In focus Gestalt Dreams are seen as projections of the dreamer’s personality, from your experiential field; They are parts of your experience that are alienated or not assimilated and that manifest in dream images as existential messages. All the elements of the dream, whether they represent other people, ideas that are not our own or places that we do not know, are linked to our experience; They must be seen as something of our own, as our own expressions, which belong to us, but which are detached from us.
In Guestaltic Therapy we work with basically three kinds of techniques: Suppressive Ts; The Expressive Ts; and The Integrative T. 1. Suppressive Techniques: They basically aim to avoid or suppress the client’s attempts to evade the here/now and their experience; That is to say, the aim is for the subject to experience what he does not want or what is hidden in order to facilitate his realization.
Among the Main Suppressives we have: Experiencing nothingness or emptiness, trying to make the “sterile void become a fertile void”; Do not flee from the feeling of emptiness, integrate it into yourself, live it and see what arises from it. Avoid “talking about” as a way of escaping what is. Talking must be replaced by experiencing. Detect the “shoulds” and rather than suppress them, it is better to try to determine what may be behind them. The “shoulds” as well as the “talk about” are a way of not seeing what one is.
Detect the various forms of manipulation and the “as if” games or roles that are played in therapy. Also, rather than suppressing them, it is better to experience them, make the subject aware of them and the role they play in her life. Among the main forms of manipulation we can find: questions, answers, asking for permission and demands.
Expressive Techniques: The aim is for the subject to externalize what is internal, to realize things that he possibly carried within himself all his life but that he did not perceive. Basically three things are sought: Express the unexpressed. Finish or complete the expression. Find the direction and make the direct expression. Express the unexpressed:
- Maximize expression, giving the subject an unstructured context so that they can confront themselves and take responsibility for what they are. You can work with imaginary inductions of unknown or strange situations, so that fears and unfinished situations emerge. Non-expressive action can also be minimized.
- Ask the client to express what he or she is feeling.
- Do the rounds, have the subject express what he wants to each member of the group or give him a phrase to repeat to each one and experience what he feels.
End or complete the expression: Here we seek to detect unfinished situations, things that were not said but could have been said or done and that now weigh on the client’s life. One of the best-known techniques is the “empty chair”, that is, working imaginatively on the problems that the subject has with living or dead people using role-playing. Imaginary inductions can also be used to reconstruct the situation and experience it again in a healthier way, expressing and experiencing everything that was avoided the first time. Find the address and make the direct expression:
- Repetition: The intention of this technique is to make the subject notice some action or phrase that could be important and realize its meaning. Examples: “repeat the phrase again”, “make that gesture again”, etc.
- Exaggeration and development: It is going beyond simple repetition, trying to get the subject to put more emphasis on what he says or does, loading it emotionally and increasing its meaning until he realizes it. Also, from a simple repetition the subject can continue developing its expression with other things to facilitate awareness.
- Translate: It consists of taking some non-verbal behavior to the verbal level, expressing in words what is done. “What does your hand mean”, “If your nose could talk what would it say”, “Let your genitals speak”.
- Performance and identification: It is the opposite of translating. The subject is intended to “act” her feelings, emotions, thoughts and fantasies; Let him put them into practice so that he identifies with them and integrates them into her personality. It is very useful in dream work.
Integrative Techniques: These techniques seek to ensure that the subject incorporates or reintegrates into his personality his alienated parts, his holes. Although suppressive and expressive techniques are also integrative in some ways, here there is more emphasis on incorporating experience. a.The intrapersonal encounter: It consists of the subject maintaining an explicit, live dialogue with the various parts of his being; between the various intra-psychic subegos. For example, between the “I should” and the “I want”, his feminine side with the masculine, his passive side with the active, the smiling and the serious, the top dog with the bottom dog, etc.
The “empty chair” technique can be used, exchanging roles until both parties in conflict are integrated. b.Assimilation of projections: The aim here is for the subject to recognize the projections that he emits as his own. To do this, he can be asked to pretend that he lives what is projected, to experience his projection as if it were really his. Example: Q: “My mother hates me.” T: “Imagine that you are the one who hates your mother; how do you feel about that feeling? Can you honestly recognize that that feeling is really yours?” It is important to remember that these procedures or techniques are only a support to achieve the therapeutic objectives, but that they do not constitute the Gestalt therapy.
What is important, what is truly therapeutic, is the “gestatic attitude” adopted, the recognition of the importance of the process, and respect for the client’s individual rhythm. Don’t push the river, let it be. Nor does applying the techniques stereotypically mean assimilating the philosophy implicit in the Gestalt Approach.
FINAL THOUGHTS
We must be careful not to confuse Gestalt therapy with an easy-to-learn and easy-to-execute approach; as if it were a therapy in which desire and “spontaneity” are enough to be a good therapist. A similar perception led Gestalt therapy to a serious crisis in the sixties and seventies, when many believed that by attending a couple of workshops they could consider themselves Gestalt therapists. We do not want Gestalt to appear to other currents or approaches as something unserious, suitable for people without training and without clinical experience > Next: Psychodrama