Bio
Dan Bloom JD, L CSW (www.danbloomnyc.com) is a psychotherapist and clinical trainer/supervisor with a private practice in New York City and online. He studied with Laura Perls, Isadore From and Richard Kitzler at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, where Dan served as president for four years. He is a fellow of the institute. He is adjunct faculty at the Gestalt Associates of New York, the Gestalt Center of New York, the Center for Somatic Studies, international faculty Insituto Humanista de Psicotherapia Gestalt, Mexico City, Mexico, faculty the Gestalt Training Institute of Malta and guest trainer Istituto di Gestalt HCCC, Syracuse, Italy. Dan also presents workshops at international conferences and gestalt therapy residentials. He leads online seminars in the theory/practice of contemporary gestalt therapy and clinical phenomenology. He is member the European Association for Gestalt Therapy, past president and member Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy and member of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. He is an associate editor of the Gestalt Review, book review editor of Quaderni di Gestalt and a member of the Scientific Board of the Gestalt therapy Book Series published by FrancoAngeli. He co-edited Continuity and Change: Gestalt Therapy Now, and The NYIGT in the 21st Century, The Aesthetic of Otherness. Dan’s writings are widely published and have been translated into more than 7 languages.
Clinical Supervision and Training
Supervision
I offer supervision in person and online.
Online Seminars
“Let’s Take a Fresh Look: Introduction to Phenomenology for Gestalt Therapists and Gestalt Therapy as a Clinical Phenomenology”
This is an introduction to phenomenology for gestalt therapists and to gestalt therapy as a clinical phenomenology.
The seminar is a fresh look at gestalt therapy itself.
This 12-week seminar is in two parts.
Part One is an introduction to phenomenology for gestalt therapists.
It focuses on basic relevant ideas of such phenomenologists as Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, Buber, Levinas – and those influenced by them and who are increasingly applicable to contemporary gestalt therapy. In simple ways, we look at the phenomenal field, epoché (bracketing), intentionality, Dasein, temporality, being-toward-death, the body and lived-body, lifeworld, chiasm, dialogue, and the Other.
Part Two describes gestalt therapy as a clinical phenomenology.
It shows how the concepts in Part One potentially expand gestalt therapy theory and practice. It will introduce or reformulate familiar concepts such as intentionality, the sequence and aesthetic of contacting, the phenomenal field, the gestalt epoché, reductions, aware-consciousness, responsivity to the other, and the contact-boundary.
Concrete application to clinical practice is central.
Each Part of the seminar consists of six sessions that meet every third week.
The seminar is appropriate for experienced gestalt therapists and intermediate to advanced trainees. Part One is appropriate for everyone.
Part One is a prerequisite for Part Two. Yet anyone interested in Part Two only and already sufficiently familiar with phenomenology, as covered in Part One, might be able to take it separately.
The 12-sesson seminar is $720 USD. Each Part is $360 USD. I offer partial scholarships.
New Aspects of Contemporary Gestalt Therapy from a Relational Perspective
This 8-session, 90-minute bi-weekly webinar focuses on the relational perspective in gestalt therapy as it developed from the original 1951 model in Gestalt Therapy, Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, by Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman (PHG).
Selected sections of PHG are read and critically discussed and challenged so that participants get a clear understanding of the 1951 model from a present relational perspective. We see how the core ideas today are different from those in that original model. Gestalt therapy approaches based on the PHG model have been changing to maintain their relevance to changing clinical situations and society.
The original theory is compared and contrasted with various contemporary views of theory/practice represented by different gestalt therapists, whose articles we also read and discuss.
The emphasis in the seminar is on new models of gestalt therapy that arise from the critical examination of the original theory and relating it to our present situation. We draw on such fields as phenomenology to discover innovative ways to approach our work.
Novel concepts that I have developed such as the aesthetic of contacting, the relational function of self, intentionalities, and gestalt therapy as a clinical phenomenology, will be discussed.
How gestalt therapy theory/practice applies to our actual clinical work is an essential part of this webinar.
Members are encouraged to bring clinical examples into the discussion. The seminar is both didactive and interactive.
The seminar is appropriate to intermediate to advanced practitioners.
The seminar is recorded. The recording available to members to download for their own use.
The seminar meets on Monday for 8 bi-weekly sessions. The time will be chosen based on the time zones of the participants. The fee is 650 USD. Partial scholarships are available.
Contact me at dan.bloom@me.com or through the link on this website.
Publications
(Many have been translated and published in different languages)
In Press:
“Neither from the ‘inside’ looking ‘out’ nor from the ‘outside’ looking in,” afterword, Neither Inside Nor Outside, Psychopathology and Atmpospheres, Griffero and Francesetti ed. Cambridge Scholars Pub.
“From the Night Before Being: Contacting the Other,” Gestalt Review
2019
“From sentience to sapience: the awareness-consciousness continuum and the lifeworkd.” Gestalt Review
“Gestalt Therapy and Phenomenology: When Parallel Lines Cross,” in Handbook for Theory, Research and Practice in Gestalt therapy, 2nd edition, ed. Phil Brownell
2018
“Evil the sight that cannot be seen,” in The Aesthetic of Otherness: meeting at the boundary in a desensitized world.
“Response to Donna Orange’s Plenary Address, ‘My Other’s Keeper, Resources for the Ethical Turn in Psychotherapy,’” in The Aesthetic of Otherness: meeting at the boundary in a desensitized world
“Contact Interruptions, with Karen Humphrey, Gestalt Review (22)1, pp 91-106
2017
“Il continuum consapevolessa-cosienze e l’amnbiente come mondo-della-vita, La terapis della Gesalt compie una svolta fenomenologica,” Quaderni di Gestalt
2016
“Gordon Spare that Tree….” Gestalt Review
“The Relational Function of Self— self functioning on the most human plane,” in Self, a polyphony of contemporary gestalt therapists, (ed) Jean-Marie Robine
2015
“Re-Thinking Mania as a Tool to Revise Some Gestalt Concepts: Brainstorming in Emails between Micele Gecele and Dan Bloom,” in Absence is the Bridge Between Us (2015)
2013
“Situated Ethics and the Ethical World of Gestalt Therapy,” in Gestalt Therapy in Clinical Practice, G. Francesetti, Gecele, Roubal,(eds)
“Foreword,” in Healing Perception, Des Kennedy
“Commentary III: ‘Therapeutic Democracy’“ Gestalt Review
2012
“One Good Turn Deserves Another… an essay on The Relational Approaches of Gestalt Therapy.” Gestalt Review
“Sensing Animals/Knowing Persons: a challenge to some basic ideas in gestalt therapy” in Advances in Theory and Practice, Talia Bar-Yoseph Levine, Ed
2010
“Foreword,” Gestalt Therapy, Guidebook for Mental Health Professionals, Philip Brownell, Springer Verlag “In Search of Gestalt Therapy Group Process, (revised)” Studies in Gestalt Therapy: Dialogical Bridges. Vol 3, No 1.
2009
“The Phenomenological Method of Gestalt Therapy: Revisiting Husserl,” Gestalt Review,
Commentary I: “Let’s Go Round Again: Response to Gaffney’s ‘Cycle of Experience Re-Cycled’”, Gestalt Review,
“In Memoriam,” Richard Kitzler,” Gestalt Review,
“Forward,” Eccentric Genius: An Anthology of the Writings of Richard Kitzler, Master Gestalt Therapist, Anne Teachworth
2008
“New Feet Were Asked to Fill Another’s Shoes…, (AAGT Keynote Address),” British Gestalt Journal.
“In Search of Gestalt Therapy Group Process,” in Beyond the Hot Seat Revisted, Bud Feder and Ruth Jon Fred, (Eds).
2007
“Phenomenological Method,” (with Todd Burley) in Handbook for Theory, Research, and Practice in Gestalt Therapy, Phil Brownell, Ed.Cambridge Scholars Publishing
“Preface,” Panic Attacks and Postmodernity, Gianni Francesetti and Michele Gecele, ed., FrancoAngeli*
2006
“The Aesthetics of Commitment (revised),” British Gestalt Journal,
2005
“Laura Perls: the Aesthetic of Commitment,” British Gestalt Journal
“Laura Perls in New York,” The International Gestalt Journal, 28
2004
“The Emergence of Foundational Gestalt Therapy,” International Gestalt Journal,
2003
“Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright,” in Creative License: the Art of Gestalt Therapy, eds, Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb and Nancy Amendt Lyon (Eds.), Springer Verlag
1990
“The Song of the Self: Language and Gestalt Therapy – Words of Fire, Words of Stone,” Gestalt Journal, 1995*
Books
2017
The Aesthetic of Otherness: meeting at the boundary in a desensitized world, (co-editor)
2014
The New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy in the 21st Century, An Anthology of Published Writings Since 2000 edited with Brian O’Neill
April 8, 2014
2011
Continuity and Change: Gestalt Therapy Now, Edited with Phil Brownell