Tag Archives: Blog

Antal Livia, Olivia

2014

My Inner Conflict through Avoidance and Ignorance

Being aware of biological foundation, knowing that soul has its own project to develop, knowing that we bring trauma footprints from our ancestors, and sensing our present being – we can say this whole is our biography. This whole is that affects in the Here and Now in every second. The way the one exists with their past and inbuilt programs determines the way the one changes and creates their future. It is the one’s responsibility to work on increasing awareness.

The understanding of my process through a vertical and horizontal system helped me to handle and survive heavy, painful emotions which came up. I’ve been in such a painful condition for months. Simultaneously I discovered synchronicity which surrounds me. The themes I learn at Gestalt weekend studies, the paper readings I randomly pick and how my current process is at the moment – lead to the next level I have to work with.

They show where I am in the system of phases and layers at the moment. Autumn 2014 was about being in a situation
in which everything – I mean absolutely everything – is in motion, even though this motion follows no sequence, it is diffused.

The sources of my lifelong conflict are ignorance and avoidance. I can hardly separate experience in the past from feeling them in the Here and Now. On the one side I see my choice to be avoided. If it is not my intention or desire for being avoided in the situation then that is ignorance. I am the passive party in ignorance. That’s why observing the feeling of being ignored I had to realize that being ignored has two polarities: if my intention fits the other party’s intention than that is avoidance. If the intention comes only from the other party that is ignorance. My intention to avoid or being avoided is related to my biography.

http://in-spiral.hu/app/uploads/2019/07/Self-reflection-2014.pdf

Antal Livia, Olivia

December, 2013

Projection as theory of my basic operation examined through the theory of
self, preconception-projection and active curiosity

Reflect upon my own process in personal development comes from realization that my basic operation used to be or still is communication with constant preconceptions. Being in a constant preconception operation means that my attention is stuck in the past. The more I was getting in-
volved in Gestalt studies, the more tools I was given to identify and modify this basic hindering factor. Nice!

Working with preconceptions involves criticism, which is manifested bodily as well. Through Gestalt experiments I did realize that negative emotions are present in my body when I form a negative thought, which is not else than preconception. My observation is that these preconcept-
ions are mostly negative. I carried my critical attitude as a heavy curse so far.

In Gestalt therapy we speak of awareness, which has qualities of content (what is aware) and choice (where do I direct my awareness). Active curiosity requires the person to be in the here and now without any presumption and that’s why new, clear information can reach the person.

This clear input supports the one to pure understanding. Now I know the difference when active curiosity is present. Gestalt therapy is committed to a nonlinear process which can be the only helping process to the person, considering that the person becomes aware of the dynamics within
different fields at the same time.

The theory of self is awareness itself. To become aware of the dynamics within different fields situations, bodily noticing without intention and it is more defuse than attention is. First I hardly understood the differences between Id, Ego and Personality but after the experiment of drawing while we were listening to music I felt wised up. The experiment was three hours long and gave a very strong sensation about the theme.

Before the experiment we were asked to form a question which shows where we are in Gestalt at the moment. My own original question was whether functions overwrite each-other.

http://in-spiral.hu/app/uploads/2019/07/Self-reflection-2013.pdf

Vilma is a 25-year-old lady. She was born and grew up in a little West-Hungarian village. After attending some courses at Science University she moved to London as a guest worker waitress. I first met her when she was on her way to the airport. I saw a beautiful, healthy, smiling young lady
excited about her travel and future.

One and a half year later she called me on Skype. She was on her way to collapse. Her eighteen-month long life in London exhausted her mentally, emotionally and physically. She was close to giving up her foreign life but she was in a vicious circle. She felt she had to quit but she had no money to fly home so she had to stay at work.

In this one-and-a-half-year time period Vilma worked in a 5-star hotel restaurant. People and colleagues loved her and she was on her way to be appointed as a supervisor. She worked 12 hours and 6 days a week. Work lasted till 1 am so she got home at 2 am 6 times a week. London’s public
transport is extremely crowded.

After a while she felt frustration all the time. It took her some time to realize that her frustration comes from the fact that she has no private place never ever. She had no private place for a minute, because she was surrounded by others all the time. At her work
place 2o-25 people worked together and she was continuously on a standby operation. It happened several times a week that her schedule was changed with a high hand. Nobody thought she might have an opinion, want or desire.

After a while she lived in a 24 hour standby. She never knew when her boss would call her and give the new schedule to work. After getting home at nights Vilma had no chance to be alone for a minute either. Six Hungarians lived together in a three bedroom, one living room flat. There was always somebody around. In the living room, in the bathroom or both.

She lived together with her boyfriend in one of the bedrooms. Several times she desired to be alone, read or listen to music but there was no chance. On top of this she did not feel right to speak about her basic needs. Not even her boyfriend knew about her source of frustration. The boy tried to help Vilma feel better, but his tender love just added to his beloved girlfriend’s irritation.

http://in-spiral.hu/app/uploads/2019/07/Case-study-Vilma.pdf

Antal Lívia, Olívia
Case study 
December, 2016

Stucking in powerlessness and lack of communication with family members Case study

“We are flowers. Within each of us is the seed of our potential. As we grow, we grow according to our possibilities.”
Fritz Perls

Awareness

Awareness is both knowing and being. The lack of energy, vitality and the rigidity in responsiveness show low awareness. In this case the most important task for the therapist to raise of the awareness of the client. Awareness of what she feels, thinks, how she behaves, how she impacts on her environment and how the environment impacts on her, what is going on in her self-process, like body and information senses, how she makes contact. By taking my client’s thoughts and feelings seriously with full attention, I invite her to do the same with herself. By paying attention to the whole field I can help my client bring in all aspects of herself and what was habitually ignored or missing. I can examine awareness relational with polarity. At one end when body breaths, regulates its vital functions the organism ( the one) is ready for awaken to danger. Here the awareness is minimal. On the other side, on the other polarity the one is fully alive, exclusively aware of being in the right moment, with the sense of connection, freedom and spontaneity. This is the stage of full-awareness and full self-awareness.

In this case study I am writing about the continuum which is a section between the two polarities. I show how I escort my client on her way to arrive to the here and now.

Everybody has a Story

We create a narrative about ourselves that gives us a sense of who we are in the world, what is and what is in the realm of our possibilities. These stories are not created merely through a cognitive process but are embodied senses of who we are. Our personal narrative will reveal itself through the way we hold ourselves, walk, move, and through all our contact functions – the way in which we make contact in the world. If my personal narrative is lack of entitlement I may be tentative in my actions, anxious when meeting people. I need to feel superior as a compensation. There will be many
ways of being that will fit within the frame of the story I tell myself and to reach outside of my restrictions will mean creating a new self-narrative. A person’s narrative and the way in which they organize themselves in the world begins to unfold from the first moment of meeting.

Introduction of the client

Dorothy is a kind crummy lady, with long hair. She is the type who looks the same for decades. Like a tall-grown girl. She is 57 and works as an elementary school teacher. She lives in a long term marriage. Husband is an intellectual dreamer. They have four talented adult children. The family lives in a village not far from the capital and all commute by train to work or to school. Though they are not poor people somehow the lack of money is typical of their everyday life.

Dorothy was born also in a village which is almost 250 kilometres far from their current home. She was the third kid out of four. She was born after two sisters and a little
brother followed her.

http://in-spiral.hu/app/uploads/2019/07/Case-Study-Dorothy.pdf

Arnold Beisser, M.D.

http://in-spiral.hu/app/uploads/2019/07/Beisser-The-Paradoxical-Theory-of-Change-Kopi.pdf