Transcription
I'm to interview a patient, and I'd like to give you some thumbnail sketch of what Gestalt therapy stands for. Gestalt therapy is working on an equation: awareness equals present time equals reality. In contrast to depth psychology, we try to get hold of the obvious, of the surface of the situation in which we find ourselves, and to develop the emerging gestalt strictly on the "I and Thou" here and now basis.
Any escape into the future or the past is examined as a likely resistance against the ongoing encounter. A modern man has alienated, given up so much of his potential that his ability to cope with his existence becomes badly impoverished. My aim is this: the patient should recover his lost potential. He should integrate the conflicting polarities, understand the difference between game playing, especially the playing of verbal games on the one hand, and of genuine, authentic, confident behavior on the other. The civil war of inner conflicts weakens the efficiency and comfort of the patient, but every bit of integration will strengthen it.
Now, in the safe emergency of the therapeutic situation, I repeat, in the safe emergency of the therapeutic situation, the patient begins to take risks and to transform his energies from manipulating the environment for support into developing greater, greater self-support, that is, reliance on his own resources. This process is called maturation. Once the patient has learned to stand on his own feet emotionally, intellectually, and economically, his need for therapy will collapse. He will wake up from the nightmare of his existence.
The basic technique is this: not to explain things to the patient, but to provide the patient with opportunities to understand and to discover himself. For this purpose, I manipulate and frustrate the patient in such a way that he's confronting himself. In this process, he identifies with his lost potential, for instance, through assimilating his projections, by acting out, by acting out the alien parts of himself. Principally, I consider any interpretation to be a therapeutic mistake, as this would imply that the therapist understands the patient better than the patient himself, takes away from the patient the chance of discovering himself by himself, and prevents him from finding out his own values and style.
On the other hand, I disregard most of the content of what the patient says and concentrate most on the non-verbal level, as this is the only rich, only one which is less subject to self-deception than his verbal pseudo-self-expression. On the non-verbal level, the relevant gestalt will always emerge and can be dealt with in the here and now.
We are going to have an interview for half an hour. By the way, I'm scared. You say you're scared, but you're smiling. I don't understand how one can be scared and smile at the same time. And I'm also suspicious of you. I think you understand very well. I think you know that when I get scared, I laugh or I can't to cover up. But do you have stage for us? Uh, I don't know. I'm mostly aware of you. I'm afraid that, uh, I'm afraid you're gonna have such a direct attack that, uh, you're gonna get me in the corner, and I'm afraid of it. I want you to be more on my thing. Get you into your corner. You put your hand on your chest. Is this your corner? Well, it's like, yeah, it's like I'm afraid. You know, where would you like to go? Can you describe the corner you like to go to? Yeah, it's back in the corner where, where I'm completely protected. They would be safe of me for me. Well, I know I wouldn't really. Well, and then it feels safer. Yes, it made you win this quarter, and you're perfectly safe now. What would you do in that corner? I just said, just sit. Yes. How long would you sit? I don't know. But this is so funny. As you're saying this, this reminds me of when I was a little girl. Every time I was afraid, I'd feel better sitting in a corner. Okay, are you a little girl? Well, no, but it's the same feeling. Are you a little girl? This feeling reminds me of it. Are you? No, no, no, no. At last, how old are you? Thirty. Then you're not a little girl. Yeah. Okay, so you're a 30-year-old girl who's afraid of a guy like me. Well, I don't even know if I, I don't know. I'll be afraid of you. You, I get real defensive with you. Now, what can I do to you? You can't do anything, but I can sure feel dumb and I can feel stupid for not having the right answers. Now, what would it do for you to be feel dumb and stupid? I hate it when I'm stupid. What would it do for you to be dumb and stupid? But it put it so like this, what would it do to me if you would play dumb and stupid? That makes you all the smarter and all the higher above me. Then I really have to look up to you because you're so smart. Yeah. Oh, yeah, and butter me up left. No, I think you can do that all by yourself. I think the other way around, if you play dumb and stupid, you force me to be more explicit. That's been said to me before, but I don't buy it. I don't know. What are you doing with your feet now? Wiggling them. What's the joke now? Oh, I'm afraid you're gonna notice everything I do. Gee, I think you want me. I want you to help me become more relaxed. Yes. I don't want to be so defensive with you. I don't like to feel so defensive. Um, you're acting like you're treating me as if I'm stronger than I am, and I want you to protect me more and be nicer to me. Are you aware of your smile? You don't believe a worldwide. I do too, but I know you're gonna pick on me for it. It's your, your blood. You're before me. Do you believe you're meaning that seriously? Yeah, if you see you're afraid and you laugh and you giggle and you squirm, it's falling. You put in a performance for me. Oh, I, I resent that very much. Can you express it? Yes, sir. I most certainly am not being phony. I, I will admit this, it's hard for me to show my embarrassment, and I hate to be embarrassed, but boy, I resent you calling me a phony. Just because I smile when I'm embarrassed or I'm put in a corner doesn't mean I'm being a phony. Wonderful. Thank you. If you didn't smoke for the last minute. Well, I'm mad at you. I, that's right. You didn't have to cover up your anger with your smile. Now, you, in that moment, in that minute, you were not approached. Well, at that minute, I was mad, though. I wasn't embarrassed. When you met, you're not a phony. I still resent that. I'm not a phony when I'm nervous. Again, I want to get mad at you. I, you know what I'd like to do? All right. I want you on my level so I can pick on you just as much as you're picking on me. Okay. Pick up me. I have to wait till you say something that I can pick on. But what does this mean? Can you develop this movement? It's, uh, I can't find words. I want to develop this as if you went dancing. I want to start all over again with you. Okay. That's something. I know a corner. I'd like to put you on. I'd like to ask you a question, and because I have a feeling you don't like me right off the bat, and I want to know if you do. Can you now play Fritz Perls not liking Gloria? What would he say? He'd say that she's a phony for one. So you are a phony. You're a phony, and you're a flip little girl, and you're a show-off. What would Gloria answer to that? I, I know what I'd answer. I'd say, I think you are too. No, say, tell this to me. You tell me what a phony I am. Not quite the right word, but it's more like a, a show-off for sure, like, you know all the answers. Yeah, and I want you to be more human, and that doesn't seem very human to me to know other answers. It's not very you. Yeah, right away. Find out how I'm kicking my feet, and why am I doing like this? Why are you doing like that? Oh dear, I've got eyes. I can see you're kicking your feet. I don't need a scientific computer to see that you're kicking your feet. What's big about that? You don't need to be wise to see that you're kicking your feet. I know, but it seems like you're trying to find some reason for it. I don't. This is your imagination. Okay. I know what I'd like from you. Can I tell you what I'd like for you? Yeah. I'd like you to be aware that I'm kicking my feet and to be aware that I'm giggling when I'm really nervous and accept it instead of putting me on the defense of having to explain it. I don't want to have to explain why I'm doing these things. Did I ask you to explain? You said, why am I or what am I doing? Well, what am I doing? You said, that's right, kicking your feet. I didn't ask you to explain it. It's your imagination. That's not this for it. It's the fruits of your imagination. It's a big difference. Now, do this again. Again, how do you feel now? I don't know. Getting stupid. I'm not playing stupid. This is playing stupid. You did something with your hair there. Is there many chance something in my hair? What you object to? No, no. Okay. No, but your, your hair and your features go along with the, the feeling I had about you earlier. I had a feeling I could be afraid of you, and you're the type of person that seems like you demand so much respect, and so you're please pray for it. I demand so much respect. Play this with you just so. Well, you know how smart I am. I know more about psychology than you do, Gloria. So anything I say, of course, is right. Can you say the same as Gloria? Something similar as Gloria, but the same act as Gloria? I demand respect because I don't know. You don't. No, I don't. I identify it with my father, but not me. I don't feel I demand respect. You don't do mental speech. No, sure. A matter of fact, I'd like more. I'd like you to respect me more. No, you see, so you demand whisper. All right. Yes, yes. Isn't it right if I could demand respect from you? I would do it. Who's preventing you? Except yourself. Because I feel if I get myself out on the corner, you're gonna let me just drown. You're not gonna help me one bit, and I know that I can't quite come up to standards with you. What should I do when you're the caller? Encourage me to come out. Oh, you don't have enough courage to come out by yourself. You need somebody to pull little menstrual distress out of a call. Yes. So anytime you want somebody to pay attention to you, call into a corner and wait till the rescuer comes. Yes, that's exactly what I'd like. And this is what I call phony. Pardon me. This is what I call phony. Why is it phony? I'm admitting to you what I am. How is that a phony? That is a phony because it's a trick. It's a gimmick to call into call and wait there until somebody comes to your rescue. I'm admitting it. I know what I'm doing. I'm not being phony. I'm not pretending I'm so brave. If I resent that, I feel like you're saying unless I come out openly and stand on my own, I'm not a phony baloney. I'm just, just as real sitting in that corner as I am out here all by myself. But you're not sitting in that car. Well, not now. And besides that, it's like passing judgment when you call me phony. I just hate that. Anyway, now we are getting somewhere. I call anybody phony who puts an act. And if you like somebody and you want to meet this person, go to this person, tell them, I would like to meet you. I would call, not for me, but if you courageously go into that corner waiting to be rescued, this I call for. This I got food. And I still think you're judgmental. You know what? I have a feeling you've never felt this way in your life. You feel so secure that you don't have to feel anybody that does something like this, you're going to pass judgment on there being a phony. Well, I resent it. Good. Now play Fritz passing judgment. You are, you're sitting up there in your big old chair. I am fit. I passed judgment. Has judgment on me now. I don't feel close to you at all, Dr. Perls. I feel that's phony. I feel like you're playing one big game, right? I'm sure we're playing games, but in spite of the games, I think I've touched you now and then. I think I helped you when I called your phone. Well, of course, you did. And I think I hit the bull's eye. That's why you feel hard. I don't know. All I know is when somebody, when I feel the way I feel with you right now, I, it's like you don't have feeling. All right. Now, exaggerate this. What you just did. Um, I can't. I can't. I want to laugh. I want to. I'd like you to be younger than me so I could really scold you. How it must have been my age? Thirty. Good. I'm thirty now. Imagine myself. Okay, don't be so sure yourself. Don't think you're so doggone smart. Don't act so proud because you've never been in the corner. I think you can be just as big a phony parading around like you're so damn smart, you know all the answers, as much as me sitting in my corner. Oh, and I like the feeling of you being younger. I'd like to really. I'd like to embarrass you. Yeah. Embarrass me. When you get me with you, you wouldn't get embarrassed. You seem unaffected. Tell me, embarrass me. Tell me how old, how ugly I am. You don't look old, ugly. You look distinguished, and that gives you, that's all the more on your side. If you look so distinguished, then see, that's more on your side too. Quickly, can, can we cease one thing? We had quite a good fight. No, I know. No, I fit. I don't think you're fighting with me, but I thought you came out quite a bit. Well, I'm mad at you. Wonderful. But you seem so detached. You don't even seem to care that I'm mad at you. I feel like you're not recognizing me at all, Dr. Perls. Not a bit. This is quite true. Our contact is much too superficial to be involved in caring. I care for you as far as, let's see, you right now, my client. I care for you as far as I like to, like an artist, bring something out which is hidden in you. Is as far as I care. Well, I'd like you to, I'd like to feel that there's some, it's frustrating. If I were to leave you right now and not see you again, it would frustrate me to feel like there hadn't been more contact. I feel completely out of contact with you, like I'm talking to the baby that doesn't understand me or something like that. I don't feel like we're a bit in contact, and that, oh, that frustrates me. That bothers me more than being angry with you. I'd rather we were angry and fought than to have no contact. Yeah, this reminds me of when my husband and I used to fight. He sits there and he listens to me, but he's not even aware of how much I hate him and how mad I am at him. I'd rather, you know, I'd rather affect you. You'd really hate me or something. And I feel like you're purposely staying out of contact with me. How should I be? Give me your fantasy. How could I share you my concern with you? I can't say in words. I know the feeling I'd see on you, but I can't say. It's just a feeling, like I don't know. It's like I want you to respect me more as a human being that I've got feelings. Now we come back to the beginning. So you want respect? Yes, I do. I do. This is a different kind of respect than I meant the first time, but you want, you need respect. Yes. I respect you so much as a human being that I refuse to accept the fruity part of yourself and address myself to the genuine part. Right now, the last few minutes, you were wonderful. In Germany, we were not playing anymore. I could see you really hurting. Well, I don't feel I've got a right when I don't like somebody or I disagree with somebody's doing. If, if I should respect them, if they're above me, they're superior to me. I don't feel I've got a right to really, really tell you how mad I am. That's that's garbage. You're not taking the chicken. You're getting back into your safe corner. That's the way it feels. That's what the safe corner feels like to me. Now, go back to your safe crowd because we have to park very soon. You steal yourself corner. You came out for a moment. You nearly met me. You could get a little bit angry with me. Now go back to your safety. I feel like you're telling me the only way you respect me as a human being if I'm aggressive and forceful and strong. You, I feel like you couldn't even accept my, I'd be scared to death to cry in front of you. I feel like you'd laugh at me and call me a phony. I feel like you don't accept my weak side, only when I'm yelling back at you or hollering at you. You mustn't cry in my presence. Well, I wouldn't even give you the satisfaction. Say this again. No, say this again. I try not to. I try not to cry in front of you or show my weak spot for fear you jump on me again. Are you real? That your eyes are moist. I'm aware that I feel more chokey. Yes, I feel good. Could you choke me? Pretend, but not for real. Why not for me? Well, because I don't hate you that much. You want to choke my tears back. You want me to choke you so you wouldn't cry. I'd like to. If I'd like to choke you, it would be to make you cry. I'd like to see you weak. I'd like to see you hurt and and vulnerable. What, what does this do for you? Make me feel like I'm, I have more of a right to be hurt, and you wouldn't jump on me so quick. Would you jump on me if I would cry? No, but I would jump on you if you would cry. You're sure of this? No, I'm not sure of it. What would, what would you like me to do if you were to cry? I was just smiling. You're smart. Something off. Well, because I got two feelings. I was gonna say, I want you to, I want you to love me and hug me, but then I thought, no, I don't want to. What's your objection? I'd be scared to be too close to you. Now we're getting some. First, you want to be close to me. Now you're afraid to be too close to me. That's what I'm saying. But that's right. Now we got the two points of existence, but they're two different feelings. Close, I mean emotionally, but not physically. But you've got the two parts of your existence now, either far away in a corner or be so close that you can melt into one with other person. It appears you travel between the two extremes. I do. You know what I'm thinking? When I am really hurt and really upset about something and I want someone to love me, like my girlfriend will do a lot, and she'll come up to hug me. I don't, I don't want it exactly. See, it's what I'm talking about. You cannot sustain contact. Okay, this is garbage. What are you afraid if you were too close to your girlfriend, if you let her hug you? Um, the only thing I'm aware of is like when I perspire, it embarrasses me. That should feel how wet I am, and it should hold my body up close, and I don't know, just. Are you aware of your facial expression? Kind of disgusting. Yes, I am. Do this move, please. It's just icky. I can just feel what it is. I don't like it. Can you say this to me, Fritz? You're icky. No, no. What's your difficulty? Because I feel like if you really believe me, that would hurt your feelings. Oh, you must note my feelings. Well, I thought I was so indifferent, as you see before, that no, nothing could touch me. Now you suddenly discovered a way to touch me. Isn't it? Well, you know what I believe? I believe you're the type of person, sort of like me, that you act like it wouldn't hurt your feelings, but it really would. You act strong, but you're, you're soft and vulnerable inside there too. I think your feelings could be heard. Sure, but I don't think you'd show it very easy. What would I do? How would I conceal my feelings? By turning it back on me, by saying, "Now, what did you get from that, Gloria?" You turned the whole thing back on me instead of showing how hurt you were. Now, can you say this to Fritz? How did you, what did you get out of this, Fritz? Say this to me. Would you get out of what? What'd you just see? Just your sentence. Sure. I know what you'd get out of it. If I said, "What did you get out of this, Fritz?" You'd say, "Nothing. It didn't bother me. It was you that did it." You still wouldn't let me know you were hurt, but I know what it would be if you told your true feelings that you didn't want to show your hurt, so you covered it up. Same way with me in the corner. Not if I were hurt. If I would cry, what would you do with me? You would be, you wouldn't be so superior to me. You'd be more vulnerable, and I could pacify you and make you feel better. You could hug me. Yes, and I could be the baby. Yes, yes, I'd like that. You'd feel more on my level. I wouldn't have to feel so done with you, and the other way around. You would have to be my baby. She would cry. You would like to play the baby and be comforted and hurt and the poor thing. Well, I'd like that too. Well, I'll tell you something wrong. I think we came to a nice closure. I think we came to a little bit of understanding. I think we finished this situation now. Right, right. The demonstration was, in my opinion, quite successful and consistent with my theoretical outlook. The avoidance of the genuine encounter manifested itself in three ways. The patient was first taking control by putting on a smiling, sophisticated, phony mask of oscillating between the pretense of being frightened and yet at the same time having me figured out, thus being or believing to be fully in control of the situation. Secondly, she was withdrawing by fantasizing of hiding in a corner. Thirdly, she was blocking the real encounter of melting through crying, which then would have been the real emotional meaning of this meeting. The patient was capable of identifying herself with several fantasies she had projected onto me. She was, this was especially evident with regard to her initial denial for a need to be respected. The need for environmental support started to come out besides so need to get respected. It was verbalized in a wish to be cared for, rescued from the corner, and so on. I broke off the session when the first tears begin to appear. She began to play the role of the lonely child and apparently wanted to be hugged and comforted. But here too, the assimilation of her projection began to work, and she began to experience holding me like a baby. Apart from assisting her and assimilating her in some projections, the main therapeutic factor was to show how the inconsistency of a verbal and non-verbal behavior, for instance, saying that she was frightened and smiling at the same time. A frightened person does not smile. Where I feel it was in the direction of her embarrassment. This embarrassment was protected by her brazenness and anger. To get to her existence, existential embarrassment, we would have to work through and eliminate the phoniness, that is, the ease with which we can superficially assume any role that is required for a specific situation. This pseudo-adaptation is her way of coping with life. This is about what I got out of this session.