WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR!

NEW YEAR

Awaken I lay at 3 am

Seeking answers in my head

None came

I waited that night

Only shadows greeted me.

New Year has arrived

Quietly, softly on this sunny day

Birds sing and trees growing mute

In this circular grassy place

Where the houses stand alone

All is the same except the New Year

All is different in my soul

Longing for home, I sit with a book

Reading “The Fall of Light”

Sadly I think of my life;

How brilliantly in shone

And slowly has dimmed

Falling in a dark place

Like a hollow tree burned inside

By the fire of yesteryears.

Now, the New Year

Like many more, hold some promise

Of better times and happiness

The rising sun shines on me

And my sadness disappears

Like this full moon from the dark-night sky.

The old year has gone and the new one is upon us with more uncertainties and surprises. So, this ‘reflection’ is taking a new path towards making us think. This path may not be so ‘new’ after all, to some, but perhaps a refreshing one.

The last blog was about the way some therapists could reflect about seeking ways of broadening their practice. One way was to look at the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky and his research about Psychomagic.  He clearly opened a door to the ancient practices of shamans and he uses the TAROT card symbolism as a way to offer the client a way towards self-regulation in the healing process. Just like Dr. Fritz Perls opened the door to existential and humanistic therapy, Jodorowsky opened the doors to Psychomagic therapy. A therapy based on his experiences with teachers like Zen masters and Mexican spiritual healers.

Stanley Krippner, director of the Saybrook Institute in San Francisco CA,  states the following in an article  about shams as the first healers: “Shamans have not been taken seriously by most allopathic  physicians despite the fact that many shamanic traditions have developed sophisticated models of healing over the centuries. Furthermore, the models have been flexible enough to survive their contact with allopathic medicine and even to be incorporated in its practice".

One such practitioner is Dr. Stan Grof. Grof and his wife Christina, studied the relationship between altered states of consciousness and Shamanic healing for the past 30 years. Grof begun exploring psychedelics (LSD, Mushrooms, etc) and then spent the last ten years experimenting and writing about powerful non-drug alternatives. His method of therapy is called Holotropic Therapy. This is a method that closely parallels many of the recorded Shamanic healing practices. It combines controlled breathing, evocative music,  focused body work and art therapy (like Mandala drawing).

As we have already explored in the past blog posts, the current ‘verbal’ psychotherapies have not given any positive or conclusive evidence that they work as a way of healing the body, mind and spirit. By using Grof’s holistic approach we transform ‘ordinary’ experience of being into transcendental deep work.  (See article on Holotropic therapy).

The other interesting alternative to  the ‘talking therapies’ is is described in the work of Dr. Arnold Mindell and Amy Mindell. Some of this work (process work) has been mentioned in the previous post but here is a more specific commentary for your reflection.

In Process Work, the authors encourage us to become aware of the more subtle states of consciousness. Often the therapy is not effective because the therapist is not recognizing (not aware) nor interested in the client’s states of consciousness.

It is well documented today that a person can experience a number of different states of consciousness. The first aspect is called “meta-communication”. Here the person can ‘talk about’ and describe clearly their current state of being in the here and now. That means that the client is aware of his or her current state. If a person is not able to describe the state of consciousness, then he or she may be having an inner identification with that state but unable to express it. This then becomes a portal where the Shaman can enter (using various rituals) into this fluid state of consciousness without the need to have a verbal explanation or description.

Many altered states are culturally conditioned. What is considered ‘normal’ in one culture is not so in another. A person with a certain behaviors may be considered ‘abnormal’ in one culture and totally well in another. This is called a “consensus reality”. That is a reality or “truth” based on what most people in that culture define and agree as being real. The Holotropic methods devised by Stan Grof and the many Shamanic healing rituals are designed to enter  the non- consensual reality of the client(or participant) to be able to find the roots of illnesses  that are based mainly on cultural consensus and reverse the mental structures and connect with the clients self- healing ability.

If a person spends a lot of time (which is often) in the consensual state, he or she may find themselves in a split between the inner non-consensual awareness and the cultural belief states thus leading to serious psychotic break down.

Another very interesting state of consciousness is called “extreme state” and is often manifested in a comatose situation. Here the person is not talking, not aware, nor communicating in any way. The person is completely inside of the experience. Amy and Arny Mindell describe the work they do with clients in coma in the book: “Coma: a healing journey”  Laotse pub. 1989.

In summary, here is a list of skills to work with a client’s state of consciousness:

·         -Pay attention how consensus reality is influencing the client’s behavior and beliefs.

·       -  Pay attention to the client’s Inner Child persona.

·       -  Notice client’s projections on the therapist – using “you”, “they” words

·        - Use indirect methods of working like collage, painting ,drama.

·         -Give prescriptions or ‘homework’ for the client to do at home. (see the Psychomagic post).

·       -  Joining the client’s reality as is presented here and now and  designing rituals that connect with that reality.

·         -Working on dreams.

In conclusion, I recommend that you reflect on the various interesting non-ordinary interventions and develop your own style and methods of healing. Practice becoming a Shaman or use Psychomagic tools.

Stanley Krippner, again states: “ There are shamanic healing processes that closely parallel contemporary behavior therapies, chemotherapy, dream work, family therapy, hypnotherapy, milieu therapy, and psychodrama. It is clear that Shamans, psychiatrists, psychologists and physicians have more in common than is generally suspected. (acknowledged). For the Shaman, however, the spiritual dimension of healing is extremely important whereas contemporary therapists and  physicians ignore it".

In Art Therapy and Gestalt Therapy we consciously include the spiritual work as essential to wellness. We do not separate the various services that claim the ownership of much consensus reality. The priests claim the soul, the psychologists claim the mind and the physicians claim the body. We explore and include ALL of the dimensions of the human being.

Some day we will include in our therapeutic work the old Shamanic ‘tools’ of soul retrieval, spirit communication, community connection and group healing, explain the meaning of dreams, vision quests and so on. WE must stress the importance of sharing life purpose, service to community, society and caring for Nature.

As a 'bonus' here is an article about Stan Grof and Holotropic therapy:

Healing and Transformation:

The Use of Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness  - With special reference to the work of Stanislav and Christina Grof.

By Martin Boroson, Martin Duffy and Barbara Egan

Psychological illness, or neurosis, can be defined simply as a restriction of consciousness or – to borrow a Hopi Indian idea – a way of living that calls for a new way of living. Psychotherapy, self-exploration and spiritual questing can all be seen as attempts to gain access to the “foreign” realms of the psyche, the territory that transcends the tight, limited boundaries of the ego. Healing begins when the individual finds some way to reach across the divide between ego and non-ego, and acknowledges some of the material as his/her own. The individual dies to his/her former self-image and world-view, and is reborn at a higher (more expanded) level of awareness.

Psychotherapists call this realm beyond ego, the unconscious. In discovering a collective aspect or layer of the unconscious, Jung suggested that the content of our mind is not limited to what we have experienced since birth. Our normal, everyday state-of-consciousness, dominated by the ego, can be called “ordinary reality”, and all other realms of the psyche or states-of-consciousncss can be called “non-ordinary”. In a non-ordinary state of consciousness, the universe can appear fluid and non-mechanical, space and time are relative, moral absolutes vanish, death is but a transition and life exists in a variety of forms. Stanislav Grof, one of the world’s foremost researchers into the healing properties of non-ordinary states of consciousness, calls ordinary reality “hylotropic”, meaning matter-orientated, and the latter, non-ordinary reality, “holotropic”, meaning wholeness-orientated.

Grof observed that the phenomena experienced in a non-ordinary state are thematically linked to one another, and to issues in one’s conscious life or “ordinary” reality. He calls these thematic links “systems of condensed experience” (COEX). An example of a COEX in one individual might be:

Personality:           Fear of intimacy, claustrophobia

Psychosomatic:   Asthma or tightness in the chest

Biography:           Near death experience of drowning or lack of oxygen. Smothering family life; repressive environment

Perinatal:           Experience of being suffocated (swallowing mucous or being strangled by the umbilical cord).

Transpersonal:    Symbolic (or past-life) experience of being buried alive, hanged, etc.

According to Grof’s model, everyone has several different COEX’s operative at one time, and each would have a positive and a negative charge. By experiencing each aspect of the COEX, an individual can clear its negative influence from ordinary life. Using the example above, one could have the full emotional and physical response appropriate to the experiences of drowning, choking, repression (e.g. screaming, fighting, crying, giving up). This would free up the psychological and/or physical pattern, rather than perpetuate the experience in a locked, frozen or jammed form in the unconscious. Each experience of one level of a COEX would subsume major changes of perception and philosophy of life, as well as concrete changes in everyday life. In the above example, the individual might find him/herself able to break free of restricting situations, such as a relationship or job, and find improvements in his/her breathing, self-expression and emotional life. The individual would feel free within, and know that, in the final analysis, the constriction was internal, i.e. maintained in his or her own state of consciousness.

As one goes deeper into the psyche, into the transpersonal realms, it becomes impossible to sustain a belief in simple cause and effect. What one develops instead in a non-causal, more mystical world view that everything the individual has suffered is in some way necessary. Individuals who complete a process of death and rebirth will say that their suffering – no matter how painful or “wrong” from the point of view of ordinary reality – advanced their growth. They are connected to a deeper sense of spirituality, or feel that their existence is part of a greater whole.

Non-Ordinary States for Self-Exploration and Healing

One method through which a non-ordinary state of consciousness can safely be experienced is Holotropic Breathwork, devised by Stanislav and Christina Grof. Deep breathing and carefully selected music are used to induce a non-ordinary state, and focused bodywork is used to finish a session. This work is typically done in a group setting, although everyone’s process is individual. Maximum attention is paid to the safety (both physical and emotional) of the setting. Generally, workshops are residential, in a place removed from ordinary reality, to enable participants to “let go”. A great deal of preparation and integration is done around the sessions, as in any sacred, transforming ritual. Participants are urged to go fully towards any experience that emerges and to suspend judgement until after the experience is completed.

One of the advantages of this work is that the unconscious selects the most important or relevant issue. No ideology is imposed on the client, and the facilitator is not in the role of all-knowing interpreter. The unconscious is completely trusted to provide the necessary healing experience, without therapeutic intervention or prediction. For some people, healing may come in a completely calm and quiet way. For others, it may involve a huge emotional or bioenergetic release. And it can come from any part of the mind or body. As an adjunct to ongoing therapy – particularly for a client who is blocked, has a traumatic history or is very emotionally charged – a holotropic workshop can be invaluable. The preparation for such an experience, and the continued exploration and integration of what emerges, can be done effectively in individual or group therapy.

Holotropic work can often provide a “breakthrough” experience for people whose personal therapy is stuck. A holotropic session encourages and allows the unseen unconscious factor to emerge without any theoretical programme, and gives people a powerful tool for overcoming resistance.

Spiritual Emergence and Non-ordinary States

Research into non-ordinary states of consciousness indicates that many experiences that have been labelled psychotic are actually mystical, and potentially healing, if they are allowed to occur in a safe and supportive environment and if they are properly integrated. The traditional therapeutic situation tries to explore symptoms while ensuring that they do not get too big or unmanageable. The psychiatric model actually tries to suppress symptoms altogether and mistakes that for a cure. In the holotropic model, symptoms are facilitated, i.e. they are helped and encouraged to get as big as they need to until they are resolved. From a holotropic point of view, the problem is not the appearance of the symptom, but the ego’s attempt to control it. In many cases, we have seen longstanding, intense anxiety conditions and psychosomatic disorders resolve, once the client was given permission to allow the non-ordinary experience implicit in the symptoms to emerge fully (i.e. with its visual, emotional and physical components).

It must be stressed that experience with non-ordinary states should be undertaken only in very carefully constructed situations, and that this technique of self-exploration is not suitable for everyone. But for the vast majority of ordinary seekers – people whose pain and confusion has led them to get help, to question who they are – this method of self-exploration holds great rewards and the possibility of profound transformation.

Our culture is certainly one of the most spiritually impoverished of all time. Going about our ordinary lives, obsessed with what Grof calls the nine-to-five “hamburger stand” consciousness, we fail to see the vast, meaningful dimensions of the human soul that await just behind a thin veil. As a culture we have lost the means, and the belief in the importance of gaining access to our deeper selves. It is a skill that most other cultures in the world have considered not just sacred, not just special or exalted, but vital to life itself.

Bibliography

Grof, Stanislav, The Holotropic Mind, 1992, Harper San Francisco Beyond the Brain, 1985,

Grof, Stanislav and Christina, The Stormy Search for the Self: Understanding and Living with Spiritual Emergency, 1991, London.

Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, 1989, Los Angeles.

Jung, C.G., Memories, Dreams and Reflections.

Barbara Egan, Martin Duffy and Martin Boroson together form the Transpersonal Psychotherapy Group. They are currently training in Holotropic Breathwork with the Grofs. They run three-day, one-day and week-long holotropic workshops in Ireland. 

 Stanislav Grof MD

 Grof is known, in scientific circles, for his early studies of LSD and its effects on the psyche, the field of psychedelic therapy. Building on his observations while conducting LSD research and on Otto Rank's theory of birth trauma, Grof constructed a theoretical framework for prenatal and perinatal psychology and transpersonal psychology in which LSD trips and other powerfully emotional experiences were mapped onto a person's early fetal and neonatal experiences. Over time, this theory developed into what Grof called a "cartography" of the deep human psyche. Following the suppression of legal LSD use in the late 1960s, Grof went on to develop a theory that many states of mind could be explored without drugs by using certain breathing techniques. He continues this work as of 2015 under the trademark "Holotropic Breathwork".

Grof received his M.D. from Charles University in Prague in 1957 and then completed his Ph.D. in medicine at the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences in 1965, training as a Freudian psychoanalyst at this time. In 1967 he was invited to be as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, United States, and went on to become Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center where he worked with Walter Pahnke and Bill Richards among others. In 1973 he was invited to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, and lived there until 1987 as a scholar-in-residence, developing his ideas.

As founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (founded in 1977), he went on to become distinguished adjunct faculty member of the Department of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a position he remains in as of 2015^[update].

HEALING ALTERNATIVES - 2017

 

 

"There will never be one single way of defining psychotherapy or its alternative in a manner which is right for all therapists" A Mindell"

The last posting on my blog (October 2016) was about my curiosity regarding an amazing man and his work. Alejandro Jodorowski. Now his books have been translated from Spanish into English and you may get copies on Amazon.com.au

Now, I want to follow up the reflections on Psychomagic and exploring other methods of therapy work. One such method that is closely related to working with ‘magic’ is Process Psychology developed by Arnold and Amy Mindell. What is most interesting in their perspective of psychotherapy is:

1. They do not name their work as ‘psychotherapy’ but Process Psychology.

2. They base their theoretical premises on the ancient Chinese healing concept of TAO.(Explanation later).

3. They focus on the “dreaming process”. The root of this idea came from the C.G. Jung Institute.  (Arny Mindell studied and lectured at the Institute in Zurich).

4. Acknowledging the reality of ‘chaos theory’ where we can find the “hidden blueprint” or a pattern that reveals by way of several channels (relationship, body symptoms, daydreams and night dreams.)

In her book “Alternatives to Therapy, Lao Tse Press, 2006, Amy Mindell states: “To follow the dreaming process, we need both, a scientific and a spiritual attitude. We need the acuity of a scientist who carefully uses his/her awareness (here and now) to follow the patterns and signals happening in the self and the other person, and we need the openness of a shaman who can jump into and follow the dreaming (soul) process without necessarily knowing where it’s heading (p. XIV).

Now some reflections about Taoism.

Taoism (/ˈdaʊɪzəm/), also known as Daoism, is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao (literally "Way"). The Tao is a fundamental idea in most Chinese philosophical schools; in Taoism, however, it denotes the principle that is the source, pattern and substance of everything that exists. Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order. Taoist ethics vary depending on the particular school, but in general tend to emphasize wu wei (effortless action), "naturalness", simplicity, spontaneity, and the Three Treasures: (sperm/ovary energy, or the essence of the physical body),  ("matter-energy" or "life force", including the thoughts and emotions), and  (spirit or generative power). We may call it Body, Mind & Soul or Spirit.

The roots of Taoism go back at least to the 4th century BCE. Early Taoism drew its cosmological notions from the School of YinYang (Naturalists), and was deeply influenced by one of the oldest texts of Chinese culture, the Yijing, which expounds a philosophical system about how to keep human behaviour in accordance with the alternating cycles of nature.

Naturalness - meaning “self-such" or "self organisation” is regarded as a central value in Taoism. It describes the "primordial state" of all things as well as a basic character of the Tao, and is usually associated with spontaneity and creativity. To attain naturalness, one has to identify with the Tao; this involves freeing oneself from selfishness and desire, and appreciating simplicity. We may call it “being in the flow”.

When I write about the idea of ‘Alternatives to Therapy’, I am attempting to inspire the reader, to become curious, to reflect on what they, as therapists, are doing and why? I trained in Psychology, Social Work and Gestalt Therapy. After many years of teaching and training therapy students, I have discovered a few truths – they are:

1. The only thing one needs to be aware when practicing psychotherapy is noticing what and how the client is suggesting to me the healing process. The client has already the answer to this healing.

2. All Tao sages spoke about the “beginners mind” that means that we need to let go of all theories, book knowledge, teachers, etc, and follow the TAO. The less you know or theorise, the better. This will help you to be totally open and notice what the client is suggesting about his or her healing needs. All unconscious processes emerge in a symbolic form.

 A. Jodorowsky is a genius in using the symbolic methods to reach the unconscious. He begun to use the TAROT cards and then a variety of shamanic methods and rituals to reach the client’s centre of healing. From the emerging symbol he suggested a series of healing rituals for the client to perform  that work. Fritz Perls used the empty chair method to discover the client’s projections and inner processes leading to closure and healing. Arnold Mindell demonstrated his work with the dreaming body. This principle states that dreams can be seen as maps that reveal the way in which the process (flow) progresses and patterns emerge giving the therapist clues of healing now and in the future. In summary:

1. Dreams can help us to know whether we are ‘on track’ with a client. That is, a dream can confirm if the therapist is in line or not with the client.

2. Dreams images can help us note the client’s process in a wider context than we may have been aware of.

3. Dreams can often help us to see the person’s identity (Self) and how this process is moving along the healing path.

4. Dreams can give us clues to the rhythm and pacing of the work with client.

5. Dreams give us clues to new methods of working and develop healing rituals.

6. Creating a dream is often a way of transposing (projecting) our inner selves into symbolic images and place those symbols in a visual story.

So, there is obviously a lot more in this work. However, if you are tired or seeking alternative ways of working with clients other than just ‘talking’, please read my previous blog about “Beware of the talking cure” and “Psychomagic” and “Dream Work”. These are powerful alternative methods to add to your list of interventions.

Finally, to reinforce this new Blog and generate further reflections, I am including here an article by the late colleague Marta Preciado. We met in Mexico at her Gestalt Institute and she showed me her paper on Dreams and Nightmares. I offered to translate it from Spanish to English and it is an honour to share it now. Your reflections and comments are appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

DREAMS AS NIGHTMARES – A GESTALT HYPOTHESIS

By Martha L. Preciado – Translated from Spanish by Yaro Starak

 Introduction

Working with dreams as a gestalt therapist gives me great personal insight as a human being and it also enables me to be in touch with my own magical/symbolic part.

It is also a wonderful opportunity to enable people to become more whole and more in touch with their existential self. When this happens, the person discovers more energy for living a fuller life, takes more risks or challenges in their daily life and for many it fulfils an inner purpose or destiny that life presents them.

As a gestalt therapist, I have often reflected deeply on the issues that our dreams place before us. Of particular interest to me are the dreams commonly called “nightmares” In my own experience and in the experience of many other psychotherapists the following are the basic questions that arise when we work with nightmares:

 •What do nightmares offer us?

 •What special messages does the nightmare send us?

 •Can we learn and develop further by working with our nightmares?

When I work with clients that present their dreams as nightmares, I find that they have a strong urgency to do something about their dream. They either want to get rid of these nightmares quickly or want to find out why they are coming to bother and frighten them.

Gestalt therapists often work with recurrent dreams and nightmares. The fundamental grounding literature about nightmares points out to the notion that nightmares consistently produce strong feelings of anxiety, fear and horror. They are experiences that often are related as some sort of horror movies.

However, such simplistic answers are not enough and as a result I began to focus my observations carefully on my clients’ nightmares in my own practice. My observations led me to the following hypothesis that will be elaborated in this article. First, let us review the question more specifically: “what are nightmares”?

What Are Nightmares?

Nightmares have at least two specific and distinguishing features:

(a)    They are charged with a high level of anxiety. This anxiety is experienced for some time, even after the nightmare is interrupted and the person is fully awake and

(b)   Nightmares bring about strong, frightening images but often, when a person awakens, he or she will not have any sense of fear or anxiety about them.

For example, a client reported a dream/nightmare and stated that she dreamt of a cup with red liquid and she was sure that this cup was full of human blood. After this nightmare the client had a major anxiety attack and was afraid to go to sleep.

Another client of mine presented the following image: She dreamt of a deformed, mutilated female body without legs or arms and was covered with wounds smelling quite putrid. However this client had no particular feelings about this dream when she spoke about it.

Although in the first case the dreamer had a strong reaction to her image, and while in the second case there was no affect present, both dream experiences can be classified as nightmares. In many cases nightmares are experienced following a traumatic event. Such an event may be an upsetting horror film, experiencing a shock, being in or watching an accident or having an unusual amount of stress in life which precipitates fears and worries.

For example, one client reported that after her divorce she had the following nightmare: “ I am at a café, sitting and reading a book. Suddenly a man enters holding a big knife in his hand. He begins to kill every customer in the café and I feel that he is going to kill me any moment now. I feel totally frozen and unable to move because of this horrible fear I have. I wake up in a sweat.”

Some Theoretical Reflections about Nightmares

Gestalt therapy has developed a special method of working with dreams that has a specific therapeutic outcome. Dream work is a subtle way of entering into the “magic” world of the client’s inner self. However, the therapist enters this world carefully not interpreting the meaning. Also without leaving behind the process of healing using the therapeutic method.

The basic philosophy of gestalt dream work is to re-integrate the disowned (split) parts of the inner self with the purpose of promoting a healing of the whole person. We call this process ‘the holographic principle.’ We follow the assertion that the dreamer creates all parts of the dream. No one else is creating the dream. A dream is totally and fully our own production, our own drama and our own direction.

If this assertion is true, then all that constitutes a dream is our own projection phenomenon. Fritz Perls was the first proponent of this assertion. He stated that our own disowned parts of the self are expressing themselves in the dream as if it were a play on stage. However this principle is not as simple as it appears to be. Since we may identify with each of the parts in the dream, we also develop an automatic resistance to these parts. We will invariably resist the images in the dream that are not too attractive, pleasant or acceptable to us. For example we may ask; who wants to identify with a dirty pig, a killer, an evil or a horrible monster?

In the case of nightmares, where images are extremely frightening and negative, we naturally tend to refuse to confront such parts, let alone identify with them.  We experience these horrific images as a direct threat to our personal integrity and our own idea of sanity.

The second theoretical reflection is about the gestalt notion of “unfinished business”. This means that something is in the foreground of our awareness and the rest is in the background and hidden from our awareness. When an experience in our life is not complete (finished) the figure/background process tends to become rigid and develops a protective ‘guardian’ that may appear as a ‘solution’ to what has been an unfinished situation.

For example, if I am a child, and I am lacking the maturity and perspective in solving life’s problems, I am not able to handle the attacks upon me by my alcoholic or abusive father or other such difficult and painful situations. As a result of this trauma, I develop a protective pattern of splitting away from my body whereby I will not feel any pain when I get maltreated.

As I grow up this protective pattern is repeated again and again when I encounter what I perceive as abusive situations with others. In spite of the fact that many of these situations I can handle perfectly well as an adult, my early familiar pattern gives me immediate although temporary relief. In time this pattern may develop into what we call “a frozen gestalt” and become a compulsion, a neurotic habit, an addiction or become entrenched in body symptoms. In other words, I develop an avoidance pattern called retroflection.

Retroflection is an internal body symptom that emerges when we do to ourselves what we want to do to others. (I want to fight back and hit my father and instead I fight with myself).

In nightmares we often experience both phenomena at the same time – retroflection and projection. For example, I am dreaming that I am being violently attacked, dismembered and feel like a victim but also in this dream I am the aggressor who attacks and inflicts the pain. Now, what follows is my hypothesis as a result of my practice in working with nightmares.

 

Hypothesis

A scenario: There were times in my life that I experienced a traumatic or difficult situations in which I had a wish/desire/urge to retaliate or release my natural aggressive impulses. However my impulses were stopped by stronger or more powerful opponents. As a form of defense, I retroflected (turned against myself) my aggressive impulses and developed symptoms that enabled me to deal internally with the unfinished situations that required finishing outside myself. This repressed/aggressive energy I turned against myself and as a result I developed pseudo-solutions to my issues like self-hate, low self-esteem, self-mutilation, addictions and so on.

And so, while sleeping I begin to dream of being aggressive and project my aggressive impulses onto images that become so strong that they bounce back at me as nightmares. Thus the process of retroflection and projection goes in both directions – into/against me and out of myself and against others while I am asleep.

Working with Nightmares in Gestalt Therapy

Working with nightmares using the gestalt approach we often experience new resolutions to the problems presented by the dreams. Here is a brief description of the steps we undertake in such work:

 •A person narrates the nightmare in the present tense (here & now).

 •The therapist encourages the client to select an image that may be at this moment most significant, strongest or in the person’s foreground.

 •The client is encouraged to become more aware of the specific details of this image.

 •Invariably the aggressive (energetic) impulses will emerge and are explored in the here and now situation.

 •The feeling of excitement/anxiety may be amplified at this time in the context of the ‘safe emergency’ of this session.

 •The therapist enables the client to ‘stay in the present’ and encounter the dream image.

 •There may be an opportunity for a dialogue with this strong image, however, the mere facing the image may be enough.

 •The therapist pays particular attention to the emerging unfinished business in this encounter as it unfolds in the session.

 •There may be strong, aggressive language, powerful feelings, memories of earlier experiences, emotional release and so on manifesting itself as the blocked  energy is released behind the unfinished situation.

 •Next the therapist pays close attention to the retroflective  patterns (eg. Self fulfilling prophecies) that may appear as a “frozen” figure, a sense of loosing power or loosing energy altogether. Here we may see the ‘impasse’ phenomenon.

 •The therapist does not attempt to change anything but simply supports this process as it is.(paradoxical theory of change).

 •When a strong figure emerges, from this impasse, the therapist encourages the client to re-identify with this figure.

 •In the supportive environment of the therapeutic session, the client is encouraged to identify with and take the position of the strong figure in the dream and make contact with it.

 •Having identified with this figure the client enters the dream once more and expresses him/herself fully as this dream figure, eg: “I am the Devil!”  “I am the witch!” “I am the killer!” and so on.

 •The nightmare scenario is recreated again with the support of the therapist and work continues until the unfinished situation become complete and no longer threatens the client with nightmares.

As a working example, a client began to express images of a nightmare that appeared intransigent (uncompromising) and began to get stuck in a ‘frozen’ figure.  Suddenly a memory came up of a time when she was a teenager and in a relationship with an older man. She reported that he was often violent and abusive to her and this lasted several years. She felt powerless and stuck, unable to leave him. She also felt guilty and remorseful about the relationship.

In the nightmare she is watching a cement truck covering the streets not with cement but with a dead body that someone threw into the cement container of this truck. The truck was ‘cementing’ the streets with what she described as a “human mixture”.

The therapist recreated the dream asking her client to be the driver of that cement truck and put the man she felt abused by in her life in the container of this truck. While she identified with the truck driver she began to imagine that she is covering the streets with his material and his persona and began to shout: “yes, yes, it is him and he is in my truck” While she drove the truck in this recreated dream she began to say: “ here I am cementing al my insecurities that are left from that time with him”, Now I am cementing all my fears of new relationships”……..and so on.

The therapist kept monitoring her feelings and supporting her strong ability to act both physically and emotionally in the new dream scenario.

After this enactment of the dream, the client stated that she felt rather strong, satisfied and happy about the way her life went on. She became more integrated in her relationship with others by not feeling so powerless in the presence of men. When asked what the nightmare’s existential message was for her she replied: “the dream said to me that it is time that you take charge of your life, you are strong and capable now and you can heal yourself!”

Conclusion 

Gestalt work with nightmares is mainly intra-personal; it enables a client to combine the left brain activity of the narrative and the right brain activity of the created images. In this way the person can develop new tools for living a full life.

By integrating our interior life we will be able to integrate fully our interpersonal world and increase our capacity to grow and relate with others more fully and in a new way.

In gestalt work with nightmares the outcome is often positive, the nightmares disappear and life becomes a joy to live.

In the meantime, the therapist must be in close contract with the client for some time to ensure that the inner process is no longer psychologically disturbing and that the client has fully finished what the inner world of dreams is presenting to him or her.

I trust that this short article and my hypothesis within, may be of some help to therapists that attempt to enter the world of the nightmare and shed some light on some of the least known, murky and shadowy aspects of psychotherapy.

References:

Ferud, Sigmund; 1948. “Introduction to Psychoanalysis” part 3 in the “Dreams” section.

Perls, Fritz; 1974. “Dreams and Existence” Edit. Vientos, Santiago de Chile Publisher.

 Downing, Jack & Marmorstein, Robert;  1973, “Dreams & Nightmares” Harper and Row publishers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAGIK - THE OVERLOOKED SIDE OF THERAPY

  

 

 

From: Saturn's Lady

 

 

 

 

MAGIK AND CREATIVITY – THE HEALING EFFECT

Magik and Creativity are the most fundamental outcomes of psychotherapy and especially Gestalt Therapy. However, in the recent contemporary fields of healing, we note a trend toward the so called “scientific outcomes” of psychotherapy. Therefore, creativity and magik, (magic not of the rabbit out of a hat type) that is the soul of healing, is often overlooked and replaced with a pseudo-scientific jargon.

For example: cognitive (CBT) therapies focus mainly (or exclusively) on the intellect and avoid the inner ‘soul’ aspects in human encounters because they are not “evidence based’.

Another example: I read that at the recent gestalt conference in Italy, both, the European Association Gestalt Therapy   and the American Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy, spent a lot of time debating the use of neurobiology and neuropsychology. They seem to feel that the brain is the focus where the scans can identify locations on the brain as the process of healing takes place. The whole system is cut up into pieces with no integration of Body, Mind & Soul.

So, many gestalt therapists as well, as they practice psychotherapy, have a tendency to ignore or forget (avoid) the magic moments that happen during a therapy session. They focus, instead on “problems to be resolved” and “dysfunctions”. Yet, those magical moments frequently provide the solutions to the identified problems.

To make this idea of 'magical moments' more concrete, I will come back to the master Magician, Tarologist, and therapist-artist, Alejandro Jodorowsky. (You may re-read his story in the previous post). Jodorowsky or "Jodo" in short, has documented hundreds of psycho-magic interventions in his practice that do work. Here is a sample of his magic moments:

 

 

Psychomagic Consultations:  What Lies Hidden in the Darkness of the Unconscious?

By A. Jodorowsky

The psychomagic advice can be applied to any problem suffered as indicated in the consultation title; however, it is necessary to adapt the actions, with some changes, to the character of each individual and to the configurations of each person’s genealogy tree. Whoever wishes to delve into these techniques with the purpose of prescribing acts to others or to him- or herself, I present here some of the numerous consultations I did in 2007 and in the café in Paris where I read the Tarot every Wednesday. During my five-hour consulting sessions, each meeting with each of the thirty-plus people I saw, lasted no more than eight minutes. The Tarot, used as a psychological test, combined with a definite intuitive evolution acquired thanks to more than thirty years of study, allows me to go, without any force, directly to the consultant’s essential problem, gently finding a door in the consultant’s defensive wall. Generally, whoever suffers does not wish to know why he or she suffers but only wants to get rid of his or her painful symptoms. Illnesses and psychological suffering are essentially caused by a lack of consciousness. The cause of injury is so painful that it is hidden in the darkness of the unconscious. In combat, warriors strenuously fight to kill the enemy. In a Tarot session, one fights strenuously to return the other to life. At the beginning of my readings, sometimes this combat is made by using a lot of violence. I tell of this attitude, which I learned from my Zen meditation teacher, Ejo Takata (1928– 1997), in my book "El Maestro y Las Magas"(Spanish edition). When I learned that it is one thing to give and another to force someone to receive. I then began to move forward on a sweet and compassionate path. I eliminated from my heart all types of discrimination; I expelled from my soul the unforgiving judge who wielded a morality based on poorly translated and poorly interpreted religious texts. For the duration of these consultations, I forgot myself and concentrated totally on the person in front of me. I opened my mind, motivated only by the desire to be useful and to offer a loving ear, to accept any rejection with kindness, seeing it as an important part of the healing process. Psychomagic is not a scientific discipline; it is an artistic creation of theatrical origin, which tends to awaken the creativity in the consultant, turning the consultant into his or her own healer. This long-time activity was useful for me, too. Naturally, little by little, I was opening the gate that was between my intellect and my unconscious. Barely revealing the source of the problem, without the least effort, I reach the psychomagic act.  An If you, the reader, can identify with the consultant’s problem, and the act I propose resonates with you, you can do it, adapting it to your own reality. If, for example, I speak of visiting a grave, the loved one could be in a burial place or may have been cremated: it doesn’t change the act, whether it is carried out at a grave site or where the ashes were scattered. Sometimes something very difficult is asked. How does one ask an adult to find a woman who is nursing who will let him nurse? Although the consultant often rejects this act, one must insist. If a person is persistent and has faith, everything he seeks comes to him. Modifying the proverb “If the mountain doesn’t come to you, then go to the mountain,” we must say, with fervour, “I am not going to the mountain, but I wish with all of my soul that the mountain will come to me.” The psychologist Jacques Lacan (1901– 1981), during a class, told his students, “In a moment of creative ecstasy, first talk and then think.” The messages from the unconscious have the spontaneity of dreams. They are not created by the intellect. The person prescribing a psychomagic act first receives it from the unconscious then recommends it, just as it is dictated by the unconscious. Explications, products of the rational mind, clarify some aspects of the act but do not exhaust its mystery.

PSYCHOMAGIC ACTIONS AND OUTCOMES

 In all of the examples presented here, the consultants who fulfilled the psychomagic acts obtained the hoped-for result. They were healed by acting on the messages from the unconscious.

1. A woman has bad relations with men. Her conflict originates in the negative image that her mother gave her.

 I recommended that she dress completely in her mother’s clothes and then talk to her lover as if she were her mother, repeating all the negative concepts she received in her childhood. I told her to let the words of hate, which her mother inoculated in her, arise in her mouth. After she insults her partner, she tears these clothes to pieces while screaming, “I am not her! I am capable of loving you!” She then sends the rags, smeared in honey, in a gift box to her mother.

2. A young woman gets extremely nervous when she drives a car and, because of this, she is forced to drive only rarely.

 I recommended driving, dressed as a little girl, accompanied by her parents. Her mother should have a packet of candies and put one in her mouth every five minutes while her father, also every five minutes, should whisper in her ear, “Women drive better than men.”

3. A childless woman, who forgot the first eight years of her childhood, is afraid she has developed uterine cancer. She was born after her mother aborted the previous pregnancy at three months. The consultant’s father abandoned the home when the consultant’s mother was three months pregnant with her. She explains that her birth was not desired. Lacking individuality, she identified with her mother, and she feels possessed by the sacrificed foetus, which she feels has materialized into cancer.

I recommended that she fill a red bag with candies and go distribute them to the children in an orphanage. She then carries the bag for seven days with a kitchen knife painted black in it, and then hides it, after seven days, somewhere in her mother’s house without telling her. The red bag represents her desires to live; the black knife, the mother’s wishes to abort her as she did with her brother. The guilt over having disobeyed by being born makes her create cancer, a tumour that represents when she was in the foetal state. All of this is returned to the parent.

4. A woman asks why she creates obstacles all the time. Through the Tarot, I explain to her that she reproduces the obstacles that her father put in her way. These difficulties, in the absence of affection (he wanted a boy not a girl), were the only thing that united her to him. The consultant confirmed the reading, revealing that she still keeps the father’s ashes in an urn.

 I recommended that she dress as a man and go to a rugby game (a sport her father loved and to which he never wanted to take her), carrying the urn. She should watch the whole game and, at the end, empty the father’s ashes in the seat in which she was sitting. Then she should bury the man’s suit and plant an orchid over it.

 5. A blind man cannot stand that his mother treats him like a handicapped child. He wants me to give him a psychomagic act to help him express his huge rage.

 I recommended that he stand in front of his mother with a bull’s eye in each hand, screaming, “Look!” then he should throw the eyes at her and scream, “Eat them!” Then, putting a rock album on at high volume, he should undress and say, between laughter, “Now do you see! I am a man!”

6. A young woman can’t manage to have an orgasm with her lover. In general, she is afraid of men. Her father was assassinated by the mafia in Palermo.

I recommended that she enrol in a shooting club, then buy a pistol with which her lover masturbates her until she reaches orgasm. Then she buries the pistol with a photo of her father and a wedding ring.

 7. An old man, crying, solicits an act that will get him out of the depression from which he has suffered for more than twenty years. He feels that his ex-wife, his daughter (now older), and his mother abuse him because, although they constantly ask him for money, they also won’t quit blaming him for ruining his marriage.

 I recommended that he invite his ex-wife, his daughter, and his mother to dinner at his home. At the table, there will be three plates of black metal, without covers. He will put on each plate a whole, roasted chicken. He will take out a hammer and destroy the three chickens, screaming with frightening fury, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Then he will present three containers filled with earth, ordering them to bury the pieces of chicken. Then he will give each one a flowering plant to plant in a pot. He will then tell them, “Get out of here! From now on, when you want to have dinner with me, you will have to pay the tab.”

 8. A woman asks how she can make her father quit depending on her. He makes her responsible for all the dealings in the outside world while he waits for her at home, cleaning and cooking. I explain that she is living not as a daughter but as a wife to her father, a couple in which she has the role of the man and he has the role of the woman.

I recommended that she tell her father that she is going to give him a pair of handmade shoes and that, for these, he must take action: he has to stand on a sheaf of paper and draw the contour of his feet with a pencil. She gives these drawings to a master shoemaker so that he can concoct a pair of women’s shoes with tall heels. Once finished, she brings the shoes to her father saying, “I will continue to worry over you only if you use these shoes here in the house and also when you go out shopping or visiting your friends. If I am your man, you should assume the role of my wife.”

 9. The consultant has a problem with his father: he despises him for being dirty. He is ashamed to tell his girlfriend that his father is a garbage man.

I recommended that he go to the girlfriend dressed in his father’s dirty clothes with his face stained with soot. He isn’t to speak as himself but as if he was his own father: “I have come to tell you something in the name of my son because he dared not confess it because he is ashamed of me. He didn’t want you to know that I am a dirty garbage man. With pleasure I will quit this job, but I need it to pay for his education. He loves you deeply. I should tell you he is a good boy, studious, intelligent, and at the base, he loves me as much as I love him. To end this problem, could you do me the favour of washing me?” Then he asks the girlfriend to undress him and wash him. Then, dressed in his own clothes (that he brought in a package), he will go with her to introduce her to his father.

10. The consultant is an osteopath interested in shamanism. His mother had cancer in the right knee. He believes this trouble has a psychological origin. At the death of her husband, she, clad in her widowhood because men have disappointed her, allows only her son to visit her. She doesn’t want to see any doctors. She demands that he cure her. He doesn’t know how to.

 I recommended that he make a placebo surgery. He should buy a squid and then go visit his mother. He should then draw the curtains closed to prevent the light from entering and, with the house totally dark, light some candles and a lot of incense. He places his mother’s knee over a pillow, washes the knee with blessed water, compresses the squid forcefully against the cancer for at least ten minutes, and tells her, “This is your cancer; I am going to remove it.” The consultant takes a bladeless knife and mimics removing the squid-cancer with great difficulty. With his performance, he should convince his mother, and in this way, she will believe that he struggles mightily to remove her cancer. After an intense struggle, he rips out the squid-cancer. Then, lighting it with candles, he goes to the bathroom, accompanied by his mother, and shows her as he throws the “cancer” into the toilet bowl. She should flush the toilet. He gives her a very nice perfume so that each day she can spray perfume on her knee.

11. A consultant, a native of Barcelona and the daughter of very Catholic parents, suffers from a very solid fear of being assassinated.

Through the Tarot, I explain to her that this fear is not of being murdered by some unknown but by herself because of her sexual desires. Her parents raised her for the order of nuns, hoping for an intact hymen.

12. A fifty-year-old woman has a lot of difficulty asking for what she needs emotionally, especially of her partner (to whom she has been married for thirty years). Thanks to the Tarot, she remembers when she was little that she was interned in the hospital with tuberculosis and no relative visited her. She understands that this is the cause of the difficulty she has expressing herself to her partner.

 I recommended that she, for whatever false motive, check herself into a private clinic early one morning. She waits, lying down, for her visitors. She expresses the pain of feeling abandoned. Four hours later, her husband arrives, bringing her flowers, chocolates, and a rag doll. He kisses her and puts a candy in her mouth, undresses her, rubs the doll all over her body, and then makes love to her. They then go from the clinic to a bar to get drunk and celebrate.

 

Jodorowsky, Alejandro. Manual of Psychomagic: The Practice of Shamanic Psychotherapy. Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. Kindle Edition.