Home pageWorking with sexuality – a workshop with John Gillespie

Working with sexuality – a workshop with John Gillespie

Working with sexuality - a workshop by John Gillespie. 14.10 - 15.10.2023. We encourage you to participate in the event. Lodz Gestalt School.

Working with sexuality. Building a foundation in therapeutic work with E-RO-TY-CON. – John Gillespie.

You are cordially invited to a workshop with John Gillespie!

Workshop topic: SE* SE* SE* workshop…. And more se*! Building our ground as therapists to work with sex – Working with sexuality. Building a foundation in therapeutic work with corporeality.

Presenter: John Gillespie

Organizer: Lodz Gestalt School

Deadline: 14.10 – 15.10.2023

Workshop days: Saturday, Sunday: 9:00 – 19:00. Including breaks in hrs. 13:00 – 15:00.

Number of hours: 20 training hours

Place: Headquarters of the Lodz Gestalt School, ul. 125 Piotrkowska St., Lodz

Cost: 1300 PLN

*Students of the Lodz Gestalt School are entitled to a discount of PLN 200 for each workshop/training conducted in the Gestalt convention, which will be deducted from the quoted price.

Applications: please send the completed FORM to the email address: [email protected]

Translation: The workshop will be conducted in English and translated into Polish.

The workshop is aimed at psychotherapists and psychotherapists-in-training. It will be conducted in English and translated into Polish. The number of places is limited! Applications are accepted by phone: 575 591 555 and by email: [email protected] . It will also be necessary to fill out the form, which is available HERE.

We also encourage you to attend a free webinar, which will be an ideal introduction to the workshop. You are cordially invited to sign up!

Working with sexuality – a description of a workshop with John Gillespie:

What do we like sexually? What excites us? Around what do we feel shame or guilt? Do we have unresolved traumas related to sex? Where does the objectification or “otherness” of the other person turn us? Are there parts of our sexual personality that we push underground? Who was paid for intercourse?

Not everyone talks about sexuality in therapy. When Gestaltists talk about sex, it is often “sanitized” and referred to as “erotic charge” – Eros. What about the difficult stuff? What about what’s dirty? What about the parts that don’t fit well with who we like to think we are?

Talking about sexuality, our sexual bodies and personalities can bring to the surface aspects of shame, isolation, trauma, privilege/oppression dynamics, and spiritual identity can be extracted from the everyday personality and encoded in our sexual self. These parts of ourselves can often remain untouched during therapy training, or even therapy itself, because of the combination of taboos, degrees of trust and personal intimacy that are necessary to share our sexual selves.

During the two-day workshop, John will try to create a safe enough space to share, support and maintain who we are sexually. There will be no requirement to share anything that is not comfortable to explore. There will be room to talk about sex, our sexual histories and to experiment with sharing aspects of our sexual selves.

Topics to be explored include:

  • sexual development
  • recovering sexual experience after sexual abuse/trauma
  • power, culture and sex
  • relationality and non-relationality in sex
  • ageing
  • How we relate to our sexual bodies and shame
  • sex game… fun with eroticism, sex toys
  • sex and spirituality

The workshop will provide an overview of John Gillespie’s work and enable participants to work more comfortably with clients’ experiences of sexuality and/or achieve a greater degree of personal comfort around sex.

A few words about John Gillespie:

John Gillespie is a qualified gestalt practitioner and psychotherapist (MA Gestalt Therapy/Diploma in Counselling). He is the founder and CEO of New Gestalt Voices. She has extensive experience working with people struggling with early life trauma, loneliness, shame, addictions, relationship difficulties, anxiety/depression, gender/sexuality, grief and questions about life’s purpose.

John Gillespie graduated from London Gestalt Centre, MA in Gestalt Psychotherapy, Metanoia, MSc in Gestalt Psychotherapy, PHG Reading Group with Perry Klepner, Physical Process Work at Gestalt Institute Cleveland, Working with groups and teams at London Gestalt Centre. He is a certified integrative arts psychotherapist (IATE) and holds a diploma in counseling from the Albany Centre. He has conducted numerous workshops at conferences, including:

  • “Addictions in the role of therapists: What happens when we are the problem and how do we support each other?” – Workshop presented at UKAGP 2022 conference.
  • “Time and Spirituality.” A Workshop Presented at the 2019 EAGT Conference in Budapest.
  • “Bringing Sex On: A Workshop Co-Facilitated with Chris O’Malley at the 2018 Toronto AAGT Conference.
  • Writing and Not Writing; an experiential exploration of what happens when we sit down to write. Workshop co-conducted with Martin Capps at UKAGP 2017/ and with Chris O’Malley at UKAGP 2019.