Accredited by EAGT (European Association for Gestalt Therapy), the Georgian National Gestalt Institute (SGI) is the first professional institute in the field of psychotherapy in the Caucasus, integrated into Europe, to receive international recognition at the institutional level – its 2016 graduates, the first in Georgia and the Caucasus, were awarded European EAGT accreditations in the field of psychotherapy ( www.eagt.org ).

The founder and head of the institute is Professor Dimitri Nadirashvili, Doctor of Psychological Sciences, laureate of the Dimitri Uznadze Scientific Prize, EAGT accredited Gestalt therapist. He introduced and disseminated the Gestalt therapy method in Georgia; introduced the teaching of Gestalt therapy at the institutional and university levels; wrote and published the first Georgian-language textbook on Gestalt therapy – “Existential Gestalt Therapy” (2007); the publication of the second textbook was carried out “under the auspices of the Georgian National Gestalt Institute”. It was co-authored by Professors Dimitri Nadirashvili and Tea Gogotishvili. These two people, the leaders of the Georgian National Gestalt Institute, are the first EAGT accredited psychotherapists in Georgia and the Caucasus, who will bring the achievements of the Georgian psychological and Gestalt therapy school to the international professional space.

 

The creation of the Georgian National Gestalt Institute has an extensive history. It is associated with Dimitri Uznadze's "Mood Theory" and the Georgian psychological school he founded.
In 1943, Dimitri Uznadze founded the first scientific-research institute of psychology in the Soviet Union, which was later renamed the D. Uznadze Institute of Psychology. Since the 1990s, Dimitri Nadirashvili has headed the Department of Clinical Psychology at this institute. Together with his team, he has been researching the psychological regularities of social mood in the field of psychotherapy, including Gestalt therapy. Already in the 1990s, he included the theory and methodology of Gestalt therapy in the program of the D. Uznadze Institute of Psychology and from that time on, until the establishment of the Georgian National Gestalt Institute (2011), he taught Gestalt therapy to students of the “Tbilisi Psychological Training Institute”, and later – to the “General, Applied and Clinical Psychology Training Institute”. Graduates of these institutes, accredited by the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, spread the Gestalt approach in various fields of their work – in organizations, schools, medical and other institutions. Thus, Gestalt therapy gradually gained strength in Georgia.

In order to introduce European professional standards in the field of psychotherapy in Georgia, which is on the path of European integration, in 2011 he founded the "Georgian National Gestalt Institute", where he began teaching Gestalt therapy at an international level.
Since its establishment, the institute has been registering groups of people wishing to study psychotherapy and obtain a European certificate every year. The EAGT standard program is implemented, after successful completion of which, graduates receive European accreditation - EAGT certificates and international professional recognition.