Somatic Gestalt & Transgenerational Gestalt Therapy

Somatic Gestalt & Transgenerational Gestalt Therapy

Somatic Gestalt

This is a combination of the Feldenkrais method with Gestalt theory and approach. Feldenkrais noticed that a child's brain develops through the relationship between movement and gravity.

• The brain forms neural connections based on several principles:

• Move slowly.
• Move within a comfortable range.
• Move with attention to the body.
• Movement arises from the balance between gravity and the skeleton.
• Improve the ability to differentiate various parts of the body.

Losing these principles in adulthood can lead to anxiety, panic, hyperventilation, headaches, shoulder stiffness and lower back pain. To alleviate these symptoms, Feldenkrais lessons concentrate on relearning body awareness through movement.

Gestalt therapy focuses on bodily sensations. Contemporary education treats emotions as brain functions to be controlled. Emotions such as sadness, joy and anger exist in brain areas responsible for speech as words. However, their true meaning can only be realized when accompanied by bodily sensations. Developing this awareness by attending to subtle movements and delicate sensations allows a person to return to an authentic self.

Gestalt therapy omits imagination, interpretation and analysis in the intermediate sphere, instead concentrating on the meaning of sensations and emotions experienced in the body:

• What do I feel now?
• What do I notice?
• How can one experience existence?
• How does the body negotiate with the world?

Therapy seeks to find meaning in these questions. Awareness gained through Feldenkrais movement serves as a bridge to Gestalt understanding of how the self contacts the world.

Somatic Gestalt aims to:

• Focus on breathing.
• Focus on muscle tension.
• Focus on sensations and bodily emotions that cannot be expressed in words.
• Stay with uncomfortable sensations or situations that are hard to attend to. Through these experiences the individual is exposed to a new world.

Transgenerational Gestalt Therapy

Family conflicts often appear as problems between parents and children (e.g., mother–daughter, father–son). Sometimes a father's alcoholism seriously affects family relationships. Children may feel anxiety in the face of parental arguments. A mother can be overprotective of her daughter, interfering so much that the girl is unable to become independent.

In Japan the number of children refusing to go to school reaches tens of thousands. Among adults entering the labor market, the number of people developing depression is increasing, leading to quitting jobs or long sick leaves.

These problems were traditionally seen as individual difficulties within the family. However, personal problems in the family are often actually burdens carried by the parents or unresolved issues of previous generations that have not been worked through and influence current family dynamics.

Intergenerational problems can be organized in several steps:

• Express family conflicts as observable phenomena.
• Determine whether a given problem stems from individual difficulties or from family relationships.
• Present family relationships in a broader social context, era, ethnicity and religion.

To work with these issues, one can learn the theory and approach of the Empty Chair technique.

The Empty Chair theory includes:

• Projection
• Externalization (visualization)
• Field theory
• Psychodrama
• Family sculpture
• The shuttle technique

The Empty Chair approach proceeds through the following stages:

• Present relationships by distance.
• Present relationships by direction.
• Visualize parent–child relationships.
• Show parent–child relationships alongside the relationships of the previous generation.
• Present the relationships of each generation by the distance between chairs.
• Present the relationships of each generation by direction.
• Make visible which generation unresolved problems that are being reflected originate from.

Additionally, anxiety, anger, headaches and other symptoms appearing in a family often stem from invisible ‘family promises’ or silent rules. These phenomena can be presented and understood through family field theory.

Lead by:
Masatsugu Momotake (百武 正嗣)
President of Gestalt Network Japan (GNJ) / former chair of the Japan Association for Gestalt Therapy

Born in 1945 in Niigata, Masatsugu earned a bachelor's degree at Chuo University and a master's degree in psychology at California State University (1979). For over forty years he has led Gestalt-based workshops — over 9,000 sessions — combining it with yoga, the Feldenkrais method and work with the family system. He has taught throughout Japan and has been invited to Greece, San Francisco and Sydney. He is fluent in Japanese and English.

He is the author of Awareness Therapy, Family Lineage Therapy and the English-language book Transgenerational Gestalt Therapy: Through the Lens of Family Therapy in Japan.

Masatsugu's mission is to awaken each person's innate ability to self-heal and creativity by developing awareness of the 'here and now' that reconnects feelings, body and mind. Known for his cross-cultural sensitivity and gentle humor, he creates a safe and supportive space where foreigners living in Japan can explore their inner world and experience deep personal transformation.

He has shared the Gestalt approach with over 10,000 people in Japan and abroad — including Greece, the UK, Canada and the United States. Two years ago he also taught Transgenerational Gestalt and somatic approaches in Brazil and Mexico. Through these experiences he understood that when we reach deeper layers of the human spirit, we are fundamentally the same — whether we are Japanese or from other countries.

Love and conflicts in families and the search for life’s meaning are questions with no ultimate answers as long as we live. I look forward to meeting each of you.

Workshop language: The workshop will be conducted in Japanese with consecutive translation into Polish.

Date: 22–24 May 2026 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
Working hours: 09:00 – 19:00
Lunch break: 13:00 – 15:00
Place: Warsaw, ul. Wspólna 56, room AB
Number of participants: up to 35 people

Registration / sign-up:

• Registration / sign-up

Participation terms:

• Investment: 1850 zł
• Upon registration a deposit is required: 1000 zł
• Remaining amount: 850 zł, payable by 30 April 2026

In case of withdrawal the registration fee (deposit) is non-refundable.

The workshop is aimed at:

• Students of Gestalt Psychotherapy schools
• Gestalt psychotherapists in training and after certification
• All psychotherapists interested in Gestalt psychotherapy
• People interested in personal development
• Professionals and students in mental health-related fields (psychologists, psychotherapists, counselors, etc.)

CERTIFICATE: Participants will receive a certificate of attendance – 30 contact hours.