2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-12 20:57
Even before I started to seriously study psychology, I watched the TV series Being Erica. The series is practically unknown in our country, but it is remarkable in that it is about psychotherapy.
The process of therapy in the series is presented in a slightly fantastic and playful way - the heroine finds herself in a crisis situation and meets a person who invites her to his session. Intrigued, she comes to the address, and it turns out to be a psychotherapy session. And not just psychotherapy - the psychotherapist has a magical opportunity to send his patient into her past. So that she can relive the events she regrets.
I was then wondering what kind of approach is revealed in this series? Psychoanalysis? Or something else? After all, it is clear that going into the past and replaying situations the way the heroine of the film does it is impossible in real life. But exactly what happens in the film is a metaphor for what happens in real psychotherapy sessions.
Now that I’m familiar with Gestalt Therapy, I’m thinking about this.
One of the most important human traits for a prosperous life is the ability to make choices. And, although many copies still break down in philosophical conversations about whether, in fact, we have some kind of choice or is it an illusion and all our actions are predetermined, in Gestalt therapy it is believed that for a good life and adequate creative adaptations, a person should have a choice. More precisely, even awareness of choice.
But it is not always there. And this can make a person's life from "not so", "boring" or "depressing" to "unbearable nightmare".
And one of the key tasks of gestalt therapy is to help restore a person to his function of choice. The ability to see the options for their behavior, the development of events, so that there is plenty to choose from. So that a person sees these options, his “palette of choice”, and does not go unconsciously, with closed eyes, wherever habits and patterns, ideas and emotions, automatically assimilated from the environment, lead him.
How could it be otherwise? - asks Eric in the series.
How can you change your behavior to get out of the situation differently? With different sensations? Without changing others and their fate, but only their actions?
Over and over again, Erica plunges into memories, recreates a familiar picture in which her feelings are very strong, and tries to look at her from a different angle and find what she can do differently so that, first of all, her FEELINGS change.
Just like in real therapy - a person turns to an episode of his life, in which he looks for what he can do differently in order to get out of it with different feelings? In order to KNOW from EXPERIENCE by EXPERIENCE that such a CHOICE, such a scenario, exists.
And be able to use it.
The process of therapy in the series is presented in a slightly fantastic and playful way - the heroine finds herself in a crisis situation and meets a person who invites her to his session. Intrigued, she comes to the address, and it turns out to be a psychotherapy session. And not just psychotherapy - the psychotherapist has a magical opportunity to send his patient into her past. So that she can relive the events she regrets.
I was then wondering what kind of approach is revealed in this series? Psychoanalysis? Or something else? After all, it is clear that going into the past and replaying situations the way the heroine of the film does it is impossible in real life. But exactly what happens in the film is a metaphor for what happens in real psychotherapy sessions.
Now that I’m familiar with Gestalt Therapy, I’m thinking about this.
One of the most important human traits for a prosperous life is the ability to make choices. And, although many copies still break down in philosophical conversations about whether, in fact, we have some kind of choice or is it an illusion and all our actions are predetermined, in Gestalt therapy it is believed that for a good life and adequate creative adaptations, a person should have a choice. More precisely, even awareness of choice.
But it is not always there. And this can make a person's life from "not so", "boring" or "depressing" to "unbearable nightmare".
And one of the key tasks of gestalt therapy is to help restore a person to his function of choice. The ability to see the options for their behavior, the development of events, so that there is plenty to choose from. So that a person sees these options, his “palette of choice”, and does not go unconsciously, with closed eyes, wherever habits and patterns, ideas and emotions, automatically assimilated from the environment, lead him.
How could it be otherwise? - asks Eric in the series.
How can you change your behavior to get out of the situation differently? With different sensations? Without changing others and their fate, but only their actions?
Over and over again, Erica plunges into memories, recreates a familiar picture in which her feelings are very strong, and tries to look at her from a different angle and find what she can do differently so that, first of all, her FEELINGS change.
Just like in real therapy - a person turns to an episode of his life, in which he looks for what he can do differently in order to get out of it with different feelings? In order to KNOW from EXPERIENCE by EXPERIENCE that such a CHOICE, such a scenario, exists.
And be able to use it.
As for Erica, in the very first episode we learn from her herself that she is not allergic to nuts, but from the fact that she “suffocates under the burden of collective condemnation” - first of all, of her family. Against the background of her ideal sister, whose life develops according to all socially successful canons, Erica is a pretty “ugly duckling” who cannot find a place for himself in the sun with her excellent diploma and abilities. Everyone “worries” “for her” and knows exactly what she needs to do with her life in order to stop being a failure. However, no one calls Erica out loud a loser except herself.
A strong criticizing inner voice, lack of emotional support and understanding in the family, blurring of one's own boundaries, inability to detect and express anger and use it as a tool for improving one's life - achieving goals and rejecting what does not suit - that "set ", With which Eric" starts "at the beginning of the series.
What path will she take and what will be the result of this journey?
See for yourself. 😉
As for Erica, in the very first episode we learn from her herself that she is not allergic to nuts, but from the fact that she “suffocates under the burden of collective condemnation” - first of all, of her family. Against the background of her ideal sister, whose life develops according to all socially successful canons, Erica is a pretty “ugly duckling” who cannot find a place for himself in the sun with her excellent diploma and abilities. Everyone “worries” “for her” and knows exactly what she needs to do with her life in order to stop being a failure. However, no one calls Erica out loud a loser except herself.
A strong criticizing inner voice, lack of emotional support and understanding in the family, blurring of one's own boundaries, inability to detect and express anger and use it as a tool for improving one's life - achieving goals and rejecting what does not suit - that "set ", With which Eric" starts "at the beginning of the series.
What path will she take and what will be the result of this journey?
See for yourself. 😉
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