Embodiment: Exploring the somatic underpinnings of reaching and grasping

Dates | Thursday 23 April, 6:30pm-8:30pm

Where | Elie, 27 Royal Parade, Parkville

Facilitators | Anna Evans and Awombda Codd

Cost | VAGP members: $45; VAGP non-members: $55

This is the second of a series of three workshops offered under the EEEP banner. These sessions are designed for emerging and practising therapists interested in emerging somatic experience as a resource for the therapeutic dyad.

Ruella Frank’s six fundamental movements—yield, push, reach, pull, grasp, and release—describe the relational actions that underpin movement through the contact cycle. Developing a precise felt sense of these movements deepens a therapist’s capacity to recognise what is being co-created moment by moment within the therapeutic dyad.

In 2026, we turn our attention to reach and grasp, examining how these movements organise contact, support, and desire in the therapy room.

Reach involves asking for something from the environment or another. How much do we reach before we lose ourselves? What happens when reaching is inhibited and contact becomes limited or cautious?Grasp brings reach into form—how we take in, hold, or attempt to secure what we need. Both movements offer rich information at the contact boundary and reveal essential aspects of attachment, agency, and support.

Participants will explore how reach and grasp show up somatically, relationally, and clinically, and how attending to these movements can guide therapeutic interventions with greater precision and care.

Experiential exercises, discussion, and reflection will develop participants’ abilities to:

• track embodied awareness with greater accuracy
• meet attachment wounds through presence rather than technique
• engage the vitality of the here-and-now
• cultivate emergent curiosity instead of certainty
• develop confidence in slowing down and investigating the significance of micro-moments.

Accessing the creativity of the right brain

Embodied field study

Anna Evans is a psychologist and psychotherapist working in private practice and on the teaching faculty at GTA. Anna has a keen interest in embodiment and her practices have included creative dance, Alexander technique and contact improvisation. Anna taught yoga for ten years and now follows an approach to yoga developed by Vanda Scaravelli. Anna can be contacted at [email protected].

Awombda Codd is a gestalt psychotherapist and creative arts therapist working in private practice and community health, as well as on teaching faculty at GTA. She supports creative exploration and experiential body work in her clinical practice. Awombda has a background in theatre, film, performance art and performed with an improvisation collective for many years. Awombda was a sessional teacher at MIECAT (Melbourne Institute of Experiential Creative Arts Therapy) and values creating spaces in which curiosity can be manifested and explored. Awombda can be contacted at [email protected].

The Gestalt Centre is the heart of Melbourne’s Gestalt community. We offer a four-year psychotherapy training program through Gestalt Therapy Australia, staying true to the experiential roots of Gestalt while embracing cutting-edge developments in contemporary Gestalt thinking and practice worldwide.

We also operate ConnectGround, a community-based counselling and psychotherapy clinic. ConnectGround serves as both a training facility for psychotherapists and a provider of low-cost individual and group therapy for clients. The clinic emphasises the therapeutic relationship between client and therapist as a key support for building awareness and adaptability. Psychotherapy interns and volunteers gain valuable hands-on experience, enhancing their skills and professionalism through client work.

Refunds are available up to 7 days before the event.

In the unlikely event that this workshop is cancelled or postponed, registration fees will be fully refunded. Please note that the organisers are not responsible for any travel, accommodation, or other costs incurred by participants.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher VAGP -Vic Association of Gestalt Practitioners