In the Therapy Room; The Field Speaks
In the Therapy Room, The Field Speaks
In my work as a Transpersonal Somatic therapist, I often walk a delicate line between deep resonance and overidentification, between attunement and absorption.
Recently, I had a powerful reminder of just how sacred that line can be.
During a Gestalt training session, I entered grounded and curious. But almost immediately, I noticed a quiet cutoff from my own body—neck down. I didn’t name it. I waited, sensing something in the field that had yet to emerge.
As my client began to speak, their resistance to embodiment became clear. The conversation leaned into cognition—looping, rationalizing, distancing. And in the silence of their body, I felt the echo in mine.
Until, unexpectedly, they touched their heart.
In that moment, I felt my own heart tighten. A mirror. A bridge. A thread of contact.
We met there, in Presence. Briefly. Tenderly.
Re-centering the Self
But then I merged.
Their confusion became mine. Their fragmentation, mine.
I lost my ground. My body tightened. My awareness clouded.
And then, a pause. A thread of awareness called me home.
I re-centered. Regulated. Reclaimed myself—while still connected to them.
That’s when I saw it: a place where they’d dropped the thread of self.
So gently, named their disconnect. I invited them to reconnect. Not through analysis, but through relationship, with a grounding plant nearby. A small experiment. A sacred remembering.
This is the heart of Gestalt: we are always whole. Sometimes, we forget.
The Wisdom of Withholding
The client’s withdrawal wasn’t a mistake. It was an intelligent adaptation. A body-boundary formed through past trauma, gender identity journeys, medical experiences.
Staying in the mind made sense. It kept them safe.
And yet; the body still speaks.
As Resmaa Menakem says:
“The body is where we fear, hope, and react; where we constrict and release.”
Our resistance isn’t pathology. It’s a signal. A doorway.
Naming What We Know
One of my most humbling realizations was this:
I didn’t listen to the intuition that was my body’s mirroring of my client’s resistance
I felt that cutoff from my body early in the session. There was a knowing that this was a message in the field. I didn’t listen, let alone say it. Instead, I let fear come into the foreground.
I feared naming it would alienate my client, that it would be “too much.”
So I withheld it. And that’s when I merged with them.
In Gestalt, we know this: what we disown will still show up.
Authenticity, as Naranjo writes, is “being genuine in this instant.”
That is the edge I now honor: trusting my own body as part of the field. Letting it speak.
Integration Is the Path
Once I named their dissociation. Once I reclaimed my center and let go. Presence emerged. The client felt held. Seen. Safe.
The experiment landed. Presence deepened.
But more than anything, I left with reverence for the sacred field we co-create.
The dance of merging and differentiation. The truth that lives in silence.
At Core-Relate, this is what we practice.
Healing that honors the body, the mind, the soul.
If this reflection resonates with you—know this:
Your disconnection is not a flaw.
It is an invitation.
Let’s follow the thread home. Together.