What is Gestalt Therapy?

The Gestalt Therapy approach encourages individual personal growth through the development of self-awareness and self support to enable creative and spontaneous contact with people and the environment we live in. This process does not conform to preset rules or expectations. A Gestalt therapist encourages clients to explore and find ways to live life in a meaningful way. The learning and application of Gestalt therapy is always experiential with clients being encouraged to experiment between client and therapist as the vehicle for healing.

Gestalt Therapy is a method of psychotherapy developed in the 1950’s by Fritz Perls MD. This approach honours each human being as a unique expression of life in a culture which may not always allow that uniqueness. The culture itself may have needs which conflict with those of the individual. The art of living is to resolve successfully these conflicts so that both the individual and the culture can be nourished as a result.

We each have blocks within us, which prevent free flow of our natural liveliness. Gestalt Therapy seeks to bring to awareness the nature of these blocks and how they may be dissolved so that the authentic self may emerge as an ally as we move through life. The Gestalt approach has been applied with success to all types of therapy, with individuals, groups, couples, families and children, organisations and in the business world.

GINZ welcomes people of all cultures, sexual and religious orientations to Gestalt training. The Gestalt approach has much to teach about the graceful transition from theory to actually ‘doing’ therapy. It is about making contact with clients in an authentic way, as they work through emotionally charged material, and assisting clients to fully integrate their life experiences. 

During 1989 Dr Fred Grosse and Anne Maclean met with Gill Caradoc Davies in Dunedin and plans were maqde to begin a Gestalt Training programme in New Zealand.  Initially three workshops were held in 1990 as a preliminary to formal training.

GINZ began in 1991 and a full training programme was established. It registered as incorporated under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957, with a Trust Deed and three trustees who were responsible for the overall policy and administering the Trust Deed.

Since 1991, GINZ has grown from strength to strength. The core training of the Diploma of Gestalt Psychotherapy is now offered to trainees living outside the Christchurch region, with groups based in Dunedin and Wellington. The workshops are still held in Christchurch three times a year.

The first year of training can be taken as a stand alone module and from 2006 an Introductory Certificate in Gestalt Personal Development will be issued on successful completion of that first year.

An application for recognition by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) was also submitted in 1991.

Registration as a Private Training Establishment (PTE) with NZQA was gained in 1993.

This recognition then opened the way to apply to the Ministry of Education for Government Assistance for Tertiary Education as a Private Training Establishment. This entitlement was first received in 1999. The training has been subsidised by funding related to a delivery contract with the Ministry of Education since 1999. This funding is dependent on an annual application and accountability process.

In 1999, GINZ became an accredited training centre with Gestalt Australia and New Zealand (GANZ), adhering to a Trans Tasman set of  Gestalt minimum training standards.