David Forrest: Gestaltuk

• This is a (requested) linked webpage: Depression is a mental health illness that impacts how a person thinks and feels. Depression causes feelings of sadness and a lack of interest in previously enjoyable activities.   Select here:    Types of Depression | Causes | Treatment - Profound Treatment  

“I’m madly in love with a fictional person from a novel of my own creation. I’ve been with her, I’ve traveled with her, and I’ve even broken up with my real-life girlfriend over her. Is that nothing serious to you?” The doctor smiled tolerantly. “Don’t you get it? I’ve given my most profound love to an illusion!” “Are you under the impression that the object of everyone else’s love actually exists?”

Liu, Cixin. The Dark Forest (The Three-Body Problem) (p. 92). Head of Zeus. Kindle Edition. 

I have recently been in discussion with my therapist peers regarding ‘challenging’ interventions in therapy, and what exactly is meant by ‘challenge’ in this context. In consideration of the humanistic positioning of our therapies, Gestalt and Integrative, there are a number of exclusions from the varied meanings found in the Oxford Dictionary of English. What I have done here is filtered the definitions to those that fit a therapeutic intervention for a humanistic, relational, experiential, phenomenological, existential, person and present centre approach.

The domain becomes, for us, the experiential realm relative to a certain capability of contact. In other words, the being confluent, introjecting, projecting, etc. cannot be phases of development, but are modalities of contact of which the child is capable and which continue to be developed throughout life. The therapist asks, not to what phase of development the patient’s block refers, but how the patient’s present capabilities of projecting, retroflecting etc. (developed through time) are combined in a Gestalt represented now by the patient’s being-in-therapy. The domains are competences of an intersubjective experience, of modalities of contact that become more evident at a certain point of the child’s development and which are developed throughout the course of life, as autonomous-in-mutual-interaction capabilities.

When I ask you to listen to me, and you start giving me advice, you have note done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me, and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.

first published by davidforrest on Sat, 27/10/2012 - Based on: Panic Attacks and Postmodernity: Gestalt Therapy Between Clinical and Social Perspectives. Gianni Francesetti (Editor) 2007.

Those suffering panic attacks tend to describe their condition as something unsayable. This unsayability would seem to lie at the very heart of the panic attack experience.

The unsayable is in the very essence of the panic attack; defying the logic of the experience - in every other sense the client 'knows' (mostly) they are not going to stop breathing; not going to have a heart attack; is not going to suffocate.

The unsayable is not a failure or deficit of language, rather is itself in the origin of the panic attack.

The daily life of those who suffer panic attacks is suddenly interrupted, as if they had suffered a severe trauma. In panic attacks, as opposed to a trauma event, there is no phenomenological source for the client's anxiety; a trauma has occurred - its nature, however is unsayable.

As therapists we are dealing with the consequences of a trauma that has not been fully experienced. Our task is to construct a new ground of security. We cannot recreate the previous sense of security; it is no longer here, it is gone; it has past, forever.

At the point where the self is balanced, between cycles, after completion and prior to the next fore-contact there is either internal or external disturbances will impinge upon the self heralding the start of the figure/background formation process.

The self feels, senses, (a) disturbance, a change of status and so (a) figure forms to the fore front. The person is ready to notice, to be aware

The Gestalt therapist rejects the role of "changer," for his strategy is to encourage, even insist, that the patient be where and what he is. He believes change does not take place by "trying," coercion, or persuasion, or by insight, interpretation, or any other such means. Rather, change can occur when the patient abandons, at least for the moment, what he would like to become and attempts to be what he is. 

Comment about the book:

Emphasizing the collaborative nature of the therapist-client relationship, THE SKILLED HELPER is internationally recognized for its successful problem-management and opportunity development approach to effective helping, using a practical, three-stage model. In this new ninth edition, Egan continues to build upon the "positive psychology", solution-focused theme by adding insightful new discussions on evidence-based practice, research, and philosophical perspectives.

Resistance - Stability versus Change

The Gestalt therapist rejects the role of "changer," for his strategy is to encourage, even insist, that the patient be where and what he is. He believes change does not take place by "trying," coercion, or persuasion, or by insight, interpretation, or any other such means. Rather, change can occur when the patient abandons, at least for the moment, what he would like to become and attempts to be what he is.

It's hard to be a PG teen in an X-rated world...  When you say "absolutely not," it takes the monkey off my back...  You used to drive my monsters away, but now I have different ones...  I'm not being moody, I don't know how else to respond

The most common reasons given by pupils for deliberate self harm were 'to find relief from a terrible state of mind' or because they had 'wanted to die'. Contrary to popular belief few were 'trying to frighten someone' or simply 'get attention'.

• The majority of those who self-harm cut themselves.

• Girls are nearly four times more likely to self-harm than boys.

• The most common reason given was 'to find relief from a terrible situation,' the least common reason was 'to get my own back.'

• up to half of those who self-harm seek help from friends before acting.

However I would like you to read through this information...

In anger - not rage - the person is expressing more clearly what is happening; what is wanted; what is going wrong; what is not being done; and so on. This does not mean this expression is correct - for the situation - nor that the expression needs to be given in to. When not angry the person may not be saying something that inwardly is waiting to be said. Sometimes only in anger is it safe to say what's inside. Safety is ... emotional safety.

The Teenager and you,  contact...between child and adult.

The adolescent’s sense of self is not yet so strong that words and thoughts - symbolic representation - are enough to anchor its reality in the world.

The adolescent self is a tentative reality, not yet proved.

In many instances the answer to What is he trying to prove? It’s simple.

He is trying to prove that he is who he takes himself to be.

Contacting Process

Contact with anything not novel - not different - does not require adjustment because the familiar, by definition, has been adjusted to (either by integration or rejection).

The Novel

Contact with anything not novel - not different - does not require adjustment because the familiar, by definition, has been adjusted to (either by integration or rejection). What is pervasive is not an object of contact, ie, not assimilable. Essentially, what is not different is not contacted. Therefore what is assimilated is always novel

Those suffering panic attacks tend to describe their condition as something unsayable. This unsayability would seem to lie at the very heart of the panic attack experience.

The unsayable is in the very essence of the panic attack; defying the logic of the experience - in every other sense the client 'knows' (mostly) they are not going to stop breathing; not going to have a heart attack; is not going to suffocate.

The unsayable is not a failure or deficit of language, rather is itself in the origin of the panic attack.