The Simple Technique That Relieved My Anxiety and Depression

Key points

• The gestalt therapy chair technique can help people express repressed, censored, or ignored parts of themselves.
• Expressing different parts of us can be like creating magnificent melodies on a piano, each melody being a stunning scream from the heart.
• “I felt lost like a small golden leaf, floating on a big dangerous ocean, being pushed by waves in random directions without any control.”

Are anxiety and depression the small tip of an iceberg? If so, what lies beneath the surface? Could that large bottom part be made of repressed feelings?

When I was a child, I was never allowed to fully express my feelings. This all changed when, in my twenties, I discovered the gestalt therapy chair technique, which allowed me to fully express all the different parts of me, parts that had been repressed, censored, ignored, parts of me I didn’t even know existed.

One of my gestalt therapy sessions stands out in my mind.

It was one year after my late husband passed away and I was still a basket case. There seemed to be a battle inside of me that I wasn’t totally aware of but, that made me very anxious and depressed.

So, I went to see my gestalt therapist, who brought a few chairs in a circle and placed a bunch of colorful pillows on the floor. After having me take a few deep breaths, my therapist had me focus on my body. What physical symptoms was I experiencing?

I was tight, everything about me was tight, my throat, my chest, my belly. My therapist asked me to describe the tightness. After complying with my therapist’s suggestion, I said that I was about to explode because there were parts of me that were bottled in and wanted out.

My therapist asked me to describe those bottled-in parts and have each repressed part of me sit in a designated chair covered with a pillow of my choosing and express itself fully, without judgment. I became excited and felt butterflies in my chest.

My gestalt therapy session gave voice to different parts of me using the chair technique

The sad part of me:

I chose a dark grey pillow, placed it on one of the chairs, and decided to give voice to the sad part of me. I was still grieving my late husband after one year and, as I expressed how much I was missing him and how devastated I was, tears came down my eyes. The tears felt good, liberating even. When the sad part of me had verbally expressed everything it wanted, it was time to explore the other parts of me.

The angry part of me:

Standing up and leaving the chair covered with a dark grey pillow, I chose a red pillow and placed it on a second chair before sitting on it. This was for the angry part of me. My voice came out much stronger than before. I knew I had anger inside of me but the huge amount of it surprised me. I was angry at the world, at nature, at God, for having taken away the happiness I had with my late husband.

My therapist, realizing there was a tsunami of anger inside of me, placed a bunch of pillows on top of each other on a couch nearby and had me hit those pillows with all my strength, while at the same time having me scream, “No, no, no…” I hit those pillows for what seemed to be an eternity, but was probably a few minutes. The relief was immediate and cathartic. I had no more anxiety or depression at this point. All my energy was focused on hitting those pillows, which left me exhausted.

The needy part of me:

When I was done expressing my anger, I stood up to explore other parts of me which needed to be heard. As I got in touch with my body, I started hugging myself with my arms and rocking my body. The needy part of me emerged. I placed a pink pillow on a third chair and sat down on it. The needy part of me craved affection, romance, and love. Was it too early after one year? The guilty part of me was acting up, but it belonged to the fourth chair.

Right now, the needy part of me wanted to be heard. It wanted to be kissed, caressed, embraced. It wanted to feel safe in the arms of a loved one. It felt wonderful to be able to express what my body needed without censoring my thoughts.

The guilty part of me:

Then I got up and went to the fourth chair for the guilty part of me to express itself. How could I think about having a romantic relationship with another man than my late husband with whom I had been so happy? I spent a few minutes giving the guilty part of me a voice.

Creating my own moderator and welcoming my inner family:

After expressing those four different parts of me, my therapist asked me to get up and separate myself from all those parts and become what she called my own moderator: understanding, accepting, and welcoming all the different parts of me.

I placed a white pillow on the fifth chair and sat in it, looking at the circle I had created with the sad part of me, the angry part of me, the needy part of me, and the guilty part of me. This was my inner family, my own personal family of parts, each part needing to be heard.

This was a memorable session. After that session, I decided it was time for me to start dating again.

The completely lost part of me:

Later that year, after starting online dating, a new part of me emerged. It was the completely lost part of me. As I was doing another gestalt session, an image popped out in my mind, the image of being a small golden leaf floating on a big ocean, being pushed by waves in random directions without any control, hoping, praying, that a safe shore would show up soon. It felt that the ocean was very dangerous, with high waves, strong winds, and sharks under the surface. I could drown at any time. I knew there was a safe ground somewhere in the world where I could find happiness again, but I had no idea where that shore was. How could I find it?

The analogy was that I could choose the wrong relationship with people who could hurt and damage me. Could I find another soulmate? If yes, how? Where? When?

The hopeful part of me:

The other part of me that showed up was the hopeful part of me, the one who knew that somewhere in the world there was a man with whom I could find happiness again. I would eventually find him somewhere, sometime, in the next 40 years of my life. That hopeful part of me warmed my heart, made me feel good, and taught me patience.

Being able to freely give voice to the different parts of me on a regular basis gave me peace of mind and after each session, my anxiety and depression became much milder and manageable without any medication.

Some people like to practice meditation, yoga, or other relaxing techniques to decrease their anxiety while other people, like me, find solace in fully expressing repressed feelings, as I did through gestalt therapy.

What is Gestalt Therapy?

Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy (developed by Fritz Perls) that brings awareness to the present moment. Gestalt therapy makes you focus on what you are feeling inside your body and on which random thoughts are attached to those feelings. Gestalt therapy has an experiential approach that considers the person as a complex self-organizing system.

Rosalba Raffagnino, from the University of Florence, Italy published in Scientific Research (2019) a review of 11 studies that evaluated the effectiveness of gestalt therapy. Among the studies, a gestalt group intervention for anxious parents whose children were studying in primary schools found that gestalt therapy decreased parents’ anxiety levels. Also among those 11 studies was one in which geriatric patients showed improvements in their anxious and depressive symptoms.

What is interesting about gestalt therapy is that it gets people to verbally express their bodily sensations and the feelings attached to those sensations.

Putting feelings into words has been shown by Mathew Lieberman at UCLA to decrease the response of the amygdala and other limbic regions to negative emotional images (Psychological Science) so this could explain how putting feelings into words may decrease anxiety and depression.

Conclusion

As I used gestalt therapy for myself, and with my patients when appropriate, I found that allowing people to express real, deep, raw feelings, some of them linked to childhood, adolescence, and/or adulthood traumas was like listening to different keys on a piano.

It was like creating magnificent melodies, each melody being a stunning scream from the heart, unique to each person, having its own exquisite beauty that, when recognized as such, formed a solid basis for building a harmonious future.

Using gestalt therapy on my patients allowed most of them to thrive.

As for me, four years after my late husband passed away, after meeting face-to-face with 120 men using online dating, speed-dating, and random meetings, I finally met the most wonderful man, who became my husband five years ago. He is everything I could have wished for. I found my soulmate and the safe shore I was looking for. The hopeful part of me was right and it was worth being patient.

So, if you or your loved one is experiencing anxiety or depression, contact a therapist. Even if you are taking anti-anxiety or anti-depression pills, a few gestalt therapy sessions giving a voice to all the different repressed parts of you might do wonders.

To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.

© Chris E. Gilbert, MD, PhD 2022, all rights reserved.