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Tag: gestalt

What is the purpose of emotion?

Every theoretical system has its biases, and gestalt is no exception. Along with gestalt's bias towards here and now experience, gestalt also has a bias towards emotion and feeling. There is a general wisdom in gestalt that emotions are Good Things, and that feeling one's emotions is better than not feeling them. Whilst I agree with…

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Resistance is fertile

Resistance is fertile

At the heart of every course of therapy sits a struggle between change and resistance. Traditionally, the therapist is seen as an agent of change. In this view, it is the therapist's job to help bring about change, be that the explicitly desired change of the client, or an unwanted albeit necessary change. In gestalt therapy, this…

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Resentments and regrets: working with unfinished business.

Any incomplete gestalt is unfinished business demanding resolution. Usually this takes the form of unresolved and incompletely expressed feelings. Patients are encouraged to experiment with finishing business which heretofore was unfinished... Gestalt therapists have found that resentments are the most frequent and meaningful unexpressed feeling, and often deal with this with a game in which…

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boredom

The psychopathology of boredom

Psychopathology is a great word. It has three parts: 'psyche' (the soul), 'pathos' (suffering), and the suffix 'ology' (the study of). If you're ever writing about something in the context of its impact on human suffering, you can't go far wrong by dropping in psychopathology (incidentally, given those meanings, that makes the meaning of 'psychopath'…

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