Gestalt Therapy - Living Here and Now Elisabeth Wille

What do you do when you have an open Gestalt? I begin in this episode to tell you about how I created an open gestalt by acting too fast. Sending an email without reading it twice, leaving abruptly without a proper goodbye which left some wondering if I was angry with them. Over the years I have learned to say a proper goodbye and properly close the Gestalt.

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We humans tend to like completeness, we want to make sense of the things that are happening to us and around us. And sometimes we do not get the closure we need and we are left with unfinished business or an open Gestalt.

How is this important?

The way we deal with unfinished business is entirely personal. Everyone deals with this in a different way and it all depends on our life situation as well. How you have been brought up, how you have developed and where you are right now. Some unfinished business can’t be solved, for example when the person you had an argument with is no longer in your life. For some this can feel devastating.

I will go deeper into the individual way of dealing with an open gestalt by performing a little experiment with you, dear listener.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

When we grow up our experiences are highly dependent on the adults in our lives. As mentioned before, we constantly want to make sense of what is happening around us and the understanding will calm us down, a sort of self-regulation. What can help us, which we so often go to in Gestalt Therapy, is our awareness.

References:

Podcast Production by Lagor Services - Laila Noort

https://www.lagorservices.com/

Web Design by Patrik Osterblad

https://www.patrikosterblad.com/

Books mentioned:

Gestalt by Rasmussen & Busk, Publisher Frydenlund, 2015

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

Nutrition and eating has been part of many conversations I have had with clients in my praxis. In relation to stress or burnout, taking medication that influences weight or any other causes.

Food is our fuel so I thought this was a good opportunity to invite Anne Mette Franch Brandstrup who is a Nutrition therapist.

Anne Mette is originally from Denmark, just like me, and has been living in Luxembourg for over 22 years.

In this episode we will be talking about the connection between Nutrition and Gestalt Therapy

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The figure of today is about balance or restoring balance for women plus 40. Or as we like to say in Gestalt Therapy: “Becoming who you are” or as Anne Mette so elegantly added; “Becoming the BEST of who you are”

How is this important?

Nutrition is an important subject in many of the sessions that I have with clients. It is often related to unhappiness due to overweight or eating disorders, low energy levels, stress or major life changing situations. Anne Mette will give a bit of insight on how nutrition is important for women plus 40, the majority group of her clients.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

Diet and providing nutritional advice is only part of Anne Mette’s strategy. She goes much deeper into finding the root cause of the symptoms to really create a profound and necessary change. This is where the connection between her work as a nutrition therapist and Gestalt Therapy is very clear.

More about Anne Mette Franch Brandstrup

Website:

Www.nutritionnhealth.eu

E-mail:

Contact@nutritionnhealth.eu

Instagram:

Nutritionnhealth_nnh

Facebook:

Nutrition N Health

To Forgive is part of everyone’s life. Either to forgive someone else or ourselves and in some cases both. The feeling of anger, disappointment, resentment and sadness can cause physical and emotional problems if you are unable to forgive.

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In my Gestalt Therapy praxis I have worked with many clients on forgiving and also not wanting to, or unable to forgive. Often enough the person that needs to be forgiven is not in the room or there is not an opportunity to talk to this person. When that happens we work with experiments which I have spoken about in previous episodes.

How is this important?

To clarify why it is important to forgive, I am giving a concrete example of Hugo, a client of mine who was cheated on by his girlfriend. Hugo decided to forget her and that would make her disappear. Eventually he started to get physical problems, because forgetting and forgiving are not the same.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

Hugo recognized that the physical problems were related to the break up with his girlfriend. By recognizing and understanding he was able to do something about it. By talking to her in the experiments he became more at peace with the situation. Even though he did not forgive her, he was now ready to move on.



You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

Growing old with respect for your body by listening to it. That is the subject of this episode where I talk with Fleur Adams, a yoga therapist on how to be more aware and how to get in touch with our bodies, accept our limitations and work with the possibilities that we have.



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The turning point in many people’s lives is when they realise that our bodies do not heal as quickly anymore and that some inconveniences are something we have to learn to live with. Fleur tells a little about her realisation that running a marathon approaching 50 years old without any prior experience wasn’t the best idea and that that was her turning point moment.

How is this important?

When you get older you need to be more attentive to your body. Exercise regularly, because in respect of your body you still need to move. But you need to do this with care and acceptance.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

The similarities between Gestalt Therapy and Yoga Therapy is in discovering where we are right now, how we act, moment by moment. Yoga Therapy is about finding our body’s limitations and using this knowledge to specifically design yoga movements and poses to create a better posture, building up muscles and releasing tension.



Fleur Adams :

https://www.yogahjerte.org



Remo Rittiner :

https://www.yogamehome.org/yoga-lehrer/remo-rittiner



4 livs-stages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āśrama_(stage)





You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

During the summer we may have more time to think and reflect. When you have suffered a loss this summer-period could bring up those heavy feelings of grief and sadness. In this episode I talk about how we deal with loss.



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There are many kinds of losses. The loss of a loved one, a pet, a job, a marriage and so on. In the Figure of today I also talk about my own loss and how I experienced it and how it affects me still.

How is this important?

Grieving and dealing with loss is very important. We need some kind of reassurance that life will not be so painful, meaningless or chaotic forever. And that it is allowed to laugh or feel happy.

I talk about the well known five stages of grief model by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance and how this might be too linear and that a person can go through these stages randomly. Today the more widely used Dual model by Stroebe and Shut are also discussed.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

When it comes to working with a grieving person as a therapist, I believe that an important part of therapy or counseling is to be there with the bereaved person. Not in a fix it mode but in a listening processing way. Experiencing the pain and emotions in the moment.



References :

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, “On Death and Dying” (1969)

Margaret Stroebe, Henk Schut (1999): THE DUAL PROCESS MODEL OF COPING WITH

BEREAVEMENT: RATIONALE AND DESCRIPTION, Death Studies, 23:3, 197-224 To link to this article:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/074811899201046





You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/



To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

In Gestalt Therapy we use different experiments.  In earlier episodes for example I have already mentioned the empty chair experiment. This time I have a guest Emmanuelle Lamberty who uses the experiment called Sandplay in her Gestalt Therapy praxis. Emmanuelle is of Belgian and Luxembourgish origin and has her praxis in Belgium right at the Luxembourgish border. She has lived in The US and Germany, loves to learn new languages and finds her inspiration in nature, creativity and existential matters.

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Using experiments in Gestalt Therapy sessions can bring new awareness for clients. They are called experiments because you never know what will come out of it. There is no right or wrong result.

Sandplay uses a vast amount of objects placed in a tray of sand, these objects could be anything, elements of nature, cartoons, household etc. The clients use these objects to communicate whatever they feel like.

How is this important?

Sandplay is a very practical tool, it is very useful for people who are in their heads a lot and have trouble finding the words. It helps create realisations, some clients come in the therapy room with a question about one thing but end up realising that something else is more important to work on because of the object that person has chosen.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

Using Sandplay is to really go into something, using action by choosing and placing the object and visualising the problem or issue at hand.

Awareness is also important in Sandplay, what the client is feeling when touching the sand or placing the objects. The sensations of the body as well as the mind are the connecting factors for using Sandplay as a Gestalt Therapy experiment.

References :

Inventor of Sandplay - Margaret Lowenfeld



More about Emmanuelle;

www.elamberty.be (website in French only ; sessions in French, English and Luxembourgish)





You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance