This is where my acquaintance with Gestalt began.
I came to Kostya Loginov, sat down across from him and started telling him how I experience my life.
That I must. That there is always something I have to do. That I am falling behind. Could do more. Being lazy. And life is passing me by. I seem to understand it all - and don’t do it.
Kostya listened and said: «Sounds like you’ve got a topdog / underdog thing going on.»
I understood, of course, absolutely nothing.
What dogs?! Top. Under. What is this circus. What does it have to do with anything?
But somehow it stuck.
Later I learned it is one of Fritz Perls’ classic ideas: topdog / underdog.
The topdog is the inner dog on top. The one that presses.
It says: «Pull yourself together! You must. Stop whining. Faster. How long are you going to be like this? You’re wasting everything. Others can - what about you?»
It is the figure of pressure, control and demands.
The underdog is the dog underneath. The procrastinating one.
It doesn’t argue openly. It doesn’t march out with a sign saying «I object». It doesn’t enter the conflict. But it is - against. It just does it more subtly.
It forgets. Postpones. Turns on a series. Repeats «I don’t know». And - looks for somewhere to hide.
On the surface it really does look like procrastination. But if you look closer, it often turns out to be not laziness, but the only available way to say «no» to the inner dictator.
A person comes to me and says:
«I understand everything. I need to develop. Hire people. Scale. Build the product. Move faster. Time is running out. If I don’t make it now, it will be too late.»
The words sound right. One small problem. The face is sour. The eyes have gone out. Anxiety inside. And what does he want from me? To deal with this «procrastination» of his, of course.
The voice of pressure sounds so loud that I want to give it its own seat. I follow my impulse and drag over two chairs.
I ask the client to sit on the first one and read out everything he must do. The voice sounds brisk. Intense. I diligently write it down. The list is long. And all of it has to be done… in a month. At some point the stream runs dry, and there is a feeling that we have landed in Absurdistan. That is the topdog.
The client moves to the other chair. I say: «Here sits the part that resists all of this. What does it say?»
At first there is only stupor. Because the underdog always agrees. It just isn’t going to do anything.
After a while, fatigue shows through. The fear of «not carrying it». The worry of making things worse. Pain, powerlessness and loneliness.
And at that moment procrastination stops being a dumb discipline problem.
And becomes an inner drama.
One part tries to save the person through pressure. The other - to save them from the pressure itself. One says: «Grind, or you’ll die in a gutter.» The other hides before it gets crushed. And both, strangely enough, are trying to help.
The topdog fears that if it loosens its grip, life will fall apart. The underdog believes that if it submits, nothing alive will remain inside.
They are locked together.
The harder the topdog presses, the deeper the underdog hides. The deeper the underdog hides, the more furious the topdog becomes. And the person is squeezed between them. For years.
Neither working nor resting. Neither moving nor choosing. Being torn apart.
In therapy the point is not to defeat one of these parts.
Not to kill the topdog - it holds energy, structure, healthy fear for the future and the wish not to sleep through your life.
But not to romanticize the underdog either. It can get stuck, avoid, sabotage and retreat from life.
The chairs are there for a dialogue. To see both and separate them a little from yourself. Because a person is not only the one who yells «you must». And not the one hiding under the blanket.
Somewhere between them there is a third place. More adult. And more honest. The place where the important questions are born:
- What do I actually want?
- Where am I exhausted, and how do I take care of myself?
- What pain am I hiding from?
- And what do I want to do not out of violence, but out of contact with myself?
Sometimes procrastination is the last barricade the psyche has built against the inner dictator.
If you recognized your own mechanics in this - come. Online, in English or Russian - we’ll figure out who is on top and who is underneath. Booking: @vkarasaev