jane, i have read about it some, t1 'thought' he did it at times, kind of in taking myself out of the picture, and observing the same facts on another being and what my response to that would be. the example was, i didn't think it was that big of a deal that my dad slapped me across the face a few times as a child, it didn't 'blip' my radar in my tangled web. but he had me picture if i were at a ballgame and saw a father slap his young daughter across the face, what would be my thought and response. it makes my legs tense picturing it, to another, but when it was me, i was just numb...or indifferent.

he claimed that to be gestalt, altho i don't know that that really is, of course, at best, he was a c student in his mere bachelors degree in psychology. so, who knows. he really didn't have precise tools. just patience galore. mindnumbingly patient, he would drone on with his silence...enough to make me even crazier than i already was. rant rant rant...

it seems very out of vogue, and i don't know about the link with mindfulness, which is all the rage, and what the psychiatrist i went to was 'all about' in his buddha way. twerpy nerd that he was...definitely one that got in the business to solve his own issues, which i don't think he ever did...wow, one beer and i am really grinding it all out here!! sorry! jill

warning...posting to God again. Lord, i know i sign with Your words, and i should be a better witness. i will clean it up, or change my tag. ok?

jill - argh, T1 sounds like he was mind-numbingly imprecise!

My T too, will sometimes just sit in silence, but it always seems very measured, and in a way that makes me very comfortable with it. (it's my eq T that uses the most gestalt-ish techniques)

How doe sit relate to mindfullness? Well, a lot fo times we will be talking and we will stop and do a mindfulless excersie - like notice what I am feeling in my body, notice my feet on the ground, the smell in the air, that kind of stuff - and then we will talk, and she will ask - what do you feel as you tell me that? does that feeling have a color? a message? And she will include some feddback like - I notice you are breathing shallower. I just want you to just notice that... rather than change it...

(edited to take out personal detail)

here is a really good article about gestalt therapy.

some of the techniques and ideas I can see that my T uses, some of it my t doesn't use

but it is a good explaination overall and helped meundestand a little of what's going on and why ths style of therapy is helping me (in conjuncion with other styles) - and I'm actually pretty encouraged.

http://www.gestalt.org/yontef.htm

just passing on FYI incase anyone is interested

JD thanks so much for posting that link. It’s really interesting and has lots of valuable stuff about Gestalt. Lol way back in the 80s I read all of Fritz Perl’s books and was really taken with the idea of gestalt therapy - but back then Gestalt was still pretty confrontational and didn’t really work for me.

I’m going to see a new T this week who has gestalt/psychodynamic approach listed as her style. For me should be the best of both worlds, being aware of how the past affects the present but focusing on the here and now moment. I did see a ‘pure’ gestalt therapist a few weeks ago for three sessions, but he was nothing like I expected gestalt to be - lol he spent more of my sessions talking than I did - maybe that was his way of bringing himself into the sessions. Don’t know. When I compare how you have described the way your T is - how she discloses about herself only as a means of giving something to you, that sounds much more like what the link is describing. I suppose it depends on the personality of the T.

Anyway, it sounds like it’s really working for you. Good one JD.

LL