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What is therapy in terms of gestalt and gestalt awareness practice?
What is therapy in terms of gestalt and gestalt awareness practice? 450 646 positiv

So, free from traumas, being aware of your needs, the capacity of the current environment and your ability to cover your need within this circumstance… So if I am hungry and there is a cherry tree with fruits, am I tall enough to reach them? If not, what could I do? Maybe use a ladder? If there is no solution, could I allow myself a moment of disappointment that I cannot have these cherries. So this gestalt between me and the cherry tree is completed. And now I can move on until I find another way to cover the hunger. Or should I get angry with that tree that doesn’t ‘let me’ enjoy it’s fruits? Or I could even take it personally and start crying, getting so disappointed that I’d never again try and get fruits from a tree? And so on and on… This is what we call “to act in the here and now” according to a past trauma.

Let’s apply that example to the whole spectrum of our life… How often don’t we block the completion of a present gestalt because of a past trauma coming to the surface? What gestalt helps us to do is to heal our traumas so we can go with the flow of our life! But what does it really mean to be a client in gestalt therapy ? Is it the therapist who has the magic power to heal you and you depend on his super-power ability?Or do you heal yourself? And if so how does it happen? And if that happens, why do you need a therapist then? Well here is my personal experience as client and therapist…

The only necessary process for a human being is to be present in each moment of the three levels of awareness. A feeling, a body sense (body awareness), a thought, an imagination, a memory (mind awareness) or information from the environment, weather condition, location, people, animals etc. (environment awareness). So by being present, every being has the inside-wisdom of what is best for them in every moment according to their needs and abilities in order to complete an experience and move to the next one and so on. This is what we call ‘go with he flow’! We choose therapy when we feel some block to this natural process of life, plus we are ready to talk about it to someone else.

 

This means we bring our awareness to whatever blocks us, while we are open to listen to new directions on how to use our awareness ability. Let’s make this clear:

1. Not all the people realize the block.

2. Not all of them who do, realize at the same time their own participation to it.

3. Even if they do, they do not necessarily consider it an option or feel ready to talk about it openly. Especially in front of someone unknown, who is a ‘specialist’ and he ‘knows well’ how to help.

So, asking for therapy is a step further in the awareness of the blocked flow of our life. This choice itself contains the will to expose your life story and to share your awareness with someone, letting him help you expand it in new places you haven’t try yet… So a major part of your therapy is happening when you share your awareness with someone who is there to listen to you with acceptance, non judgment and no interpretation; those are gestalt’s therapy and awareness practice basic rules.

The next level of working on yourself happens when the therapist is shining light to some parts you haven’t brought to your awareness yet. How do we do that? Gestalt is an experimental therapy apart from existential, meaning we create experiments for the expansion of our clients awareness from a simpler one, like noticing the movement of your hands, to a more advanced one like recreating the dream you had, putting the important roles to each chair and talk from each position… (open chair technique in dream work).

This way we bring the awareness of the client in new areas of his emotions, body sensations, memories, movements, body posture, faces, anything that could come to our attention and we consider it to be relative and helpful with the issue delivered at the moment. So yes, we are useful for this part of the process but it’s his-hers awareness process that really does the healing process.

An other useful part of having a therapist is that even when you’re able to bring your awareness where is needed each moment and you know you can get to the root of every issue you have, there’s still the human need for the presence of someone to listen to you in those moments of self-relevance. Some times it can be quite hard to accept, for example, that it was some parts of you that was resisting the actualization of your desire to eat those cherries. It’s those parts that told you that if you try to reach them, maybe you will get hurt, you will never make it or you are not tall enough anyway! In gestalt these kind of thoughts can be called introjections.

Many times we discover that inside us there exist many controversial parts at the same moment and of course it’s not easy to take the response-ability for the ones with unpleasant effect to our life (“you will never reach these cherries!”). Often though we don’t even take the response-ability for the parts that bring us a pleasant effect, and this is an other topic! (“I am so lucky I ate these cherries”) It is difficult, though extremely necessary to take this response-ability. This is an efficient way to go through the self-obstacle(s) and move onto the ‘goal’, bringing the awareness to that part that tries to stop you and listen to its point (ex. if you get hurt trying to get these cherries, no one will help you).

That usually comes from a traumatic experience, the memory of which gets triggered in here and now, and blocks the flow of your experience in the present moment. This can be overcome by the process of shining light, attention, awareness to that part by giving it a voice and listening to it. It’s more important that each part gets expressed and heard, than to act upon its need. So why do this process of self revealing with a therapist and not only with a friend?

In a natural world it would be enough to talk to each other and to ourselves through this process that now we’re ‘obliged’ to call gestalt. As F. Perls said ‘with gestalt I didn’t discover something new, I just brought together natural human processes and called them gestalt therapy’. The way we grow up and live, takes us far away from our natural abilities, being aware of what is our experience in every moment (feelings, senses, desires etc). As a result, it takes us away from acting the most adequate way to our real needs and desires. It also prevents us from developing the human qualities of solidarity and mutual support; from communicating through acceptance, non judgmental and present listening. Cultivating such qualities can be enough for helping each other to restore our natural abilities, since the human being has the ability to cure itself through awareness. So fortunately or not, in our days some of us need to be ‘trained’ in this way of communication in order to be able to transmit this basic human knowledge to other beings through therapy.

My goal as a therapist is to transmit that knowledge till the person in therapy owns this process and then he-she can offer it to him-herself and spread it to their surroundings. So humanity can be re-educated to lead a life of acceptance and non-judgmental support; what I would call in two words living with freedom and love of being who you are in every moment (this is the practice O’Neil followed with his students in summer hill). Of course though it is part of the awareness process to observe without judging all inner thoughts, feelings, desires this must not be taken as tolerance towards acting out violently.

An other reason being a therapist is a profession at the moment is that the traumatization people have due to this way of living can be high rated and sometimes not even our friends are ready or able to hear our traumatic experience. So an adequately trained therapist is supposed to do this social ‘dirty job’…

Also many people feel its too shameful to have a bad experience thinking it’s happened only to them and no-one else. This is basically a lie sold to us from this ‘well-polished’ way of life where everything should be ‘fine’ and if not its our personal deficiency…

In fewer words, we have not collectivized yet the suffering as a common human experience. Although we all see in every day news and life all this violence being acted out, we still perceive that its our personal problem or deficiency that brings the experience of suffering in our life. Wouldn’t the planet lives with peace and love if it was only your personal deficiency !? Until suffering feels socially acceptable we can share this part of us in the safe space created from a well trained therapist, and hopefully being helped to realize it’s not only us …

So my purpose as a gestalt therapist is to educate people how to support themselves and each other with love and freedom that can occur with acceptance of how we are at the moment without critic and interpretation and help each other stay with one’s experience as it occurs at the moment. Do people need a therapist?

Many people that had less self-support could use therapy to develop the skill of supporting themselves. Since anyway we where all traumatized at some point one way or another, and it seems there is no way to avoid it, this is part of the nature. Yes, sometimes I cannot eat these cherries though I am really too hungry… So its not about the level of trauma or the amount of it, its more about the ability to support oneself in the process. And this is the main skill we need to develop through therapy, so we won’t depend on anyone, therapist or friend, for our self regulation after some disappointment or frustration etc, which are natural parts of life. It’s one condition to have the desire to share one’s experience with someone and an other to have the need for it. Of course through the path of this life many times we feel this need and it’s normal, even so, one must keep the awareness that our goal is to not depend on the other for this process.

Last but not least, we say ‘therapy is the relation’, meaning that the space we are given in a therapy process to re-learn how to relate to an other human being in a way that we can really express ourselves in the world and so re-relate to others with these new skills. To conclude, therapy is a pedagogical healing process far from dependance. At least I am offering gestalt therapy as such…

 

A 2013 study on mice
http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/this-is-your-brain-on-silence

“We saw that silence is really helping the new generated cells to differentiate into neurons, and integrate into the system.”
http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/this-is-your-brain-on-silence

said Moran and colleagues.
http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/this-is-your-brain-on-silence

“All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by silence.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2016/03/03/silence-brain-benefits_n_9389210.html

Evans says.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/07-08/silence.aspx

They based these findings of changes they noticed in blood pressure and blood circulation in the brain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1860846/

cognitive and language skills.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/07-08/silence.aspx

In silence the brain is able to let down its sensory guard and restore some of what has been ‘lost’ through excess noise.
http://www.wienerzeitung.at/_em_daten/_wzo/2015/08/07/150807_1710_kaplan_s._19951.pdf

Mind Bodyvia beautifulnow.is
http://beautifulnow.is/bnow/the-endangered-sound-of-silence

 

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Self-organization means “I organize myself”
Self-organization means “I organize myself” 0 0 alex.spctrm

Many people ask me what is self-organization?And I can answer them!Here is the written version of my answer!Through the eyes of an internationalist anarchist and gestalt therapist!

So what is the so-called self-organization at the social level?

This is a structure usually proposed by anarchist philosophers and practitioners. Very well.

What is it though?

Every person is part of a community and many communities together ake what we call society. So society is a sum of all the people in the world practically. Self-organization happens when the parts of the society, each community and each person, talk, communicate, decide and act together taking each other’s needs, resources, talents, and abilities in consideration.

Each community has its own needs and resources. Those are the needs and abilities of all the beings that are part of this society. Taken into consideration all of them and the given environment, people can decide together and act together in favour of the whole at the maximum possible.

This is the meaning of self-organization on a communal level. Of course, it is not easy to satisfy all the needs at the same time, and many people will say ‘oh there will be a chaos’.

Though, I would ask is it really that complicated or does it sound harder than it is?
And what is the comparison we have?

Is it really easier to follow orders of people who have never visited our community rather than decide for ourselves?

Is it preferable to be frustrated because my need will not be covered but my neighbours will have their need covered after the last self-organized decision, or is it better that no one has his need satisfied since the decisions are made from a central government that has no idea about anyone’s needs anyway?

Also, more often than we think, the common good is more obvious than complicated.

Plus, we all use self-organization in our everyday social life, or else our lives would be way too difficult.

Yes, there are several authoritarian characters and behaviours in our society, but hardly is someone 24-7 in this mode. For example, having a flatshare is a form of self-organization. Having an intimate relationship, a friendship, a parenthood is a form of self-organization.

And the more is being treated as such the more functional it gets!

Meaning, the more we engage consciously everyone in the process of accomplishments and sharing tasks, the easier it gets!

So it is easier to self-organize my everyday life with my kid by explaining to it naturally, that we need to accomplish several tasks every day to maintain our house clean and so on. Are you with me?

Can u take the task to tide up your room, yourself and eat your food on your own?

Depending on the age, we can share different tasks with our kids. It is important to transmit to human beings in an early age the awareness that they are a part of a totality and they are useful and important to keep it running!

My point here is that the so-called self-organization that many people in a political talk will answer to me ‘oh, this can’t work’, ‘we need someone to govern us or it will be a chaos’ and so on, these people maybe are already using self-organization in small scale, or they can see the benefits of it by starting practising today in their relationship with themselves and close others.

Also, I want to develop a bit more my claim that self-organization is a natural basic function of any society.

 

For example, when I call someone and he cannot answer the phone at this moment, he will probably call me back when he is available. Τhis is a small self-organization in practice that makes our lives easier. Αlso, when I invite friends for dinner, I am happy when someone will wash the dishes, respecting my invitation and my cooking time, or when I want to see a friend that lives far, we try to find the middle way to meet so we cover half distance each.

Self-organization makes our lives easier and simpler

 

Yes, it demands our presence in the process and awareness that are not always there. though our lives get happier when we manage to bring these qualities in every moment of our lives.

So, in a larger social level, me and my neighbours we are expert in the needs of our area, not the central government. So, it makes more sense that we take action based on our needs rather than follow a general rule that is not connected with our real needs. For example, we know better if we need another mall or parking or a green area with a playground.

Equally, we know better if we want to drill and frack our forests rather than the company that will come in our area, take the ground resources and then live, leaving us there to breath all the toxic atmosphere and grow food in a polluted destroyed ground.

And we shall act accordingly since we live in this area we need to be the ones to decide considering the effects in our health, everyday life, and the next generations.

Equally, the way I learn to treat myself in the inner scale will affect the way humanity develops in the future. We have thousands of years of practised violence to wash out. So practising an inner self-organized assembly to decide how to live my life is an antidote to all these years of violence.

Peace, reflection, acceptance, respect, love, and freedom are the base of self-organization.

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Science Says Silence Is Much More Important To Our Brains Than We Think
Science Says Silence Is Much More Important To Our Brains Than We Think 450 616 alex.spctrm

Finland may be on to something very big. You could be seeing the very beginnings of using silence as a selling point as silence may be becoming more and more attractive. As the world around becomes increasingly loud and cluttered you may find yourself seeking out the reprieve that silent places and silence have to offer. This may be a wise move as studies are showing that silence is much more important to your brains than you might think.
Regenerated brain cells may be just a matter of silence.

A 2013 study on mice published in the journal Brain, Structure and Function used differed types of noise and silence and monitored the effect the sound and silence had on the brains of the mice. The silence was intended to be the control in the study but what they found was surprising. The scientists discovered that when the mice were exposed to two hours of silence per day they developed new cells in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a region of the brain associated with memory, emotion and learning.

The growth of new cells in the brain does not necessarily translate to tangible health benefits. However, in this instance, researcher Imke Kirste says that the cells appeared to become functioning neurons.

“We saw that silence is really helping the new generated cells to differentiate into neurons, and integrate into the system.”

In this sense silence can quite literally grow your brain.

The brain is actively internalizing and evaluating information during silence

 

A 2001 study defined a “default mode” of brain function that showed that even when the brain was “resting” it was perpetually active internalizing and evaluating information.

 

Follow-up research found that the default mode is also used during the process of self-reflection. In 2013, in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Joseph Moran et al. wrote, the brain’s default mode network “is observed most closely during the psychological task of reflecting on one’s personalities and characteristics (self-reflection), rather than during self-recognition, thinking of the self-concept, or thinking about self-esteem, for example.”

When the brain rests it is able to integrate internal and external information into “a conscious workspace,” said Moran and colleagues.

When you are not distracted by noise or goal-orientated tasks, there appears to be a quiet time that allows your conscious workspace to process things. During these periods of silence,

 your brain has the freedom it needs to discover its place in your internal and external world.

The default mode helps you think about profound things in an imaginative way.

As Herman Melville once wrote, “All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by silence.”

Silence relieves stress and tension.

It has been found that noise can have a pronounced physical effect on our brains resulting in elevated levels of stress hormones. The sound waves reach the brain as electrical signals via the ear. The body reacts to these signals even if it is sleeping. It is thought that the amygdalae (located in the temporal lobes of the brain) which is associated with memory formation and emotion is activated and this causes a release of stress hormones. If you live in a consistently noisy environment that you are likely to experience chronically elevated levels of stress hormones.

A study that was published in 2002 in Psychological Science (Vol. 13, No. 9) examined the effects that the relocation of Munich’s airport had on children’s health and cognition. Gary W. Evans, a professor of human ecology at Cornell University notes that children who are exposed to noise develop a stress response that causes them to ignore the noise. What is of interest is that these children not only ignored harmful stimuli they also ignored stimuli that they should be paying attention to such as speech.

“This study is among the strongest, probably the most definitive proof that noise – even at levels that do not produce any hearing damage – causes stress and is harmful to humans,” Evans says.

Silence seems to have the opposite effect of the brain to noise. While noise may cause stress and tension silence releases tension in the brain and body. A study published in the journal Heart discovered that two minutes of silence can prove to be even more relaxing than listening to “relaxing” music. They based these findings of changes they noticed in blood pressure and blood circulation in the brain.

Silence replenishes our cognitive resources.


The effect that noise pollution can have on cognitive task performance has been extensively studied. It has been found that noise harms task performance at work and school. It can also be the cause of decreased motivation and an increase in error making. The cognitive functions most strongly affected by noise are reading attention, memory and problem solving.

Studies have also concluded that children exposed to households or classrooms near airplane flight paths, railways or highways have lower reading scores and are slower in their development of cognitive and language skills.

But it is not all bad news. It is possible for the brain to restore its finite cognitive resources. According to the attention restoration theory when you are in an environment with lower levels of sensory input the brain can ‘recover’ some of its cognitive abilities. In silence the brain is able to let down its sensory guard and restore some of what has been ‘lost’ through excess noise.

Summation
Traveling to Finland may just well be on your list of things to do. There you may find the silence you need to help your brain. Or, if Finland is a bit out of reach for now, you could simply take a quiet walk in a peaceful place in your neighborhood. This might prove to do you and your brain a world of good.

Source: Life Hack
Featured photo credit: Mind Bodyvia beautifulnow.is

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