Gestalt Colloquium - Relationships
May 9th, 2009
My presentation today will be on the Gestalt approach to couples therapy. Relationships include marriage, but also friendship, parent-child, siblings, in-laws, co-workers, neighbors, etc. This Colloquium applies mainly to couple’s therapy but can heal and facilitate growth in all relationships.
Couplehood is NOT - an individual that has a split and now needs integration. Couplehood starts as a split – and the experiment is for the 2 unconnected individuals, except physically perhaps, to try and create full contact, full connection.
Therefore our goal as therapists is to use every possible way that can create or enhance a couple’s experience of contact, integration and oneness. It is important for them to become aware of not only themselves and each other, but also that 3rd entity - their relationship. (Joyce Magid - Relationship Workshop)
During each session we must do work that requires them to continually experience Couplehood - by being together – by hearing each other -by connecting and contacting each other – by validating each other.
Working with couples also means working with couples in distress – it’s like triage, the emergency room. The equivalent of a couple divorcing is…exactly like suicide for an individual. It is final…the end.
So with couples we are dealing with an emergency situation - tantamount to dealing with a suicidal patient. Action has to be quick, inspiring, and effective. This isn’t preventive medicine!
“For better or worse, through sickness and health’ till death do us part”, gives couples the false impression that now they are truly one, but instead of magically accomplishing integration or unity, vows often lead to great disappointment.
Sex and fun, and the excitement of starting a new life, with all its busy-ness, decision making, raising children, doesn’t accomplish integration. But often it is hard to notice this until some of that busy-ness stops and the couple have only their relationship to be with.
In Gestalt we work with the individual - in traditional Gestalt couple’s therapy the theory is that by working with each person separately, and having them make fuller contact with themselves will translate into better contact with the other. (Peter Turkl)
I hypothesize that since in Couplehood it is the relationship we are looking to heal, not the individual per se, we look to Couplehood to produce the awareness and healing and contact needed, as opposed to the individual. Again, to put it another way, since individuals are trying to learn what it means to live in Couplehood, we therapists have to learn to use Couplehood exactly as we use the individual, as the appropriate vehicle for awareness and integration.
We know individuals have problems with awareness. That’s why Perls says awareness is 90% of the healing process. I believe that the problems couples have are more complex. They arise from 4 distinct areas. One, awareness, being foundational. Couples also have problems with communication skills - especially listening, problem with using a limiting vision of what is possible – in Gestalt we call them introjects - about themselves, relationships, and the opposite sex, and finally couples have problems loving each other unconditionally. Generally they don’t realize that this last one is possible and necessary. These problems areas translate into behavior that is invalidating, hurtful, and reinforces all of one’s introjects.
Today I will be exploring with you the possible evolution of Gestalt theory and therapy as it applies to couples therapy. Are there some tools or perspective which can help our clients make better contact, uncover introjects, projections, let go of the retroflections that are holding them in place – instead of strengthening the introjects and retroflections? The goal is a healthier, more loving relationship.
We’ll look to see if a number of novel approaches – from Imago Couples Dialogue, my Continuum Theory of Human Development, the latest in brain research with OCD, and cognitive behavioral therapy have any tools to offer Gestalt couples therapy. I will let you be the judge.
Joseph Zinker in, “In Search of Good Form” a book on the application of Gestalt theory to couple’s therapy that I will be referring to again and again, uses the Kurt Lewin quote, “There is nothing so practical as a good theory.” Pg. 63 Then he goes on to say that the practicality of this good theory is to give the therapist a ‘cognitive map’ which will help us organize and understand information which then and only then can ‘lead us to good intervention.’
In other words a good theory is practical for the therapist. In this colloquium I will not only agree with Zinker but posit the idea that Zinker did not take this idea of practicality far enough. My belief is that a good theory ought to be equally practical and useful for the therapist and the client. We will also explore what this means.
According to Peter Turkl it seems that my goal is to make certain that a couple is able to take home and make use of ideas and tools in their daily lives. In other words that a session be ‘concretized and anchored’.
In my small practice I have more clients that are couples then individuals, and much of the issues that even individual clients report have to do either with their spouses, ex, parents or other relationships.
As therapists it is absolutely necessary for us to be aware that the dynamics couples bring usually has a certain amount of despair, anger, and hopelessness, in part because they are dependent on another person to make it work. We have to motivate two people – if only one is motivated or believes in the work, all is lost.
Can this journey of healing, which will probably take a couple months if not years, be committed to and persisted in by both parties, without the strong hope that it will bear fruit? (Audience - Probably not)
Awareness – and – The Audacity of Hope
Joseph Zinker in “In Search of Good Form” emphasizes the importance of awareness for couples’ therapy.
Seeing and being with
Touching and being touched
He emphasizes concepts such as acting out vs. acting through……and action with vs. action without….. grounded awareness.
And in describing his “aesthetic of ‘good form’ he also says that there is ‘satisfaction in witnessing a family moving from….pessimism to hope’. (pg28)
We can all imagine what acting out or acting without grounded awareness might be like. Full of introjects, projections, retroflections – responding to situations in an automatic manner – she pushed my buttons is a favorite and quiet correct analysis of the way people most often respond when they are acting without grounded awareness. Perhaps you know of people and relationships like that in your own life.
In order to facilitate a couple’s growth in the area of awareness he suggests to encourage clients to say aloud what is going on for them, starting with something simple like “I am in the mood for pizza” – is relatively easy for them to be aware of. To verbalize “I am feeling down” – is often harder for them to sense and less comfortable to verbalize. He then suggests that clients begin to pay attention to the other – “You’re favoring your right leg” – and then he notes that one must care about the other to notice and verbalize awareness on this level. The problem here is that we’re dealing with angry people – who are not very much in touch with their caring for the other.
What I am trying to point out is that these are all good suggestions. I asked myself, and now I will ask you, ‘What is the likelihood that a couple, who is trying to use us, the therapists, as a judge and jury to be right about the other being the cause of all the stress and problems in the relationship, will take these suggestions home and all of a sudden “care” enough about the other to actually practice these exercises?”
What do you think? – discussion with the group.
My belief is that right from the start, especially the first session, a couple has to leave with “an audacity of hope”, believing that the work can and will transform their relationship. Time for these couples is running out – we don’t have the same luxury we might with an individual – who might easily seek a divorce after getting their act together and bidding the problem spouse goodbye. Our goal has to be to save the marriage, because in essence that is what couples ask us to do.
My goal today is for us to discover some tools that might inspire hopefulness and therefore commitment to do the work. I believe more then mere ‘suggestions’ of certain positive behaviors regarding awareness is necessary. The problem has a number of dimensions. One is awareness, one is communication especially listening, one is introjects like – no matter what we do nothing will work – he/she will never change. Each of these has to be addressed and the couples have to be given the experience of “what it will look like once they master new skills and new perspectives.” We need to actually train couples how to bring awareness to the relationship, how to communicate and listen, how to create a new perspective of what is possible, right in our first sessions. We need to train them and have them practice these tools right in the session – so we can acknowledge their good work. They must leave with hope.
Let’s start with awareness training.
What do we mean by awareness and how do we develop it more fully in a session? In Gestalt terms Awareness is when a person becomes fully aware of, makes contact with, the signals from their body-mind and spirit. Aware of their physical and emotional responses to their own thoughts, their circumstances and their interactions. Our claim is that due to a series of events in childhood people have shut down awareness of their emotional responses to the events in their lives, and numbed the messages coming from the body that would help them be aware of these emotions.
To become more fully aware of the feelings, their responses to what is going on in their life, and to unblock those feelings and interruptions that are blocked we turn to the body. The body does not lie, the client cannot ‘make up a story’ about what is going on since it is visible to us. Since what happens with the body happens in the present moment, in Gestalt we believe this type of work helps people become more aware of what happens moment to moment, and at all times in their lives.
Tracking the body is something we as therapist are trained to do with our clients. It seems to me that in a session with couples we teach them not only to become more aware of their own body, exactly as we would do when working with a single client, but have them begin to become more aware of the other. This will allow clients to take Gestalt on the road. The point wouldn’t be to have them do anything with what they are noticing as much as have them notice. We have to explain to them the ‘health benefits’ of observing. Just this simple observing makes then more attuned to their partner. That creates connection, contact, that has probably been eroding. At this point in the relationship there is unconscious disconnecting and may even be a conscious attempt at ignoring each other and ignoring the signals from the other. If they are willing to start noticing these more basic signals then they will be able to notice the more subtle, emotional signals. It also let’s the other know that they are important and teaches each one to become curious rather then judgmental.
Exercise: I need 2 people to come up and help me demonstrate - using one of the partners do a Gestalt demonstration – ‘DO I have your permission to observe and comment on your body’s signals?” Have them face each other and then have first one, then the other ask permission and then track the face and body of the other –
We start by teaching them to observe and communicate that observation
I notice the sadness in your eyes,
You seem to be furrowing your brow,
More tense around your mouth then usual,
You’re gritting you teeth,
Your shoulders are pulled all the way up,
You’re thumping your feet,
Quest: How did it feel to be noticed? How did it feel to notice the other? Did you feel more connected?
When people ignore or are unaware of the signals from the other, it makes the other feel invalidated, which is probably in alignment with one of their introjects. And that experience will induce a retroflection or strengthen an existing one.
On the other hand, when we are used to not observing or ignoring, and now experience something new and novel, our partner paying attention and noticing, it challenges the introject and loosens up the retroflection.
Once this exercise is over we can then encourage and acknowledge each of them.
“Good job...you did that well.”
This will raise both their awareness and also raise their level of hope. If they can do this they can do even more. After all they already learned and did something new, well.
In later sessions we can add the curiosity part -
I notice the sadness in your eyes; would you like to tell me more about that? You seem to be furrowing your brow, would you like to tell me more about that? More tense around your mouth then usual, would you like to tell me more about that? You’re gritting you teeth, would you like to tell me more about that? Your shoulders are pulled all the way up, would you like to tell me more about that? You’re thumping your feet, would you like to tell me more about that?
When clients practice we should be working toward building their confidence that they are getting better at what they need to do by continually encouraging and acknowledging each of them.
Without noticing, without being aware, a client can’t recognize that these bodily signals are communicating something from their partner that they may want to know more about. They can’t begin to be curious about the other’s emotional condition without noticing the signals. Curiosity and questioning can then furnish information which can be used to bring more understanding, support, compassion, encouragement, more patience, and acceptance to the relationship.
If, according to Perls, awareness is 90% of healing, then having a couple practice this type of awareness and tracking of each other in each session for 5 minutes, will definitely facilitate their healing.
It also sends a message to each partner that they are important, and that each is here noticing what is going on with the other, to perhaps be available if the need arises. This need may not even be on the conscious level for the partners and will be brought to the conscious level – exactly as it happens in therapy.
So the partnership becomes a valuable extension of the therapeutic process.
Couples then need to be taught to welcome this type of observation during their daily life and understand and appreciate its meaning and value. Without being clear about this and giving each other permission – because they care – they might easily feel ‘watched’, get annoyed at it and become defensive.
Although it may seem trivial to them as far as solving the overall problem –it is something that you can explain holds great promise for the healing of the relationship – and you can praise them for doing a good job.
This is something they can definitely take home beginning with the first session – and probably will…and get the feeling that they learned something. Perhaps progress can be had.
Yet our work to create hope…the primary source of motivation for the hard work that lays ahead for our couples…has just begun – the next section we will focus on what I believe is a necessary part of generating the hope that will translate into the persistence necessary to rehabilitate a damaged relationship.
Again, in describing his “aesthetic of ‘good form’ Zinker says that there is ‘satisfaction in witnessing a family moving from…. ‘confusion and chaos to clarity’. (pg28)
Chaos and confusion stem form the fact that both partners in a relationship thought they new exactly what they wanted and what they were getting. It turns out that things didn’t quiet work out the way they imagined it. Why is the question they try desperately to answer. And the answer is…HIM…or… HER.
This bring us to the next section of work today –
“What do you image it would be like…” Phyllis asked a number of us during a go around in the Addiction course. I think that is a vital tool to begin to unlock introjects and begin the process of creating new healthier beliefs.
Rather then asking me to close my eyes and imagine - Celeste had me draw a picture – taking images in my head which may be chaotic and putting them on paper where they are clearer and more organized – where we now both could see it and work with it.
Creating new Visions starts with imagining – new context is what I call it in my work – and I help a client’s take it right out of their head and heart, put it on paper where we can organize it and begin to create clarity out of confusion. Both reframing what is so about the relationship and partner and writing down the possibilities in a conscious and organized manner must begin right in the first session.
Vision
What do you imagine it would be like if you had the ideal relationship? What would that relationship look and feel like? Couples who seek help are often at their breaking point and very much need hope, something they can hang their hats on – which is why the vision work you do with them will in fact work – instead of merely assuring them, promising them or asking them to have patience. There is real solid scientific evidence for why creating a vision will in fact produce results. Explaining this and the results vision work produces causes couples to be more patient and persistent.
Zinker suggests the following as “goals for outcomes and skills necessary for negotiating the various phases of the interacting cycle in couples work. (pg. 84)
-Couples will allow each other to differ
-Appreciate each others differences
-Encourage full expression of what they see, feel, and think
-Appreciate each other, encourage, and nurture each other
-Have compassion for the struggle of the other
-Mutual respect
-Finish interactions
-Identify interruptions
-Learn patience and persistence
-Authentic curiosity about each others feelings and thoughts”
These are all very nice….visions – but seemingly the vision the therapist is aiming for – as opposed to having a clear, written vision that the couple can aim for, learn, tweak, and read again and again which certainly might include these. Harville Hendrix, author of “Getting the Love you want” and founder of the Imago Couples Therapy program says that he doesn’t begin working with any couple without first guiding them to create a vision for their relationship.
I have been working with vision for over 20 years in all aspects of development including working with couples. When people in relationships feel hopeless they don’t want to put any effort forth. They have a sense of futility about trying.
Very often they will go through the motions in therapy. ALREADY KNOWING….that nothing is going work. He or she is not going to change. They think they have tried everything and the other person simply does not want to respond. These projections are supported by an introject – one that might say, ”No one can love me for who I am”, “I am not worthy”, “I don’t deserve”, etc.
My belief is that we can get at introjects and projections in the relationship through the exercise of creating and then working with a new belief system as to who we are and what is possible – a new vision.
The work is to bring the introjects to light that are supporting the projections and to create new, healthier visions for their relationship. We need say to invite a couple to “Imagine what the relationship would be like and feel like if it was exactly like you’d want it to be? What do you envision it to be? What are the things you would want in this ideal relationship?”
Audience Participation – Now please think about a relationship you are in right now that is causing you pain. Raise your hand if you feel that you have really been trying to make it work? If you feel that the other person has really not tried their best?
We all feel that we have tried our best and the other person somehow hasn’t. It is this feeling that often makes us angry and feel unloved. But is it true?
Discussion. This concept must be gotten across to your clients.
I need a volunteers who would like to create movement in one of their relationships – with their spouse, partner, adult parents, so I can demonstrate how to guide a client to create a vision.
Write the answers on the Erase Board
What are the things you would want in this relationship to make it an ideal relationship?”
Write : In this relationship I want:
To be heard
To have good communication
To have more intimacy
To feel appreciated
To have more respect
To have more fun
To be encouraged
As your clients verbalize the new possibilities they want in their relationship, they will fluctuate between remembering their experience of the last 5-10-20 years - not having these - so how is it going to be possible now? – and their genuine desire to have them.
Introjects – my belief is that we can get at introjects and projections in the relationship through the exercise of creating and then working with a new belief system as to what is possible – a new vision.
WHERE PEOPLE ARE STUCK IS IN INTROJECTS LIKE–
“NOTHING WILL NEVER CHANGE”
“I AM NOT DESERVING’
“MEN ARE IMPOSSIBLE”, “WOMEN ARE IMPOSSIBLE”, ETC.
THESE INTROJECTS REALLY MEAN -
“I DON’T KNOW HOW TO CHANGE IT”
THEN IT IS PROJECTED –
“HE-SHE DOESN’T WANT TO CHANGE”Understanding that like architects they can craft a new, conscious relationship has a major impact. It creates that first flicker of hope. And it creates lots of clarity.
WHAT ALL RELATIONSHIPS NEED IS HOPE
HOPE EVERGIZES PEOPLE TO ACTION
HOPE IS WHAT HAS BEEN LOST IN A RELATIONSHIP
WHAT DOES VISION DO? IT CREATES HOPE
They will wrestle with this hope – constantly checking – almost day to day – to see if having a vision is a miracle pill. Of course it isn’t. The purpose of having a vision is to have each person be able to compare their behavior choices with their stated goals for the relationship. They will get into the habit, through greater awareness, to ask themselves - Is what I said or did getting me closer to my goals, my vision or farther from it?
What working with a vision does for a couple, is to make the process of becoming more aware, occur much faster. The road map they now have, and keeping their eye on it, just like with driving, will result in getting lost less and less frequently. And as results start to show, their hope of attaining their vision becomes stronger and stronger.
Therefore what did we learn about what Vision does?
It creates real hope – and hope energizes people to action.
When we go through the exercise of creating a new vision –– new brain connections, new neuronal pathways are being formed – and as we practice working with these new visions – almost like a new mantra – we strengthen the new pathways and weaken the old. Our brain continually registers this newness – which is why the hope we feel is real, not something we’re merely talking ourselves into. Changes in our neuro-pathways is something that is happening physically in our bodies, which we may not be fully conscious of, like we are of a knot in our stomach, or a constriction in our chest,…. but we are conscious of it non-the-less.
1. As we look at the current state of any relationship – the results that have shown up – those results represent exactly the belief system you have about relationships, members of the opposite sex and yourself – the vision you have now. The results are based on your introjects and projections.
Audience Participation - I need two volunteers who would like to create movement in one of their relationships – with a spouse, or partner, or adult parent, so I can demonstrate how to guide each client and then a couple to create a vision.
I would like the two of you to create a list of what you think is true about each of these - and the rest of you can also do this - the last page of the hand out is for filling in these 3 areas.
1) yourself - positive and negative characteristics
2) the opposite sex - positive and negative characteristics
3) your relationship - positive and negative characteristics
Let me know when you’re ready………
As they are working address the others:
It was a major AHA moment in my life when I realized that adults, other people in my life like my parents, spouse, etc., weren’t hatched out of an egg at 35 – and are not consciously and premeditatedly frustrating me, or not loving me on purpose.
They are where they are. And that they are doing their best. This concept must be gotten across to your clients.
2. We will find that as we try to create a new vision with a client we will be able to see the blocks the client has to thinking outside the box of their past experiences. They will cling to what they think is possible – based on their introjects, which they then constantly project onto future possibilities and therefore effectively limit any new possibilities.
3. Creating a new vision – is a way to form new neuronal pathways in the brain – brain science is showing that our brain has what is called “plasticity” – specifically neuro-plasticity – which means that your focus of attention and intention actually reshapes the brain and the connections in your brain. That means that we can go from - reacting automatically – using our old belief system - our introjects and projections, which limit what is possible - and reinforce the same old neuronal pathways – and go to creating new neuronal pathways by changing the focus of our attention and intention. Simply put a new vision can help us bring conscious choices to our behavior.
There are 3 important elements when creating vision that we need in order to stay in contact with others when we feel hurt.
First element – you and they both want love, you and they both need love,
Second element – you’re doing the best you can, they are doing the best they can
Third element – you deserve to have your relationship be exactly as you want it
BACK TO PARTICIPANTS - let’s work with each of your lists to create a vision that will generate movement in your relationship. Then I will work with both of you as a couple – Couplehood requires that both people create and agree to the same vision together.
1. Flip the negative characteristics – your introjects – into positive characteristics
2. Let’s see what was left out – and add them
3. Notice what asking for what you want and need feels like in your body
4. Now let’s see what creating a common vision entails – each of you say one thing that you want and ask the other if they also want that. Through communication and compromise we can creat a common vision.
The important point I am making is that clients need to realize that they are operating from their introjects – I call it their present context or vision -1. about relationships – 2. about themselves – 3. about the opposite sex men/women – 4. even about society. They have created that vision unconsciously, as part of their creative adjustment, built with introjects, supported by projections – and that unconscious vision drives all their behavior and choices. The vision they created unconsciously then is translated into negative expectations which influences their choices – in how they communicate, in how they react, in how they support and encourage each other OR NOT – and those choices are always in alignment with their expectations and in effect do become self-fulfilling.
When a vision is communicated continually with power, clarity and compassion it will move the other person. Both partners want to be loved and to have their love accepted.
Once they have that hope, they are energized – which means they will have more patience and determination to work toward their goal of healing the relationship.
The only way new actions/choices are possible – is when the belief changes from “it is impossible” to “it is possible” – from “he won’t change” to “he wants to and he will change”. The people in one’s life want exactly what you want – love, to be close, to connect – they may not know how to do it right now, they have their own negative expectations/introjects, they may be afraid, etc. but they want what you want. Changing to a new healthy vision, will lead them to make new, healthy choices, that will positively impact the relationship.
Once a loving vision is created and communicated it begins the healing process.
Finally, in describing his “aesthetic of ‘good form’ he ZINGER says that there is ‘satisfaction in witnessing a family moving from….’helplessness to increased competence’. (pg.28)
This brings us to the need for impeccable communication skills that are necessary to heal family wounds and maintain family harmony. Most people confuse communication with having their own mouths move. How well they articulate, how well they debate, and how often they win, how often they are right.
In relationships, when one person wins, is right, the relationship automatically loses.
Zinker also maintains that ‘we need to mobilize interest in what is going on with the other! In other words to go from blame to curiosity!’
This is virtually impossible unless people have the skill to listen proactively. This tool is totally missing from everyone’s toolbox – and yet no amount of effective communication can take place without the ability to listen and hear exactly – to the last syllable – what the other PERSON is saying. Otherwise the only thing that takes place is having the other’s communication filter through all of one’s own introjects, projections, and retroflections.
This brings us to…..
Communication –
Zinker (pg. 69) tells us that after “encouraging wider bands of self-awareness,” we need to “then teach the skill of noticing, seeing, and hearing the other.”
Zinker uses the following examples to teach us about communication. (pg. 192)
“Therapist: I would like to share something I have observed in your talk. Adrianna, you interrupt Hans all the time.”
In the analysis Zinker continues thus:
“Hans becomes the “injured child” and feels favored but without realizing that he allows the interruptions, Adrianna naturally feels slighted, almost ‘slapped on the wrist’ and does not become aware that she too allows interruptions from Hans. Change in behavior would seem to have come only from her and not from him – which is a distortion of what must happen. The couple is treated like punished children – rather then competent adults.”
According to Zinker the correct approach would be:
“Therapist: See if you can spot the moment when you interrupt the other or are interrupted. I will bring it to your attention if you don’t seem to notice.”
He goes on to say that good intervention, includes”
• Describing what is actually there
• States how all parties contribute to the phenomena
• Implies a potential action that each party can take to improve the system
He also suggests that we act as a referee,
“I suggest you watch each other more closely and allow the other to complete a thought.”
Although he is on the right track his interventions do not go far enough to help reorient a couple from bad communication habits to good ones. He ‘suggests’ for them to bring awareness to their style of communicating, rather then trains them to have good communication skills – starting with listening skills.
The goal is to have each partner feel like they are absolutely being heard. When we are not heard, like in childhood, we disappear, we’re not real, we’re frustrated, our buttons are ALL pushed, and disaster looms not far ahead. The introject is that we are not important and we retroflect it in our bodies – even today. The headaches get worse, the grinding of teeth, the stomach aches – and many more serious illnesses can and do develop.
A simple and effective tool that absolutely ensures each party that they will be heard, and trains both to actually hear what the other is saying is called ‘mirroring’.
Mirroring in a nutshell is repeating verbatim what the other said. Thereby in one simple exercise it teaches a number of incredibly important elements of good communication – which is the lifeblood of any relationship. And we know what happens when lifeblood is drained out of us. That is exactly what happens when good communication is missing from relationships.
Now we are going to practice mirroring – sender and receiver -
1. I need a volunteer to demonstrate mirroring – (I will take on the role of the person they want to improve their relationship with) – What did you become aware of in your body? How does having someone truly hear you and encourage you to fully express your thoughts and feelings….feel?
Audience – what is your reaction to what you are witnessing?
2. Now I need one more person to form a couple to help with a demonstration – I will coach the 2 of them in mirroring – What did you become aware of in your body?
How does having someone truly hear you and encourage you to fully express your thoughts and feelings….feel?
Audience – what is your reaction to what you are witnessing?
3. We will now break up into groups of 2 and practice mirroring - What did you become aware of in your body? How does having someone truly hear you and encourage you to fully express your thoughts and feelings….feel?
Mirroring is something that a therapist can do with a single client – we do it sometimes, when we repeat for emphasis or clarification, rather then to teach the individual client a tool for effectively hearing the other.
Again when using these tools with a couple we can validate their effort, point to their progress - and build their awareness of how they listen, how they interrupt…and also have them experience how much more loving it is to be listened to, how much more relaxed our bodies are when we can deliver a communication fully.
Finally I would like to speak briefly about a concept that we as therapists hear over and over again, but seldom see covered in text books on psychology or psychotherapy. In Zinker’s Index there isn’t a single reference to this concept – Love.
And yet the main reason a couple is sitting in front of you is because they are in pain – they are not receiving the love they need and are holding back giving the love the other needs. And not getting love or holding back one’s love both are extremely painful for human beings to do.
So if this is true…and I believe we have all personally experienced how painful it is not getting someone’s love or not being able to give our love freely because we’re angry, etc.
For sake of time I am not going to list all the things you have read and heard and probably think about love.
I will give you my theory of love – which I have been sharing with couples for over 15 years – and which works extremely effectively for them in getting and giving the love they need.
When we are deprived of love we experience pain. There are some other life sustaining thing we react the same way to - we experience pain when we’re deprived of them.
Can you think of what they are?
They are air, food and water.
These are the nutrients that our bodies and brains need and thrive on.
If being deprived of love cause us pain it must also be a nutrient, exactly like air, food and water. Although my theory says that it is the self that is nourished by loving energy, not body and brain. But for our purpose today it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that once a couple realize that forms of loving energy are as necessary as air, food and water, and cannot be withheld anymore then those other life sustaining nourishments – they become much more aware of their propensity to be conditional, which is hurtful to another.
In other words they start to understand what unconditional means. They become more aware of disconnecting, of withholding, and will begin to interact, even when angry, more unconditionally. They do not want to deprive someone they love of a life sustaining energy. Conditional behavior, the depriving of another of loving energy, reinforces many of our introjects, and induces retroflection in the body.
Bingo, checkmate, 21, straight flush, Lotto winner.
IF WE HAVE TIME –
Most people confuse love with physical attraction, passion, desire, sex.
Here is a clear differentiation you can use.
Air, food and water nourish us – BUT some very good tasting food and drink can actually kill us. Buttery pastry, ice cream, fatty meats, alcohol, sugar, salt, all are delicious and or make food taste more delicious – but the results are diabetes, heart attacks, liver disease, cancer, death.
Romantic ‘love’ – is based on the feeling it provides – sex, attraction, desire and romance make us feel good – turn us on – they are extremely powerful, but they are NOT positive nurturing energies – and at times can ‘kill’ us or the other person – this happens when we discover we were simply desired or attracted by someone and are not anymore.
Positive loving energies on the other hand never hurt or harm us – they always make us thrive –
Passion, desire, sex, attraction, romance very often turn to pain – that is how we know they are not truly loving energies – they are a different, instinctual animal response –
Loving energy is always from conscious intention. We have to choose to give it!!!!! Kindness, patience, encouragement, acceptance, understanding, are intended.
Where as romantic, sex, desire, passion, attraction are always automatic, chemical, procreative, physical reactions to others - that we can’t help.
Loving energy – always requires conscious choice – comes from another place, not the groin - when we get it we feel we’re thriving – it never causes us to feel pain
Sexual energy – automatic physical response – powerful pleasure/ often pain - feels good/ often feels bad
When we disconnect – walk away angry, yell, ignore, give the silent treatment, make a face, etc. etc. rather then working out a problem and having a sense of completion – we leave the other feeling unloved – they will have a physical response - retroflect the frustration, anger, sadness, hopelessness – it gets stuck in their body.
So amazingly, I was able to complete the whole presentation – half the presentation – THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION AND GRACIOUS ATTENTION.
I hope that what you saw and heard wiil give you some new ideas regarding dealing with couples – especially their ability to make contact, be more aware, work with their vision (imagine), and communicate more effectively.
Zinker more then once speaks about our need to elicit curiosity on the part of the couple toward each other.
Curiosity is a conscious decision – I am interested and want to find out what is going on inside my partner. Conscious decisions that come from a caring place generate loving energy toward the other and move the healing process forward.
Seeing – being seen
Touching – being touched
Knowing – being known
Saying - listening
*************************************************************************************Harville Hendrix – probably the preeminent couples therapy guru/practitioner over the last 20 years with Imago Couples Therapy says that his sessions with couples are 2 hours long.
What do you think about that?
I have been doing 2 hour sessions even before I met Harville or taken his courses – and had come to the same conclusion – that if I want to see some results I need to give a couple more time to get past the stuff they may be bringing in and give them time settle into a rhythm, of being in synch, of seeing some compassion flowing toward each other, of having some insight happen no matter how small, so they leave each session with more hope then they arrived with.
If they leave with more anger, resentment, etc. then they arrived with, without any sense of closure or a step toward closure of an issue, they will spend the day and the week having more ammunition against each other. Hope is then out the window.
****************************************************************My problem with doing empty chair work is that it seems it leaves the client only with having experienced the anger, rage, sadness, and communicated those emotions. Therefore I am concerned with the client’s ability to reframe the issue in a way that the person they are raging against can actually be confronted in a positive, compassionate and constructive way. This skill I have not seen any guidance given for in our trainings. SO it feels like we are unleashing the anger and the client is being encouraged on some level to share this anger with the person they are angry with. Before or after we do empty chair work we might consider having the person imagine the results they want – imagining what it would be like if you could…..(in a go around during the Addiction course Phyllis asked people to) – that in effect is asking a person to create a vision…something new other then the existing way of thinking or believing about the addiction –
We know that a lot more learning takes place when people write things down then when they just keep things in their head – and in brain research – the concept of neuro-placticity – confirms that focused activities are able to re-wire the brain – even with OCD and ADD. And in Gestalt theory we also do not trust the brain – memory - so when we write things down we don’t have to rely on memory – and like a good plan we can work with it – reformulate – read it over and over again – till we learn it – tweak it – etc.
Rather then asking me to close my eyes and imagine - Celeste had me draw a picture – taking images in my head and putting them on paper – where we now both could see it and work with it – same with creating a vision and writing it in the form of a list – taking it from the head and writing it on a piece of paper so then we both can see it and work with it.
