Gestalt Therapy

1. CONTACT AND AWARENESS                                                                                                         How you make contact with people (including the therapist) can be fertile ground for work. Are you open, guarded, shy, judging, compliant, wound too tight, agitated,  trying to please, self-conscious? This list goes on and on. Awareness of yourself is another important area. Noticing body sensation, emerging feelings and subtle reactions can help you process your current mood and go deeper.  As the session develops, the work will generally remain with present experiencing rather than intellectual understanding.  Another type of self-awareness comes from doing Voice Dialogue work (see the Voice Dialogue page on this website).  

                                             

​2. COUPLES WORK                                                                                                                      Each session begins with what is relevant for the couple in that moment. There are many couples issues. How well you are able to resolve differences? Do you descend into arguing? Can you find a compromise, or at least come to terms with your differences? There are many issues around communication. Do you still connect well or are you distancing from each other? Can you express yourself and feel like the other is listening? Is there intimate love? Are you able to work through past hurt, or is there a backlog of resentment or anger? These are just a few of the many challenges couples can encounter. In general, a solid relationship will stir up what you each need to work on. If you can negotiate this work, you will grow faster than you would on your own. Otherwise, your relationship can get confusing. With a bit of help, you can learn how to work together and regain the happiness you had in the beginning.                                                                                                                         

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3. HEALING THE PAST
Mistreatment in childhood can affect you for the rest of your life if you are unable to find an effective approach for emotional healing. In addition to working on present day influences from the past, Gestalt work can bring the past alive by going back in time to the experiences of mistreatment in order to heal them “first hand”. (This contrasts to talking about the past experiences in an attempt to gain insight into how they affect the present.) There are also dialogue methods of working that bring the issues alive in the present.

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