This question comes up often in training, in supervision, and simply in professional conversations.

And most often we arrive at the same conclusion — the personality.

Not because skills are unimportant. But because it is precisely the therapist’s personality that is the filter through which all techniques and professional devices pass.

And if that filter is opaque, clouded over, then even the best skills do not work as they should.

Gestalt is a therapy of contact.

We do not “process requests”, we do not “repair” a person. We enter into a living, genuine meeting with the client. And in that meeting it is not technique that works, but presence.

But being present is not simply being nearby.

It requires knowing yourself well: your defences, triggers, projections, your unique style of contact, your way of being in closeness. Because if I do not know what is happening with me right now — I will not be able to notice what is happening between us.

A therapist who is not acquainted with themselves risks being “in a mask”: answering the “correct” way, saying what “ought” to be said, but not truly being in contact.

And clients sense this. Sometimes intuitively, sometimes even on a bodily level: something does not fit, something is off.

And the relationship does not become a space where one can trust, where one can show oneself.

When a therapist is real, when they have support within themselves — they become someone with whom it is possible to be.

You can be angry, afraid, confused, wanting and not wanting — and all of it will be held.

Such presence is not learned from a textbook. It is grown in one’s own experience, in therapy, in work with the body, in a deep encounter with oneself.

Against this background techniques are like fine instruments in the hands of an experienced master. They are needed. But only when there is someone who knows how to feel them, and not merely apply them.

So before asking yourself “What other skill should I master?”, it is worth looking honestly at a different question:

Do I know who I am as a person? Do I know what I am like in contact?

Because that is the main instrument of gestalt therapy.

🔸 If this question concerns you too — we invite you to the therapy group “What kind of person are you? What kind of psychotherapist are you?”

This is a group for psychotherapists and students of training programmes — for those who want to know themselves more deeply in the role of therapist, to explore their presence and the quality of their contact, and to recognise their strengths and their areas for growth.

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The group will be useful both for beginners and for experienced practitioners who wish to strengthen their own unique therapeutic style.

📅 Start — 11 April 2025

⏳ Duration — 3 months, 10 meetings

👥 Leaders — Olena Dremova and Yuliia Zhelezniakova, experienced gestalt therapists and trainers on the institute’s programmes

💸 Cost — 1400 UAH per three-hour meeting

📌 Details and the application form are available at this link.