When I want to say something or write about Gestalt therapy, I always lack the right words for this. It's like sharing something very personal, experienced by you and belonging only to you. Share via text with someone else, without his or her personal presence.
Working as a psychotherapist, I began to understand that any presentation of the essence of the therapy process would be incomplete, since there was no reinforcement with living sensations and feelings. Sometimes, I want to say some banal things, such as improving the quality of life or affecting real personal growth, that this is not an express technique with ready-made instructions.
I'm writing these lines and realizing that I want to convey not the technical and theoretical aspects of Gestalt therapy, but the experiential, sensory part in which the very insights occur that people attend therapeutic groups and personal therapy for. These are exactly the forces that expand the inner and thereby the outer world of a person, including mine.
I can confidently say that therapy has made me more sensitive. I have become more aware of the manifestations in myself and others that incline towards actions, or provoke refusal or inaction.
To say that this makes life easier is not quite accurate. Rather, you begin to see it wider, more realistically, and feel it with your entire being. You understand how you live in it, how you act, feel, and choose. And in this completeness of perception, there is no one to push responsibility for your actions and choices onto, but at the same time, feeling and knowing your limitations in strength, time, and freedom, you begin to turn to loved ones, friends, partners for help, rather than carrying everything on your own.
Increasingly, I am convinced that psychotherapy is an art, a very delicate art that does not like a clumsy approach. It is an art that cannot be mastered in one day, or even a year. Where every step is a fragile and at the same time deeply impressive path, where the presence of an experienced mentor who has gone through it and knows where to press and where to support is very important.
I understand every time that for this profession, as for any other, the most important factor for growth and development is interest and curiosity, a kind of childlike curiosity about everything new and incomprehensible. When you only start to play and learn about it, it becomes part of you, your own special perspective.
And what has become part of me, this sensory part was already there in me, as if it was dormant and they awakened it so that I could look at everything with a new taste and trembling towards life and relationships with people. And by helping others, I give birth to only two words in me - VIVAT GESTALT THERAPY!
