Gestalt Awareness Techniques.
Gestalt Therapy is a practical way of starting to tackle serious problems, whereas for most people no practical techniques are available, except largely unconscious defence mechanisms such as denial, blotting out, psychosomatic illness and rationalization.
Gestalt type awareness techniques we might say are ways of contacting the actuality, ways of expanding our consciousness and our understanding of how we are really functioning.
Of course we don’t use techniques all the time, ordinary discussion and even interpretation can also play a part in Gestalt Therapy, just not all the time!
Awareness Techniques are used to interrupt the largely automatic neurotic way of functioning. With techniques and some theoretical knowledge you can begin to get to grips with the real problem and the possibility of a creative solution in the present (completion of an emerging gestalt).
This is very different and much more effective than the old talk only sort of psychotherapy or the far worse drug therapy now sadly so prevalent.
Although sometimes what seem to be important breakthroughs in therapy are achieved fairly quickly, it takes time to reorganize the personality and safely tackle the major blocks.
Human character problems are serious and cannot be fixed quickly in total, it is a long difficult process which requires courage, knowledge and perseverance.
These awareness techniques are not used in a mechanistic way, it is not a matter of completing a program, we try to use them in contact with the present actuality as a therapy not a preconceived program!
As they use techniques the patients/clients are actually learning psychotherapy and can use the techniques themselves.
Many counsellors/therapists find that clients don’t want to do any techniques, which is usually because the therapist doesn’t understand what they are doing.
On the other hand some people are resistant to techniques at certain times, which in itself is a chance to assess why they are taking that option, by feedback, mimicry and other ways of bringing the background to that choice into the foreground. Often someone needs more discussion, understanding and explanation before introducing awareness techniques into the situation.
A knowledge of the epoch making discoveries of Wilhelm Reich concerning character structure and bioenergetic armouring is needed to better use Gestalt Therapy effectively, and the best overview and introduction to all of Wilhelm Reich’s discoveries is the book “Man in the Trap” by Dr Elsworth Baker.
Any books by Wilhelm Reich or Alexander Lowen also are well worth reading . A website now has “Man in the Trap’ online for people to read for free also.
Here are some examples of Gestalt type awareness techniques.
1/ Shuttling-which means moving your awareness from one point to another. For example you can shuttle between one time and another, or one part of a fantasy or dream and another, or between the dream and now etcetera. It is a way of reowning projected content and strengthening the now. The techniques can be modified to suit what you need, it is after all a process of experiment.
2/ Empty Chair- by putting someone or something in fantasy into an empty chair we can then relate and talk to that person or object. The person or object can also reply to us. The idea is to reintegrate the various contents and come to a better creative solution in the present.
3/ Appreciate and Resent- everything has two sides to it, as in the Yin-Yang kind of theory where nothing is completely positive or completely negative. By alternately saying I appreciate this and then I resent this, we can (if we allow emotion to be involved anyway) come to a wider and more balanced view of something. This may be one’s parents, one’s marriage, the past, one’s job or beliefs or whatever.
4/ Turn a question into a statement - a question grows out of an unaware background. By turning a question into a statement, any statement we can come up with, we mobilize our own resources rather than depend on others to do all the work. We learn something about the background behind the question and feel more real by turning a question into a statement. Try it.
5/ Following sensations around the body - one of the things Fritz Perls learnt from being in therapy with Wilhelm Reich was the importance of the body in psychotherapy, and whilst Gestalt Therapy is less effective in this area than Wilhelm Reich at least the body is included, unlike in most other schools of psychotherapy. One technique is to concentrate on the body and when sensations arise follow their development around the body to see how they change and develop and whether meaning emerges. For example a pain in the leg could appear which when concentrated on moves to the stomach and then becomes a headache and then becomes an image of wanting to strangle someone or scream or weep. This progression could then be worked on using other techniques until something is understood or resolved or at least is now consciously felt rather than remaining totally unconscious.
6/ On a scale of one to ten - it can be useful to ask where a particular situation lays on a scale of one to ten. For example if someone feels hopeless or anxious it may clarify things to see where they place it on the scale (to clarify it for both client and therapist) One can also draw such a scale on the floor and people move to where it fits on their personal scale, useful to stop too much sitting down in a group session or workshop.
7/ Dreamwork - in Gestalt there is less interpretation and more experiential emphasis and less pre-judgment hopefully. We can work on dreams and daydreams by becoming part of the dream and acting it out (psychodrama) or using other techniques to work on it such as talking to symbols in the dream, maybe using the empty chair technique. The atmosphere, colour or even temperature in the dream can be used, not just the obvious symbols. Dreams relate to the individual, although lists of universal dream symbols are not completely useless either as a help in therapy sometimes. Symbols need to be related to the here and now though and to the client, so lists of meanings are only a rough guide not the answer. Remember the real meaning of a dream can be completely changed by a single seemingly unimportant detail!
So do not be too eager to rush in with an explanation of dreams IN A THERAPY SESSION, it is so easy to miss the message!
8/ Take Responsibility - by saying out loud that we take responsibility for something we become less of a victim and more of an active player. Taking responsibility does not mean taking blame, it means seeing that we are not just a passive recipient of life but actively helping to make our own reality.
9/ Drawing - clients can be asked to draw randomly or draw a particular situation. Either way the truth comes out in the drawing, even though unconsciously very often. The client could identify with and become part of the drawing for example, and talk to it.
Or the client can be asked to describe what they have drawn and we see what they ignore or misinterpret or whatever. The client can be asked what connections the drawing has with their life, the whole idea is that therapy is fluid and one thing leads to another, hopefully towards a creative present solution.
10/ Other bodywork - other techniques in bodywork can include clenching and then releasing various parts of the body, or trying to visualise/feel various parts of the body and seeing where areas of numbness exist which may indicate holes in the personality (blanked out areas of perception). Or one can look into the assymetry of the body such as differences between right and left sides perception and other similar approaches. A creative process is involved of course as to when and how to use what technique, and feel free to adapt or make up new techniques. It is not set in concrete.
11/ Reversals - saying or doing something and then reversing it in some way often works wonders, after all what we do is often a block and the opposite of it is often the real impulse and truth. Just saying something and then trying to say the opposite of it is one way of doing it. Writing as courageously as possible and then outrageously writing the opposite as best you can is often startling in what you realize! You can no doubt think of other ways of using this fundamental reversal technique.
12/ Feedback - during a therapy session we often point out what the person is doing, such as how they are sitting, tone of voice or other sorts of feedback. This may come as a surprise to them as a lot of it was unaware. You can also mimic what the client is doing to demonstrate it.
13/ Guided imagery in fantasy or daydreams - this can be done as if the client is actually now in the dream or fantasy situation, and by following it through we want to see how it develops.
The client can do this in their fantasy, maybe using other techniques too such as empty chair and reversals and turning a question into a statement etcetera. Or they can actually get up and act it out, the whole Gestalt Therapy process is creative and experimental and practically oriented. The dream also becomes more real and the client starts to realise that they are actually producing the dream or fantasy, and can change it and extend it.
14/ Breathing - anxiety is actually interrupted breathing, an urge requiring increased oxygen intake which is blocked for emotional reasons. We can observe how we are breathing, or increase the breathing to see where it takes us, and many other kinds of technique exist. In contrast to Yoga or similar approaches though we realize that behind the blocked shallow interrupted breathing are severe emotional blocks which have to be addressed in depth, and the resultant anxiety has to be handled therapeutically and scientifically.
15/ Guilt is hidden resentment - guilt is not a natural emotion for human beings, notwithstanding that it permeates our whole culture! Find out and express forcefully what you actually resent and the guilt miraculously disappears! This of course is quite a revelation considering the sort of blaming guilt ridden society we live in.
16/ The senses - simple starting experiments on your senses can make a big difference. Hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting and other senses can be experimented with in various ways. These sorts of techniques are explained in the first chapters of the Gestalt Therapy book, and of course in other places too. They help to bring us into the reality of how we really function instead of the artificial layers that have accumulated and been learnt as to how we function.
Of course there are many other Gestalt techniques and you can adapt anything you like really as another technique, after all that is how they arose in the first place. Just use them from a therapeutic point of view not as a sort of mechanistic program. In other words you need
a knowledge of Gestalt Theory too, and preferably a knowledge of the work of Dr Wilhelm Reich into the bargain.
Gestalt Therapy is a practical way of starting to tackle serious problems, whereas for most people no practical techniques are available, except largely unconscious defence mechanisms such as denial, blotting out, psychosomatic illness and rationalization.
Gestalt type awareness techniques we might say are ways of contacting the actuality, ways of expanding our consciousness and our understanding of how we are really functioning.
Of course we don’t use techniques all the time, ordinary discussion and even interpretation can also play a part in Gestalt Therapy, just not all the time!
Awareness Techniques are used to interrupt the largely automatic neurotic way of functioning. With techniques and some theoretical knowledge you can begin to get to grips with the real problem and the possibility of a creative solution in the present (completion of an emerging gestalt).
This is very different and much more effective than the old talk only sort of psychotherapy or the far worse drug therapy now sadly so prevalent.
Although sometimes what seem to be important breakthroughs in therapy are achieved fairly quickly, it takes time to reorganize the personality and safely tackle the major blocks.
Human character problems are serious and cannot be fixed quickly in total, it is a long difficult process which requires courage, knowledge and perseverance.
These awareness techniques are not used in a mechanistic way, it is not a matter of completing a program, we try to use them in contact with the present actuality as a therapy not a preconceived program!
As they use techniques the patients/clients are actually learning psychotherapy and can use the techniques themselves.
Many counsellors/therapists find that clients don’t want to do any techniques, which is usually because the therapist doesn’t understand what they are doing.
On the other hand some people are resistant to techniques at certain times, which in itself is a chance to assess why they are taking that option, by feedback, mimicry and other ways of bringing the background to that choice into the foreground. Often someone needs more discussion, understanding and explanation before introducing awareness techniques into the situation.
A knowledge of the epoch making discoveries of Wilhelm Reich concerning character structure and bioenergetic armouring is needed to better use Gestalt Therapy effectively, and the best overview and introduction to all of Wilhelm Reich’s discoveries is the book “Man in the Trap” by Dr Elsworth Baker.
Any books by Wilhelm Reich or Alexander Lowen also are well worth reading . A website now has “Man in the Trap’ online for people to read for free also.
Here are some examples of Gestalt type awareness techniques.
1/ Shuttling-which means moving your awareness from one point to another. For example you can shuttle between one time and another, or one part of a fantasy or dream and another, or between the dream and now etcetera. It is a way of reowning projected content and strengthening the now. The techniques can be modified to suit what you need, it is after all a process of experiment.
2/ Empty Chair- by putting someone or something in fantasy into an empty chair we can then relate and talk to that person or object. The person or object can also reply to us. The idea is to reintegrate the various contents and come to a better creative solution in the present.
3/ Appreciate and Resent- everything has two sides to it, as in the Yin-Yang kind of theory where nothing is completely positive or completely negative. By alternately saying I appreciate this and then I resent this, we can (if we allow emotion to be involved anyway) come to a wider and more balanced view of something. This may be one’s parents, one’s marriage, the past, one’s job or beliefs or whatever.
4/ Turn a question into a statement - a question grows out of an unaware background. By turning a question into a statement, any statement we can come up with, we mobilize our own resources rather than depend on others to do all the work. We learn something about the background behind the question and feel more real by turning a question into a statement. Try it.
5/ Following sensations around the body - one of the things Fritz Perls learnt from being in therapy with Wilhelm Reich was the importance of the body in psychotherapy, and whilst Gestalt Therapy is less effective in this area than Wilhelm Reich at least the body is included, unlike in most other schools of psychotherapy. One technique is to concentrate on the body and when sensations arise follow their development around the body to see how they change and develop and whether meaning emerges. For example a pain in the leg could appear which when concentrated on moves to the stomach and then becomes a headache and then becomes an image of wanting to strangle someone or scream or weep. This progression could then be worked on using other techniques until something is understood or resolved or at least is now consciously felt rather than remaining totally unconscious.
6/ On a scale of one to ten - it can be useful to ask where a particular situation lays on a scale of one to ten. For example if someone feels hopeless or anxious it may clarify things to see where they place it on the scale (to clarify it for both client and therapist) One can also draw such a scale on the floor and people move to where it fits on their personal scale, useful to stop too much sitting down in a group session or workshop.
7/ Dreamwork - in Gestalt there is less interpretation and more experiential emphasis and less pre-judgment hopefully. We can work on dreams and daydreams by becoming part of the dream and acting it out (psychodrama) or using other techniques to work on it such as talking to symbols in the dream, maybe using the empty chair technique. The atmosphere, colour or even temperature in the dream can be used, not just the obvious symbols. Dreams relate to the individual, although lists of universal dream symbols are not completely useless either as a help in therapy sometimes. Symbols need to be related to the here and now though and to the client, so lists of meanings are only a rough guide not the answer. Remember the real meaning of a dream can be completely changed by a single seemingly unimportant detail!
So do not be too eager to rush in with an explanation of dreams IN A THERAPY SESSION, it is so easy to miss the message!
8/ Take Responsibility - by saying out loud that we take responsibility for something we become less of a victim and more of an active player. Taking responsibility does not mean taking blame, it means seeing that we are not just a passive recipient of life but actively helping to make our own reality.
9/ Drawing - clients can be asked to draw randomly or draw a particular situation. Either way the truth comes out in the drawing, even though unconsciously very often. The client could identify with and become part of the drawing for example, and talk to it.
Or the client can be asked to describe what they have drawn and we see what they ignore or misinterpret or whatever. The client can be asked what connections the drawing has with their life, the whole idea is that therapy is fluid and one thing leads to another, hopefully towards a creative present solution.
10/ Other bodywork - other techniques in bodywork can include clenching and then releasing various parts of the body, or trying to visualise/feel various parts of the body and seeing where areas of numbness exist which may indicate holes in the personality (blanked out areas of perception). Or one can look into the assymetry of the body such as differences between right and left sides perception and other similar approaches. A creative process is involved of course as to when and how to use what technique, and feel free to adapt or make up new techniques. It is not set in concrete.
11/ Reversals - saying or doing something and then reversing it in some way often works wonders, after all what we do is often a block and the opposite of it is often the real impulse and truth. Just saying something and then trying to say the opposite of it is one way of doing it. Writing as courageously as possible and then outrageously writing the opposite as best you can is often startling in what you realize! You can no doubt think of other ways of using this fundamental reversal technique.
12/ Feedback - during a therapy session we often point out what the person is doing, such as how they are sitting, tone of voice or other sorts of feedback. This may come as a surprise to them as a lot of it was unaware. You can also mimic what the client is doing to demonstrate it.
13/ Guided imagery in fantasy or daydreams - this can be done as if the client is actually now in the dream or fantasy situation, and by following it through we want to see how it develops.
The client can do this in their fantasy, maybe using other techniques too such as empty chair and reversals and turning a question into a statement etcetera. Or they can actually get up and act it out, the whole Gestalt Therapy process is creative and experimental and practically oriented. The dream also becomes more real and the client starts to realise that they are actually producing the dream or fantasy, and can change it and extend it.
14/ Breathing - anxiety is actually interrupted breathing, an urge requiring increased oxygen intake which is blocked for emotional reasons. We can observe how we are breathing, or increase the breathing to see where it takes us, and many other kinds of technique exist. In contrast to Yoga or similar approaches though we realize that behind the blocked shallow interrupted breathing are severe emotional blocks which have to be addressed in depth, and the resultant anxiety has to be handled therapeutically and scientifically.
15/ Guilt is hidden resentment - guilt is not a natural emotion for human beings, notwithstanding that it permeates our whole culture! Find out and express forcefully what you actually resent and the guilt miraculously disappears! This of course is quite a revelation considering the sort of blaming guilt ridden society we live in.
16/ The senses - simple starting experiments on your senses can make a big difference. Hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting and other senses can be experimented with in various ways. These sorts of techniques are explained in the first chapters of the Gestalt Therapy book, and of course in other places too. They help to bring us into the reality of how we really function instead of the artificial layers that have accumulated and been learnt as to how we function.
Of course there are many other Gestalt techniques and you can adapt anything you like really as another technique, after all that is how they arose in the first place. Just use them from a therapeutic point of view not as a sort of mechanistic program. In other words you need
a knowledge of Gestalt Theory too, and preferably a knowledge of the work of Dr Wilhelm Reich into the bargain.