In May 2011 Multidimens (Gestaltinstitute working for 35 years in Belgium and the Netherlands until 2016) was approached by Shambar Thapa with the request to support him in building up a Psychotherapy training Institute in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Cofounder in Kathmandu in 2011 and coordinator until 2014 : Shambar Thapa,
After a brief exploration of this request the management team of MultidiMens, Greet Cassiers (Belgium), Ernst Knijff (Belgium) and Frans Meulmeester (The Netherlands) decided to come to Nepal with three important goals:
- Getting more in touch with the actual situation in Nepal (culture, social economics, mental healthcare etc.)
- Providing a two days introduction workshop on the Gestalt approach for those who are interested in following the possible four year training program
- Exploring the motivation, needs and competencies of the future participants
Together with Shambar and Inge Bracke, a Belgium social worker who lived and worked in Nepal already for many years, we explored the possibilities and conditions of this project and build up the basic structure for the organization and program.
We decide to start an institute to provide a Gestalt training program according to the international standards of the EAGT (European Association for Gestalt Therapy) for a group of psychologists and counsellors who were working in the care of children, refugees and victims of sexual abuse and torture.
The training started in April 2012 with 20 students.
Although some of the first students had to stop or interrupt the training because of various reasons, in March 2017, twelve students finished their 4 year program. Five of them wrote a final work and gave a presentation about their topic such as: Creative adjustment, Anger is my friend, not my enemy!, Learning to deal with emotions and Working with students. These five students graduated as the first Nepalese Gestalt psychotherapists.
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