“If your are not working on your own self-development, you should not be working on others”
Hi Tony,
Your 3rd point about self-examination and how to do it (in your last comment on “Underpinning OD with Data”) caught my interest: you were talking about the Gestalt Centre’s In-service group that you are a member of and with whom you meet twice a year for a 3-day retreat and who “hold you to account” and help to explore your “vulnerable, stuck and damaged parts of yourself”.
I have wanted to be part of such a group myself for a while and a couple of years ago made an effort to bring together Gestalt OD practitioners from Europe and the US. We met in different formations several times and had Gary Yontef facilitate the group retreats in a place outside Berlin and Munich. But the group did not continue for several reasons. First, they had different motivations to come (some wanted to join just for once, others wanted an ongoing group; some only came to work with Gary), nobody took the lead in organising future retreats in a timely manner so that people could block dates and then it was always a struggle to find enough participants willing and able to pay for it (costs including travel, accommodation and facilitation, can make a 3d programme cost around 1000 €); I had the feeling everyone was waiting for me to organise it, but I did not really have the time and energy and motivation to do so, as I am also going for supervision every month and in addition join the Pacific Gestalt Institutes annual retreats in Santa Barbara to work on my self-development.
But recently I have several times been approached by colleagues and clients who were keen to find an ongoing self-development group. Most of them from Berlin and wider Germany, but also from England (mostly those who had participated in our Core Concepts and In-Practice programmes at the Gestalt Centre). That made me wonder whether I should give this another try: establish a peer group of Gestalt practitioners (OD and/or psychotherapists – all of whom need at least a good understanding of Gestalt) from Germany and England to meet 2-3 times a year;
Entry criteria would be:
- A good understanding of Gestalt;
- A willingness to fully participate in a group of peers and to take responsibility for oneself;
- A willingness and ability to support others
- Shared responsibility for group processes
- A commitment to confidentiality
- Membership is ongoing, i.e. there must be a strong willingness to come to all – at least most retreats (with exceptions to be defined),
- Ability to cover costs of the retreats
- Organisation of retreats is responsibility of all members (rotation of person responsible for organising the event in terms of housing and facilitation)
- Dates to be determined a year in advance
Why England and Germany? Well, apparently I work in both cultures, but I also think it would be enriching to have some culture mix and English is the most common language for Germans; and it would not be more expensive to go from say Munich to London than from Munich to Berlin.
I would like you (and others) to help me think how this could work, as I imagine that your experience would be really helpful.
Any suggestions, comments, ideas???
Gestalt in OD 
HI Christina, your idea of setting up a peer group all sounds good, particularly your Rules of Engagement which are both clear and necessary although my experience is that there should be one co-ordinator who takes responsibility for at least,say, 2 years for setting up venues and making sure communication and finance work.
The hard part is bringing together and keeping together a peer group in which everyone feels they will get enough out of it to assign time, can afford the costs and feel it is worth their while.
What has made the group I am in work was that the core group members were all colleagues on the same training faculty – they worked together, were close friends and the group was a place where they could explore deep personal issues ‘off-line’. It helped enormously that they were also outstanding practitioners – skilful, courageous and compassionate.
I suspect that without that core who were committed to eachother outside the group, the group may not have survived.
I was very pleased to be invited to join – I’ve been a member now for nearly 20 years – because I felt I was being given the chance to work with some of the very best practitioners in England. I still think that’s true!
So my thinking is… the idea is good – do you have people with the quality, skills, resources and commitment to bring together?
Take care in choosing!!