How does Gestalt therapy work? disturbing experiences. The signs of a key experience are quite simple: it concerns the topic that the client begins to reveal first; when it manifests itself, the client experiences signs of intense emotions (tension in the body, rapid breathing, changes in the tone and intonation of statements, and about anything else); whatever the client says, he will return to this key topic. The therapist asks the client to linger in this key experience and allow the memories associated with it to come. When the client remembers a problematic situation, the therapist asks to talk about it in the present tense and in the first person, so, so that the client experiences what he is talking about. This allows the psychotherapist, and the client himself, to see what is happening in the whole situation. Very often, in people prone to depression, instead of talking about something concrete, we can hear a story replete with abstract concepts. Have you ever wondered why we often “want to do what’s best, but it turns out as always”? The main reason is that thinking about the problem is in one place, and the energy needed for change is in another. The reason for this lies in the avoidance of feelings, and the avoidance of emotions is connected, in turn, with the fact that we once experienced them repeatedly, and then learned to hide them from our own consciousness. How to face depressive experiences without increasing suffering? To work independently with depressive experiences, Gestalt therapist M. Shiffman (2008) suggests the following sequence of steps: Step 1. Become aware of the inadequate emotion. Such an emotion (resentment, melancholy, shame, fear, anxiety, anger) is often irrational, the reasons for its appearance in a particular situation do not seem clear enough, and it is almost immediately perceived as excessive. Ask yourself the question: “Why am I in so much pain?” Step 2: Feel the outer emotion. In order to realize a deeper experience, it is important to start from the very surface of the experience. “When did this experience begin? In what context did it arise? What did I see, hear, think that caused me this emotion (anxiety, resentment, shame, guilt). What happened next?” Step 3. “What else did I feel? (before)". In the figurative expression of T. Burley (2007), we often begin to analyze the events of a train accident after the train crash has occurred. But the true reasons for what happened becomes more obvious only when we analyze the preceding conditions (who drew up the route, how the switchman and dispatcher worked, what was the condition of the railway tracks, etc.). We apply the same principle to the analysis of the emotional content of experiences. What feeling or experience arose before the external emotion? Perhaps it was fleeting, subtle, and preceded a superficial emotion. Often, superficial emotions - such as anxiety, for example - mask a deeper experience - the need to make a choice, the fear of losing something or mourning a loss. Anger can also mask the pain of loss or fear of uncertainty. Step 4: Identify the overall process. Look at the situation as if from the outside. What else is this like in life? In the process of focusing on a deep emotion, you can remember a number of similar situations and determine the area of your specific sensitivity and vulnerability and access significant memories of the past. Perhaps you felt the same shame when you were publicly compared to someone else as a child? Or was the anger preceded by intense envy, and can you remember situations when you were deprived of something and envied others who had something that you did not have? In other words, it is important to note “what is similar to what I do in similar situations.” Step 5. Generalize the general pattern of behavior and identify internal conflict. In the future it is proposedsummarize all the components of experience - a surface emotion, the context of its occurrence, the underlying deeper emotion, highlighting a repeating process. Such an analysis allows us to identify deep mechanisms of mood regulation, triggers of internal conflicts. For example, you experienced strong anger towards a child who does not listen to you and does not want to put away his toys. You were surprised by the amount of irritation towards him. You began to explore anger and discovered under the anger an envy for the degree of freedom that he has. Having asked yourself a question about the context of the emergence of envy of freedom, you discovered that lately you have been living in a very strict schedule that you organized for yourself, increasing your workload and not allowing yourself to rest. When you began to remember how you made the decision about the additional workload, you suddenly discovered that you “went to work” in order to distract yourself and switch from difficult experiences in a conflictual relationship with your spouse. Then they remembered that your mother did approximately the same thing when she was offended or angry. She also began to do something with some degree of frenzy - washing dishes, cleaning, doing laundry, etc. Thus, through self-inquiry, you were able to identify the pattern of displaced aggression (deflexive anger) and understand where aggression is displaced from and how it happens . Or behind the anger lies the experience of guilt, the feeling that you are not a good enough mother, the guilt of doing even worse than your own mother, and perhaps even remember the day when, out of resentment and impotent anger towards your own opinion-oriented mother other people and citing other children as an example, decided that you would never force your own child to follow the established rules, thereby realizing how you yourself secretly created this situation. In the future, you will no longer frantically reproach yourself with guilt for being angry with your child, doing yourself even more helpless, and you will carefully monitor your behavior in the actual conflict situation where this aggression is generated and make efforts aimed at changing the situation that generates the emotion. By being aware of the sequence of occurrence of emotions (“trajectories of situation figures”) and the context of their occurrence (“background of the situation”), you have increased the degree of controllability of situations and reduced the experience of helplessness. By focusing the client on the experience during an individual session, the Gestalt therapist helps to unite the client’s reasoning about situation and life in general and its energy, which is contained in emotions and experiences. The main focus of attention of the therapist and the client is not the content of the statement, but the process that occurs during the statements. Perls himself briefly expressed its essence in the most concise definition of Gestalt therapy: “I and Thou, How and Now” (“I and you, here and how?”). What does the client do when he speaks? Does he experience his words, is he really determined to change anything in his life, or is he just speculating? How does he feel during the story? Does he express himself clearly and completely, or does he leave something unsaid and hide something? Is he speaking on his own behalf or talking about people in general? The founder of Gestalt therapy, F. S. Perls, divided all types of pseudo-intellectual avoidance (mind fucking) and explanations by talking about something in general (about) into three types of “psychological crap.” "Chicken shit" is various meaningless conversations about the weather, how things are going, etc.; they are used just like that, to fill pauses and are a familiar way of relieving tension caused by contact. “Bull shit” is heavier and more smelly, as it includes conversations about relationships in general, the psychology of adults and children, men and women. And finally, the most ponderous “elephant shit” - talk about philosophy, existential destiny, and even about Gestalt therapy itself. Actually, all these conversations can be spiritual food, but if they are chewed over and over again, avoidingfull and direct contact with your experiences or with another person, then they can turn into the above-mentioned psychological product. The Gestalt therapist focuses the client on what he himself considers familiar and taken for granted, promoting awareness of various forms of interruption of contact with himself and others. For example, we constantly talk to ourselves, naturally, not out loud, but in the form of endless thinking. Our thinking itself represents the speech of others that we once heard, which we placed inside ourselves, having learned to label our perceptions and sensations in this way. Exercise “Awareness of Internal Dialogue” “Sit more comfortably, close your eyes... Try to notice bodily tensions and do not try to relax, just be aware of them... Pay attention to the sounds around you... Concentrate your attention on your thoughts... Try to voice them to yourself, as if you said it out loud... What does your voice sound like? Is he tall or short? Female or male? How would you look if you said this? Do you recognize anyone else in these intonations?” Thus, in the course of further discussion, the Gestalt therapist takes the client out of the automatic internal monologue of negative content, and this allows us to trace the history of the emergence of such internalized (introjected) negative attitude towards oneself. According to some researchers, the combination of negative thinking with negative internal dialogue is very typical for people suffering from depression (Bolstad R., 1998). Having made a minor mistake or miscalculation, a person prone to depressive reactions immediately begins painful introspection instead of analyzing the situation (implements introjective dynamics) (Blatt S., et al., 1982). He remembers past mistakes of this kind, establishes various kinds of relationships between negative events, discovers in them a certain system, the final belief of which will be “I am bad and unworthy of love and a good relationship.” “Mental chewing gum” from ideas about one’s own inferiority and the injustice of the world becomes the main content of depressive thinking. Negative self-analysis is a consequence of splitting - one part of the “I” (consisting of negative introjects) observes the behavior of other parts of the “I” and reacts aggressively to them. The task of the Gestalt therapist in this case is to make conscious the mechanisms of turning aggression against oneself and the work of “introjects”. By “chewing” judgments about oneself and internal prohibitions, redirecting the energy of aggression from oneself to solving the problem that caused it, a person gets a chance to get out of the vicious circle and reduce the subjective experience of helplessness. Exercise “Awareness of the Inner Critic” “Sit down and close your eyes. Imagine looking at yourself sitting opposite... Create an image as if you were reflected in a mirror... What position is he sitting in? How is he dressed? What is his facial expression? Silently criticize this image, as if you were addressing another person... Begin phrases with the words “you must”, or demands equivalent to this... Create a large list of these demands... Listen to your voice. What does it sound like? What thoughts flow through this? Now imagine that you have switched places with the image... What do you say in response? What does your tone of voice convey? How do you feel when responding to criticism? Now switch roles and become your own critic again... Notice everything that happens to your body... Notice the difference in bodily sensations in each role... What is the difference and difference? Do you recognize anyone else in the voice that says “you must”? During the exercise, some clients recognize in their internal dialogues the intonations of significant people from the past who taught them a bad attitude towards themselves and auto-aggressive ways of responding to stress. A classic example of an auto-aggressive reaction is self-blame. Thanks to self-blame, having firmly internalized (introjected) a bad attitude towards oneself, a person prone to a depressive reaction will.