Friday, December 15, 2006

the gestalt cycle


yes, yes, another one of these weekends is here upon me. and we started off yesterday with the gestalt cycle of experience. while each person/practitioner draws their cycle differently, interjecting different words, this is close enough

to explain it, i would use my friend robin and her son luke, as the infant is a perfect example. luke is not an unhappy baby, but when he getys hungry or tired or diaper rash, he begins to cry, leaving robin guessing what SENSATION is bothering luke. for lukes part, he has developed AWARENESS of the senssation, and knows that crying will bring relief after some guesing and experimenting on robins part, and that is his ACTION then, to cry. so Robin gives him the breast and there is CONTACT with not just nourishment for his belly, but also the experience of mother (another great infantile need). finally, as luke finishes eating robin gently ends the feeding session, talking and bonding with him to create CLOSURE/WITHDRAWAL... and there the cycle is complete.

try plugging anything in, and you will realise that this cycle is everywhere, and if not completed successfuylly, will crate problems for the person/system (imagine if everytime luke got close to finished eating, robin decided to quickly end and put luke in his crib? she would experience disturbances in lukes eating cycle, as it would not be SATISFYING him)...

Song of the day:

5 comments:

HitThaFloor said...

and luckily, after much time and growing, those needs can usually be verbalized. Wait a minute - most cycles end up not being able to be completed properly because the verbalization creates communication problems. Hmmmm. But, Molly, don't forget that right now I'm still on decongestants and makes my head fuzzy so maybe this isn't as enlightening as I really think it might be). Although when I started reading it I was thinking of how he is now and not while he was nursing, even a few months can cause nostalgia.

molly said...

no, its got nothing to do with your decongestant, your right, verbalization brings a whole new set of challenges to successfully completing a cycle

Anonymous said...

You know, I agree with Robin in the sense that this cycle you are describing is often not completed sucessfully, meaning that if communication is screwed up, disturbances happen. (which is probably exactly why this was brought up???) We human have perfected our defenses so well that we would need to break them down to properly communicate. I am not sure where I am going with this but please write more about your weekend.... (I am sooo jealous!)
Kirsti

molly said...

i understand where you are both coming from, i use the infant mosel because it is a very clear example to begin working the steps of it. it highlights the simplicity instead of the complex...

kirsti, try watching a client of yours in group therapy and watch for completed and uncompleted cycles, and robin, gabriel is at a good age to watch as the complexities are only minor compared to say, a married couple's cycle

molly said...

oh, and i have some examples of the incomplete cycle and what can lead to such that i will try and put upp when i get home on thursday

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