Mexican humanistic Gestalt psychotherapy

1. Introduction

Version followed: the humanistic Gestalt approach of Myriam Muñoz Polit and the Instituto Humanista de Psicoterapia Gestalt (IHPG, Mexico City), centred on her book Emociones, sentimientos y necesidades. Una aproximación humanista (IHPG, 2009; later printings cited as 2012 and 2013; also published in French). No legitimate preview of the book's text is available, so its concepts are reported here as summarised, with page references, by Spanish-language theses and papers that cite it (a 2013 UDLA thesis, Arellano Ugalde 2022, a COMIE congress paper) and by a UMSNH syllabus based on it. Generic Gestalt procedures are taken from the Mexican Gestalt teaching literature (Salama, Naranjo, Castanedo, as summarised in a 2014 UNAM thesis) and labelled as such. Source status (October 2026): the core model (MATEA, the functions of the five basic emotions, sensation, emotion, feeling and need, substitution and false needs, background feelings, feelings of development and of deterioration) is confirmed through these secondary sources. The names, page numbers and steps of any exercises in the book are not confirmed by any legitimate source [uncertain], so the procedures in Part A of section 4 are [synthesis] built on the model.

What it is. This is a training tradition and institute rather than a separately manualised therapy. Muñoz Polit (born 1948 in Guayaquil, Ecuador; died 26 January 2025) held a doctorate in Human Development from the Universidad Iberoamericana. She founded the IHPG in 1985 and directed it until her death. She also founded the journal Figura Fondo in 1997. The IHPG reports more than 20,000 graduates and campuses in Mexico City, Puebla, Veracruz and Ecuador. [source: Muñoz F. 2025; Spagnuolo Lobb 2025; IHPG site] Héctor Salama, often linked with Mexican Gestalt, founded a separate institute (the IMPG) and is not part of this lineage. [source: Flores Elorriaga 2014] [uncertain: institutional history beyond these sources]

Distinctive content. The tradition combines classical Gestalt therapy with Rogers's person-centred approach and Mexican "Desarrollo Humano" (human development). Its trademark is a systematic theory of emotional life, as summarised by authors who cite the book [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022; UDLA 2013; COMIE paper 1523; UMSNH syllabus]:

• Sensation, emotion, feeling and need are distinguished as successive moments of one process. It begins in the person's contact with the environment and ends in action that meets a need. [source: COMIE paper 1523; Arellano Ugalde 2022; UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, p. 98]
• There are five basic (innate) emotions, remembered by the acronym MATEA: Miedo, Alegría, Tristeza, Enojo, Afecto (fear, joy, sadness, anger, affection). Each has a survival function. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022; UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, pp. 69–71]
• Feelings are grouped as feelings of development, which serve vitality, and feelings of deterioration or dysfunction. Long-lasting sentimientos de fondo (background feelings) colour a person's whole emotional life. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022]
• Dysfunction arises when emotions are not lived adequately. The usual causes are thinking taking the place of feeling, and one emotion being denied and replaced by another, which produces false needs. [source: UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, p. 102]
• Whether the book sets out practical exercises, and which ones, is not described in the secondary sources used here. [uncertain]

Other IHPG contributions are:

• La sensibilización Gestalt en el trabajo terapéutico (2008), on Gestalt sensitisation;
• Los ocho modos de relación o interacción (2015), on eight modes of relating;
• work on dreams, symptoms and couples. [source: Muñoz F. 2025]

How change happens. Emotion is the organism's immediate, integrating awareness of its relation to the environment. It joins a bodily reaction to a quick appraisal of the situation. Unpleasant sensations and emotions signal possible danger or an unmet need. Sensations, emotions and feelings put the person in contact with their needs, and the natural next step is action to meet them. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022 and UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, pp. 38–39, 98] Problems arise when this process is not lived adequately: the person thinks instead of feeling, or denies one emotion and replaces it with another, and so pursues false needs. [source: UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, p. 102] Rigid background feelings that no longer fit the present also distort perception. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022] The Mexican humanistic literature cited alongside Muñoz also treats introjects, obsolete experiences and unfinished business as sources of dysfunction. The thesis that reports this credits them to other authors (Castro, Hierro, Giorgana), not to Muñoz herself. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022] The therapist helps the client feel, name and decipher the feeling, find the need behind it, and express and act on it in the present. This restores organismic self-regulation. [synthesis of the above]

2. Framework

No published phase protocol, session count or criteria for moving between phases was found for IHPG psychotherapy. [uncertain] The structure below combines three things: the emotional-process model, the Gestalt cycle of experience as taught in Mexican Gestalt, and the formats the IHPG runs. A suggested course of therapy is offered as [synthesis].

A. The emotional process (Muñoz Polit's core map). [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022; UDLA 2013; COMIE paper 1523, all citing the 2009 book or its later printings]

The natural process is lived in the present and leads to the need being met. The dysfunctional process is cut short or distorted. The emotion is thought about rather than felt, or denied and replaced by another, or a background feeling persists that no longer fits the situation. [source: UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, p. 102; Arellano Ugalde 2022] This guide also uses the intensity and duration of a feeling, and the goal of a proportionate, present-centred way of feeling, as working ideas. [synthesis]

Feelings fall into three groups [source: UMSNH syllabus based on Muñoz 2005, 2009]:

• basic (the MATEA);
• developmental (de desarrollo);
• introjected (introyectados).

Anxiety, anguish (angustia), depression and stress are taught as distortions of the basic feelings. [source: UMSNH syllabus] Existential anguish is listed among the feelings of the fear family, and dysfunctional anguish among the feelings of deterioration. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022, tables after Muñoz 2009 and 2012] [uncertain: how the book distinguishes developmental from introjected feelings was not seen]

B. Gestalt cycle of experience (Mexican Gestalt teaching, not specific to the IHPG). The six stages are rest, sensation, awareness or figure formation, energising, action and contact, followed by withdrawal. Each stage has a typical block:

• Sensation: desensitisation ("I don't feel").
• Awareness: projection.
• Energising: introjection.
• Action: retroflection ("acting is dangerous").
• Contact: deflection and confluence (both placed between action and contact).
• Withdrawal: fixation (fijación): energy stays fixed on what was realised instead of being let go ("I can't let go").

[source: Flores Elorriaga 2014, pp. 24–26, 34–35 and 41, after Salama and Castanedo. The thesis places each mechanism between two stages; the list above names the stage it leads into. It links fixation to withdrawal only through its example, and lists retention (retención) and postponement (postergación) without a stage.]

C. Formats.

• Individual psychotherapy.
• Group sensitisation (sensibilización Gestalt), a structured experiential group led by a sensibilizador. [source: Muñoz 1995 cited in Delgado García 2007; IHPG book title]
• Couples work: couples were one of Muñoz Polit's stated areas of study. [source: Muñoz F. 2025] Applying MATEA profiles to couples (A10) is [synthesis].
• Workshops, e.g. dialogue with symptoms, and a course on feeling-work theory and technique. [source: IHPG site]

No standard number of sessions is published. [uncertain]

D. Suggested course of therapy for a practising clinician [synthesis]:

1. Contact and mapping (about sessions 1–3). Build the alliance with person-centred attitudes. Map the client's personal MATEA: which emotions they allow, which they avoid, which they swap for others. Locate background feelings and the presenting need. Move on when the client can report a sensation and name a feeling in the here and now with your help.
2. Emotional-process work (the middle phase, open-ended). Use the emotional-process method on the feelings that come up. Use specific work for anger, fear and dysfunctional feelings. Work with introjects, obsolete experiences and unfinished business through Gestalt experiments (dialogue, empty chair, dreams, polarities). Move on when the client can run the sense–name–need–express sequence themselves for their usual feelings, and blocks show up less often or are noticed sooner.
3. Integration and closure. Turn the work into action in the client's relationships (couple, family) and choose satisfiers. Review the client's MATEA against where they started. Close any unfinished business with you before ending. Ready to end when the client sustains self-support between sessions and the original needs are being met outside therapy.

3. Guiding principles

[source: Arellano Ugalde 2022, UDLA 2013 and COMIE paper 1523, citing Muñoz 2009 and 2013; Muñoz 1995 in Delgado García 2007 and in García Rodríguez & Luna Soto 2007; Flores Elorriaga 2014. One-line meanings are paraphrase, or synthesis where marked.]

• No basic emotion is harmful in itself. Each MATEA emotion has a survival function: fear protects, anger defends and sets limits, sadness turns the person inward after a loss, affection bonds, and joy marks a need being met. Never aim to get rid of a feeling. Aim to understand and channel it. [source: UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, pp. 69–71; Arellano Ugalde 2022]
• Unpleasant emotions signal danger or unmet needs. Do not soothe a feeling away before you know what it is telling you. [source: UDLA 2013, citing p. 39]
• Emotions are information, so the process should not be blocked. Follow the sequence to its end (sense, name, need, express, act) rather than stopping at insight. [source: UDLA 2013, citing p. 98]
• Feel the emotion rather than think it. Relying on thinking is a main source of dysfunction. Bring the client back from explanation to experience. [source: UDLA 2013, citing p. 102]
• Feelings must be deciphered. Ask what is felt, where, what is needed and what the feeling is saying. Name the feeling before anyone acts on it. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022, guiding questions credited partly to Muñoz 2009 and partly to the person-centred approach]
• The person is a whole, with physiological, psychological and transcendent needs. Track body, thought, relationships and meaning together. [source: COMIE paper 1523; Arellano Ugalde 2022]
• Work from a clear map, not improvisation. Know which part of the process you are in and why you are choosing a technique. [synthesis]
• Attitude matters more than technique. Exercises are not formulas. How well they work depends on the therapist's humanistic presence. [synthesis, in line with the person-centred stance and with Muñoz 1995 on the facilitator's tone and warmth]
• Person-centred conditions. Congruence, unconditional acceptance and empathy, including reflection of feeling. (Rogers, as taught in the IHPG tradition)
• Gauge readiness: willingness, time, awareness, experiencing, expression. Is the client willing? Is there time to finish? Can they notice the feeling, actually live it, and express it? [synthesis; not confirmed as Muñoz Polit's own framework]
• Pace and dose. Pace emotional work so that a feeling opened in session can be finished or contained before the session ends. In groups, move from low-risk to higher-risk exercises. [source for graded risk: Muñoz 1995 in García Rodríguez & Luna Soto 2007; the rest synthesis]
• Here and now. Work with what is happening in the session, not with talk about it. [source: Flores Elorriaga 2014]
• Awareness (darse cuenta) across three zones: outer world, inner world, fantasy. Notice which zone the client keeps leaving for, for instance escaping into fantasy. [source: Flores Elorriaga 2014; Muñoz 2008 cited in Rivera Montiel 2015]
• Self-regulation and self-support. Trust the organism's capacity to restore balance once awareness is there. Build the client's own support rather than dependence on you. [synthesis from Gestalt sources]
• Facilitator qualities (for sensitisation groups): genuineness, warmth, acceptance, flexibility, commitment and listening. Also a capacity to confront, frustrate and support, to design experiences and to accompany. Both challenging and holding are part of the job. The facilitator's tone of voice, confidence and warmth shape the group, and every session ends with feedback and a closing. [source: Muñoz 1995 in Delgado García 2007 and in García Rodríguez & Luna Soto 2007]
• Healthy feeling as the goal. The aim is not calm. It is feelings that are lived fully, in proportion, in the present and in the service of needs. Expressing them gives life meaning and intensity. [source for expression: UDLA 2013, citing p. 105; the rest synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

How to read this section. Part A gives emotional-work procedures built on Muñoz Polit's model (MATEA, background feelings, the emotional process). No published source describes the book's own exercises or confirms their names [uncertain]. The procedures in A2–A18 are therefore [synthesis]: reasoned applications of her concepts, not reproductions of her text. Where a concept behind a technique is sourced, the source is given. Part B covers IHPG formats. Part C covers the generic Gestalt techniques taught in Mexican Gestalt training (Naranjo's classification into suppressive, expressive and integrative techniques), sourced to Flores Elorriaga (2014). The content of Los ocho modos de relación (2015) is not described in the sources used, so no intervention is listed for it [uncertain]. All example language is illustrative.

A. Emotional work (Muñoz Polit)

A1. Deciphering a feeling (what, where, what you need)

• Purpose: turn a vague or "coded" feeling into a named feeling with a body location and a need. This is the basic move of the approach, used whenever a feeling appears. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022, which gives the guiding questions what, where, what you need and what the feeling says, credited partly to Muñoz 2009 and partly to the person-centred approach]
• Steps:
  1. Pause the story when a feeling shows.
  2. Ask what the client is feeling.
  3. Ask where in the body they feel it.
  4. Ask what they think they need.
  5. Reflect the feeling back.
  6. Use concretisation: ask for a specific instance, a specific person, a specific moment.
  7. Check the name against the MATEA: is it fear, joy, sadness, anger or affection, or a mix?
• Example language (illustrative): "What are you feeling right now as you tell me this? … Where do you notice it? … If that feeling could ask for something, what would it ask for?"
• Watch for: answers given as thoughts ("I feel that he's unfair"). Gently ask for the feeling word. It is working when the client's description becomes more specific and bodily, and the need comes out in their own words.

A2. Emotional-process method (taking one feeling through)

• Purpose: take one feeling through the whole natural sequence, from sensation to the need being met. Use it for the main emotional work of the middle phase. [source for the process model: UDLA 2013; Arellano Ugalde 2022] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Ground the client in a sensation (breath, posture, where the tension is).
  2. Let the emotion form and name it (A1).
  3. Allow it to be experienced at a bearable intensity, without hurrying to explain it.
  4. Decipher it: what situation it is about, and which need is unmet.
  5. Find a fitting expression in the session (words to the person concerned, perhaps on an empty chair; movement; writing).
  6. Identify a realistic satisfier outside the session.
  7. Close: notice how things are now and what has changed in the body.
• Example language (illustrative): "Stay with it a moment longer. … What does this sadness know that you haven't been listening to?"
• Watch for: stopping at insight, flooding, or a jump to a substitute feeling (for example anger in place of fear). It is working when the session ends with completion or relief, and with a concrete step the client means to take.

A3. Working with dysfunctional or substituted feelings

• Purpose: work with a feeling that is out of proportion, chronic or substituted. Typical signs are anger that hides fear, sadness that hides anger, or anguish. Trace it to its source: an introject, an obsolete experience or unfinished business. [source for substitution: UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, p. 102; for introjects, obsolete experiences and unfinished business as sources of dysfunction: Arellano Ugalde 2022, citing other authors] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Describe the feeling and how it shows (intensity, how long it lasts, what triggers it).
  2. Ask whether it fits the present situation.
  3. Look for the purer feeling underneath ("if it weren't anger, what might it be?").
  4. Find the source: a rule ("I mustn't…"), an old situation it repeats, or something left unfinished.
  5. Choose the matching technique (A15–A17).
  6. Practise the purer feeling and its expression.
• Example language (illustrative): "This anger is big for what happened. When did you first feel exactly this?"
• Watch for: a shift to a softer, more vulnerable feeling as the sign of change. Do not insist on a hidden feeling if none appears.

A4. Emotional biography

• Purpose: reach the feelings, and the background feeling, that belong to each period of the client's life. Arellano Ugalde (2022) mentions emotional biography as a therapeutic use of background-feeling work, without clearly crediting it to Muñoz [uncertain]. [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Ask the client to divide their life into periods and choose a reminder for each (a photograph, a place, a piece of music, an event).
  2. Bring or recall the reminders in session, or prepare them as homework.
  3. For each piece, explore the feeling it brings up and the background feeling of that stage.
  4. Link these to current needs.
• Example language (illustrative): "Pick three times in your life and something that brings each one back. Let's see what feeling each of them still carries."
• Watch for: strong grief responses. Pace this with the time continuum (see principles).

A5. How others perceive my usual feeling (background feelings)

• Purpose: bring a long-standing sentimiento de fondo (background feeling) to light by using other people's perceptions. Background feelings can be read through non-verbal language, which others often see before the client does. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. The client lists how important people would describe their usual mood or feeling. They can imagine this or ask directly as homework.
  2. In a group, members give this feedback directly.
  3. Compare it with the client's own view.
  4. Name the background feeling that comes out.
• Example language (illustrative): "If your sister described the feeling you usually walk around with, what would she say?"
• Watch for: shame at the feedback. It is working when the client recognises a pattern they had not named.

A6. Life line and background feeling

• Purpose: map a background feeling across the client's life. Background feelings can last from a short time to years. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Draw a timeline with the key events.
  2. Mark the main feeling of each period.
  3. Look for the feeling that keeps returning, and for when it began.
  4. Explore which need it has been signalling throughout.
• Example language (illustrative): "Let's mark the feeling that ran under each period. Which one keeps coming back?"
• Watch for: unfinished business that surfaces. Note it for later work rather than opening everything at once.

A7. Exploratory questions for background feelings

• Purpose: a set of questions for exploring background feelings, built on the traits Arellano Ugalde (2022) reports: how long the feeling has lasted, whether it has become rigid, and whether it still fits the present. [synthesis]
• Steps [synthesis]: ask:
  • since when the feeling has been present;
  • in which situations it gets stronger;
  • what it protects the client from;
  • which need it points to.
• Example language (illustrative): "When does this feeling get louder, and when does it go quiet?"
• Watch for: turning the questions into an intellectual exercise. Keep bringing the client back to the body.

A8. Personal MATEA profile

• Purpose: profile how the client relates to each of the five basic emotions: which ones they allow, which they avoid or substitute, and how they express them. This serves as an assessment and focus tool. [source for MATEA: Arellano Ugalde 2022; Askenazi blog] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Take each emotion in turn (fear, joy, sadness, anger, affection).
  2. For each one, ask how often the client feels it, how they show it, what they do instead, and what they were taught about it.
  3. Rate how easily they can allow and express it.
  4. Choose one or two avoided emotions as therapy targets.
• Example language (illustrative): "Of these five — fear, joy, sadness, anger, affection — which do you let yourself feel easily, and which do you avoid?"
• Watch for: the client labelling emotions as "good" or "bad". Restate that each emotion serves a need. It is working when the profile matches problems the client recognises.

A9. Origin of the personal MATEA

• Purpose: trace how each emotion was allowed or forbidden in the family of origin. This brings out introjects and the different permissions given by gender. [source: gender permissions noted in Askenazi blog, not attributed to Muñoz] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. For each emotion, ask what happened in the family when the client showed it.
  2. Ask who modelled it, and who was allowed it.
  3. Identify the rule they took in.
  4. Ask whether that rule fits them today.
• Example language (illustrative): "In your house, what happened when someone got angry? What did you conclude about anger?"
• Watch for: blame becoming the focus. Keep the work on the rule the client still carries.

A10. MATEA in couples

• Purpose: compare the partners' MATEA profiles to understand their emotional clashes. Couples were one of Muñoz Polit's areas of study. [source: Muñoz F. 2025] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Each partner does A8.
  2. The partners share their profiles with each other.
  3. Identify complementary or clashing patterns, for example one partner expresses anger while the other only expresses sadness.
  4. Agree how each will signal the need behind their emotion.
• Example language (illustrative): "When she gets angry, which of the five do you feel? And what does each of you need in that moment?"
• Watch for: profiles used as weapons. Insist on "I" statements.

A11. MATEA compared with childhood figures

• Purpose: compare the client's profile with those of their parents or caregivers, to see what was copied, what was rejected and what was compensated. [synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Build a MATEA profile for each key figure.
  2. Set it beside the client's own.
  3. Discuss the matches and the opposites.
  4. Choose what to keep.
• Example language (illustrative): "Your father's fear and yours look very alike. Is that one yours or his?"
• Watch for: loyalty conflicts with family. It is working when the client separates their own feeling from the inherited pattern.

A12. Working with one's own anger

• Purpose: turn anger into clear limits and self-protection, rather than suppressing it or exploding. Anger serves limit-setting and choosing what is good or harmful for oneself. [source for the function of anger (defence against invasion, setting limits, telling what is harmful): UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, pp. 70–71; Askenazi blog] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Name the anger and feel it in the body.
  2. Identify what was crossed or what is too much.
  3. Express it safely in session, verbally or with contained physical expression (e.g. pushing against a cushion while you supervise).
  4. Find the limit or request it points to.
  5. Rehearse saying it assertively.
• Example language (illustrative): "Your anger is telling you where your limit is. Say the limit, in one sentence, to him on that chair."
• Watch for: escalation, loss of control, or anger that hides fear or hurt (see A3). Avoid cathartic hitting without containment. Its value is uncertain, and you must judge it carefully with clients who have a history of violence [synthesis].

A13. Working with other people's anger

• Purpose: help the client stay present and protected when someone is angry at them. [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Recall a scene where someone was angry with them.
  2. Notice their own reaction (often fear).
  3. Separate the other person's anger from their own worth.
  4. Decide on a response: listen, set a limit or leave.
  5. Rehearse it.
• Example language (illustrative): "When he shouts, what happens in you? What would you need in order to stay standing?"
• Watch for: abuse disclosures. If the situation is unsafe, move to safety planning rather than communication practice.

A14. Working with fear

• Purpose: use fear's protective function. Recognise the fear, find what it is about, and prepare. [source for the protective function of fear: UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, pp. 70–71; Arellano Ugalde 2022] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Name the fear and where it sits in the body.
  2. Ask what it is protecting the client from.
  3. Separate a real present threat from an obsolete experience.
  4. Identify the support the client needs: their own resources and other people.
  5. Plan a protective action or a graded approach.
• Example language (illustrative): "What is your fear trying to keep you safe from? What would help you feel protected enough to take one step?"
• Watch for: fear that has turned into anguish or anxiety, which is diffuse and has no object. Go back to the object and to present-moment support.

A15. Working with introjects

• Purpose: examine "swallowed" rules about feeling (for example "men don't cry" or "anger is sinful") that block the emotional process. [source: introject concept, Flores Elorriaga 2014; Arellano Ugalde 2022] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Catch the "should" or "mustn't" in the client's speech.
  2. Ask whose voice it is.
  3. Have the client say it aloud as that person.
  4. Have the client answer as themselves.
  5. The client "chews" the rule: what to keep, change or spit out.
• Example language (illustrative): "'I shouldn't be sad.' Whose sentence is that? Say it the way they said it."
• Watch for: introjects that carry cultural or religious meaning. Explore them respectfully, without imposing your values [synthesis].

A16. Working with obsolete experiences

• Purpose: update emotional responses learned in the past that no longer fit the present. [source: obsolete experiences as a source of dysfunction, Arellano Ugalde 2022, citing other authors] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Find the present trigger.
  2. Find the earlier situation where the response made sense.
  3. Acknowledge what it achieved back then.
  4. Contrast that with the client's present resources.
  5. Practise a response that fits now.
• Example language (illustrative): "At eight, staying silent protected you. You're forty now — what do you have now that you didn't have then?"
• Watch for: trauma material. Titrate it (see section 5).

A17. Working with unfinished business

• Purpose: complete gestalts left open, such as goodbyes never said or anger never expressed, that keep a feeling active. [source: Gestalt concept; Arellano Ugalde 2022] [steps: synthesis, using the dialogue technique C9]
• Steps:
  1. Identify the unfinished situation and the person involved.
  2. Bring it into the present with the empty chair (C9).
  3. Express what was left unsaid.
  4. Switch roles if useful.
  5. Close: say goodbye, make a request or forgive, as the client chooses.
• Example language (illustrative): "Imagine your mother here. What did you never get to say to her?"
• Watch for: completion shows as relief, a sense of ending, or a spontaneous change in the feeling.

A18. Working with anguish arising in emotional work

• Purpose: handle diffuse anguish that comes up when blocked feelings start to open. Existential anguish is grouped with fear, and dysfunctional anguish with the feelings of deterioration. [source: Arellano Ugalde 2022] [steps: synthesis]
• Steps:
  1. Slow down.
  2. Ground the client: feet, breath, your voice.
  3. Help them find a specific fear inside the diffuse anguish.
  4. Offer support and contact.
  5. Reduce the intensity before going further.
• Example language (illustrative): "Let's slow down. Feel your feet. … If this anguish had a specific fear inside it, what would it be?"
• Watch for: panic or dissociation. See section 5 on overwhelm.

B. IHPG formats

B1. Gestalt sensitisation group (sensibilización Gestalt)

• Purpose: a structured experiential group that builds awareness of sensations, feelings and relating. It is the IHPG's signature group format and the subject of Muñoz Polit's 2008 book. [source: Muñoz F. 2025; IHPG site; Muñoz 1995 in Delgado García 2007] [uncertain: the 2008 book's own session design is not described in the sources used]
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Contract on confidentiality and voluntary participation, and on the right to pass.
  2. Warm-up with sensory or body awareness.
  3. A designed experience, such as a pairs exercise, guided fantasy, or a MATEA or feedback exercise.
  4. Personal processing: each member says what they noticed and felt, as "I" statements in the present.
  5. The facilitator stays with what comes up, confronting, supporting or frustrating as needed.
  6. Closing round.
• Example language (illustrative): "Before we talk about it, notice: what are you feeling right now, and where?"
• Watch for: pressure to self-disclose, and members who are being destabilised. Muñoz's list of facilitator qualities (1995) includes both confronting and accompanying. Balance them. Muñoz (1995) also grades group exercises by four risk levels: no contact outside oneself; low-threat verbal exchange; more intimate topics with light physical contact; and high-risk exercises with intimate contact and difficult themes. Sequence from low to high, and end every session with feedback and a closing so members can name what they felt. [source: Muñoz 1995 in García Rodríguez & Luna Soto 2007]

B2. Dialogue with the symptom

• Purpose: treat a bodily or psychological symptom as a message and give it a voice. The IHPG lists this as a workshop topic, and Muñoz Polit worked on symptoms. [source: IHPG site; Muñoz F. 2025] [steps: synthesis from generic Gestalt identification; uncertain whether the IHPG uses this sequence]
• Steps:
  1. Describe the symptom in detail: location, shape, rhythm.
  2. The client "becomes" the symptom and speaks as it in the first person ("I am the headache; I …").
  3. Ask the symptom what it does for the person and what it needs.
  4. The client answers as themselves.
  5. Find the feeling and need involved (A1).
• Example language (illustrative): "Be the tightness in your chest. 'I am the tightness, and I am here because…'"
• Watch for: this is not a substitute for medical assessment. Make sure the symptom has been checked medically [synthesis].

C. Generic Gestalt techniques as taught in Mexican Gestalt

[source for C1–C14: Flores Elorriaga 2014, pp. 21–30, citing Salama, Naranjo and Castanedo; steps are paraphrase plus synthesis; whether the IHPG uses each in exactly this form is uncertain]

C1. Awareness continuum in three zones

• Purpose: train moment-to-moment awareness of the external zone (senses), the internal zone (body and feelings) and the fantasy zone (thoughts, plans, memories). Use it when the client intellectualises or loses contact.
• Steps:
  1. Invite present-tense statements beginning "Now I am aware of…".
  2. Track which zone each statement belongs to.
  3. Point out escapes into fantasy.
  4. Bring the client back to the senses and the body.
• Example language (illustrative): "Now I notice… — keep going, just say what you notice, moment by moment."
• Watch for: it is working when the client spends more time in the internal and external zones and makes fewer leaps into explanation.

C2. Here and now: talking to, not about (suppressive)

• Purpose: block "aboutism", meaning narrating instead of experiencing.
• Steps:
  1. When the client narrates, ask them to put it in the present tense.
  2. Ask them to speak to the person rather than about them, and to use "I" instead of "one" or "you".
• Example language (illustrative): "Instead of telling me about him, tell him."
• Watch for: the client's voice and emotion become more alive.

C3. Experiencing emptiness (suppressive)

• Purpose: stay with emptiness or boredom instead of filling it, so that what is underneath can emerge.
• Steps:
  1. When the client fills a silence or runs out of things to say, invite them to stay with it.
  2. Ask them to describe it.
• Example language (illustrative): "Don't fill it yet. What is the emptiness like?"
• Watch for: anxiety rising. Offer contact.

C4. Detecting "shoulds" and manipulation (suppressive)

• Purpose: catch introjected rules and indirect demands (playing helpless, asking questions that are really statements).
• Steps:
  1. Reflect each "should" you hear.
  2. Ask the client to turn questions into statements.
  3. Ask them to turn "I can't" into "I won't".
• Example language (illustrative): "Try saying 'I won't' instead of 'I can't' and see if it fits."
• Watch for: the client feeling criticised. Offer it as an experiment, not a correction.

C5. Repetition (expressive)

• Purpose: intensify a significant phrase or gesture so that its feeling emerges.
• Steps: ask the client to repeat the phrase or movement several times, slowly or louder, then ask what they notice.
• Example language (illustrative): "Say that again: 'I'm tired.' … Again."
• Watch for: a change in voice or affect.

C6. Exaggeration / maximising expression (expressive)

• Purpose: amplify a small gesture or tone into full expression.
• Steps: notice a small movement (a tapping foot, a clenched fist), invite the client to make it bigger, then put words to it.
• Example language (illustrative): "Let your hand do more of what it's doing. If it had words?"
• Watch for: embarrassment. Model playfulness.

C7. Completing the expression (expressive)

• Purpose: finish an expression that was cut off (an unfinished sentence, a held-back movement).
• Steps: point out the interruption, then invite the client to complete the sentence or movement.
• Example language (illustrative): "You stopped mid-sentence: 'I just wanted…' — finish it."
• Watch for: a feeling of relief and completion.

C8. Translation (expressive)

• Purpose: put a non-verbal message into words.
• Steps: ask the client to give a voice to a gesture, posture or sigh.
• Example language (illustrative): "If that sigh could speak, what would it say?"
• Watch for: answers that come too fast and sound rehearsed. Slow down.

C9. Intrapersonal dialogue / empty chair with role exchange (integrative)

• Purpose: bring a conflict between parts of the self (e.g. demanding versus fearful) or with another person into the present, so it can be integrated or completed.
• Steps:
  1. Put one part or person on an empty chair.
  2. The client speaks to them.
  3. The client switches chairs and answers.
  4. Continue the exchange, tracking feelings and needs (A1).
  5. Close by asking each side what it needs and where they now stand.
• Example language (illustrative): "Sit here and be the part that pushes you. … Now switch. How does it feel to hear that?"
• Watch for: a softening between the sides, or a clear statement of need. With a perpetrator of serious abuse, do not force a dialogue; offer distance and choice [synthesis].

C10. Acting out / enactment (expressive)

• Purpose: enact a scene, role or feeling instead of describing it.
• Steps: set up the scene, have the client act it in the present tense, then process it.
• Example language (illustrative): "Show me how that dinner went — be yourself at that table."
• Watch for: re-traumatisation if the scene is traumatic. Titrate (see section 5).

C11. Assimilating projections (integrative)

• Purpose: reclaim qualities the client attributes to others.
• Steps:
  1. Take a strong judgement the client makes about someone.
  2. Ask them to say it in the first person ("I am…").
  3. Explore what fits.
• Example language (illustrative): "Try saying 'I am selfish' and notice whether any part of it fits."
• Watch for: defensiveness. Frame it as an experiment.

C12. Dream work by identification

• Purpose: treat dream elements as projected parts of the self. Muñoz Polit gave special attention to dreams. [source: Flores Elorriaga 2014; Muñoz F. 2025]
• Steps:
  1. The client tells the dream in the present tense.
  2. They become each important element in turn and speak as it.
  3. Run dialogues between elements (C9).
  4. Find the feeling, the need and the message for their present life.
• Example language (illustrative): "Tell it as if it's happening now. … Now be the locked door. What are you, and why are you shut?"
• Watch for: a felt recognition ("aha"). Avoid interpreting the dream for the client.

C13. Polarities

• Purpose: work with opposite tendencies that swing between extremes (strong versus weak, giving versus taking) toward a flexible middle.
• Steps:
  1. Name the two poles.
  2. Give each a chair and a voice.
  3. Let them dialogue.
  4. Look for what each contributes and a stance that can draw on both.
• Example language (illustrative): "Give the 'always strong' side a chair, and the side that's tired another."
• Watch for: the client siding with one pole. Help them appreciate the function of each.

C14. Body awareness (coraza, or armour, after Reich)

• Purpose: notice chronic muscular holding that blocks feeling. [source: Flores Elorriaga 2014, pp. 17–18]
• Steps:
  1. Draw attention to posture, breathing and tension.
  2. Invite the client to breathe into the area or let the tension show.
  3. Link what they notice to a feeling (A1).
• Example language (illustrative): "Your shoulders are up near your ears. What happens if you let them do that even more — and then let go?"
• Watch for: sudden emotion or dissociation. Touch only with explicit consent and if your training and context allow it [synthesis].

5. Handling problems

The sources name two difficulties directly: substituted or dysfunctional feelings (A3) and anguish (A18). Everything below is [synthesis] unless a source is given.

• Stuck client: talks about feelings without feeling them. Use C2 (talk to, not about) and C1 (awareness continuum). Ask for sensation before meaning (A1: what, where, need). Lower the demand: "just notice". The client may not yet be able to tell sensations apart, so start with body work (C14) and MATEA naming (A8). [synthesis]
• Stuck client: one feeling dominates every session (e.g. chronic sadness). Treat it as a possible substitute feeling or a background feeling. Use A3 (look for the purer feeling) and A5–A7 (background-feeling work). Ask which MATEA emotion is missing from their sessions. [synthesis built on the substitution and background-feeling concepts reported by UDLA 2013 and Arellano Ugalde 2022]
• Resistance or reluctance to experiments. In Gestalt the block is part of the work, not an obstacle to it. Explore the "no" itself: "what happens in you when I suggest that?" Use a dialogue with the reluctant part (C9). Always offer experiments as invitations the client may decline. Check the client's willingness and do not push past it. [synthesis; Gestalt-general]
• Introjected prohibitions against feeling (gender, religion, family). Use A9 (origin of the personal MATEA) and A15 (introjects). Respect the client's values: the aim is choice, not abandoning beliefs. [synthesis]
• Overwhelm, flooding or anguish. Slow down and ground (feet, breath, eye contact, naming five things seen). Bring the client back to the external zone (C1). Find the specific fear inside the anguish (A18). Reduce intensity: speak about the feeling at a distance or use the past tense, for a while. Mind the time: do not open a strong feeling you cannot help close before the session ends. Leave 10–15 minutes to contain and integrate. If dissociation or a history of trauma is present, stabilise first, and postpone or titrate enactments (C10), empty-chair work with perpetrators (C9) and intense body work (C14). [source for anguish as a feeling of the fear family and of deterioration: Arellano Ugalde 2022; responses: synthesis]
• Cathartic anger escalating. Keep expression contained: voice and words before physical expression, under your supervision, with the client staying in contact with you. Always end with the limit or need the anger points to (A12). Avoid open-ended venting, especially with clients who have aggressive histories. [synthesis]
• Non-adherence to between-session tasks (life line, emotional biography, MATEA homework). Ask what got in the way and treat that as material (e.g. an introject such as "looking back is self-indulgent"). Shrink the task, or do it in session. [synthesis]
• Ruptures in the alliance. Use the person-centred conditions directly. Name what you noticed and invite the client's feeling about you ("I think something I said landed badly — what happened in you?"). Run the A1 sequence on the relationship itself. Own your part. In Gestalt terms, completing the rupture prevents fresh unfinished business with you. [synthesis]
• Group (sensitisation) problems: a member is overwhelmed, scapegoated or pressured to disclose. Restate the right to pass. Shield the member being targeted. The facilitator's tasks include frustrating, confronting and supporting (Muñoz 1995). Use support first with fragile members, and keep exercises at the lower risk levels until the group is safe enough. Screen members beforehand for acute risk, psychosis or severe trauma. [source for facilitator qualities and risk levels: Muñoz 1995 in Delgado García 2007 and García Rodríguez & Luna Soto 2007; screening: synthesis]
• Couples work turning into blame (A10). Return each partner to "I feel / I need". Stop the exercise if there is coercion or fear of the partner. Screen privately for intimate-partner violence before doing couple emotional-expression exercises. [synthesis]
• Modality-specific: technique without attitude. If a technique falls flat, look at your own presence and timing before switching technique. [synthesis; Muñoz 1995 stresses the facilitator's tone, confidence and warmth, per García Rodríguez & Luna Soto 2007]
• Modality-specific: "all feelings are valid" misread as "act on all feelings". In the model, feeling puts the person in contact with a need and only then leads to action, and substituted emotions lead to false needs. Separate feeling from action, and look for the real need and an appropriate satisfier. [source: UDLA 2013, citing Muñoz 2009, pp. 98, 102; practical response: synthesis]
• Modality-specific: anxiety, depression and stress taught as "distortions of basic feelings". Use this framing for emotional work only, never as a substitute for standard assessment. Screen for clinical depression, suicidality, substance use and medical causes. Refer for psychiatric care where indicated. If suicidal ideation emerges, carry out a standard risk assessment and safety planning (including lethal-means counselling about safe storage and removal) before any experiential work. [source for the framing: UMSNH syllabus; clinical response: synthesis]
• Symptom dialogue and medical conditions (B2). Ensure medical evaluation and do not imply that the symptom is "only emotional". [synthesis]

Sources

Web pages:

• Muñoz, F. (2025). Myriam Eugenia Margarita Muñoz Polit: la psicoterapia della Gestalt in Messico. Quaderni di Gestalt 38(1)
• Spagnuolo Lobb, M. (2025). Donna Orange e la psicoterapia della Gestalt (editorial). Quaderni di Gestalt 38(1)
• IHPG – Emociones, Sentimientos y Necesidades de Myriam Muñoz Polit (publisher page, Instituto Humanista de Psicoterapia Gestalt)
• UMSNH Facultad de Psicología – Emociones y sentimientos desde la Psicología Humanista (syllabus)
• Flores Elorriaga, A. I. (2014). La Psicoterapia Gestalt: un camino para lograr vivir en armonía (UNAM thesis)
• Delgado García, S. (2007). Psicoterapia Gestalt aplicada al trabajo con niños (UNAM tesina)
• Askenazi, M. Untitled post on MATEA (Medium)
• Zohn Muldoon, T. C. et al. (coords.) (2021). Emociones y psicoterapia. Caminos e intersecciones, ITESO (sample). This only confirms the 2009 reference.
• Universidad de las Américas, Quito (2013). Undergraduate psychology thesis UDLA-EC-TPC-2013-13, section on emotions citing Muñoz 2009 (verification)
• Arellano Ugalde, I. G. (2022). Análisis existencial-humanista de las experiencias de tristeza en estudiantes de bachillerato (UNAM FES Iztacala thesis) (verification)
• COMIE, Congreso Nacional de Investigación Educativa, memoria electrónica v15, paper 1523 (uses Muñoz's model of feelings and needs) (verification)
• García Rodríguez, J. V. & Luna Soto, G. (2007). Talleres de desarrollo humano como alternativa de crecimiento: un enfoque humanístico (UNAM FES Iztacala thesis) (verification)
• Rivera Montiel, R. M. (2015). Psicoterapia infantil bajo el enfoque Gestalt. Fundamentos y metodología (UNAM FES Zaragoza tesina) (verification)

Books cited:

• Muñoz Polit, M. (2009). Emociones, sentimientos y necesidades. Una aproximación humanista. México: IHPG. Later printings are cited as 2012 and 2013 (México: Myriam Eugenia Muñoz Polit); a French edition exists. The primary source; its concepts are cited here through the theses above. [uncertain: its own exercises are not described in those sources]
• Muñoz Polit, M. (2008). La sensibilización Gestalt en el trabajo terapéutico. México: IHPG.
• Muñoz Polit, M. (2015). Los ocho modos de relación o interacción. México: IHPG.
• Muñoz, M. (2005). Los sentimientos en psicoterapia. México: IHPG.
• Muñoz, M. (2012), cited in Arellano Ugalde (2022) for the functions of feelings and a table of dysfunctional feelings. [uncertain: title not given]
• Muñoz, M. (1995), cited in Delgado García (2007) for the qualities of the sensitisation facilitator and in García Rodríguez & Luna Soto (2007) for workshop design and risk levels. [uncertain: full title not given]
• Salama, H. and Castanedo, C.; Naranjo, C. Mexican and Latin American Gestalt texts on the cycle of experience and technique classes, cited through Flores Elorriaga (2014).