Techniques in the Gestalt approach. Experiment

Author Margarita Kicherova

16.10.2021 17:59

Health » Health and prevention » Psychotherapy

Natalya Naumova told Pravda.Ru how to let go of childhood grievances against your parents and achieve inner harmony as an adult, as well as why it is important to stop being offended by the world and finally take responsibility for your life .

The main goals of the experiment in Gestalt therapy:

Searching for new ways of behavior in life situations that are relevant to the client - instead of familiar patterns.
Increased customer awareness.
Strengthening client self-support.
Expression by the client of feelings that are usually reflexed or not recognized at all.
The client’s acceptance of his own qualities that he rejects.
Completion of unfinished gestalts.
Consolidation of skills acquired during the experiment.

Successful ideas for experiments arise naturally as therapy progresses. For example, an unfinished topic or an unfinished situation emerges from which the client cannot get out. Or the client is unable to look at the problem from different points of view. And if it feels that the client is really ready to take a risk and try something new, the therapist, calling on his faithful companions - creativity, imagination and intuition - offers the client an experiment - an opportunity to look at the situation from a different angle.

Definition

As one of the areas of psychotherapy, the Gestalt method was formed in the middle of the last century. The theory of this therapy includes a number of practices, including traditional psychoanalysis, body-oriented therapy, Gestalt psychology, psychodrama and many other concepts. The term "gestalt" is of German origin - the word gestalt is translated as "shape, figure." The concept of gestalt, in simple terms, is a holistic image of a specific situation. From a scientific point of view, Gestalt is understood as a holistic structure located on the field of interaction between the environment and a person and covering the gap between the emergence of a need and its satisfaction. The founder of Gestalt therapy is considered to be the psychologist Friedrich Perls, who laid the foundation for the direction of psychology, according to which a person and his environment are a single whole.

The course of the experiment in Gestalt therapy.

Any experiment can be divided into several stages, which can overlap one another or change places. As a rule, the standard experimental design is as follows:

A figure appears in the field;
The therapist offers the client an experiment;
The therapist weighs the risk acceptable to the client;
The therapist and client conduct an experiment;
Completion of the experiment;
Summing up and consolidating skills.

Progress of the experiment.

I. Appearance of the figure

While listening to the client, the therapist gradually identifies a figure from the background - a topic or situation that seems incomplete, problematic, repetitive or dead-end. Any little thing can become such a figure - for example, a barely noticeable tension in the client’s body when he touches on a certain topic, or a sudden loss of energy when mentioning a certain person. The figure can simply be some constantly recurring situation in the client’s life.

Example.

Beverly complains that everything in her life is wrong. She feels depressed and doomed. She seems powerless to change anything. In her story, Beverly continually recalls situations when her husband told her that she was doing everything wrong, and took over the matter himself. Beverly often repeats: “And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

We remember that in the first stage a figure appears. In our case, the figure is a relationship with her husband that is not satisfying for Beverly. The example given by the client illustrates the main problem that you, as a therapist, are voicing: “ Your husband seems to be suppressing you .” You can react differently - for example, using a metaphor: “ I have this picture: you are constantly being pushed away, but you cannot fight back .” Next, you monitor the client’s reaction: a sharply increased amount of energy and interest are clear indicators that you have hit the nail on the head.

Is it worth offering an experiment to a client?

II.Is it worth proposing an experiment?

How and when to offer a client an experiment is a rather delicate question.

On the one hand, the experiment provides a wonderful opportunity to discover the client’s usual ways of interrupting contact and bring the cycle to an end, or I ask you to show other ways of behavior in a given situation. But on the other hand, the experiment can also be considered as deflection, leaving the boundary of contact, escaping from what is happening here and now between the client and the therapist.

Most therapists prefer to trust their intuition, which tells them when they need to bring something else into the work, to find a new application for the client’s energy. It often happens that even a small experiment to increase awareness actualizes an amount of energy sufficient for the client to change his usual attitude towards himself or the world around him.

However, it also happens that the client understands everything, wants to change, but at the same time cannot move from the dead point. The reason that the shift does not occur is very simple. The client is afraid of change. Frederick Perls wrote that the goal of therapy is to create conditions so that the client is not afraid to change . To do this, the client must feel safe and supported by the therapist. Therefore, your first step is to understand whether the client is ready for the experiment. The first time you offer an experiment to a client, clearly formulate your plans.

Example

Therapist: “I see that your relationship with your husband is very troubling for you. I would like to propose an experiment that will help us explore this problem. During the experiment, I may ask you to imagine something or act out some kind of scene - to do something that you have never done before. What do you think of it?"

Attention: the client must be able to refuse!

Adjusting the client to the therapist is fraught not only with a failed experiment, but also with a return to incomplete gestalts and patterns that limit the client. You must clearly state that the choice remains with the client: “It’s okay if you refuse my offer.”

Pay close attention to the client's physical expressions—do you get the feeling that the client is agreeing out of politeness? This, of course, does not mean that at your first words the client’s face should immediately light up with a joyful smile. But a healthy balance between normal excitement and interest is necessary (see below about risk). If you're dealing with an experienced client, you can skip the details: "If you're interested, I have a suggestion" or "Would you like to experiment with this?" Still, do not forget that the client must be able to refuse. Even if you are determined to bring your brilliant idea to life.

Risk assessment in a gestalt experiment.

III.Risk assessment

Your next step is to understand what risk will be most productive for the client . Remember: what suits one client may not suit another. You need to figure out how to make the experiment challenging enough without going over the edge where the situation becomes completely intolerable for the client. Overdo it, and instead of healing, you injure again. If you regret it, the client will learn nothing.

In addition, much depends on the form of the experiment. Some clients find it harder to move in space, for example, get up from a chair, while others, on the contrary, find it more difficult to express emotions or speak loudly.

It is easy to shame the client during the experiment, so the therapist must be very careful. Even the most innocuous phrase (for example: “To better study your situation, I would like to propose an experiment”) can cause tension and shame in the client, which will reduce all your efforts. Pay close attention to how the client reacts to your proposal - both words and physical manifestations will tell you what kind of risk will be acceptable to the client.

Example.

Therapist: “I would like to invite you to talk with your husband about how you react to his criticism. Imagine him sitting in this chair." Beverly looks a little worried, but replies, “I think I can handle it. I'm scared, but I want to try." Beverly may have decided that such an experiment would be too difficult for her. Then we would try to find a different form of working with this problem. For example, we could ask Beverly to think of a specific situation in which her husband criticized her and imagine how she might respond.

As the experiment progresses, carefully monitor the client's reactions and be prepared to adjust risk based on the client's ever-changing capacity for self-support. Now we will try to show how to regulate risk at the very first stage, when the experiment is just being planned. We want to offer you a spectrum: from the simplest tasks, for example, to think and speculate about how you can behave differently in a given situation, to the most complex, for example, to try to behave in a new way outside the psychotherapist’s office.

Tasks for the client in the Gestalt experiment

Tasks for the client in order of increasing risk:

consider how Beverly could have behaved differently in a given situation;
mentally imagine this situation and try a new way of behavior in your imagination;
tell your therapist about it;
try - carefully at first - to act out a scene in a psychotherapist's office;
throwing caution to the wind, truly experiencing and feeling what is happening;
try to behave like this outside the office .

Ways to regulate risk.

Ways to regulate risk during the experiment:

ask the client to pause and breathe ;
invite the client to stop and realize how he feels ;
remind that the therapist is always ready to support the client;
sit closer or, conversely, further from the client;
intervene in the situation : “Now imagine that your husband is silent and listening to you”;
invite the client to imagine a person nearby whom the client could rely on .

The most important thing for a therapist when conducting an experiment is to remain impartial to the results of the experiment and not lead the client by the hand in any direction. Be ready every second to stop, change direction, or even move in the opposite direction - there is no right decision. The purpose of the experiment is to take what you get.

Conducting a Gestalt experiment

IV. Conducting the experiment

The experiment, as we have already said, begins with selecting a figure. As the details become clearer, it will be necessary to give the experiment some specific form. At this stage, the therapist has every chance to demonstrate in all its glory his enormous creative potential. To do this, it is necessary to deeply feel the smallest changes that occur with the client during the experiment, and respond to them, changing the original plans, even if this means radically restructuring the experiment. The therapist will need all his attention and imagination, not to mention the ability to recognize what is happening to himself while the client is working, and the ability to listen to the client. This is necessary to understand how useful the experiment is for the client, and what should be the degree of involvement of the therapist himself. Let us tell you in more detail about the two basic techniques of Gestalt therapy that are used in experiments.

Gestalt technique “Amplification”

Technique 1. Strengthening and moderation

One of the most effective techniques for increasing client awareness is amplification. Ask the client to show in all colors how angry he is - and you will discover a lot of new things. Our emotions and experiences are very often expressed through body language. And if you invite the client to repeat, play over and over again, maximally intensifying, some seemingly unnoticeable movement of the eyebrows or lips, a shrug of the shoulders, or a gesture, for example, a raised finger, it becomes clear what feelings the client is trying to avoid, and what he doesn't realize. The same effect can be achieved by asking the client to repeat a familiar phrase with a special intonation.

Example of amplification technique

While working with a married couple, the therapist noticed that the wife, Natasha, uttering the phrase “I don’t know anything about this,” raises her head and slightly protrudes her lower jaw. Then the therapist asked the client to increase her facial expressions and intonation to the limit. As she worked, notes of triumph appeared in Natasha’s voice. The client realized how powerful she felt when she “knew nothing about it.” At the end she added: “...And you won’t make me find out!” In turn, my husband, Harry, also tried to say with different intonations: “I’m tired of everything.” His voice became louder and louder until he realized what he was feeling. Both spouses were very surprised when they realized how much rage they had been hiding from each other all this time.

It may be that the client uses the techniques described above as a way to avoid contact. Both rushing through therapy and using strong words help the client appear very open when in fact he is not in touch with his thoughts and feelings. One of our clients, for example, stated: “I don’t know what to do. I feel dizzy. It is unbearable. I think I'm about to explode." We offered her a breathing exercise to help her identify areas of tension in her body. As soon as she managed to come to her senses, she began to cry. “I was scared and I was angry,” she explained.

Gestalt technique “Empty chair”

Technique 2. “Empty chair”

The “Empty Chair” exercise is one of the most famous Gestalt therapy techniques. Its purpose is to help the client become aware of what is beyond awareness, as well as to work with polarities, projections and introjects.

"The Empty Chair" allows you to address the client's feelings, explore the dynamics of the client's relationships with other people, encourage the client to appropriate qualities that he rejects, and try other ways of behavior. Since this technique is not only widely known, but also actively used, we will tell you more about it. The name says it all: the exercise really requires an empty chair—one that is not being used by either the client or the therapist. The simplest experiment with an empty chair is to ask the client to imagine that someone he knows is sitting in this chair. Then the client begins to talk to the person sitting on the chair - as sincerely as possible, without filtering the flow of words. This simple technique allows the client to see and become aware of all aspects of the problem. Moreover, the client’s feelings become more vivid and spontaneous. The “empty chair” allows each side to speak out.

An example of the “Empty Chair” technique

Hikaro tells how a pre-planned dinner with a girl fell through. From his voice it seems that the man is very upset. The therapist asks about his feelings. Hikaro becomes gloomy: “I think she had no choice.” Reacting to a figure appearing in the field, the therapist invites the client to repeat several times: “I think she had no choice.” The client pronounces this phrase, and the energy grows. The therapist suggests that Hikaro move to another chair and give vent to this feeling. Hikaro understands that this is anger. As the experiment progresses, Hikaro takes three positions: on the one hand, he feels sympathy for his friend who got sick and therefore was forced to refuse dinner, on the other hand, he is angry with her for disrupting her plans. Then Hikaro begins to feel guilty for his anger and feels compassion again. He soon realizes that this is a habitual way of acting for him, a frozen pattern that causes him to feel upset so often.

In addition, “The Empty Chair” is traditionally used to work through the eternal conflict of the “top dog” (introject) and the “bottom dog” (resistance to introject). The “top dog” is placed on one chair, and the “bottom dog” on the other. With the support of the therapist, the timid bottom dog learns to speak up and resist the aggressive top dog. “The Empty Chair” allows the client to find a compromise between two extremes, to recognize, accept and reconcile these two sides of his personality.

Remember, at the beginning of therapy, and if the client has never experienced a therapeutic experiment, it is important to explain in detail what is what and to interest the client. Whatever client you are dealing with, before you begin, for example, a role-playing game where the client has to talk to another person, try to get the client to turn to his fantasy.

Example

Therapist: “Imagine that your husband is in the room. Where is he standing or sitting? How far is it from you? (Details allow you to create a realistic picture: for example, a cold and indifferent father cannot sit next to his child. It is better to sit him in the far corner of the room - with a newspaper behind which he is hiding. Then the client who is afraid of him may feel calmer).

“Close your eyes and imagine what he is wearing, how he looks at you, what position he is sitting or standing in.” (This may shed light on the client's attitude towards this person.) “Slowly open your eyes and look at him. What do you feel? What comes to mind? What is he telling you, and what do you want to tell him? (At this stage, it often becomes obvious why the client is afraid of the person. For example, the client might say, “He's scolding me,” or “I can't look at him.”)

At this stage, you may need to solicit feedback from the client and reduce risk: “Would you like to find a safe way to communicate with your husband? Are you willing to take the risk and ask him to shut up?” When dealing with an empty chair, it is very easy to manage risk by either addressing the here and now or delving into the client's experience. For example, in a situation with a novice client, a therapist might act like this:

Example

Therapist. Imagine your husband is here. What would you tell him?

Beverly. That I'm fed up with his criticism.

(The therapist can stop here and continue the conversation about the client's difficulties in communicating with her husband, exploring her feelings in the here and now. And if the therapist feels that the client can tolerate increased risk, he can continue.)

T. Then imagine that your husband is here in this room. Will you tell him about this?

Beverly. Well, yes. I don't quite understand you.

T. Sometimes it makes sense to say such things right here in the office.

Beverly. Fine.

T. If he were in this room now, where would he be?

Beverly. I can tell right away that he is sitting at a desk. But the table should be much larger. And my husband’s chair should be higher than mine.

T. Imagine him at the table. What does it look like (etc.)? What do you want to tell him?

Beverly. You asshole, who the hell are you?! Who do you take me for?!

T. Tell him who you are, Beverly.

Beverly. I... I'm Beverly. I'm Beverly! I'm not yours... [Beverly pauses and turns to the therapist] I wanted to tell him that I'm not his little girl. I just realized. Do you know who he reminds me of?

T. (with feigned surprise) Who?

In our example, the Empty Chair technique was used to help Beverly recognize how she saw her overly authoritarian husband as her stepfather. A higher risk is to ask the client to tell the person in the “empty chair” about his deepest feelings and desires. You can go another step higher if the client decides to sit on the “empty chair” and respond to himself from another role or dares to do something with his body, for example, act out a symbolic release.

Cautions when performing the “empty chair” technique

A therapist who decides that it would be appropriate to use the “empty chair” technique during a session always faces a difficult choice: what will be better in this situation for the client—dialogue with himself or work on the border of contact with the therapist?

A client who does not have difficulty communicating with people in real life should probably try to listen to himself - with the support of a therapist. When a client talks about some problematic situation for him or about a person with whom he cannot find a common language, a large amount of energy appears in the field, which is completely natural to direct into dialogue with this person or with some quality of the client himself.

However, there are clients who make contact with great difficulty. They are very isolated and alienated from society. Then contact should become the main goal of therapy, because for such a client, dialogue with oneself is another way to interrupt contact with a real person, i.e. therapist. In the case of such a client, the therapist immediately sees that the experiment does not make sense, because the therapist himself acts as a simple spectator, or even an annoying onlooker who has no place here. The therapist's task then is to ensure that the client is in touch with himself, through contact with the therapist, so that the client tells the therapist about his difficulties, trying to convey his experiences to the therapist, receiving and giving feedback, etc.

Before moving directly to the description of the types of experiments, let us dwell on one more important point. If you see that the client is mentally unstable (a client with multiple personality disorder, psychotic or schizoid), you should not abuse the “Empty Chair”. Such clients need a stable background, and the therapeutic relationship for them is a guarantee of this constancy. The client's dialogue with himself is fraught with aggravation of the problem, because such a client cannot come to a compromise with himself. In such situations, using the “empty chair”, it is necessary to bring the client to what is happening to him here and now, when he is talking with the person opposite. The purpose of this work is to try new ways of communicating or find ways to control yourself.

The purpose of the Gestalt experiment.

V. Purpose of the experiment

Ideally, as we have already said, the experiment is created through the joint efforts of the client and the therapist. These things are not planned in advance. However, we offer you a number of ideas that you can use as a basis for your own experiments. Remember that some clients have better vision, others have better hearing or kinesthesia, and others prefer action. Pay close attention (and, of course, ask) which experiments are more suitable for the client: “Is it easy for you to imagine another person?”, “Do you feel good about your body?” etc.

Techniques in Gestalt experiment.

The experiments use a huge variety of techniques.

Boundary and contact

Let's consider the basic concept of Gestalt therapy. Contact is the interaction of environmental capabilities and human needs. The latter can be satisfied only if a person comes into contact with the outside world:

Food is required to satisfy hunger.
Water is required to quench thirst.
The need for communication is satisfied by contact with other living beings.

The contact boundary is the place where a person meets the outside world. In most cases, it is perceived as a line between the human body and what is located outside. However, such boundaries are not so precise and clear in all cases.

Classification of techniques in experiments.

Accepting failure

Surprisingly, excellent technique can be created even from the fact that the client does nothing. As a rule, clients try to avoid confrontation with reality in every possible way (through interruption of contact, etc.). In this case, for the client to simply be with his powerlessness is a great achievement (the paradoxical principle of change).

Raising Awareness

Ask the client to concentrate on what is happening to him : what position he is sitting in, what he feels in his body, what emotions he is experiencing, what he is thinking about, whether he is relaxed or tense. say it all . This simple experiment is great for developing a client's ability to hear themselves better.

Visualization

The client closes his eyes and, with the help of the therapist, recreates in detail any scene from the past in his memory , changes something in it or plans to change it in the future. When performing this exercise, it is important to pay great attention to detail and use all channels of the senses.

Art materials

Colored pencils, paints, plasticine, etc. come to help the client in recreating his inner world or his environment. Typically, a large sheet of white paper is used for this.

Non-standard reaction

When a client talks about a difficult situation for him, try to immediately determine what quality of the client is the main obstacle to resolving this problem: stubbornness, guilt, excessive perfectionism. Now try to build a continuum for this quality: what character trait is opposite it? Doesn't this quality occupy an intermediate position between two polarities? Is it possible that the client limits himself to only one quality from a continuum? By answering these questions, you will understand what options for responding to a difficult situation can be offered to the client. For example: do the opposite, do more, do less.

Role-playing game

There are two types of role-playing games. The first type of role-playing game is when the client enters into dialogue with imaginary images of real people who played or are playing an important role in the client’s life. This experiment allows you to play out real life situations in a safe space. Another type of role-playing games is when the client assigns qualities that he does not realize or does not accept in himself. (See above about the “empty chair” technique). In such a game, the client enters into a dialogue with himself, trying to reconcile the extremes within himself. For example, a client who is tired of his habit of pleasing everyone can try to find the “evil cop” within himself and talk to him. The client can listen to his internal dialogue, give both sides the right to speak, moving from one chair to another. Role-playing games are very helpful in completing gestalts, expressing repressed feelings and thoughts, identifying introjects and basic presumptions, appropriating what the client rejects in himself, and looking for new ways of behavior.

Alienation and identification

Both phenomena are characteristic of borders, where they arise. Identification implies classification into “one’s own” and “alien’’, where “one’s own” is understood as what is close and dear in any circumstances. Positive relationships - love, partnership, friendship - do not go beyond internal boundaries. The category of “strangers” includes negative relationships that are rejected by a person. Violation of boundaries provokes numerous problems that a person overcomes.

Features of Gestaltherapy

Gestalt therapy is often called the “feminine approach” to problem solving. It is more suitable for sensitive women who like to delve into their own consciousness to find problems and the causes that gave rise to them, than for energetic, action-oriented men. Gestalt therapy implies that coping with internal problems is quite difficult and does not use positive images in its work. Gestalt sessions will not teach you how to live correctly, will not give you the basis for effective communication, and will not reveal the power of your mind. Here they will help you find existing problems and point out your mistakes and weaknesses. Having found an internal (necessarily relevant) problem, the therapist will help eliminate it so that it does not interfere with your development or normal life. Gestalt therapy will help you find a balance between your mind and feelings, with feelings taking center stage. You will be advised to pay more attention to signals coming from within and to adapt to the world creatively.

How to change mom's behavior

Two weeks later, Elina came to Yulia and, plopping down in a chair, said with a smile:

— Mom bought jeans for herself and went for a walk in them. We walked for almost two hours yesterday. It was so cool! She even bought me ice cream even though I didn't ask.

In fact, Yulia advised Elina to change her attitude towards her mother and behave differently with her for two weeks.

When my mother came home from work and began the usual reproaches about her appearance or the dirty dishes in the sink, Elina would ask: “Hard day?” I want to drink tea. Should I pour it for you?

Another time, she offered her mother to pour a bubble bath for her. Or, having persuaded dad, she went with her sister to her grandmother for an overnight stay for the weekend, and dad met Alice with flowers and a candlelit dinner. He ordered her favorite dishes from her favorite restaurant.

Gestalt therapy theory

The basic idea of Gestalt therapy is the ability of our psyche to self-regulate, the ability of a person to adapt to the environment, to be responsible for their actions, expectations and intentions. From this follows the main principle of this method - the desire to expand awareness of oneself and the world. Only a conscious person can develop effectively and take responsibility for his life. Frederik Perzl called this desire “conscious awareness,” meaning by this term living the situation in the present moment, here and now. A person must be consciously present in this experience, forgetting about his mind, trusting only his own feelings. It is then that the therapist will be able to isolate the currently relevant problems from the patient’s consciousness, without being distracted by the unimportant.

Duration of courses

If we talk about what Gestalt therapy is in simple words, it is a medium-term method of psychotherapy. The course of treatment includes 10 meetings, one every week. Depending on the complexity of the patient’s problems, he may be prescribed a course of 30 meetings. The duration of therapy depends on the tasks assigned to the specialist, the existing problem and some other factors.

What defense mechanisms can fail?

Among these are the following:

Introjection. Introducing the assessments, attitudes and motives of other people into a person’s inner world without a critical attitude towards them. Introjection plays a huge role in the development of a child’s psyche, as it allows him to become a personality. Pathological introjection comes from the perception of all habits, ideas and principles without combining them with accumulated life experience.
Projection. The tendency to shift responsibility from a person to the world around him. People most often resort to projection when they cannot cope with their own negative emotions. Healthy relationships with other people are built through normal projection. Its pathological form can replace reality.
Merger or confluence. A condition characterized by the absence of contact boundaries. In advanced cases, a person may lose awareness of himself. Temporary fusion is normally observed in mother and infant or lovers. Identification of the psyche of such people in most cases occurs in a short period of time. Pathological fusion is accompanied by over-control of other people.
Retroflexion. The desire to do with yourself what you want to do with other people, or receive from them. Pathological retroflexion is often accompanied by psychosomatic illness and auto-aggression. In advanced cases, it can lead to human suicide.

The gestalt must be closed in all cases to avoid trouble. If this is impossible, then you should contact a specialist - a Gestalt therapist.

Mom's mistakes towards her daughter

The psychologist sensibly assessed the attitudes that were in Alice’s head.

I and only I know how it should be;
I don’t trust anyone because they will do something bad and I will do it over;
I am the most beautiful, and everyone should ask me for advice. If they don’t ask, then I get offended;
I have perfect taste. If you don't agree, then you have no taste.

Alice could not accept that her daughter was not like herself.

Not seeing her as a person, she suppressed the girl, and she defended herself. Moreover, Alice did not even try to understand her daughter. I just wanted to force her to become a copy of myself. And she dreamed of driving not only her, but everyone around her into the framework of her vision of the world. It is very difficult to live with such a perception of yourself and others.

What is an "Empty Chair"

This is a Gestalt therapy exercise during which a person talks to an imaginary interlocutor sitting opposite him in an empty chair.
The speaker’s task is to express everything that is in his soul, all the thoughts and feelings that his counterpart evokes. They also often try to model a dialogue, that is, to be responsible for the interlocutor. The role of the latter can be Pull up a chair / The British Psychological Society not only living or dead people, but also something symbolic, such as a goal or an internal critic. The exercise was invented by the founder of Gestalt therapy, Fritz Perls, in the 40s of the 20th century. Most often it is done together with a psychotherapist.