Gestalt Therapy, Breathing, and Life Coaching Workshops

Susan Gregory travels to teach one- and two-day workshops at institutes, universities and other group settings. Combined with supervision and individual consultations, she is also available for five-day teaching visits. For more information, contact Susan.

Gestalt Therapy’s Embodied Styles, one or two days. Attending to body experience is an important part of Gestalt therapy practice. Even in early Gestalt therapy, the ways in which this was undertaken varied. Today, there are hundreds of approaches utilized to include the somatic side in our consulting rooms and groups. None is “best”; yet is important to be able to differentiate among them. We will make sense of the present effusion of somatic approaches by exploring and experimenting in five contrasting ways.

Neuroscience: An Introduction for Therapists, one day. In everyday language, using models, pictures, experiential exercises and group discussion, we will become familiar with the basics of neuroscience as it relates to development, creativity, and treatment of trauma.

Breathing Into Contact, two days: Explore your breathing patterns through a series of gentle breathing experiments with the verbal guidance of the teacher; we create together a safe environment for experiential learning. This group work emphasizes the rightness of each individual’s process. In a respectful class atmosphere, breathing change happens spontaneously and at each person’s own pace. Some changes which may occur as a result of the work include calmer, fuller breathing, more fluid movement, regulation of blood pressure, change of mood, clearer thinking.

We talk together about what we are sensing, feeling and thinking as we work, emphasizing that this is a self-regulatory approach in which what our bodies are ready for, happens. This workshop is built upon a system of bodywork developed by Elsa Gindler, in Berlin, from 1915 – 1960. Susan Gregory studied the Gindler approach in NYC for more than thirty years with Gindler’s former teaching assistant Carola Speads (Ways to Better Breathing).

Breathing Matters, one day: Learn the anatomy and physiology of breathing through ideokinesis, movement, touch and pictures. Students will discover how these scientific understandings can enhance their breathing, movement and the activities of everyday lives. Creative artists and helping professionals will be assisted in bringing what they learn in the workshop into their professional work. Susan Gregory studied anatomy and physiology for six years with anatomist Irene Dowd (Taking Root to Fly) in NYC, where she also studied the Gindler approach to breath and bodywork.

Singing and Social Identity, two days: This is a workshop for both singers and listeners; everyone is welcome. Exploration of our singing voices will take place along two lines. First, we will learn how our voices work, exploring breath support, pitch matching, range, style, and uses of the throat, tongue, mouth and breathing apparatus, in a safe and respectful class environment. We will sing and listen to songs, and try vocal experiments as a group together, in which participants are free to either sing or listen.

Second, we will look at the history of singing in each of our lives, the joys, the embarrassments, the connection to group membership, the obstacles, the inspirations. We will sing some of the songs which have been important in our lives, families and communities. We will look at how vocalizing has influenced our sense of self, and how we may either ameliorate or expand past vocal experiences. For those in the helping professions, we will practice how to apply some of what we learn in workshop to our professional work. Susan Gregory teaches singing (30 years) and practices Gestalt therapy (20 years) in NYC and around the world. She brings that dual expertise to this workshop.

Power of Voice, one day: Be heard! In this workshop, you can uncover the power of your own vocal instrument. We will use speech, song, breath and movement to expand our voices and sense of self. In this workshop, we focus on the physical aspects of speech and singing, and on the social experiences of having our speaking and singing heard by others while they hear ours. Susan Gregory has taught singing in NYC for thirty years; she was a principal artist with the New York City Opera, and in her career has performed as a concert artist, cabaret performer and jazz vocalist.

Body Stories, two days: Laura Perls said, “You must be a body to be somebody.” She encouraged Gestalt therapists to attend to body process while working with clients. Over more than 60 years that Gestalt therapy has been in existence, many methods for working with somatic experiments and body and breath awareness have become part of Gestalt therapy practice around the world.

This two-day workshop, Body Stories, will survey five categories of body work in Gestalt therapy: 1) awareness; 2) directed movement; 3) hands-on approaches; 4) metaphor; 5) expressive movement and narrative movement. Each participant will be encouraged to find his/her own style – the way of working with body and breath which best suits her/his present practice.

This workshop will be both experiential and didactic. A safe space will be created in which participants may try various approaches in dyads and small groups, based on demonstration and ongoing verbal guidance by the teacher. Persons who prefer to observe – another important way of participating – are also welcome.

Susan Gregory has been guest faculty at Gestalt institutes in England, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand teaching her specialties of breath, body and voice work as integrated in Gestalt therapy. Susan has published several articles and book chapters on the nexus of Gestalt therapy, breath, voice and movement. They are available at the Articles link on this website.

Finding Your Style, one day: This is a didactic and experiential workshop for persons in the helping professions in which we will explore Gestalt therapeutic approaches to working with people. We will learn underlying Gestalt therapy theory where it supports the work. There will be demonstrations, dyadic practice, small group experiments, and group-as-a-whole discussion. Susan Gregory has been a Gestalt therapist for more than twenty years, a supervisor for five of those years, and was President of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy 2007-2009.