Gestalt therapy
In 1969, Oaklander's son Michael was suffering from advanced lupus. The last six months of his life, when he was increasingly ill and frequently hospitalized, was a very difficult time for Oaklander. A friend invited Oaklander to go to a workshop led by Jim Simkin, an early practitioner of Gestalt therapy, at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. About this workshop, Oaklander said, “I was in this group with Jim Simkin for a week, and it totally changed my life...it somehow transformed me.” Eventually, after Michael's death, and with the impression Jim Simkin and Gestalt therapy had made on her, Oaklander decided to enter a training program at the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Los Angeles.