What follows is a transcript of a lecture Harmony Kwiker, MA, LPC, NCC, ACS gave on October 18, 2024, where she focused on facilitating gestalt two-chair experiments with attunement to subtle energy:
Gestalt experiments are therapeutic exercises that offer an access point to the phenomenology of various aspects of the clients inner world. Phenomenology is a client’s present moment, felt experience. Through an experiment, clients are invited to express and feel the phenomenology of their psychological pattern, as opposed to thinking about it, talking about it, trying to do something different. Instead of talking about the problem, we actively explore the client’s inner constructs with experiments. We rearrange the therapeutic environment to create the space for an experiment. We externalize internal constructs and bring them into the space, which serves to increase awareness and to mobilize stored energy and ultimately to support integration.
Experiments are a creative process. This work is not about doing something in a step by step approach. It’s about being in a collaborative, creative present moment exploration with your client. You don’t need to have all the answers. The clients don’t even need to know what it is that they’re going to discover. It’s really about discovering previously unseen potential that lies within the patterns as they exist.
There are several types of experiments: expressive techniques, suppressive techniques, empty chair, and two-chair. Because two-chair is a classic Gestalt experiment, this will be the focus of this webinar.
Polarity
A two-chair experiment encourages dialogue between two aspects of the client’s personality. This type of experiment is often used when there is a clear polarity present. A polarity is made up of two seemingly opposing energies, ideas, emotions, and so on, that seem to contradict one another.
An example of a polarity is the mental construct of perfectionism polarized against the fear of being worthless. The client’s mind might cling to perfectionism while they’re turning away from this deeper fear that lives in the shadow of being worthless. Please note that this is not a polarity between perfectionism and trust in myself. If the client talks about perfectionism, and then also expresses that they trust themselves, this is not a polarity. In a polarity, both aspects block energy and keep a person out of balance. The health that lives at that midline of alignment is not part of a polarity. Alignment and health does not polarize against anything. So we’re looking at what is deeper in the shadow.
Once you start seeing that dominant construct, stay in contact with the client, keep learning their inner world, and discovering what is in the shadow. What is perfectionism casting a shadow on?
Sometimes only the dominant aspect of a polarity is clear. So, for example, an introjection might be very obvious as you sit with a client, and you are having a harder time of seeing what that introjection is casting a shadow on, or what the client has rejected within themselves that’s causing the inner conflict of the polarity. So instead of doing a two chair, you might want to do an empty chair where you put that one aspect in a chair. Through this exploration, you may or may not find a polarity. The experiment might serve to clear the interjection. Working with this one aspect can be really helpful. But just know that this is not a two-chair experiment, but it is an experiment, and it’s completely valid and welcome, and can be very useful.
To get you thinking a little bit more about polarities, I want to offer this exercise. Consider the following: What is it that you cling to? And when you cling to this, what are you avoiding feeling? “I cling to ________ so I don’t have to feel______”
For example, “I cling to perfectionism, so I don’t have to feel worthless,” or “I cling to independence, so I don’t need to feel needy, or “I cling to the voice of should, so I don’t have to feel responsible,” or I cling to responsibility, so I don’t have to feel dependent.”
Another option for those of us who are more other referenced is the following consideration, “I want others to see me as_____, so they don’t think I’m_____.
For example, “I want you to see me as intelligent, so you don’t think that I’m useless,” or “I want you to see me as put together, so that you don’t think I’m a mess.”
While these explorations are for you, I want you to consider that polarities have a client feel out of alignment with their true nature. The experience of a polarity is one of inner conflict or being out of alignment, and oftentimes a client doesn’t even recognize that they have an inner conflict. They just recognize that they don’t feel in connection with the truth of who they are.
In Gestalt. Specifically, Fritz Perls focused on the polarity between the topdog and the underdog. The top dog is a person’s manager or dictator. It’s the internalized voice of should. The underdog is the aspect that has been rejected, the inner rebel that doesn’t want to do as the top dog demands. Oftentimes, when we’re working in a two-chair, the polarity is between the voice of should and whatever is rejecting that voice of should.
It’s important to note that before we do an experiment, we first have found resonance with the client. The more receptive skills of attunement and reflection and listening allow us to contact the client as they are. And when we start to do experiments, we’re moving into more directive stance as a therapist. And because this webinar is only on experiments, I just want to make sure that there’s an understanding that before you do an experiment, be with the client, find resonance with the clients. Have good therapeutic skills of being with, of listening, reflecting, attuning emotionally and energetically, and being really present with our clients.
From this place of presence, experiments will emerge organically. So they’re not from our thought, based reality. We’re not thinking “How we can guide a client somewhere?” We are with the client in the present moment, and the inherent intelligence of the field of awareness emerges with the potential of an experiment. Of course, understanding the concept of an experiment is important. But to really do this work effectively, we must let go of our thought-based reality and listen to the divine wisdom that emerges from the dialogic relationship, which is the authentic engagement that happens in the between dimension of the I Thou.
When we allow ourselves to fully be in the between dimension with our clients and let go of any agenda–let go of any idea of what it means to be a therapist, or like the concepts of what we think might make us useful–experiments emerge naturally and organically. Letting go of our agenda, holding the attitude of wholeness, we honor that our clients, soul knows what it is that they need to heal.
We aren’t trying to heal the client. We’re creating an environment where they can return to that deep wisdom within themselves. And so the awareness that emerges from these types of experiments really allow the client to be reminded of that place within them that knows what it is that they need to heal.
We’re listening with our whole being, not just our mind, but we’re listening with our body, our heart, our energy, and so on our intuition.
We offer accurate reflections of our client’s words, emotions, energetic attunement, and physical expressions. We’re seeing the client as they actually are, and we’re also reflecting the unspoken words the unspoken need beneath the words. It’s this quality of “I see you. I see you and I welcome you. I see you, and let’s be aware of what’s here together.”
Any impulse to fix or change, interpret, analyze, or rearrange the amygdala perceives as a as a threat to safety, and so holding the attitude of wholeness while seeing the client as they actually are, is so powerful in and of itself.
Once we have enough insight into the clients in our world, and we know what they want for themselves, then it might be time to offer an experiment, then this organic sort of intelligence might emerge with an experiment. But in the newness of learning this work I encourage you to wait until you get 2 or 3 pings of doing an experiment. Be sure you have gathered enough information about the polarity before you proceed.
Setting up the experiment.
Once you’ve gathered enough information about the client’s inner conflict, confirm with them that you fully understand the internal structure is causing them distress. Clearly reflect it to them, and ask them what they notice. Make sure that there’s a shared understanding, where you’re not assuming anything about the client.
For example, “It sounds like you have this idea of how you should be, and beneath the voice of should you long to be free?” And so this is a reflective statement is an effort to see the client as they are.
After that you might say, “What do you notice when I reflect that to you?” They might refine it. “Well, it’s not actually that I long to be free. It’s more that like I’m angry that I don’t feel free.” Any anytime you’re missing a piece in your reflection, it gives them a chance to share with you more fully the depth of their experiment, their experience.
Once you and the client have a shared understanding of the polarity, ask them what they want for themselves. In this example. It might seem obvious. It might seem like the client wants to be free, but that might not be true. It’s important that the client gives voice to what they want, because this is their work. It’s their journey, it’s their sacred healing and transformation. And so their spark of will, their sovereign desire and choice is what guides whatever happens next, and this is how you stay client led without with letting go of any assumption or any agenda.
Once you understand the polarity, and you know what they want, you can ask them. “Do you want to try something?”
This consent is important to establish before moving forward. If the client says yes, then you can proceed to explain the two-chair experiment. If the client says, yes, but seems unsure, then reflect that to them “You seem a bit unsure. What do you notice?” You are looking for a full, congruent “Yes” in order to get full consent. We also want to create a culture in our therapeutic container where it’s okay to say no where we’re seeing the client. We’re seeing the patterns of the way that they might betray themselves and say yes to something when they’re really not sure, or they’re actually a no, so that we can confront that incongruence and support them in honoring the full range of their truth.
We’re also prioritizing contact over doing something like we don’t need to do anything. The doing something only matters as much as the client wants to be in this exploration. So really make sure that you’re getting true consent.
Once there is a yes, then explain the experiment in as few words as possible. “Do you want to try something?” The client says, “Yes,” and then you say “I’m wondering if you’re open to putting these two aspects in different chairs so that we can learn from them. What do you think about that?” You’re getting a second round of consent.
To direct the experiment, we begin by inviting them to put one aspect in a different chair. It might seem useful to put the dominant voice in a different chair to get space from the aspects that really is causing them a lot of distress. But it might also seem useful to put the quieter voice in the other chair the part that doesn’t have as much space. Or it might seem useful to ask the client which one they want to put in the other chair.
I really encourage you to listen to your intuition here, and to try different things and see what works. There’s no right way to do this.
As they put one aspect in a different chair, remind them that we’re not trying to make this aspect go away. This exercise is in service of learning and awareness. We just want to learn from this aspect of them.
As they put one aspect in the other chair, invite them to use their hands, their awareness, their words and movements, to physically put it in the other chair. In the way that I work I’ve found that by bringing in the psychological, the somatic, the energetic, and the physical all together amplifies the work.
This step is stylistic to the way I work, and I have found that it serves to unblend the polarity. Once there two aspects are in two different chairs, ask the client the following:
- What is it like to get space from that voice?
- How does that voice seem to you?
- What is the energetic quality of that voice?
- What do you notice in your body as you get space from that voice?
- Is there anything you want to say to that voice? This step can take a while, because there might be several things they want to say it’s important that they say it in the 1st person, directly to the other voice. Everything that they say here is part of the experiment.
Direct them to stay in communication with the one part to the other part as opposed to you. In the unblending stage, the process is slower. There’s a lot of energy moving. There’s a lot of unblending happening. And you’re asking those other those questions so that the client can deepen into their body and allow the energy to mobilize and cathart if it wants to. And they’re they’re accessing each aspect deeply.
Once the client seems to have communication between each aspect you can ask them to, you can direct them to switch more rapidly. Since the deeper contact has been made, the moving back and forth interrupts them from analyzing themselves, and can support the process when done with attunement. Speeding up prevents too much analysis and aboutism, and it supports phenomenology in the resolving of unfinished business.
Please remember that clients need you to direct them through this. They don’t know how to do this, so they genuinely need your direction. So if you feel shy about being directive. Many therapists have an easier time being in those receptive skills, so moving into this directive stance can feel vulnerable or scary.
As they move back and forth, you’re also inviting them to deepen into contact “What do you notice in your body when you say this,” or “You seem uncertain as you say this.” So we’re staying in those being with skills all along.
To learn more, please check out the recorded webinar in Gestalt Foundations and Experiments: https://thespirituallyaligned.com/coach/trainings/
Please enjoy this PDF handout on facilitating a gestalt two-chair experiment: Download Handout