WORKING WITH RESISTANCE: A GESTALT WORKSHOP FOCUSING ON THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL OF SYSTEM AND ON CONFLICT IN TWO-PERSON SYSTEMS (DYADS)-KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT UNIT by Chantelle Wyley This intensively practical workshop was attended by the TAU senior managers and the Technical Advisors, in March, in Pretoria, as part of the TAUs ongoing investment into process consulting skills. The workshop tackled resistance and conflict from a Gestalt perspective,1 including, also, the Thomas and Kilmann conflict model2.

The Gestalt approach uses a model based on the process of human experience (see diagram), to observe how human beings develop preferential modes of engagement with the world. Some linger at /emphasize particular stages of the experience cycle. If these preferences become habitual or overdeveloped, resistances to movement around the Cycle occurs, and stuckness3 manifests. Conflict almost always involves repetitive thinking, behaviour and emotional engagement, locking individuals into stuckness with themselves and others. The workshop invited participants to explore their own resistance/contact preferences, and to think about experiences with others that could be differently considered using an understanding of others resistance styles. One of the ah-ha experienced by the group was that confluence/agreement was also a style of resistance!
1

See Mary Ann Rainey and Claire Stratford Reframing resistance to change: a Gestalt perspective In Best patterns: Erfolgsmuster fr zukunfstfhiges Management, edited by Gustav Bergman( Neuwied: Hermann Luchterhand Verlag, 2001), pp. 327-336.
2

See Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph Kilmann, Interpersonal conflict-handling behavior as reflections of Jungian personality dimensions Psychological reports 37, 3 (1975), pp. 971-980; see also http://www.kilmann.com/conflict.html
3

Self explanatory: being stuck, inability to move to next stage of the experience cycle

This workshop and its approach have relevance for the TAU advisors, managers and staff who deal with the complex multi-stakeholder terrain of the public sector, with its political underand overtones. Technical assistance and consulting support in this environment may easily become conflictual (including within the consultant!) without reference to a guiding frame around which to understand human engagement. The Gestalt model helps individuals to manage their own assumptions and engagement styles with awareness, clarity, and with strategic intent, in the interests of client learning and impact. Participants feedback on their learning included: I learned that my own resistance and actions can contribute to the development of conflict situations. Resistance and conflict could be used to move things, to achieve change, if managed skillfully. My questions and prodding others can plant the seeds for their learning as well Resistance is to be valued, even when it is delivered in a threatening way. I am part of resistance in a dyad4 I bring a dynamic into a system. Im not neutral and therefore how I show up can either be a negative or positive influence; therefore awareness of self is important. I learned that the conflict I have in a dyad can be representative of the conflict of the system and that if I approach with awareness I can do the work of the system and make positive impact. I learned about being in constant pursuit of wholeness, be it for myself or for my client; and my role is to heighten awareness not to solve clients problems I am very happy with how I have learned to deal with sticky situations within organisations / systems and leant more about personal level stuff The changes I will initiate are: being more aware of my resistances before others ; increasing my awareness of my intentionality; and put myself more in service of the team The workshop was facilitated by Mary Ann Rainey (Chicago, USA) and Chantelle Wyley (Cape Town), faculty members on the Gestalt International Organization and Systems Development Program (IOSD) see www.gestaltosd.org

2 party system