Understand Your Mind Change Your Patterns 2027
A Gestalt-Informed Experiential 20 hour CPD Retreat Integrating Yoga Theory and Practice
This unique four day immersive program for both couples and singles will give you new insights and practical research-based relationship skills that can dramatically improve the intimacy and depth of your all relationships and help you resolve conflict in a healthy and productive way.
Full details and booking: https://www.aytt.yoga/understand-your-mind-retreat
What is the Retreat about?
This experiential CPD retreat integrates Gestalt psychotherapy theory with contemplative frameworks drawn from classical yoga philosophy and Samkhyan psychology such as Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The program is designed to deepen practitioners’ understanding of recurring emotional, behavioural, and relational patterns and support clinically relevant self-awareness and therapeutic presence.
Participants will explore the Gestalt cycle of experience alongside concepts including samskaras (conditioning patterns), vrittis (mental fluctuations), and gunas (qualities of mind and behaviour), with emphasis on how these frameworks may support case conceptualisation, relational awareness, and embodied therapeutic practice.
The retreat combines didactic teaching, facilitated experiential inquiry, reflective discussion, mindfulness practices, breathwork, trauma- informed movement-based awareness practices such as yoga, and clinical integration sessions. Learning is grounded in both self-reflective process and application to psychotherapy and counselling practice.
This program is educational in nature and is not intended to provide personal psychotherapy, diagnosis, or treatment.
This program supports mental health professionals to develop:
Enhanced self-awareness and reflective capacity
A greater understanding of pattern formation and relational dynamics
Embodied approaches to therapeutic presence
Somatic and mindfulness-informed clinical skills
Integration of experiential awareness into therapeutic process
The retreat is intended to deepen the practitioners capacity for attuned, relational, and ethically grounded psychotherapy practice
Not by forcing change, but by developing awareness and choice.
The content is taught in a clear, practical and experiential way. You’re not expected to share beyond what feels comfortable and you’re always welcome to participate in your own way. The aim is not to overwhelm you with information, but to give you something you can actually use both personally and professionally.
“This retreat is designed for mental health professionals, therapists, counsellors, psychologists and social workers”
Meet your
hosts
Evelyn Bowes is a PACFA-registered psychotherapist and accredited PACFA supervisor with professional experience in psychotherapy, experiential process work, and contemplative practices. She is also a qualified yoga teacher with training in yoga philosophy, meditation, pranayama, and embodied awareness practices.
Evelyn integrates psychotherapeutic and contemplative frameworks within ethically grounded professional education contexts.
Darci is the founder of Australia Yoga Teacher Training, a well known and established yoga school that traings and mentors yoga teachers in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Northern Rivers and online. Darci is also currently in her third year of a Masters degree in Gestalt therapy: a relational, present-focused approach to psychotherapy that explores how patterns form through past experience and continue to shape behaviour, perception, and responses in the present.
What brought Evie and Darci together was a shared approach: using yoga not just as a physical practice, but as a way to understand patterns, behaviour, and the way we relate to ourselves and others.
What's included
Private ensuite room
Nourishing vegetarian meals
Guided sessions integrating principles from Gestalt therapy, yoga philosophy and modern psychotherapy
Practical exploration of patterns, habits, and behaviour
Meditation, Breathwork, and Mindfulness
Yoga sessions (both dynamic and restful, suitable for all levels)
Periods of silence to support clarity and nervous system regulation
Time for rest, nature walks, swim in the stunning magnesium pool
Healing Spa Circuit or massage (extra cost)
Support from experienced, trauma informed, neurodiverse-affirming facilitators throughout the retreat
A structured and safe environment to explore at your own pace
“Experience was literally life changing”
“This retreat provided everything promised and so much more. Experience was literally life changing. Gained self awareness and joy. We came away grounded, centered and experienced moments of enlightenment. Friends were made, moments and memories were created that will never be forgotten and will enrich our lives forever.”
Suddenly life is Different!
“I have just attended one of the best retreats. I have come away feeling energised and refreshed but what is even more important, with a new enthusiasm towards my work again. It was a true joy to once again be the student and learn from these remarkable women. Thank you.”
Full details and booking: https://www.aytt.yoga/understand-your-mind-retreat