Gestalt Facilitator

Gestalt Articles

The Gestalt Perspective

Gestalt & Media

Gestalt Pillow Talk
An Exercise in Dialogue

Gestalt Astrology
Metaphor for Personal Integration

Just Sitting Meditation

Fritz Perls, Founder of Gestalt Therapy

..and God divided the light from the darkness..

The Gestalt Perspective

Gestalt Is...

Kenan Branam - 09/10/1998

• GESTALT IS.. .the recognition of the relativity of all things. A person is Body, Emotions, Mind, soul, environment, Family history, Genetic Inheritance, Race memory.... BOTH INNER and OUTER.
• GESTALT IS ... Yin and Yang. Black and White, Good and Evil.
• GESTALT IS ... A person in harmony with the environment.
• GESTALT IS ... The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. The parts contain the whole. The existence of a flower is form, as well as, elements and minerals.

GESTALT embodies many spiritual or esoteric concepts dealt with on a concrete, practical and common sense level.

• Personal growth/Individuation
• Dealing with life crisis/transformation
• Self Awareness/meditation
• Therapy/Spiritual healing
• Responsibility/Mastership/the ability to respond

Anytime is I use the word Gestalt as noun or object, I am misleading. Understand that language is a product of our mind, more specifically, our lower mind, Gemini, the third house function. Because Gestalt is about the whole person, the whole universe, and is better communicated by the higher mind or with pictures. Because Gestalt is about the larger context of our experience, We are discussing a spiritual issue. Understanding what Gestalt is about is a personal experience, that is one has to experience an expanded awareness before one could be faced with the problem of communicating about that experience. Gestalt is another experience like Zen or the Tao that leaves one with a paradox, if one has a desire to communicate with words or medium limited to the mental range of communications.

Gestalt therapy is not the experience. It is yet another attempt to package enlightenment. The degree of success of this package depends largely on limits of the package. The larger the context, the more complete the practice might be. Sustaining the Paradox of discipline and freedom. What we call Responsible Freedom.

Rule: "practice the language of the first person, singular, present tense."

With consistency one might just experience an expanded sense of the Here & Now. Or one might just indulge in selfishness. Understanding the concept of Gestalt requires a transformation. If you are ripe for transformation then gestalt techniques might provide some helpful guidelines. It will not take you there if you are not already on you way. I've never seen a person drawn to Gestalt who wasn't ready to change in some way - wanting to "let go" of a cycle of unsuccessful behaviors - the cycles of our lives demanding attention, awareness, bringing us to the tension of a paradox and providing an opportunity for growth. 

Gestalt therapy provides a map of the terrain, a practical discipline, and most of all, a guide who has previously crossed a similar rough terrain. A fearless guide who has compassion, the ability to be there with you without robbing you of the responsibility, therefore the opportunity to learn from the experience and grow stronger.

HERE & NOW

• Gestalt is a discipline of AWARENESS.
• Learning to be conscious of your process of KNOWING.
• What you see, what you hear, taste and smell is validating and "real-izing" what you thought was INTUITIVE and what you'll begin to trust as valuable KNOWING.

So there are rules in Gestalt. These rules are to bring our knowing to consciousness by clearing away the static from our sensory perception.

1. Clear the "internal dialogue". More specifically, the dialogues in our minds fall into two categories, THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. Judging, investing, defending, regretting, deigning, and other unfinished business about the past. Expecting, desiring, analyzing, fearing, are attempts to control the future.

2. Internal dialogue results in contradictory messages to the physical body in the form of muscular tightness, pains, itches, other minor distractions and chronic illness. This physical "static" is connected to the mental and emotional. The body thinks and remembers just as the mind sees, hears, touches, and feels. The signal from the mind set the body in motion AS IF to react to a here and now threat or treat. The mind responds to the body signals AS IF the signals were from the external world even if our physical pains are only remembered from our childhood or perhaps our birth.

So the simple rule is "Stay in the Here and Now."

Resource Links

Amazon Book Tags:
"Media Consciousness"