Gestalt therapy in narcology: essence, basic techniques and methods, patient feedback

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Clinics offering to get rid of narcotic and alcohol addiction, build their work on the same principle: the breaking of a breakdown, the restoration of a more or less healthy state and rehabilitation. All three items are inextricably linked to the work of the therapist. The methods offered by psychotherapists are different, but their purpose is to make sure that the drug does not control the life of a person, but the person himself has learned to live without the use of means that change consciousness. One of these methods of helping patients is Gestalt therapy.

Basics of Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt is a very complex concept. In simple terms, the gestalt is an integral image that does not consist of any parts. Gestalt therapy, as a psychotherapeutic method, treats man not as a conditional sum of biological needs, psychological interests and material desires, but as an integral unit.

The purpose of this psychotherapeutic method is to teach a person to live in specific conditions, accepting himself with all the advantages and disadvantages, teaching him to contact other people and finding a balance between expressing one's position and developing relationships with other people.

Many narcological clinics have professional psychotherapists in their staff who use basic techniques in Gestalt therapy to treat a variety of addictions.

Basic concepts of

The basis of this method is the following concepts: figure-background, contact, awareness, polarity, maturity and some others.

A figure is the basic human need that arose at a particular moment and requires satisfaction. All the rest in therapy is considered a background. Satisfied need gives way to new desires. Thus our life flows. In time the therapists come true call a completed gestalt, and not completely fulfilled deeds and unfulfilled hopes - an incomplete gestalt. It is the unfinished gestalt that is the burden that we carry in our soul for years and thus provoke the development of all new situations that lead to negative consequences.

Another fundamental concept of Gestalt psychology is awareness. This term is closely related to the notion of "living here and now".Awareness allows a person to see the real world as it is, see themselves in it, realize their true needs, live a real life, and not try to adapt to the expectations of others.

From awareness comes one more basic postulate - responsibility. A person who realizes himself in the real world and lives in the present will never shift responsibility for his actions to others. W. Whatever happens to a person is responsible only for himself and no one else.

Basic principles of

The basic principles on which the foundation of a healthy personality is based, Perls calls the following:

1. Live at this point in time, without looking back to the past and not thinking about the future.
2. To accept the real world as it is. Do not think up what does not exist.
3. Accept and love yourself as you are.
4. Do not lie to yourself, even in small things.
5. Afford a full range of emotions - not only pleasant, but also negative.
6. Open for growth, change, try something new, experiment.
7. Do not pay attention to those who are trying to stop your growth, do not listen to other people's opinions about yourself, if they contradict your inner knowledge about yourself.
8. Honestly express your thoughts, show what you want is you, without trying at the same time to manipulate other people.

Purpose and objectives of

The goals and objectives of Gestalt therapy are as follows:

• help the patient to identify incomplete gestals that prevent him in real life, live and complete these situations;
• develop in the client a sense of faith in themselves and their desires, help to realize their true needs;
• to promote a person's awareness of inner and outer reality, the ability to solve all his problems on his own;
• help a person understand how he reacts to certain life situations, expand his understanding of life, allow him to take responsibility for his actions.

The personality of the therapist and the degree of confidence in the client play a significant role in achieving these goals.
The video of the basics of Gestalt therapy:

The essence of Gestalt therapy in narcology

Gestalt therapy gives good results in the treatment of patients with addictive behavior. At the heart of any dependence, from the point of view of psychotherapy, is the patient's departure from reality, from the realization of his place in this world. Psychotherapists who specialize in Perls teach help the patient to realize themselves, to understand their place in the real world, to change their behavior by fully realizing their problem and learn how to live without being manipulated by others and manipulating others. Simply put, the goal of Gestalt therapy in narcology is to help the patient live in the real world - "here and now", realizing their problem, but not digging into it, teaching new behaviors that do not affect the use of narcotic substances.

The Gestalt therapist helps addicted people to become more mature personalities able to contact the environment, satisfy needs, express their emotions, be honest with others and, first of all, with themselves. The dependent learns to differentiate his own desires and needs, imposed on him by the existing dependence.

Methods

In the treatment of serious addictions, Gestalt therapists can use the following techniques:

1. Suppressive. With this technique, the patient should focus on his own sensations, without being distracted by other activities. Looking inward, the dependent can realize how pernicious his habit is.
2. Expressive technique. Increasing the emotions and feelings of dependent people so that they can feel them.
3. Learning to feel. Drug addicts and alcoholics can not be emotionless without the presence of addiction in their lives. Gestalt therapist teaches not only to talk about feelings, but in reality with the help of special exercises to learn to experience.

Exercises aimed at increasing awareness:

• in order to realize the real purpose of their actions and the emotions caused by them, it is necessary each time to ask themselves two questions: what happens at this moment with me and with my body( do I breathe normally,what do I do and what I'm thinking about) and what will I do next?
• with increased anxiety the patient needs to concentrate on such points: is there no denying the present in thoughts about future problems;is not anxiety a consequence of a heap of fantasies or a delay in the moment of making a decision?
• after answering such questions should focus on the surrounding world - objects, people's smiles, colors and shapes, sounds and transfer their visions to paper;
• in the future, it is necessary to shift your attention to tactile and physical sensations - to feel the knock of the heart, pulse beat, sound and rhythm of breathing;
• finish the exercise with respiratory gymnastics.

These techniques are designed to reconcile living within each person's opposites.

Empty chair

In an addicted person, as a rule, two opposites come to life - the craving for drugs and the desire to be healed, to cope with the disease. Techniques in Gestalt Therapy like an empty chair as it is impossible by the way will help to express the emotions accumulated inside, thereby to reconcile with reality and see your problems from the side.

The participant of the conversation first talks about his current problems, answers the questions of the members of the collective, and then they put an empty chair opposite him, and he imagines that in this chair is the one with whom he has a conflict - parents, friends, colleagues. The patient first expresses his thoughts to the imaginary opponent, and then can move to the opponent's place and try on the role of the accused. In the same way, you can work with the existing dependency.

Exercise empty chair

Doors opposite

A dependent person, who is in the rehabilitation center for a long time, assumes himself as a recovered person, believing that he will never return to his former life, that he is ready to return home and live fully. The goal of this exercise is to pronounce the best and worst scenario.

The patient is offered to present two doors during a relaxing ceremony, one of which awaits a joyful life without the use of drugs, and after another - a return to the former, full of pain and misery, life.

Working out of dreams and fantasies

During classes with drug addicts and alcohol-dependent games are held in which they describe themselves from a third party or their fantasies. As a rule, patients like such activities, they allow them to realize their creative potential, some begin to clothe their fantasies in verses or compose songs, someone draws. It is important to give a sense of freedom of action and risk doing something that previously could not be done.

Taking responsibility for yourself

In the course of training, patients learn to pronounce phrases: instead of "they offended me. .." - "I have offended" or in return "they do not want to communicate with me" - "I did this and so that with mestopped communicating. "Thus, the dependent learn to take responsibility for their actions, for their further life.

There are a lot of similar exercises in Gestalt therapy. They learn to be aware of their attraction to a chemical substance, to work out this desire and live it up to the end, thereby closing the gestalt. The therapist helps the dependent to develop further mechanisms for overcoming stressful situations without engaging in his life of prohibited drugs, teaches to reflect, live in the real world and honesty first of all before himself.

Reviews

As with many similar psychotherapeutic techniques aimed at the rehabilitation of patients with all kinds of addictions, Gestalt therapy has its supporters and opponents. Some of the psychoanalysts do not accept the use of this method in patients, since they see in Gestalt therapy only the method of satisfying their desires and believe that this method can greatly harm the dependent who are on rehabilitation.

Practitioners Gestalt therapy psychologists, on the contrary, argue that this method helps to manage their desires, deliberately refusing what does not bring satisfaction of needs, while not shifting the blame to others.

Reviews of patients are not so categorical, because for them the main thing is to find firm ground under your feet, learn to live in sobriety and maintain this attitude to life for many years. For patients, it does not matter what methods they have reached their new life, they just live and are happy with every new day spent without addiction to chemicals.