NGV Radio
By John Gillespie & Thomas Ameel
Despite our name, we're not doing anything new at all, as Perls, Hefferline and Goodman already wanted to 'develop a theory and method that will extend the limits and applicability of psychotherapy'.
We invite people and topics that go beyond the gestalt community. We look at what's happening in our world with a gestalt view, hoping to see other stuff than what gestalt already offers and hoping to offer gestalt where others might need it.
A little bit shambolic, but always emergent.
Enjoy!
Thomas and John
NGV RadioJun 17, 2021
NGV Radio S2E9 - Closing Episode
Last episode of this season going into a well deserved summer break.
With Zeek Ekiz, from Georgia, and Kamila Bialy, from Poland, we're reflecting on this new transition from lockdown into 'normality', on opportunities the pandemic unexpectedly offered, on online platforms created to reach out in to the world...
and as a treat, we share our most naughty experiences we can think of. Quite something.
Enjoy !
Thomas & John
NGV Radio S2E8 - Poetry as Connection
This 8th episode of the 2nd Season we feel we fucked it up, as it is really becoming too professional and smooth, we think. Or was it just a wonderful conversation with Rick Dove, flowing in such a way that it felt too good for our amateur radio skills?
Rick is a black, London based poet, who talks beautifully and inspiring about bringing his experience to an audience, managing to impact people with his words about race, or about capitalism, or about what he thinks that could agitate a crowd that needs some agitation :).
As an event organiser, Rick means to connect people and he found that poetry is another powerful tool to forge connection and impact the minds and hearts of people.
You'll hear Rick perform a few of his poems live, and if you want more, you can go to his YouTube channel or his popular Twitter feed. And if you want more, there is more, because he just published his book, Tales from the Other Box, in August 2020.
Enjoy !
Thomas and John
NGV Radio S2E7 - Polarization on both sides of the Globe
In this week's broadcast, we meet with Lena Grigoreva and Elena Lasaja, two prominent gestalt therapists from Belarus, where chaos and divide have dominated communal life since August 9th 2020 and has polarized not only the political debate, but also everyday life, families, friendships, and personal experiences.
We will be exploring with them how they deal with that polarisation on different levels, how to support and lack support, and what they have learned from these recent experiences?
What can we bring from gestalt theory and practice to aid our understanding and provide support to those affected? How is the situation in Belarus relevant - and related - to events happening throughout the world?
We also bring in another experience of polarization to this chat, by listening to a poem from Ron Jesiolowski, an American painter who wrote and painted about the US polarization revolving the 2020 elections.
Similar or different? That's what we're curious about.
Enjoy,
Thomas and John
NGV Radio S2E6 - Gestalt Climbing in Greece
Tonight we have a special show, dedicated to the first in two NGV retreats that will be organised after the summer break, early and mid fall 2021.
This first retreat will take place in the frist week of September, on the beautiful, mountainous island of Crete and wil envolve Gestalt (no shit) and climbing !
But don't be alarmed.. it's not all about getting to the top.
We'll be chatting with Kaliopi Koutousi, our Greec colleague, local contact and thriving force behind the idea of this retreat. She’ll talk about why Gestalt and climbing are so close and how the experience of the mountain and nature invite us to be embodied beings.
John is trying to be present with us after a hell of a week, and Thomas is drinking a fluorescent green Greec liquour made from pistachio nuts that has been sitting among his liquor collection since 2015..
how blessed we are that this is only audio..
Get yourself some quality olives, buy that strange unreadable Greec drink in your local liquor store and listen to all Crete has to offer. Imagining to be in a Greec island has never been easier.
Enjoy!
PS: if you became curious about this intriguing retreat, go to the NGV website to get more info
John, Kaliopi and Thomas
NGV Radio S2E5 - HIV History
In our 5th episode of Season 2, we're speaking with Ash Kotak, a gay man of Indian descent, who succesfully campaigned for the creation of a very first national Aids Memorial in London.
The Aids epidemic and how the world dealt with it or didn't deal with it, could learn us a lot in trying to understand how we should tackle this current global pandemic of Covid. And Ash points out so clearly how Aids, since it's emergence in the beginning of the 80's, has had his own global scale, of which many are far more unaware than we are with Covid.
It's proven to be an intense conversation, with Ash taking us on a journey through his own history and the different identities and trauma's he encountered. The meaning he has found on this path, touched and moved us and explains a lot of the commitment and energy Ash puts in this campaign.
If you want to see Ash talking of Sky Tv, go to this link.
And if you feel touched by his story and mission, and understand how important it is to remember what Aids has done, you can support Ash's campaign here.
NGV Radio S2E4 - Guest show with Kamila Bialy on Intergenerational Dynamics
In this 4th episode of Season 2, Kamila Bialy is again our guest host, having a conversation with young gestalt colleagues from both hemispheres, bridging morning, noon and evening in one show.
"In this second episode I would like to continue exploring with my Humans of Gestalt guests who we are as the younger generation of the world wide gestalt community, what our shared experience is, what our needs are, how we can support each other.
In the first episode, with my guests we identified some shared experiences, like a sense of being lost in the world of too many (often apparent) possibilities and amid this - what looks like a chaos - an urge to act in any meaningful way upon the world we live in."
Together with Thomas, Kamila leans on some footage of the first episode of her series, to speak with her guests, Aliya Amarshi (Canada) and Rhys Price-Robertson (Australia), being both gestalt therapists and social scientists of the younger generation, about how the knowledge of this felt generalised sense of confusion as well as strong impulse to act can inform our theory and practice.
Enjoy!
Thomas and Kamila
NGV Radio S2E3 - Polarization and Non-Duality
The 3rd episode of our 2nd season is the first where we don't get out of our conversation for the entire show, apart from the short jingles. This might seem like an unimportant technical detail, but it actually says a lot about the flow and intensity of our conversation with Kristin Verellen. We had planned to cut to recordings brought to us by Ron Jesiolowski, who was so kind to provide us with a painting and a poem of his, but we realised the conversation needed to get all the space. Luckily we're in the process of planning a full show with Ron and his brother in April.
All that to introduce this very first uncut show, where we talk about 'polarisation' with Kristin Verellen, a Belgian gestalt practitioner and systemic constellator. She shares the gripping story of a personal loss in the 2016 terrorist attacks in Brussels and how it lead her to the creation of We Have the Choice, an NGO that organises circle meetings to bridge diversity.
We were both struck and moved by Kristin bringing her heart in and flowing to her powerful activism through the wound that she carries. Supported by some of her poems from a recent book she published, we try to make sense of the polarities by which our thinking and being in the world is so defined.
One of a kind and very metaphorical that this show is in one piece ;).
Enjoy!
Thomas and John.
NGV Radio S2E2 - Guest show with Kamila Bialy on Intergenerational Dynamics
Tonight we're airing our very first NGV Radio guest show, hosted by Kamila Bialy, from Poland!
Kamila, with the support of Thomas, will host two guest shows on the topic of generational dynamics. The second will air on 25th of February.
She got inspired to create this radio series through working on the Humans of Gestalt project:
“Doing Humans of Gestalt interviews I have experienced the expression of generational differences. It started to become clear to me that I am part of this younger generation, with a shared historical life experience as well as a shared symbolic reference.
As a sociologist it was revealed to me that my generation is living in an economically as well as ecologically precarious society and thus project-oriented as well as activism-oriented.
And I could see another generation raised after WW2 in a long period of peace and prosperity - developing theory laid down by the founders.
I understood this different ground determines the way our generation thinks of gestalt and wants to apply gestalt."
In this NGV Radio series, together with guests from the different generations, Kamila will ponder on the question how this knowledge on generational shifts can inform our theory and practice.
Can we meet intergenerationally? How?
The guests of this first of two episodes are representatives of the younger generation, Badr Hajjani from France and Federica Ronchi from Italy. We will discuss specific ways of bringing gestalt outside of a therapy room to community work, schools, activism, everyman, etc..
Why has it become relevant to my guests to get involved in this? Why may this move be essential for gestalt therapy per se nowadays?
Enjoy !
Thomas and Kamila
NGV Radio S2E1 - Maleness
The first show of our second season seems an effort, we have to search for our motivation and reflect on where and how we temporarily lost our excitement and how shame and being male might play a role in that.
After an intro, where we re-unite for the new season, we invite a dear gestalt colleague from Georgia, Zviadi 'Zeek' Ekizashvilli. We talk about being male in our current world and how that proves more difficult lately, despite the obvious priviliges we have. We talk about being male in the gestalt community and Zeek shares how it is to be male in Georgia.
Three white men talking about their maleness.. Could you care less?! :)
Check it out for yourself.
Oh, and how about that quote from early 20th century English writer and poet, D.H. Lawrence, that goes beautifully with this episode.
Enjoy,
Thomas and John
NGV Radio S1E6 - Christmas Special - 'A Covid Christmas Carol'
An exclusive, Christmas Special broadcast!
Tonight we're bringing you the splendour and tradition of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', adapted for the current times and served with a gestalty bite to it.
A very first live NGV radio play, performed for you by a team of actors and actresses from around the globe, all equally committed to this new version of Dickens' classic.
Starring Dan Bloom as the Ghost of Christmas Phenomenology.. and some other people
To be savoured with a glass of full, red wine.
Enjoy!
NGV Radio S1E5 - Christmas episode, with our guest Santa!
Christmas Edition!!
Santa is joining us in tonight's NGV radio episode, to discuss euh... well, what did we discuss? .. we had some real wishes from real children and we hoped to converse with Santa on a deeper level about how and why he serves those cute little children since all these years, but to be honest, it wasn't that easy to have a real conversation with Santa after all. You can listen for yourself.
Luckily we had some footage from Inge Van Droogenbroeck, a Belgian gestalt colleague who worked as a nurse in a care home during the first lockdown and who is working now, during the second lockdown, as a counsellor in a care home, supporting the elders, the staff and the management. Stunning to hear her testimony and the message she wants to share with you.
Enjoy !
Thomas and John
NGV Radio S1E4 - Addressing Race with a Descendant of the Mangrove 9
In our fourth episode we are trying to have a conversation about race, with Nnandi Lecointe, a black UK-based trainee gestalt therapist. Nnandi talks about the legacy of being the daughter of one of the Mangrove 9, as featured in the recently released BBC/Amazon Prime film.
Trying to make sense of our male whiteness and our own racism, proved to be hard and sticky on a radio show. So much we could say about it here and so little that wouldn't be food for projections. So better you have a listen and find out yourself.
Safe to say the three of us continued the process after the show, feeling the burden of this big topic we're trying to bring on this small show.
We were blessed to have some music played to us, a live performance of Bach’s Sarabande in C minor by Chris O’Malley. What a welcome counter balance to the tension when addressing race.
Listen for yourself and enjoy!
Thomas and John.
NGV Radio S1E3 - A Leader Supported by Gestalt
Welcome to our first episode where we're actually hosting for real!
Our guest of the evening is Leonie McCarthy, CEO of Peterborough Council for Voluntary Services and gestalt trainee. She's opening up about her development as a leader, supported and challenged by her gestalt training.
Other stuff you'll hear on this episode is music from Thomas Fairclough, a Scottish gestalt therapist who performs a song about the therapy room!
And we close the evening with the engaging and touching Chicken Diaries by Toni Clarkson.
Enjoy !
Thomas and John
PS: in these first episodes, we're still relative newbies on the tech, so volumes might be too low at times or not equalised, a headphones usually allows for more adjusting at your end
NGV Radio S1E2 - Recovering and Reflecting
After a disastrous 1st episode on 24th of September 2020, where Murphy was on the controls, torpedoing all tech we had set up, making us loose half of our guests and all our nerves, we decided to cut ourselves some slack in the 2nd episode.
You'll hear us, John and Thomas, talk about this experience of trying to bring a radio show to the gestalt world and beyond, and you'll hear the story of how this all started in 2018.. or was it 2019?
Enjoy
Thomas and John
PS: in these first episodes, we're still quite newby on the tech, so volumes might be too low at times or not equalised, a headphones usually allows for more adjusting at your end