Everyday Gestalt

This post is an attempt at making Gestalt therapy ideas and concepts applicable to everyday life. It is my attempt at opening up the therapy room and lifting a bit the weight from the individual and placing it where I believe it belongs: relationships.  What I mean by that is that if we see issues less as individual issues, that is, within the person and more between people, we may be able to create more supportive, sustaining and enduring communities.  Finally, it is an attempt at promoting everyday Gestalt living.

A very brief intro: In the 1940s, Fritz and Laura Perls and Paul Goodman, the early founders Gestalt therapy, developed an approach that was a reaction against and a critique of the typical Freudian analysis that was prevalent at the time.  They advocated a non-interpretive therapy, that is, an approach that would not interpret clients behaviour, showing which issues they have, but focus on how a person, being an integral part of his or her environment relates to his or her environment; naturally, a person’s environment includes other people.  Thus Gestalt started a journey from the intra-personal to the inter-personal.  Thus, contemporary Gestalt can be seen as a therapy of the ‘between’ rather than within. In everyday terms, it refers to how we approach others, do we tell ourselves: this is going to be an exciting opportunity or a threatening experience, do we trust the encounter, take risks or feel curious about what is happening become the underpinning of the encounter.  Of course, we are not always aware of our possibilities, yet they will determine whether we will feel satisfied or dissatisfied.

In a ‘Gestalt scenario’, a satisfactory meeting would be one in which we approach others without giving up on some level of spontaneity, in which we can relate while taking into account new information about the situation in the moment, relying less heavily on our expectations.  It is about finding the balance between assuming knowledge of what would happen vs the uncertainty of what might happen.

Gestalt’s strength is in the giving up on the hunt of linear cause and effect, the reliance on past events as predetermining of future outcomes.  Cause and effect often requires a narrow consideration of what preceded what and ignores the complexity and the creativity of human relations.  Of course, our actions (or inactions) always have consequence, yet, according to Gestalt, it is the consequence that gives meaning to the event that has preceded it (more on that to follow shortly) rather than the other way around. Part of what Gestalt is interested in is looking for creative ways to contact others in the present moment.  There is always the question in the background: what is being blocked?  This is not an attempt at changing behaviour (as in stopping one behaviour and starting another), but more of an attempt at expanding what I am doing now thus including more possibilities. I find this approach empowering and liberating.  It turns our behaviour from being predetermined by our past (upbringing, education, genes etc) to being predisposed – yes, we have our tendencies and yet, we can make ‘choicefu’l decisions (if you believe that humans have free choice, that is – the debate is still going on).

In her book ‘Embracing Uncertainty’, Susan Jeffers tells a story of a Chinese farmer (or maybe he wasn’t Chinese) who discovered that his horse had wandered off into the forest.  His neighbours said to him “how unlucky to have lost your horse” the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t”.  Two days later his horse came back with another horse it befriended in the wild.  His neighbours said to him “how lucky to have two horses” the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t”. The next day, while the farmer’s son tried to tame the new horse, he fell and broke his leg. His neighbours said to him “how unlucky that your son broke his leg” the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t”.  The following day soldiers came to the farm to recruit his son, because of his broken leg, he could not be recruited. His neighbours said to him “how lucky that your son could not be recruited” and the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t” and the story goes on.

As an everyday application, I believe that these words sum it up well:  “more important than what you did is what you’re gonna do next” as one of my Gestalt tutors used to say.

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