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The Addict - Recovery Self Dialogue: An Experiential Intervention
Allen Berger, Ph.D.Author: 12 Stupid Things that Mess Up
Recovery and 12 Smart Things to do When the Booze and Drugs are Gone
Fragmented Selves-Parts Dialogue in Psychotherapy
Gestalt TherapyEmerged as part of the Third Wave in Psychology
Therapeutic Goal: Promote Awareness and Facilitate Integration
Dr. Fritz Perls (1969) defined mental health as
“an appropriate balance of the coordination of all of
what we are.”
Dr. Erving Polster said that the goal of psychotherapy is “...to merge the
disharmonious aspects of the person so that they [can] become joint
contributors to the person’s wholeness.”
Gestalt Therapy Shuttle Technique
“When there is a psychological disturbance these selves are alienated from each other, leading to
fragmented living.”
E. Polster, Ph.D. (1995).
This means that integrating the different parts of
ourselves into a unified whole is critical to a stable
recovery.
Addiction Voice Dialogue Rational Recovery
Rational Recovery Systems
Addictive Voice Recognition Technique.
“The Addictve Voice is the only reason you drink (J. Trimpey, 1994, p.67).”
Rational Recovery Systems
Addictive Voice = Beast
Beast = Midbrain
Midbrain is Survival Driven
Rational Recovery Systems
“Your Beast is comfortable with your surrender of control to a poorly understood Higher Power, your dependence on others for sobriety, and your “alcoholic” self concept. It delights in your short range plans to stay sober one day at a time and in your sharing your graphic, entertaining stories of past drinking episodes (J. Trimpey, 1994, p.67).”
Rational Recovery Systems
Therapy consists of understanding the Beast and that it is out to get you.
Making a commitment to never now drink - The Big Plan.
Abstinence outcome focus.
Recognition of the Addictive Voice and Facing Down the Beast
Addict Self - Recovery Self Dialogue
Addict Self Recovery Self
Manipulative, Dishonesty, Deception, Calculating, and
Disingenuous
Honesty, Transparency, Genuineness, and Authenticity
Unawareness, Numbness and Deadness
Awareness, Aliveness, Interest, Passion, and Responsiveness
Closed, Deliberate, and Controlling
Openness, Freedom and Spontaneity
No Respect for Self and Others
Respect for Self and Others
Distrust and Cynicism Trust, Faith and Belief
Toxic Nurturing
Characteristics of Addict Self - Recovery Self
Gestalt Shuttle Technique
Create a dialogue between the Addict-Self and Recovery-Self.
Use the immediate to search for what is missing.
Facilitate integration and harmony.
1. Laying the ground work. 2. Negotiating consensus.
3. Describing the experiment. 4. Enacting the experiment.
5. Locating the client’s energy. 6. Focusing awareness.
7. Identifying what is missing and formulating the working point.
8. Monitoring the working point.
9. Frustrating avoidance, encouraging expression and facilitating
integration.10. Debriefing and closure.
Protocol for Setting Up Psychological Experiments
The Shuttle Technique: In Early Recovery
The Shuttle Technique: Later in Recovery
Incomplete Sentences
The addict in me is planning to sabotage my treatment by _____________.
The idea about myself that I would have to give up if I really embraced recovery would be ___________.
If I let my doubts about your ability to help me speak, they would say __________________.
The addict in me will_______________.
“Therapy at its greatest moments provides masterful
examples of a sequential imperative, the sense of the
irresistible sweep into nextness. Experience
appears to be seamlessly and inevitably
interconnected, forming a sequential fit.”
E. Polster, Ph.D. (1995).
“The ideal therapist-client relationship is one which will instill hope, promote awareness, identify what is missing, facilitate integration
of fragmented parts of self, and support an ongoing commitment in
the client to the process of recovery.”
Allen Berger, Ph.D. (2011)
Contact Information
Allen Berger, Ph.D.818 - 584 - 4795
Concepts of Gestalt Therapy
Organismic Self-Regulation - a dynamic process not a mechanism.
“The organism is striving for the maintenance of an equilibrium which is continuously disturbed by its needs and regained through their gratification or elimination (F.S. Perls, 1947).”
Concepts of Gestalt Therapy
Figure - Background - Gestalt“Integration is a prerequisite for the satisfactory functioning of figure/ground development. To create gestalts that will meet our needs, we must be able to choose from all our possibilities. If we cannot call on all the parts of ourself, our gestalts will be correspondingly weak (J. Latner, 1972, p.50).”
I Sense
I Become Aware
I Arouse, Energize
I Invent What to Do
I Invent What to Do
I Take Action, Make Contact
I Feel Gratified
I Lose Interest
I’m Available Again
Cycle of Experience
I Invent What to Do
Cycle of Experience
I Sense
I Become Aware
I Arouse, Energize
I Invent What to Do
I Take Action, Make Contact
I Feel Gratified
I Lose Interest
I’m Available Again
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