From the author: Article from the Yearbook on Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis 2014, published by the Cogito Center Publishing House. GROUP GESTALT EXPERIMENTS Mr. Vimes, this is my family axe. It's been in my family for almost nine hundred years, okay? Of course, the blade was changed a couple of times. Several times - an ax handle. They changed the design of the metal parts, updated the patterns... but did this stop it from being a nine-hundred-year-old family ax? It is only because it has changed with the times that it is still a good axe. Understand? Very good. T. Pratchett. The Fifth Elephant One of the striking differences between the Gestalt approach and other directions is the use in therapeutic work of specially organized experiments based on the idea of ​​moving from “talking about...” to action. Indeed, the usual version of therapy is that the client talks about his life, his difficulties, and the therapist tries to help him realize or rethink something. Unlike the purely conversational genre, in Gestalt experiments there is an opportunity not only to discuss your experience, but also to try to do something. As Irwin Polster and Miriam Polster write: “In an experimental situation, a person can mobilize himself in the face of the current demands of life, acting out his unexpressed feelings and actions in relative safety. Safety is achieved by the fact that the patient's risk-taking is supported by a therapist or group who either encourages or encourages him to take risks, depending on what is appropriate at a particular moment." However, in recent years, for a number of reasons, interest in Gestalt experiments has gradually decreases. Firstly, the methodological “merging” of Gestalt therapy with other areas (psychoanalysis, existentialism, systemic family therapy, body-oriented approaches, etc.) often proceeds by abandoning its own uniqueness and leads to leveling out differences. Secondly, often “poor execution” of experiments, which group participants observe during the learning process, also leads to refusal or avoidance of conducting Gestalt experiments. That is why, even at certification sessions, it is rare to see a beautiful and live experiment illustrating those processes that could take months and years to discuss. Thirdly, the lack of clear psychotechnologies for planning, conducting and discussing Gestalt experiments. After all, you won’t take seriously the words “stay with it” after the complex and often contradictory experience that the client received during the experimentation. Fourthly, in our opinion, Gestalt experiments are now “not in the top”. This is also pointed out by Elena Petrova, who cites the “fashion for a dialogue approach” as one of the explanations for the negative attitude towards the experiment. It is obvious that Gestalt experiments, which have deservedly earned their good name, need complete and unconditional rehabilitation. However, this requires specially organized work on their “rebranding”, classification, description, etc. Obviously, this is complex and multi-day work. This article is intended to solve only a small part of the problem and is devoted to only one type of experiment - group Gestalt experiments. Before we begin to describe them, we emphasize the main difference between group experiments and individual work. In contrast to experimentation directly during a therapeutic session, when the client works face to face with the therapist, in group forms of work the Gestalt therapist-client pair is in a certain field. Group members are both “witnesses of therapy” and its participants. Therefore, in group work, on the one hand, there are some advantages, consisting in the presence of a “collective mind,” and some disadvantages, since the reactions of the participants are unpredictable. Therefore, we will discuss the important methodological principles on which group Gestalt experiments are based. Common therapy questions: “with whom,” “where,” “how,” when conducting groupGestalt experiments need some clarification.1. Let me start by saying that I define group members not as “puppets” obedient to the will of the group leader and following instructions and directives, but as full-fledged co-therapists. Together with the group therapist, they form a single therapeutic field and all together “work for the client.” If in the traditional Gestalt therapeutic model the leader determines the direction of the Gestalt experiment, and the participants are often assigned only the role of spectators with the right to subsequently provide feedback, then using the group as a single therapeutic space makes it possible to take into account and demonstrate many nuances of the client’s relationship with himself and others that are inaccessible to direct perception within the framework of the dyadic relationship “Gestalt therapist – client.”2. In group Gestalt experiments we are dealing with a single space-time continuum, where “here-and-now” merges with “there-and-then”. There is neither space nor time in their traditional sense - any collapses, any meetings are possible , any changes that, as we remember, occur only in the current moment. During such an experiment, an unexpected meeting may take place between the client and other group members with emotional states and experiences, with memories and people, with the living and the departed.3. Technique, or, using the terminology of F.E. Vasilyuk, psychotechnology in group experiments can vary from traditional monodrama using group members as “auxiliary Others”, and to authorized feedback included in the therapy process itself. I will give an example. A member of the group, Anna, says that in her family everyone on her mother’s side was “women with an unfortunate fate.” This topic has already been raised several times in her personal therapy, Anna worked through her family history, built a genogram, but her life remains the same - she is lonely, she does not have a relationship with a man. Among the listed “women with an unfortunate fate” are herself, her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. After the orientation phase, Anna was offered the following experiment - to choose in the group those who would be herself for some time, her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, and then build a sculptural composition from them and give it a name. Anna lined up all the women in a row, from “herself” to “great-grandmother”, and turned each head so that she could see those standing behind. The composition was called “Unlucky Fates”. Next, Anna and I walked around the composition, and I asked how she felt about all women. Anna found it difficult, but then quietly answered: “Pity and irritation.” It was a difficult place. I invited “family members” to share their feelings. Everyone talked about similar experiences. "Anna" saw everyone - "mother", "grandmother", "great-grandmother", but her head was turned back. “Mother” did not see “Anna”, “grandmother” saw only “great-grandmother”... And everyone’s neck quickly began to become stiff, everyone was uncomfortable... Next, I asked Anna to choose a man from the group - just a Man, whom I asked to find a comfortable place for myself, holding "Anna" is in sight. The man walked around the sculptural composition for some time, but in the end he said that he could not catch the eye of “Anna”, he did not feel that he was needed, interesting, or that he was even just noticed, and therefore he preferred to switch his attention to other things. All this time, Anna was in the position of “observer of her own life.” From the changes in her breathing and facial expressions, it was noticeable that she was included in the process. When “The Man” turned away from “Anna,” a tear rolled down the real Anna’s cheek... “Do you want to take your place?” - I asked. Anna nodded and switched places with the girl who was standing in her place. She turned her head and began to look at “mother”, “grandmother”, “great-grandmother”. This lasted quite a long time... Finally Anna said: “That’s it, I can’t take it anymore,” and decisively turned her head so that everyone was behind her and she could no longer see them. “What’s wrong with you now?” - I asked. “I feel better,” Anna answered. - I seea man - he is turned away from me, but I can approach him... I didn’t answer anything, and Anna, after waiting a few minutes for my reaction? instructions? timidly moved towards the man... She walked around him along the widest possible perimeter, then made a second, narrower circle. The man met her gaze and they slowly began to approach each other. The whole group watched this cautious, very careful progress with transfixion... Approaching each other, they stood for a while, looking into each other's eyes. And then the man extended his hand to Anna. She touched his hand carefully, and then her hand sank into his. It was a very beautiful and touching moment. And suddenly, unexpectedly, Anna darkened and said, taking her hand back: “I can’t do this!” How – “like that”? - I asked softly. - Like this - when they look, and I know that they were not happy. - And? - I don’t know... It seems that I’m afraid... I’m afraid that everything will collapse... Or that they will destroy everything... This was the key moment - Anna’s desire to be loved and to love, to be in a relationship with a man, and the projection of her own envious and destructive part onto the “unfortunate” mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. At that moment I had a choice - to start working with Anna in the form of talking-therapy or turn to “women of the family.” I chose the second. The group members, at my request, responded to everything that was happening. “Mom” said that she would only be happy if her daughter found a good match for herself. “Grandmother” shared that she had very warm feelings when Anna held a man’s hand, and that she was offended when her granddaughter said that her fate was unhappy... “Great-grandmother” simply came up and hugged Anna... And she suddenly burst into tears . “Mom” and “grandmother” approached her, surrounding her with a ring... For several minutes they whispered something to her, and then, hugging each in turn, Anna said: “Thank you.” After that, Anna approached the man again. And she extended her hand to him. This ended our experiment. We discussed Anna's experiences, as well as her unfortunate conceptualization of the women of the family as having an "unfortunate fate." But the most important thing was Anna’s simple step - a step away from her family, a step towards a man. One can explain what happened in different ways. You can find in the described action similarities with constellations, psychodrama, “isolate” the basic technique of family therapy “Family sculpture”, etc. The most important difference is ideological, which is discussed in paragraph 4.4. The ideology of the group Gestalt experiment is based on phenomenology and, as a consequence, on the primacy of description over explanation. Let me explain why. Having taught the course “Psychological Counseling” for more than 15 years, I often practiced with students how the same person’s behavior, attitude, action, etc. explain using different models. And then a girl who does not marry can do this for a number of reasons: out of loyalty (devotion) to the family system, where all women are unhappy; because of aggressiveness/passivity/absence of a father in the family; because of early trauma (separation from mother, serious illness ); because of family dysfunctions, as a result of which the girl is in psychological incest with her mother; because of the fear of “living and breathing deeply”; because of emotional immaturity, etc. All explanations can take place - and more Moreover, they can all exist at the same time. And as soon as group members have the opportunity to use the usual “lenses” to explain to the client “the root of his problems,” the latter can drown in various, wonderful, but often completely useless opinions. The problem is different - how to help the client take a step towards change, like “ push”, I’m not afraid of this word, the client to leave the usual, stereotypical path along a long-trodden path. That is why in a Gestalt experiment it is not important to us WHY the client made/did not make this or that choice in his life. What matters to us is WHAT HE IS DOING now. Explanations and conceptualizations of experience are wonderful AFTER, and not INSTEAD of real changes. Therefore, instead of analysis, we choose actions that will lead to a change, even by one degree, in the waythe client to deal with their problems, with themselves and with their lives in general.5. The Gestalt experiment is a risky process. We never know where asking a client to participate in an experimental activity will take us. Therefore, in work it is necessary to take into account the principle of multifinality, according to which a single risk factor can lead to a number of different consequences depending on contextual and individual factors. Those thousands of cause-and-effect relationships that exist in the life of every person between different aspects of his relationships, connections, choices, cannot be reduced to a simple formula A => B. Refusal to explain the cause of the client’s problem, as well as the understanding of the impossibility of controlling where the Gestalt experiment will “lead”, allows you to focus on the process, on the client’s willingness to take risks and do something a little - or radically -to another. The risk exists not only for the client, but also for other participants - members of the group and its leader. And the biggest risk is that “we cannot predict how our word will respond.” Unfortunately or fortunately, life is more complicated than a laboratory experiment with fruit flies, and we never know for sure how this or that experimental action will end for the client, the therapist, the group and the field as a whole. Example. During a group Gestalt experiment, a client, Valentina, addressed her deceased father. However, the “dialogue” did not work out, and she ended with a feeling of hopelessness and impasse. However, a group member joined the work and shared his experience and the fact that he does not communicate with his child because he is very offended by his ex-wife. Valentina burst into tears, the man stood up, walked up to her, squatted down next to her and said: “I really want to see my daughter, but I don’t know how to change the relationship after everything that my ex-wife and I have done. I said too many bad things to my daughter. Now I can’t just come and say that I love her.” Valentina looked at him and replied: “This is the most important thing - to know that your father loves you. And we must do everything before it is too late.” The man began to cry and left the group. An hour later he returned and said that he had found the phone number of his 22-year-old daughter, whom he had not spoken to for 9 years, and called her. They agreed to meet in the evening. The next day, he told the group that his daughter was very offended by him, but all these years she had been waiting for his call. He repeated several times: “I didn’t expect this, this was not my session.”6. Gestalt is based on the idea of ​​creativity. Therefore, in an experiment it is important not to follow templates, but to allow the field, client, group, context to be and influence us. Sometimes an experiment is born from a word, a gesture, a fleeting thought or feeling. Allowing oneself to be sensitive and willing to allow something larger than oneself to unfold is a necessary condition for the therapist to “guide” the Gestalt experiment. I put the word “direction” in quotation marks because the therapist directs the experiment as much as the experiment influences the Gestalt therapist. This is paradoxical, but nevertheless the truth is: not “let me do a Gestalt experiment,” but “let’s start and see what comes of it.” Not knowing in advance, not predicting the end, but simply being close to the client is all that is needed from a presenter.7. The Gestalt experiment is based on the unity of form and content. An experiment that is good in form and successful in content raises deep layers of experience not only in the client, but also in its other participants. After its completion, you are left with a feeling of well-done, harmonious work. In one of the groups, all participants were involved in the Gestalt experiment. After completing the work, several people responded to my proposal to share their feelings that there was nothing left to share, everything was said and done during the experiment itself, and now the best thing to do is drink tea with a feeling of deep satisfaction.. A “well-done” Gestalt experiment stimulates the left, And.