What do you do when you have an open Gestalt? I begin in this episode to tell you about how I created an open gestalt by acting too fast. Sending an email without reading it twice, leaving abruptly without a proper goodbye which left some wondering if I was angry with them. Over the years I have learned to say a proper goodbye and properly close the Gestalt.

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We humans tend to like completeness, we want to make sense of the things that are happening to us and around us. And sometimes we do not get the closure we need and we are left with unfinished business or an open Gestalt.

How is this important?

The way we deal with unfinished business is entirely personal. Everyone deals with this in a different way and it all depends on our life situation as well. How you have been brought up, how you have developed and where you are right now. Some unfinished business can’t be solved, for example when the person you had an argument with is no longer in your life. For some this can feel devastating.

I will go deeper into the individual way of dealing with an open gestalt by performing a little experiment with you, dear listener.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

When we grow up our experiences are highly dependent on the adults in our lives. As mentioned before, we constantly want to make sense of what is happening around us and the understanding will calm us down, a sort of self-regulation. What can help us, which we so often go to in Gestalt Therapy, is our awareness.

References:

Podcast Production by Lagor Services - Laila Noort

https://www.lagorservices.com/

Web Design by Patrik Osterblad

https://www.patrikosterblad.com/

Books mentioned:

Gestalt by Rasmussen & Busk, Publisher Frydenlund, 2015

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

Nutrition and eating has been part of many conversations I have had with clients in my praxis. In relation to stress or burnout, taking medication that influences weight or any other causes.

Food is our fuel so I thought this was a good opportunity to invite Anne Mette Franch Brandstrup who is a Nutrition therapist.

Anne Mette is originally from Denmark, just like me, and has been living in Luxembourg for over 22 years.

In this episode we will be talking about the connection between Nutrition and Gestalt Therapy

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The figure of today is about balance or restoring balance for women plus 40. Or as we like to say in Gestalt Therapy: “Becoming who you are” or as Anne Mette so elegantly added; “Becoming the BEST of who you are”

How is this important?

Nutrition is an important subject in many of the sessions that I have with clients. It is often related to unhappiness due to overweight or eating disorders, low energy levels, stress or major life changing situations. Anne Mette will give a bit of insight on how nutrition is important for women plus 40, the majority group of her clients.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

Diet and providing nutritional advice is only part of Anne Mette’s strategy. She goes much deeper into finding the root cause of the symptoms to really create a profound and necessary change. This is where the connection between her work as a nutrition therapist and Gestalt Therapy is very clear.

More about Anne Mette Franch Brandstrup

Website:

Www.nutritionnhealth.eu

E-mail:

[email protected]

Instagram:

Nutritionnhealth_nnh

Facebook:

Nutrition N Health

To Forgive is part of everyone’s life. Either to forgive someone else or ourselves and in some cases both. The feeling of anger, disappointment, resentment and sadness can cause physical and emotional problems if you are unable to forgive.

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In my Gestalt Therapy praxis I have worked with many clients on forgiving and also not wanting to, or unable to forgive. Often enough the person that needs to be forgiven is not in the room or there is not an opportunity to talk to this person. When that happens we work with experiments which I have spoken about in previous episodes.

How is this important?

To clarify why it is important to forgive, I am giving a concrete example of Hugo, a client of mine who was cheated on by his girlfriend. Hugo decided to forget her and that would make her disappear. Eventually he started to get physical problems, because forgetting and forgiving are not the same.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

Hugo recognized that the physical problems were related to the break up with his girlfriend. By recognizing and understanding he was able to do something about it. By talking to her in the experiments he became more at peace with the situation. Even though he did not forgive her, he was now ready to move on.

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

Growing old with respect for your body by listening to it. That is the subject of this episode where I talk with Fleur Adams, a yoga therapist on how to be more aware and how to get in touch with our bodies, accept our limitations and work with the possibilities that we have.

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The turning point in many people’s lives is when they realise that our bodies do not heal as quickly anymore and that some inconveniences are something we have to learn to live with. Fleur tells a little about her realisation that running a marathon approaching 50 years old without any prior experience wasn’t the best idea and that that was her turning point moment.

How is this important?

When you get older you need to be more attentive to your body. Exercise regularly, because in respect of your body you still need to move. But you need to do this with care and acceptance.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

The similarities between Gestalt Therapy and Yoga Therapy is in discovering where we are right now, how we act, moment by moment. Yoga Therapy is about finding our body’s limitations and using this knowledge to specifically design yoga movements and poses to create a better posture, building up muscles and releasing tension.

Fleur Adams :

https://www.yogahjerte.org

Remo Rittiner :

https://www.yogamehome.org/yoga-lehrer/remo-rittiner

4 livs-stages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āśrama_(stage)

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

During the summer we may have more time to think and reflect. When you have suffered a loss this summer-period could bring up those heavy feelings of grief and sadness. In this episode I talk about how we deal with loss.

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There are many kinds of losses. The loss of a loved one, a pet, a job, a marriage and so on. In the Figure of today I also talk about my own loss and how I experienced it and how it affects me still.

How is this important?

Grieving and dealing with loss is very important. We need some kind of reassurance that life will not be so painful, meaningless or chaotic forever. And that it is allowed to laugh or feel happy.

I talk about the well known five stages of grief model by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance and how this might be too linear and that a person can go through these stages randomly. Today the more widely used Dual model by Stroebe and Shut are also discussed.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

When it comes to working with a grieving person as a therapist, I believe that an important part of therapy or counseling is to be there with the bereaved person. Not in a fix it mode but in a listening processing way. Experiencing the pain and emotions in the moment.

References :

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, “On Death and Dying” (1969)

Margaret Stroebe, Henk Schut (1999): THE DUAL PROCESS MODEL OF COPING WITH

BEREAVEMENT: RATIONALE AND DESCRIPTION, Death Studies, 23:3, 197-224 To link to this article:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/074811899201046

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

In Gestalt Therapy we use different experiments.  In earlier episodes for example I have already mentioned the empty chair experiment. This time I have a guest Emmanuelle Lamberty who uses the experiment called Sandplay in her Gestalt Therapy praxis. Emmanuelle is of Belgian and Luxembourgish origin and has her praxis in Belgium right at the Luxembourgish border. She has lived in The US and Germany, loves to learn new languages and finds her inspiration in nature, creativity and existential matters.

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Using experiments in Gestalt Therapy sessions can bring new awareness for clients. They are called experiments because you never know what will come out of it. There is no right or wrong result.

Sandplay uses a vast amount of objects placed in a tray of sand, these objects could be anything, elements of nature, cartoons, household etc. The clients use these objects to communicate whatever they feel like.

How is this important?

Sandplay is a very practical tool, it is very useful for people who are in their heads a lot and have trouble finding the words. It helps create realisations, some clients come in the therapy room with a question about one thing but end up realising that something else is more important to work on because of the object that person has chosen.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

Using Sandplay is to really go into something, using action by choosing and placing the object and visualising the problem or issue at hand.

Awareness is also important in Sandplay, what the client is feeling when touching the sand or placing the objects. The sensations of the body as well as the mind are the connecting factors for using Sandplay as a Gestalt Therapy experiment.

References :

Inventor of Sandplay - Margaret Lowenfeld

More about Emmanuelle;

www.elamberty.be (website in French only ; sessions in French, English and Luxembourgish)

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

Using Yoga as a stress relief. That is how my guest Lisa started with Yoga 20 years ago.She realised that Yoga helped her stay grounded in the present moment and gave her strength to go through difficult times.

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We talk about the connection between Yoga and Gestalt Therapy. The different kinds of Yoga, where it originated and what kind of Yoga Lisa teaches but also the philosophy behind it. How to live your life optimally to enhance the experience of your life.

Lisa explains it this way; “ "When we feel good in our bodies, we also feel far better in our minds. And when we feel good in our minds, we feel better in our bodies. There for me is the connection."

How is this important?

The physical aspect of Yoga can bring you flexibility, pain relief. But Lisa’s clients have also experienced that it can ease mental issues as well. By practising yoga on a regular basis they are reconnecting with their body and with the present moment.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

In Gestalt Therapy people learn to be more aware of problems, challenges and understand more about their habits and reactions in certain situations. Yoga can be helpful to deepen one’s own awareness and be more mindful. By checking in with what is going on inside your body, opening the flow of energy and making it a personal journey it relates closely to the awareness zones we use in Gestalt Therapy.

References :

Lisa van Laarhoven:

Lisa is a co-founder, together with Laurence Godfrind  of LiLa Luxembourg which offers online Early Morning yoga classes  She also gives live adult and kids group and private lessons.

https://www.lilaluxembourg.com/

How you can reach Lisa van Laarhoven;

Facebook:

Early Morning Yoga by LiLa Luxembourg

https://www.facebook.com/LiLaLuxembourg/

Personal page

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009334501641

Instagram:

LiLa Luxembourg

https://instagram.com/lila.luxembourg?r=nametag

Personal

https://instagram.com/laarhovenlisavan?r=nametag

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

This episode subject has been on my mind for a long time. It is not easy to talk about suicide prevention. However, I guess not talking about it is even worse… because everything we don’t talk about tends to get infected with shame and guilt and misunderstandings and loneliness.

Therefore I have taken the beautiful, meaningful and globally organised walk called; Darkness into Light as part of the theme for this episode.

If you or any person you know have suicidal thoughts, please follow the instructions I am providing

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In the figure of today I talk about the organisation of the Darkness into Light walk. Where it originated and what its purpose is. The walk symbolises going from darkness, early in the morning to the rising of the sun and the hope a new day brings.

In the references you can find more information about this walk and you can see if there is one organised near you.

How is this important?

To be able to move from darkness into a life of light can be a road of hardship, sadness and finally hope. For those that are witnessing others struggling I am giving you the warning signs to look out for and what to do to prevent someone from taking their own life.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

The subject of today’s episode is at the core of existentialism and the ultimate concerns like death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness.

I feel I need to let this be for the moment and move to the understanding of what people with suicidal ideations experience. The desperation they feel. I rather want to talk about what we can do, because there's always something to do.

References :

Darkness into Light Walk

(1) darkness into light 2022 - Search Results | Facebook

Darkness into Light

https://www.thesun.ie/news/2597484/man-behind-darkness-into-light-opens-up-about-the-loss-of-his-children-and-how-pieta-house-helped-him-through-the-tears/

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

My very first guest on the show is Una Mirkovic who is also a Gestalt Therapist, born in Serbia now based in Luxembourg. Next to her practice in Luxembourg she works as a  volunteer Gestalt Therapists for different French Associations, now doing mainly online sessions with individuals and groups. In the references on my website you can find the links to the associations.

During this episode we talk about who can benefit from Gestalt Therapy, who Una’s clients are and what methods she prefers to work with.

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The most important factor with regards to effectiveness of therapy is actually the therapist. We discuss the importance of finding the right therapist for you because if you have seen a therapist and found that it did not work for you, find another therapist.

How is this important?

Una talks about the different associations she works for and the diversity in clients she gets through them. The clients she gets through the associations are different from her own practice where she deals mostly with trauma, anxiety, panic attacks and eating disorders. By focusing on the awareness of her personal boundaries when it comes to what she can do for her clients she is more able to choose the right client to work with which better serves that client.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

As Una phrases it so eloquently; Gestalt Therapy is not a technique it is a life philosophy that the therapist should adopt first and only then can bring something to the client.

The authenticity of the therapist is important but everything that happens during a session is done in the service of the client and the benefit of the client.

For References go to: https://www.willegestalt.eu/gestalt-podcast

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

And remember any information you hear on this podcast, see on the willegestalt website, Facebook page or Instagram is for information purposes only and should never be a substitute for actual mental and/or medical advice from a doctor, psychiatrist or, any other health professional

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance

The pandemic has changed the way we work. When possible we work from home which means we have lots of meetings via video chat. Online therapy sessions have become part of my daily routine.

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I already offered online sessions to a few clients who moved until they found a new therapist in their new city.  But due to the pandemic, the number of online sessions I am doing is growing.

How is this important?

For me as a therapist, I learned to rely more on facial expressions and tone of voice because this is usually what I can see. Furthermore, new aspects developed to the therapy sessions. My clients e.g. came to some realisations and insights about prioritizing, finding time to focus on themselves and personal boundaries.

What’s Gestalt in all of this?

When experiments like the well-known “empty-chair” are impossible it is remarkable to see that other experiments simply just appear due to the online environment. Retroflection comes into play when for example a client has difficulty finding a quiet place alone to have the session. The way we feel and act during the session can trigger a realisation about how the rest of our own life is going.

You can find all the needed details for contacting me to make an appointment or get more information about my praxis on my website;

https://www.willegestalt.eu/

You can follow me on:

https://www.facebook.com/willegestalt/

https://www.instagram.com/willegestalt/

To make sure you never miss an episode you can follow my podcast via your podcast app of choice.

Just a quick disclaimer:

All case stories are anonymised and no clients are directly quoted without prior written consent.

Music courtesy of TrackTribe - Longer Distance