Professional Documents
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Gestalt Therapy - Gestalt Therapy -
An Overview An Overview
• Gestalt Therapy is another type of
counseling that is based upon the – 3. Existential—The person is to take
existential framework. Key elements responsibility for their destiny and identity
include: • The client is also encouraged to work in the
“here and now,” not in the “there and then”
– 1. A Phenomenological Basis—You are
seeking to focus on the client’s perception – 4. Awareness—A key element in this
of reality theory is helping the client come to an
awareness of what he or she is doing and
– 2. Experiential—The client is being asked experiencing
to come to understand about what and how • This involves dropping those behaviors and
they are thinking, feeling, and doing as they barriers that would stop someone from
interact with the therapist and the other experience one’s self
people in the world 7 8
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The Now The Now
• Our “power is in the present” • Therapist will focus on the “what” & “how”
• The only moment that is significant is the of a person without asking the “why”
present questions
– Nothing exists except the “now” – This is to promote an awareness of the
– The past is gone and the future has not yet arrived moment
• To be fully aware is to live in the here & now – Questions such as “What is happening now?” or
– By reliving the past or worrying about the future, a person “What are you feeling in this moment?” are used
cannot be authentic and cannot come to terms with who to intensify the experience of the present &
one is create awareness
• For many people the power of the present is lost • “Why” questions lead only toward
– They may focus on their past mistakes or engage in rationalizations and “self-deceptions” away
endless resolutions and plans for the future 13
from the immediacy of the moment 14
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Process of Contact and
Psychotherapy Resistances to Contact
• CONTACT – interacting with nature and with other people
• Goal of Gestalt psychotherapy is awareness without losing one’s individuality
• RESISTANCE TO CONTACT – the defenses we develop to
• Gestalt therapists do whatever is prevent us from experiencing the present fully
necessary to jolt the person into a higher • Five major channels of resistance (i.e., styles of resisting
contact):
level of awareness of self, environment, & – Introjection (we passively incorporate what the environment provides
relationship with others & do not know what we want or need)
– Projection (we disown certain aspects of ourselves by assigning them
• Contact Cycle involves increasing awareness to the environment; so we put them on others; e.g., see quality in
others, we avoid responsibility for who we are)
which leads to excitement which leads to – Confluence (a blurring of the differentiation between the self and the
contact & action environment; e.g., high need to be accepted & liked)
– Retroflection (is turning back to ourselves what we would like
– Increase awareness-->excitement-->contact-->action someone else do to us; e.g., lash out & injure self because fearful of
directing toward others)
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– Deflection (distracting so that it is difficult to maintain a sustained
sense of contact
Energy &
Layers of Neurosis Blocks to Energy
• The phony: • Special attention is given to
– reacting to others in stereotypical and inauthentic ways
– where energy is located,
• Phobic layer:
– avoid the emotional pain that we would prefer to deny
– how it is used,
• The impasse: – how it can be blocked
– the point where we are stuck in our own maturation; w • Clients & therapist want to be aware of
– we think we will not be able to survive the resistance which is being expressed in
• The implosive level: their body
– fully experience our deadness instead of denying it.
• The explosive layer:
– letting go of our phony roles & pretenses which release
much energy that we have been holding in 21 22
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Therapeutic Process Therapeutic Process
• Client's Experience in Therapy • Relationship Between Therapist and
– They are active participants who make their Client
own interpretations & meaning – Therapists need to allow themselves to be
– Discovery: new view of old situation affected by their clients
– Accommodation: clients recognizing that – Therapists share experiences in the here and
they have a choice now
– Assimilation: clients learning how to – Therapists do not manipulate clients
influence their environment – Therapists give feedback
– The I/thou relationship, a dialog relationship
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Therapeutic
Techniques Therapeutic Techniques
• The Experiment in Gestalt Therapy
• Preparing Clients for Experiments
• The experiment in Gestalt Therapy
– Contact with an authentic therapist is needed
• Role of Confrontation
– Experiments grow out of the interaction between
• Specific Techniques: client & therapist
– Internal dialogue exercise
– Experiments can take many forms, i.e.,
– Making the rounds
• Dramatizing the memory of a painful event
– “I take responsibility for” • Setting up a dialogue between client & some significant
– Playing the projection person in their life
– Rehearsal exercise – Can be considered the cornerstone of experiential
– Reversal technique learning
– Exaggeration exercise – Therapy sessions = a series of experiments which
– Staying with feeling are avenues for clients to learn experientially
– Guided fantasy – Experiments are spontaneous one of a kind &
– Empty Chair 27 relevant to a particular moment 28
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Specific Techniques Specific Techniques
• Empty-Chair Technique:
• Internal dialogue exercise
– When client speaks to an empty chair as if it were another
– the "top dog" and the "under dog" person or another part of the client
• Making the rounds – Used to help the client get in touch with other views or other
– go to each person in the group and talk to them aspects of self
• Exaggeration Exercise:
• “I take responsibility for” – Counselor exaggerates mannerism of client or asks client to
– can be added to one of the client's statements exaggerate mannerism in order to make client aware of true
• Rehearsal exercise feelings
– to rehearse with the therapist out loud. • Guided Fantasy:
– Client is encouraged to visualize here & now experiences
• Reversal technique
• Playing the Projection:
– asking the client to do the opposite of their behaviors
– Client is asked to play the role of the person who they are not
• Staying with feeling connecting with
– so that you can work through the fears 31 32