Have you noticed that in our culture there is a great deal of emphasis on self-reliance? This kind of pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality can often lead to self-neglect. In the face of these ideals, we as individuals become ashamed of our perceived faults and blind to the very real discomforts and limitations we face in our daily lives. We turn instead to simply appearing as though we have it together—as though the appearance of being OK with the world as it is, is any kind of substitute for the real deal. From a Gestalt perspective, it is not self-reliance that is the goal of therapy, but self-responsibility. Often times, taking full responsibility for what we’re up against in life is actually quite painful.
One of my teachers, Jay Tropianskaia, refers to us Gestalties as the "plumbers" of the healing world—not very glamorous stuff. But this is in keeping with the work we do: we don’t offer solutions, advice or 10-easy-steps-to-freedom. We stay with you and help you notice, for example, what the nature of the pain is in your life that you're working so hard to deal with through any number of apparently self-destructive tendencies. Without more awareness of the real challenges and limitations we face, the less equipped we are to address them and move forward.
What my training in Gestalt has made obvious to me is that one of the deep paradoxes of the human condition is this: in the exact ways we most need support, we are least capable of receiving it. More often than not, it is not my job to fill those who come to me for help with the hope, warmth and love they long for someone else to give them. More often than not, my job is to point to the wounds that they've long ago lost the capacity to fully acknowledge and simply say: “I see you’ve got a wound there.”
These wounds come in innumerable forms, but what remains consistent is that in one way or another, my clients have learned to either dismiss themselves and their problems or to be alone in their struggles. Often even when surrounded by others.
Gestalt and those of us who practice it do not offer a magic bullet, or even a way to fix that which is broken; what we do offer is the possibility of learning to support ourselves and to be supported even in the face of confronting those things that may never be mended. Paradoxically, it seems that the more we as individuals come to terms with what we're really up against in this life, the more strength, compassion and even skillful behaviours we learn to have--in relating both to ourselves and others.