The final year of the MA (Masters in Gestalt Therapy Theory Studies) is focused on intensively developing your Gestalt therapeutic understanding, knowledge and skills. You’ll increase your psychotherapy client caseload, either by developing your own practice or by arranging a work or placement setting.
Who takes this course?
This is the fourth course on the Psychotherapy Programme; students are eligible to join after successfully completing their Postgraduate Diploma in Gestalt Therapy.
Course outline
Training sessions comprise three elements:
Practicum
Students use role play, or experiential exercises to identify and develop the micro-processes of Gestalt Therapy, reviewing their work with the help of live peer and tutor feedback.
Group process
The learning group is a supportive and informed context in which personal work, either arising out of clinical practice or of the life of the group itself, can be addressed, and used to develop your therapeutic awareness and self knowledge further. Group process time also provides the material for students to develop their group therapy skills and their ability to critically identify and analyse group events.
Seminars
Students prepare seminar topics in which they examine research and theoretical literature underlying the practice of therapy. These include: the study of gestalt clinical literature; diagnosis, psychopathology and psychiatry; group process and therapy theories; human development and the acquisition of disorder; psychotherapy research; the new neurosciences, body work, etc. External faculty with specialist knowledge are brought in as guest tutors.
Apprenticing
During this year, you’ll have the opportunity to apprentice with established group leaders in order to gain experience of being in the facilitator role. This work is not assessed, but you could use this experience to form the basis of part of your MA Portfolio Dissertation.