Techniques used in Gestalt therapy. Technique for conducting sessions

Mechanisms and techniques of Gestalt therapy

There is no systematic description of the methods and techniques of Gestalt therapy. Specific exercises are presented in the book « Ego, Hunger and Aggression» (Perls, 1947), and also in « Gestalt Therapy» (Perls et al., 1951).

Since neurosis is a sign of stunted growth, the cure should be less a therapy than a method of restoring growth. This is precisely the purpose of the exercises. The task is to discover one's Self, which is achieved not through introspection, but through action.

The average person's awareness is not sufficiently developed. First half of the book « Gestalt Therapy» contains two sets of exercises designed to help a person develop awareness of his functioning as an organism and a person. These exercises are an integral part of therapy:

First complex exercises are intended for everyone and are aimed at:

contact with the environment through awareness of current feelings, sensation of opposing forces, concentration, differentiation and unification;

developing self-awareness through memories, honing the sense of the body, experiencing the continuity of emotions, listening to one’s own verbalizations, integrating awareness;

channeling awareness by turning fusion into contact and changing anxiety into excitement.

Second complex aims to change chronic dysfunction:

retroflexion: study of erroneous behavior, muscle tension, performing the opposite action;

introjection: introjection and the process of eating, displacement and digestion of introjects;

projection: projection detection and projection assimilation.

Therapy is based on the spirit of improvisation. Methods vary depending on the patient and the specific situation, with the therapist relying on already known techniques. Particular attention is paid to the unique ways in which patients attempt to manipulate their environment (including the therapist) to obtain external support.

There are as many variations of Gestalt therapy as there are Gestalt therapists (Latner, 1973). Some techniques can still be considered general, if not standard. All of them are aimed at awareness. The group format gave rise to the development of techniques called “games.”

The method of awareness here and now. The motto of Gestalt therapy is: “You and I, here and now.” The present, here and now, is the therapeutic situation itself.

The patient experiences his problem in an interview. He does not even need to formulate his problem in words, since it will inevitably manifest itself in nonverbal behavior. The patient is not allowed to talk “about” problems in the past tense or in terms of memories; he is offered to experience them now. Generally speaking, the patient is asked to experience as fully as possible their breathing, gestures, feelings, emotions and voice. It is the expressive manner that is important, not the content of the experience.

The patient should repeat the basic sentence: “Now I am aware.” Be sure to use the present tense. Possible options for the question: “What are you aware of now?”, “Where are you now?”, “What do you see? do you feel?", "What are you doing with your hand? foot? or “Are you aware of what you are doing now as your...?”, “What do you want?”, “What are you waiting for?”.

The therapist’s task is to draw the patient’s attention to his behavior, feelings, and experiences without giving them an interpretation. The challenge is to find out how, not why - how the patient interferes with his own awareness of unfinished or interrupted work, "holes", or missing parts of the personality, rejected or dissociated aspects of it. Awareness cannot be forced; If the patient resists working with the material to which the therapist draws his attention, he should not be pushed. Other times will come when the patient will be ready for such work.

Awareness itself can be healing because it leads to contact with unfinished business that can be completed. The goal of all Gestalt therapy techniques, not just the here and now method, is to awaken awareness in the patient so that he can integrate alienated parts of his personality.

A method of awakening responsibility in the patient. The patient's responses to questions about awareness serve as an expression of the self. The therapist observes these reactions while asking follow-up questions. The patient's reactions often take the form of avoidance or counter-questions to the therapist, and they may contain other indications of an attempt to avoid responsibility for the behavior. “For him, responsibility is guilt, so he is afraid of being accused, but he is ready to blame himself. It’s as if he’s saying: “I’m not responsible for my attitudes, it’s all about my neurosis.” The patient projects responsibility onto other people, often parents, or early experiences. He may dissociate himself from nonverbal reactions, speaking of his body or its parts as “it” and of his actions as “they.”

The therapist requires the patient to change the wording from questions to affirmative sentences, forcing him to take responsibility for them. The psychotherapist invites the patient to speak I instead of it when it comes to body parts and their actions. In this way, the patient is led to take responsibility for himself and his behavior here and now, so that he becomes better aware of himself.

Working with drama and fantasy. The therapist can accelerate awareness by introducing a number of techniques that require dramatic activity (role-taking) and the patient's imagination. This approach is especially useful if the patient's interaction with reality is blocked. Fantasy, with the help of symbols, reflects reality in miniature; it can be verbalized, written down or acted out in various forms with a psychotherapist, other group members or in the process of monotherapy. With monotherapy, the patient creates and directs all the action, he plays all the roles. Fantasy involves acting out neurotic tendencies in therapy, which can subsequently be brought under control. Unlike Moreno, Perls did not involve others in the dramatic action: he instructed the patient to play all the roles himself. Using various techniques and situations, he encouraged the patient to play roles.

Shuttle technique -switching the patient's attention alternately from one type of activity or experience to another: for example, speaking and listening to oneself. The therapist can facilitate the process by drawing the patient's attention to what was said and how it was said: “Are you aware of this sentence?”

In addition, the patient can switch between reliving past experiences in the imagination and in the here and now. An experience evokes internal sensations, which, when recognized, fill the gaps associated with the experience and contribute to the completion of the corresponding unfinished business. The shuttle technique is partially included in other techniques - in attacker/defender dialogues and the “empty chair” technique.

Attacker/Defender Dialogue . Neurotic conflicts involve opposing or opposing personality traits or aspects. When the therapist discovers such a split in personality, he invites the patient to conduct an experiment involving each conflicting party in a dialogue. The most common split is between the two selves in the personality, the “attacker” and the “defender.” “Assailant” = Superego: righteous, perfectionistic, authoritarian, punishing and intimidating entity. "Defender" = Id, or infraego, according to Perls: something primitive, evasive, making excuses like “yes, but,” passively sabotaging the demands of the “attacker” and usually gaining the upper hand.

The conflict can only be resolved by the patient's integration of the two aspects of his personality. The process of integration occurs when the patient becomes aware of the “attacker/defender”, entering into a dialogue in which he alternately speaks on behalf of both.

Empty chair . This is a method of facilitating role-playing dialogue between the patient and other people or between parts of the patient's personality. Typically used in a group situation. Two chairs are placed opposite each other: one corresponds to the patient or one of the aspects of his personality (the “attacker”), the other to another person or part of the personality (the “defender”). Changing roles, the patient moves from one chair to another.

The therapist may confine himself to observing the dialogue or advise the patient when to move to another chair, offer possible answers, draw the patient's attention to what was said and how it was said, or ask the patient to repeat or reinforce words or actions. In the process of such work, emotions and conflicts are awakened, impasses arise and are resolved, and polarities, or schisms, can be recognized and integrated within the patient, between the patient and other people, between the patient's desires (the "defender") and social norms (the "attacker").

The empty chair technique is often used in a group situation where the therapist is working one-on-one with a group member. The person being worked with takes the “hot chair” and sits opposite an empty chair in front of the group.

Working with dreams. Perls believed: dreams are a direct path to integration. The therapist tries to get the patient to re-experience the dream in the present, in the therapeutic situation, including acting it out. Interpretations are not given because they only lead to intellectual understanding. The patient himself is entrusted with giving the interpretation.

The dream reflects or contains in one form or another an incomplete, unassimilated situation. Its different parts are projections of different and conflicting aspects of the self. In principle, a dream contains everything needed for healing if all its parts are understood and assimilated.

Dreams reveal missing parts of the personality and avoidance techniques used by the patient. Patients who do not remember dreams (all dreams) refuse to look at their problems; They " think that they made a deal with life.” Such patients are asked to turn to escaped dreams: “Dreams, where are you?”

When working with a dream, the patient is asked to play a role different people and objects. During the game, the patient identifies himself with the alienated parts of his personality and integrates them. Difficulty in playing or refusal means that the patient does not want to appropriate or get back his rejected parts. The process is facilitated by the use of the empty chair technique, when the patient moves from chair to chair when interacting with a dream character, object or part of himself.

Homework. The patient must relive the session, imagining himself in the therapeutic situation. If for some reason this is difficult, you need to try to find out what the problem is, maybe something was not said at the session. If so, can the patient now say it? The emphasis is on awareness of the fact of avoidance and interruption of self-expression.

Rules and games

By allowing the patient to play and “discover that he has it all (all that he believes only others can give him), we increase his potential... Thus, in the process of therapy, we try to help the patient step by step assign alienated parts of the personality until he himself becomes strong enough to facilitate his own growth" (Perls, 1969a).

The rules and games of Gestalt therapy are summarized by Lewicki and Perls.

Rules

“now” principle: use of the present tense;

“me and you”: direct appeal to the person, rather than discussing this person with the therapist;

using I-statements: replacement it on "I", When we're talking about about the body, its actions and behavior;

Using the Awareness Continuum: Focusing on How And What experience, not Why;

inadmissibility of gossip: direct appeal to the person present, and not comments about him;

ask the patient to translate questions into statements.

Games

1. Dialogue games . The patient plays the roles of aspects of the split personality and conducts a dialogue between them. These parts include the "attacker" (superego or should) and the "defender" (passive resistance), aggressive/passive, good guy/brawler, masculinity/femininity...

2. In a circle . The patient develops a general statement or theme (eg, “I can't stand everyone in this room”) to each person individually, with appropriate additional comments.

3. "I take responsibility" . The patient is asked to end each statement about himself or his feelings with the statement “and I take responsibility for that.”

4. "I have a secret" . Each person thinks about his personal secret associated with guilt or shame and, without sharing this secret, imagines how he thinks others would react to him.

5. Acting out the projection . When the patient expresses an opinion that is a projection, he is asked to play the role of the person involved in this projection in order to discover the hidden conflict.

6. Rearrangements . The patient is offered a role that is the opposite of his overt behavior (eg, being aggressive rather than passive); he must recognize and make contact with the latent, hidden aspect of himself.

7. Changing contact to detachment and back . The natural tendency toward detachment is recognized and accepted, and the patient is allowed to temporarily experience the safety of detachment.

8. Rehearsal . Since thinking is largely rehearsal preparation for the performance of a social role, group members rehearse together.

9. Exaggeration . Exaggeration also applies to rehearsal games. When the patient makes an important statement in a normal tone, indicating an underestimation of its importance, he is asked to repeat this statement again and again, increasing the volume and emphasizing it.

10. « Can I give you a suggestion? ?» The therapist invites the patient to repeat a specific sentence that the therapist believes reflects something important to the patient so that the patient can try it on himself. Often accompanied by interpretation.

The techniques used in Gestalt therapy are grouped around two main areas of work. They are called principles and games. The principles are introduced at the initial stage of therapy, and there are not too many of them, and the number of games is not limited. The principles indicate preferred directions of behavior and conditions that are conducive to expanding awareness and fullest contact with the environment and oneself.

The basic principles of Gestalt therapy are the following:
1. The “now” principle. “Now” is a functional concept of what and how an individual is doing at the moment. For example, the act of remembering the distant past is part of the “now,” but what happened a few minutes ago is not the “now.”
2. The “I - you” principle. Expresses a desire for open and direct contact between people. Often members of a psychotherapeutic group direct their statements not to a specific participant, but to the side or into the air, which reveals their fear of speaking directly and frankly. The therapist encourages group members to communicate directly.
3. The principle of subjectivization of statements. The psychotherapist suggests that the patient replace objectified forms (“something is pressing in my chest”) with subjectivized ones (“I suppress myself”).
4. Continuum of consciousness. It is an integral part of all technical procedures, but can also be used as a separate method. This is a concentration on the spontaneous flow of the content of experiences, a method of leading the individual to direct experience and the rejection of verbalizations and interpretations, one of the central concepts. Awareness of feelings, bodily sensations and observation of body movements contribute to a person’s orientation in himself and in his connections with the environment.

Technical procedures are called Gestalt games. These are a variety of activities performed by patients at the suggestion of a psychotherapist that promote more direct confrontation with significant content and experiences. These games provide an opportunity to experiment with yourself and other group members. During the games, group members “try on” various roles, enter into different images, are identified with significant feelings and experiences, alienated parts of the personality and introjects. The purpose of experimental games is to achieve emotional and intellectual clarification, leading to personality integration. Emotional awareness (“aha experience”) is a moment of self-awareness when a person says: “Aha!” According to F. Perls, "aha" is what happens when something snaps into place; Every time the gestalt “closes,” this click “sounds.” As facts of emotional clarification accumulate, intellectual clarification comes.

The number of games is not limited, since each psychotherapist, using the principles of Gestalt therapy, can create new games or modify already known ones.

The most famous are the following games.
1. Dialogue between parts of one’s personality. When a patient experiences fragmentation of personality, the psychotherapist suggests an experiment: conducting a dialogue between significant fragments of personality - between aggressive and passive, “attacker” and “defender”. This can be a dialogue with one’s own feelings (for example, with anxiety, fear), and with individual parts or organs of one’s own body, and with an imaginary person significant to the patient. The technique of the game is as follows: opposite the chair occupied by the patient (the “hot chair”), there is an empty chair on which an imaginary “interlocutor” is “seated.” The patient alternates chairs, playing out the dialogue, trying to identify as much as possible with different parts of his personality.
2. Making circles. The patient is asked to go around the circle and address each participant with a question that concerns him, for example, to find out how others evaluate him, what they think of him, or to express his own feelings towards group members.
3. Unfinished business. Any unfinished gestalt is unfinished business that requires completion. Essentially, all Gestalt therapy comes down to completing unfinished business. Most people have many unresolved issues related to their relatives, parents, etc. Most often, these are unspoken complaints and claims. The patient is invited, using the empty chair technique, to express his feelings to an imaginary interlocutor or to contact directly the member of the psychotherapeutic group who is related to the unfinished business.
Gestalt psychotherapists have noticed that the most common and significant feeling is resentment. It is with this feeling that they work in the game, which begins with the words: “I am offended.”
4. Projective game. When the patient states that another person has a certain feeling or character trait, he is asked to check whether this is a projection of himself. The patient is asked to “act out the projection,” i.e. try on this feeling or trait for yourself. Thus, a patient who states, “I feel pity for you,” is asked to act out the role of the person causing pity by approaching each group member and interacting with him. Gradually entering the role, a person reveals himself, and integration of previously rejected aspects of the personality can occur.
5. Revealing the opposite (reversion). The patient's overt behavior is often defensive, hiding opposing tendencies. To make the patient aware of hidden desires and conflicting needs, he is asked to play a role opposite to the one he demonstrates in the group. For example, a patient with “darling” manners is asked to play the role of an aggressive, arrogant woman who hurts others. This technique allows you to achieve more complete contact with those sides of your personality that were previously hidden.

6. Imagination exercises. Illustrate the process of projection and help group members identify with rejected aspects of personality. Among such exercises, the most popular game is “Old Abandoned Store”. The patient is asked to close his eyes, relax, then imagine that late at night he is walking along a small street past an old, abandoned store. Its windows are dirty, but if you look in, you can see an object. The patient is asked to examine it carefully, and then move away from the abandoned store and describe the object found outside the window. Next, he is asked to imagine himself as this object and, speaking in the first person, describe his feelings, answer the question of why it was left in the store, what its existence as this object is like. By identifying with these objects, patients project some of their personal problems onto them.

In Gestalt therapy, much attention is paid to working with patients' dreams. Paraphrasing S. Freud, F. Perls said that “sleep is the royal road to personality integration.” Unlike psychoanalysis, dreams are not interpreted in Gestalt therapy; they are used to integrate the personality. The author believed that various parts of a dream are fragments of our personality. In order to achieve integration, it is necessary to combine them, to again recognize as our own these projected, alienated parts of our personality and to recognize as our own the hidden tendencies that manifest themselves in sleep. By playing back dream objects and individual fragments, the hidden content of a dream can be discovered through its experience, and not through its analysis.

The doctrine of Gestalt therapy was developed by the spouses Fritz and Laura Perls, together with Paul Goodman, in the 1940-1950s. Perls worked on a method for treating people suffering from mental disorders. Already during the life of the psychoanalyst, Gestalt therapy transformed from a simple teaching into a practice widely used in psychological circles. It was actively developed and developed, incorporating the ideas of various schools of psychology.

Many modern psychotherapists use this technique in almost all areas of life, since with its help Difficult situations can be resolved which the patient finds himself in.

According to Perls, a person must be whole, and all aspects of his life - spiritual, social and physical - must merge into a single whole personality. From this statement of the scientist the name of the therapy appeared. Word Gestalt literally translated from German language translated as “figure”, “form”, “personality”, “complete image”.

The theories of Fritz Perls are aimed at realizing life “here” and “now”, at living fully in the present, and not in the past or future.

In the process of growth and development of psychology, two important changes were made to Gestalt therapy:

1. Group therapy began to be used much less frequently;
2. A more attentive and tolerant attitude towards the patient appeared, and contact with him (which was often used by the founder of the teaching) was undesirable.

In 1969, Perls published a short text in one of his books that became widely known. first in America, and then spread throughout the world. The Gestalt Prayer, which proposed the concept of an independent individual, was subject to both intense criticism and rave reviews. It had a significant impact on the culture of the 1970s, when people actively fought for their rights, rejected many traditions and were constantly looking for new forms of relationships with each other.

Basic principles and provisions of therapy

This doctrine is based on the following: concepts and principles:

Thus, the main goal of Gestalt therapy is the ability to allow a person become aware of yourself in the present, accept and love yourself, move forward in your own way, and not try to suppress individuality. Performing Gestalt therapy exercises helps you feel better, more confident, discard everything unnecessary and find your way in life.

Therapy can be group or conducted individually. During group sessions, the therapist usually works with one (maximum two) participants, while the rest of the group can give them feedback, identify with the “working” participant and provide emotional support, which plays an important role in the treatment process.

Who is Gestalt therapy suitable for?

Any person who has difficulty communicating, is at odds with himself and wants to change his life for the better can resort to Gestalt therapy methods.

Gestalt therapy can also be used for the following disorders characteristic of chronic stress:

• psychosomatic diseases;
• suppressed experiences, phobias and fears;
• neurotic disorders;
• depression, suicidal tendencies, nightmares;
• increased aggressiveness, irritability and anxiety.

It turned out that this method is highly effective when working with clients with suicidal tendencies.

Gestalt therapy is very effective when working with rape victims. The methods used here make it possible to:

• returning to reality, focusing on the “here and now”;
• focusing on current experiences, detaching from the past, placing emphasis on changes in one’s own state;
• working through negative memories, completion of gestalt;
• verbalization of thoughts and feelings;
• conscious control of your emotions, getting rid of insensitivity and fear.

There are several features that you need to know for successful therapy.

According to statistics, women turn to psychology for help much more often than men. They more open and emotional, and therefore it is easier to establish contact with a specialist, more often listen to advice and recommendations, and are more willing to participate in games and group activities.

Men, on the contrary, for the most part, are not inclined to communicate in group classes and have difficulty making contact. However, here everything depends on the psychotherapist’s individual approach to communicating with the client. A talented specialist who knows how to select the right communication methods will be able to get in touch with even the most unsociable client.

Psychotherapists have a special approach to children, including in Gestalt therapy. For example, they consider a child who never complains about his parents to be problematic. This could mean it's coming suppression of true feelings child due to fear of parental displeasure. It is most difficult to find a common language with such children.

How does Gestalt therapy work?

Unfinished Gestalts

Personal behavior is easily explained when creating and completing gestalt structures. Every person arranges his life in such a way as to direct his actions to complete current needs and requirements.

For example, a person who wants to purchase some valuable thing saves money to buy it, looks for additional ways income and profit. And those who want to have offspring direct all their efforts towards achieving this very goal. After completion, the gestalt is destroyed, and the person experiences a feeling of satisfaction.

However, not every process reaches its completion, and people constantly start form similar patterns. These deviations are associated with incomplete mental images, and the person will continue to find himself in a negative situation of the same nature until the gestalt is destroyed.

Psychotherapists help to work through unfinished gestalts in individual or group sessions, using special practices.

Therapeutic techniques

All Gestalt therapy techniques can be divided into two groups:

1. Projective. They are used when working with dreams, images, dialogues with fictitious interlocutors, and so on.
2. Dialogue. During these techniques, difficult work psychotherapist with client. Having tracked the mechanisms of interruption, the psychologist transforms his own emotions into a part environment client and transfers them to the contact boundary.

A clear distinction between techniques exists only in theoretical psychology; in practice, they are closely intertwined with each other.

Conclusion of a contract

Most often the process of Gestalt therapy begins with “concluding a contract”: agreements that the doctor and the patient are equal partners bearing equal responsibility for the result collaboration. Sharing responsibility is one of the most important steps in therapy.

"Hot Chair", "Empty Chair"

Perhaps this is the most famous and widespread method of Gestalt therapy.

A “hot chair” is a place where a person sits down and talks about his problems while the psychologist and group members listen attentively. Expressing your emotions, sharing opinions and feelings is allowed only after the speech is completed.

An “empty chair” is a place where, with the help of imagination, a person significant to the patient is placed, with whom one can have a conversation, regardless of what their relationship is, and, in general, whether this person is alive. Another purpose of the “empty chair” is a conversation between different parts of the personality, necessary if a person has an internal conflict. Such dialogues help to gain integrity, accept oneself and the world around us.

Concentration

Concentration is the original technique of the Gestalt Institute. The method is based on concentrated awareness of the internal worlds (emotional and physical sensations), external worlds (seeing, hearing) and thoughts. Using the main principle of Gestalt therapy “here and now,” the client tells the psychologist about his feelings at a given moment in time, describes everything that is happening to him and what he is thinking about.

This technology allows you to enhance your sense of reality and understand your ways of escaping it.

Experimental gain

One effective technique is special reinforcement any minor manifestations. For example, a patient may unconsciously often repeat the words “Yes, but,” thereby looking for a reason not to do something, not follow the recommendations of the attending physician, and so on. The specialist can suggest that the client begin each of his sentences with this phrase so that the person realizes the desire for contradiction and the desire to always have the last word.

Working with Polarities

Techniques of this direction are usually aimed at searching for opposites in a person. For example, a psychologist may suggest that a modest, insecure person imagine himself as a strong, confident person and communicate from this position with the people around him.

A shy client who is afraid to ask for help may be advised by a doctor to turn to the group with the most unimaginable requests.

This technique will help expand your zone of awareness and discover previously inaccessible potential.

Working with dreams

With dreams psychologists and therapists work a wide variety of schools, but the Gestalt method has characteristic features. In it, the details of the dream are considered as parts of the personality, with each of which the client identifies. This is done to appropriate one’s own projections and, despite the subtle scope of this technique, the basic rule of Gestalt therapy continues to apply: “here and now.”

The client can tell the therapist about his dream as if it were happening in the present tense. It is important that the description of the dream occurs not only on behalf of the dreamer, but also on behalf of the objects and other people that are part of the dream.

Working with Gestalt therapy techniques will be extremely useful for any person who has unfinished business, is stuck in a certain scenario, or is at odds with himself or society. And even if there is no time or opportunity to contact a qualified specialist, it will be useful to try do some exercises on one's own. Often during such exercises, insights occur that help you choose the right and desired direction in life.

Gestalt therapy and Gestalt psychology is a special direction in psychology, which originates in Germany. The main idea in Gestalt psychology is the ability of self-regulation of the human body, that is, a person must be responsible for his actions, bear responsibility. The founders of the Gestalt approach developed a methodology for working with patients, which helped to holistically address the issue of studying a number of psychological aspects occurring in the human body.

Gestalt psychology does not divide consciousness into its component components. Representatives of the theory believe that perception cannot be created or formed solely through human sensations, but the properties of various figures, characterizing only its individual components, cannot be described. Consciousness forms a whole from parts of a kind of mosaic, creating a gestalt.

Gestalt concept

The first question that interests many. What is Gestalt? The term Gestalt comes from it. the words “gestalt”, which means “shape”, “figure”. Gestalt refers to structural formations of various particles that make up a single whole. It is this concept that underlies the practices of Gestalt therapy.

Every person must understand and realize what he really needs, what he senses and feels. Gestalt psychology does not focus on maximizing quick solution minor problems by her standards. It's not so easy to describe in simple words. The psychological approach implies something more. When working with psychologists, a person will be able to look at his life completely differently, reconsider his own life positions and fully immerse himself in the conditions of the real world.

The essence of the Gestalt approach is for a person to correctly perceive the world around him as an integral structure subordinate to certain principles, and not as separate components. The concept of Gestalt, like Gestalt psychology itself, is an opponent of the so-called structural psychology. It does not support the principles of division, fragmentation of human consciousness into separate components and the creation of complex psychophenomena from them.

Key Ideas

In Gestalt psychology, the most important object with which work is carried out is human consciousness. It acts as a single dynamic whole, where each element comes into close interaction with each other.

In simple terms, the approach in Gestalt psychology to the main object of work can be compared to the human body. It is a single whole, although it consists of different components. But each system and organ interacts clearly and reliably with each other. for many years, creating a single whole.

Gestalt psychology includes a number of basic ideas, objects and tools that represent the main aspects of this psychological direction:

• Gestalt. It represents a unit of consciousness and an integral structure of the image.
• The subject of this branch of psychology is human consciousness. The construction of an understanding of a subject is carried out according to the principle of its integrity.
• The cognitive method in Gestalt psychology is description, as well as observation of one’s own perceptions. A person begins to perceive not from his own sensations, since they are absent in the real world, but from the reflections of air vibrations and their pressure.
• Visual perception. This perception acts as the leading or main psychoprocess that determines the current level of development of the human psyche. For example, each of us regularly receives an impressive amount of all kinds of information, perceiving and processing it with the help of our visual organs.
• Thinking. It is not just a set of skills that have been formed in the human mind, but it is a complex process of problem solving, which is carried out through the structuring of special fields - through the so-called insight in the real world.

Laws and principles

This psychological approach is based on the basic laws of Gestalt.

The first law of psychological teaching is the so-called law of background and figures. Any of us perceives various figures as a kind of closed and whole objects. As for the background, this is something that is constantly located behind the figure.

The second law is transposition. The human psyche reacts, that is, it responds not to each individual stimulus, but to a certain ratio of them. The bottom line is this: elements can be combined if there are at least some signs of similarity between them. This could be symmetry, proximity, the same color, etc.

Another important law is the law of pregnancy. Among all possible perceptual alternatives, there is a tendency to perceive the simplest and most stable figures.

Law of constancy or constancy. The essence or meaning of the law is based on the fact that everything tends towards a constant.

The law of proximity is that the human brain combines all surrounding structural elements into integral images, both in space and time.

The last, but no less significant law in Gestalt psychology is the law of closure. It involves filling the gaps in the object perceived by a person. Sometimes we perceive things and images that are incomprehensible to us, which the brain tries to somehow change and transform. That is, a certain process of transforming an incomprehensible object into an object that is completely accessible to our perception or understanding is carried out. In some cases this poses a potential threat. We see something that is not there.

Concepts such as quality, constant, and figure and ground are integral parts of Gestalt. After studying them, you will be able to understand what Gestalt psychology is and what its main features are.

Basic provisions and principles of Gestalt therapy

Properties of psychological perception, such as constant, figures, or ground, interact to bring new specific properties to the perceived images and objects. This is precisely what Gestalt is, that is, the quality of form. To achieve the desired integrity, as well as orderliness, several basic principles of Gestalt are used:

• Proximity. This principle lies in the fact that everything located in close proximity to each other is always perceived as something single.
• The principle of similarity is based on the understanding and perception together of everything that is similar in color, shape, as well as size or other characteristics.
• Integrity. With this principle, perception tends to strive to simplify and unite into a single whole.
• Contiguity represents the closeness between images arising in the surrounding space and a given moment in time. Notably, adjacencies can influence human perceptions.
• We are talking about situations where one event led to another.
• Common area. This principle forms a person’s everyday perception, which goes together with the person’s previously acquired experience.

What is Gestalt therapy?

The widespread use of Gestalt psychology is largely due to the fact that it can solve a number of human problems. The task of Gestalt psychology is awareness of one’s own experiences and choice optimal path their decisions.

It is not surprising that it is actively used in the practice of psychotherapeutic activities. Based on the principles of Gestalt psychology, one of the most popular and effective techniques modern psychology. This direction has received the quite fair name of Gestalt therapy. The foundations of Gestalt therapy were developed by psychologist Friedrich Perls, his wife Laura and Paul Goodman.

Species

There are several types of therapy, including:

• group gestalt therapy;
• family;
• steam room;
• children's;
• individual.

Currently, group Gestalt therapy is most popular, but experts also do not exclude the benefits of Gestalt self-therapy. Having studied Gestalt self-therapy techniques, a person can use them to understand himself, his own problems and find ways to solve them.

In family, couples, children's and group Gestalt therapy, the main character is the therapist. He conducts Gestalt therapy sessions with children and adults, carries out family Gestalt therapy, helps in choosing ways to solve problems of envy, panic, competition, helps with resentment and in the fight against shame.

Family as well as couples activities are beneficial for both patients. Moreover, one person may have problems, and the task of the rest of the class participants is to help him and provide support.

After all, both the male and female half of patients can resist Gestalt therapy, which is why group sessions are sometimes better replaced with individual conversations or paired sessions. This will encourage your partner or family member to open up about the problem and find a solution.

Also, family and couples activities are aimed at solving internal problems that negatively affect the relationship between husband and wife, or parents and children.

The role of the Gestalt therapist

Gestalt consultants are specialists who practice the use of Gestalt therapy methods. When working with dreams in Gestalt therapy or other therapy methods with patients, the therapist positions himself as part of the therapeutic treatment, interaction. If a specialist uses Gestalt therapy methods in psychological counseling, observing the basic provisions of Gestalt, the psychotherapist is obliged to open up to the patient as fully as the patient opens up to him. Based on the principles of Gestalt therapy, during sessions of individual or group Gestalt therapy, a solution to the problems encountered by the patient is achieved.

The first thing a psychologist should determine is the essence of the problem. Without this, it is impossible to begin work on eliminating the problems of an adult or child. For example, when panic attacks Gestalt therapy is ready to offer effective and efficient methods of combating such phenomena.

Various exercises of this psychotherapy are based on the principles of “here and now”, “I – ​​you”.

The principle of Gestalt therapy “here and now” is a fundamental concept, because we live here and now. And if we cannot change the past, why devote so much attention and energy to it?! A person should think about the present, as well as how attacks of envy, unreasonable panic or competition may affect him in the future.

The “I – ​​you” principle demonstrates the desire for natural and open contact between the individual and the surrounding society, suppressing feelings of envy and competition; group Gestalt therapy classes are based on the principle.

Such approaches and principles when a Gestalt therapist works with patients and subpersonalities help them look at what is happening differently, give a more objective assessment of their own actions, sensations, experiences and perceptions. Actually, this is the main Gestalt therapy, which the patient learns during an appointment with a therapist.

Technique for conducting sessions

The contact cycle is a core concept of Gestalt therapy. What is a contact cycle? This is a model that describes a completely natural process of satisfying human needs, the process of formation and destruction of the figure. This is stated in the “Self” theory of one of the co-founders of therapy, P. Goodman. The emergence of self in Gestalt therapy significantly influenced the technique of sessions.

When mastering the technique of Gestalt therapy, it is important for the therapist to identify and study all the mechanisms for interrupting contact, and each mechanism requires a specific approach. An interruption is a disruption of a person’s natural exchanges with his environment, as well as disturbances in the processes of consciousness.

The most common mechanisms for interrupting contact in Gestalt therapy are: confluence (fusion), introjection, projection, retroflection and egotism.

Each of these mechanisms occurs in a specific phase of the contact cycle. Confluence is formed at the pre-contact stage, and is manifested by the fact that a person cannot realize his feelings and sensations. At the contacting stage, the therapist's contact with the patient is complicated by introjection or projection. At the final stage of contact, if the subpersonality evades direct method To satisfy the need, deflection or retroflexion occurs, and, as a result, the patient’s excitation turns toward himself. Egotism arises already in the post-contact phase, if the experience gained at the previous stages of the cycle is not assimilated into the self and is rejected by the patient.

Interruption of contact can occur if the therapist does not have enough experience with interruption mechanisms, and he himself involuntarily supports the client’s mechanisms for interrupting contact.

Individual Gestalt therapy sessions and group sessions are experimental, existential approaches in psychology and counseling that are primarily based on experience.

The purpose of the technique is to expand one’s own human consciousness by comprehending life, as well as to improve the relationship with the world and the people around us.

Psychology is a complex and multifaceted science in which the principle of Gestalt therapy is currently widely used. You just need to correctly select a therapy technique that will work effectively in a particular case when working with the patient, his problems, and experiences.

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 different internal processes, concentrating on each of them as fully as you can: on images, muscle tension, etc. At the same time, watch 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 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 large 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) at different periods of your 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? Which symbolic meaning your name, what it means in translation, what it meant 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 yours as possible characteristic features: 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

Extremely useful method A way to understand the meaning of certain pains and tensions is to remember 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 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 from a biological point of view. 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, on the contrary, does your refusal develop into a general feeling of defiance and rebellion, with punches, 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 correct and occur in the correct rhythm and in 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 of modern life for your need 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 exact value every 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. little child does it 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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