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Mind Your Own Gestalts!

This document summarizes an article from the Transactional Analysis Journal from 1981. The article discusses a technique for therapists to better notice and respond to their own reactions during therapy sessions through a process of internal dialoguing. The technique involves the therapist tuning into non-verbal cues from their clients and decoding the messages through an internal dialogue using an empty chair method. This allows the therapist to choose responses that advance the therapeutic outcome by increasing their self-awareness.

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Narcis Nagy
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75 views

Mind Your Own Gestalts!

This document summarizes an article from the Transactional Analysis Journal from 1981. The article discusses a technique for therapists to better notice and respond to their own reactions during therapy sessions through a process of internal dialoguing. The technique involves the therapist tuning into non-verbal cues from their clients and decoding the messages through an internal dialogue using an empty chair method. This allows the therapist to choose responses that advance the therapeutic outcome by increasing their self-awareness.

Uploaded by

Narcis Nagy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Transactional Analysis Journal

http://tax.sagepub.com/

Mind Your Own Gestalts!


Art Oblas
Transactional Analysis Journal 1981 11: 328
DOI: 10.1177/036215378101100415

The online version of this article can be found at:


http://tax.sagepub.com/content/11/4/328

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>> Version of Record - Oct 1, 1981

What is This?

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Mind Your Own Gestalts!
Art Ob/as

Abstract something about my own issues with anger


Presents technique during "two chair that may need some work.
work" that enables the therapist to better Similarly, as I am interviewing "Plum"
notice and respond to his own reactions to my Adult notices that my thumbnail is
the situational dynamics of the session and scraping off the label on the felt-tipped
client. marker I picked up. By dialoguing between
my thumbnail and the marker I discover
that I am painfully scraping off Plum's
protective cover with my Not-OK (Per-
Two-chair work as developed by Perls in secuting) Parent and Not-OK (Rescuing)
the 1960's generally involves a client being Parent (Kahler, 1974). I back off, cathect
instructed to speak with someone or some- OK Nurturing Parent, stroke her for what
thing seated in an empty chair (McNeel, she has accomplished, and invite her to do
1976). This technique has a central place in more when she gets ready. I save myself the
advancing the aim of Gestalt therapy which trouble of trying too hard and eventually
"consists of bringing us into closer contact giving her (and myself) a kick.
with and greater awareness of the present." I explain this process to myself as follows
(Latner, 1974). By recognizing my own (Fig. 1):
emerging gestalten during a therapy
session, and doing some quick two-chair
work in my Adult around those forma-
tions, I gain heightened awareness of
what's going on and use that knowledge to
advance the therapeutic outcome. Taken in
at the Al level, these awarenesses might :
otherwise go unnoticed, or recognized too
late to be useful.
Examples
"Kip" becomes very angry with me as a
result of my confrontation of his playing
STUPID (Berne, 1964). My Adult notices
that my hands are gripping the arms of my
chair very tightly. I have my hands say to
each other, "Hold on tight. Don't let go." client therapist
I then become aware of my own scare and
anger, and thoughts about either backing Figure 1
down from my confrontation or escalating
over Kip's anger. I "hold on" and let him
finish, after which we talk about his Child- STEP ONE
defensive response and my feelings of being My Little Professor tunes in on
intimidated by his anger. He gains im- information that comes from any of the
portant information about his uses of this client's ego states. The broken lines are
strategy in his everyday life, and I learn drawn as they are to help differentiate
328 Transactional Analysis Journal

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MIND YOUR OWN GESTALTSl

between information that is available for my intuitive capabilities so important in the


the therapist to discover and secret practice of effective therapy (Dusay, 1971).
messages (Woollams, 1974) being purpose- Incidentally, I draw the functional Child
fully sent. ego state as depicted in figure 1 to indicate
In Kip's case, my Little Professor may be that the Little Professor can act on its own
tuning in on the scare experienced in his as well as influence the AC, NC, A2, and
Child, as an unresolved symbiotic structure reparented P2.
is being undercut, and the Child attempts P .S.: After writing and re-writing and re-
to foreclose that possibility with a violent writing this paper, it finally began to come
response (Schiff, 1971). In Plum's case my together for me. But I knew it was nearing
Little Professor may be tuning in on an completion when I noticed my thumb
internal dialogue between her Parent and pushed in between my index finger and
Child which may be something like, P2: third finger, like the sign grown-ups make
"Be careful, Plum! He's going to hurt you, when we play "I've got your nose" with
just like all the men in your (and my) life kids. For me it meant, "Breakthrough.
have done." C2: (Responds by becoming You've made your point!"
evasive).
STEPlWO Art Oblas, MS, is a certified clinical
member of ITAA and the National
My Little Professor sends a non- Academy of Certified Clinical Mental
verbal message that my Adult can receive if Health Counselors. He teaches and prac-
it is tuned to that channel (i.e., looking for tices in Syracuse, New York.
the information that is there).
REFERENCES
STEP THREE
Berne, E. Games people play. New York: Grove
The non-verbal information is taken in Press, Inc., 1964, 157.
by my Adult and decoded by using Dusay, J.M. Eric Berne's studies of intuition 1949-
two-chair work. With the benefit of the 62. Transactional Analysis Journal, 1971, 1(1), 35.
decoded information, I can choose a Kahler, T. The miniscript. Transactional Analysis
Journal, 1974,4(1),27.
response more appropriate than might Lankton, S. Ericksonian approaches in language,
otherwise have been possible. "The .occurance and use of trance phenomena in
This process can be accomplished in a nonhypnotic therapies;" Workshop presented at
matter of seconds with practice, and even- the Ericksonian Congress, Phoenix, Arizona,
tually, as with any acquired skill, become December 3-8, 1980.
more or less automatic. The essence of the Latner, J. The gestalt therapy book. New York:
Bantam, 1973, 152.
process involves recognizing the emerging
McNeel, J.R. The parent interview. Transactional
gestalten (what Lankton refers to as Analysis Journal, 1976,6(1),61.
"everyday trance phenomenon") (Lank- Schiff, A.W., & J.L. Passivity. TransactionalAnalysis
ton, 1980) and decoding it through Journal, 1971,1(1),71-78.
two-chair work. I find it helps speed up Woollams, S., et. al. Transactional analysis in brief.
therapy as well as strengthen and develop Michigan: Huron Valley Institute, 1974, 19.

Vol. u, No.4, October 1981 329

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