Fritz Perls — Awareness

Bringing the awareness into the present moment.

Readership: All
Theme: Awareness and Introspection
Length: 2,600 words
Reading Time: 15 minutes + 25 minute video.

Intro

Here is a video of Fritz Perls giving an informal lecture about Gestalt therapy to a group of students (ca. 1969).  During the lecture, he practices Gestalt therapy impromptu and in situ with four of his students.

The transcript of their talk is given below.

Learning

Perls: Learning is mostly misunderstood.  My definition of learning is to discover that something is possible.  It’s not just the taking in of some information.  And all I want to do is here to show you that it is possible to discover means of ways whereby you can grow and develop your potential and our difficulties in our life.  Now, of course this cannot be done in a short workshop, but maybe I can plant a few seeds, and take away a few of the ‘covers’ that will open up possibilities.

Again, let me repeat.  Learning is to discover that something is possible.

Suffering

Perls: We are using most of our energies for self-destructive games, for self-preventing games, and I mentioned already that we do this, and prevent ourselves from growing, the very moment something unpleasant, something painful comes up.  At that moment we become phobic.  We run away.  We desensitize ourselves.  We do all kinds of means and ways to prevent the growth process.

Again, we have to go another step further and say that the neurotic suffering is suffering in imagination, suffering in fantasy.  If somebody calls you a son of a b!tch, then you think you are suffering.  You feel hurt, but you don’t feel hurt.  You know you’re not hurt.  There are no bruises.  There are no actual injuries there.  It is your so-called ego or vanity that is hurt.  We can even go a step further and say, when you say you feel hurt, you actually feel vindictive, and you want to hurt the other person.

Approach

Perls: So what I’d like to do in the beginning is to take a few of you, ask you to come sit on the hot seat, and work on the phenomenological basis.  This means, on the awareness of the ongoing process.  If you live in the present, you use whatever is available.  If you live in your computer and your thinking machine, or in those obsolete responses in your rigid way of coping with life, you stay stuck.

So let’s take a few words from you, whoever wants to come forth, and the more stage fright, the better.

Case Study 1 — Christopher

[Christopher comes forward and sits in the hot seat.]

Perls: So let’s work very primitively, given if we structure the whole thing a little bit, rigidly, pompously for the first moment, you guys soon will soon see the meaning of it.  So start with the sentence, “Now I am aware of…”

Christopher: Now I’m aware of tension in my right arm.  Now I am aware of faces looking in my direction.  Now I’m aware of you, Fritz, and I’m … now I’m still aware of my hand, and now I’m aware of changing my position to a more relaxed position.  Now I’m aware of the box in front of me.  Now I’m aware of waiting for the pressure to be taken off me.  [Christopher smiles nervously.]

Perls: You see, at this moment, you jumped into the future.  You were “waiting for”, which means he stopped being aware of what’s going on.  Except if we now reduce his anticipation to the ongoing process.  Can we do it with Christoph?  How?  “How” covers all possible means of behavior.  How do you experience waiting?

Christopher: I experience waiting as, right at this moment, as a tremendous tension here, definitely tension throughout my whole body, plus a certain fearful blankness starting to cover my thinking process.

Perls: Yeah.  I have to add what I’m aware of.  I’m aware that you’re doing a lot of smiling, and even when you talk about unpleasantness, like unpleasant tension, you’re still smiling, and to me, this is inconsistent.

Christopher: [Nervous laughter]  This may be true.  It’s a weapon, I suppose.

Perls: What are you doing now?

Christopher: Intellectualizing?

Perls: Yeah, you’re defending yourself.  Are you aware of that?

Christopher: Yes.

Perls: So maybe my remark was unpleasant for you?

Christopher: Perhaps a little bit, yes. [Bites lip.  Nervous smiling]

Perls: Are you now aware of your smiling?

Christopher: Eh… don’t you like me smiling?

[Long silence.]

Perls: Were you aware of what you did with that sentence?

Christopher: I thought I expressed a certain amount of hostility, perhaps.

Perls: You attacked me.  But maybe you didn’t know.

Christopher: But I didn’t mean to attack you.

Perls: Now, again.  Are you aware that you are getting defensive again?

Christopher: Yes, I have a very defensive nature, I think.  [Nervous smiling]

Perls: Okay, on to our next one.  I just want a short example to reinforce the awareness basis.

[Christopher leaves the Hot Seat.  Don comes forward and sits in the hot seat.]

Our Focus of Awareness

Perls: You see, what we do is simply, simply, simply to get acquainted with the ongoing process of awareness and how the different people avoid the full involvement in what is there.

Perls: We can also now take the next step and see, “What are you in touch with?”

There are three possibilities.  You can be in touch with the world, you can be in touch with yourself, or you can be in touch with your fantasy life.

The fantasy life, or the “Middle Zone” was first discovered by Freud under the name of “complex”, and it is the Middle Zone which is the insane part of ourself.  It’s a fantasy.

9:00

Whenever this fantasy is taken for a real thing, you know, the real insane person is known as a person who says, “I’m Napoleon”, and he actually believes that he’s a Napoleon.  If I say, “I would like to be Napoleon”, you wouldn’t call me crazy, but if I say, “I’m Napoleon!  Go!  March to Österreich! [Austria]” or whatever it is, you would say, “What is this queer behavior of that guy?”  And especially, this zone, there, in which we are fully and absolutely crazy, that is in our dreams.  You’ll see later on, that just these dreams, the Middle Zone, has assumed so much importance in our life that we are out of touch with reality, which is either (1) that reality of the world, or (2) the other reality of our authentic self.

Case Study 2 — Don

10:00

Perls: All right.  Do you also start with this experiment?  “Now I am aware of…”

Don: Now I am immediately aware of … that your attention is turned from me …  turned on to me … that my voice seems quavering …  That I …  my mind is sort of split between a fantasy and being aware of my body.

Perls: “Now my mind is split between fantasy and body.”  For me, mind is fantasy.  And when you say, “my mind is split”, I guess you mean, “my attention is split”.

Don: Right?  Exactly.  If my body is in my mind, my mind is on my body.  That’s where my attention is.

I still feel a quivering, like a shivering leaf in my chest.  I notice that my hand is fluttering around a little bit.  I pointed to my chest.  The quivering is rising into my throat.  I’m aware that I’m staring at a carpet.  People’s feet are moving.

Perls: Yeah.  Are you also aware that your avoiding looking?  Looking at me, looking at anybody?

Don: Yeah.  I’m not looking before now.  [Don looks around the room.]  People seem very tense, sort of suspended… but very real.

Perls: So can you now start shuttling between self-awareness and world awareness?  The self-awareness is symbolized by the word “I”, and the world awareness by the word “you”.  “I” and “thou”.  If you have too much “I”, you’re self-centered with donetzen [sic], and if you have too much “thou”, you’re paranoic, or aggressive, or businessmen, or something like that.

Don: Well, I’m looking at you.  I’m looking at you now, and the more I look at you the less quivering I feel inside myself.  And some of you seem to look right straight at me, and some of you look out from the side of your head or from the top of your head.  Shirley, you seem to be looking at me, from below or above, and Dawn, you seem to be [looking at me] from the side of your head.

Perls: Now shuttle back to self-awareness.

Don: I feel a great ball of tension in here.  My mouth is dry.

Perls: Now shuttle back to world awareness.

Don: I seem to want to focus on one or another…

Perls: You are still in the “I”.

Don: [Looks at Gordon.]  Gordon, you’re looking very confident but a bit fierce.

Perls: Yeah.  Now you saw it.  Now shuttle back to yourself.

Don: That makes me feel confident.  [Don smiles with self-satisfaction.]

Perls: Now you see, you get an integration.  “World” and “I” are one.  If “I” see, I don’t see.  The world just is there.  As soon as I see, I strain, I pierce, and do all kinds of things except having a world.

Perls: Okay, thank you.

[Don leaves the Hot Seat.  Penny comes forward and sits in the hot seat.]

Case Study 3 — Penny

Perls: Your name is?

Penny: Penny

Perls: You are Penny.  Yeah.

Penny: I’m aware of my heart beating.  My hands are cold.  I’m afraid to look out.  My heart is still pounding.

Perls: Were you aware of how you avoided me? Cute!

You looked at me and quickly looked away.  This!

[Penny smiles.]

Perls: Were you aware that you started smiling when you looked at me?

[Penny nods with acknowledgment.]

Perls: What kind of smile did you experience?

Penny: I’m afraid.  I try to hide my fear.

Perls: Is your fear pleasant or unpleasant?

[Penny is contemplative and silent.]

16:00

Perls: Do you feel comfortable with your fear?

Penny: Yes.  My heart’s not pounding so much anymore.

Perls: Now try to get more of the rhythm of contacting the Gestalt, of coping in the Gestalt.  This is the rhythm of life.  You flow towards the world, and you withdraw into yourself; you flow towards the world and withdraw into yourself.  That is the basic rhythm of life.  In winter we are more withdrawn, some are more outgoing.  During the night we withdraw deeply, and during the day, we are more busy with coping.  If I miss a word, I withdraw to my dictionary and come back when I’ve found the word to fill in the gap in the sentence.

17:00

So this rhythm goes on, and … “I” and “thou” together form a unit, and if you…  if you have this Middle Zone, then this Middle Zone comes between you and the world and stops you from functioning adequately, especially if in this middle there are catastrophic expectations or complexes that distorts your view of the world and so on.

Yeah, we can deal with this later.  Right now, I want to give you a feel of that contact and withdrawal situation.  “I” possibly withdraw as deep as possible.  Go even away from this whole world, and then come back.  Then you see again, “Us.”  And you will see what will happen if you try this world.

Penny: I feel frustrated.  I want to do something.

Perls: Say this again.

Penny: I want to do something.

[Penny closes her eyes and dwells on her self-awareness.]

Perls: Now come back.

[Penny opens her eyes and looks at Perls.]

Perls: What do you experience here now?

Penny: Colors are bright. The colors are bright!

Perls: “The colors are bright!”  That is a good symptom.  This is what we call, in Gestalt therapy, a mini Satori.  She begins to wake up.  Did you notice this?  The world becomes clear.  The colors are bright.  This sounded very genuine and spontaneous.

[Penny leaves the Hot Seat.  Perls turns his attention to Ann.]

Case Study 4 — Ann

Perls: Could you come forward for a time?

[Ann comes to sit in the Hot Seat.]

Perls: Your name is?

Ann: Ann.

I’m aware of a tension in my head. So it’s all around my head.  I feel it as a tingling and tightening, like my head is going to sleep, like a lamb goes to sleep, and it burns as well.

20:00

Perls: Now.  Go to the world.  What are you aware of in your environment?

[Ann becomes emotional and begins weeping.]

I’m aware of this boy here who looks very kindly towards me, in my view.  I sense a release of kindness and understanding.

Perls: Now we come to another condition in Gestalt therapy.  We never gossip about anybody who is here.  You always try to establish contact.  Can you say the same sentence to him instead of gossiping about him?  Say this to him.

Ann: I feel…  I feel…  that your being…  that you feel very kindly and sympathetic.

[The man looks on intently, but remains silent.]

21:00

Perls: Now withdraw again.

Perls: You were aware that you were crying a little bit?

Ann: Mm-hmm.

Perls: So why don’t you say so?

Ann: I’m … I’m aware of crying … just being upset.  I feel it has sort of … the upsetness, the sort of patterns has broken up in some way.

Perls: Now come back to us.

[Ann opens her eyes and faces Perls.]

Perls: This time you came to me.  How do you experience me?

22:00

Ann: I experience you as a … a very real … a very sort of definite person who’s just quite close, and just is here with me.  Well, not just with me, but with everybody that’s here.

Perls: Now go away from me again.  Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Ann: I feel that I’m aware of tension in my head, a tightening particularly above my ears.

Perls: Can you close your eyes and find out how you do this?  What are you tensing?  How do you produce your tightness?

Ann: I feel I pull things in, and I pull things together.

Perls: Come back once more.

Ann: I feel the group has sort of opened up a bit.

Perls: Yeah.  Good.  Thank you.

[Perls extends his hand to Ann.  She takes it and leaves the Hot Seat.]

Perls: Now this is the basis of expanding awareness.  We don’t need LSD or any of the artificial means of jazzing us up, if we produce our own awareness.  If we do it ourselves and not rely on artifacts, we have all the basis for growth that we need.

So let’s have a break.

Jack’s Comments

These interactions occurred some 20 years after Perls first developed Gestalt Therapy; his approach, habits, and techniques are highly developed and refined.

Gestalt therapy requires much more emotional discernment, psychological discrimination, and social perception than other therapies.  Here, Perls uses a technique that I’ll call, “The Precise Ear” which requires the teacher (or counselor, mentor, etc.) to have excellent listening skills, such that he is able to comprehend (1) what the speaker intends to say but which is NOT being said, and (2) what the speaker is expressing, but may not be very well aware of.  The counselor will then help the client find more precise words to express exactly what the client means.

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