Gary Gray, MAT
I am a husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend, student, teacher and fascilitator. I am a gestalt oriented therapist and graduate of the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Philadelphia. I am also a certified Music for People facilitator and I have been trained in the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music. My interests include music, dance, fly fishing, making and fixing stuff and challenging myself to grow with others. I work with individuals, couples and groups. My private practice is in Narberth, Pennsylvania.
_______________________________________________________________________
A Brief Introduction to Gestalt Therapy
We are by nature loving, creative beings. Most of us are born into this world wired to be loved, nurtured and protected by our care takers. Then, in little or big ways we get confusing or conflicting messages about our lovability and security. Because we are creative, we find ways to adjust our behavior to work around the conflict between what we want and what we are getting. If these creative adjustments work, we keep using them, and often herein lies the problem. We frequently hold onto these behaviors long after they have stopped working for us.
Gestalt therapy focuses on awareness of what we are feeling, thinking and behaving right now and how that fits or doesn’t fit with the here and now world we are in. Gestalt therapy is a relational approach to healing. It is based on the idea that authentic contact between people is the way we grow, heal and emerge into our fullest selves. Gestalt therapy does not rely on disorder definitions, treatment protocols or behavior modification techniques. We do not achieve change by loathing our behavior and trying to be different. Change comes naturally when we learn to embrace our full selves, honor and understand our resistance and cultivate our awareness of our whole being; body, mind and spirit.
_______________________________________________________________________
Music and Creative Imagery
I believe that we are not healed by the therapist but the therapist can help us find the keys to our own healing within us. This healing process requires hard work to martial our creativity and activate some parts of our psyche which may have been dormant for a long time. Recent fascinating brain research reveals that music for most of us has the power to activate the whole brain. So music can be a catalyst for bringing our own wisdom to a level of consciousness where it is available to us.
Music and Creative Imaging (MCI) is a technique for activating the imagination using evocative classical music. MCI is based on a technique developed by Helen Bonny called Guided Imagery and Music. The music stimulates sensations, emotions and images something like dreaming with a sound track in a relaxed, non-ordinary state of consciousness. This is a state where we often think in images more than words. We have all experienced times when listening to a particular piece of music has drawn us closer to a younger version of ourselves, and we experience joy, sadness, or longing as we touch parts of ourselves which we may have lost or abandoned. MCI can put us on a path toward wholeness as the music supports moments of healing.
In a Music and Guided Imagery session, I act as a witness to your active imaginary journey. I help introduce a state of safe, deep relaxation, select the music and keep a record of your journey, asking occasional open-ended questions along the way, but I do not usually suggest imagery. At the end of the journey, I do not analyze the experience but I might draw attention to interesting hi-lights which seem to have had special power and significance for you. It is up to you to derive meaning from the experience. I might encourage you to use drawing or other nonverbal ways of reflecting on the experience.
MCI can be experienced in a one-to-one relationship with the facilitator and also in a facilitated group.
_______________________________________________________________________