# Gestalt therapy exercise that helps my DR



## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Hi, 
I started reading Gestalt Therapy. It?s a book that contains a series of exercises, users (in this case students) experiences and Gestalt theory. One of the things a students said undeniably had implications for dissociation and getting some relief from it. So I?m typing the exercise and the student?s remarks below. At the bottom, I am adding a paragraph that I thought summarises what is going on quite nicely.

Chapter 1: Contacting the environment

Experiment 1: Feeling the actual
Try for a few minutes to make up sentences stating what you are at this moment aware of. Begin each sentence with the words "now" or "at this moment" or "here and now".

Student?s experience:

"I went through the first experiment for what seemed like 15 minutes. Increased impatience was the main reason for stopping. It was an unusual experience. The word "now" is very successful in bringing about the feeling of the immediateness of being. This gave me a sense of fear, that I can only describe as breathing very deeply while feeling a constriction in the chest. On the other hand, and instant?s experience was much richer than ever before, and I could actually see things in my environment at which I had only _looked_ before. I was in my room, and as I went through the experiment I felt a drive to straighten out and put in order whatever was amiss. It was like seeing the things in it for the first time or after a long absence. The objects had an identity of their own, stood around me, but were in no way continuous with me. A tendency to go off into abstract thinking kept creeping in.
"The second time I tried the experiment I noticed the recurrence of the same sense of fear at the realisation of the actuality of being alive, and also the tendency to indulge in adding modalities, qualifications, adjectives, to the objects observed rather than concentrating on the experience of the act of observing, which I found mentally tiring and disturbing.
"On the third occassion I practised the experiment on the subway. The experience was rich and penetrating. The sense of fear was still present but to a slighter degree, perhaps because of the other people around me. My ability to see seemed multiplied a hundredfold and this gave me a strong pleasure. After a while it was like playing an amusing game, but one exacting much energy."

Comments by the authors:
A by-product of this experiment on the feeling of actuality - the use of the words "here and "now" - will be to increase your sense of concreteness of experience and to sharpen the difference between the concrete and the abstract (generalised). Both the concrete immediate experience and the abstract generalisating, classifying, etc are healthy functions of the personality, but they are different modes of behaving. To confuse them means to regard actual things and persons as sterotypes, as vague and irrelevent furniture, or, on the other hand, as mere bogeymen who do not really exist. The feeling of actuality dissipates such vagueness....To over-emphasise the abstract is a characteristic of so-called intellectuals....For such persons the attempt to become aware of their immediate experience may be disturbing at first and feel like strenuous work.

Hope you like it.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Please move this to "Regaining reality" - it really helps.


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

Very good excercise 

Here's a similar article: http://newconnexion.net/article/03-03/whiteman.html


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## rui (Apr 27, 2005)

The power of the now is incredible, when I remember to do it and actually put my mind to it the results are amazing.

I advise the book :"The Power Of Now"

In fact I'm going out right now and I will pratice it right now.


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