Associate Trainer

Conducting the master class: "Severely Disordered Patient Clinic"

Psychologist, Gestalt psychotherapist and supervisor, she founded and has been running the Istituto di Gestalt HCC Italy (Syracuse, Palermo, Milan) since 1979.
She has introduced in Italy the work of the most internationally competent Gestalt therapists and has simultaneously contributed to the international diffusion of a relational model of Gestalt therapy and psychopathology.

She considers the phenomenological and aesthetic heart of Gestalt therapy from a field perspective and today her work is focused on "reciprocity".
Following the hermeneutic line that begins with Perls, Hefferline, Goodman (1951), Isadore From’s teaching and continues through the approach of Erving and Miriam Polster to her own teaching/learning experience at the New York Institute of Gestalt Therapy (NYIGT), it integrates recent neurosciences and childhood research (particularly that of Daniel Stern) into a relational method that pays attention to the reciprocity of the intentional movements of psychotherapist and client.

Her work results in international research activity and clinical concepts such as: aesthetic relational knowledge, field, polyphonic development of domains, the now and then, the dance of reciprocity.
She has published seven books, is the author of two books and hundreds of articles and chapters on many aspects of gestalt theory and gestalt clinic. Her book "The Now-for-Next in Psychotherapy. Gestalt Therapy Recounted in Post Modern Society" (2013) is available in 8 languages.

She directs several training programs, such as the "Advanced International Training Programs in Gestalt Therapy Field Approach to Development and Psychopathology, Training for Gestalt Supervisors, and Summer Programs for Psychotherapists".
She was President of the European Association for Gestalt Therapy (EAGT) and is one of its honorary members; she founded and chaired the Italian Association for Gestalt Therapy (SIPG), and she chaired the Italian Federation of Accredited Gestalt Therapy Training Institutes (FISIG) and the Italian Federation of All Methods of Psychotherapy (FIAP).
She is a member of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy (NYIGT), the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR), the Society for Gestalt Theory and Applications (GTA) and the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT). In August 2018, in Toronto, she received the AAGT’s Lifelong Achievement Award.

She is also the main editor of the Gestalt Therapy Book Series (www.gestaltitaly.com) and of the Italian newspaper "Quaderni di Gestalt" since 1985.

To access her work and trainings: https://www.gestaltitaly.com/margherita-spagnuolo-lobb/