I have just returned from a small village in Germany called, Aurach. It is located in the Bavarian region of Germany known to travelers as the “Road of Romance”. Towns and villages dating back to over a thousand years with cobbled roads, empty moats, towered town walls, and restored castles of all sorts attract thousands of tourists each year. This summer marks my seventeenth year of having the best fortune to teach in Europe Gestalt therapy with children as developed by Violet Oaklander. The location of this year’s seminars was at one of these restored country castle estates, “Wahrberg”. The settings are always so beautiful and the teaching is very demanding.

Prior to my taking on this challenging work of training, Violet had already been presenting her work for eleven years at the Institut fur Integrativ Gestalttherapie of Wurzburg (IGW). In 1991 the she was not able to meet all of the demands for her to teach, so she recommended me to IGW to take on the responsibilities for the summer seminar on the Oaklander approach. I have been invited back for these past years, and I feel that Wurzburg has become my adopted native city. Then almost five years later, another institute, Symbolon, invited me to teach their basic and advanced seminars in child psychotherapy. I was favored again when a new institute, Koln Institute fur Kindertherapie (KIKT) began their training programs and made the Oaklander approach an integral part of their curriculum. Over the years of teaching for these institutes, I have traveled throughout Germany from Berlin to Munich, as well as to cities in Greece, Italy, and Switzerland. Each year I look forward to catching up with so many people who have become friends. Some of them I now consider part of my extended family.

I began teaching in Germany the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And so, I have had the opportunity to observe the many social, political, and physical changes in Germany with Unification. I have heard many stories about life during the Cold War and with the problems of bringing the people of the two Germanys together. The unification of Germany reflected many of the major changes throughout the continent including the European Union and the euro. Today therapists from both regions attend the seminars and there is a more relaxed feeling in working together. One of the major developments these past seventeen years has been the slow progress toward laws that protect children from abuse and the reporting of such abuse. I believe that in some small way, the discussion during seminar presentations may have contributed to this change.

The basic concepts and process of the Oaklander Model provide the structure of all my teaching. In addition to the basic workshop, which is similar to the training format used by Violet, I have taught seminars on trauma (children stricken emotionally by war and abuse), therapeutic storytelling (integrating the work of Joyce Mills and Erv Polster), shame and anger, and the relational perspective in Gestalt therapy. I incorporate the ideas and writing of various Gestalt authors, including those written in German. I am always interested to hear about what is being talked and written about in Gestalt therapy with children in Germany and other countries. A few years ago, I provided wonderful ten day training in Lucca in northern Italy. I was using the Italian classic, Pinocchio, as a metaphoric expression of the child’s journey toward integration and wholeness. I was thrilled when the Italian participants wholeheartedly approved my interpretation of their icon! On another occasion, a small villa just outside of Florence was the setting for therapists from Eastern Europe to learn together how to assist children in recovery from regional wars. This was one of the most difficult seminars for me. I was deeply affected to hear the reports of so many children, maimed, orphaned, and deeply traumatized by the assault of human warfare. As a group, the therapists lifted my spirits up, however, as they said many times, how helpful the resources provided through Violet’s work was for them. Teaching in Zurich was a thrill. In this seminar we combined our languages (German, French, Italian, and English) and found the struggle to communicate only enlivened our interactions.

Much has changed with this traveling and teaching in these past seventeen years, especially since 2001. Travel is no longer an enjoyable experience; jet lag seems more difficult to recover from as I get older. However, the training groups are getting larger (80 people this summer in two seminars). As the theory and practice of Gestalt therapy evolves, child clinicians want to know more about how this applies to our work with children. I’ve now published three articles in German psychotherapy books on Gestalt therapy with children. Other articles have been published in Italian and Spanish. Violet’s book, Gestalt Therapy with Children and Adolescents, (German title) is well-read among Gestalt therapists and the Oaklander Model is of great interest to many therapists in Germany. In fact, there is now an active consortium of child therapists within the German Gestalt Association. I am looking forward to returning to Berlin this October to teach two seminars based on the Oaklander approach to Gestalt Therapy with children and adolescents.

It has been my honor and my joy to have been a part of Violet’s work flourishing in Germany. Thank you, Violet, for allowing me this privilege. Danke, Violet, danke.

To everyone else, best wishes for all your teaching! I can only hope that they will be as rewarding as my experiences.

Felicia Carroll
May, 2008