MATURITY By Frederick Perls

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Author: Irina Malkina-Pykh

Perls defines maturity, or mental health, as the ability to move from reliance on the environment and from regulation by the environment to reliance on self and self-regulation. In order to reach maturity, an individual must overcome his desire to receive support from the outside world and find any sources of support in himself. The main condition for both self-reliance and self-regulation is a state of balance. The condition for achieving this balance is the awareness of the hierarchy of needs. The main component of balance is the rhythm of contacts and waste. Self-regulation of the self-reliant individual is characterized by a free flow and a distinct formation of gestalt. This, according to Perls, is the path to maturity.

If an individual has not reached maturity, then instead of trying to satisfy his own needs and take responsibility for his failures on himself, he is more inclined to manipulate his environment.

Maturity occurs when an individual mobilizes their resources to overcome the frustration and fear that arise from a lack of support from others. A situation in which an individual cannot take advantage of the support of others and rely on himself is called a dead end. Maturity is about taking risks to get out of a dead end. Some people who are incapable (or unwilling) to take risks take on the protective role of “helpless” or “foolish” for a long time.

Frederick Perls believed that in order to achieve maturity and take responsibility for oneself, a person must carefully, as if peeling from an onion, work through all of his neurotic levels.

According to Perls (1969), neurosis consists of 5 levels (layers) through which the process of therapy must pass on the way to the patient's discovery of his true identity.

The first level is the level of "fake relationships", clichés, the level of games and roles. Throughout their lives, most people, according to Perls, strive to actualize their "I-concept", instead of actualizing their true Self. We do not want to be ourselves, we want to be someone else. As a result, people experience feelings of dissatisfaction. We are not satisfied with what we are doing, or the parents are not satisfied with what their child is doing. We disdain our true qualities and alienate them from ourselves, creating voids that are filled with fake artifacts. We begin to behave as if we actually possess those qualities that our environment demands of us and which ultimately our conscience begins to demand from us, or, as Freud called it, the superego. Perls calls this part of the personality top-dog. Top-dog requires from the other part of the personality - the under-dog - the dog from below (its prototype is the Freudian id) to live according to the ideal. These two parts of the personality confront each other and fight for control over a person's behavior. Thus, the first level of neurosis includes playing non-human roles, as well as controlling games between top-dog and under-dog.

The second level is phobic, artificial. This level is associated with awareness of "fake" behavior and manipulation. But when we imagine the consequences if we begin to behave sincerely, we are overcome by a feeling of fear. A person is afraid to be who he is. He is afraid that society will ostracize him.

The third level is a dead end, a stalemate. If, in his search in the process of therapy or in other circumstances, a person passes the first two levels, if he ceases to play roles unusual for him, refuses to pretend to himself, then he begins to experience a feeling of emptiness and nothingness. The person finds himself at the third level - trapped and with a feeling of loss. He is experiencing a loss of external support, but is not yet ready or does not want to use his own resources.

The fourth level is an internal explosion. This is the level at which we can, with grief, despair, self-loathing, come to fully understand how we have limited and suppressed ourselves. Implosion appears after crossing a dead end. At this level, a person can experience fear of death or even the feeling that he is dying. These are moments when a huge amount of energy is involved in a clash of opposing forces inside a person, and the resulting pressure, it seems to him, threatens to destroy him: a person experiences a feeling of paralysis, numbness, from which the conviction grows that in a minute something terrible is going to happen. …

The fifth level is an external explosion, an explosion. Reaching this level means the formation of an authentic personality, which acquires the ability to experience and express their emotions. Explosion should be understood here as a deep and intense emotional experience that brings relief and restores emotional balance. Perls observed four types of explosions. The explosions of true grief are often the result of work involving the loss or death of a person important to the patient. The result of working with sexually blocked persons is the experience of orgasm. The other two types of explosions relate to anger and joy and are associated with the disclosure of an authentic personality and true identity. The experience of these deep and intense emotions fully engages the body in the selection and completion of important gestalts (needs).

The goal of Gestalt therapy is more than solving particular problems, it is aimed at changing the entire lifestyle of the client. The Gestalt therapist seeks to help the client take responsibility for their thoughts, feelings and actions, immerse themselves in being in the present moment, and enter into full contact with reality based on awareness.