Psychologist Marina Dvornyk

22/02/2021

Few principles of gestalt-therapy from Fritz Perls:

1. The Now
does not try to find out what happened in the past but will encourage the client to speak to that person, now, here in the present. Fritz is famous for using the ‘two chair’ technique to promote this meeting in the now. The therapist works with the idea of the figure-ground and its connection with need fulfilment. The aim is to figure out: what is the client doing to prevent clear, unambiguous ‘figures’ to emerge so that needs are met?

2. I and you, no gossiping
The client is made aware that her/his communications are to someone. Don’t just speak without identifying the one you are addressing. Address that person.
If the client says 'Mary is always making me feel angry' then the Gestaltist says, ‘Tell Mary that directly here’.

3. It-language vs I-language
The therapist asks 'what do you feel in your eye'? The client answers, ‘It is blinking’. 'What do you feel in your throat'? 'It is choked'. The therapist asks the client to change his language so that he says, ‘I am blinking my eye’. ‘I am choking’.
If the client says, ‘I can’t do that', the therapist asks them to say, ‘I won’t do that!’ Perls has no problem with their saying, 'I won’t do that'! He simply wants them to be aware that they have choices and that they made a choice not to do it.

4. Awareness Continuum
This rule is vital to Gestalt. Hence, ‘What are you aware of now?’ is a FAQ. Gestalt is focused on a return to the senses, a return to sensory experience which we usually ignore or downgrade. Sometimes, the client will be invited to become his eyes or his throat or whatever is in focus and conduct a dialogue with that part of himself.

5. Changing questions into statements
Clients will ask questions about what is happening which can be the avoidance of taking responsibility for themselves. (Perls believed that clients were essentially manipulative and were always seeking to get support from the environment [him] that they were quite capable of providing for themselves.) Clients do need support but support comes in the form of therapists’ questions such as, ‘Are you aware that…..?’ and ‘What is happening for you right now?

07/10/2020

Aggression is vital and given to us from birth.

There are 2 main types of aggression.

Destructive one breaks down the contact, stops the further processes of communication. It is aimed at annihilation, to scare the other if you feel threatened. It's just the reaction to relieve the stress, where the Other's feelings and experiences don't matter.

Constructive aggression, on the contrary, promotes interaction, it is about moving forward. It has curiosity in its basis. If you want to fulfill your interest in the Other, you have to use awareness of your own excitement as an aggressive tendency. Because every contact creates tension.

If you hide your aggression it misleads the communication deadly. The most terrible aggression is ignoring, denying the existence of a person.

You have a right for aggression if you don't like something in communication, but try it as if your partner has the same right. Try it horizontally, not vertically. If you want to stay in the relationship, both positions are important.

12/08/2020

Due to the traumatic events in .

Rules for providing first psychological aid:

1. Contact and interaction.
While providing first psychological aid to victims or those who witnessed the incident, it is necessary to introduce yourself and ask about thier current needs.

2. Safety and comfort.
Try to provide good physical conditions: comfortable seat, preferably so that the back is protected. If a person freezes, offer a blanket.

3. Stabilization.
Breathing techniques and grounding exercises work well here.

4. After stabilization, if it is possible, ask the person to talk about what happened. But it is necessary to assess the severity of the condition.

5. After that, you can clarify about the current needs and make sure that the person receives further psychological assistance.

26/07/2020

True, true))

14/06/2020

Запрошую до перегляду, якщо шукаєте додатковий ресурс у нелегкий час затягнутої пандемії.

Відеозапис ефіру "Гумор як ресурс при пандемії" Марини Дворник - кандидата психологічних наук, гештальт-консультант, завідувача лабораторії соціальної психол...

16/05/2020

Uncertain times such as today's COVID-19 pandemia causes a lot of stress because we don't have appropriate strategies to live in new conditions. We are locked down in the cage of our previous experiences.

But seeing a therapist, even online, may help to widen and eventually open this cage up.

Here are some reasons why you should talk to a therapist during uncertain times of COVID-19 pandemia.

📍Your marriage is feeling the strain from being in lockdown together.
📍You are struggling to work remotely with your family at home.
📍You are frustrated and irritable with your kids.
📍You are having a hard time motivating yourself.
📍You feel guilty and don’t even know why.
📍You are feeling very anxious about the future.
📍You are lonely.
📍You are struggling to take care of all the things you need to accomplish in a day.
📍You are nervous about your financial situation.
📍You are worried about your loved ones.

08/04/2020

CORONASTINATION OVERCOMING

As long as our social networks' friends are flaunting how many useful things they have done during the quarantine, our anxiety and guilt about our own inefficiency will naturally increase. These feelings are also a straight way to increase procrastination (or, modernly, coronastination). As if it were a snowball, we would put aside the necessary tasks, and the very thought that they still needed to be accomplished would lead us to another compulsion of senseless scrolling through the news feed. So what is needed to break this vicious circle?

📍 Firstly, establish everyday rituals. In a time of global uncertainty, it is crucial to find support and control. Through daily repetitive actions, we can assure our psyche that whatever happens, tomorrow I will definitely wake up and… Here we choose our favorite morning ritual: water treatments, warm drink, breakfast, exercises, and so on. Of course, rituals mustn't be only the morning ones. But exactly in the morning after such a ritual, we will have more resources to fulfill the most unpleasant tasks, to eat up "our frog” at last.

📍 Secondly, keep information hygiene. Of course, this is very easy to recommend, but the need to stay up-to-date with news in order to protect ourselves usually wins, and we chaotically get hooked on the sensational headlines and faithfully believe the "absolutely secret" recommendations of some far relative of a relative. Then there is no time for your important tasks - it is necessary to stock up with ginger immediately! To prevent this, let's limit ourselves: subscribe to 2-3 official channels of information, and select up to 10 personal sources from trusted people (family, friends, bloggers). And let's set aside a special time to read this news, make it another, say, noon, ritual.

📍 Thirdly, plan in advance. It is hardly advisable to plan now for the distant future, but it would be good to arrange your closest days. Inspiration comes from acting, so let's just get started. Sunday, evening, the new week is ahead: let's figure out what we need to do. Let's narrow our ambitions down to five main deals a week, not 50 and not 10, but 5 specific deals. And on the eve of each day, let's define 3 main tasks per day. It would be great to write the plan down, such concretization would allow us to feel self-efficacy through the simple statistics: scheduled-done.

📍 Fourthly, use productivity tips. The scheme is simple: (1) start with the most difficult task, concentrate for 40-45 minutes, limit the distraction factors; (2) rest for 15 minutes (why not watch funny videos on your favorite platform or call your family at this time?); (3) work for another 30-40 minutes; (4) reward ourselves for completing the task or part of it (delicious food, online shopping, playing, etc.); (5) continue with less difficult tasks; (6) share successes and challenges with those who can support.

📍 Fifthly, legalize your rest time. Although procrastination is a postponement, not every postponement is procrastination. Considering today's limitations in terms of capabilities, we can find a lot of resources. In particular, we can postpone the tasks we usually do for others and finally put ourselves first, allow ourselves to be lazy, slow down, sing or dance using favorite music. To be sure: I'm resting now, and I'm entitled to it because it's a planned action. It would be great if we even recorded this active passivity in the to-do list. If you hate lists, anyway, it is only important to recognize your current state: the lesser is guilt - the more qualitative is your rest time.

14/03/2020

The "fight-flight-freeze response" is our body's automatic and primitive, inborn response that prepares the body to deal with a perceived attack, harm or threat to our survival.

To fight is to confront the threat aggressively. 💪

Flight means you run from the danger. 🏃

When you freeze, you find yourself unable to move or act against the threat. 😶

Sometimes, though, we perceive threat or harm when in reality, things are totally fine. And it can cause a lot of trouble.

For example, if you had a traumatic experience with loud sounds, and hearing them now, actually in a safe situation, anyway your amygdala (basically, the brain’s security system) sends a message to the hypothalamus, the brain’s command center. The hypothalamus then triggers a cascade of hormones that cue the body to fend off the threat. This is when the physical symptoms of stress start to kick in.

And you have all these:
💗heart rate increase
👁️dilated pupils
👅dry mouth
😬shaking
👖bladder relaxation (yes, you can literally p*e in your pants)
🍝slowed digestion
😥flushed face
👂hearing loss
👀tunnel vision

How can you manage rationally in such a situation? Any chance to react smartly until the stress response will pass away. You can help it by such means
👃breathe deeply
💬name things around you
🧘meditate
🙏pray
🎶sing
🖍️write
🗣️talk to someone

How do you usually manage your unnecessary "fight-flight-freeze response"?

04/03/2020

Have a nice mid-week, and remember to cheer yourself up!

14/02/2020

Such a different love

Not celebrating Valentine’s but reading McWilliams – the Aphrodite of Clinical Psychodiagnostics – I’ve caught a thought that since we all have such different personalities, we also seek for different love.

Here are the fantasies about healing love for every personality type.

Psychopathically organized people need to be loved through the fulfillment of promises, demonstration of benefits from relationships, acting without unnecessary chatter.

To love a narcissist is to tolerate his need for external approval, to never get him ashamed, to be able to acknowledge own mistakes and shortcomings.

The schizoid needs to be loved so that he feels the presence and willingness to support, but not to invade without permission to his inner world and never emphasize his otherness.

Paranoid needs love-respect, with boundary preservation, consistency and good-humored perception of ownself and people’s weaknesses.

Depressive personalities comprehend as love the unconditional acceptance, attentiveness to their reactions, cooperation against teachings and prohibitions.

Manic people need to be loved by the displays of perseverance and honesty, giving enough time for them to unravel.

It is important for a masochistically organized person to promote a healthy egoism, to recognize his or her ability and responsibility to solve problems independently, in love.

Obsessive-compulsive ones need love, where there will be a place for pleasure from fantasies and feelings, where they can relax, not hurry and calmly learn to recognize their desires.

The love for a hysteroid should be warm and compassionate, such that it encourages the integration of thinking and feeling, and also provides attention to his deep, not superficial, characteristics.

Finally, the love for a dissociative personality is a team, it is necessary to organize reliability, constancy, and security.

Do you know how one should love namely you?

02/02/2020

Communication minimalism.

It is a new trend both online and in the real world that strips communication down to its essence, removes all complexity as well as the need for accuracy, and reduces it to something that we feel rather than do: communication that is becoming haptic or entirely silent and that does not have to be true but rather feel true.

There is something comforting in reducing human communication to the fundamental mechanism of the human body, but interestingly, experiences of intimacy don't have to involve s*x. Quite the opposite. In recent years, one could observe a desire to free relationships from the intricate layers of meaning and the power structures that can come with it. In fact, the number of young Americans reporting to not have had s*x in the previous year has doubled to 23 percent between 2008 and 2018. The no-s*x rate among young American men, in particular, has nearly tripled during that period.

Communication is a miracle—and a minefield. With all the nuances around political correctness, the constant chatter of social media, and every single one of our words online recorded and potentially shared in broad daylight, it is no surprise that we become more reserved, hold back, or retreat entirely. Words are gifts but also weapons. Using them can do harm and limit the possibilities. Nothing said can be unsaid, and to remain a complete person, it might be better to keep most words for ourselves.

16/01/2020

Stop blaming your parents

My millennial world is now somehow dealing with the topic of resentment toward parents. Those who were born at the end of the 80s - at the beginning of the 90s have actively started to study the reasons for their discomfort in this modern world of endless transformations. And found that this discomfort is due to their childhood traumas. Of course, it's fair: a family is the first and the main model of society, in which the personality is grown.

It seems like my generation doesn't have any footings. Like somebody has to give us a right to rely on something. Frequently, my p*ers conclude that this right was not given in our childhood. It may be the truth. Maybe our parents really didn't love us the way they should and still don't understand how strong their influence is on our destinies. Especially fathers.

Mother is giving life, and the father is giving strength to live. Absent dads - physically or emotionally - can cause problems in a child's identity and personal borders. In theory, the fatherly figure teaches a baby to take risks, experiment, express their own position and achieve. Through healthy motherly care and fatherly defense a child is grown with the confidence that despite the world being dangerous, it can still be transformed.

But the millennials like me have lots of doubts that the world can be influenced somehow. Therefore, we are trying to fix everything inside ourselves. But then, all of a sudden, we discover that it was mom and dad who did something wrong.

But this is not a reason to pour out all these discoveries on parents. We can really feel the pain and resentment. But our parents also have their own stories and painful feelings. And if they did something to us, this is only because of their understanding of good. Understanding of love. Understanding of care, defense, and support.

Do not charge parents with an additional burden of guilt because they were insufficient. They already did what they did in the way they could. Some of them still give us all they have, even if it is not what we interpret as good.

So the task is not to show off your resentment but to make the offer to invest in us as still their children in the most acceptable way.

It’s difficult for me not to talk to my parents in a resentful way. It is not easy to propose alternatives, hold out misunderstandings, and remain as an adult next to aging parents. So far, it seems that a constructive dialogue will never work out.

But one thing I know for sure - we are not the puppets of our childhood traumas. As children, we could not choose our parents, but now we can precisely choose the attitude towards them. Whether it is love, compassion, or just patience, let's stop blaming our parents. And let's finally become the creators of our own lives.