Wendy Smith Counseling PLLC

One of my clients is ill and disabled enough that we generally do our therapy sessions by phone.  After several years of working this way, we have learned to communicate with one another in a very connected and nuanced manner, even without the benefit of being in the same room or being mutually visible.  Recently we tried something that I wouldn’t previously have thought possible:  a Gestalt two-chair exercise by telephone and without my client moving a muscle.  Purely via verbal guidance, I asked her to imaginatively embody first the part of her that criticizes her, telling her she is a burden to people, ought to be better set up in life by her age, and so on, and then the part of her that has to listen to this critic and suffers the shame and depression that its words effect.

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