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Mental Exercises

From: Frederick S. Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline & Paul Goodman: Gestalt Therapy. Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, 1951.
We quote from the 1972 edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books).



Make a particular description and delineation of every object that presents itself to your mind, so that you may wholly and thoroughly contemplate it, in its proper nature, bare and naked; wholly and severally: divided into its several parts and quarters; and then by yourself in your mind, call the object as well as its parts, by their proper names and appellations.

Marcus Aurelius: Meditations III, 11. [Quoted by Perls et al. on page 97.]

Think of some pairs of opposites in which neither member could exist were it not for the real or implied existence of its opposite.

[p. 71]

Consider some everyday life-situations, objects or activities as if they were precisely the opposite of what you customarily take them to be.

[p. 74]

Imagine yourself in a situation the reverse of your own, where you have inclinations and wishes exactly contrary to your usual ones.

[p. 74]

Observe objects, images and thoughts as if their function or meaning were the antithesis of what you habitually take them to be.

[p. 74]

With regard to every experience without exception, verbalize: 'Now I am aware that ...'

[p. 114]

Walk, talk or sit down; be aware of the proprioceptive details without in any way interfering with them.

[p. 119]

Pay attention to someone's voice.

[p. 96]