Many practitioners bring to supervision a sense of feeling ‘stuck’ with their clients, where the therapeutic work often feels like it has reached an impasse, clients are conflicted and paralysed, or there is a sense that they have reached a plateau, where the work feels like it has lost its energy and therapeutic goal.

In this blog I am going to explore this sense of stuckness from a Gestalt perspective, offering some insight on the relational process, and creative ways of working with this dynamic in supervision.

Working relationally with co-transference

Gestalt is a process orientated model, where we explore and remain curious about the co-created dynamic that emerges between the practitioner and client. We are interested in the unfolding moment to moment ‘co-transference’ in the relationship, regarding this as a two-way process, both from client to therapist (transference) and from therapist to client (countertransference) and developing awareness of what emerges in-between (co-transference). As the bread-and-butter of our profession, exploring and understanding the subtle dance between therapist and client, supervisor and therapist, how one impacts the other, and the unfolding emergent experience…

This way of working can feel challenging, it involves the therapist bringing the whole of themselves to the relationship, being open to contact and allowing themselves to be impacted and changed by the client and the possibilities of the I-Thou meeting, equalising the power dynamic. As a supervisor, holding an I-Thou attitude allows our supervisees to develop awareness of this process – what is happening in the supervision relationship can give insight into what is happening with their clients. As supervisors, reflecting back our own countertransference, allowing ourselves to be impacted, and disclosing what is coming up for us as we experience the other can reveal a lot about the whole process and model a relational way of working, within a contained and clearly boundaried supervision framework. 

So how can we work creatively with stuckness in supervision?

Firstly, let’s stay with it and not try to move past it! Developing awareness of stuckness as a process rather than a ‘thing’ to be solved is fundamental to Gestalt. So as a supervisor I work creatively with my supervisees to stay with the stuckness, exploring the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the emerging experience with their clients, and with me. How would it be for you to name the stuckness with your clients? too risky, or an opportunity for you to model open and direct communication?

Using an embodied approach, we can deepen awareness of how stuckness feels in the body focussing on inner zone awareness. Noticing sensations and staying with them, noticing the absence of sensations too – where clients may be desensitized and reflect that they “feel nothing”. So, if we work creatively with the “nothing” and stay curious, what does this look and feel like? A void.. an empty space..what is the shape of it, how does it move? If you could touch it, how does it feel? what colour is it? Is there an image or metaphor that comes to mind as we explore this together….

Another well-known creative way of working in Gestalt therapy is empty chair work. If you were to put the stuckness in the empty chair, what would you say to it and how might it respond back to you? What do you notice in your body as you express this? What are you holding back and how are you doing that? Self-censoring, retroflecting, projecting – exploring the modifications to contact as they are experienced in the here and now. 

Creative Indifference

Holding an attitude of creative indifference is key to this way of working – letting go of the goals and desire to change, fix, or direct the work reduces potential resistance and increases the client’s sense of choice and responsibility, with the only goal being awareness.

For example, with supervisee’s who have clients that feel conflicted and come to sessions feeling paralysed, I will invite my supervisees to explore the different parts with the client. Working creatively and dialoguing with the different parts, supervisees are encouraged to stay with the conflict and the sense of paralysis, giving each part equal weight and letting go of any outcome. What often emerges is some clarity about how the client is keeping themselves stuck in their own process. Awareness of how they are resisting increases.

Paradoxically, meeting the client and supervisee in this place can lead to change, allowing the person to stay with experience in the here and now allows possibilities for something else to emerge. The person feels truly met and understood.

-Jo

To book supervision with Jo you can contact here here

https://josmalltherapy.co.uk/