What is Psychotherapy?
The term has been used in a variety of ways and today is often identified with some form of talk-therapy. In my practice I return to its roots: The word itself is derived from the two Greek words "psyche" meaning soul and "therapeuein" meaning to take care of, to guide, and to heal. Thus psychotherapy literally means healing the soul.
When people suffer from emotional distress we sometimes also say that their heart or soul hurts. Unlike in counseling where we seek advice and input from another person, holistic psychotherapy promotes healing from within. We focus on developing personal strengths, unused potential and resources, and the integration of body, mind, soul, and spirit.
The Process of BGT
"Lose your mind and come to your senses." This is what Fritz Perls, a famous psychologist and founder of Gestalt-therapy once said about the goals of his therapy. What he wanted to emphasize was how important it is to be aware of ourselves and our environment with all senses. This awareness and sensing ability is the opposite of thinking, analyzing, or seeking for reasons and causes. We now also call it mindfulness.
When we learn to be mindful of ourselves we can observe thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them or being caught up and swept away by negative reactivity. It is then that we are able to engage with what is happening in the present.
Healing through the heart
This is the major philosophy of BGT (Ganzheitliche [holistic] Bild [drawing] & Gestalt Therapy), a form of holistic psychotherapy I trained in and am drawing on in most sessions. After an initial intake session where we usually discuss your history, resources, and goals, sessions often start off with a short discussion of the current 'problem' and becoming aware of the associated emotions, feelings, and/or body-sensations.
In the process of one session I combine different techniques which target the integration of body, mind, and spirit:
Drawing emotions, feelings, and (body) sensations- Mindful observation & sensing
- EMDR®
- Guided Imagery
- Holding Flower Essences
- Movement (from small to large)
- Energy Healing techniques
The body remembers
I believe that the origin to many life challenges and patterns that we encounter over and over are our body's attempt to process events from the past. They may stem from our early childhood, infancy, a serious birth, or complications in-utero such as Twin Loss. We often do not remember these consciously, but our body remembers - through tensions, back-pain, sleep-problems, unexplainable fears, a 'hurting' heart, and many other ways.
In BGT sessions, we attempt to become aware of, and properly process these body-symptoms. Throughout this process you may experience emotions, feelings or body-sensations. Through allowing them to surface we give our body the right to tell the story of what the child, the baby, the embryo in utero have felt; it is often only in this way that the 'self' from today is able to understand that in many situations it is not the grown-up self, but the often much younger one who may be angry, sad, disappointed, afraid, or frozen by what happened to him or her. Once this process is completed, those symptoms often completely disappear.
Helping the ailing soul - current & past life interventions
Sometimes, we find that one of our many inner children or infants is not feeling nor sensing anything in situations of (perceived) great danger. Then it can be that, back then, a part of the 'life-energy' left its bodily self while taking all emotions and feelings with him; this energy I call 'soul' or 'life-energy'.
Our goal is to communicate with this 'part' and to retrieve it via a variety of interventions so that we become whole again. Sometimes we end up in a 'past life' or a situation that does not seem to belong into this life. In these instances our goal is to gain information which beliefs were formed and are still playing themselves out in the present.
This process is different from a past life reading or hypnotic regression! We are not only looking for an explanation for symptoms but we are actively targeting an adaptive resolution to held beliefs and body-symptoms. We are archieving this through the integration of a variety of resources and modalities such as a state of mindfulness, EMDR, drawing, and sensing.
Body sensations, an increased feeling of being more 'present', and more details of the traumatizing event may come back and initiate the healing process in becoming whole again. The return of the life energy leading to heightened perception is often also mirrored in the drawings which may change in size, be more colorful, and show more details.