2023 Author: Jessica James | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 03:31
Natalia Kapitsa - about why it is important to find “your own” psychotherapist and how Gestalt therapy changed her life.
How to survive a divorce
Eight years ago, I experienced a tragedy that psychologists equate with the loss of a close relative - divorce. In my case, it did not work to disperse with the world and be friends with families. The parting was accompanied by mutual reproaches, loud curses, "hardcore" drugs and the hospital - amid stress, I lost weight up to 42 kg with an increase of 170 and thundered into the neurosis department. And three weeks later I came out of there, supporting treacherously hanging jeans, and trying to fall, showing those around my bony buttocks, and began to think about how to live on.
After the divorce, I left myself a noble property: thin legs, sunken cheeks, complete disorientation in space and lack of a plan for life. And the "disturbing suitcase" also included an unfinished medical institute with an unloved profession that never took place and a couple of things that fit into a shopping bag.
It was a period of complete hopelessness. So that nothing would remind me of the unexpectedly passed away love, I packed my things and moved to another city. No plan, no work experience and no idea how, on what and where I will live.
I will not go into the details of my hardships and hardships, but I will say one thing: the talent to give out good content helped me very quickly find a job - an IT company took me with arms and legs to sculpt texts about cleaning water bodies from blue-green algae.
Together with the work experience that began unexpectedly at the age of 26, there appeared a rented apartment, a basic wardrobe, and fat on an exhausted butt. There was only one problem at that time - mental suffering over a painful, exhausting relationship, in which my ex-husband and I endlessly changed the roles of the victim, persecutor and rescuer.
There were two ways out of this situation: 1) choose the most painless way to commit suicide, 2) find for yourself a spiritual healer who prescribes magic pills for mental pain that breaks ribs. I chose the second option. So they started asking me out on dates twice a week. True, in a very interesting place - a room with a couch, where everyone wants to "talk about it."
How to choose the right therapy
I came to Vladlen (that was the name of the healer of souls) with one request “erase him from the memory”. There was no question of childhood grievances, fears, or total dislike for oneself. Flopping into a chair, she immediately declared: “I don't plan to stay with you. Quickly cure me from heartache and let's say goodbye, completing the gestalt or whatever. " To this the therapist smiled indulgently and replied: “I warn you right away: it will be hard and unpleasant. At the stage of resistance to therapy, you will start skipping sessions, coming up with endless reasons against. The most common: no money, no time, I got sick, I'm taking the cat to the vet. Does not work! I'll find you anyway, keep that in mind."
Ok, cap, I'm ready to dive!
And now a small lyrical digression: why did I choose exactly Gestalt therapy? Everything is simple here - the philosophy of this direction in psychotherapy proposed by Perls is close to me. Its basis is the principle: a view of the world as a process, and a person as a wanderer seeking himself. And one more thought: if nothing interferes with a person, he will definitely be happy. And he can be hindered by his own fears, resentments, unfinished situations in the past, internal dialogues and other "demons" with which they fight in the sessions. The task of such therapy is to find the place of interrupted contacts and complete what was begun, restoring the balance of events.
The first thing Vladlen suggested to me to do was to take off the helmet of my own righteousness and start doubting, giving up the role of a person who knows “how to do it”. This task turned out to be difficult. Nature has awarded me with a stubborn character: my opinion is also wrong. And even mentally accepting the fact that I might be wrong seemed almost an impossible mission.
During the session, replaying various situations, I transferred to the psychotherapist all my stereotypes, labels, and models of behavioral scenarios written in my head. Vladlen had to play different roles: ex-husband, mother and that aunt from the store who climbed out of line. We spoke as if it were really happening. Sometimes he made me cry, sometimes there was a desire to beat him, sometimes - to laugh.
At about the fourth session, what Vladlen had warned me about happened: I had a sharp "stomach ache" and "ran out" of money for therapy. After 10 calls and a statement, "low-income discounts" had to give up and get back on track. And he really turned out to be true.
Gestalt therapy has four points of support: awareness, which means experiencing oneself in contact, the principle of reality, "here and now", dialogue. I would like to tell you about the latter separately.
During the sessions, I had the opportunity to talk through the therapist with the whole world, showing him my true face.
Gestalt therapy has no morality, lecture or politics. There are no value judgments in it, and, sitting down on a cactus, you can safely say "b … t", and not "oh, what a bad luck." Its main function is to return oneself to a person and get rid of the principles imposed on parents and society, having become acquainted with their needs, their dreams, their goals.
I managed to look differently at the concepts of "good" and "bad", at people and their actions, at the stereotypes of the rule, which for some reason everyone should know. This opened up a whole world for me - one in which there is me and my desires, and not the need to be good for everyone. I went to individual therapy for a year, and then another year to group therapy, but that's a completely different story.
Epilogue
Today I can confidently say that Gestalt therapy is life changing! Six months later, I did what I dreamed of since the fifth grade - I entered the Institute of Journalism, believing in my own strength (and this is 10 years after graduating from the gymnasium, without tutors and other assistants). It was so inspiring that it gave strength to the next step. I took and got a job in one of the best advertising agencies in the country, not even admitting that I was not too good for him. Vladlen also helped me forget about childhood grievances and understand why I chose such a problematic partner and painful relationship as my companion. I look at the world with completely different eyes: not a frightened girl who owes something to someone, but a confident lady who does not depend on someone else's opinion.
What is Gestalt Therapy
Anna Nine
Family psychologist and gestalt therapist
- Recently, many directions in psychology have appeared that help to cope with life's problems and troubles. One of them is gestalt therapy. It sounds very solid, but what it means, not everyone can guess.
Outwardly, the work is no different from the usual therapeutic conversation with a specialist: the gestalt therapist and the client sit opposite each other, discussing what is currently relevant and important for the client. The difference between this method and others lies mainly in the interaction of the client with the specialist. The moment of work is important - it is not a search for problems in the past, but being in the period "here and now". The main questions in gestalt therapy are "What do you feel", "How do you like that?", "What do you want?", "What is wrong with you now?"
This therapy helps clients to mobilize energy, take responsibility for their quality of life into their own hands, and not blame others for troubles and misfortunes. And the query “Why is it all for me” smoothly transforms into “What should I do to make it better”.
Gestalt therapy is a breath of freedom and an opportunity to understand how whole systems of interaction with oneself and with the world are built. The ability to stop devaluing yourself and start relying on your own resources to move forward. In this case, responsibility is divided between the client and the therapist 50/50. Therefore, the task of the therapist is to help the client move forward along his healthy axis of life development and to help the client find his own way to live well, based on his personal value system.
