The Embodiment of Co-Transference: Shame and Coregulation in Gestalt Therapy

How do we interact and co-create space with our clients when practicing Gestalt Therapy? What do we notice in our bodies and our clients’ bodies that is somatic, emergent and powerfully impactful, as well as both potentially difficult and healing? As we continue to meet one another, two aspects of the ground, shame and our mutual nervous systems, co-regulate the therapeutic relationship.

Embodied Co-Transference emerges out of the therapeutic relationship, supporting attachment and shaping the meaning we make with each other as contact partners. These interactions are based on historical relational patterns, as well as the uniqueness of the present dynamic, embodied, tissue-to-tissue relationship.

In this workshop we will attend to how we bodily impact each other when exploring themes, language and feelings. We will pay attention to the somatic experience of shame in both client and therapist. We will explore shame as an “atmospheric” phenomenon, and the ways in which shame can potentially serve as a cloak, infusing our bodies as we relate.

We will also attend to coregulation, as a mutual and interactive process of how we create connection and manage nervous system activation in our therapeutic relationships.

The structure of the workshop will include experiential sensitizing exercises, theory, demonstrations and practice sessions between participants.

Participants should have some experience of Gestalt Therapy and bring a case study to focus on as part of embodied exploration in the practice sessions.

Learning Objectives
Participants completing this workshop will be able to....

• Discuss how Embodied Co-Transference emerges out of our interactions, supporting attachment and shaping the meaning we make with each other as contact partners;

• Identify historical relational patterns as they emerge in the here-and-now;

• Explain how attending to the uniqueness of the present dynamic, embodied, tissue-to-tissue relationship supports attachment;

• Describe how shame can be experienced as an “atmospheric” phenomenon;

• Make attending statements that describe shame as an embodied relational event in vivo; and

• Utilize co-regulation as a mutual and interactive process that creates connection and manages nervous system activation in our therapeutic relationships.