Atlas›Domain VI · Brief, integrative, trauma, hypnosis & coaching›Guide 148
Guide VI-148

Gestalt coaching

John Leary-Joyce, Dorothy Siminovitch, Peter Bluckert2014United Kingdom
A 26 · L 36 · M 3829 interventions in the Trinity explorer
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[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: the UK Academy of Executive Coaching / Gestalt UK approach of John Leary-Joyce (The Fertile Void: Gestalt Coaching at Work, 2014) as the main spine. Supplementing it are the Cleveland/Cape Cod Cycle-of-Experience tradition (Zinker 1977; Nevis 1987; Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and Gestalt International Study Center) and Dorothy Siminovitch's Gestalt coaching (figure, level of system, Unit of Work). Leary-Joyce's book itself is not drawn on here. Its content comes from a detailed chapter-by-chapter review and from the AoEC's own programme outline, so the finer detail is marked [uncertain] where it matters. Peter Bluckert's Gestalt Coaching: Distinctive Features (2020) was seen only as a publisher description.

What it is. Gestalt coaching is not a manualised protocol. It is an approach: Gestalt therapy's theory and stance (awareness, contact, the field, phenomenology, the cycle of experience, experiments) applied to non-clinical development work with leaders, individuals and teams. Leary-Joyce frames Part One of his book explicitly as Gestalt used in coaching rather than therapy. He places Gestalt coaching mainly at the developmental and existential levels of coaching, rather than at the skills and performance levels. The AoEC contrasts it with solution-focused, behavioural "performance coaching": it works with beliefs, values and attitudes and how they affect relationships, change and business performance. [source: Tasso review of Leary-Joyce 2014; AoEC Gestalt Foundation info sheet; Bluckert 2020 publisher page]

Core idea of change. Change follows the paradoxical theory of change: change comes from becoming more fully aware of, and owning, who and how one is now, not from trying to be someone else. Leary-Joyce cites Gary Yontef's line that "The only goal in Gestalt is awareness." Awareness of the current figure lets a person complete interrupted cycles of experience (sensation → awareness → mobilisation → action → contact → satisfaction → withdrawal) and make real choices instead of acting from habitual patterns. Siminovitch's coaching texts likewise state that clients are innately capable, and that awareness itself drives change. [source: Tasso review of Leary-Joyce 2014; Library of Professional Coaching (Siminovitch) pages]

For psychotherapists. You already know Gestalt therapy. Using it as coaching changes the contract, the target (development and effectiveness in role, not treatment of disorder), the depth to which you follow material into early history, and your duty to refer. See the boundary subsection in Section 2. [synthesis]

2. Framework

No fixed phases or session count are published. None of the sources gives a standard number of sessions or a fixed sequence of phases [uncertain]. The structuring device the sources share is the Cycle of Experience (COE). It is used at three scales: the whole engagement, the single session, and the moment-to-moment Unit of Work (Siminovitch). [source: Animas; Cleveland Consulting Group COE paper; Siminovitch LPC page]

Cycle of Experience: versions. Each version lists its stages in order.

  • Zinker (1977), individual cycle: sensation → awareness → mobilisation of energy → action → contact → withdrawal/satisfaction. Habitual interruptions point to "unfinished business", and the work is learning to "interrupt the interruptions". [source: Cleveland Consulting Group COE paper]
  • Leary-Joyce (2014), eight stages: sensation → awareness → mobilisation → action → contact → resolution and satisfaction → completion and closure → withdrawal. This is the version followed here. [source: Tasso review]
  • Duignan (British Psychological Society, Special Group in Coaching Psychology), seven stages: sensation, awareness, energising, action, human contact, satisfaction, completion. [source: SGCP page]
  • Nevis (1987), as observable group decision-making behaviours: scan/awareness (generating and sharing data) → energy/action (mobilising interest, surfacing differences) → contact (joining around an objective, agreeing the problem, choosing a course) → resolution/closure (testing understanding, acknowledging accomplishment, beginning plans) → withdrawal (letting it sink in, turning to other tasks). [source: Cleveland COE paper]

Engagement and session map. The Animas coaching school maps a coaching relationship or session onto the COE as follows. [source: Animas]

COE stageWhat happens in coachingMove on when… [synthesis]
SensationSomething is noticed about the issue or the relationshipClient can say what is catching their attention
AwarenessVague sense sharpens into a clear figure through inquiryOne figure has the most energy and the client names it
MobilisationContracting: coach and client agree directionAgreed focus and agreed way of working (including any experiment)
ActionWork on the theme: inquiry, experiment, feedbackSomething new is tried or seen
ContactLearning, decision or new awareness lands; next steps clearClient can name what is new in their own words
SatisfactionClient senses they got what they neededEnergy drops; client signals "enough"
WithdrawalSession or relationship ends; reflectionLearning is consolidated and the ending is acknowledged

Typical format. Individual executive or leadership coaching sessions, and team and group coaching (Gillie's team chapter). Organisations may be involved as sponsors. The AoEC teaches it in experiential group formats where the learning group is treated as a "micro organisation". Session length and frequency are not specified in the sources [uncertain]. Usual coaching practice is a contracted series of sessions, often fortnightly to monthly, with three-way contracting when an organisation pays [synthesis].

Choosing the level of system. Before intervening, decide whether the figure lives at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, group or organisational level. Siminovitch treats choosing the wrong level as a common error that the COE helps prevent. The Cleveland paper adds that a conflict is fully resolved only when every level involved addresses it. [source: Siminovitch LPC page; Cleveland COE paper]

Levels of coaching (Leary-Joyce): skills, performance, developmental, existential. Gestalt coaching works mostly at the last two. [source: Tasso review]

Coaching–psychotherapy boundary

ICF (Hullinger & DiGirolamo, Referring a Client to Therapy, ICF 2018, pilot guidelines) [source: ICF 2018]:

  • Focus. Coaching focuses on vision, success, the present and the future, and aims at performance, learning and development. It serves generally well-functioning people. Therapy addresses psychopathology, emotions and using the past to explain the present, and aims at healing deep-seated issues and trauma.
  • Diagnosis. Coaches do not diagnose or treat. They refer when a need falls outside their qualifications, experience or contract.
  • Analogy. The guide likens the coach to an athletic trainer, who refers to the team doctor when injury is suspected.

EMCC and Association for Coaching. They co-own the Global Code of Ethics for coaches, mentors and supervisors. Version 4 was completed in late 2025, with 11 signatory bodies. Its clauses on competence, referral and confidentiality are not quoted here [uncertain]. Check the current text at globalcodeofethics.org. [source: EMCC news page]

Model authors. Leary-Joyce (via review) holds three positions [source: Tasso review]:

  • Gestalt coaching works at developmental and existential levels.
  • When a coachee's interruption to contact is rooted in early family relationships, the coach may recommend psychotherapy alongside coaching.
  • Of four levels of self-confidence (self-respect, self-belief, self-doubt, self-hatred), self-hatred calls for therapy.

Practical rule for a psychotherapist-coach. Contract explicitly which service you are providing. Do not slide into treatment inside a coaching contract. If clinical need appears, refer (or re-contract formally, with a clear ending of the coaching role, where your jurisdiction and ethics code allow it). Do not offer both roles to the same person at once without explicit, documented agreement. [synthesis]

Concrete signs that a coachee needs referral to clinical care. These come from ICF 2018 unless marked.

  • The issue interferes with daily functioning: self-care, work, home, leisure. This is the ICF's primary indicator.
  • Problems persist for weeks with notable frequency or intensity.
  • Marked mood change: irritability, anger, anxiety, sadness.
  • Declining work performance.
  • Withdrawal from relationships and activities.
  • Changes in weight or appearance, or neglect of hygiene.
  • Sleep disturbance.
  • Lack of progress over a reasonable time, from unresolved past issues, continual emotional processing or self-defeating patterns.
  • Repeatedly returning to a past event, presenting as a victim, or ongoing trauma effects.
  • The coach feels over-responsible, pressured, anxious around the client, or feels they are failing the client. The ICF advises consulting a supervisor.
  • Conditions named by the ICF: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, PTSD, substance misuse, suicidal ideation, thought disorder.
  • Gestalt-specific signs [source: Tasso review of Leary-Joyce]:
    • Self-hatred.
    • Patterns clearly anchored in early family relationships that the client wants to work through.
  • Gestalt-specific signs [synthesis]:
    • Experiments or body-awareness work regularly trigger flashbacks, dissociation, panic or overwhelming grief.
    • The client cannot step back from the emotion to reflect on it within the session.
    • Dependency on the coach is growing.

Any imminent risk of harm to self or others is an emergency, not a referral. See Section 5.

3. Guiding principles

Principles are from Leary-Joyce's five basic principles and related concepts (via Tasso review), Siminovitch (LPC), the AoEC info sheet and the Cleveland COE paper. One-line practical meanings are [synthesis].

  • Awareness is the goal. Help the client see more of what is happening; do not push for change. Trust that clearer awareness produces choice.
  • How, not why. Ask how the client does it (sequence, body, words), not why. "Why" invites rationalising.
  • Here and now. Work with what is happening in the session, including between you, even when the topic is elsewhere.
  • Quality of the relationship. The coaching relationship is a vehicle for change (AoEC). Your contact with the client is part of the intervention.
  • Paradoxical change. Help the client fully inhabit their current position, including the part that resists change, before anything new.
  • Responsibility and choice. Turn "I have to" into "I choose to". Clients own their choices, including choosing not to act.
  • Meaning, purpose, goals (Leary-Joyce's change principles alongside responsibility). Link the figure to what matters to the client, and set goals that serve it.
  • Figure and ground. Find the issue with the most energy now, and notice what sits in the background.
  • Contact and withdrawal. Respect the rhythm. Engagement needs closure and rest; do not keep a session "hot".
  • Unfinished business. Lingering incompleteness pulls energy. Notice repeated themes and help close what can be closed in a coaching frame.
  • Fertile void. Tolerate not-knowing. Pause and wait; something new emerges if you do not fill the space.
  • Polarities. Both poles (e.g. rest and drive) are needed. Explore both rather than eliminating one.
  • Field perspective. Behaviour belongs to the whole situation: team, organisation, culture. Ask what the wider system is contributing.
  • Phenomenological stance. Stay with the client's experience as it is described. Bracket your interpretations or offer them as tentative projections.
  • Use of self. Your sensations, feelings and images are data about the field. Share them owned and tentatively.
  • Resistance is data. Explore the function of resistance; do not overcome it.
  • Experimentation, not rehearsal. Coach and client are co-researchers into "what is", not trainers of new behaviour.
  • Clients are innately capable (Siminovitch). Default to building on existing competence.
  • Choose the level of system. Decide whether you are working with the person, the pair, the team or the organisation, and say so.

[source: Tasso review of Leary-Joyce 2014; AoEC info sheet; Siminovitch LPC page; Cleveland COE paper; Duignan SGCP page]

4. Intervention inventory

The interventions below are those named in the sources. Step-by-step instructions are my operationalisation of the authors' descriptions [synthesis], unless a step is cited. All example language is illustrative and mine. None of it is quoted from Leary-Joyce, Siminovitch, Bluckert or the Nevises.

A. Awareness and inquiry

4.1 Contracting at the start (mobilisation)

  • Purpose. Agree focus, way of working and boundaries. Animas places contracting at the mobilisation stage of the cycle. [source: Animas]
  • Steps:
    1. Clarify who the client is: the individual, or individual plus sponsor (three-way).
    2. Agree confidentiality and its limits: risk of serious harm, as the ICF guide recommends writing into the contract. [source: ICF 2018]
    3. Explain that you work experientially: noticing body, feelings and here-and-now process, and proposing optional experiments the client can decline.
    4. Name the coaching–therapy boundary and what you will do if clinical issues emerge (referral).
    5. Agree the overall goals and, each session, the session focus.
    6. Re-contract when the figure shifts.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "I'll sometimes point out what I notice in how you're talking, not just what you say. Is that OK with you?"
    • "I may suggest small experiments. You can always say no or change them."
  • Watch for. Confluent agreement (the client agrees to everything). Sponsor goals that the client does not own.

4.2 Finding and sharpening the figure

  • Purpose. Locate the issue with the most energy now ("figure") against its background. Siminovitch treats awareness of the figure as the precondition for every other intervention. Figures can be obscured by competing figures or by unaware resistances. [source: Siminovitch LPC pages]
  • Steps:
    1. Listen for where the client's energy rises: pace, voice, gesture, repeated words.
    2. Reflect two or three candidate figures back to the client.
    3. Ask which one is most alive now.
    4. Narrow it to a concrete instance (one meeting, one moment).
    5. Check the level of system: is this about me, us, the team, or the organisation?
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "You've mentioned three things. When you said 'the board meeting' your voice got quicker. Which of these has the most pull for you right now?"
  • Watch for. The client jumping between topics, which is deflection, and the coach choosing the figure for them.
  • How you know it's working. The client's energy gathers. They name the figure in their own words and want to work on it.

4.3 Phenomenological "how, not why" inquiry and the four zones of awareness

  • Purpose. Widen the client's awareness across four zones: perceiving (what they see and hear), feeling (physical and emotional), thinking, and behaviour/action. Leary-Joyce distinguishes undirected (open, receptive) from directed (focused) awareness. [source: Tasso review of Leary-Joyce]
  • Steps:
    1. Take one concrete episode.
    2. Slow it down step by step.
    3. For each moment, ask about one zone at a time: what did you notice, what happened in your body, what did you tell yourself, what did you do.
    4. Note which zone the client habitually skips.
    5. Invite undirected noticing ("just notice what's here") before any directed problem-solving.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Let's slow that down. Just before you replied to her, what did you notice in your body?"
    • "How do you go from 'I disagree' to saying nothing? What happens in between?"
  • Watch for. "Why" questions creeping in. Intellectualising. A client who has little access to bodily sensation: go slowly and normalise it.
  • How you know it's working. The client reports new detail, such as "I hadn't noticed I hold my breath."

4.4 Here-and-now focus

  • Purpose. Bring the issue into the room, since what the client does with you often mirrors what they do elsewhere. [source: Tasso review; AoEC info sheet]
  • Steps:
    1. Notice a live process: hedging, apologising, rushing, going flat.
    2. Ask permission to comment.
    3. Describe it neutrally.
    4. Ask what the client notices now.
    5. Link it, if they wish, to the outside situation.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Can I point something out? As you talk about your team you've leaned back and your voice has gone quiet. What's happening for you right now?"
  • Watch for. Shame when attention turns to the process. Keep the tone curious and respectful.

4.5 Staying with the fertile void

  • Purpose. Allow a space of not-knowing in which something new emerges, rather than rushing to a solution. Leary-Joyce links this to Nancy Kline's habit of asking "Is there anything else?". [source: Tasso review]
  • Steps:
    1. When the client says "I don't know" or falls silent, do not rescue.
    2. Slow your own breathing.
    3. Wait.
    4. Invite them to stay with not-knowing and notice what comes.
    5. Ask "anything else?" once or twice.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Let's not rush to an answer. Just stay with 'I don't know' for a moment and see what shows up."
  • Watch for. Anxiety mounting rather than settling. If so, ground and return to concrete material (Section 5).

4.6 Responsibility language: "have to" → "choose to"

  • Purpose. Surface choice and responsibility hidden in obligation language. This is a reframing exercise from Leary-Joyce's principles of change. [source: Tasso review]
  • Steps:
    1. Collect the client's "I have to" statements about the issue.
    2. Invite them to say each aloud as "I choose to …".
    3. Ask what they notice: true, false, a relief, uncomfortable.
    4. Where a statement does not fit, explore what the actual choice is and what the cost of choosing otherwise would be.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Try saying 'I choose to answer emails at midnight' and notice how that lands."
  • Watch for. Real external constraints (contracts, caring duties). Do not imply they are fake; explore the choice within them. [synthesis]

B. The Cycle of Experience and interruptions to contact

4.7 Mapping the Cycle of Experience

  • Purpose. Locate where in the cycle the client typically gets stuck, interrupts or skips a stage. Siminovitch uses the COE to track the moments of awareness and the habitual patterns that support or interfere with goals. [source: Tasso review; Siminovitch LPC page; Cleveland COE paper]
  • Steps:
    1. Explain the cycle simply, using the eight stages (Section 2).
    2. Take a recent recurring situation.
    3. Walk it stage by stage: what did you sense, become aware of, mobilise toward, do, contact, finish, withdraw from?
    4. Mark where energy fades, jumps or loops. Examples: lots of awareness but no mobilisation; action without contact; never reaching satisfaction or withdrawal, i.e. constant busyness.
    5. Ask whether this is a pattern across situations.
    6. Pick one point to experiment with.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "It sounds as if you see the problem early, and get energised, then move straight to fixing it without checking in with the people involved. Does that fit?"
  • Group variant (Nevis 1987). Observe a meeting against the decision cycle. Does the group scan enough data, surface differences, really join around an objective, test understanding and acknowledge accomplishment, and pause before moving on? [source: Cleveland COE paper]
  • Watch for. The model becoming an intellectual exercise. Return to felt experience.

4.8 Working with interruptions to contact

  • Purpose. Identify habitual contact patterns and turn them from automatic restrictions back into choices (Leary-Joyce's "creative adaptation"). [source: Tasso review]
  • The four interruptions Leary-Joyce describes [source: Tasso review]:
    • Introjection: swallowed rules, heard in "should / ought / must".
    • Projection: disowned feelings placed on others, showing as blame or defensiveness.
    • Retroflection: doing to oneself what one would like to do to others, such as self-blame, self-pity or excessive self-sufficiency.
    • Confluence: blurred boundaries and suppressed difference, e.g. groupthink.
  • Other interruptions. Animas also lists desensitisation, deflection and egotism. [source: Animas]
  • Leary-Joyce's four reflective questions for a habitual behaviour (paraphrased) [source: Tasso review]:
    1. What exactly is the behaviour (with examples)?
    2. What are you avoiding?
    3. What would you lose by stopping?
    4. What would you gain?
  • Steps:
    1. Notice the marker in the client's language or behaviour.
    2. Describe it without labelling it pathologically.
    3. Ask the four reflective questions.
    4. Explore when the pattern is useful (creative adaptation) and when it restricts.
    5. Design a small experiment that makes it a choice. Examples:
      • Introject: test "should" against the client's own view.
      • Projection: "own" the attributed feeling as a trial.
      • Retroflection: voice outward what is being held in.
      • Confluence: state one point of difference.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "I've heard 'I should' five times in the last ten minutes. Whose voice is that?"
    • "When you say the team doesn't care, could you try saying 'I don't care' and see if any of it fits?"
  • Watch for. If the pattern clearly comes from early family experience and the client wants to work on its origins, that is the cue Leary-Joyce gives for recommending psychotherapy alongside coaching. [source: Tasso review]

C. Use of self

4.9 Observations, aware projections and data-based feedback

  • Purpose. Offer the client data about how they "show up". Siminovitch names three moves, taken once the figure is clear: observations, aware projections (owned guesses), and feedback grounded in observed data. The COE guides which of these to make. Siminovitch treats use of self as involving "awareness choice points", which she calls the barometer of masterful coaching. [source: Siminovitch LPC pages]
  • Steps:
    1. Separate what you observed (behaviour, words) from what you make of it.
    2. Give the observation first.
    3. If useful, add your projection, owned as yours ("I imagine…", "my guess is…").
    4. Ask the client what fits and what doesn't.
    5. Choose consciously whether to intervene now or hold back. That is the choice point.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "What I saw: you smiled as you described being overruled. What I imagine, and I may be wrong, is that there's some anger under the smile. What do you make of that?"
  • Watch for.
    • Projections presented as facts.
    • The client's compliance, i.e. agreeing to please.
    • Over-frequent feedback that crowds out the client's own awareness.

4.10 Somatic resonance and parallel process

  • Purpose. Use the coach's bodily and emotional responses as information about the client's field, and share it where helpful. [source: Tasso review of Leary-Joyce]
  • Steps:
    1. Scan your own body periodically: tension, energy, sleepiness, urge to rescue.
    2. Ask yourself whether this is yours or arising in the contact. Supervision helps here.
    3. If it seems relevant, disclose it briefly and tentatively.
    4. Check its relevance with the client.
    5. Treat a reaction that mirrors the client's organisation (e.g. the coach also feels pressure to deliver fast) as possible parallel process, and name it.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "I notice I'm feeling rushed, as if we must solve this in the next five minutes. I wonder if that's something of what it's like in your team?"
  • Watch for. Your own unprocessed material. Disclosure that shifts focus onto you.

D. Experiments

4.11 Designing and running an experiment (general method)

  • Purpose. Let the client discover "what is" through action in the session. Coach and coachee are joint researchers, not rehearsing a correct behaviour. [source: Tasso review]
  • Four intensity levels. Leary-Joyce grades experiments from lower to higher intensity [source: Tasso review]:
    1. Dissociated (talking about, or observing from outside).
    2. Imagining personal experience.
    3. Physical enactment.
    4. Direct communication (e.g. to the coach, or to the person concerned).
  • Steps [synthesis based on the above]:
    1. Ground the experiment in the current figure and an observed pattern.
    2. Propose it as an option and get explicit agreement.
    3. Start at a lower intensity and grade upward only with the client's agreement.
    4. Run it, tracking breath, voice, posture and energy.
    5. Pause to ask what they notice.
    6. Adjust: make it smaller, bigger, or turn it around.
    7. Debrief: what did you discover, and what is new?
    8. Link the discovery to choices in the work context.
    9. Optionally agree a real-world "future experiment" (4.18).
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Would you be willing to try something? There's no right way to do it, we're just curious what happens. You can stop at any point."
  • Watch for.
    • Resistance to the experiment. That is data (4.21).
    • Overwhelm. Drop an intensity level (Section 5).
    • Performing for the coach.
  • How you know it's working. Surprise, a shift in energy or posture, new words, a felt "aha".

4.12 Empty-chair dialogue (coaching use)

Named by Leary-Joyce among Gestalt coaching tools. [source: Tasso review]

  • Purpose. Clarify an interpersonal or internal relationship relevant to the work: a difficult colleague, a stakeholder, a part of oneself. Rehearsing for performance is not the aim.
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Agree the purpose.
    2. Place an empty chair and have the client imagine the person or part there.
    3. Invite them to speak directly in the first person and present tense.
    4. Optionally swap chairs and respond as the other.
    5. Alternate a few times, with you tracking the shifts.
    6. Return the client to their own chair.
    7. De-role, by naming who they are and where they are.
    8. Debrief: what did they learn about themselves and about the other?
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Imagine your director is in that chair. Tell her directly what you told me a moment ago."
    • "Now sit in her chair. As her, how do you hear that?"
  • Watch for. Use it in coaching only for current role relationships. Avoid using it to confront abusers or to work through bereavement or trauma within a coaching contract; consider referral instead [synthesis]. Always de-role.

4.13 Top dog / underdog dialogue

  • Purpose. Externalise an internal split, e.g. the demanding "should" voice versus the resisting or excusing voice, so the client can hear both and find a third position. [source: Tasso review]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Identify the two voices from the client's language.
    2. Give each a seat or a position.
    3. Have the client speak as each in turn.
    4. Let the dialogue run until something shifts.
    5. Debrief: what does each side want and need?
    6. Ask what a respectful agreement between them could be.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Let the part that says 'you must be perfect' speak from here. And now the part that keeps putting the report off: what does it say back?"
  • Watch for. One voice collapsing into shame. Slow down, and acknowledge the protective function of both.

4.14 Exaggeration

  • Purpose. Amplify a small gesture, phrase or posture to make its meaning available to awareness. [source: Tasso review]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Notice a repeated micro-behaviour, e.g. a shrug or a qualifier like "just".
    2. Ask permission.
    3. Invite the client to do it bigger, and then bigger again.
    4. Ask what it is saying.
    5. Optionally try its opposite.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Each time you mention the promotion you do a little shrug. Would you make the shrug bigger? What does the shrug want to say?"
  • Watch for. Embarrassment. Keep it light and optional.

4.15 Movement and body work; voice work

  • Purpose. Use the body as a route to emotion and meaning, and use voice (volume, pace, pitch) to explore presence and authority. Leary-Joyce refers to Reich's idea of "body armour". [source: Tasso review; AoEC "Gestalt Embodiment" programme]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Invite attention to posture or breath while the client speaks about the figure.
    2. Suggest a small change: stand, plant the feet, take up more space, slow the breath.
    3. Have them repeat a key statement in the new posture, or at a different volume or pace.
    4. Compare the two.
    5. Debrief, and link to settings such as presenting or meetings.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Say 'I disagree' again, this time standing, feet on the floor, at the volume you'd use in the board room. What's different?"
  • Watch for.
    • Never touch without explicit consent; generally avoid touch in coaching [synthesis].
    • Body focus can trigger trauma responses. Have grounding ready (Section 5).
    • Respect cultural and physical limits.

4.16 Art, objects and sculpting

  • Purpose. Externalise a system or situation spatially. Leary-Joyce gives the example of sculpting team dynamics with objects. [source: Tasso review]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Offer objects (stones, cards, figures) or paper.
    2. Ask the client to place items for themselves and key others, attending to distance, orientation and size.
    3. Have them step back and describe what they see.
    4. Ask what they would like to move, and try the move.
    5. Notice the reaction, then debrief.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Use these objects to show your team as it is now: where you are, who's close, who's facing away."
  • Watch for. Over-interpreting the client's arrangement. Let the client make the meaning.

4.17 Metaphor

  • Purpose. Work inside the client's own image to reach material that analysis does not. [source: Tasso review]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Catch the client's spontaneous metaphor, e.g. "I'm drowning".
    2. Invite them to explore it in the first person and present tense: what is around, what is needed.
    3. Ask what would change in the image.
    4. Translate back to the work situation.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "You said it feels like drowning. In that picture, what's under your feet? What would help you up?"
  • Watch for. Imposing your own metaphor.

4.18 Future-focused experiments

  • Purpose. Carry the in-session discovery into the client's world as a real-life experiment. This is not prescribed homework. [source: Tasso review]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Agree a small, specific, safe-to-try variation on a pattern, e.g. stating one disagreement in Thursday's meeting.
    2. Frame it as research: "notice what happens".
    3. Agree how they will observe themselves.
    4. Review it next session through the COE: what did you sense, what did you do, how did contact go?
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "What's one small thing you could try this week just to see what happens, not to get it right?"
  • Watch for. Experiments becoming tests to pass. A non-attempt is data, not failure (Section 5).

E. Patterns, polarities and unfinished situations

4.19 Working with polarities

  • Purpose. Help the client own both ends of a polarity (e.g. drive and rest, warmth and challenge) instead of over-identifying with one. The Cleveland paper adds that some organisational issues are polarities to be managed, not problems to be solved. [source: Tasso review; Cleveland COE paper]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Name the pole the client lives in and the disowned opposite.
    2. Explore the value and the cost of each.
    3. Optionally use two positions or chairs (as in 4.13).
    4. Look for situations where the opposite pole would serve.
    5. Design a small experiment in using it.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "You're clearly at home being decisive. What would the opposite be, the part that waits and listens, and where might it help you?"
  • Watch for. Framing one pole as "bad".

4.20 Unfinished business and unfinished situations

  • Purpose. Notice how incomplete situations keep drawing energy, e.g. a restructure never acknowledged, or a conflict left hanging. Help close them within the work context. Bluckert lists "unfinished situations and their nature and power" as a distinctive feature. [source: Tasso review; Bluckert publisher page; Cleveland COE paper]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Listen for recurring themes and "loose ends".
    2. Ask what remains incomplete and what completion would require: a conversation, an acknowledgement, a decision, a goodbye.
    3. Explore what is in the client's power.
    4. Plan or rehearse the completing action, e.g. with 4.12.
    5. Acknowledge what cannot be completed.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "You've come back to that reorganisation three sessions running. What still feels unfinished about it?"
  • Watch for. Unfinished business from childhood, bereavement or trauma. That is the referral boundary (Section 2).

4.21 Working with resistance as data

  • Purpose. Treat resistance, whether to an idea, to an experiment or to the coach, as information about the client's patterns and needs. Its function is to be explored; it is not an obstacle to overcome. [source: Tasso review; AoEC info sheet]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Name it neutrally.
    2. Get curious about what it protects.
    3. Give the resisting side a voice ("if the hesitation could speak…").
    4. Respect its wisdom and negotiate.
    5. Never push past it.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "I notice you're hesitant about this. That makes sense to me. What is the hesitation looking after?"
  • Watch for. Resistance that signals the contract is wrong, or that safety is low. Revisit the contract.

F. Relationship and leadership presence

4.22 Strategic vs intimate interaction (Sonia Nevis)

  • Purpose. Help leaders see the style of a conversation along two dimensions, high to low strategy and high to low intimacy, and choose deliberately. Bluckert also lists strategic and intimate interactions as a distinctive feature. [source: Tasso review; Bluckert publisher page]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Describe the two dimensions.
    2. Have the client place one or two key relationships on the matrix.
    3. Explore what is needed and what is missing.
    4. Experiment in session with a more intimate or a more strategic version of a key conversation.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "With your CFO, is this mainly a strategic exchange, or does it need more personal contact to work?"
  • Watch for. This is described via secondary review only, so verify the quadrant definitions in Leary-Joyce or Bluckert before teaching it [uncertain].

4.23 Presence and signature presence

  • Purpose. Develop the client's (and coach's) presence. Leary-Joyce defines presence as confident, authoritative communication, and signature presence as expressing one's authentic self. He lists five Cs: context, communication style, capability and credibility, confidence in self, and being centred in the present. Siminovitch's work also focuses on presence and use of self. [source: Tasso review; Siminovitch LPC pages]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Gather feedback and the client's own view on each C.
    2. Choose one C as the figure.
    3. Use here-and-now and body or voice experiments (4.4, 4.15) to explore it.
    4. Agree a future experiment.
    5. Use Leary-Joyce's four levels of self-confidence to judge depth: self-respect, self-belief, self-doubt, self-hatred. Self-hatred is a cue for referral. [source: Tasso review]
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "When you're most yourself at work, what's happening? What's different from when you're 'performing' leadership?"
  • Watch for. Confusing presence with dominance.

4.24 Closure and withdrawal

  • Purpose. Complete the cycle at session and engagement level. This means acknowledging accomplishments, testing understanding and pausing before moving on (the Nevis closure and withdrawal behaviours), and celebrating and reflecting (Animas). Duignan notes that attention to completion and withdrawal supports healthy role-boundary management. [source: Cleveland COE paper; Animas; SGCP page]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Leave enough time.
    2. Ask what the client is taking away, in their words.
    3. Ask what remains open.
    4. Acknowledge effort and change.
    5. Agree any future experiment.
    6. At the end of the engagement, review the arc, name the ending explicitly, and discuss future support, including referral if relevant.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Before we finish: what feels complete today, and what's still open for you?"
  • Watch for. Sessions ending mid-intensity. Ground the client before they leave (Section 5).

G. Team and group work

4.25 Cape Cod team approach: observe, share, build on strengths

  • Purpose. In team coaching, observe the team in action, share observations, and build on what the team already does well. Leary-Joyce presents this as Sonia March Nevis's Cape Cod Model. The model is taught by the Gestalt International Study Center in its "Applying the Cape Cod Model to Coaching" and "Coaching Teams" programmes. [source: Tasso review; GISC Cape Cod page]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Contract with the team and its sponsor.
    2. Observe a real meeting.
    3. Map it against the Nevis decision cycle (4.7).
    4. Choose one or two observations, starting with competence.
    5. Share them descriptively and invite reactions.
    6. Then raise one interruption, e.g. little time spent on differences.
    7. Invite a small experiment in the meeting itself.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "I noticed the team generated a lot of ideas quickly, which is a real strength. I also noticed that when Sam disagreed, the conversation moved on within seconds. What do you make of that?"
  • Watch for. Scapegoating an individual. Confidentiality across levels of system.

4.26 Seven-step team facilitation map (Gillie)

  • Purpose. Marion Gillie's map for team coaching in Leary-Joyce's book. [source: Tasso review]
  • The seven steps (paraphrased):
    1. Broaden sensory lenses.
    2. "Stand naked" before the data, i.e. without preconceptions.
    3. Attend to the dance as well as the dancers: process, not just individuals.
    4. Use yourself as a lens.
    5. Examine the team–coach dynamic.
    6. Use models to make sense of the data.
    7. Intervene using the data.
  • Steps in use [synthesis]: work through steps 1–5 silently while observing, use the COE or a contact-style lens for step 6, then make one data-based intervention (step 7).
  • Watch for. Jumping straight to step 7.

4.27 Constellation-style mapping (borrowed)

  • Purpose. Leary-Joyce discusses Hellinger-style constellations, where representatives are positioned to map a system. He notes that their hierarchy element is not Gestalt, while their energy-mapping resembles somatic resonance. [source: Tasso review]
  • Use. Treat this as an adjacent method, not a core Gestalt coaching technique. Use it only with specific training. In coaching, prefer object-based mapping (4.16) [synthesis].
  • Watch for. Strong emotional reactions in representatives or the client, and family-system material, which is clinical territory [synthesis].

H. Coach support and referral

4.28 Supervision (seven-eyed model)

  • Purpose. Supervision is part of practice. Leary-Joyce's book (Gillie's chapter) adapts the seven-eyed model. Its seven foci are: the client's world, the coach's interventions, the coach–coachee relationship, the coach, the supervisor's role, the supervisor–coach relationship, and the wider context. [source: Tasso review]
  • Use. Take cases where you notice strong somatic resonance, parallel process, rescuing, or doubt about the coaching–therapy boundary. The ICF guide likewise recommends consulting a supervisor when the coach feels over-responsible or anxious. [source: ICF 2018]

4.29 Making a referral to clinical care

  • Purpose. Move a coachee to appropriate clinical help when the signs in Section 2 appear.
  • Steps [source: ICF 2018, paraphrased]:
    1. Meet privately and unhurried.
    2. Express care calmly.
    3. Be specific about the observed changes.
    4. Ask open questions and listen.
    5. Allow silence.
    6. Ask how they feel about seeing a therapist.
    7. Restate your concern.
    8. Offer specific options from a prepared list of local clinicians.
    9. Keep the door open.
    10. Offer practical help, e.g. booking from your office.
  • Expect reluctance. It may come from stigma, cost, past experiences or cultural beliefs. Normalise therapy, and respect that the decision is the client's.
  • If the client declines and the issue keeps blocking progress, revisit once, then review the coaching agreement. Consider pausing coaching. [source: ICF 2018]
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Over the last month you've told me you're barely sleeping and dreading every morning. That sounds bigger than what coaching is designed for, and I think you deserve proper support with it. Could we talk about seeing someone who specialises in this?"

5. Handling problems

Two points come from the sources: resistance is data (Leary-Joyce; AoEC), and the referral and emergency guidance is the ICF's (ICF 2018). Everything else here is my own synthesis for a psychotherapist practising Gestalt coaching [synthesis].

Stuck client (no movement over several sessions)

  • Locate the stuck point on the cycle (4.7).
    • Endless awareness without mobilisation often means fear or an introject.
    • Repeated action without contact suggests the client is not really meeting others.
    • Never closing suggests something is unfinished.
  • Check the figure and the level of system. You may be working at the individual level on an issue that sits in the team or organisation (Siminovitch's warning about the level of system) [source: Siminovitch LPC page].
  • Ask about being stuck itself: "What's it like being stuck here with me?"
  • Apply the ICF lack-of-progress indicator. If stuckness comes from unresolved past issues, continual emotional processing or self-defeating patterns, consider referral [source: ICF 2018].

Resistance to experiments or to the coach

  • Treat it as data (4.21). Lower the intensity level, e.g. from enactment back to imagining or talking about.
  • Offer choice. Explicitly offer the option not to do it.
  • Check the contract. Has the client actually agreed to experiential work, and is a sponsor's agenda driving it?
  • Rupture over feeling "analysed". Acknowledge it, own your part, and return to the client's own goals.

Emotional overwhelm, panic or dissociation during an experiment

  1. Stop the experiment. Return the client to their own chair and position.
  2. Ground in the present.
    • Feet on the floor.
    • Name objects in the room.
    • Slow breathing at the client's pace.
    • Orient to the date and place.
  3. Move from feeling to a reflective stance. Talk about the experience at the dissociated level.
  4. Do not end a session at high arousal. Check the client is settled and safe to travel.
  5. Name the boundary afterwards. Material that overwhelms in coaching may need clinical support.
  6. Before doing body or chair work, ask briefly about relevant history. Have a clear stop signal.

Non-adherence to future experiments

  • Do not treat a non-attempt as failure. Explore it through the COE: did the client mobilise, what interrupted?
  • Make the experiment smaller, or co-design it again.
  • Frame the experiments as optional research, so they are not tasks to comply with.

Ruptures in the relationship

  • Name the shift in contact in the here and now.
    • Invite the client's experience of you.
    • Own your contribution, e.g. a projection given as fact or an experiment pushed too hard.
    • Repair, then take it to supervision (4.28).
  • Watch for confluence. Too-easy agreement, or a "cosy" coaching relationship, may hide a rupture.

Coaching drifting into therapy (Gestalt-specific risk)

Gestalt methods (chair work, body awareness, unfinished business) can quickly open historical or traumatic material.

  • Keep experiments tied to current role figures.
  • If early-family material, trauma, self-hatred or clinical symptoms emerge:
    • Acknowledge it.
    • Contain it.
    • Re-contract, and refer as in 4.29. Leary-Joyce's cues for referral are early-family roots and self-hatred; the other cues are from the ICF list [source: Tasso review; ICF 2018].
  • Do not treat a coachee in a coaching role without a formal change of contract, where your ethics code and jurisdiction allow one.

Organisational and three-way contracts

  • Agree in advance what is reported to a sponsor, normally themes and attendance, not content.
  • When the figure turns out to be organisational, e.g. a manager's behaviour or the system's demands, name that the level of system has changed. Agree with the client whether and how to raise it.

Coach's own material

  • Expect to be activated. Somatic resonance and use of self make the coach's own patterns more influential.
  • Use supervision, especially when you feel over-responsible, pressured or anxious about a client. The ICF also flags these as signs to consult [source: ICF 2018].

Risk and emergencies

The ICF guidance for imminent danger to self or others is [source: ICF 2018]:

  • Contact local emergency services and stay with the person until help arrives.
  • Ask whether they have access to means of harm, and ask them to give these to someone for safekeeping.
  • Discuss who can be notified, and follow up.
  • Listen without judging or arguing.
  • Use crisis lines for suicidal thoughts.

As a psychotherapist, also apply your own standard, current suicide risk-assessment practice and safety-planning procedures. Record what you did. Follow your confidentiality exceptions as contracted (Section 2) [synthesis].

Uncertain or not found

  • Exact session counts and engagement length.
  • The full list and wording of Bluckert's 30 distinctive features.
  • The EMCC/AC Global Code clause text.
  • Siminovitch's Unit of Work procedure in detail. It is named but not explained in the sources.
  • Quadrant definitions of the Nevis strategic/intimate matrix.

All of these are [uncertain]. Check them against Leary-Joyce (2014), Bluckert (2020) and Siminovitch (2017) before formal teaching.

Sources

Sources

Further reading (not drawn on unless listed above)

  • Leary-Joyce, J. (2014). The Fertile Void: Gestalt Coaching at Work. AoEC Press. Seen via review only.
  • Bluckert, P. (2020). Gestalt Coaching: Distinctive Features. Routledge. Publisher description only.
  • Bluckert, P. (2015). Gestalt Coaching: Right Here, Right Now. Open University Press / McGraw-Hill. Not drawn on.
  • Siminovitch, D. E. (2017). A Gestalt Coaching Primer: The Path Toward Awareness IQ. Gestalt Coaching Works. Not drawn on directly [uncertain]; the Library of Professional Coaching excerpts are used.
  • Hullinger, A. M., & DiGirolamo, J. A. (2018). Referring a Client to Therapy: A Set of Guidelines. International Coaching Federation.
  • Zinker, J. (1977). Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy. Brunner/Mazel. Cited via the Cleveland paper.
  • Nevis, E. C. (1987). Organizational Consulting: A Gestalt Approach. Gardner Press / GIC Press. Cited via the Cleveland paper.
  • Francis, T., & Parlett, M. (eds.) (2016). Contact and Context: New Directions in Gestalt Coaching. Gestalt Press / Routledge. The page attribution was unclear [uncertain]; listing only.
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