Topdog vs. Underdog is a phrase coined by Fritz Perls, the father of Gestalt therapy, to describe a self-torture game that people play with themselves in order to avoid the anxiety that they encounter in their environment.

Topdog versus Underdog is a game we play with ourselves, one we cannot win. In this article, we discover the definition of Topdog and Underdog, how humans use the defeatist self-manipulation technique, and ways to shift mindsets into a positive way of being. 

The Theory Behind Topdog Versus Underdog

To avoid or reduce anxiety, humans often develop complex manipulative behavior to satisfying personal needs, but in reality, it heightens their dependent behavior and separates them from healthy self-support. If a person is unaware of an effective way to reduce their anxiety dominating their experience, any actions that seem to alleviate stress, even temporarily, are adopted. Individuals may manipulate themselves as well as their environments. They may pay attention to certain aspects of their own experience and ignore or avoid others. Or individuals might over-identify with specific characteristics and create rigid, uncompromising, prejudicial attitudes toward the self.

What’s A Topdog? 

Here, the Topdog describes the part of an individual that demands the idea that the person should adhere to certain societal norms and standards. The Topdog aspect of the personality is the demander-of-perfection, the manifestation of a set of introjected “shoulds” and “shouldn’t’s.”

Topdog Examples

• I should work harder, smarter, faster to be recognized.
• No, I shouldn’t eat that bowl of ice cream; there is too much sugar in it.
• I should read more books rather than staring at my computer screen.
• Do I need this? I shouldn’t order more stuff on Amazon. 
• I should meditate more often and spend more time on gratitude. 
• Stop it! I shouldn’t talk to myself as much as I do. 

What’s An Underdog? 

Opposed to the Topdog is the Underdog, the manifestation of resistance to external demands. The Gestalt Center of Gainsville describes the process as:

The underdog agrees that the Topdog’s demands are appropriate; however, internal sabotage assures that the demands will never be met.

It is often the case that these internal needs twist to become self-sabotaging behaviors. 

Underdog Examples

• I’ll never be able to accomplish as much as I want in my lifetime. 
• I can never stop at just one spoon of ice cream and am gaining weight. 
• I can’t stop watching YouTube videos and will never be able to read again!
• Ordering ‘stuff’ gives me a hit of dopamine; I can’t break the habit of online shopping!
• I can’t find the time to meditate because I’m on my laptop all day.
• There’s no way I can stop talking to myself. I live in the country; who else am I going to talk to?

While there is no clear winner in the self-defeating game of Topdog/Underdog, however, in the encounter, the underdog takes a dominant position triggering developing depression or anxiety. 

Shift Mindset Into Positive Way Of Being

Gestalt therapists often guide their patients through an exercise where they assume both the Topdog/Underdog roles. With the therapist’s guidance, the patients can come to gain insight about themselves which can help them have a healthier relationship with their environment. 

However, if you don’t have access to a therapist to enact the role-playing game, here are three ways to shift your mindset into a positive way of being.

1. Today, be aware of the thoughts that cycle in your mind
2. Become attuned to the language you use when speaking with yourself. Do you use any auxiliary verbs such as “would, should, could”? 
3. When you use “would, should, could’s,” in internal dialog, what sentence generally follows? How are you holding yourself back?
4. Self-awareness is the ultimate key to sourcing the areas in your life where introjects are present. When you sit and self-observe your internal dialog, where do you carry the conversation in your body? 
5. Write down your self-defeating dialog and switch the words to become positive affirmations. If need be, place the new statements somewhere in your environment where you can remind yourself of the change. For example, I taped mine to the washroom mirror. Continue to repeat the positive comments and feel the difference in your body. 

The ultimate goal is to bring self-defeating behaviors into the immediate field and begin the work of dismantling past ideas and concepts that are no longer serving you. Awareness, patience, and reorienting towards a new, positive internal dialog are crucial to overcoming the Topdog/Underdog introjections. 

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Neuro-Linguistic Programming — NLP

Virginia Satir (1916 –1988) and Fritz Perls (1893 –1970) were significant contributors to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, the pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in California in the 1970s. Bandler and Grinder combined their skills in Gestalt therapy, computer science, and linguistics, along with their abilities to copy non-verbal behavior. Their objective was to co-create a new “language of change.” To achieve their goal, the men carried out a considerable amount of research, experimentation, and studies utilizing the work of three therapists and their clients, two of which were Virginia Satir (pioneer of family therapy); and Fritz Perls MD (Gestalt Therapist and Psychiatrist). Satir and Perls knew each other. They were an integral part of the humanistic psychology movement: Given Satir’s proximity to Perls, it was natural for her work to influence Gestalt.

Bandler and Grinder’s studies’ outcome was the publication of two books, Structure of Magic I and II, published in 1975 and 1976. These books encapsulated Satir’s and Perl’s collaborative research into developing a new understanding of the human process we call communication. The model they developed is known as the Meta-Model. This framework provides the therapist with questions to help the client move from the communication’s surface structure to understanding their deep system — unconscious beliefs, values, and decisions. The model provides a way to discover the true meaning of communication that is not always accurately conveyed in the spoken word alone. This methodology offers various tools to allow more precise meanings derived from any contact.

While it is difficult to pinpoint who the precise creator was of the NLP model, the book, Tidings of Comfort and Joy: An Anthology of Change (1975) speaks to the work of Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, and two other therapists. The book was published and edited by Dr. Robert Spitzer the same year he published Bandler and Grinder’s books Structure of Magic I and II. In Tidings of Comfort and Joy, it becomes obvious Satir provided Bandler and Grinder with much of the content for the Meta Model. In the chapter “When I Meet a Person,” Virginia elaborates upon her beliefs and attitude as a Family Therapist. Satir’s dialog allows us to understand her approach:

All messages have requested in them; they are not always expressed verbally. These are meta-communications.

and

The request, which is part of every message may or may not be expressed denotatively.

Satir’s contributions to the Meta Model have a lasting influence on Gestalt. For example, the NLP model is eclectic and draws on professional practitioners’ knowledge, or ‘praxis’ (connecting learning to ‘real-life’ situations). Gestalt practitioners remain conscious of the importance of skilled questioning and to avoid the danger of colluding with or influencing participants. In working with clients, Gestalt therapists positively evolve through their involvement, exploration, and recommendations for therapists’ personal and professional development, research, and practice.

Personal Reflections on NLP Concept

• Neuro — the way I use my senses to understand what is happening around me. For example, when conflict emerges between the Gestalt group therapy circle members, I feel the air’s tension, similar to an inaudible electric buzz hanging in the room. A recent experience was an encounter with the group when discussing personal impacts on the COVID-19 pandemic. A flurry of anxious chatter echoed the walls, and I felt tension, fear, and uncertainty in the field.
• Linguistic — process describing the way we use language and how we communicate with others and ourselves. In my journey, a key figural realization is an understanding of how I think before speaking with another individual or in a group setting. This communication style has been ingrained in me for 20 years from working in the corporate world. I formulate what I will say in my mind, edit and adjust according to the audience before speaking from my mouth. This winter, I took the Enneagram Test, a self-assessment tool for personal growth. The results revealed (what I suspected), I’m a prominent type 3 called ‘The Achiever.’ Where I find relevance to linguistics is my tendency to think before speaking because I’m image-conscious and concerned with how I’ll be perceived. The key takeaway I learned from the Enneagram and in the reflection of NLP is to exercise caution with excessive linguistic processing between head and mouth. I don’t want to present myself as being “phony” out of a desire of being too polished.
• Programming — is concerned with the way we organize ideas and actions, producing expected and unexpected results. Continuing with the COVID-19 example, fear is not a factor in my family of origin. My father tucked me into the back of cornfields from infancy and went off to shoot pheasants and grouse. By the age of 5, I was skinning fish with sharp knives. I grew up in an age before helicopter or bulldozer parenting, and the world was there to explore with ample freedom. I am programmed to be resilient and choose to live with little stress in my life. Throughout the pandemic, I chose to be outdoors in the country, meet people (while using safe social distancing protocols, and remained excited and energized with the abundance of alone time to complete personal tasks.

Curiosity

Virginia Satir was a naturally curious person. Good Therapy describes her early years as:

A bright child with an explosive sense of curiosity, she taught herself how to read at the age of three and recalled wanting to become a detective when she was very young.

Satir concludes humans are born with all of the resources we will ever require. To her, it’s a matter of activating the resources and increasing the degree we can access and use our help. And in asking the questions and being curious, resources initiate. Through Satir’s belief system, it is of little wonder; curiosity is a foundation of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

In Gestalt, curiosity is a cornerstone to building a relationship with the self and the other. Curiosity is a mindset, but it is also the desire to learn and know or inquire. Curiosity expands the way we think. The more I am aware of myself and the other, my interest strengthens.

The Gestalt cycle incorporates curiosity when there is insufficient information to complete the simulation. The process is considered a map for how a person becomes aware of a need, mobilizes to meet that need, and achieves satisfaction.

In Gestalt Therapy, An Introduction, Gary Yontef, Ph.D. relays Fritz Perls conclusions;

The gestalt (cycle) wants to be completed. If the gestalt is not completed, we are left with unfinished situations, and these unfinished situations press and press and press and want to be completed.

When the Gestalt cycle is unable to end, curiosity and exploration set in. Humans seek comprehension and clarity, and questions are one way to achieve this.

Curiosity’s influence on Gestalt is most evident in the Hot Seat. Here, the act of curiosity, not judgment, is the essential competency for Gestalt. Christine Stewart Price, an American Gestalt Teacher and Spiritual Practitioner, describes the Hot Seat as an “open seat,” with an Initiator and Reflector, the latter considered the Guide. The Reflector lends themself to curiosity and awareness of the Initiator. The Reflector has varying skills in how to explore whatever is arising between the two.

My role as a coach and writer lends itself to natural curiosity. I am also intrigued by those who experience wonder with me. One recent example where inquisitiveness had a direct impact was during a recent Hot Seat practice evening. A woman named Jane was the Reflector and I, the Initiator. At the beginning of our encounter, Jane recognized my accelerated heartbeat and how I drew in deep breaths. Given we were situated at the front of the room with a large audience, we both acknowledged our mutual nervousness.

Jane inquired why I felt nervous. I explained how I felt all eyes in the room were staring at our every interaction and movement, like the feeling of being under the microscope.

Later in our Hot Seat interaction, Jane noticed the lower half of my body was static, and she asked if I was able to feel my legs. No, I wasn’t. It was at this precise moment Jane and I established contact with one another. Jane’s natural curiosity led us to that experience.

Forget Why Ask How?

When we’re curious, we are led to asking powerful questions. Satir made the case to refrain from asking “why” questions and shift the focus to “how.” In Gestalt, Perls emphasized the same.

Understanding the system helps people to ask ‘how’ questions instead of ‘why’ questions. You know how hard you have to work with a ‘why’ question so it doesn’t come out sounding like a blame question… ‘How’ questions get information and understanding, ‘why’s’ produce defensiveness.

In my coaching career and in particular, through Co-Active Coaching (A modality offering the ability to ask powerful questions, listen and empower to elicit the skills and creativity a client already possesses, rather than instruct or advise), I have reflected on and am influenced by the Satir and Perls approach and use curiosity as a fundamental base when working with clients. The following are sample themes and “how” questions I utilize in practice:

Assessment:
How does it look to you?
How do you feel about it?

Evaluation:
How does this fit with your plans/way of life/values?
For instance, how else could a person handle this?
Fun as Perspective:
How can you make this more fun?
How do you want it to be?

Integration:
How do you explain this to yourself?
How can you make sure you remember what you have learned?

Gestalt’s most significant impact on me within the group therapy setting is asking the simple yet powerful question: “How can I support you?”. This inquiry ensures I am not entering into caretaker mode and grants the others the space to respond to their personal needs. The question offers a choice.

Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls were two main contributors to the humanistic psychology movement. While their work intertwines in similarities, Satir was an integral contributor to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and a prominent contributor to the Meta Model, potentially more so than Perls, despite his valuable inputs. In expanding NLP to a personal experience, I provided examples of how each model’s component has impacted my life while studying Gestalt psychotherapy. My research also explores Satir’s deep passion for curiosity, the threads of which were woven into early Gestalt psychotherapy and continue today. I illustrate the Hot Seat experience with another Gestalt practitioner and how her curiosity allowed us to find contact with one another. We end with Satir’s powerful question and her belief in discovering the “how” that is actively used with Gestalt psychotherapy. I explain how Satir’s technique has been my North Star in coaching and useful in the Gestalt practice with clients.

Addendum — NLP

In researching this article, I discovered some modern circles consider NLP’s practice archaic or out of date from the scientific community since the 1980s. This post highlights how NLP is a historical and foundational work of the Humanistic approach from Satir and Perls.

Sources

Hölzl, Andreas. A typology of questions in Northeast Asia and beyond: An Ecological Perspective. Zurich: Language Science Press, 2018.

Roberts, Martin, Ph.D. Change Management Excellence — revised edition: Putting NLP to Work. Bancyfelin: Crown House Publishing Ltd, 2006.

Satir, Virginia. The New People making. Mountain View, California: Science and Behaviour Books,1988.

Spitzer S, Robert. Tidings of Comfort and Joy: An Anthology of Change. Palo Alto: Science and Behavior, 1975.

Stewart Price, Christine. Gestalt Awareness Practice. Morrisville, North Carolina: Lulu Press, 2018.

“Coactive Training Institute,” https://learn.coactive.com/hubfs/2019%20Toolkit/Co-Active-Coaching-Toolkit-POWERFUL%20QUESTIONS.pdf, last modified November 13, 2018

“Enneagram Institute,” https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-3, last modified February 6, 2019

“Good Therapy,” https://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-psychologists/virginia-satir.html, last modified March 18, 2019

“Renewal Technologies Inc,” http://www.renewal.ca/nlp24.htm, last modified January 1, 2020

“The Coaching Room,”

https://www.thecoachingroom.com.au/blog/satirs-meta-model-her-inner-states, Satirs Meta Model and Her Inner States, last modified November 17, 2018

“Wikipedia” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming last modified March 8, 2020

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When you think of a loud, raspy-voiced woman, this is Margaret. Decades of heavy nicotine and liquor use and abuse have left their battle scars. Margaret ends each sentence with a high pitched intonation at a frequency that hurt my ears. She also has a way of cutting off people’s sentences to ensure her voice gets heard. Margaret’s in her late sixties, yet, her partner Scott is my age; in his early forties. The couple moved into our home for a week to help my step-dad reinforce cement walls in his workshop. While it wasn’t my intent to be rude to Margaret, I chose to keep our interactions to the bare minimum and wore a poker face to hide my genuine emotions rather than show a perpetual irritable state. Whe Margaret arrived, I didn’t know much about her, except that her dishevelled appearance and constant sneezing provided me with the belief she’d lived a hard life and wasn’t physically well. Despite this knowledge, at the onset of Margaret’s time with us, I felt little compassion. And this bothered me. I became curious:

• Why did I withhold care toward our house guest?
• Will I make a terrible psychotherapist?
• What will it take for me to feel empathy towards Margaret?

The I/Thou Relationship

Coincidence — or not, during the same time of our house guest’s stay, I attended the Gestalt Psychotherapy year two of five retreat for four full consecutive days via Zoom (this year, we met remote due to Covid-19). The objective of the online retreat was to conclude the valuable inner personal work of years one and two and prepare ourselves to initiate working with others from years three to five onward. Gestalt calls the relationship between oneself and another as ‘I/Thou’. Martin Buber, (1878–1965), a German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian, heavily influenced the founders of Gestalt, Laura and Fritz Perls, and was the originator of the:

‘I–Thou’ (‘Ich und Du’ in German) relationship as a genuine meeting between two unique people in which both openly respect the essential humanity of the other

Buber was a proponent of the idea when two people relate to each other; they have a choice to treat one other as objects, thus creating an I/It relationship. Or they can have a real person-to-person connection in the form of an I/Thou relationship. And it is only through the I/Thou relationship can people form the maximum power to heal.

In the book Fritz Perls, by Petruska Clarkson and Jennifer Mackewn, (pg. 167, 1993), the father of Gestalt Psychotherapy contented:

Such a healing relationship develops when two people, each with his separate existence and personal needs, contact each other recognizing and allowing the differences between them. This is more than a combination of two monologues between two people in meaningful exchange.

The I/Thou concept in practice

First, I recognized our differences, real and imagined. We possessed different ages, habits, social-economic status etc. Creating a mental walk-through of the list felt easy, although ensured a distance remained between us.

Next, I focused attention on discerning the similarities between Margaret and I. We share a mutual affection of nature and gravitate towards the comical side of life. The second exercise took far more time and effort than the former process. I noticed an internal shift. My curiosity intensified, I became further engaged in our conversation, sparked by an authentic desire to get to know Margaret better. The more I became involved and present, the more I was invested in making contact with her. My poker facade dissolved, and I stayed in her presence for more extended periods. Sure, there were moments when the high frequency of Margaret’s voice continued to break sound barriers; however, I endured and persevered. As the week progressed, the original differences felt at the onset didn’t seem to matter as much anymore. Our distinctions made us unique, and I became more accepting of the divergences between us. Through staying with Margaret, I was able to feel the emotion in my heart and care for her. The sensation was empathy.

There is a reason Gestalt Psychotherapy school is a five-year program. In the first two years, we work in a group dynamic. Each of us faces our own personal Margaret’s in the room, people whom we may never have met or associated with otherwise. During this time, we perform that deep internal work first and develop the awareness of who triggers us, always looking inward, discovering why we are the way we are — at the moment.

The gift of suffering

Does my initial interaction and judgement of Margaret mean I’ll make a terrible psychotherapist? No. I will have countless opportunities to establish contact with a hundred Margaret’s using the I/Thou concept before entering the world with an established private practice. But she was important because my experience with Margaret proved valuable; we both endured pain in our lives.

Margaret had been married three times and now, in retirement, lived on the south shore of Lake Simcoe in a cabin, freezing wind whistling through the boards in the winter. She carried her distress in the lines of her face. When I look back on my own life, I endured hurt from parental divorce and later faced a dark period from a failed relationship. The agony lingered within me for too long before I sought therapy and found freedom.

When we know what it is like to suffer and have come through the other side healed, we can hold more capacity for others and be empathetic. I believe reconciliation allowed me to find a way to be open to Margaret. Otherwise, misery loves company.

Developing your empathetic muscle

Next time you’re confronted with your own personal Margaret, take a few moments and consider what you have in common. If this is too difficult, seek a fragment of sameness. I recognize this is not an easy task given our current hyper-politicized environment. Maybe it means starting with the basics, your humanness, or of possessing the same range of emotions. Hang onto these thoughts and see if you can sit slightly longer with the other in patience and understanding. When you work through the pattern of holding, you will build the emotional connection of empathy.

After Margaret left our home, my Mom shook her head in amazement, commenting, “I can’t believe that woman holds a Masters in Psychology!”

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The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes phenomenology as:

the study of “phenomena”: appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience. Phenomenology studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first-person point of view.

Here is an example of how my Mom and I experienced the same landscape including the iconic white and red church from atop a hill overlooking the village of Vik. We stood side by side taking photos. In the first interpretation, my eye gravitates toward a panoramic view whereas in the second photo my Mom is drawn to a more intimate view of the church.

Phenomenology is not just a philosophical approach; it is also an essential component in Gestalt psychotherapy. It is a search for understanding based on what is obvious, rather than on one’s interpretation.

In the research paper Gestalt therapy: Clinical Phenomenology, author Gary Yontef, describes this method as teaching students the:

phenomenological method of awareness, in which perceiving, feeling, and acting are distinguished from interpreting and reshuffling preexisting attitudes.

How are our reality and evident consciousness achieved? It is when we can develop self-support and self-regulation in response to the environment. With others, phenomenology is the conscious intention of our communication; it is living each moment to feel and sense our experience of the other.

Let’s return to Iceland — the land of fire and ice. Mom and I were three hours southeast of Reykjavík. We were in the middle of nowhere amidst low lying farmlands and felt exhausted from the flight and uncertain where to sleep. The environment felt disorienting, messing with our internal clocks. For a clear July night, the dashboard showed 11:00 PM, yet the sun continued to shine. Mom looked at me with intention:

“Lisa, where are we?
“I have no idea.”
“We really need to find somewhere to rest…”
“I know — I’m with you.” We both opened our mouths with contagious yawns and, at that moment, were in complete unison. I felt an unmistakable urge to pray out loud with purpose for my Mom to experience the words.
“Lord, if you’re there — please provide Mom and me a place to sleep.”

Our SUV passed over a rolling hill. At the bottom was a little sign. It revealed a hotel. And not just any old hotel, no — it was the Hotel Ranga, one of Iceland’s premier resorts. And on that night, we slept like babies once the blinds were shut firm to edge out the creeping sun.

Mom and I lived in conscious awareness in our exhaustive struggle to find sleep. We were intentional in our communication with one another and in speaking with a spiritual source beyond ourselves — whether one chooses to believe our arrival became marked by divine intervention or pure coincidence.

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