We’re in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world and individuals, teams and organisations are facing challenges that cannot be solved by technical expertise alone. In fast-moving, ambiguous contexts, people often feel disconnected from themselves, from others, and from their deeper values.
Busyness can crowd out reflection, and leaders especially may find themselves operating in reactive, performative modes. The pace of change, the demands of leadership, and the emotional weight of work and life all require something deeper... the capacity to reflect, relate, and respond with presence.
PresentSense’s Space to Reflect offers oases of structured space for individuals and peers to explore their relationship with self, work, aspirations, challenges and wider systems in a facilitated container with others. Unlike most action learning groups, these spaces draw on the Gestalt principle of ‘here and now’ to offer a transformative space available to what is felt and noticed in the present moment. They are different and they are transformative.
PresentSense Action Learning Groups, Space to Reflect, are small, facilitated groups of individuals or peers (usually 4–8 people) who come together periodically to explore real challenges, share experiences, and reflect on how they’re showing up in work and life.
They are not necessarily a space to receive advice or to solve each other’s problems. Instead, they're about leaning into the deeper rhythms that are present in your world, growing awareness at the edge of your terrain and self-responsibility through reflection, dialogue, and presence.
Joe Melnick, a prominent figure in Gestalt therapy, emphasizes that trust within Gestalt group processes is cultivated not through conformity or avoidance of conflict, but through authentic engagement (willingness to take interpersonal risks, expressing genuine experiences) and presence (being with one another, even amidst discomfort or uncertainty). He goes further to add that trust in Gestalt group settings is not a static attribute but a dynamic process, continually shaped by the participants' commitment to authentic contact and their capacity to remain present with one another's experiences.
Informed by Gestalt Practice
Gestalt coaching and group process emphasise contact, awareness, and presence. These principles shape the structure of PresentSense’s Space to Reflect by encouraging:
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Here-and-now focus: not analysing from a distance, but attending to what emerges in the moment
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The ecology of vulnerability: allowing participants to turn up “as they are,” recognising that showing up fully is an act of development in itself
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Awareness of the field: exploring how individuals shape and are shaped by their environments, including cultural, systemic, and relational dynamics
Participants are encouraged to bring whatever is most alive for them. From personal dilemmas and leadership tensions to enquiries about boundaries, wellbeing, or self-worth. Unlike technical training or didactic coaching, PresentSense’s Space to Reflect cultivates inner development, the kind of slow, grounded learning that helps people thrive in complexity. As one of our facilitators puts it, “they’re not about adding more information. They’re about creating the conditions in which transformation becomes possible”.
PresentSense's Space to Reflect are:
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Boundaried and non-judgemental: creating safety and depth
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Co-created: shaped by and evolving with participants' needs and lived experience
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Reflective and experiential: supporting embodied learning and real-time insight
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Led by a trained facilitator, often with a background in Gestalt or developmental coaching which keeps the sessions safe and transformative
PresentSense's Space to Reflect action learning groups offer a necessary pause. A space to breathe, reflect, and notice what is shaping one’s behaviour, emotions, and decisions. There are several key benefits for individuals and for teams/organisations.
For Individuals, Space to Reflect develops emotional resilience and clarity, enhances relational skills (listening, boundaries, self-expression), encourages self-authorship (stepping into one’s own authority) and provides a supportive container to experiment with new ways of being.
For Teams and Organisations, Space to Reflect facilitated reflective space builds psychological safety and trust which supports leaders in navigating complexity with more grace. They are essential to organisations on the path to fostering cultures of reflection and learning-in-action alongside performance.
Our action learning groups offer a necessary antidote to the rush, disconnection, and uncertainty of contemporary life and leadership. Rooted in relational Gestalt principles, they create powerful containers for awareness, presence, and meaningful insight. PresentSense Space to Reflect are for individuals and organisations committed to reflective, human-centred development in this rapidly expanding and shifting world.
Professional partnership
in service to your development.
PresentSense Coaching is so effective because of how we contract with both our clients and internal coaches. There is no such thing as one size fits all and we are sensitive to the evolving requirements of our clients on an individual basis. Regardless of whether tools form a part of a programme, our professional coaches all have training with accredited coaching bodies such as EMCC, ICF, AC, APECS, AoEC.
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