Staying in the Present While Working With the Past
One of the myths that have floated around the therapy world for many years is that Gestalt is only about the present. Somehow the here-and-now focus of the Gestalt approach created an impression that the past was never dealt with in Gestalt therapy. What is different about Gestalt is not whether the past is dealt with, but how it is dealt with.
As I worked with Jim through our relationship in the moment, his past began to emerge in a historical way. At one stage, when I pointed out to him that he never responded to what I said, but rather told me whatever came to mind in reaction to my words, some childhood memories emerged forcefully. As a child, he told me, his parents had always been telling him what to do, talking at him, and very seldom listening to him or taking what he said and making that the focus of the conversation. In other words, as I pointed out in our sessions what was happening in the present, Jim’s past began to emerge organically. In another moment in the therapy when Jim tuned into a feeling of sadness at his current lack of relationships, he began to talk about how difficult it was that his family was isolated. They didn’t have very many family friends, and didn’t spend much time together as a unit. As a result, Jim did not have a lot of practice at engaged relationship building.
In this way, the past is slowly unwound and filtered into the present. Early childhood issues emerge in the moment and are dealt with in the moment, rather than being called up intellectually by taking a history.
When the past does emerge in Gestalt therapy, we frequently bring it back into the present. For instance, when Jim brought up his mother, I often asked him to imagine her in the room and to say something to her, so that he was able to experience vividly his feelings about the past, in the present. As a result, he was more able to encounter and engage the impact of the past on his behavior today.