Friday 19 - Sunday 21/05/2017 

• “How to create or enhance safety/security when working with clients with great difficulty in contact”

Most of our difficulties in contact are rooted in a too weak safety/security. This very common weakness is deep, complex and easily hidden behind a wide range of more visible troubles. It can take its source in early growth contact processes with the environment, or in trauma.

One can also blame the lack of good enough context, which is part of the problem especially in early steps of growth. The inner safety is tightly linked to the ability to rely on an outer security and they both contribute to each other and all of one's dimensions (sensorial, those of motricity, cognitive, affective, emotional, relational, social, imaginative…) are deeply impacted by the quality of them both. All these dimensions will be potential levers for improvement.

Safety / security is provided or sustained by the Gestalt-Therapist with different means and a step by step therapeutic process adjusted to the specificity of the client. Some people need to be tightly contained, others need space. Some people have to feel the pressure of time; others need time freedom or flexibility.

Increasing safety/security gives more choice, allows taking more benefits of experiences and leading to a more fully assumed responsibility.

In this workshop, through theoretical presentations, practical guidance, practice and supervision, I:

• will support the mental health professional in considering the question of inner and outer safety / security for themselves and for their clients
• will train them to identify hidden signs of safety / security weaknesses
• will propose to them strategies and tracks for the gestalt therapeutic process to strengthen safety /security

Isabelle Le Peuc’h, Gestalt -Therapist, trainer and supervisor. She is also the director of the french Ecole Parisienne de Gestalt (EPG), which activity was created in 1981 by Serge and Anne Ginger. She is particularly attached to the holistic dimension of Gestalt-Therapy and has therefore completed her training with different body approaches.