A Brief Introduction
An Introduction To Gestalt Therapy Film Demonstrations. A 30-minute synopsis of Bob Resnick’s organization of contemporary Gestalt Therapy theory and Gestalt Therapy’s basic theory of human development after practicing, teaching and training worldwide over the last 50 years. While there are multiple valid organizations of Gestalt Therapy theory – with differences in emphasis, focus, and integrations, Bob’s organization stands on the originating supports of existentialism, field theory, phenomenology and dialogue with an emphasis on character, awareness, and process. He emphasizes the restoration of self-regulation within the person’s environment as a core value of Gestalt Therapy.
The films have been translated into 18 languages. To view films with subtitles on Vimeo, click the CC button on bottom right corner of player window. For information on downloading subtitles with purchased films, click here.
We offer a 30% discount for Gestalt Therapists and Trainees, and all students — online or as mp4 files on USB drives (and even as “old school” DVD’s).
Individual Therapy Films
$59.99 each, $350 all eight films (for personal use)
$159.99 each, $895 all eight films (for institutional use)
Couples Therapy Films
$99 each, $150 for both films (for personal use)
$199 each, $300 for both films (for institutional use)
Couples Therapy Films
We Already Had Great Things
Filmed: 2015, Ljubljana, Slovenia
A very familiar couple—married 20 years, three kids, and wanting to regain their connection that has waned over the years—combining two sessions in one week (weeklong summer training workshop) edited to under an hour. These two sessions demonstrate the characterological issues of each person of the couple and the interactional results, which creates a recursive loop to repeating patterns for both of them that interrupt their connection—contact and withdrawal. Without trying to change them, we use the interruptions to their contact—as the currency of contact. The primary experience is the currency (and only currency) of contact.
Dealing with Difference
Filmed: 2018, Serock, Poland
The nexus of most couples' issues is how they deal with differences and not what the differences are. How couples deal with a difference (especially in a Western fusion model of marriage and relationships) is the gateway issue to supporting the couple to deal as well as possible with what the differences are—from conflict to collaboration. When dealing with difference, to defer to the other is to lose me; to withdraw is to lose you, and to try to make you like me turns difference into conflict. This hour-long film is the combining of three sessions with the same couple in another weeklong summer training workshop—a very courageous couple.
The Deep Snooze
Filmed: 2001, Cervera de Pisuerga, Spain
Filmed in 2001 and released in 2021, this film features a couple's therapy session where an “older” multicultural couple works on intimacy/connection issues. In this session, we see stereotypes of people socialized as men and people socialized as women reversed. The man is afraid that he will be abandoned and left alone, regardless of how much reassurance his wife expresses. Simultaneously, the woman is working hard to establish her own space and intimacy with her husband. While more people socialized as men can be confluent/fusion “phobic” and more people socialized as women can be more isolation “phobic,” this couple demonstrates that this is not a fixed issue, despite the strongly culturally biased scaffolding. In reality, we all have both sides of this polarity. We all fear abandonment and fear being swallowed up. This session reflects “the dance of life”, the Basic Human Dilemma: how to be connected to another - and maintain a self. In this film, the husband struggles to stay fused, and the wife works to create space for herself. These are different paths to the same goal: connection. Genuine connection requires both contact and withdrawal - with the necessary movement in between.
Individual Therapy Films
Sound of Silence
Filmed: 2010, Zamek Ryn, Poland
This session focuses on a difficult situation with a woman and her friend with cancer. The client avoids contact with her friend to escape speaking about cancer and possible death. She did a similar thing with her mom a few years before, when her mom was actually dying, and nobody spoke of dying.
Coming Home
Filmed: 2013, Ljubljana, Slovenia
This is a session where Austrian, Jewish philosopher Martin Buber was right—to be received and met by the other, is itself a healing experience. The client is encouraged to use his immediate experience as the currency of contact. It doesn’t matter what the experience is—it doesn’t have to be “good” news, only “fresh” news —as long as he shares it with another. The willingness to share even the difficulties of connecting is, in reality, connective.
Melting Frames
Filmed: 2014, Split, Croatia
This session is a good example of the relevant past (character) interrupting self-regulation and healthy functioning in the present—especially around being playful and having fun. Rules, “shoulds” and imperatives (introjects) of what is “appropriate” clearly stifle organismic self-regulation and are anachronistic, obsolete and very powerful.
A Lobster with Wings
Filmed: 2015, Ljubljana, Slovenia
In this session, Bob Resnick works with both the physiological and psychological aspects of anxiety. Anxiety is created by being captured by future “catastrophizing” fantasies, reacting with excitation to deal with the fantasized events, and then having nowhere to express the excitation. Nothing is real—only fantasy. What follows is squeezing, rapid heart rate, labored and shallow breathing, etc. “Excitement minus oxygen equals anxiety.” Anxiety is the stifled reaction to what might happen, while fear is a reaction to what is happening, allowing for the energy to flow into movement. This is not the case with anxiety.
A Rose on the Grave of My Family
Filmed: 2001, Cervera de Pisuerga, Spain
This therapy session is with a woman who “doesn’t want” anything. She struggles to balance contact and withdrawal—both with support. This session becomes a personal testament to the resilience of the human spirit and stands as a passionate statement against anything like the Holocaust ever happening again. This film shows the client’s further step in the restoration of her self-regulation, viewed through the lenses of generational trauma, wider field issues, and characterological functioning (relevant past interrupting self-regulation in the present). It is an exquisite portrayal of her humanity.
Coming Home, Again
Filmed: 2015, Ljubljana, Slovenia
A “follow up” session, two years later, where the same client expands his range of sharing his actual experience with others. He does this while simultaneously attending to the environment and the other as well—as honoring and modulating his own thresholds of support and appetite.
It Cannot Be So
Filmed: 2015, Ljubljana, Slovenia
A man “trying” to understand his anger towards his mother while quickly and repeatedly declaring ignorance of any knowledge of the ground from which this anger emerges. Although determined to figure this out, he is seemingly far more dedicated to “not knowing” anything about his real feelings toward his mother. Captured by the introject that one “must love their mother,” he valiantly struggles with the possibility that his reality may actually be different than his rule. This is a somewhat risky session where the therapist more strongly follows his own figure rather than meeting the client’s figure with his own.
Reclaiming Liveliness and Peace
Filmed: 2015, Ljubljana, Slovenia
This is a session without an agenda or problem or any other “ticket” to be there in the client’s chair. This session is about connection. An “I-Thou” moment emerges from allowing the between to unfold by meeting the other, by being who you are, and by not trying to control the outcome. In the process, a very lovely man unfolds.