Hey everybody,

You doing OK? I only ask because, you know, we’re in the middle of quite a spell right about now and it’s important that we take care of ourselves and each other and... you’re all pretty great for showing up and we appreciate you, I guess. So, we hope you’re all right today and that the weight of the universe is light upon your shoulders.

I had a rough weekend, if you don’t mind my saying. Have I told you about the COVID? Well, we had a visit back in July and the recovery process is long. So, this weekend I find myself staring square in the face of my old friend anxiety and his pal panic and ... well... things fall apart. We’ve all been there, right?

As I clawed my way back to daylight, I found myself running through some new language, like, a script I’d heard but never read. They were words of navigation more than bland encouragement and the more I repeated them, the more control I found...

Here’s the big reveal: I didn’t see it coming, but in my exhausted daze, I had somehow managed to internalize the words of this week’s guest.

Her name is Carleen Britton and she’s a clinical social worker in Nashville. She’s here to teach us about Gestalt Therapy. Get ready, because Carleen is a superb educator and gives us a clear description of Gestalt practice, how it differs from other interventions, and then caps it off with an exercise that starts as an angry conversation with what might as well have been the robot in my phone, and ends with a gift of self-talk the likes of which I’ve never quite experienced.

Our great thanks to Carleen for her time to sit down with Dodge and educate us all. And thanks to you, as always, for your commitment to the work.

— Pete

Links & Notes

• The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland