International Trainings
- Parvy Palmou
- Nov 15
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Gender Expansive Identities, Expressions and Sexualities: Affirmative Therapy Training
One-Year Professional Training
(Modular Options Available in Online & In person, English & Greek)
Lead Trainer: Parvy Palmou, PhD (they/them) – Gestalt Psychotherapist, International Trainer, and expert in Gender-Affirmative Care, LGBTQI+ and GSRD Therapy.
Guest Speakers: Invited based on the emerging needs of each cohort, ensuring tailored and specialized learning aligned with participant dynamics and the requirements of collaborating institutes. Many guest speakers will be experts by experience from within the LGBTQI+ and neurodiverse communities, whose lived insights and embodied knowledge offer essential perspectives often excluded from traditional trainings due to lack of academic credentials. Their presence reflects the program’s commitment to inclusive, community-informed, and de-pathologizing education.
Program Overview
This immersive training is designed for psychotherapists, psychologists, humanistic and somatic therapists, educators, supervisors, and advanced trainees who are ready to deepen their inclusive practice with LGBTQI+, trans, non-binary, neurodiverse, and gender-expansive clients and communities. Grounded in Gestalt’s here-and-now awareness, relational depth, embodied contact, and co-creation, this training integrates queer and community-based knowledge, experiential process, trauma-informed care, and field sensitivity.
Participants explore not only theory, but their own embodied biases, cultural assumptions, and the inner field of contact when working with communities that are often erased, marginalized, or misunderstood in clinical settings.
This program is the result of more than 17 years of continuous work as Head of the Department of Health for the Greek Transgender Support Association (GTSA), shaped by direct community engagement, lived expertise, and long-term field experience. It has already been presented at the University of the Aegean in Athens, Greece, making it the first complete 1-year Gestalt experiential training program to be integrated into a Greek university setting with trainers who are themselves members of the LGBTQI+ community. The program has also been taught at the Hellenic Focusing Center, further bridging Gestalt and Focusing within an affirming, community-rooted framework.
Intersectional Core Themes
The training offers a comprehensive exploration of:
Gender Identities: Gender identity, gender expression, and relational diversity as fluid and expansive experiences.
Affirmative Approaches: Depathologizing therapeutic approaches, the use of inclusive language, and valuing community perspectives.
Embodied Presence: Embodied awareness practices, therapeutic presence, and somatic intelligence in the here-and-now.
Theoretical Foundations: Queer theory, phenomenology, relational systems, and field dynamics (Gestalt field theory perspective).
Integrated Modalities: Trauma-informed and neuroaffirming modalities.
Cultural Frameworks: Culturally sensitive and intersectional frameworks for understanding clients’ contexts.
Ethical Awareness: Ethical awareness rooted in consent, dignity, and personal agency.
Lived Experiences: Lived experience narratives and community-informed knowledge as vital learning resources.
Special Module: Neurodiversity Affirmative Therapy – delivered by Maria Christina Smyrnaiou (she/they), PgD in Person-Centred & Integrative Counseling and Psychotherapy, a specialist in neuroaffirmative therapy and trauma-informed practice. Member of the Greek Transgender Support Association Arrirmative Therapists.
In-depth Explorations
This is not a checklist or a diagnostic course. It is an embodied journey into:
Gender as a fluid, expansive, relational process
Affirmative, non-pathologising approaches to identity, sexuality, and relational diversity
Creating safe space for social, legal, medical transition
Working with introjections of gender: Internalized transphobia and the rejection of the self as a whole
The felt experience of impostor syndrome in non-binary and trans people, especially those who do not pursue medical transition
Exploring the somatic narratives of those who have felt 'too much', 'not enough', or 'invisible' in mainstream therapy
Bi & ACE Erasure, within and outside of community
The silence, the grief, and the rage around TERF politics and systemic backlash against trans and gender-affirming care
Inclusive feminist perspectives that center trans and gender-diverse voices
Understanding neurodivergent experience as a unique sensory and relational lens
Queering intimacy: working with pleasure, touch, consent, and bodies that do not conform to normative expectations
Erotic embodiment and the intersection of trauma, desire, gender, and power
Polyamory, kink, asexuality, and non-traditional relational structures as pathways of truth, not dysfunction
Community-informed wisdom as valid and central: lived experience is expertise
Structure and Format
Five experiential online modules across one year
Each module includes theoretical framing, community dialogue, embodied practice, creative expression, and field-based exploration
Ongoing reflective practice encouraged through journaling, voice notes, movement, and small group contact
Optional in-person weekend(s) by arrangement, co-created with the group
Modular options available for institutions seeking smaller trainings or seminars
Embodied, Relational, Queer Learning
You will not be asked to perform. You will be invited to:
Engage creatively through Affirmative Gestalt and Focusing exercises
Explore the boundary between presence and absence in the therapeutic field
Share and hold space for shame, joy, grief, celebration, and protest
Witness your own contact boundaries and internalized scripts
Receive input from lived-experience educators and queer community members
Learning Outcomes
Participants will leave with:
Greater personal and embodied awareness of queer, trans, and neurodiverse lived realities
Increased confidence in navigating complex relational dynamics and identities
Theoretical and experiential integration of affirmative, trauma-informed, and Gestalt-rooted clinical work
Capacity to challenge systemic injustice from an embodied and relational stance
Who Is This For?
Psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, phychiatrists
Somatic and humanistic practitioners
Clinical supervisors and trainers
Mental health professionals committed to decolonising and queering their practice
Advanced trainees open to depth, humility, and community-based learning
A clear commitment to inclusive values and a non-discriminatory stance is required.
Completion and Certification
Participants will receive a Certificate of Completion upon fulfilling all training requirements, including full participation in experiential modules, alignment with the ethical framework, and active engagement with the learning process.
The certificate will reference Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and will be issued directly by the lead trainer. It includes the programme outline, number of completed training hours, official signature, and stamp, offering formal documentation of learning for professional and institutional use.
Training Fee Proposal
Gender Expansive Identities and Sexualities, Affirmative Therapy TrainingOne-Year Programme – Modular Options Available
Lead Trainer: Dr. Parvy Palmou (they/them)Format: Five experiential weekend modules (10 hours each, total 50 hours)
Group Size: Up to 12 participants
Delivery: Online or blended format (upon agreement)
Includes: Curriculum design, live teaching, community-informed facilitation, experiential processes, integration work
Total Training Fee: €2800 + VAT(and additional costs if applicable, depending on travel, accommodation for in-person modules, or technical hosting support for online delivery)
Fee Flexibility:Training fees will be adjusted in a fair and accessible way to reflect the economic context of each country or region. The fee structure will take into account local financial realities, ensuring that the programme remains inclusive, sustainable, and accessible to diverse communities across different economic environments.
Optional Tailor-Made Weekend Modules
Individual weekend or daily seminars may be offered independently or adapted for institutional needs.
Contact Information
Parvy Palmou PhD (she they)
Gestalt Therapist, IAAGT
Founder of Aθenian Gestalt, Athens GR
Health Department of Trans and Intersex Families
Greek Transgender Support Association
Tel: +30 6976307815
Email: atheniangestalt@gmail.com
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