
The Gestalt Cycle of Experience is a theoretical map used in Gestalt Therapy to describe the process by which needs, emotions and interests come into awareness and are satisfied. As a Gestalt Therapist I'm curious to work with my clients to understand where and how this process gets interrupted. These interruptions can lead to less satisfaction in life, or a build up of unacknowledged or unprocessed emotion, and difficulties with relationships. The therapy process can help with raising awareness of how this is happening, what might be contributing to this and identifying new options and ways of being.
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For example, if things are flowing smoothly, I might notice a heavy feeling in my body and sensation of warmth rising up towards my eyes, realise I'm feeling sad about something, energy continues building and all of that becomes crying about whatever has been painful or sad. If there's someone around I can share this with them and be heard and comforted. With the crying comes relief and a sense of resolution or completion of that experience of sadness, a settling, the potential for compassion for the situation and integration of this reality, and then a sense of space for whatever is to come next.
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I've used sadness as my example, but joy, fear, excitement or any other feeling could be substitute. As could physical needs like, thirst, hunger, movement. Or thoughts, ideas, desires, creative expression. Quite simply, how do our impulses become something more fully formed that can be expressed and satisfied? This process can be interrupted in many ways, like being disconnected from bodily experience and sensation, and holding beliefs (borne from experience and conditioning) about ourselves and our needs and feelings that make them inaccessible and hidden. In therapy we can explore what's happening, make sense of it and understand the experiences that have contributed to the forming of any fixed beliefs and interruptions. A large part of this often being what kind of response we have come to expect from others in response to our expressing ourselves.
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The diagram below shows the full cycle, in my monthly newsletter and on this blog, I plan to explore each element of it. I hope this offers a resource for reflection if you find yourself feeling stuck or dissatisfied. Was there a feeling or need that didn't quite make its way up to the surface? Or might you need a bit of space to be able to quieten and sense where you are? Are there feelings that feel hard to share so there's a loneliness or sense of wearing a mask?
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Source: MacKewn, J. (1997) Developing Gestalt Counselling: A Field Theoretical and Relational Model of Contemporary Gestalt Counselling and Psychotherapy |
As I write this I'm aware of how many cycles in nature have this kind of rising and falling process, the moon, the seasons of the year, the menstrual cycle. Life itself, growing and dying back. The rise and fall of energy, the expansion and contraction. Waxing and Waning.
The diagram for this process suggests a smooth trajectory, as with all things in life and psychotherapy theory, a diagram is a diagram, the map is not the territory and should be taken lightly not as a fixed description to impose on the messier realities of life.
If you're interested to follow this exploration of this cycle along with me, sign up to my newsletter in the footer to see when new entries are posted.
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