The gift of Gestalt is that we have never “done life” alone. Even in the womb we are adjusting and expressing our relationship to space and time, to acceptance and non-acceptance. We have been relating to others our entire lives. In fact there is nothing about you or me that was not developed in response to how others saw or responded to us.

We carry inside us desire for many kinds of skin-to-skin touch – a mother’s hand on our cheek, a teacher’s touch of encouragement, a lover’s touch on our skin. In fact the skin, called the largest organ of the human body, is intended to relay information to us about the quality of touch, its honesty, and its level of health. We have had this ability since we were children. But more basic to this is the touch that comes from the intention of the other and my embodied response to it. This is the touch before the physical touch – the touch of our approach to one another, of the space between us.

This has to be the most “used” word in psychotherapy as well as being the least understood. For example, you might say: I have a problem taking support, or I don’t have people around me to support me… In the early days of Gestalt therapy, support meant self support — if we were lucky we created that as children to protect those parts of self-expression that no one seemed to appreciate. We grow up into self-sufficient adults, which socially is a highly valued state. But support doesn’t mean finding the right person or the right environment.

The most challenging part of our training is understanding the language of the body as expressed through gestures such as clenching of the fist, looking down or away, holding of tension, alteration in blood flow to the face or other body part. Because we have learned from earliest childhood to withhold facial and body expressions such as attraction, revulsion, disappointment, joy, we are often misread and misunderstood by one another. An exquisite sensitivity must be developed to sense and respond to subtle exchanges of energy and posture that are really screaming to be seen and heard.

Over the years of my study of awareness, I have many times asked of myself to “go to my body,” and to “get out of my head.” I have understood that “getting out of my head” meant getting out of analyzing, thinking, explaining, to myself or others. Many times over I found myself valuing this […]