Notice the top dog and the underdog
Hear the bossy inner voice of "shoulds" and the quiet part that stalls, and let each say its piece.
Why it works
Levitsky and Perls describe a common split in the personality: the top dog moralizes, specializes in "shoulds", and is bossy and condemning, while the underdog stays passively resistant, making excuses and finding reasons for delay. Because the underdog wins by stalling rather than arguing, the conflict can run for years as a stalemate that looks like laziness or procrastination. Gestalt work makes the split explicit by letting each side speak as itself, so both demands can be heard rather than one being obeyed in words and defeated in practice.
How to do it
- Pick a "should" you keep failing to act on (exercise more, finish the application, call your mother).
- Write or say the top dog's speech in its own voice: "You should… You always… Why can't you just…".
- Then write or say the underdog's reply in its voice: "Yes, but… I will tomorrow… I'm tired…". Let it be as evasive as it really is.
- Read both and ask what each one actually needs. A full version uses two chairs, one for each side; that technique has its own page on two-chair dialogue.
Evidence
The top dog and underdog are described in Levitsky and Perls's 1970 chapter under the "games of dialogue" (quoted in Witchel's 1973 review). Elliott and colleagues report that intensive study of two-chair dialogue for inner conflicts in emotion-focused and Gestalt therapies produced a model of how such splits resolve, which later studies supported. (clinical)
The research on resolving inner conflicts studies the full two-chair task, mostly in emotion-focused therapy, not this written version; it supports the idea by analogy only.
Sources
- Levitsky, A., & Perls, F. S. (1970). The rules and games of Gestalt therapy. In J. Fagan & I. L. Shepherd (Eds.), Gestalt Therapy Now: Theory, Techniques, Applications. Science and Behavior Books.
- Witchel, R. (1973). Gestalt Therapy: Development, Theory, and Techniques. Paper presented at the American Personnel and Guidance Association meeting, Atlanta (ERIC document ED082090).
- Elliott, R., Greenberg, L. S., Watson, J., Timulak, L., & Freire, E. (2013). Research on humanistic-experiential psychotherapies. In M. J. Lambert (Ed.), Bergin and Garfield's Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change (6th ed., pp. 495-538). Wiley.
Common mistake
Siding with the top dog and treating the underdog as the problem to defeat. In the Gestalt account the stalemate holds precisely because the underdog is never heard; more pressure from the top dog usually means more quiet stalling.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Gestalt Therapy: Awareness, Ownership and Contact in the Here and Now
- Follow the awareness continuum
Say what you are aware of, moment by moment, in the present tense, instead of explaining it.
- Change "it" language into "I" language
Say "I am trembling" instead of "it is trembling", and add "and I take responsibility for it" to what you say.
- Notice the unfinished situation pulling at your attention
Find the unmet need that keeps drawing your attention away from the present, and name it in your own words.
- Exaggerate the gesture
Take a small repeated movement or tone of voice and deliberately make it bigger, to hear what it is saying.
- Notice how you interrupt contact
Catch the moment you turn a reaction back on yourself, or swallow someone else's rule whole, instead of meeting what is there.
- Respect the rhythm of contact and withdrawal
When you need to pull back, do it deliberately, notice where you go, and then return.
Related concepts
- Shadow Work
Meeting the parts of yourself you have been ignoring
- Two-Chair Dialogue: Working With the Inner Critic and Other Inner Splits
Giving the critic and the criticized self each a chair, so the fight inside you becomes a conversation that can change
- The Empty Chair Technique: Finishing What Was Never Said
Speaking directly to the person you still carry, so the old feelings can finally move
- Voice Dialogue: Meeting the Selves That Run Your Life
Hearing the pusher, the pleaser and the critic in their own voices, so they stop running you unnoticed
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