts work, IFS, and chair work target the same concepts
  • Systems thinking on the individual level
  • Types of Parts: IFS Therapy categorizations
  • The concept of “Self Leadership”
  • Experiments can work with movement and the body
  • Other recommended treatment integrations: EMDR, Brainspotting
    • Demonstration: Starting a new business, imposter syndrome, working with child parts
    • Demonstration: CPTSD, parts work, assimilation of new awareness

Target Audience

  • Counsellors
  • Social Workers
  • Psychiatrists
  • Psychologists
  • Case Managers
  • Addiction Counsellors
  • Therapists
  • Marriage & Family Therapists
  • Psych Nurses
  • Other Mental Health Professionals

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