Theories of Counseling: Exam 2

Therapeutic Goals of Gestalt

• increase awareness + personal choice

  • if you have awareness of something, you can change it

• help clients

  • deal with and resolve unfinished business

  • accept and integrate denied aspects of themselves

  • take responsibility for their actions and decisions

Therapist Role in Gestalt

• acts as a guide, facilitator, and active partner

• observes body language

• encourages clients to explore their present experiences

• uses experiments to increase awareness

Therapeutic Techniques in Gestalt

• empty chair technique

  • client speaks to an imagined person or part of themselves in an empty chair

• dream work

  • dreams are reenacted in the present rather than interpreted by the therapist

• internal dialogue technique

  • explores conflicts between opposing aspects of personality

• future projection technique

  • client imagines and acts out a future situation

Holism

people are understood as a whole (thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body)

Gestalt Therapy

• existential approach

• emphasizes the here and now

  • focuses on what + how clients experience things rather than why

Gestalt View of Human Nature

• individual’s have the capacity for self-regulation, growth, and change

• people must be understood within their environment

• emphasizes the whole person rather than separate parts

Field Theory (gestalt)

individuals can’t be understood separately from their environment

figure-formation process (gestalt)

important needs or experiences emerge into awareness

organismic self-regulation (gestalt)

individuals naturally attempt to maintain balance

contact (gestalt)

interacting with oneself, others, and the environment

resistance (gestalt)

interrupts contact + awareness

Five Contact Boundary Disturbances…

• introjection: accepting others’ beliefs without questioning them

• projection: attributing one’s unwanted qualities to others

• retroflection: directing toward oneself what one wants to direct toward others

• deflection: avoiding direct contact through distraction or indirect communication

• confluence: blurring boundaries between oneself and others

unfinished business

unresolved feelings or experiences from the past

impasse

feeling stuck when old coping. strategies no longer work

Client’s Role in Gestalt Therapy

• active participant

• responsible for discovering personal meanings + making choices

• three stages of client growth

  • discovery

  • accommodation

  • assimilation

Gestalt Therapeutic Relationship

• based on the I/thou relationship… genuine person to person connection

• emphasizes authenticity, presence, empathy, acceptance, collaboration, mutual respect