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Groups & trainings

In a group, people become mirrors for each other. The topic on the table is only the occasion; what really matters is the moment we truly connect, even if only for a little while.

Programmes

My group work draws on two sources: Gestalt's awareness of what is here and now, and Deep Democracy's way of bringing every voice to the table, even the most dissenting ones. With Gestalt, we listen to all the voices inside us and bring them together; with Deep Democracy, we make room for all the voices between us. Groups meet in person in Istanbul or online.

Participants smiling at the end of a Deep Democracy session
At the end of a Deep Democracy session

Shift EQ

A training in transforming conflict and challenging situations

Shift EQ is Deep Democracy's international training in noticing tension and the moments we get caught in vicious circles, and in transforming them. I deliver the programme as a Lewis Deep Democracy practitioner and accredited Shift EQ instructor.

Format
Online or in person (Istanbul)
Duration
Online: 5 × 90-minute live sessions and 5 × 15-minute mini-courses
In person: 2 days
Group size
6–20 people
Certificate
International LDD Shift EQ certificate of attendance

What we work on:

  • The conscious, the unconscious and the line of resistance
  • Check-ins for a psychologically safe space
  • Noticing when things get stuck
  • Debates that bring different perspectives into view
  • Phrases for saying difficult things
  • Understanding interpersonal and group dynamics

Compassionate communication

Inspired by Nonviolent Communication

Why do we clash? Can everyone's needs be met? How do I deal with the violence inside me? In this work, inspired by Nonviolent Communication, we bring together ways of speaking to ourselves and each other with compassion and Gestalt's lens of awareness. I've worked on this with a wide range of groups, from company teams to young people.

My video on this topic (39 min, in Turkish)
From a session with young people at O Ofis in İzmit

Occasional, spontaneous workshops

Now and then, when a topic calls to me or I sense a need around me, I run short, spontaneous workshops.

The Z Report

One example is the Z Report, which I ran at the end of a year: a highly interactive online evening to pause and look back as the year closed, and to set intentions, goals and first steps. That evening, participants ranged in age from 16 to 75; people from different countries, walks of life and professions met on the same screen and learned from one another.

Parenting workshops

For every parent who asks, “Where am I going wrong?”

Parenting with Deep Democracy and Positive Discipline: we talk about making room for our children beyond giving advice, keeping the bond when our values clash, and supporting ourselves along the way. This is within reach for all of us, and it's never too late. I run these workshops with Burak Alptekin, Positive Discipline specialist and trainer.

What would you like a workshop on?

Tell me the topic you have in mind. My next spontaneous workshop might come from you.

Hear about new dates

Become a member to be among the first to hear about new groups and workshops. I email new dates to members.

Become a member

What is Gestalt?

Gestalt is an existential approach to therapy developed in the 1940s by Fritz and Laura Perls. It stands out for being experiential and phenomenological: rather than interpretations, it focuses on what is being lived in the moment. It sees a person as a whole, body, feelings, thoughts and surroundings, and its focus is the “here and now”.

In Gestalt-based coaching, too, we set out with a goal and ask good questions. Then we add another layer: we also look at what is happening in the moment. The place where your voice wavers, the sentence left unfinished, the tension in your shoulders. We don't just talk; we experiment, enact and feel. We believe change begins not when we try to become someone we're not, but when we fully notice who we are.

So we move towards the goal not by silencing a part of ourselves, but by becoming whole. As the different voices inside you make room for one another, the steps you take become more genuine and more lasting.

That's why Gestalt can't be done with AI. An AI can ask good questions. But it can't see the body sitting across from it, hear the silence in between, or feel what two people stir in each other. In Gestalt, that living relationship is the work itself.

VideoAll about awarenessCan I really know whether I'm aware? (in Turkish)

What is Deep Democracy?

The term “Deep Democracy” was coined in the late 1980s by Arnold Mindell, the founder of Process Work. It holds that in a group, every voice carries information, not only the majority's: minority views, suppressed feelings and uncomfortable ideas too.

South African psychologists Myrna and Greg Lewis took this idea into practice in the years when apartheid, the regime of racial segregation that divided people by skin colour until the early 1990s, came to an end. People who had been kept apart for years needed to be able to talk at the same table. So they developed a method that works in groups and organisations: Lewis Deep Democracy.

It doesn't settle for the majority decision; it brings the wisdom of the minority voice into the decision as well. By making the unspoken speakable, it turns tension and conflict into shared learning.

VideoYou can agree without giving inMaking decisions together with Deep Democracy, with Anıl Savaş Kılıç (in Turkish)