The Gestalt Workshop: Working with the Inner Critic is training in nature and is not psychotherapy, although participants will be invited to work on their own experience.
The workshop is aimed at people who want to deepen their effectiveness in working with clients struggling with chronic, destructive self-criticism.
The Inner Critic is one of the most frequently activated and at the same time most destructive intrapsychic phenomena we work with in the office. It manifests as a harsh voice of judgment, shame and pressure that perpetuates clients’ distress and blocks spontaneity, contact and the ability to self-regulate.
During the workshop (20 hours) I invite you to an in-depth, practical work with the Inner Critic embedded in the perspective of Gestalt psychotherapy, with the addition of Transactional Analysis, ISTDP and working with therapeutic metaphor. The workshop combines theoretical reflection with personal experience and concrete ways of working that can be applied in the office.
Participants will have the opportunity:
- learn about different perspectives on understanding the Inner Critic (including introjects, Top Dog-Under Dog dynamics, the Critical Parent, and the Conflict Triangle in ISTDP),
- A look at the origins and functions of self-criticism,
- practice dialogic and experimental forms of working with the Inner Critic,
- Learn to use metaphors and projective methods to support change in the client’s relationship with themselves
About the presenter of the gestalt workshop: Working with the Inner Critic – Dorota Janiak:
I am a certified Gestalt psychotherapist (certified by PTPG, EAGT) and supervisor.
In 2008, I graduated from the School of Group Psychotherapists and Trainers at the Institute of Integral Gestalt Psychotherapy in Krakow, Poland, and in 2025, a comprehensive supervisor training conducted by a Czech-Italian team of trainers (Jan Roubal, Stana Dudova, Gianni Francesetti, Michela Gecele). I am currently expanding my workshop by training in somatic and energy work in the CORE Energetics stream.
I have been working in the field of psychological assistance since 1996, first with adolescents, then with adults and with foster and adoptive families. I co-founded the Rose Maturation Center – Center for Women’s Personal Development. I also appreciate the value of psychoeducation, among other things, I am the implementer of the “School for Parents and Educators” program, and as a trainer I also conduct various original workshops, mainly on empathic communication.
Since 2013, I have been supervising volunteers working with children in foster care and seniors, and since 2022 I have been supervising teams of staff supporting seniors.