ABSTRACT

Gestalt Coaching: Distinctive Features makes Gestalt principles, values, and philosophy accessible to coaches of all backgrounds and explains how to apply them in practice.

Peter Bluckert introduces 30 distinctive features of this approach, divided equally between theory and practice. The book provides concise but clear summaries of core concepts such as awareness and contact, the nature and power of unfinished situations, the Field perspective, the phenomenological approach, The Gestalt Cycle of Experience, and the nature of strategic and intimate interactions. Bluckert provides a set of practice guidelines and watch-outs for the Gestalt coach, information on training and development and several case examples to bring the approach to life. Gestalt Coaching reveals how this approach can be used in individual development, such as executive coaching, with groups and teams, and in wider social and political contexts.

With a focus on personal growth and development and enhancing co-operation, dialogue, and relationships, this book will be an invaluable tool for coaches of all backgrounds in practice and in training, academics and students of coaching, and anyone interested in learning more about how to apply Gestalt principles in their personal and professional life.

chapter |4 pages

Introduction

part I|66 pages

THEORY: Gestalt principles and key concepts

chapter 2|6 pages

The hallmarks of the Gestalt approach:

Part 1

chapter 3|4 pages

The hallmarks of the Gestalt approach:

Part 2

chapter 5|4 pages

The figure–ground process

chapter 6|4 pages

Staying with the ‘what is’:

The phenomenological approach in action

chapter 7|4 pages

The Field perspective:

The person in context

chapter 8|4 pages

Context:

Balancing the strategic and intimate

chapter 10|6 pages

Awareness

chapter 11|4 pages

Contact, and interruptions to contact

chapter 12|4 pages

Ways we interrupt contact, and consequences:

Part 1

chapter 13|4 pages

Ways we interrupt contact, and consequences:

Part 2

part II|75 pages

Practice

chapter 17|4 pages

Core principles in practice

chapter 18|6 pages

Practitioner presence:

The intentional use of self

chapter 19|6 pages

Creative experimentation and improvisation

chapter 20|4 pages

Individually focused Gestalt experiments

chapter 21|6 pages

Experiments in group and team contexts

chapter 26|4 pages

Resourcing the client:

Relational know-how for dialogue and effective collaboration

chapter 27|4 pages

Practice guidelines for the Gestalt coach:

Part 1

chapter 28|4 pages

Practice guidelines for the Gestalt coach:

Part 2

chapter 29|4 pages

Watch-outs for Gestalt coaches