Gestalt
Therapy
Gestalt Prayer
“I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.”
(Fritz Perls, 1969)
The founder of Gestalt
therapy was Frederick S. (“Fritz”) Perls.
He was a German‐born
psychiatrist. He had the reputation of being a bit faddish but in all reality
he was a serious professional. Laura
Posner Perls also made contributions to Gestalt Therapy. Fritz and Laura were married in 1930 and made
their life work Gestalt therapy.
Key Concepts
Gestalt therapy
stressed that clients need to grow up, stand on their own two feet, and deal
with their life problems themselves.
Perls’ goal was to assist the client in being self-supportive and to
work back in the parts of the personality the client disowned. His approach was very confrontational and he
often intentionally made clients frustrated to increase their awareness. Present time Gesalt Therapy techniques and or
principles are as follows:
- Holism – interested in the whole person. This principle focuses on the client’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body, memories, and dreams. Cues such as physical gestures, tone of voice, demeanor, and other nonverbal content are observed. This gives the therapist a look into how the client fits together with the environment.
- Field Theory – Therapist must see clients in their environment and they believe that everything relates to each other.
- The Figure-Formation Process – How the client organizes their experiences from moment to moment. This process tracks how some part of the environment emerges from the background and becomes the focal point of the client’s attention.
- Organismic Self-Regulation – This principle is intertwined with the figure-formation process. Balance is disturbed when there is a need, a sensation, or an interest. Clients will do their best to regulate themselves with the resources and the capabilities that they have. Clients can take action that will restore balance.
- The Now – “Power is in the present.” Therapists ask “what” and “how” questions to help the client be in the present moment. Phenomenological inquiry pays attention to now and suspends any preconceived assumptions about the client’s experience. Sadness, pain, and confusion are not talked about in the past. The therapist asks the client to experience the present sadness, pain, and confusion. When the past does creep back in into the present the therapist believes it is because there is a lack of completion of the past experience. When the past is spoken about the therapist asks the client to talk about the experience as though it is in the present.
- Unfinished Business – When feelings are not completed or resolved. Unfinished business can manifest in feelings such as resentment, rage, hatred, pain, anxiety, grief, guilt, and abandonment. When feelings are not dealt with it results in them being carried into present day experiences. These incomplete feelings seek completion the client experiences compulsive behavior, wariness, oppressive energy and self defeating behavior. Unexpressed feelings can also result in physical sensations or problems. There is also an impasse, or stuck point, when there is not external support or the way that the client has always behaved doesn’t work anymore. The therapist’s job is to help the client experience the impasse and not rescue or frustrate the client.
- Contact and Resistances to Contact – Contact is made by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and moving. To contact effectively the client should be able to interact with nature and others and lose their individuality. There are five kinds of resistances (contact boundary phenomena): Introjection – incorporates what the environment provides rather than identify what the person wants or needs. Projection – disown certain aspects of ourselves by assigning them to the environment. Retroflection – directing aggression inward out of fear or embarrassment, guilt, and resentment. Deflection – the process of veering off with overuse of humor, abstract generalizations, and questions rather than statements. Confluence – Blending in and getting along with everyone. This results in absence of conflicts, slowness to anger, and a belief that all parties experience the same feelings and thoughts we do.
- Energy and Blocks of Energy – Attention is given to where energy is located, how it is used, and how it can be blocked. Blocked energy can be manifested by tension in the body, by posture, by the body being tight and closed, not breathing deeply, looking away to avoid eye contact, by speaking with a restricted voice, etc. Clients might not be aware of blocked energy so the therapist assists them in recognizing it.
Therapeutic
Goals
- Assist the client to attain greater awareness and greater choice.
- Assume ownership of their experience.
- Develop skills and acquire values that will allow them to satisfy their needs without violating the rights of others.
- Become more aware of all of their senses.
- Learn to accept responsibility for their actions. This includes accepting the consequences of their actions.
- Be able to ask for, get help, and give help to others.
Techniques
Used
- Experiments – The client “tries on” a new behavior.
- Confrontation – sustained empathic inquiry with crisp, clear, and relevant awareness.
- Exercises – Internal Dialogue Exercise—acceptance of aspects of one’s personality that has been denied. A main division is between the “top dog” and the “underdog,” and therapy often focuses on the war between the two. Making Rounds---This involves asking a person in a group to go up to others in the group and either speak to or do something with each person. The Reversal Exercise---Clients take the plunge into the very thing that is fraught with anxiety and make contact with those parts of themselves that have been submerged and denied. The Rehearsal Exercise---Internal rehearsal inhibits willingness to experiment with new behavior. The client becomes more aware of how they try to please others by meeting their expectations. The Exaggeration Exercise---The client is asked to exaggerate movements and gestures. This normally intensifies the feelings that go with the behavior. Once the client is exaggerating the movement the therapist will ask the client to put words to the movement. Staying with the feeling---When a client is talking about a feeling that they want to ignore or avoid the therapist will encourage the client to stay with the feeling. The Gestalt Approach to Dream Work---Dreams are brought back to life and they are relived like they are happening in present moment.
Here are some fun brain
stuff, Gestalt images, and backgrounds:
References
Corey, G. (2012). Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy (9th
ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
(Frederick Salomon) Fritz
Perls. (2011). Hutchinson's Biography Database, 1.
Fritz Perls
Quotes. (2012). Retrieved
from http://www.fritzperls.com/quotes/
Behavior
Therapy
Society
attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
~ B.F. Skinner
- B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) is considered the father of the behavioral approach to psychology.
- Albert Bandura (b. 1925) broadened the scope of behavior therapy by exploring the inner cognitive affected forces that motivate human behavior.
- Arnold A. Lazarus (b.1932) he is a pioneer in clinical behavior therapy and he developed multimodal therapy. Multimodal therapy is a comprehensive, systematic, holistic approach to behavior therapy.
Key Concepts
- Seven key characteristics of behavior therapy:
1.
Principles of learning are applied to assist
clients to change behaviors. Treatment
goals are stated in clear-cut terms so that they can be replicated easily. Evaluations are used to measure the
effectiveness of the assessment and the treatment. Revisions are made as needed.
2.
Behavior is not defined as actions that can be
observed. Behaviors can also include
cognitions, images, beliefs, and emotions.
3.
Behavior therapy deals with current issues and
why the issues are occurring. Current
environment is considered more than historical determinants. Behavior therapy sees the importance of the
client, their environment, and the way in which the client interacts with their
environment.
4.
Clients are expected to be active in dealing
with their problems. Simply talking
about change is not enough. Clients have
to be willing to do something to make the change in behavior occur.
5.
Change can happen without knowing the underlying
dynamics and without understanding where the psychological problem originated.
6.
Assessment informs the treatment process. Culture is taken into consideration when
doing the assessment. The assessment and
evaluation includes the interventions used to determine whether the behavior
change resulted from the procedure.
7.
Treatment interventions are specific to the
client.
Therapeutic
Goals
- To increase personal choice.
- To create new conditions for learning.
- The therapist assists the client in defining specific goals.
- Formal assessment takes place prior to treatment to determine behaviors that are targets of change.
- Continual assessment determines whether the goals are being met.
- Clients are active in deciding on their treatment.
- Goals must be clear, concrete, understood, and agreed on by the client and the therapist.
Techniques
Used
- Positive reinforcement – adding something of value to the client for a certain behavior.
- Negative reinforcement – the escape or avoidance of unpleasant stimuli.
- Extinction – withholding reinforcement from a previously reinforced response.
- Punishment – the consequences of a certain behavior result in a decrease of that behavior.
- Positive punishment – a stimulus is added after the behavior to decrease the frequency of a behavior.
- Negative punishment – a stimulus is removed after the behavior to decrease the frequency of a behavior.
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation – it achieves muscle and mental relaxation and is easily learned.
- Exposure therapies – designed to treat fears and other negative emotional responses. It involves confrontation with a feared stimulus.
- Vivo Exposure – Clients are exposed to the actual events as opposed to imagining the situation.
- Vivo Flooding – Intense and Prolonged exposure to actual anxiety producing stimuli.
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing – assessment, preparation, imaginal flooding, and cognitive restructuring the treatment of people wit traumatic memories. The use of rapid, rhythmic eye movements and other bilateral stimulation to treat clients who have experienced traumatic stress.
- Social Skills Training – Deals with how the client is able to interact with others in different social situations. Social skills is being able to communicate both effectively and appropriately.
- Assertion training – To teach people how to be assertive in different social situations.
- Self-management – This includes self-monitoring, self-reward, self-contracting, and stimulus control.
References
Corey, G. (2012). Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy (9th
ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
B.F. Skinner Quotes (2012). Retrieved from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/b_f_skinner.html
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