The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland
Areas of Training
Certification Program & Coaching Workshops
GPCC Program Objectives
Participants who successfully complete the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Professional Certified Coach Program will understand and apply the following:
- The gestalt coaching stance
- The effective use of self in coaching
- Gestalt models and concepts as applied to coaching
- Basic techniques and methods of gestalt coaching
- Gestalt coaching as applied to special topics
- The International Coach Federation core competencies
Graduates will receive a Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Professional Coach Certificate and can use the designation GPCC, Gestalt Professional Certified Coach.
Coaching Workshops
Each workshop is a rich mixture of theory and practice. Training methods include demonstrations, simulations, “real play,” awareness and skill building exercises, case studies, lecturettes, readings, and coaching practicums. On average, the workshops are 40% theory development and 60% application. The 2009-10 coaching workshops are as follows:
Foundations of Gestalt Coaching. This first five day workshop is an introduction to the Gestalt Professional Certified Coach Program, the only workshop that cannot be taken independently. The first two days of this workshop are devoted to exploration and learning gestalt concepts and principles. This includes, but is not limited to, working with presence and mindfulness, making contact, shaping a unit of work, the paradoxical theory of change, systems thinking, the cycle of experience, and resistance. The next two days address the International Coach Federation core coaching competencies and special topics in gestalt coaching, including professional ethics, coaching versus therapy, and others. The Foundations of Gestalt Coaching workshop ends with a day of practicum and assistance in creating a Development Plan to support continued progress in acquiring coaching knowledge and skill.
The second five day session consists of two sequentially run workshops.
Coaching Across Differences. This three day workshop provides the opportunity to increase the coach’s self awareness of learned attitudes and behaviors, use of power dynamics and the participant’s competency in dealing with the impact of different social identities in coaching. It prepares the participant to help coaching clients to use their differences effectively and enhances their ability to interact across differences.
Developmental Coaching. This two day workshop reviews adult learning and development, which can be used in all types of coaching, such as leadership coaching, life coaching, and career coaching. Developmental models and their implications for coaching are explored and then applied in coaching sessions.
The third five day session consists of two sequentially run workshops.
Coaching for Individual Change. This three day workshop increases the participant’s understanding of best practices when facilitating a client’s change process. It explores the participant’s theories of change, as well as gestalt and other approaches to individual change and resistance.
Coaching Using Physical Process. This two day workshop explores how the coach can use this powerful tool to enhance work with clients. It focuses on how the coach’s physical process can impact the coaching work, and explores how to use observations of the client’s physical process to create experiments that deepen coaching interventions.
The fourth and final session is four days, consisting of a three day workshop and one day for the Gestalt Professional Certified Coach Examination.
Coaching for Conflict Management. This three day workshop explores conflict styles, options, and principles for working with conflict, mediating conflict, and how to coach others thorough conflict situations.
Examination for Certification. A one day session for preparation and the examination session in which each participant demonstrates evidence of awareness, knowledge, and skill in gestalt coaching and the International Coach Federation core competencies.
Five of the workshops in the certification program can be taken independently. A three day workshop confers 24 hours of continuing education for coaches. A two day workshop confers 16 hours of continuing education for coaches. Four of the workshops are paired and sequential. This affords three options for gestalt coach training continuing education:
- To take any workshop separately
- To take two or more workshops in any order
- To take two back-to-back workshops in a five day period for a reduced fee.
Although there are no prerequisites for the certification program, attendance at individual or back-to-back workshops may require some pre-workshop reading and/or other preparatory work, depending on the applicant’s prior education, experience in gestalt theory and methodology, coaching experience and exposure to International Coach Federation core competencies.