Training
Postgraduate Training School accredited by the Italian Minister for the Universities
Professional Master Programs
Continuing Education Programs (ECM Credits)
To help our students develop their creativity and personal resources;
To equip them with diagnostic and psychopathological competences spanning across the range of psychic disorders, from developmental to severe disorders;
To train professionals who are able to deal with contemporary relational disorders;
To support students with scholarships.
Scientific Publications
Gestalt Therapy Book Series (in English)
Italian Journal Quaderni di Gestalt
Italian Book Series (Franco Angeli Publisher)
To ensure the connection between science and life, between research and clinics;
To spread awareness of the validity of creative adjustment as a fundamental principle of mental health;
To create an international teaching-learning community.
Clinic & Research
To promote psychological health Individual, couple and family therapy
Group psychotherapy and other interventions
Online counseling and psychotherapy
To guarantee access to psychotherapy at affordable prices depending on income;
To give our psychotherapists-in-training the opportunity to start their practise under the supervision of senior professionals;
To provide quality therapy at a distance through the online service (in English or Italian);
Our history
The Istituto di Gestalt HCC Human Communication Center Italy is active in the field of Gestalt Therapy training and research, both nationally and internationally.
It was founded in July 1979, as the first school of Gestalt Therapy training in Italy. Since then, the Institute has made a significant contribution to the development of this psychotherapeutic method in Italy and abroad. It has been recognized for its original theoretical development of the principles of Gestalt therapy, especially in hermeneutic terms, i.e. in terms of ongoing dialog with the demands of the society in which we live. Its work is based on the acknowledgment of aesthetic values as the ethics of care relationships, as well as on the acknowledgment that creative adaptation processes are fundamental for mental health. Its model of psychopathology is well known.
Since its early days, the Institute has maintained a constant exchange with the founders of Gestalt Therapy, in particular with Isadore From and Jim Simkin, who were still alive at the time. Meaningful exchanges have also been established with the most distinguished second-generation Gestalt therapists, among whom are Joseph Zinker, Erving Polster, Miriam Polster, Sonia March Nevis, Ed Nevis, Richard Kitzler, Michael Vincent Miller, Ed Lynch and others.
The Institute’s work has always been characterized by the aim to create an international teaching-learning community.
From 1982 to 2016 the Institute has trained around 1000 students, running 40 four-year Training Programs (in Siracusa, Palermo, Milan, Venice, Rome, Naples), and several two-year specialization programs (for therapy with seriously disturbed patients, therapy with couples and families, and trainings for trainers). In 1994, it received an official accreditation by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research.
The Istituto di Gestalt HCC Italy publishes the Italian journal “Quaderni di Gestalt” and the international journal “Studies in Gestalt Therapy. Dialogical Bridges”, both edited by Institute director Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb.
Spagnuolo Lobb is an internationally well-known and appreciated Gestalt therapist. She has been the promoter and curator of a number of publications that have contributed and keep contributing to the development and spread of Gestalt therapy in Italy and abroad.