Gabriela Murgo: "All psychology is, by definition, spiritual" (A dialogue on Gestalt) | Carmelo Urso

Carmelo Urso: Dear Gabriela, thank you very much for your attention and for accepting this dialogue. First of all, tell us where you were born, grew up, where you live, what you studied and what activities you do today

Gabriela Murgo: I'm from Buenos Aires. Because I was born and today I live there but I am also from every place I love; I am Rosario, I lived 7 years in Rosario and I have been working there for 10 years; I love Brazil, every time I am there I feel Brazilian and now that I met Barcelona, ​​Spain, it is very familiar to me! I am also from there ... I could tell you that I am one with the place I inhabit ...

Regarding what I do, I studied theater and I have a degree in Psychology from the Universidad Católica Argentina. I am interested in helping to overcome internal conditioning to fully enjoy life. At 20, I found in Gestalt the possibility of integrating my love for art; I consolidated my study with the postgraduate degree in THERAPY GESTALT with Silvia Salinas, with whom I worked as a disciple for several years. Already in 2001 I began to spread the Gestalt approach and the teaching of the Floral Bach System in recognized media, on local radio and cable and television until I was a stable advisor of the magazine ALTERNATIVE HEALTH and then on the FOX television signal Very useful satellite.

I love teaching, I teach better what I needed to learn the most. I have been healing the inner child for 10 years, going from seeking external support to self-support to learn to be his best friend. I teach from the experience and teaching consolidates my learning. I love being able to get the guide that everyone has inside of them And then I wanted to go beyond this approach that is taught in the university, because in the gestalt world it is taught in private institutes or by lineage (as I chose to do it) and I was very interested to start being as a university possibility. I think the road traveled is not in vain; It helped me to have worked in multinational companies for 6 years in HR to overcome the administrative attacks that involve inserting Gestalt in the university environment. In 2010, the first Diploma in Gestalt was held at the Open Inter-American University of which I am Director in Argentina, based in Buenos Aires and Rosario, now in the world, because we offer the possibility of going to other countries to teach it in modality Intensive and semipresencial. We are launching online training in 2012. So I am happy! It is the first step for all psychology students to know the Gestalt; next year appears as an optional subject and internships for students of the last years of the race. I would have liked to have that opportunity. I focus on healing the inner child that we all have inside, in moving from external support to central self-support to care for the caregiver, in training by creating an unconditional presence from acceptance as a path.

Carmelo Urso: What is the Gestalt Psychology? Who and who were its creators? What are your postulates? On your website you opt for a current Gestalt, a spiritual Gestalt. What implications does that vision of Gestalt have for you?

Gabriela Murgo: Well first of all, all psychology is spiritual by definition. The study of the `` psyche '' which means `` soul ''. Its object of study is human behavior and human beings are spiritual beings. This is explained in depth in my book and in all my classes at the beginning. Many need proof of this, which I find redundant, but at the same time easy. Well, he learned psychology with a program of study that had 4 Christian theologies and metaphysics! Spirituality does not imply religiosity, it is the search for a sense of transcendence . Secondly, the learning approach in Gestalt is holistic, so we integrate the spiritual, from asking ourselves the why, to creating conditions of meditation where the Being, our essence, manifests. For this I use artistic and meditative resources to create a play space where to display creativity and facilitate awareness. Therefore, many call Gestalt as a meditative or contemplation therapy. In the beginning, Gestalt integrated listening to the body and its emotions; It is essential to stop listening to what we think to hear what we feel as a royal way to connect with authenticity. In this era we realize that emotions are the royal way to listen to the dictates of the soul.

Emotions are the royal way to listen to the dictates of the soul.

Carmelo Urso: What kind of healing practices does Gestalt include? How do they develop and what are their purposes?

Gabriela Murgo: The fundamental technique that is used goes from the empirical listening with phenomenological intervention on the obvious that the person, couple or group presents to experiential exercises that can be from the psychodrama, Art therapy and body psychology.

The most famous technique is “the empty chair, ” which consists of sitting in front of an empty chair and imaginaryly depositing a polarity in conflict: it can be a figure of authority, an aspect of self not integrated, imagine that your father is with what you need to connect to carry out an imaginary dialogue with that aspect of oneself that is often projected in the other and then be able to literally change places, and thus be able to identify with those aspects to facilitate integration or at least learn more about the conflict . The proposal is that the change happens from the acceptance of what there is and from the doing. The materialization of what I think appears only in action. Therefore, in Gestalt we offer in a contained space the possibility that change can be implemented from an experiential awareness. And we call this the ACCOUNT.

The Gestalt proposes a phenomenological listening of emotions to facilitate awareness; so it helps everyone to integrate more, to know and understand their emotional world; but even more, for those who work coordinating a group of people it is an important tool. They can be developed in a group and individual way, both in the field of health and in education or in organizations.

Carmelo Urso: Normally, when we talk about psychological therapies we imagine going to a doctor's office where a trained professional listens and talks with us. However, you have taken the Gestalt to the field of business. Talk to our readers about it.

Gabriela Murgo: I like the idea of ​​making the company a pleasant environment. People who work in them are longer than with their own family, so it is their second home. There are binding relationship issues to address so that they do not interfere with the results and to generate a pleasant working climate.

Upon receiving me I did several seminars and postgraduate courses in human resources; I worked 6 years in international and multinational companies. I was very interested in people's motivation, the study of internal climate and career development.

The Gestalt provides something useful to the staff and the company whenever it is used for what it needs at that given time. We can provide from individual consulting to a group activity to help in an emerging conflict or prevent it. The proposal is to increase the resources to its employees as it increases the ability to realize while strengthening internal resources and helps to deploy sleeping potentials to act creatively. When we provide it to each person in their work, the change in the internal climate and productivity and quality of service is noticeable. They usually call me to improve service, quality, create membership, adapt to change ... there are issues related to the dynamics of frustration and aggression, as well as those that go from fear to trust. In addition to providing many anti-stress resources. Any awareness that needs to be done through the Gestalt can generate profound changes and in a short time.

Carmelo Urso: Those of us who work as managers know that we often have demands in which the results of the management have primacy over the emotional (and sometimes sometimes physical) situation of the employees. In an interview you gave, you state "that Gestalt prioritizes feeling and experience before thinking." How to harmonize the logic of corporate thinking - which requires tangible results in situations of stress - with that intangible world of experiences and feelings that bustle within the flesh and blood people who, finally, are the ones that make possible the existence of the companies?

Gabriela Murgo: The results of the companies depend on how the people who integrate it move. Companies move by people. You may want to train yourself with a good managment book or by doing a seminar or training; Most of the time you say "I already know this, but how do I do it?"; or in the best case "what a good idea, but how do I implement it?" "How do I develop those skills that my job or the current market requires if I don't get it?" Many times it is not enough to propose it from the mind. As much as we think about what movement we should do by strategically analyzing our steps, we often do not do what we set out to do. When the attitude does not accompany our thinking, the desired results do not occur.

From Gestalt we provide experiential exercises so you can take it to action and for this there are no recipes. Each person can serve something different.

Carmelo Urso: Years ago, it would have been impossible to speak in corporate environments of "emotional intelligence." What is so vaunted emotional intelligence? Can we measure how we measure the rational intelligence coefficient? How can we develop it?

Gabriela Murgo: Emotional intelligence is empirically measurable. I could define it as the ability to choose what to do with what I feel in the given situation to feel better.

In Gestalt I work with the premise of acceptance and coherence between feeling thinking and acting. I may want to do something but also assume the consequences I am responsible for everything I say but also for what I do not say about what I do and what I do not do and be responsible speaks of an ability to respond to a given situation. Awareness helps me to act from which I understand not only from the mind but also from the heart.

Carmelo Urso: We know that your professional activity not only includes private consultation, but that you have a presence in the media. Who wants to make some kind of event with you, how can he contact you or by what means can he hear your message?

Gabriela Murgo: Although I attend individual and organizational consultations but my fundamental activity is the training in private universities and companies. I like the group. And yes, I have been in many television, radio and graphic media. The notes are on my website but I did not upload to them TV shows; By January 2011 I will upload an interview that was done to me in Brazil. I have pending the radio and videos of the year 2009 of Fox TV. For now I have proposals to offer courses in Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica; I would love to go to Venezuela and other Spanish speaking countries J

Carmelo Urso: Finally, I would like you to expand and comment on a couple of phrases that appear on your website: “Manage yourself to manage a new environment” and “Stop repeating to learn to respond creatively”.

Gabriela Murgo: The last sentence refers to raising awareness in those places where learning is pending: that is why we always stumble again with the same stone. The meditative look at Gestalt, to enter to focus on what is pending to be closed and let go of what is no longer, to give rise to something new and fresh.

As the work at Gestalt begins at home produces a change in the look, so it is called a Gestalt approach. An approach that we can apply in education, in companies, in health. From wherever we are applying the approach each part is giving space to give birth to the true being in me. From that internal transformation my environment is renewed, so I speak of it as a process of personal gestation where I become a facilitator for everyone to connect with their own wisdom.

Gabriela Murgo: "All psychology is, by definition, spiritual" (A dialogue on Gestalt) | Carmelo Urso