perlsian gestalt

The traditional gestalt approach to dreams would perhaps be better referred to as the Perlsian approach. Fritz Perls took a theatrical approach to working with dreams, focusing on the here and now experiencing of perspectives and feelings that are disowned.

For Perls, everything in the dream is an aspect of the dreamer (an observation Jung had previously made). This makes the task of dreamwork the reowning of disowned material. By playing the different elements of the dream (other characters, objects, abstract concepts) and speaking as those elements, it is then possible to make contact with an aspect of yourself that you are otherwise splitting off.

This makes the Perlsian view quite Jungian in that the dream ends up playing a compensatory role by bringing disowned aspects of self into awareness. I have written a blog post about the Perlsian approach to dreamwork that contains an experiment you can try for yourself.

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