Re:Need some assistance

Change in Gestalt Therapy is paradoxical. One gets somewhere else by focusing on where one currently is. Thus, if one is in the impasse, the way out of it is to not focus on getting out, working through, or any goal-oriented strategy that shifts attention away from the impasse itself. The way out is to hang out in the impasse. Perls and Goodman suggested that neurotic anxiety was something most people tried to avoid, self-medicate, or otherwise smother in pathology; but to the degree that one could tolerate and learn to relax in the midst of such anxiety, to that degree new figures, new information, new capacity, and new experience would emerge. It's like learning to stretch into a sore and tight muscle - you don't loosen the muscle up without a bit of pain. But if you relax into the stretch, the pain eases, and the muscle becomes more useful.

Replies:

Re:Need some assistance, by cate charter, 02/09/04 Re:Need some assistance, by Philip Brownell, 02/10/04 Re:Need some assistance, by cate charter, 02/10/04 Re:Need some assistance, by Philip Brownell, 02/14/04

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