How Gestalt Group Therapy Can Support Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Within Teams

1.To Challenge Harmful Organisational Culture

Gestalt therapy is founded on field theory. There are different perspectives on field theory. I’m referring to the writings of the Gestalt psychologists such as Kohler in the 1940s as well as Kurt Lewin in the 1950s and the Gestaltist Malcolm Parlett in the 1980s. 

I’m not going to cover them in depth but will refer to a few aspects that are relevant when working with teams to support DEI.

A field can be defined as the total situation. It refers to family, culture, gender, friendship network, nationality, economic conditions, spirituality, geographical location, political atmosphere, occupation, and physical health, amongst others.

We all exist in multiple fields. Our hopes, fears, skills, accumulated experience and beliefs, sense of possibilities for connection and disconnection are all part of our field. 

When working with a team I ask members to talk to each other about the organisational field. 

Questions I ask them to discuss are:

• What is the predominant culture of the organisation towards work ethic? 
• What is the organisational culture towards DEI? 
•  What is the culture towards learning and development? 
• What is the culture with regard to sickness? 
• What are the fields the organisation is situated in? 
• Who are its competitors? 
• Who are the stake holders? 
• Who are the customers? 
• Who are the shareholders?

Raising awareness of the organisational field can lead to change. A team I worked with identified that despite all the policies to be more inclusive, the managers and directors were working extremely long days including evenings and weekends. They implicitly expected the same of their employees.

An organisational culture was being modelled that working crazy hours was a good thing. This was not possible or indeed healthy for all team members to emulate. 

Tracy, a mother of young children was indirectly  penalised for not working in the evenings.  She wasn’t promoted whilst her colleague, a young man with no family commitments was.I facilitated a meeting between the team and members of the management. From a field theory perspective it is important to hear from all aspects of the field. 

The team argued that in the long run, happy team members who feel included make the organisation more profitable. Members who feel marginalised are likely to leave sooner. This leads to increased recruitment costs. 

It also gives the organisation a bad name amongst potential new employees. Especially those from Generation Z who are known to be more choosy about how ethical the companies they work for are.

I invited the managers to share their fears and anxieties about a loss in productivity. The management acknowledged that in their wish to be competitive,  they were marginalising certain employees.

In field theory there are forces and constraints. In this case the forces are the employees and managers who want more equality, diversity and inclusion. The constraints are the fears the manager have of losing their competitive edge. 

I’m not going to say that there was a magical cure to this. However the two groups scheduled monthly meetings to continue the conversation. The team felt more empowered that they had been heard and understood by the management. 

2. To Resolve Conflict Between Team Members

Gestalt group therapy borrows from systems theory such as the writings of Yvonne Agazarian (1997). She writes that there are systems within a system. 

A system might be a pairing or a small group within a group. Whenever there is ‘stuck-ness’ it can be useful to intervene in the system which is the next level up.

Here is an example of ‘stuck-ness’

In the team there is  a middle-aged straight white man, let’s call him Tony, who feels ‘picked on’ because he’s the ‘wrong’ identity. There is also a younger black woman, let’s call her Angela, who feels insulted because Tony keeps mispronouncing her non-European sounding name despite her correcting him frequently. 

The two team members get more and more entrenched as both defend themselves. I find myself sympathising with both. 

Tony feels that despite his best efforts he can do nothing right, however hard he tries. It’s not his intention to cause harm to his colleague, he’s just not used to pronouncing foreign sounding names. 

Angela  feels hurt and disrespected that he keeps calling her the wrong name. She argues that if she was white European she wouldn’t have to go through this. 

I open up the dialogue to the rest of the group. I make it clear that I am not asking for them to take sides or to challenge either of the two. Nor do I want them to comment, criticise or educate either Tony or Angela. 

I’m asking for a ‘weather report’ from the group. This means each member sharing what’s happening in their bodies and how they are feeling as they witness the unfolding conflict.

One member says they feel angry. Another says they feel shaky and jittery in their chest and legs. Another man says he has zoned out. Another feels bored. 

I guess out loud that all this ‘data’ is relevant to what is happening between the pairing. I turn back to them and ask them what it’s like to hear these responses. Tony acknowledges that he also feels shaky and jittery in his chest and legs. 

Angela relates to the feeling of zoning out. She says she does so when she feels unsettled and anxious. I comment that they both share some anxiety and fear. They agree.

Field theory embraces polarities

There is always a relationship between two polarised views.  Fritz Perls, one of the founders of Gestalt Therapy learned about the ‘zero point’ from Friedlander in the 1920s. This is the idea that opposites are in relationship to each other. The zero point is the middle way between two polarised positions. 

Through skilful facilitation of dialogue, we can reach a point of commonality and understanding within our differences. In facilitating dialogue I promote a ‘both/and’ rather than ‘either/or’ perspective. 

Tony and Angela become aware of how they have much in common despite their conflict and polarised stances. They start to talk to each other about their fear and there is a softening between them. Neither is stuck in rigidly defending their position.

Angela is able to hear his fear of being vilified and ousted from the team. Tony is able to hear her fear of being made invisible and helpless by him. 

He empathises more with how it is to experiences this micro-aggression on a daily basis inside and  outside of the office. He’s able to ‘see’ more of her and she ‘sees’ more of him. The anger between them is replaced by greater understanding and connection.

As well as helping to increase fuller understanding of each other, the pairing is a microcosm that represent conflicts between other co-workers or between departments. 

Therefore from a field theory perspective, Tony and Angela resolving their conflict positively impacts the team and  organisation as-a-whole. They are modelling that greater connection can come from working through a conflict between an individual that represents the ‘majority’ and one that represents the ‘minority’.

3.To Make the Team A Safer Place

The late Gestaltist Carl Hodges (1945-2023)  writes that there is no such thing as an isolated field event (2003). In groups/teams this means that if one individual has an experience, feeling or thought then there is at least one other member with the same or a similar experience. 

Holding this in mind as a facilitator I work to bring more support to a part process in the group, also called a sub-group. This leads to greater awareness and a greater and stronger sense of the whole.

For example as the group facilitator of mixed African and white heritage, I might admit that despite my title as DEI consultant, I have a fear of getting it wrong and saying the wrong thing that insults someone. 

Why do I share my vulnerability with the group?

Because I know that if I feel this way then others do too. By voicing my vulnerability I ‘give permission’ to others to own theirs. I ask if anyone feels similar to me. 

Four other individuals  say they do too.

Karen, a straight white woman says she fears not being up to date with the latest terms and abbreviations for different identities. Sergio, a young gay man admits he is not up to date with the various ways to describe relationship diversity. 

I invite the group to talk with each other. They share their shame and fear of hostility and anger from other more ‘knowledgable’ team members. By doing so they feel less alone and more supported. 

Shame lessens as they realise their experience is true for others too. The conversation can then move on and the topic of relationship diversity catches alight. The team discuss this with energy and gain insights and greater shared understanding.

Had I not facilitated this sub-grouping, the individuals would most likely have kept stumm, frozen with the fear of getting ‘caught out’ and the group would not have had the same energy nor would there have been the same shift.

4. To Foster A Curious, Respectful And Dialogical Team Culture 

The phenomenological method is used in Gestalt therapy and group therapy. Phenomenology originated with Husserl (1900) and was later developed by Heidegger (1930s), Merleau-Ponty (1945) and others. 

A key idea is that there is no such thing as ‘objective reality’. There is only your subjective experience and my own. 

Another key idea is that to understand an experience we can only take into account ‘what is’. By this I mean what we can see, feel and touch. There is no point looking for hidden meanings and interpretations. We must focus on the obvious. This is the best way to understand the present situation and find a way to respond to it. 

And the present situation is what holds most potential for creative change. It holds more value than the past or the future. 

What does this mean for DEI within teams?

Working with a  phenomenological attitude helps us respect difference. We recognise there is no absolute truth. We recognise there is no way to ‘know’ someone else’s experience without enquiring as each of our experiences are different. 

Questions we might discuss are:

• How can I hold space for my difference and also make space for yours?
• How is it to be white? How is to be black? Hearing from both sides of poles.
• How can I recognise someone’s different opinion without absolute thinking? 
• How do we each as Individuals marginalise ourselves and others?
• How can I hear a different opinion without automatically assuming the individual occupies the extreme end of the spectrum to me?

When the black subgroup are discussing what it’s like to be a black person in the company and in the UK there are many different experiences. There is no single ‘black’ experience. 

Shona who is a woman of mixed West-Indian and European heritage talks of her fear of not being ‘black enough’ for her black colleagues but at the same time not feeling ‘white enough’ for her white colleagues. 

She code switches to fit in with both sets of colleagues. She adapts a more ‘street’ way of talking with her black colleagues and a more “standard” BBC English with her white colleagues. 

Speaking about this openly in the group allows other team members  to talk of their own experience of not fitting in and of not feeling good enough. 

Beth, a white woman in her 50s talks of her fear of not being young enough. She laughs along when hearing her colleagues discuss shows they watch to give the impression she watches them too so that she doesn’t feel different. 

Team members feel less alone. They feel more supported as they connect with other team members and share vulnerable experiences.

5. To Make Team Roles More Flexible

In Gestalt Therapy theory nothing is fixed and static. Everything is in process including the team. Identities and roles are seen as a process. Whilst of course there are fixed job titles within teams and organisations,  individuals tend to fall into overly rigid and fixed roles.

For example the same people that feel confident talking speak up most at meetings. This means they will be heard but others are not. 

With process theory in mind I invited team members to consider together the roles they are ascribed and play within the team.

Raising awareness of rigid team roles can lead to more equality

As a group they can discuss:

• How helpful it is to always play the same role and what other roles they might like to play?
• How might they support others to play different roles? 

Experimenting is part of Gestalt therapy methodology. This means trying stuff out like new ways of doing and thinking. 

There is no preconceived outcome and no way to get the experiment wrong. The spirit of experimenting is simply to see what happens when we do something different and to learn something from that.

For example:

• Could the team leader allocate equal time for each person in the group to speak at team meetings rather than the usual few dominating?
• What other solutions can the team come up with to open up the roles?

6. To Promote Leadership from All

Leadership is seen as a process in Gestalt therapy theory. Whilst there are official leaders and superiors within teams and organisations, we can all take on the leadership function.  Discussing this within the team and raising awareness can lead to change. 

Ahmed recognised his agency with regard to his manager. He was trying to get his manager and the directors to recruit a more diverse set of employees. At the same time he proposed and initiated a mentoring programme where team members mentor team leaders.

An employee with neurodiversity was paired with a manager representing the majority. Once a month they had a catch-up coffee where the team member could share his experiences and views about a topic of DEI within the organisation with the manager. 

It was made clear that the role of the employee was not to educate the manager but to share their experience and make suggestions.

7. To Raise Awareness of Intersecting Identities

With the idea of identity as a process in mind, I invite the group to discuss their relationship to their identity process and how it is impacted by intersectionality. 

I give the example of how my identity as a mixed heritage African/European woman changes over time. My identity process intersects with my social class, my gender, my age, my relationship and family status. 

I facilitate a whole team conversations where individuals talk about how their identity processes change and intersect with other identity processes. This promotes more nuanced understanding. 

Mark the team leader understands how the experience of Ahmed, a non-binary Muslim employee is different to the experience of Fatima, a cis-gender Muslim female. All three members now feel more connected 

Alvin and Nuna, despite being of different genders and heritages, connect over their experinence of having ADHD and how that gives them disadvantages and advantages in the work place.

These are just a few ways I can support a team as a DEI consultant using Gestalt group therapy interventions. I work with the team wherever it is currently. I don’t have a preconceived idea of how  an intervention or workshop might go. 

Doing all of the above provides the conditions for the team to say and innovate what they need to get a little further along in the process of increasing diversity, equality and inclusion for themselves and their organisation.

References:

Agazarian, Y (1997).  Systems Centred Therapy for Groups. Guildford Publications, New York. 

Hodges, C. (2003). Creative Processes in Gestalt Group Therapy. In Spagnuolo Lobb, M and Amendt-Lyon, N. (Eds). Creative License: The Art of Gestalt Therapy. Springer Wien, New York.