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I am publishing the YouTube video of the seminar titled “Transforming Tension Between Couples into an Opportunity for Growth from a Gestalt Perspective” by Prof. Dr. Hanna Nita Scherler, one of the speakers at the Couples and Family Therapy Symposium organized by the Association for Psychological Education, Development, and Support on July 11–12, 2020, in Turkish, now translated into English with her kind permission, in order to reach a wider audience. I am sure that everyone interested in Gestalt Therapy will read it with great interest.

I wish you a pleasant Sunday.
I’m sure everyone has lots of things to do on this beautiful Sunday morning.
Instead, you’re here attending this talk — I hope I can make it worthwhile for you.

I’d like to talk a little bit about how difficulties in relationships can be turned into opportunities.

In Gestalt perspective, contact is defined as the exchange at the boundary. Now, this doesn’t necessarily have to be a romantic relationship.
When we say “exchange at the boundary of contact,” it can be something as simple as going to the greengrocer: we say we want apples, we give money, and receive our apples.
Or we enter a shop and say, “I want this t-shirt,” pay for it, and take it. It’s very simple. In concrete matters, exchanges are quite straightforward.

However, in relationships, exchanges are not that simple — because relationships are an abstract concept.
They still involve an exchange, but a more complex, more abstract one.

So, when we say abstract, what do we give and receive in relationships? Let’s take a broad look.

What might we want to receive?
We might want to receive trust, to feel safe, to be loved, to be cared for, to be acknowledged, included, supported, respected, valued.
These aren’t the only ones of course, but I wanted to mention these as main points.

So, we want to receive these. And what can we give? If we think about it, what we can give in relationships isn’t very different from what we want to receive.
We give trust, love, attention, approval, inclusion, support, respect, care — essentially, what we want to get, we can also offer.

So then you might say: “If it’s that simple, where’s the problem?”
Everyone wants to receive something and is ready to give something in return. So why do problems arise in relationships?

Now I’d like to dig a little deeper into giving and receiving.
When we are about to receive or are motivated to receive, what do we think?
We think: “What do I want?”
I want to be loved.
I want to feel safe.
I want to be acknowledged.
I want help with household chores.
I want my birthday to be remembered.
I want my partner, my lover, or my child to buy me flowers from time to time.

We focus on that.

But the relational ground is made up of two people.
It’s not just about what I want — we should also ask: What is being offered?
If I turn it into the greengrocer example again:
I can’t find apples in a bookstore, or books at the greengrocer.
If I walk into a greengrocer and say “I want a book,” it won’t work.

So, wanting something is nice, but I also need to be aware of what is actually being offered.
I need to realize that too.

Generally, I focus so much on what I want that I overlook whether what I want can actually be offered by the other person.

The same goes for giving — or offering.
Usually — and I’m generalizing, of course, there are exceptions — we focus on:
What is being asked of me?
How can I please the other person?
What are they expecting of me?

But here, we mustn’t ignore ourselves.
Can I offer something while staying loyal to myself, without disrespecting or abandoning myself?
Can I offer without paying the price myself?
This is something we tend to ignore.

To summarize, I said relationship is an exchange at the boundary of contact.
This exchange, especially in family relationships, is not concrete — it’s abstract.
It’s about love, care, attention, respect. We want to receive these, but we also need to offer them.

So where does the problem arise?
The problem arises when I focus so much on what I want that I overlook whether what I want is actually being offered.
And when it comes to giving, it becomes problematic if I “pay the price myself” while giving.

Let me give some concrete examples.
Here’s one complaint I’ve heard from many couples:
The woman says the man is very invested in his work, deeply focused on it,
that even after coming home he quickly eats and then throws himself back into his computer, iPad, or phone, continues his meetings, or keeps reading, writing, drawing,
doesn’t even exchange a few words with her, and if possible, wants the kids to be quiet, to not make noise, and doesn’t talk about how his day went, and so on.

So, what the woman is asking for is a bit of attention, a bit of love, a bit of care. She says: “Everything at home runs smoothly. He always finds his meals ready, his shirts clean and ironed. I manage his social life. When I want to go on a vacation, I arrange the place he wants, I organize everything. I deal with the kids, with the shopping, with calling the plumber when the tap breaks or the hydro-pump needs repair. While I’m dealing with all of this, he doesn’t show me any support, attention, or care. I want attention from him,” she says.

Here, the person doesn’t really consider what the other side can offer or is offering. When it comes to giving or offering, she says, “I do everything I can, as they say, I sacrifice everything, and he gives me nothing.” In this case, to turn what I said earlier into an example, it means she has kept giving, always taking the blame on herself, without considering her loyalty to herself. As a result, a sense of dissatisfaction arises—a mutual dissatisfaction.

For example, let’s talk about a complaint from a man. Some men say: “My wife is very capable, she handles everything, but she lives her life under very strict rules. Things must be done in a certain way, at a certain time. There’s no flexibility.” For instance, on a Sunday, he says, “The weather is great, let’s go for a picnic.” But she says, “Oh, but I have to do the laundry,” or “The kid needs to drink juice at that specific time.” But what’s the harm in skipping the juice for a day or skipping the laundry just for one Sunday?

And she responds, “You say that, but I also work all week. Then who’s going to do all these things?” So here, the man wants her to be a bit more flexible and relaxed. The woman, on the other hand, says, “Okay, but then give me a hand during the week, help out.” So both sides are experiencing dissatisfaction.

In other words, the flow in the mutual exchange at the contact boundary breaks down or stalls. When we look a bit deeper, both parties experience dissatisfaction when there’s a disruption at the contact boundary. This dissatisfaction can show itself as pain, anxiety, anger, or helplessness. Of course, this kind of dissatisfaction, in some couples, manifests itself in physiological discomforts, emotional problems, or even cognitive symptoms.

So at this point, how can couples turn this dissatisfaction into an opportunity?
Which data can they use and how, to turn the relationship into something more fulfilling for both parties?

Again, if we take the frame of mutual exchange at the contact boundary, as I began to say earlier, the question of “What do I want?” should certainly be on stage. But alongside “What do I want?” there must be an effort to also include: “What is being offered, what is being presented?” in the equation.

Likewise, in addition to the answer to the question “What is being asked of me?”, one must also ask, “What can I give? What can I offer or present—without exceeding my own limits, without betraying myself, without disrespecting myself?” That question must also be added to the equation.

You may say, “But this is such a simple thing, why wouldn’t someone include it? Is it even worth mentioning?” You may think, “I want something, and the other person is offering something.” I had simplified this by saying: “I go to the greengrocer and ask for a book.” You might say, “Come on, who would go to a greengrocer and ask for a book?” But yes, this happens in relationships.

For example, let’s say a relationship is starting. A man and a woman meet, start going out, sharing things, and the man, in between conversations, expresses in subtle ways that he doesn’t want a serious relationship, doesn’t want to commit to a partnership, doesn’t want to get married. The woman hears this, but interprets it in her own way. She says, “Ah, he probably went through some unhappy relationships, but I’m different. Once he gets to know me, he’ll definitely change his mind about relationships. Why wouldn’t he want to be with me? I want him so much, I’ll treat him so well that he’ll give up on this thinking.”

Or in some couples, the man or woman may have an addiction—alcohol, smoking, shopping, or internet addiction. The non-addicted partner sees this but says, “I’ll fix this over time. I’ll treat them so nicely, with so much love, that they’ll give up the addiction out of the love they feel for me.” So, what is the person doing here?

They are making assumptions. They’re centering their own desire and not looking at what is actually being offered or presented.
Why do we do this, theoretically?

Not seeing what is being offered—or seeing and hearing it but still not taking it seriously—happens due to what I call our “social software,” which we have experienced and internalized countless times in our relationships with our mother and father within our own family. In other words, we have so deeply internalized and solidly learned a certain mode of existence in those relationships that later in our adult life, we either assume that people we get into relationships with will treat us just like our parents did, or we believe we can create or construct a behavior that is the complete opposite of our parents’ behavior through our own conduct.

Similarly, in terms of giving, we carry the mode of presenting, offering, and giving that we learned and internalized in our interactions with our parents into our adult life.

Theoretically, what I’m talking about here refers to the “pole” within our being that we carry but haven’t yet met.

To relate this to the issue of exchange and boundaries in interaction—while trying to take or give something in a relationship—I may unknowingly continue the same way of taking and giving that I had with my parents. In doing so, I might expect a similar behavior from my spouse, just like that of my parents—or the exact opposite. Of course, this doesn’t work because assumption alone is not enough. I encounter a problem there. I experience a difficulty.

When people face such difficulties, instead of working on themselves or asking, “Am I failing to see what is being offered?” or “Am I not focused on what I can offer?” they try to change the other person, control them, put them in their place, ignore them, or punish them. In other words, they continue to objectify the other as an external object. In this case, the problem doesn’t get solved; on the contrary, it multiplies and even leads to new problems.

What I want to emphasize is that the way to turn such problems into opportunities begins with realizing that the person we are having a problem with in the family—not necessarily a spouse; it could also be children—is creating an opportunity for us to turn inward. The transformation opportunity begins with understanding that the problem we experience with that person is actually an invitation to return to ourselves and that our work with that person might now be complete.

For example, I can also give an example from a relationship between an adult mother and daughter. Let’s say the daughter, when she was young or a child, experienced many injustices in her relationship with her mother, and she accumulated a considerable amount of anger toward her. And only in adulthood is she able to express these feelings to her mother. When it comes to the question of what she wants, she says to her mother: “Tell me that you’re sorry for putting me through all that when I was a child and a young girl. I need to hear that.”

The mother hears her daughter’s request but, in response, tries to explain the difficult circumstances she went through, what she experienced.

The daughter perceives this as defensiveness. When the daughter senses that her mother is being defensive, her anger increases, and this time she raises her voice more, saying: “If you want to get along with me from now on, we need to clear the past first. Apologize for what you did to me back then, or at least say you’re sorry.”

The mother then persistently tries to explain why she behaved that way. Now here, neither of them has bad intentions. Both are holding up a mirror to each other in this difficulty. Both are being invited, through this struggle, to connect with parts of themselves they haven’t yet encountered in their own foundations.

For instance, the mother has shut herself off emotionally due to the hardships she’s experienced. In fact, it’s not that she doesn’t hear her daughter’s emotional outcry—she needs to open her ears to her own internal emotional cry first in order to hear her daughter’s. In other words, this is a call to return to the emotions she has suppressed.

For the daughter, it’s as if she has believed that if someone that important doesn’t show her love or approve of her, then she must be worthless. She has handed over that much power to someone else. What she needs to connect with inside herself is the awareness: “I have my own power. I have my own authority. I have my own will. I also carry masculine energy.” The mother’s stance is an invitation for her to connect with this side of herself. The mother is reflecting a part of the daughter that she contains but hasn’t yet encountered.

For the mother as well, what she sees through her daughter is the emotionality she herself carries within but hasn’t yet connected with—so this becomes an invitation to explore that.

So why is it so hard for people to realize this?

One reason is the “social software,” as I mentioned earlier. In our nuclear family, we learn and internalize certain relational patterns in our relationships with our parents so deeply that we try to perceive and interpret the world only through those patterns thereafter.

So how can they turn this into an opportunity? Why don’t they see what is being offered? For example, what did the daughter not see in her mother? This woman is not offering emotionality; on the contrary, she’s offering rationality.

A way of being in which rationality is more present and emotionality is less present feels very foreign to me. So the question then is not “What do I want?” but “What do I need in order to feel whole? What do I need to become complete?”

Let me open a small parenthesis here for those unfamiliar with the Gestalt approach, and briefly explain what “completion” and “integration” mean from this perspective:

Life holds tensions—just like a day consists of night and day. A year contains both summer and winter, spring and autumn. The human species includes both male and female. In other words, everything gains meaning through its opposite. Life is full of tensions. So, our essence also holds tensions.

If I want to be complete, if I want to become whole, I must be able to use the tensions I carry within. Depending on the needs of the moment I’m in, I must have the flexibility to sometimes be emotional, sometimes rational, and also to move anywhere along the spectrum between those two extremes, according to what I need in that moment. This is necessary to be a whole, integrated person.

Let’s say I’m someone who takes responsibility—someone who tries to do everything on time and in the proper way. That’s great; nothing wrong with that. But if I try to be like that all the time and everywhere, it means I’m lacking. To become complete, I need to be able to relax now and then. I need to be able to accept things that aren’t perfect. Like the contrast between diligence and laziness—there are many examples I could give. I’m just using these to better explain the concept.

So, to be complete means I must be able to define and make contact with both ends of the tensions I carry.

What does my being whole bring to a relationship?

We’re talking about relationships. Here’s the thing: my relationship with the other is a mirror of my relationship with myself. If I cannot tolerate laziness in myself, I also won’t tolerate it in the other. When the other person behaves lazily (according to my judgment), I might push them to stop, try to control them, or show attitude. According to the Gestalt approach, all these behaviors are substitute satisfactions. It’s obvious I’m struggling here.

So what should I do? I need to set out to identify and make contact with the laziness within me. How?

When I work with couples, for example: one goes into the bathroom, comes out and puts the wet towel on the bed before getting dressed. The partner says: “I’ve told you a thousand times not to put the wet towel on the bed.” The one who puts the towel there says: “What’s the big deal? It’s not soaking wet. I’ll take it in a second. Do I always have to leave the wet towel in the bathroom, just because that’s how you want it?”

To the person who can’t tolerate the towel on the bed, I say: “Seeing that wet towel there and getting angry is a developmental opportunity for you.” How?

What do you usually do? You yell, you fight, you sulk. Has it worked? No.

Then let’s put that usual reaction in parentheses, and reframe it as an invitation to come into contact with yourself. How?

Sit down and write down the physical, emotional, and mental reflections you experience the moment you see that wet towel on the bed. People often say: “What does that have to do with anything? How does a wet towel on the bed have anything to do with my emotional, mental, or physical state?”

It has everything to do with it. Because the reason you react is based on the assumption: “I can’t tolerate this.” The intolerance isn’t really about the wet towel itself. It’s about the meaning you assign to the act of putting that towel on the bed. That meaning is what matters to you. You’re holding on to it. You’ve entrusted the us you’ve created, the relationship you value, to this other person—and yet, despite knowing how much this bothers you, they keep doing it.

Behind this meaning, there’s a sense of worthlessness, rejection, being ignored, etc. So why is this a developmental opportunity?

Let’s say in your relationship with your parents, you assigned the meaning of “worthlessness” to this kind of situation. That unresolved issue—this feeling of worthlessness—has been carried into your new relationship. If I want to move from “I can only feel valuable when someone else values me” to “how can I value myself?”, then I have to make contact with that feeling.

It’s not the wet towel on the bed that you can’t tolerate—it’s the feeling of worthlessness.

If I’m afraid of the dark, I have to stay in the dark for a while, so I can start to see. Similarly, if I want to embrace my feeling of worthlessness, the way isn’t to strangle someone until they make me feel valued—it’s to be able to stay in that feeling. I can talk about this “staying within” another time, but of course, we have very limited time now.

Still, the Gestalt methodology is a phenomenological methodology.

Worthlessness is an abstract concept. But if someone is experiencing it, I am responsible for reducing it as much as possible to the here and now—to the concrete—if I want to make contact with myself.

If I’m feeling worthless in that moment, I should leave my husband or wife who is causing that feeling (metaphorically) with the wet towel on the bed, go into another room, take a pen and paper, and write what I’m physically experiencing in my body right then: “I can’t breathe, my heart is tight, my head hurts, my muscles are tense,” etc.

Emotionally: “I feel unloved, I feel rejected, I’m very angry,” whatever it may be.

Mentally: “I think they don’t value me, I think they don’t take me seriously, I think they don’t care about me.” Whatever I’m thinking.

Then you might ask: “What’s the benefit of doing this?”

“Its greatest benefit is that by defining the sense of worthlessness that I feel I can’t stay with, I am actually making contact with it. I can stay with it. I can contain it. And once I have experienced this process of defining and containing enough, this experience carries me to what I call the crime scene—or one of the crime scenes.

Meaning, the body remembers, like ‘this happened, that happened’; the cells of the body take me back to the time and relationship where I had felt a similar emotion. And in that situation, it’s completely normal that I experienced it when I was a child. It’s also very normal that I internalized the meaning my parents attributed to this experience. Back then, I showed the best possible harmony I could manage—I adapted as best I could. I was small. Now I’m an adult. Now my resources are far more developed. Now, the person in front of me is not my mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, or sibling—it’s someone else.

Because this other person’s behavior triggers an unresolved issue I’ve carried from the past to the present, I end up reacting just as I did to my parents when I was a child. Or I use the same mental framework my parents applied to the situation. But that belongs to the past—it’s like trying to do business today using the exchange rate from a few years ago. Whereas, I need to refresh my system every day. I need to update myself according to my daily needs. This is what I call an opportunity for change.

So what I’m trying to say is this: The difficulties experienced in relational space invite a person to resolve issues they haven’t been able to deal with in their personal life process. So how does resolving one’s personal issue positively affect their relationships? If I stop badgering my spouse for validation and learn to give that validation to myself, of course, it liberates both of us. I stop badgering them, and they’re no longer overwhelmed. In other words, the difficulties that couples experience during interactions often stem from each person bringing in the relational “sacks” they’ve internalized from their family of origin. Is this a bad thing? No—it’s something we actually want. But when does it lead to a positive outcome? When individuals stop insisting, ‘You change, you give me what I want, you listen to me,’ and instead see this relational issue as an invitation to examine what’s in their own relational sack. That’s when it works.

And in doing so, the more I come into contact with qualities I already carry but had not yet noticed or touched, I not only understand what I want in a relationship, but I also start to ask: Can the other person offer this right now? Does their current life situation allow them to meet my need? At the same time, when they expect something from me, I ask: To what extent and in what way can I provide it? How can I do so without being untrue to myself?

For example, something I hear very often is from men or women about their relationships with their adult parents. Say the parents get sick—not seriously, but their bodies start acting up—and they make demands on their adult children: ‘Take me to the doctor,’ ‘This medicine doesn’t work,’ ‘You chose the wrong doctor,’ ‘Pay attention to me,’ ‘Call every day,’ etc.

The adult children wish their parents wouldn’t make such demands. They want their parents to understand that they have their own lives, jobs, and families, and they already devote as much time as they possibly can.

So when does the problem arise? The problem arises when the adult child says, ‘Well, it’s my mom, my dad. I’ll give up time with my spouse or kids to meet their needs,’ and they start sacrificing parts of their own life. They give up sports, time with their kids, quality time with their partner—just to meet their parents’ requests. It becomes an approach like ‘My existence is a gift to yours.’ But neither the parent is satisfied—because the more they get, the more they want—nor can the couple find peace, because then their relationship suffers, their connection with their children suffers, even their work life suffers.

That’s why, instead of only asking, ‘What do I want?’ or ‘What can I offer?’ we must also ask: ‘What do I need?’

In the Gestalt perspective, need includes both ends of a tension that comes with existence. That is, I can’t only need responsibility—I must also need irresponsibility. I can’t only need to be diligent—I must also need laziness. I can’t only need to be compassionate—I must also need a bit of toughness. I could give countless examples of this. I need both separation and union, both differentiation and integration. The key is gaining the flexibility to balance these, according to the needs of the moment I’m in.

And to gain this flexibility—well, no one is born with it. Everyone sets out to gain it by using their experiences as opportunities. That’s what I wanted to emphasize today.”

In summary, that’s all I have to say. If anyone wants to ask or say something, I’d be happy to answer or listen.

And if you have any resource suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

I strongly recommend Ken Wilber’s book No Boundary—it’s a great place to start.
And for applying phenomenological methodology, I can suggest Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now.