Institute Satori

Alja Adam

Dr.  Alja Adam, Gestalt psychotherapy specialist, poet, lecturer, yogist

Due to my interest in relationships, the joy of working with people and my great curiosity towards exploring my own inner content, I decided to study Gestalt psychotherapy. In 2016, I joined the education at the Institute of Gestalt Therapy (Gita), and in 2020 I completed the fourth year of education. From the very beginning, Gestalt attracted me with its orientation towards the process, the happening “here and now”. Our past, the experiences that have marked us and often hinder us from the fullness of being, are present in the moment in which we live. I experienced the intensive study as an exciting journey on which I deepened my own authenticity and sharpened my awareness in contact with people and the environment. I believe that the personal can also be political” that social change can be achieved through a change in one’s own personal orientation. In our culture, which is marked by a dualistic perspective, we still give too little space to the body. Within my education, I focused especially carefully on working with the body. In this area, which is home to me (I have been involved in physical movement since childhood), I am also further educating myself. I associate the therapeutic process with creativity (creative “flow”), a way of searching for original forms of one’s own movement in relation to others and the world.

Everything is written in the body, the voices of our ancestors, the traumas of the past, the wisdom that can make life easier.

Gestalt psychotherapy:

Gestalt therapy is one of the humanistic psychotherapeutic modalities that emphasizes the human natural ability to realize personality potentials. He understands contact as the first human reality, a borderline experience, and the concept itself is tied to a process and not to the final goal. The therapist observes the client’s way of contacting and the ways in which he or she breaks off contact. In doing so, she follows her own responses to promote the client’s experience. It also uses experiments to support the exploration of the client’s needs and feelings.

Gestalt therapy is experientially oriented, putting in the foreground bodily processes, events “here and now”, in the space “in between”. Only the difference in the relationship, the formation of two “different positions”, allows for change and growth. The essence of the therapeutic process is the sharpening of awareness, opening up the space of the possibility of choice and taking responsibility for one’s own life situations.

 Retroflexed (repressed) emotions often cause energy blockages in the body and communicate with us non-verbally (e.g. in the form of migraines, back pain, illness …). In a therapeutic relationship based on the establishment of mutual trust and a space of safety, the client becomes aware of internal processes to which he or she otherwise has no access (or it is difficult), and in this way he or she gains a more holistic insight into his or her own experience, develops the ability to understand himself and the environment more deeply, which enables him or her to live a fuller, authentic and rich life.

Freedom is the ability to respond in a certain situation. My responsibility was my freedom (B. Y. Levine)

To be somebody, you have to be a body (R. Frank)

On other routes:

 In my life, I move between different knowledge, while trying to stay true to my own creativity. When I talk about creativity, I mean “a wider space”, a “space of improvisation”, awareness, infinite possibilities, exchange and relationships. I started my creative path as a poet, while working as a mentor of dance and fairy tale workshops for children and adults.

I am the author of three collections of poetry (Roundness, 2003, Why I Should Mention Achilles, 2008, We Waited a Long Time for the Rain, 2015), and the fourth will be published in 2020. As a poet, I have been working within the Slovenian and international cultural space for more than 15 years. My poems have been translated into many foreign languages and published in domestic and foreign publications and anthologies, I have received several awards and nominations in international competitions, and in 2016 my third book was nominated for the Veronika Award.

I am the author of three collections of poetry (Roundness, 2003, Why I Should Mention Achilles, 2008, We Waited a Long Time for the Rain, 2015), and the fourth will be published in 2020. As a poet, I have been working within the Slovenian and international cultural space for more than 15 years. My poems have been translated into many foreign languages and published in domestic and foreign publications and anthologies, I have received several awards and nominations in international competitions, and in 2016 my third book was nominated for the Veronika Award.

In 2007, I received my PhD in Women’s Studies and Feminist Literary Theory, and before that I received a BA in Literature and Sociology of Culture. In my doctoral thesis, which was published in a monographic publication entitled: Eurydice and Orpheus – From Mirror to Manifold Love, I put the concept of love in relation to literary texts and philosophy at the forefront of my interest. I was interested in how to create a space for the formation of relationships based on the inclusion of “different positions” and create the conditions for a more tolerant (and less hierarchical) society. Today, I deal with these issues in “practice”, within Gestalt psychotherapy and group dynamics (working with groups).

 In 2014, the poet Maja Vidmar and I designed a program of experiential creative writing workshops in which we intertwine writing, Gestalt therapy and group dynamics, and in this way introduce interesting approaches that have not yet been established in the Slovenian (and foreign) environment. We have been cooperating with the Public Fund for Cultural Activities (JSKD) for several years. In recent years, I have also led a number of independent creative workshops (in Altra, Dornava, in elementary schools, secondary schools in Slovenia, etc.).

Since 2016, together with Dr. Tamara Trobentar, she has been dedicated to the development of comprehensive educational and creative programs for children, adolescents and students within the Satori Institute for Psychotherapy. As an external associate, I lecture at various faculties. I cooperate with the Sunny Hill Association, the Hrvoji Eco Community and advocate for an ecological, nature-friendly way of living.

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Kontakt:
E – address: alja.adam@institutsatori.si
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