Integrative Gestalt Practice: Transforming our Ways of Working with People

Integrative Gestalt Practice (IGP) is a new approach to understanding and working with complexity and wholeness in people's lives. Amongst the many published books on the market today focusing on the need for specialization and manualization, this book introduces an alternative approach to working professionally with people. By combining basic principles from the gestalt-approach with basic elements of integral theory introduced by Ken Wilber, IGP develops a frontline framework for integrating different forms of theoretical and practical knowledge of human life-processes. This, for instance, can sustain the integration of various psychotherapeutic approaches, and - on a more general level - raise a more common capacity for perspective taking and meaningful disagreements between people.The book shows in various ways how concepts of field theory, self-regulation, contact, awareness and creative experimentation can be directly applied in working with people. The IGP model can be used in many different contexts: in therapy, organisational work, coaching and pedagogy. The book contains a rich combination of theoretical elaborations and practical exercises. It will provide new insights for students, professionals and others with an interest in understanding and working with people.

Table of Contents:
Introduction , The field , The organism , The gestalt process , Contact, awareness, and the experiment , Intervention practice , Discussion and perspectives , IGP awareness training and exercises , Integrative methodological pluralism

About the Author :
Mikael Sonne is a psychologist specialising in psychotherapy and a supervisor at postgraduate level. He is the founder and director of the Aarhus Gestalt Institute and a co-founder of the Center for Integrative Gestalt Practice - IGP. Mikael is head of a postgraduate gestalt training programme for psychologists and head of an educational programme in personal leadership development for executives. In his practice as a psychologist Mikael works with coaching, supervision, organisational development, and therapy. He is a guest lecturer on IGP in the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at Aarhus University. He is a leading member of the Danish gestalt therapy forum. He has a background as a psychologist in psychiatric settings, and has received gestalt training from Erving and Miriam Polster at the Gestalt Training Center in San Diego, from Natasha Mann, Barrie Simmons, Todd Burley, Gary Yontef and others, and from Bob Moore on meditation and energy work Jan Tonnesvang, PhD, is a psychologist and professor of psychology at the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at Aarhus University. He is head of the research unit for Integrative Psychology and the Network for Integrative Vitalising psychology, Intervention and Bildung. He is a co-founder of the Center for Integrative Gestalt Practice - IGP, and a cofounder of the Integral Network, Integraldenmark.org. Jan is a trained gestalt therapist and combines his academic and practical interests in efforts to develop Integrative Gestalt Practice (IGP) and Integral Vitalising Psychology (IVP) as a combined holistic approach to understand and work with human 'Bildung' processes. He has developed a strategy called theoretically-based practice development, aimed at developing vitalising environments in educational, psychological, and organisational settings. He has authored and co-authored a large number of scientific articles and books.

Review :
'A very important but nowadays too-often overlooked psychotherapy system interpreted using a cutting-edge integrative model, with novel and important results. Highly recommended!'- Ken Wilber, author of The Integral Vision'This book lights up gestalt therapy with its insightful perspective, and integrates a wide range of human experience with the practicality of therapeutic techniques.'- Erving Polster, author of Beyond Therapy'The authors do an excellent job of exploring some of the key issues inherent in field theory as it is resident in gestalt therapy. I appreciate the way they developed it, which is intelligent, comprehensive, and logically friendly. This treatment of field theory will be of interest to gestalt therapists, and the focus of their use of Wilber's categories, metaphors, and illustrations is a helpful stimulus for thought. I also appreciate their distinction between a constructionist and a more critical realist perspective as it might be encountered in field theory. In grappling with the quadrant model, gestalt therapists could benefit from the discipline of differentiation and non- gestalt therapists might find it quite "user-friendly". This book will make a useful contribution to the field in gestalt therapy, and outside of the field of gestalt therapy, the integrative perspective will be of interest to the many people engaged in integrative approaches. I know of no other book advocating such a gestalt integrative approach. '- Philip Brownell, Author of Gestalt therapy: A Guide to Contemporary Practice