Gestalt Workshop: MOVE TO CON/TACT. Kinesthetic sense of self in gestalt therapy – Jacek Panster.
“Everywhere in the world, self begins with the body.”
– Roy Baumeister
“I move, therefore I am.”
– Haruki Murakami
The founders of gestalt therapy (Perls et al. 1951) introduced the radical concept of the self, which is fluid, dynamic and changeable. Any phenomenological analysis of the self therefore requires reference to movement to understand how we become who we are.
In the workshop, we will expand our awareness of movement, our kinesthetic sense, through which we learn that, how and where we are; just like a child who discovers and creates himself through moving-feeling his living body. On this occasion, we will learn about the primary movement patterns that form our kinesthetic sense of self from the very beginning.
Exploring these movement patterns in relationship with the world will enable a deep embodied understanding of the situation we live in. Paying attention to the movement interactions with, from, to and towards the other person, we will explore the intersubjective aspect of our subjectivity through kinesthetic resonance.
Gestalt Workshop: MOVE TO CON/TACT. Kinesthetic sense of self in gestalt therapy will also provide an opportunity to learn how individual function-self emerges in the temporal sequence of contact, creating a coherent sense of self. In personal experience, we will discover how smooth our selfie process is, and how we detract from our sense of self in creative adaptation.
The workshop is addressed to both practicing therapists and students of schools of psychotherapy and counselling who want to embody the theory-practice of the self, crucial to understanding the therapeutic situation as an experience of being-in-the-world-with-others.
Voice of a workshop participant about the self: “It was a very carnal selfie.”
Gestalt Workshop: MOVE TO CON/TACT – Jacek Panster:
Jacek Panster is a certified psychotherapist at the Gestalt Institute of Toronto (2004) with EAGT certification, a teacher/supervisor of Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy (DSP) and a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy (IBMT) 3-year program. He holds a coaching recommendation from the Polish Psychological Association. He has many years of experience gained as a training trainer at the Gestalt Counselling Center and the Wielkopolska School of Gestalt Psychotherapy.
