Gestalt technology. Share Gestalt therapy techniques on social networks! Basic principles and provisions of therapy

Gestalt therapy is a method of practical psychology aimed at patients’ awareness and analysis of everything unspoken, suppressed and unfinished in life, with the aim of getting rid of problems and harmonizing the personality.

The Gestalt approach is based on its own theoretical theses, the postulates of psychoanalysis, elements of psychodrama and bioenergetics.

The founder of this direction is the German scientist - Fritz Perls, he used the theory of psychoanalysis for its development, which he constantly supplemented with his own conclusions. The holistic approach (the unity of soul and body, feelings and emotions) in Gestalt therapy appeared thanks to the works of psychologists Wertheimer, Koehler, Kurt Goldstein. The development of bodily sensations was positioned by the researcher Reich, and introduced elements of psychodrama Jacob Moreno.

Having undergone Gestalt therapy, a person begins to see, feel and understand his own personality not as a set of individual character traits, qualities, desires, prohibitions and abilities, but as a whole as a single organism that he can control. During the treatment process, the therapist helps the patient to “extract” “painful” memories, images, thoughts, feelings from the subconscious and “work” on them.

In the end it should be gestalt(internal image of the problem and barriers to expressing emotions). His step-by-step analysis allows people to build harmonious relationships with themselves, loved ones and the world around them so as to receive pleasure and positive emotions.

Changing the usual perception of oneself, one’s behavior, reviving sincerity and the ability to rejoice, rethinking actions and relationships - this is what Gestalt therapy is in simple terms.

In their consultations or group trainings, Gestalt therapists teach patients:

• always rely on your desires and needs, taking into account reality and circumstances;
• do not suppress your feelings and do not accumulate negativity;
• express oneself in communication, creativity, and activity.

The main provisions of the Gestalt approach are:

• developing an attentive attitude and quick response to any of your own emotions;
• enrichment, increase and preservation of internal energy;
• relaxed manifestation of bodily reactions;
• desire for authenticity (building harmonious relationships with one’s body).

The cycle of actions in such therapy

Gestalt therapy is most effective for women(due to their emotionality), for men such long-term attention and careful analysis of feelings may seem like an exaggeration; they are usually guided by the arguments of reason and easily ignore their desires and needs for the sake of achievements and success.

In addition, in society a man who is too emotional is considered weak, so it is not easy for many representatives of the stronger sex to talk about their problems, even when meeting with a psychotherapist.

Basic methods and techniques

The Gestalt approach uses:

• working with feelings;
• exercises to express your state with body movements;
• analysis of dreams and memories;
• working with fictional characters (playing out situations and feelings).

The therapy process is considered effective:

• if it lasts no more than 2 years;
• shows to patients strong traits their personalities;
• promotes a positive perception of oneself in the world.

Stages of Gestalt therapy:

• searching for problems, obvious and “disguised” negativity among clients, weaknesses their personalities;
• analysis and “release” of detected obstacles;
• building trust in one’s own sphere of feelings and learning to freely express emotions (taking into account social norms and rules).

The main role in any Gestalt methods is given to emotions, the movements of the mind are considered secondary, they are taken into account if they do not suppress the sphere of feelings.

Basic 5 emotions in Gestalt therapy

Task Gestalt therapist help the patient see how he “prevents” the satisfaction of his needs, what psychological blocks he puts up, and together find acceptable ways to satisfy them.

Task client- reflection (awareness and expression) of one’s feelings and related actions.
The main strategy of Gestalt therapy is the development of the desire to accept oneself (personality change techniques are practically not used in it).

Therapists of the Gestalt approach use special terms in their work:

1. Interprojection. Substitution real needs people imposed (by society, traditions, significant people).

2. Confluence (lack of boundaries between the external environment and the body). Merging of feelings and actions in order to obtain maximum satisfaction from life.

3. Retroflection. “Freezing” in the subconscious of your needs and desires.

4. Cycle contact. The process of forming an image of an obstacle in the client’s mind, expressing feelings regarding the problem, and destroying the gestalt.

5. Pre-contact. The stage of formation of a gestalt with a predominance of the sensations of its background (based on bodily sensations, an image of the dominant feeling arises).

6. Contacting. Free expression of feelings and overcoming emotional “clamps”.

7. Final contact. Identifying oneself with a gestalt image, awareness of the unity of feelings and actions.

8. Egotism. Self-interruption of the Gestalt therapy chain. Avoiding awareness of the need, preventing the transition to final contact and getting stuck in contacting.

9. Post-contact. Dissolution of the Gestalt figure into the background. Gaining and consolidating the experience of emotional and bodily expression of feelings.

Thus, the entire process of traditional Gestalt therapy is the formation of a figure and ground in the minds of patients and a step-by-step reflection of their inner work on psychological problems.

Here's what it is in simple words:

• awareness of your emotions in a state of rest;
• analysis of feelings and desires when a stimulus occurs;
• formation of a holistic image (gestalt) of the provoking factor and reaction to it;
• emotional response to it;
• catharsis (stress relief and satisfaction);
• return to a harmonious state

Exercises

Individual or group sessions with a Gestalt therapist allow
step by step, “expose” the emotional “trash” in the subconscious of clients, bring them to awareness of the problematic situation, teach them to express themselves according to their inner impulses and live in harmony with their body.

At the beginning of therapy, exercises are used to focus feelings and reflect them, then techniques for releasing negative emotions are used. The doctor provides general guidance to the process of gestalt formation; he focuses the patients’ attention on problematic issues, encouraging awareness of the need to freely express their emotions.

Examples of exercises:

1. “Hot chair.” The client sits in the center of the group (at trainings, participants usually sit in a circle) and is asked to talk about what worries him. After a dialogue with the patient in the “hot chair,” the trainer asks to express the feelings and sensations of other participants. They all must be in the center of the circle.

2. Awareness. Here patients talk about feelings and thoughts in the present moment.

3. Increased bodily manifestations during exercise. The therapist asks the training participants to exaggerate any non-verbal gestures, for example, turning finger tapping into a “drum roll”.

4. Shuttle movement. Injecting the background into the figure. If the client reports loneliness, the therapist tries to “color” the background as negatively as possible, i.e. focuses on bodily manifestations (trembling, clenching of arms or legs, etc.).

5. “Empty chair.” In this exercise, sitting on a chair in the center, patients conduct a dialogue not with a real person, but with an imaginary person, a dead person, or themselves.

6. Making circles. All members of the group speak to each other in a circle.

Introduction

The theoretical discoveries of Gestalt psychology were applied to the practice of psychotherapy by Fritz (Frederick Solomon) Perls (1893-1970). In the 40s of the XX century. Psychoanalyst Frederick Perls, famous among professionals of his time, began to think about creating his own system of psychotherapy. At that time, he was not satisfied with many of the provisions of contemporary psychoanalysis, in particular the predominantly intellectual nature of processing the patient’s problems, orientation towards the past, and the patient’s passive position in the process of psychoanalytic treatment. The result of his joint reflections with colleagues, which included his wife Laura Perls, Isidore Frome, Paul Goodman, was the book “Gestalt Therapy”, published in 1951. The first part of this book, which is a practical guide to self-exploration, was repeatedly published on in Russian called “Workshop on Gestalt Therapy”. To explain human behavior, Perls and his colleagues used ideas from Gestalt psychology, such as the concept of figure-ground dynamics, the idea of ​​the integrity of the human organism, and the idea that the organism and its environment are a unified field. Perls also used some philosophical ideas - the ideas of phenomenology, a philosophical movement that arose at the beginning of the 20th century. and insisting on the need to explore things as they are presented in consciousness, and the ideas of existentialism about human freedom and responsibility, the existential meeting of I - Thou.

Basic principles of Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy developed within the framework of Gestalt psychology by Frederick Perls. Gestalt therapy is a direction of psychotherapy that aims to expand a person’s awareness and through this a person’s better understanding and acceptance of himself, achieving greater intrapersonal integrity, greater fulfillment and meaningfulness of life, improving contact with the outside world, including with people around him. Gestalt psychology influenced the formation of the idea of ​​the body as a single whole, indivisible into separate parts (for example, independently existing organs or independently existing soul and body).

In general, the theory of Gestalt therapy is based on the following principles:

a person is an integral sociobiopsychological being. Any division of it into component parts, for example, psyche and body, is artificial;

a person and his environment represent a single gestalt, a structural whole, which is called the organism-environment field. The environment influences the organism, and the organism transforms its environment. In relation to the psychology of interpersonal relationships, this means that, on the one hand, we are influenced by the behavior of the people around us, on the other, if we change our behavior, then those around us must change;

human behavior, according to the theory of Gestalt therapy, is subject to the principle of formation and destruction of Gestalts. A healthy body functions on the basis of self-regulation. An urgent need arises and begins to attract the dominant attention of the body - a figure emerges from the background. Next, the body searches in the external environment for an object that can satisfy this dominant need, for example, food when hungry. Approach and adequate interaction with the object (chewing and swallowing food in in this example) leads to satisfaction of the need - the gestalt is completed and destroyed;

contact is the basic concept of Gestalt therapy. An organism cannot exist in an airless space, just as it cannot exist in a space devoid of water, plants and living beings. A human being cannot develop in an environment devoid of other people. All basic needs can only be satisfied in contact with the environment. The place where the organism meets the environment is called the contact boundary in Gestalt therapy. The extent to which a person is able to satisfy his needs depends on how flexibly he can regulate the contact boundary. Gestalt therapy describes typical violations of the contact boundary, which make interaction with the environment, including interpersonal, ineffective;

awareness - awareness of what is happening inside the body and in its environment. Awareness is not identical to intellectual knowledge about oneself and the world around us. It includes the experience of perception of both stimuli from the external world and internal processes of the body - sensations, emotions, as well as mental activity - ideas, images, memories and anticipations, that is, it covers many levels. Animals also have awareness, with the exception of its mental layer. However, in the civilized world, people have hypertrophied thinking to the detriment of emotions and perception of the outside world. It is awareness, as opposed to rational knowledge, that provides real information about the needs of the body and the environment. The main goal of Gestalt therapy practice is to expand awareness. A huge number of human problems are associated with the fact that a true awareness of reality is replaced by intellectual and, often, false ideas about it, for example, about what can be expected from people, how they treat me, what I should want and what I should do. Such false ideas obscure reality and make it difficult to satisfy the body's needs - the process of formation and destruction of gestalt is disrupted. Gestalt therapy believes that if people achieve a clear awareness of internal and external reality, then they are able to independently resolve all their problems. Therefore, therapy does not aim to change behavior, behavior itself changes as awareness grows;

here and now - a principle that means that what is actual for the organism always happens in the present, be it perceptions, feelings, actions, thoughts, fantasies about the past or the future, they are all in the present moment. Using this principle allows you to intensify the process of awareness;

responsibility - the ability to respond to what is happening and choose your reactions. Real responsibility comes with awareness. Than in to a greater extent a person is aware of reality, the more he is able to take responsibility for his life - for his desires, actions, in the words of Perls, to rely on himself;

Goals of psychological assistance. The main goal is to help a person realize his full potential. This main goal is divided into auxiliary ones: ensuring the full functioning of current self-awareness; shifting the locus of control inward, encouraging independence and self-sufficiency; identifying psychological blocks that impede growth and eliminating them.

Position of the psychologist. In Gestalt therapy and counseling, the psychologist is considered as a “catalyst”, “assistant” and co-creator, integrated into a single whole, into the “Gestalt” (German Gestalt - form, image) of the client’s personality. The psychologist tries to avoid direct intervention in personal feelings the client - rather, he is trying to facilitate the expression of these feelings. His role is that of an active, lively, creative, empathetic, changeable, like life itself, ally in the search for the client’s own “I”. The purpose is to activate the client’s internal personal reserves, the release of which leads to personal growth.

Client's position. In Gestalt therapy, clients are given an active role, which includes the right to their own interpretations, positions and, most importantly, to awareness of the “patterns” of their behavior and life. It is assumed that the client must switch from rationalization to experiencing, and the verbalization of feelings is not as important as the client’s desire and his willingness to accept the process of actual experience in which he will actually experience feelings and speak on their behalf, and not just report about them.

The indication for Gestalt therapy is the client’s demand for psychotherapy, his willingness to change something in his life and (or) his condition, his ability to take personal responsibility for his existence in this world. The ability to think critically about one's behavior is essential.

Gestalt therapy is contraindicated for persons with somatic diseases at the stage of obvious organic changes in internal organs. Carrying out frustrating therapy will cause an exacerbation of the organic process. Non-frustrating forms of therapy are indicated for such individuals. An experienced Gestalt therapist can afford to do this kind of work, controlling the degree of frustration. But it’s better not to risk the client’s health.

Gestalt therapy is ineffective in persons with pronounced personality changes in the form of rigidity, stuckness, reasoning, amorphous thinking, the presence of active psychopathological products, and severe intellectual disability.

Disadvantages of Gestalt therapy. F. Perls, the founder of the movement, initially posed the problem of the survival of a healthy individual in an unhealthy society. Therefore, the entire diverse technique of Gestalt therapy is aimed at providing psychological support for the individual, freeing a person from the burden of past and future problems and returning his “I” to the rich and changeable world of personal “now” existence. There are both advantages and obvious limitations of the concept associated with this. The most popular criticism is that Gestalt therapy underestimates the cognitive aspects of personality and the one-sidedness of its focus on momentary experiences.

The next vulnerable point is the tendency of representatives of the concept to avoid explanations and leave the client alone with his experiences, as well as the fact that Gestalt therapy’s commitment to various techniques opens the way to abuse of the technical side of the matter to the detriment of in-depth psychological work.

Psychotechnics in Gestalt therapy. Psychotechniques, which in this area are also called “games” and “experiments,” are given great importance in gestalt therapy. Moreover, Gestalt therapy gained fame largely thanks to these “games”, “tricks” and similar descriptions of psychotechnics in the popular press. Let's look at the most famous of them.

“Experimental dialogue”, “dissociated dialogue”. This psychotechnic, also known as the “empty chair,” is intended to work through the client’s internal conflicts. The technique is based on the use of psychodrama, which occurs between two polar positions of the client, for example, the position of the victim and the aggressor. The dialogue is carried out by the client himself, who takes turns reproducing remarks on behalf of one, then another psychological position. A common technique is to use two playing positions: “big dog” and “puppy”. The technique has a pronounced energy potential and enhances the client’s motivation for more appropriate behavior.

“Walking in a circle” is also a well-known psychotechnique, according to which the client, at the request of the leader (the technique is used in group work), goes around all the participants in turn and either tells them something or performs some actions with them. Group members can then respond. The technique is used to activate group members, to encourage them to take risks in new behaviors and to express themselves freely. Often the participant is given the beginning of a statement with a request to complete it, for example: “Please go to everyone in the group and complete the following statement: I feel uncomfortable because..."

The technique “on the contrary” (“reversal”) - the essence of the technique is for the client to play the opposite behavior of the one that he does not like. Let's say, the shy one began to behave defiantly, the cloyingly polite one - rudely, the one who always agreed - would take a position of incessant refusal, etc. The technique is aimed at the client accepting himself in behavior that is new to him and at integrating new structures of experience into the “I”.

“Experimental exaggeration” - a technique aimed at developing the processes of self-awareness through exaggeration of bodily, vocal and other movements - this usually intensifies the feelings attached to a particular behavior (repeating a phrase louder and louder, making a gesture more expressively, etc.). Special significance there is a situation where the client seeks to suppress any experiences. The use of technology leads to the development of internal communication.

"I am responsible for this » - using this technique, the psychologist can turn to the client with a request to express this or that feeling or make a judgment with the obligatory addition: “... and I am responsible for this.”

“Psychodrama” is widely used in Gestalt therapy, including to clarify interpersonal relationships and to work through dreams, which, unlike the psychodynamic approach, are not interpreted, but dramatized.

The main concepts of Gestalt therapy include: figure and ground, awareness and focus on the present, polarities, protective functions and maturity.

The relationship between figure and ground. In the process of self-regulation, a healthy person, from all the abundance of information, chooses the one that is most important and significant for him at the moment. This is a figure. The rest of the information is temporarily relegated to the background. This is the background. Often the figure and ground change places.

The figure (gestalt) can be a desire, feeling or thought, which in at the moment prevail over all other desires, feelings and thoughts. As soon as the need is satisfied, the gestalt ends, loses its significance and moves into the background, giving way to a new gestalt. This rhythm of the formation and completion of gestalts is the natural rhythm of the body's functioning, through which it maintains its dynamic balance, or homeostasis.

Sometimes a need cannot be satisfied. In this case, the gestalt remains incomplete and therefore cannot be responded to and cannot give way to another. Such an unreacted need becomes, according to Perls, the cause of many unfinished problems and can lead to neurosis.

The task of the Gestalt therapist is to help the patient realize his need, make it clearer (form a Gestalt) and ultimately neutralize (complete) it.

Awareness and focus on the present. The main condition necessary in order to form and complete a gestalt is the ability of a person to be aware of himself and his dominant need at the moment. Awareness and focus on need is an important principle in Gestalt therapy, called here and now.

The point of Gestalt therapy is not to explore the past in search of hidden traumas (as Freud did), but to help the patient focus on awareness of the present.

Defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms are maneuvers and ways of thinking and behaving that the brain resorts to in order to get rid of painful emotional material. Some analogy to the concept of defense mechanisms in Gestalt therapy is interruption of contact with the environment.

Merger is a defense mechanism fixed in those who cannot tolerate differences, trying to moderate the unpleasant experiences of the new and alien. In this case, there is no difference between the Self and the non-Self, there is no difference between figure and ground, there is no emerging figure of one’s own need. One of the problems with a merger is the insecurity of the basis of the relationship. No two people can think and feel the same. A merger is a kind of game in which partners bound by one chain have entered into an agreement not to argue. The very fact of an unspoken agreement can be discovered after the fact if one of the participants violates the established rules, and the second is perplexed, one is indignant, and the other feels guilty. But a person can ignore differences for the sake of an important goal. This step differs from merger as a break in contact, since it is made by one's own choice.

With introjection, a person passively accepts what the environment offers. He makes little effort to determine his needs and desires. In accordance with Perls’s food metaphor, he “swallowed” all the values ​​of his parents, school and environment and expects that later in life everything will be as it was. When the world or the situation around him begins to change, he uses his energy not to change the situation, but to maintain introjected values.

The next protective mechanism or type of interruption of contact, interruption of excitation directed into the environment is projection. Its definition is close to the same defense mechanism that is described in psychoanalysis.

A person does not recognize his own feelings and actions, but attributes them to others. As a result, there is a difference between what he knows about himself and his actual feelings and actions. Thus, the suspicion that someone does not love him, in most cases, can be based on a rejection of the fact that he himself treats other people this way.

However, projection does not always contradict contact. Projection is also a normal human reaction through which a person learns about the world. After all, his assumptions about the “other” may not be without foundation, and his activities are largely based on planning and anticipating situations. This mechanism becomes pathological when fixation occurs and awareness is lost.

Retroflection is doing to yourself what a person originally did, tried or wanted to do to other people or with other people. The energy of his excitement ceases to be directed outward, to where he manipulates people and objects. Instead, he substitutes himself, and his personality is divided into the actor and the affected.

Outbursts, vehemence, screaming or fighting in children are consistently eradicated by parents. The introjection “I shouldn’t be angry at them” directs the impulse toward oneself and creates a retroflexive defense, turning the anger toward the individual himself and turning it into guilt.

The useful function of retroflection is to restrain destructive impulses, limiting time, corresponding to the content of the situation. However, if retroflection becomes a character trait, stupor arises due to the person’s opposing aspirations. Then the natural delay in spontaneous behavior, temporary and reasonable, is consolidated in the refusal to act. Liberation from retroflection consists in searching for some other, real behavior applicable to life, directed towards the environment.

Deflexion is a way to relieve contact tension. This is ranting and joking, avoiding a direct look at the interlocutor, off-the-cuff remarks, platitudes and general phrases, a minimum of emotions instead of lively reactions. Human behavior does not achieve the goal, it is sluggish and ineffective. His relationships with people do not bring what he most expects. Sometimes this behavior is useful, because there are situations that cause too much passion that should be avoided (the language of diplomacy).

Polarities. Different parts of the personality act in different directions. They “divide the territory” and “settle” on different parts bodies. You can, for example, observe how one hand holds the other, or how different muscles struggle when a person wants to cry and holds back the crying, beats his chest, tries to leave, but remains in place. As with other neurotic mechanisms, polarity is not always pathological. It manifests itself in a normal situation, when a person restrains any impulses, but at the same time acts flexibly and arbitrarily. Automaticity and unconsciousness are criteria for the neurotic nature of this mechanism.

Maturity.Perls defines maturity, or mental health, as the ability to move from reliance on the environment and from regulation by the environment to reliance on oneself and self-regulation. In order to achieve maturity, an individual must overcome his desire to receive support from the outside world and find any sources of support within himself. The main condition for both self-reliance and self-regulation is a state of balance. The condition for achieving this balance is awareness of the hierarchy of needs.

If an individual has not reached maturity, then, instead of trying to satisfy his own needs and taking responsibility for his failures, he is more inclined to manipulate his environment.

The main procedures of Gestalt therapy include:

expansion of awareness;

integration of opposites;

increased attention to feelings;

working with dreams (fantasy);

taking responsibility for yourself;

overcoming resistance.

Authentic personality. An authentic person knows the differences between his feelings and thoughts, fantasies, does not attribute his ideas to reality, does not demand that it conform to his expectations. Taking responsibility means, first of all, being responsible for your inner world, understanding your feelings and needs and acting in accordance with them, trusting your intuition.

Contact and contact resistance. In Gestalt therapy, contact is essential for change and growth. When we come into contact with the environment, change is inevitable.

Good contact means interacting with nature and other people without losing individuality. After experiencing contact, it is typical to retreat to integrate what has been learned. Gestaltists teach clients to become more aware of their body, sensations, and themselves in relation to the environment.

Gestalt therapists also focus on resistance to contact. From a Gestalt perspective, resistance refers to the defense mechanisms we develop that prevent us from experiencing the present in the most complete and real way. Avoidance of awareness and the resulting rigidity of perception and behavior is a major obstacle to psychological development. Those who interrupt their own development cannot clearly see their own needs, and also cannot make accurate distinctions and establish the right balance between themselves and the rest of the world.

Introjection. When a person introjects, he passively absorbs what the environment offers. Little time is spent clarifying what he wants or needs. One of the consequences of introjection is that a person loses the ability to discern what he really feels. An example of introjections is parental teachings that are internalized by the child without critically thinking about their value.

One of the therapist's tasks is to work through these introjects, to allow exploration of what is useful and can be assimilated, and what should be discarded. Any experience that enhances the sense of “I” is an important step towards liberation from introjections.

Projection is the opposite of introjection. In projection, we alienate certain aspects of ourselves by attributing them to the environment.

When we project, we have trouble distinguishing between the outer and inner worlds. By seeing in others the very qualities that we refuse to recognize in ourselves, we avoid taking responsibility for our own feelings and the person we are. When a projective person can imagine that he has certain qualities that he was not aware of in the past, but only noticed in others, this will expand his repressed sense of identity.

Retroflection is when we do to ourselves what we would like to do to someone else. This means that we direct the energy that needs to be directed to transform the environment in order to satisfy needs inward. Such unmet needs (unfinished gestalts) are often aggressive feelings.

Retroflection decisively interrupts contact and forces the subject to act, denying the other. It manifests itself in muscle tension and stiffness. If a child stops crying at the request of his strict parents, he should not make this “sacrifice” for the rest of his life.

The main problem of normal existence is to learn to restrain oneself in a timely manner only in accordance with the situation, and not to replicate this behavior. An indicator of retroflexion is the use of reflexive pronouns and particles in speech, for example: “I have to force myself to do this,” “I’m ashamed of myself.” Retroflexion manifests itself in holding your breath, clenching your fists, biting your lips, psychosomatic diseases, and self-destructive behavior.

In order to free yourself from retroflexion, a person needs to again become aware of how he sits, how he behaves in front of people, etc. If he knows what is happening inside him, his energy is ready to be transformed into real action.

Thus, when a person says “I underestimate myself,” this is re-reflection; “I am underestimated” is an example of projection; “I am worthless” is an introjection.

Merger. If identification is a type of behavior of a healthy personality, then fusion is a neurotic mechanism of avoiding contact. Merger occurs when an individual cannot differentiate himself and others, cannot determine where his “I” ends and where the “I” of another person begins. The merger can be easily identified by the predominant use of the pronoun “we” instead of “I” when describing one’s own behavior.

Fusion makes a healthy rhythm of contact and care impossible, since both contact and care imply an “other.” Merging makes it impossible to accept differences between people, since during merging a person cannot accept the feeling of a boundary, cannot differentiate himself and others.

Gestalt therapy Perls

Gestalt therapy is a specific direction in psychology, which is based on psychoanalysis, existentialism, body-oriented therapy, as well as Eastern methods proper development consciousness.

Basic concepts of Gestalt therapy

This area of ​​psychotherapy is based on certain principles and concepts:

Integrity. A person is an integral being, therefore, any division of him into components, for example, psyche and body, soul and body, are definitely artificial techniques that cannot help to understand the inner world. The personality and its environment are united into one gestalt - a kind of unified field.

The emergence and destruction of gestalt structures. A person lives based on various needs that occupy an important place in the sphere of his priorities - the figure stands out sharply from the general background.

Unfinished gestalt. This is a source of special tension that takes away all a person’s vital energy. Everyone quite often creates different unfinished situations that negatively affect their permanent psychological state.

Contact and its boundary. People are constantly in contact with something: the environment, animals, plants and other people, and other different fields - informational, bioenergetic, psychological. The meeting place of each person with his environment is called the main contact boundary.

Mindfulness. It has nothing to do with intellectual knowledge about oneself and the outside world. Human awareness is closely related to people being in the present moment, when he does not live his mechanical life, but acts from his immediate consciousness, being in a state of complete alertness and awareness.

Here-and-now. This principle means that everything truly important for a person happens in the present tense. As a rule, the mind takes everyone to the past or the future, but it is precisely this kind of thinking that takes away best moments life.

Responsibility. This quality of a person is born from his awareness. The more clearly you understand the surrounding reality, the more responsible he is about his life.

Basic techniques of Gestalt therapy

Psychodrama– a special group therapy that is used to correctly complete unfinished actions and resolve situations through certain role-playing games, theatrical performances and dramatic self-expression. When using this technique, certain scenes are most often played out, which make it possible to live through dramatic events from the patient’s past, an internal conflict or a dream. Games reflect a situation in life or bring to the surface all internal pains, pressures and traumas.

Empty or hot chair– a technique that is often used in trainings. During it, one of the participants must imagine on an empty chair a person with whom they need to work out a relationship, the hero of their dreams, or some part of their personality. Then you need to turn to the presented image. During such a specific conversation, stereotypes and cliches in behavior appear, rather strong emotions arise that are difficult to see in simple dialogues.

Art therapy– a technique of psychological assistance that is based on art and creativity. The main goal of the method is to promote the harmonious development of a person through the growth of his abilities to interesting self-expression. The main value of such therapy lies precisely in the fact that it allows one to symbolically express and fully appreciate a variety of feelings: fear, love, anxiety, anger, happiness and hatred.

Basic methods of Gestalt therapy

Psychological counseling– the method is aimed at resolving a variety of difficulties: individual, interpersonal and family. The therapist helps to overcome correctly stressful situations or life crises, find a way out of difficult situations. Each client's attention is focused on personal experiences in the present time. This is how awareness and full understanding of the current negative situation occurs, which leads to its inevitable resolution.

Body-oriented method makes it possible to achieve complete healing of the human psyche through proper work with his body. The human body constantly stores many interesting memories: key events, feelings and experiences. If you interact with the body, you gain access to the deep level of the subconscious that is in the body. This way you can identify all the causes of the problems that arise with you.

Gestalt therapy encourages people to recognize themselves and accept themselves for who they really are. This approach allows you to move forward, adhering to the individual flow, and not wasting energy and strength, trying to overcome it “to do your own thing.”

Gestalt therapy techniques

Technique 1. “Concentration on feelings”

Method 1. “Exacerbation of body awareness”

Exercise 1

“Now I realize that I am lying on the couch. Now I realize that I am about to carry out an experiment in awareness. Now I realize that I am hesitating, asking myself where to start. Now I realize - I notice that there is a radio playing behind the wall. This reminds me... No, now I am aware that I am starting to listen to what is being conveyed... I am aware that I am returning from wandering. Now I've slipped away again. I remember the advice to stick to external events. Now I realize that I am lying with my legs crossed. I realize that my back hurts. I realize that I want to change my situation. Now I am implementing this...", etc.

Exercise 2

Try to first pay attention only to external events: what you see, hear, smell, but without suppressing other experiences. Now, by contrast, focus on internal processes: images, physical sensations, muscle tension, emotions, thoughts. Now try to differentiate these various internal processes by concentrating on each of them as fully as you can: on images, muscle tensions, etc. While doing this, be aware of all the objects, actions, dramatic scenes, etc. that arise.

Exercise 3

Focus on your overall body sensations. Allow your attention to wander to different parts of the body. If possible, “walk” your attention throughout your entire body. What parts of yourself do you feel? To what extent and with what clarity does your body exist for you? Notice pain and tightness that you usually don't notice. What muscle tension do you feel? While paying attention to them, do not try to relax them prematurely, let them continue. Try to determine their exact location. Pay attention to how your skin feels. Do you feel your body as a whole? Do you feel the connection between your head and your body? Can you feel your genitals? Where are your breasts? Limbs?

Exercise 4

Walk, talk or sit; be aware of proprioceptive details without interfering with these sensations in any way.

Exercise 5

Sitting or lying in a comfortable position, become aware of various body sensations and movements (breathing, tightness, stomach contractions, etc.); pay attention to whether there are certain combinations or structures in all this - something that happens simultaneously and forms a single pattern of tension, pain, sensations. Notice what happens when you hold or stop breathing. Do any tensions in the hands and fingers, stomach peristalsis, or sensations in the genitals correspond to this? Or maybe there is some connection between holding your breath and straining your ears? Or between holding your breath and tactile sensations? What combinations can you discover?

Method 2. “Experience of continuity of emotions”

Exercise 1

Try to reproduce some bodily action. For example, tense and then relax your jaws, clench your fists, and start breathing heavily. You may notice that all of this evokes a vague emotion—in this case, frustrated fear. If to this experience you can add, say, a fantasy, an idea of ​​some person or thing in your environment that frustrates you, the emotion will flare up with full force and clarity. Conversely, in the presence of something or someone that frustrates you, you notice that you do not feel emotions until you accept as your own the corresponding bodily actions: clenching your fists, breathing excitedly, etc., you begin to feel anger.

Exercise 2

While lying down, try to feel your face. Can you feel your mouth? Forehead? Eyes? Jaws? Having acquired these sensations, ask yourself the question: “What is the expression on my face?” Don't interfere, just let the expression be. Focus on it and you will notice how quickly it changes. You may experience several different moods within a minute.

Exercise 3

Visit an art gallery, preferably one that is fairly diverse. Take only a moment's glance at each painting. What emotion, even vague, does it evoke? If a storm is depicted, do you feel the corresponding whirlwinds and excitement within yourself? Isn't this face a little scary? Is this bright set of colors annoying? Whatever your fleeting impression may be, do not try to change it by conscientious examination, move on to the next picture. Notice the subtle emotional feeling this drawing evokes, and move on to another. If your reactions seem very vague and fleeting or you are not able to track them at all, do not think that this will always be so, repeat the experience at every opportunity. If it's difficult to go to a gallery, you can do the same with reproductions.

Exercise 4

Relive again and again in your fantasy an experience that had a strong emotional load for you. Try to remember additional details each time. For example, what is the scariest experience you can remember? Feel again how it all happened. And again. And again. Use the present tense.

Perhaps some words or something that you or someone else said in this situation will come up in your fantasy. Say them out loud, again and again; listen to how you pronounce them, feel your experiences while speaking and listening. Remember a situation when you were humiliated. Play it back several times. At the same time, pay attention to whether any earlier experience of this kind arises in memory. If so, go to him and work through the situation.

Do this for different emotional experiences - as much time as you have time for. Do you have, for example, unfinished grief situations? When someone you loved died, could you cry? If not, can you do it now? Can you mentally stand at the coffin and say goodbye? When were you the most angry? Ashamed? Confused? Did you feel guilty? Can you experience this emotion again? If you can’t, are you able to feel what’s blocking you?

Technique 2. “Integration of Polarities”

Exercise 1. “Playing Roles”

The group members, at the suggestion of the therapist, take turns playing out their intrapersonal conflicts, which they are not fully aware of, but are obvious to others. For example, if a participant, without noticing this, apologizes too often, speaks in a quiet voice, or is embarrassed, then he can be asked to play the role of a shy, timid young man. At the same time, he is asked to somewhat exaggerate precisely those character traits that are especially pronounced in him.

If the participant is aware of his behavior and wants to get rid of it, he can be assigned to play the role of a person with opposite character traits, for example, Khlestakov or the Chief, who speaks to subordinates only in a tone of orders and moralizing.

Each participant is given 5–10 minutes to role-play. The rest of the time should be left for sharing impressions.

Exercise 2. “Struggle of opposites”

The psychotherapist determines the topic of discussion, then assigns one of the participants the role of the Attacker, the other the Defender. Participants sit facing each other and begin a discussion. Each participant must remain committed to their role. The attacker must criticize the partner, scold him, lecture him, speak in a firm authoritarian voice. The Defender - apologize, make excuses, explain why he cannot do everything that the Attacker requires of him.

The discussion lasts 10 minutes. After this, the partners change roles. Each participant in the dialogue needs to understand as fully and deeply as possible the feeling of power, aggression of the Attacker and the feeling of timidity, humiliation, and insecurity of the Defender. Compare the roles you have played with your behavior in real life. Discuss the experience with the group.

Exercise 3. “Antique store”

Sit on a chair, close your eyes, relax. Imagine that you are in a store that sells antiques. Mentally choose any object for yourself and imagine yourself with this object. Tell us about yourself on behalf of this subject: how you feel; why were you in the store? who and where is your previous owner, etc. Open your eyes and share your feelings with the group.

In the same way, you can identify with a flower, a tree, an animal, imagining yourself in the appropriate conditions. Don't be shy about your feelings. Try not to have any unfinished experiences.

Exercise 4 “Two chairs”

Often a person feels some duality, splitting by opposites, feels himself in a conflict of these opposites, opposing forces. You are invited to play a dialogue between these parties. With each role change, you will switch chairs: the “friendly self” and the “irritated self.”

The role played may be the role of the person as he is now; the role of a child, mother, father, spouse or boss. The role can be a physical symptom - an ulcer, headache, lower back pain, palpitations. It could be an object encountered in a dream, for example, a piece of furniture, an animal, etc.

Exercise 5 “Working with a name”

The sense of identity develops under the influence of the environment. This is a reaction to impacts and influences addressed to a person. Even the name or names that are written down in documents influence fate. They reflect parental expectations aimed at the child, cultural and historical background, often the history of the family or the history of the country. Except official name, a person bears children's names, nicknames and nicknames - those that his relatives and parents called him in childhood, as his close people or enemies now call him.

Several exercise options are offered that can activate the feelings associated with the name and the relationships associated with the name in the childhood family.

Different exercises, highlighting different figures, allow you to focus on different aspects of one big topic. There is no point in doing them in a row, but it is worth choosing the ones that are suitable for a given session.

Remember the names and nicknames you were called as a child. Who gave you these names, in what circumstances were you called by this or that name? Who called? How do you feel now when you think about these names?

Choose the most striking baby names. What feelings did they evoke? Connect with the projection. Experiment now. What feelings did this name express? How did those who gave you this name or nickname treat you? Play out scenes with your partner.

What are your nicknames or pet names Now? Where did they come from? What areas of life do they affect?

Do you have different names at home and at work? If yes, what is the reason for this? Remember your names (definitions, characteristics) in different periods life. How did they influence or influence your self-image now?

Introduce yourself in a circle with three different names, accompanying each with the appropriate intonation and pantomime. Remember the attitude towards your name at different periods of your life. How did it change? Were you proud of it, did you love your name – or were there periods of negativity? What are your current name options? In what situations do they call you that way, when do you introduce yourself that way, to whom, where? What feelings do you associate with these names? What is your relationship with people who call you that?

Have you ever been called a name that is inappropriate or derisive for your gender? How did your parents choose your name? In honor of whom? Their expectations - what do you know about them? What is the symbolic meaning of your name, what does it mean in translation, what did it mean to you at different periods of your life.

How do you feel about your name among others? How do you feel about those with the same name: do you feel good or do you have negative feelings when there are other people with the same name? If your name is unique, how do you feel among those who have an ordinary name?

If you were choosing a name for yourself again, what name would you choose and why, what could it symbolize? What are the arguments for keeping the old name? What are the reasons for choosing a new one?

Be aware of how you introduce yourself – for example, in a given group; what they call you - the way you introduced yourself or otherwise. How do you react to this? What do you prefer to be called, who and when? What variations of your name do you dislike?

(For married women.) How has changing or keeping your maiden name after marriage, divorce, or widowhood affected your identity? Whose last name you bear and why – what does it mean to you? If your last name is different from your husband's last name, how do people react to this?

Technique 3. “Working with dreams”

Exercise 1

Tell the dream in first person. Highlight the most energizing elements of your dream. Consistently identify with each dream object, pronounce a monologue on its behalf. It is possible to organize a dialogue between dream elements. Find the projection of these relationships in “daytime” life (this action is called the “shuttle”).

Exercise 2

Select a fragment of a dream and draw it. In pairs, choose two dream characters. Mold your partner, like clay, into one of the characters. It could be a moving sculpture. Interact with this figure on behalf of the second character. Swap roles - now you play the role that your assistant played, he will play the second character in your dream.

Exercise 3 “Dream Dialogue”

Draw an illustration from a dream you once had. Let it be two or three items. In pairs, choose one character from each drawing. Let each of you, in the role of your own character, conduct a dialogue with a character from another person’s dream. Carry out a dialogue between these figures, realize how and with whom this same dialogue could be conducted in life.

Exercise 4 “Antison”

Work in pairs. Tell the dream sequentially. Select and write down a list of all nouns, adjectives and verbs. Find an antonym for each word. Tell me new story(dream), which consists of these opposite words, to your partner.

Exercise 5

In the group, one person tells a dream. Each listener chooses one “character” and makes a drawing. Then, in pairs, act out the roles of these characters or act out a dialogue between the selected characters. Realize what your feelings are reflected in this dream.

Technique 4. “Overcoming Resistance”

Method 1: "Turning a Merge into a Contact"

Exercise 1

Note some of your habits: how you dress, how you brush your teeth, how you open or close the door, how you bake a cake. If your habits don't seem to be the most effective, or if a new way of doing things doesn't seem to be any better, but also adds variety, try changing your old habits. What will happen? Do you enjoy learning to do something in a new way? Or will you encounter strong resistance? Won't a change in one particular detail upset the whole scheme of your routine? What happens when you watch someone else do a job similar to yours? Do differences, even small ones, irritate you from the way you do it yourself?

Exercise 2

When you wake up, before you get up, think about the possibility of feeling or acting differently than usual. Don't make decisions that need to be done, just visualize possible simple and easy-to-implement changes to your routine.

Exercise 3

Consider as many of your characteristic features as possible: speech, clothing, behavior in general, etc. - and ask yourself the question in imitation of whom you acquired them. Friends? Enemies? If you approve of this characteristic in yourself, do you feel gratitude towards its source?

Exercise 4

Observe your reactions to a movie or performance. Notice how, without noticing it, you identify with the characters. Which ones exactly? Do you experience internal resistance?

Exercise 5

Remember who you feel guilty or resentful towards. If someone else did the same actions, would they cause the same feeling? Now think about your relationship with this person as a whole. To what extent do you take for granted what he may not take for granted at all? Do you want to change the status quo?

Then, instead of torturing yourself with feelings of guilt or resentment, look for ways to expand your area of ​​contact!

Method 2. “Working with retroflection. Study of misdirected behavior"

Exercise 1

When we use expressions such as “I ask myself” or “I tell myself,” what do we mean? These expressions, which we use at every step, tacitly assume that a person is, as it were, divided into two parts, that these are, as it were, two people living in one body and capable of talking to each other.

Try to really understand that when you “ask yourself” something, you are asking a retroflexive question. You don't know the answer, otherwise you wouldn't ask the question. Who in your circle knows or should know? If you can identify who it is, can you feel the urge to ask your question not to yourself, but to him? What's holding you back? Shyness? Fear of rejection? Reluctance to reveal your ignorance?

When you "consult yourself" about something, can you be aware of your motives? They may be different. This could be play, harassment, comfort, or self-reprimand. Whatever it is, who are you replacing?

Consider remorse. What you will find here is not a genuine feeling of guilt, but only a pretense. Direct the reproach to the one to whom it is actually addressed. Who do you want to blame? Who do you want to remake? Who do you want to make feel guilty by pretending to feel it yourself?

Consider instances of self-pity and self-punishment and try to answer the following questions. Who do you want to feel sorry for? Who would you like to receive sympathy from? Who do you want to punish? Who would you like to be punished by?

Exercise 2

Although few of us suffer from obsessional neurosis, we all have a certain degree of self-coercion. When you try to force yourself to do something you don't want to do, you are working against powerful resistance. The prospect of achieving your goal becomes clearer if, instead of forcing, you figure out what obstacles stand in your way.

Change the situation in which you would force yourself into a situation in which you force someone else to complete a task for you. Will you manipulate him with polite words? Or will you threaten, command, bribe, reward?

On the other hand, how do you react when you are forced? Pretending to be deaf? Making promises you don't intend to keep? Or do you react with guilt and pay off the debt with self-loathing and despair?

Exercise 3

Another important retroflection is a feeling of self-contempt, self-abasement. When a person's relationship with himself is disturbed, all his interpersonal relationships are also disturbed. A person is chronically in a bad relationship with himself if he has developed the habit of constantly evaluating himself and comparing his real achievements with his inflated ideals.

What do you doubt about yourself? Don't trust yourself? Why are you judging yourself?

Can you reverse this relationship? Who is this X you doubt? Who do you despise? Who would you like to knock down arrogance? Is your feeling of inferiority hidden arrogance? Can you look at your self-deprecation and see it as a retroflected desire to destroy someone named X?

Exercise 4

Another important type of retroflection is introspection. This is gazing at oneself. The observer is divided, separated from the observed part, and until this division “overgrows,” the person will not feel that self-awareness of himself as an integral personality is possible.

Consider your introspection. What is your goal? Are you looking for some secret? Are you trying to pull out a memory? Are you hoping (or afraid) to encounter something unexpected? Are you looking at yourself with the gaze of a stern parent to make sure you haven't done anything wrong? Or are you trying to find something that fits a theory - such as the one developed in these pages? Or, on the contrary, do you find that there is no such evidence? Apply similar attitudes to the people around you. Is there anyone whose "guts" you'd like to see?

Is there anyone you would like to keep a strict eye on? Regardless of the purpose of your introspection, how do you do it? Are you getting to the bottom of something? Or are you like the rude policeman who knocks on the door and demands that it be opened immediately? Or do you look at yourself timidly, furtively, or stare at yourself with unseeing eyes? Or are you manipulating events to suit your expectations? Falsifying them by exaggeration? Or do you only highlight what aligns with your immediate goals? Pay attention to how your Self functions. This is much more important than the specific content of the observation.

Method 3. “Working with retroflection. Muscle mobilization"

Exercise 1

IN healthy body the muscles are not tight, not relaxed, they are in average tone, support the posture, and are ready to provide movement or manipulate objects. At the beginning of this experiment, do not relax until you are able to cope with the excitement that is thus released. From the very beginning, be prepared for unexpected outbursts of anger, shouting, vomiting, urination, sexual impulses, etc. The impulses you may feel at first are quite close to the surface and you can easily handle them. However, to avoid possible confusion, we recommend performing muscle experiments alone. Also, if you are prone to anxiety attacks, work through what you are about to do through internal verbalization before undertaking intense muscular concentration.

Lying down, without relaxing voluntarily, feel your body. Notice where the pain is - headache, back pain, writer's cramp, stomach cramp, vaginismus, etc. Feel where the clamps are. Don't "enter" the clamp or do anything with it. Be aware of the tension in your eyes, neck, and area around your mouth. Allow your attention to move sequentially through your legs, lower torso, arms, chest, neck, head. If you notice that you are lying hunched over, correct your position. Do not make sudden movements, give the opportunity to gently develop your sense of self. Notice your body’s tendency to self-regulate—the tendency to let go of something in one place, to stretch in another, etc.

Don't kid yourself that you feel your body when you only visualize or "theoretically" know about it. If you tend to do the latter, you are working with your self-image rather than yourself. But this idea of ​​yourself is imposed on you by your Self with its resistances; it lacks self-regulation and spontaneity. It does not come from the feeling-awareness of the organism. Can you, by waiting, not trusting visualizations and theories, have the heat of awareness arise directly in the parts of the body on which you focus your attention?

As you move forward, notice what objections you may have to each specific moment of awareness. Do you have contempt for physical functioning? Or are you ashamed that you are a body? Don't you consider defecation a painful and dirty necessity? Does the tendency to clench your fists scare you? Aren't you afraid to strike? Or that they will hit you? Are you bothered by a feeling of tension in your larynx? Aren't you afraid to scream?

In those parts of the body that were especially difficult for you to feel, when sensation is restored, you will most likely experience sharp pain, painful dullness, and cramps. If such pains arise, focus on them. Of course, we are referring only to functional or “psychogenic” pain, and not the result of physical injury or infection. Try not to become hypochondriacal, but if in doubt, consult a doctor. If possible, find a doctor who understands functional disorders.

Exercise 2

An extremely useful method for understanding the meaning of certain pains and tensions is to recall the corresponding common expressions. As a rule, they contain centuries-old wisdom. For example:

If I have a stiff neck, am I being stubborn? I hold my head high: am I arrogant? I jut my chin forward: do I want to lead? My eyebrows arch: am I arrogant? My throat tightens: do I want to scream? I whistle in the dark: am I afraid of something?

My body is shaking: am I scared? My brows are furrowed: am I angry? I feel like I'm swelling: am I ready to burst into anger? My throat is tight: what can’t I swallow? I feel nauseous: what can't I stomach?

Exercise 3

Until now, you have explored yourself and adjusted to yourself gently. Now is the time to explicitly express the functions that are hidden in the clamped muscles, to turn muscle clamps into controlled behavior. Our next step in resolving the problem of chronic muscle tension - and any other psychosomatic symptom - is to gain adequate contact with the symptom and appropriate it as your own.

Apply the concentration experiment method to a headache or other similar symptom. Give it your attention and allow the figure/ground to form spontaneously. If you can accept pain, it will be a motivating interest; it is a feeling that arouses interest. It is important to be able to expect its development. Let it happen on its own, without interference and without preconceptions. If you make contact, the figure will become increasingly clear and you will be able to resolve the painful conflict. But keep in mind that over a long period of time after you start, change can be very slow, especially if you're waiting for flashy drama from the start, so you run the risk of losing patience.

The pain will move, expand or narrow its location, change intensity, quality, etc. Try to notice in what places and in what direction you squeeze certain muscles, determine the shape and size of the clamps. Be attentive to every trembling, scratching, goose bumps on the skin, shuddering - in short, to all signs of biological arousal. Such sensations of excitement, vegetative or muscular, can appear in waves or be constant, increase or decrease. As the itch develops, for example, see if you can stop yourself from scratching prematurely; focus on it and watch its development. Let the excitement come to the fore. If the procedure is carried out correctly, the end result is a feeling of health and well-being. This technique is applicable not only to psychosomatic pain, but also to fatigue, vague arousal, and anxiety attacks.

Exercise 4

While doing the previous exercises, you may experience anxiety, which is a self-regulation - an attempt to overcome improper breathing during increasing arousal. Regardless of whether you have anxiety, do the following exercise.

Take 4-5 deep, but effortless inhalations and exhalations. Can you feel the flow of air in your throat, in your nasopharynx, in your head? When exhaling through your mouth, let the air come out calmly and place your hand to feel the flow. Do you keep your chest expanded even when no air enters? Do you pull your stomach in when you inhale? Can you feel the gentle inhalation down to the pit of your stomach and into your pelvic area? Can you feel your ribs moving along your sides and back? Notice the tension in your throat; on the jaw; on the nasopharynx.

Pay special attention to the tension in the diaphragm. Focus on these tensions and pressures and watch them develop. During the day - especially in those moments when you feel interested (at work, when there is someone sexually attractive nearby, perceiving works of art, when encountering important issue), - notice how you try to hold your breath, instead of breathing deeper, which would be more natural in such a situation with biological point vision. What are you holding back by restricting your breathing? Scream? Trying to escape? Desire to hit? Vomiting? Emission of gases? Cry?

Method 4. “Working with retroflection. Returning action to the outside world"

Exercise 1.

By focusing on the differences between the left and right sides, you can greatly restore the fine points of balance necessary for healthy posture and proper movement. Lie on your back on the floor. Work first on the arches in your lower back and neck. Although neither would be suspended in the air if your lying position were correct, do not try to relax or force your spine to straighten. Raise your knees and spread them slightly, resting your soles on the floor. This will relieve tension in your spine, but you may still feel stiffness in your back and a pulling sensation in your legs. Allow your body to spontaneously change to a more comfortable position.

Now compare each part of the right side of the body with the left. You will find many differences in what should be symmetrical. The feeling that you are lying “completely crooked” expresses, although in a somewhat exaggerated form, what actually is. Following the internal impulses in the body, as you notice them, gently change your position - very, very slowly, without sudden movements. Compare left and right eyes, shoulders, legs, arms, etc.

During this work, keep your knees slightly apart and your arms free and uncrossed. Note the tendency to connect them if it occurs. See what this could mean. Do you want to protect your genitals? Do you feel too open and vulnerable to the world when you lie like this? Who can attack you? Or do you want to tie yourself down for fear that otherwise you will fall apart? Are your left-right differences an expression of your desire to grab someone with one hand and push them away with the other? Go somewhere and not go at the same time? When you're trying to get comfortable, how do you do it? Are you squirming? Are you cringing? Are you crawling? Do you feel trapped?

A very important relationship, as well as important differences, exists between the front and back of the body. For example, it is possible that while you pretend to be looking in front of you, you are actually interested in what is behind you, so that you never see where you are. What unknown thing are you waiting for behind you? Or are you hoping that something will attack you? If you are prone to tripping and falling easily, paying attention to the differences between the front and back can be very helpful.

As you allow muscle sensations to develop, you may sometimes feel a vague but strong desire to perform a certain movement. This could be some kind of tugging or pulling. Try to follow this impulse. If the feeling intensifies, extend your entire arm and, as a natural extension of this gesture, your entire body. What are you aiming for? To your mother? To an absent lover? Doesn't the stretching of arms turn into pushing at some point? If so, push it away. Push off from something solid, like a wall. Do it with the strength that matches your feeling.

Or suppose your lips purse and your head tilts to the side. Let your head move from side to side and say “no!” Can you say it firmly and loudly? Or is your voice shaking and breaking? Are you asking? Are you making excuses? Or vice versa, your refusal develops into general feeling disobedience and rebellion, with blows, kicks and screams? What does it mean?

When performing these imitative movements, nothing can be achieved by force. Otherwise, the exercise will turn into acting and lead you astray. Your understanding of what seeks expression must grow from exploring and developing your feelings and their meaning to you. If the movements are right and occur in the right rhythm and at the right time, they will crystallize your feelings and clarify the meaning of your interpersonal relationships.

Method 5. “Working with introjection. Introjection and food"

Exercise 1

Focus on your food without reading or thinking. Moments of eating have become for us mainly an occasion for various social activities. A primitive creature retires to eat. Follow his example, for the sake of experiment: eat alone once a day and learn to eat. It may take about two months, but eventually you will gain a new taste. If you are impatient, this may seem too long. You will want magical methods, quick results without effort. But to get rid of your introjects, you yourself must do the work of destruction and new integration.

Notice your resistance when turning to food. Do you feel the taste of only the first pieces, then falling into a trance of “thinking”, daydreaming, wanting to talk - and at the same time losing the sense of taste? Do you bite off pieces with a specific and efficient movement of your front teeth? In other words, do you take a bite of the sandwich meat you're holding in your hand, or do you just clench your jaw and then pull the piece off with your hand? Do you use your teeth until the food is completely liquefied? For now, just notice what you are doing, without intending to change anything. Many changes will happen on their own, spontaneously, if you maintain contact with food.

When you are aware of the act of eating, do you feel greedy? Impatience? Disgust? Or do you blame the rush and bustle modern life is it that you have to swallow food? Is it different when you have free time? Do you avoid bland, tasteless food or swallow it without protest? Do you feel a “symphony” of smells and textures of food, or have you reduced your taste so much that everything is more or less the same?

What is the situation not with physical, but with mental food? Ask yourself, for example, similar questions about the printed page you are reading. Do you skim through difficult paragraphs or work through them? Or do you only like light reading, something that you can swallow without an active reaction? Or do you force yourself to read only “difficult” literature, although your efforts bring you little joy?

What about movies? Do you fall into a kind of trance where you seem to “drown” in the scenes? Consider this as a case of merger.

Method 6. “Working with introjection. Expulsion and digestion of introjects"

Exercise 1

Each time you eat, one piece - only one! – chew completely until liquefied; do not let a single particle remain undestroyed, look for them with your tongue and pull them out from the corners of your mouth for chewing. When you feel that the food has completely liquefied, swallow it.

Exercise 2

Find some mental activity equivalent to chewing a piece. For example, take one difficult sentence in a book that seems like a tough nut to crack, and carefully analyze it, break it down into parts. Find the exact meaning of each word. Determine, even vaguely, whether the sentence as a whole is true or false. Make this sentence your own or figure out what part of it you don't understand. Maybe it’s not your misunderstanding, but the sentence that’s incomprehensible? Decide for yourself.

Another useful experiment using the functional identity between eating physical food and “digesting” an interpersonal situation. When you are in a restless mood: angry, depressed, blaming someone, that is, prone to “swallowing” - arbitrarily use your aggression, directing it towards some kind of physical food. Take an apple or a piece of stale bread and take retribution on it. According to your condition, chew it as impatiently, hastily, angrily, cruelly as you can. But bite and chew, don't swallow!

Exercise 3

Although it is unpleasant, there is no other way to discover what is not part of you except to restore disgust and the accompanying impulse of rejection. If you want to free yourself from alien inclusions, introjects in your personality, you must, in addition to the chewing exercise, intensify your awareness of taste, find places where taste is missing and restore it. Be aware of changes in taste while chewing, differences in structure, consistency, and temperature of food. By doing this you are sure to rekindle the disgust. Then, as with any other painful experience that is your own, you must accept and acknowledge it. When the impulse to vomit finally comes, follow it. It seems terrible and painful just because of the resistance. A small child does this with ease; immediately after this he is happy again, freed from the alien matter that bothered him.

Exercise 4

Here's a simple exercise to start working on the mobility of a stiff jaw. If you find yourself frequently clenching your teeth or being in a state of stern determination instead of working with ease and interest, allow your upper and lower teeth to touch lightly. Keep them uncompressed and not open. Stay focused and wait for development. Sooner or later your teeth will start chattering as if from the cold. Let this develop - if it does - into a general trembling of all the muscles. Give freedom to this state until everything shakes and trembles. If you succeed in this experiment, use the opportunity to increase the freedom and range of jaw movements. Close your teeth in different positions - incisors, front molars, back molars, and at this time squeeze your head between your jaws and ears with your fingers. Once you find painful stress points, use them as places of concentration. If you achieve a general trembling in this or other experiments, use this to completely release the rigidity - to the point of dizziness or tension cessation.

Try the opposite - clench your teeth tightly in any position, as if biting. This will create painful tension in the jaws, which will spread to the gums, mouth, throat, and eyes. Focus on the pattern of tension and then, as suddenly as you can, release your jaws.

To restore mobility to a stiff mouth, open it wide when you speak and then “bite off” your words. Throw them out like bullets from a machine gun.

Exercise 5

This exercise coordinates breathing and thinking (inner speech). Talk to yourself (silently, internally), but addressing a specific audience, maybe one person. Be mindful of your speech and your breathing. Try not to leave words in your throat (“mind”) as you inhale; release your breath and thoughts at the same time. Notice how often you hold your breath, you will again see how much of your thinking is from one-sided interpersonal relationships rather than exchange; you are always lecturing, commenting, judging, or defending, investigating, etc. Look for the right rhythm of speaking and listening, the rhythm of giving and taking, exhalation and inhalation. (This coordination of breathing and inner speech - although this exercise alone is not enough - is the basis of stuttering therapy.)

Method 7. “Working with projection. Projection Detection"

Exercise 1

The fear of rejection is very important for all neurotics, so we can start the exercises with it. The picture of rejection - first by parents, and now by friends - is created, played out and maintained by the neurotic. While this may have merit, the opposite is also true - the neurotic rejects others for not living up to the fantastic ideal or standard that he prescribes for them. Because he has projected his rejection onto others, he may, without feeling any responsibility for the situation, consider himself a passive object of unreasonable hostility, ill will, and even revenge.

For you, do you feel rejected? By whom? Mother, father, sister, brother? Do you hold a grudge against them for this? On what grounds do you reject them? How do they not meet your requirements?

Invoke someone you know in your fantasy. Do you love him (or her) or not? Do you like or dislike this or that trait or way of his actions? Visualize him and talk to him out loud. Tell him that you accept such and such in him, but you don’t want to tolerate such and such anymore, you can’t stand it when he does such and such, etc. Repeat this experiment many times. Do you speak unnaturally? Awkward? Confused? Do you feel what you say? Is anxiety creeping in? Guilt? Are you afraid that your sincerity can irreparably ruin your relationship? Convince yourself of the difference between fantasy and reality: these are the two things that the projector usually confuses.

Now the most important question: do you feel that you are rejecting this - on the very grounds on which you consider yourself rejected? Do you feel like people look down on you? If so, can you think of times when you looked down (or wanted to look down) on others? Are you rejecting the very traits in yourself that you think others reject you for? Skinny, fat, with crooked teeth - what else don’t you like about yourself? Do you believe that others despise you for these shortcomings as much as you do? On the other hand, do you notice how you attribute to others qualities that are undesirable in yourself? When you deceive someone, do you say, “He almost deceived me!”?

Exercise 2

Consider your verbal expressions. Translate them as from one language to another: all sentences in which “it” or other impersonal words are the subject and “I” is the minor member sentences, replace them with ones where “I” will be the subject. For example: “I remembered that I had an appointment,” change it to: “I remembered that I have an appointment.” Place yourself at the center of the assumptions that concern you; for example, the expression: “I have to do this” means: “I want to do this,” or: “I don’t want to do this and won’t, but at the same time I make up excuses for myself,” or: “I’m holding back from doing something else.” " Also change sentences in which you are actually supposed to be the object into ones in which you are experiencing something. For example: “He hit me” in: “He hit me and I feel the blow”; “He tells me” in: “He tells me something and I listen to it.”

Consider carefully the content of this “it” in such expressions; translate the verbal structure into visual fantasy. For example: “A thought occurred to me.” How did she do it? How did she walk and how did she enter? If you say, “My heart hurts,” do you feel pain about something with all your heart? If you say, “I have a headache,” are you tensing your muscles in a way that creates a headache—maybe even intentionally?

Listen to other people's language and try to translate it in the same way. This will clarify a lot for you about their relationship. At the same time, you will begin to understand that in life, as in art, although what is said is important, structure, syntax, style are even more important - they express character and motivation.

Method 8. “Working with projection. Assimilation of projections"

Exercise 1

To dissolve the irrational “conscience”, two steps need to be taken. First, translate a phrase like: “My conscience or morality demands...” into: “I demand from myself...”, that is, translate the projection into retroflection.

Secondly, turn the latter in both directions, that is, into: “I demand from X” and: “X (for example, society) demands from me.” It is necessary to distinguish the actual demands and expectations of society from both your personal requirements and your introjections. See how you behave as you become a “conscience.” Are you finding fault? Are you grumbling? Are you threatening? Are you blackmailing? Do you cast bitter, offended glances? If you focus on these fantasies, you will see how much of the “moral duty” is your own sneak attack, how much of it is partly introjected influences, and how much of it is rational.

Method 9. “Group work”

As in other group techniques, after completing each of the exercises described below, the trainer asks all participants to sit in a common circle. Next, a discussion of the exercise is carried out, with two aspects being emphasized: firstly, the process of performing the exercise (how the participants performed it and how they felt), and secondly, the content (what the participants talked about while doing this exercise). As with many things, process is more important than content, and sometimes a trainer may decide to only discuss process. The trainer should help the group find ways to relate the knowledge gained from the exercise to the participants' personal or professional lives. If possible, the trainer also participates in the exercise.

After discussing the exercise, everyone is asked to spend a few minutes discussing their plans for the near future: what they are going to do during the holidays, on vacation, on weekends, upcoming “outings,” etc. This procedure allows participants to step away from the exercises a little and return to their “normal” roles.

Exercise 1. “I and the object”

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Gestalt therapy games These procedures are also called Gestalt experiments and are a variety of exercises based on the patient performing certain actions suggested by the therapist. Games promote more direct confrontation with

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An early form of classical Gestalt therapy, the New York neoanalysts, centered around Erich Fromm and Karen Horney (who also emigrated), received his Ego, Hunger and Aggression very positively. Despite this, America initially disappointed Perls in

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Late form of Gestalt therapy In 1965-1969, Perls's success reached its apogee. He was called the "Great Old Man" of Esalen. The seminars he conducted on the topic of Gestalt therapy attracted people from all over the world. His works were recorded on tapes and video cassettes.

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The Official Birth of Gestalt Therapy Thus, in 1951, a major book appeared, entitled Gestalt Therapy, compiled mainly by Paul Goodman based on Perls's written notes. This book was written in an incomprehensible and vague language, and therefore had no special meaning.

Gestalt therapy is a form of therapy that incorporates and generalizes various psychotherapeutic methods of treatment. Translated from German, the word “gestalt” means “figure”, “shape”. Gestalt therapy is based on a holistic approach to a person and his problem, taking into account physical, spiritual, and social aspects. The main focus is not on finding the causes of the problem, but on trying to understand a person’s momentary feelings, how he feels at the moment and how something can be changed for the better.

The founder of Gestalt therapy is the German psychoanalyst Fritz (Frederick Solomon) Perls, who finally formulated the principles of therapy in his work in 1951. The main goal Perls designated the achievement of a “healthy personality” (German gute gestalt) as a new treatment method - hence the name Gestalt therapy.

Currently, Perls' followers are trying to further improve the methods of Gestalt therapy used to treat mental illnesses, for example, schizophrenia, schizoid neurosis.

Basic provisions

Gestalt therapy is based on the ability of the human psyche to self-regulate and adapt to changing environmental conditions. A person must be aware of the consequences of his own actions, goals, desires. The psychotherapist focuses the patient's attention on awareness and assessment of the sensations that the patient feels “here and now.”

It is very important that the patient himself realizes his true needs. For example, if a patient has an alcohol or drug addiction, he must realize that alcohol or drugs are not the true need of his body, there is something more significant. For such awareness, positive practical experience of interaction with the environment is necessary, for example, a new interesting hobby. The main goal is the perception of something new, development creative thinking, motivation for growth, personal development. Experimental analysis helps to identify the true needs of the patient.

The essence of Gestalt therapy is for the patient to gain the ability to concentrate on new positive experiences, realize its significance on the physical, intellectual and emotional levels, and understand that there are choices in life. Your lifestyle can be changed in accordance with new sensations gained as a result of practical experience of interaction with those elements of the surrounding world that were not previously given due importance.

Gestalt therapy techniques

The main techniques of Gestalt therapy can be divided into two main parts: principles and games. Principles are aids, based on which the patient is able to put his thoughts and feelings in order and play by the rules.

Principles of Gestalt therapy:

• The first principle is understanding the present. It is important that the patient understands what is happening at a particular moment. He must be able to abstract from the past and future.
• The second principle is “I” and “you”. The patient does not just speak to someone, but addresses his words to a specific person sitting opposite, whom he must call by name.
• The third principle is that the patient must “reincarnate” and speak not on his own behalf, but on behalf of the image into which he has “reincarnated.” The patient does not say, “My hand is trembling,” but says, “I am trembling.”
• The fourth principle is the use of stream of consciousness. The patient must talk about his emotions and show what he is experiencing, for example, visually depict fear.
• The fifth principle is that the patient is prohibited from talking about other people nearby, but must address them directly.
• The sixth principle is based on patient questions. The therapist tries to separate important issues from unimportant ones.

Games

Many different games are used in Gestalt therapy. For example, the game “I will be responsible for this” is used in group therapy sessions to create a certain mood. At the same time, the patient must add to every thought he expresses: “... and I will be responsible for it.” Other games are “Monologue” (an extended statement in the first person), “Circle” (the patient must frankly tell each member of the group what feelings he has for him), “I have a secret” (the patient tells how others would react if they knew a secret that he wants to keep), “Advice to spouses” (during the game, spouses should engage in a frank dialogue). Gestalt therapy also uses other similar games. In addition, the therapist can come up with new games that fit the patients' problems and life situations.

Gestalt therapy exercises

• Hot chair - all group members sit on chairs standing in a circle. In the center of the circle there is another chair, which is called the “hot” chair. One of the group members sits on the hot chair, and at his own request. The one sitting in the hot seat begins to talk about his problems, the others ask him questions to which frank answers must be given. The person in the hot seat should feel warmth, understand that his problems are of concern to someone, become self-confident, and realize that his problems are surmountable.
• Associations - a psychotherapist or one group member names a concept or term that causes negative emotions, for example, “fear”, and the other selects a positive association for it, for example, “overcome fear”.
• Unfinished phrases - tell other group members what you think about them. Your phrases should begin with the words: I like that you..., I'm angry that you..., I'm surprised that you..., etc.
• Missing Person – The participant closes their eyes and imagines a person they have missed in the past, such as an older brother or mentor. The participant then tells the group how that person could have influenced or prevented the problem.
• Reverse emotions - the participant expresses in words his feelings and emotions that he experienced while listening to the problems of other participants. Then he tries to portray the opposite emotion and explores new sensations.
• Reversion is a game of opposites. For example, a good girl is offered to be a bitch, and a believer is offered to be a sinner.
• Pros and cons - after listening to the problem of one of the participants, the group is divided into those who criticize and those who defend. Each group brings its own arguments, discussion and debate are welcome.
• Shuttle – this Gestalt therapy exercise can be performed independently at home. You will need two chairs - “hot” and “empty”. The idea is that a person sits on a “hot” chair and tells a fictitious interlocutor in an empty chair about his problem. Then he sits down on an empty chair, tries to listen to what is said and perceive it from the listener’s side, give advice, ask a clarifying question. Then again to the “hot” chair, again to the empty one, etc.

When taking part in various games, the patient must understand that real life- this is the same game in which real people take part, and that some of these games are acceptable to him and others are not. Therapy should teach people how to change their unsatisfactory game and not be afraid to change themselves so that life becomes fulfilling. A person must get rid of complexes and learn to be free from prejudices imposed by society. In addition, during therapy, a person learns to accept his loved ones for who they are and not try to change them.