^{GESTALT COACHING WORKING WITH RESISTANCE IN COACHING}

^{_{ADVANCED MASTERCLASS FOR COACHES}}

^{ABOUT THE PROGRAM}

In an era where artificial intelligence increasingly supports performance, productivity, and even reflection, one coaching capacity remains profoundly human: the ability to stay fully present with complexity, uncertainty, resistance, and relational dynamics as they emerge in the moment.

Resistance is one of the most misunderstood, yet most essential, phenomena in transformational coaching. Coaches regularly encounter moments where clients hesitate, withdraw, intellectualize, overexplain, become compliant, lose energy, or repeatedly return to the same themes without meaningful movement. Traditional coaching approaches may interpret these responses as a lack of motivation, accountability, or readiness for change. The Gestalt perspective offers a fundamentally different understanding.

From a Gestalt lens, resistance is not something to overcome or eliminate. It is meaningful information emerging at the contact boundary between the person and their environment. Resistance reflects how individuals organize safety, identity, belonging, and self-protection within the realities of their lives and systems. At times, it represents wisdom, integrity, and healthy boundary management. At other times, it reveals outdated adaptive patterns that once supported survival or acceptance but now limit awareness, agency, growth, and authentic choice.

For the coach, the task is therefore not to “break through” resistance, but to recognize its function, remain in relationship with it, and work skillfully with the energy embedded within it. Masterful coaching increasingly depends on the capacity to notice what is emerging beneath the surface: in the body, emotions, relational field, silence, tension, energy, and the subtle data of the moment.

This advanced experiential masterclass invites participants into a deep exploration of resistance as a dynamic and essential element of human change processes. Through Gestalt-informed coaching methodology, participants will develop the awareness, intelligence, relational presence, and embodied capacity required to work skillfully with what clients protect, avoid, defend, or cannot yet fully articulate.

The programme integrates core Gestalt coaching principles, including awareness, presence, contact, experimentation, field sensitivity, somatic awareness, and the paradoxical theory of change. Participants will learn to distinguish between resistance as intelligent self-protection and resistance as a limiting pattern that no longer serves growth or transformation.

The learning environment is highly experiential, reflective, relational, and practice-based. Coaches will explore resistance not only in their clients, but also within themselves, deepening their capacity to remain present, responsive, and grounded in moments of uncertainty, tension, and transformational possibility.

This workshop is designed for coaches who want to move beyond model-based interventions toward a more mature, relational, and transformational coaching practice. It supports the development of mastery-level coaching competencies through deeper awareness, expanded use of self, and the ability to work creatively with the living dynamics emerging within each coaching conversation.

^{KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES}

• Distinguish between resistance as a resource and resistance as an outdated limitation

• Develop the capacity to recognize resistance somatically, relationally, emotionally, and contextually

• Strengthen the ability to work with resistance without overriding, rescuing, fixing, or colluding

• Expand your repertoire of Gestalt-informed interventions for transformational coaching

• Deepen coaching presence and use of self as primary instruments of intervention

• Cultivate awareness, intelligence, curiosity, and psychological safety in coaching conversations

• Increase confidence in navigating complexity, uncertainty, and emotionally charged moments

• Practice making adaptive choices when resistance is active in the coaching process

• Strengthen mastery-level coaching capacities aligned with advanced ICF competencies

^{FOR COACHES SEEKING MASTERY DEVELOPMENT}

This workshop is especially valuable for external and internal coaches who wish to deepen their coaching mastery, refine their coaching presence, and strengthen their ability to work beyond technique into transformational relational practice. The workshop is appropriate for experienced coaches, internal coaches, leaders using coaching skills, coach educators, and coaches pursuing PCC or MCC level development.

^{CERTIFICATION AND CCE}

Participants will receive an ICF certificate, including 16 Coach Continuing Education (CCE) credits, plus group supervision CPD applicable toward International Coaching Federation credential renewal requirements.

^{ABOUT GESTALT COACHING AND DOROTHY SIMINOVITCH}

Championed by Dorothy E. Siminovitch, Gestalt Coaching is a presence-focused approach that identifies critical moments of awareness and choice that emerge in real time and create long-term transformational impact.

Dorothy E. Siminovitch, PhD, MCC, is the founder and president of Gestalt Coaching Works, LLC, an internationally recognized coach, consultant, speaker, educator, and author. She pioneered the application of Gestalt theory and practice in professional coaching and has delivered Gestalt coach training internationally since 1996. She is the founder and co-owner of the Gestalt Coaching Program in Istanbul, co-founder of the Gestalt Center for Coaching, faculty at Hudson Coaching Institute, and recipient of the 2023 ICF Toronto Lifetime Achievement Award in Coaching. Dorothy specializes in coaching for awareness, leadership presence, derailment recovery, high-performance leadership, groups, and teams. Her book A Gestalt Coaching Primer: The Path Toward Awareness Intelligence is widely recognized as a foundational contribution to professional coaching development. Known for her warmth, wisdom, and transformational presence, Dorothy inspires trust, awareness, courage, and meaningful change in individuals and organizations worldwide.

^{DATES AND TIMELINE}

17:00 – 19:00 CET | Ljubljana

Pre-workshop introductory session: Introduction to the foundations and principles of Gestalt coaching, including a live MCC coaching demonstration by Dorothy Siminovitch. Participants will be introduced to awareness-based coaching, relational presence, emerging awareness, and working with the data of the moment through an experiential Gestalt coaching approach.

19 & 20 November 2026

09:00 – 17:30 CET | Ljubljana

Two-day in-person advanced experiential workshop: A deep dive into Gestalt coaching and working with resistance in a masterful, relational, and transformational way. Participants will explore: resistance as creative adjustment, awareness intelligence, relational and somatic dynamics, emerging awareness, contact and interruption patterns, working with resistance in real-time coaching conversations, and mastery-level Gestalt coaching interventions. The learning process includes live demonstrations, experiential exercises, reflective dialogue, supervised practice, and real coaching case work.

19 January 2027

17:00 – 19:00 CET | Online
Group online supervision and integration session: A follow-up reflective and supervision-based session designed to support integration of learning into coaching practice, deepen awareness, and explore real coaching experiences and challenges emerging after the workshop.

^INVESTMENT

Full program certification: 1.200,00 EUR + VAT

Can be paid in 2 instalments

Special Price:

• 10% discount for Povej naGlas Alumni, ICF, and EMCC members
  1.080,00 EUR + VAT
• 5% discount for early birds, till August 28, 2026

The programme fee includes:

• experiential workshop and supervision
• workshop materials and booklet
• venue and facility costs
• travel cost and organization
• coffee, tea, snacks, and refreshment breaks
• CCE ICF certificate with CPD supervision hours
• Signed book by Dorothy E. Siminovitch: A Gestalt Coaching Primer: The Path Toward Awareness Intelligence

APPLY HERE