From a fusion model to a connection model.
Connection is a dynamic process and must include both contact and withdrawal - including the movement in between.
Who We Are
Bob and Rita Resnick are preeminent International Individual and Couples Gestalt Therapists and Trainers. As Cofounders and Core Faculty of the Gestalt Associates Training Los Angeles (GATLA) European Residential Psychotherapy Training Program, they created the longest-running postgraduate psychotherapy training program worldwide, with a 50-year legacy. To share their work, Bob has been filming his summer individual work for almost 30 years, and both he and Rita have been filming their summer couples' work (connection model) for around 20 years. A Couple of Individuals is a series of therapy films that demonstrates how people can be nourished in a relationship by moving from a fusion model to a connection model.
Therapy Films
Coming Home
Filmed: 2013, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Sound of Silence
Filmed: 2010, Zamek Ryn, Poland
We Already Had
Great Things
Filmed: 2015 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Melting Frames
Filmed 2014, Split, Croatia
“Two Become One”
(and then there are none!)
Our Approach
The basic human dilemma, from birth until death is: How to be connected to an other—and maintain a self… Difference, is the key. Most couples, couples therapy models, and couples’ therapists try to eradicate difference rather than engaging and celebrating difference as the only connective tissue. Difference and conflict are not the same. The attempt to get rid of difference by trying to make the other like me – inevitably, changes simple difference into conflict. Without difference, there is no boundary. Without a boundary, there can be no connection. Connection includes contact and withdrawal – including the movement in between. The root and gateway issue for most couples is how they deal with differences and rarely what the differences are.
“Without difference there is no boundary.”
— Bob and Rita Resnick