Article by Joanna Sawicz in “Psychology in Practice”

Joanna Sawicz’s article in Psychology in Practice titled “How mindfulness practice supports the quality of presence in the relational function of Gestalt therapy” is an excellent resource that we heartily recommend to you. Asia Sawicz is not only a trainer and supervisor of the Lodz Gestalt School, but also a beautiful soul and an amazing personality. Below is an excerpt from the article and a link to the full version of the content.

“I don’t know how to start.” – is my first thought, one of the many I’ve been registering since I undertook to write this text. How to write about something that I have known, performed and used in my life for many years. How to describe something that has become part of me, my life and career path. Further there are thoughts from the category of requirements: how to commit an “interesting” statement for others. Interesting, inspiring, valuable. In my body I feel the tension growing, my heart beating more clearly, and in my emotions I feel anxiety and increasing reluctance, with a bit of excitement. I follow the excitement, make a choice and reach for the computer and start writing.

In a nutshell, I have now described the gestalt, the forming figure. The word “gestalt” (from German) just means “figure”, “figure”. Gestalt therapy originated in the early 1950s. Its creators are the aforementioned Frederick Perls, Ralph Hefferline and Paul Goodman. It is a multilayered modality whose main assumptions are founded on phenomenology, field theory and self theory. Today I will introduce self theory and how mindfulness, or mindfulness practice, intertwines with this theory.

The self in Gestalt therapy is not a rigid, permanent structure (as in other modalities). This is why describing and understanding the self is so difficult. Because how to describe something so elusive and fluid? Self manifests itself in the body’s contact with the environment. It manifests itself through:

1. personality functions – the function of our identity, what goes here from the Id function and Ego function becomes the answer to the question: who am I now?

2 Id functions – it’s all about the atmosphere and climate at a given moment, the sense of situation, potentiality and possibility; indeterminacy, formlessness; it’s a series of different sensations and impressions in the body that can’t yet be named; a variety of thoughts, concepts, imaginations; the impression of floating as if in a fog. Sensation implies the appearance of emotions, and they, with increasing excitement, appear with feeling. The feeling is already a clear information from the here and now about our specific need.”

3. Ego functions – so a figure emerges, and it invites us to take action. In the Ego function, after recognizing a need, identifying it, we give it meaning and then decide whether and how we will satisfy that need. We accept or reject, want – don’t want. We make a choice, there is mobilization, a peak of excitement, a sense of agency, creativity and contact.

Link to the full version of the article.