EU Referendum: 3 gestalt therapy exercises for undecided voters

Tomorrow (Thursday 23rd June 2016), millions of us will go to a polling station, and decide the fate of our nation by putting a cross in one of two boxes in the much anticipated EU Referendum. Polling puts the result on a knife-edge, which means that the votes of undecided voters will decide the result.

I’ve had enough involvement in electoral politics now to know that a large proportion of undecided voters don’t make up their minds until they’re in the polling booth. So it could well be that the referendum result is ultimately decided in the quiet and dusty musk of the act of voting itself.

Which could be anything from terrifying to exhilarating depending on your disposition. Either way, I’ve made up my mind already so unfortunately, as an undecided voter, it’s your problem not mine!

Now, you will find any number of arguments for Leave and Remain, so if you’re still undecided at this point then the chances are that those arguments haven’t been helpful. I would like to offer a couple of exercises that might help you decide which way to go, and another for if you wake up tomorrow and still have no idea.

These are exercises I use in my therapy practice, and they mostly help people, so give them a try.

Sometimes, the best way to solve a dilemma is to intensify the discomfort of the dilemma until it resolves itself spontaneously. To use the popular gestalt therapy analogy of chewing, a dilemma is a particularly chewy mouthful of food that can simply need an epic amount of chewing before it’s broken down enough to be swallowed.

Take two chairs and position them. One will be the Remain chair, one will be the Leave chair. Keep a notebook to hand, and write down any thoughts/feelings/memories/fantasies that come up as you’re speaking (as therapist, I would normally interject at various points to ask “what are you aware of now?”, so think of the notebook as a therapist stand-in). The basic process is:

1. Decide which chair you want to start in.

2. Adopt a posture and voice that feels most appropriate to the side you’re embodying.

3. Take about 90 seconds to make an opening statement that overviews the case for your side.

4. Move into the other chair, and repeat steps 2 and 3.

Take some time to review any notes you’ve made, or just to mull over the exercise so far (do this in a new, 3rd position, not either of the Leave/Remain chairs). Start to get a sense of what each side means to you at this point. Then, when you’re ready:

1. Decide which chair you want to start in.

2. As Leave/Remain, what do you want to say to the other side? Take up to 60 seconds, focusing your awareness especially on what you feel as you speak.

3. Move into the other chair, and take up to 60 seconds to respond. Keep focusing your awareness on what you feel as you speak.

4. Keep repeating step 3 until you feel like there is nothing more to say.

Take some time to review any notes you’ve made / mull over this part of the exercise. Consider again what each side means to you now. Then, when you’re ready:

1. Decide which chair you want to start in.

2. Take about 60 seconds to make a closing statement that overviews the case for your side, incorporating any changes that might have arisen as a result of the dialogue.

3. Move into the other chair and repeat step 2.

Take some time to review any notes you’ve made / mull over this part of the exercise. Consider again what each side means to you now. Then, when you’re ready:

1. Now adopt a 3rd position where you are entirely you again.

2. Thank both Leave and Remain for their contributions and for an interesting discussion.

3. Now weigh up both the cases you’ve just made, and ask yourself the important question: which side did you find most convincing? That’s the way you need to vote.

Quite often, the drawn out process of this exercise will exhaust the energy you’ve invested in one side of the argument, revealing that the dilemma is relatively surface level. It can be hard to resolve this kind of dilemma by listening to other people, because other people will have a lot of energy invested in their favoured side, and that energy will invigorate that side of your dilemma.

You can also discover that both sides of the dilemma have equal energy but gain an insight into where the energy for each side comes from. You may well discover that one side comes from what you believe and are excited by, and another comes from an internalisation of someone important to you. Or that each side of the dilemma comes from very different motivations within you. The process of figuring this out often leads naturally to a conclusion that favours one side over the other.

Or not! In which case…

One of the many useful findings of sleep and dream research is the observation that dreams are heavily influenced by our preoccupations from the day. It’s even possible to train yourself to lucid dream (wake up within your dream and know that you’re dreaming) to the point of deciding when to lucid dream and what to lucid dream about (see Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming).

One function of dreaming appears to be resolving incomplete situations from the very recent past (ie, the past couple of days). It’s possible to play with this function to help solve personal conundrums and dilemmas. Try this:

1. Write down a clear question on a small piece of paper, eg “how should I vote in the referendum?”.

2. Carry it around with you for the rest of the day, taking it out to look at it frequently.

3. Think about your dilemma as much as you can. Run through all the arguments for each side, over and over again.

4. When it’s time for bed, read something that summarises the dilemma well. If you’ve tried Exercise 1 and not reached a conclusion, then read through everything you’ve written down.

5. Put the piece of paper with your question on it under your pillow (seriously).

6. Go to sleep.

7. When you wake up in the morning, take the piece of paper out from the pillow and answer the question.

Your dreaming tonight is highly likely to be influenced by your referendum dilemma simply by virtue of it being an emotionally charged preoccupation. By directing this energy into a specific focus, and prompting yourself to contemplate it regularly, you’re seting up a temporary habit that stands a decent chance of repeating otself in your dreams.

Best case scenario, you wake with a resolution on how to vote. Possibly, you might wake up remembering a dream that is either obviously relevant (you dream about the referendum) or just feels relevant. Fortunately, I have already blogged about doing your own dreamwork, so for a bonus exercise, see: dream a little dream of me.

Alternatively, you may well work through both excercises, and find yourself still at an impasse on Thursday morning. In which case…

You don’t have to know which way to vote until you’re in the polling booth, and even then you could just draw a massive penis on your voting paper or write Votey McVoteface in block capitals across the top instead. It’s a secret ballot, no one will know how or if you voted, and it’s the height of bad manners to demand to know how someone voted. If you’re ok with letting everyone else decide for you, then actually you don’t have a problem at all.

Maybe you’re stuck because, actually, you don’t want to vote. Did you ask for an EU Referendum? Did you want it? Probably not if you’re undecided at this point. It’s entirely possible that you’re caught in Sartre’s existential trap whereby the one choice you don’t have is not choosing. You didn’t ask to be born but you must decide what to do with your life now you have it. As with life, so with this referendum.

Maybe you’re stuck because you don’t think it makes much of a difference either way. And then people like me who favour one side over the other come along to tell you that absolutely everything depends on how you vote, and you start to doubt yourself. Well on the one hand, that’s democracy, so tough. On the other hand, forget us, we have no idea what’s going to happen either, not in the long run.

Ultimately, we’re making this decision because David Cameron decided an EU Referendum was the best way to answer the threat of UKIP and keep his backbenchers onside. It’s the worst possible reason to hold a referendum about anything, so if it all goes horribly wrong, it’s his responsibility, not yours.