Psychology- Counselling Techniques
Vartika27
ppch8edited32421.pptx
Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy updated TENTH EDITION
Gerald Corey
Cengage
Copyright © 2021 Cengage
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Chapter 8
Gestalt Therapy
Copyright © 2021 Cengage
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Introduction
Gestalt approach focuses on the following:
The here and now
The what and how of experiencing
The authenticity of the therapist
Active dialogic inquiry and exploration
The I/Thou of relating
Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 8
Introduction
Gestalt therapy is an existential, phenomenological, and process-based approach.
Initial goal is for clients to expand their awareness of what they are experiencing in the present moment.
Increased awareness is curative.
Through becoming aware of one’s denied parts and working toward owning their experience, clients can become integrated, or whole.
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Introduction
Self-acceptance, knowledge of the environment, responsibility for choices, and the ability to make contact with their field
Contemporary relational Gestalt therapy stresses dialogue and the I/Thou relationship between client and therapist.
Emphasizes support, acceptance, empathy, respect, and dialogue as well as confrontation.
Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 8
Terminology
Awareness: The process of attending to and observing one’s own sensing, thinking, feelings, and actions; paying attention to the flowing nature of one’s present-centered experience.
Blocks to energy: Paying attention to where energy is located, how it is used, and how it can be blocked.
Confluence: A disturbance in which the sense of the boundary between self and environment is lost.
Confrontation: An invitation for the client to become aware of discrepancies between verbal and nonverbal expressions, between feelings and actions, or between thoughts and feelings.
Contact: The process of interacting with nature and with other people without losing one’s sense of individuality. Contact is made by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and moving. Contemporary relational
Gestalt therapy: stresses dialogue and the I/Thou relationship between client and therapist. Therapists emphasize the therapeutic relationship and work collaboratively with clients in a search for understanding.
Continuum of awareness: Staying with the moment-to-moment flow of experiencing, which leads individuals to discover how they are functioning in the world.
Deflection: A way of avoiding contact and awareness by being vague and indirect.
Dichotomy: A split by which a person experiences or sees opposing forces; a polarity (weak/strong, dependent/independent).
Dream work: The Gestalt approach does not interpret and analyze dreams. Instead, the intent is to bring dreams back to life and relive them as though they were happening now.
Empty chair: A vehicle for the technique of role reversal, which is useful in bringing into consciousness the fantasies of what the “other” might be thinking or feeling. Empty-chair technique: A role-playing intervention in which clients play conflicting parts. This typically consists of clients engaging in an imaginary dialogue between different sides of themselves.
Exercises: Ready-made techniques that are sometimes used to make something happen in a therapy session or to achieve a goal.
Experiments: Procedures aimed at encouraging spontaneity and inventiveness by bringing the possibilities for action directly into the therapy session. Experiments are designed to enhance here-and-now awareness. They are activities clients try out as a way of testing new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Field: A dynamic system of interrelationships.
Field theory: Paying attention to and exploring what is occurring at the boundary between the person and the environment.
Figure: Those aspects of the individual’s experience that are most salient at any moment.
Figure-formation process: Describes how the individual organizes the environment from moment to moment and how the emerging focus of attention is on what is figural.
Ground: Those aspects of the individual’s experience that tend to be out of awareness or in the background.
Holism: Attending to a client’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body, and dreams. Impasse: The stuck point in a situation in which individuals believe they are unable to support themselves and thus seek external support.
Introjection: The uncritical acceptance of others’ beliefs and standards without assimilating them into one’s own personality.
Organismic self-regulation: An individual’s tendency to take actions and make contacts that will restore equilibrium or contribute to change.
Paradoxical theory of change: A theoretical position that authentic change occurs more from being who we are than from trying to be who we are not.
Phenomenological inquiry: Through a therapist asking “what” and “how” questions, clients are assisted in noticing what is occurring in the present moment.
Projection: The process by which we disown certain aspects of ourselves by ascribing them to the environment; the opposite of introjection.
Relational Gestalt therapy: A supportive, kind, and compassionate style that emphasizes dialogue in the therapeutic relationship, rather than the confrontational style of Fritz Perls.
Retroflection: The act of turning back onto ourselves something we would like to do (or have done) to someone else.
Techniques: Exercises or interventions that are often used to bring about action or interaction, sometimes with a prescribed outcome in mind.
Unfinished business: Unexpressed feelings (such as resentment, guilt, anger, grief) dating back to childhood that now interfere with effective psychological functioning; needless emotional debris that clutters present-centered awareness.
Some Principles of Gestalt Theory
Holism:
The full range of human functioning includes thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body, memories, and dreams.
Field Theory:
Client is a participant in a constantly changing field.
Emphasis may be on a figure and on the ground.
Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 8
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Some Principles of Gestalt Theory
Figure Formation Process:
How an individual organizes experiences from moment to moment
Foreground: figure
Background: ground
Organismic Self-Regulation:
Emergence of a need, a sensation, or an interest disturb an individual’s equilibrium
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Contact and Resistances to Contact
Contact
Interacting with nature and with other people without losing one’s individuality
Boundary disturbances/resistance to contact
The defenses we develop to prevent us from experiencing the present fully
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Contact Boundary Phenomena
Following are the five different kinds of contact boundary disturbances:
Introjection
Projection
Retroflection
Deflection
Confluence
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The Now…..
Our “power is in the present.”
Nothing exists except the “now.”
The past is gone and the future has not yet arrived.
Phenomenological inquiry involves paying attention to what is happening now.
For many people, the power of the present is lost.
They may focus on their past mistakes or engage in endless resolutions and plans for the future.
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Unfinished Business
Feelings about the past are unexpressed.
These feelings are associated with distinct memories and fantasies.
Feelings are not fully experienced, so they linger in the background and interfere with effective contact.
Result:
Individual is beset with reoccupation, compulsive behavior, wariness oppressive energy, and self-defeating behavior.
When external support is not available, the impasse occurs.
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Energy and Blocks to Energy
Gestalt therapists focus on where energy is located, how it is used, and how it can be blocked.
Blocked energy is a form of defensive behavior that may result in unfinished business.
Clients are encouraged to recognize how their resistance is being expressed in their body and transform their blocked energy into more adaptive behaviors.
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Therapeutic Goals
Move toward increased awareness of themselves.
Assume ownership of their experience.
Develop skills and acquire values.
Become more aware of all of their senses.
Learn to accept responsibility for what they do.
Be able to ask for and get help from others and be able to give to others.
Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 8
Therapist’s Function and Goals
Invite clients into an active partnership.
Increase clients’ awareness, freedom, and self-direction.
Pay attention to clients’ body language.
Emphasis on the relationship between language patterns and personality.
Clients express their feelings, thoughts, and attitudes.
Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 8
Therapist’s Function and Role
“It” talk
“You” talk
Questions
Language that denies power
Listening to clients’ metaphors
Listening for language that uncovers a story
Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 8
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Gestalt Therapy Interventions
The Rehearsal Exercise
The Exaggeration Exercise
Staying With the Feeling
The Gestalt Approach to Dream Work
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The Internal Dialogue Exercise
The Empty-Chair Technique
Making the Rounds
The Reversal Exercise
Application to Group Counseling
Gestalt therapy encourages direct experience and action.
Here-and-now focus allows members to bring unfinished business to the present.
Experiments need to be tailored to each group member.
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Application to Group Counseling
Leaders can use linking to include members in the exploration of a particular individual’s problem.
Leaders actively design experiments for the group while focusing on awareness and contact.
Group leaders actively engage with the members to form a sense of mutuality in the group.
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Strengths From a Diversity Perspective
Gestalt experiments can be tailored to fit the unique ways in which clients perceive and interpret their culture.
Gestalt therapy helps people integrate the polarities within themselves, which can assist bicultural clients in reconciling diverse aspects of their cultures.
Creative experiments can emphasize nonverbal behaviors.
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Shortcomings From a Diversity Perspective
Clients who are culturally conditioned to be emotionally reserved may find the emphasis on feelings to be off putting.
Those who use Gestalt techniques in a mechanical way to elicit certain effects (e.g., intense emotions) may lead clients to terminate from therapy prematurely.
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Contributions of Gestalt Therapy
It is a creative and lively approach that uses experiments to move clients from talk to action and experience.
Clients are provided with a wide range of tools for discovering new facets of themselves and changing their lives.
The Gestalt approach to working with dreams is a unique pathway for people to increase their awareness of key themes in their lives.
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Contributions of Gestalt Therapy
It is a holistic approach that values each aspect of the individual’s experience equally.
The therapist’s role is assisting the client to increase awareness that will allow reidentification with the part of the self.
A key strength of Gestalt therapy is the attempt to integrate theory, practice, and research.
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Limitations and Criticisms of Gestalt Therapy
Fritz Perls style placed more attention on using techniques to confront clients and getting them to experience their feelings.
The approach has the potential for the therapist to abuse power by using powerful techniques without proper training.
This approach may not be useful for clients who have difficulty abstracting and imagining.
The emphasis on therapist authenticity and self-disclosure may be overpowering for some clients.
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Let’s watch the case of Gwen for both therapies explored this evening
Please be sure to take notes on each session highlighting the quintessential aspects of the theories
Person Centered Therapy
Gestalt
| 24 | Person Centered Therapy/Gestalt Therapy | Chapter 7/8 | Take home quiz ch 6 Due by 3 25 at 11:59pm Journal 4 assigned Recording and Working with Your Dreams- Write down 3 of your dreams Practice reliving your dreams via here-and now Gestalt procedures. Try to let yourself go, censoring as little as possible. Make your dreams come alive! Don’t worry about being appropriate or correct. Just create a script with the material provided in your dream, and let interactions happen with these parts of your dream. It would be ideal for you to report your dreams in the present tense “Gestalt” these dreams on tape on paper. Make comments and observations after you have done this. You may become aware of certain patterns and clear messages. If so, please make those connections on paper. |
| 31 | Midterm Exam | Includes chapters 7/8 | Journal 4 due by 6pm Midterm due Due 4/2by 11:59pm |
