Chapter 8- Gestalt

Question 1

awareness

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

field

Answer 2

A dynamic system of interrelationships.

Question 3

paradoxical theory of change

Answer 3

A theoretical position that authentic change occurs more from being who we are than from trying to be who we are not.

Question 4

holism

Answer 4

Attending to a client’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body, and dreams.

Question 5

field theory

Answer 5

Paying attention to and exploring what is occurring at the boundary between the person and the environment.

Question 6

figure

Answer 6

Those aspects of the individual’s experience that are most salient at any moment.

Question 7

ground

Answer 7

Those aspects of the individual’s experience that tend to be out of awareness or in the background.

Question 8

figure-formation process

Answer 8

Describes how the individual organizes the environment from moment to moment and how the emerging focus of attention is on what is figural.

Question 9

organismic self-regulation

Answer 9

An individual’s tendency to take actions and make contacts that will restore equilibrium or contribute to change.

Question 10

Introjection

Answer 10

The uncritical acceptance of others’ beliefs and standards without assimilating them into one’s own personality.

Question 11

Projection

Answer 11

The process by which we disown certain aspects of ourselves by ascribing them to the environment; the opposite of introjection.

Question 12

Retroflection

Answer 12

The act of turning back onto ourselves something we would like to do (or have done) to someone else.

Question 13

Deflection

Answer 13

A way of avoiding contact and awareness by being vague and indirect.

Question 14

Confluence

Answer 14

A disturbance in which the sense of the boundary between self and environment is lost.

Question 15

Phenomenological inquiry

Answer 15

Through a therapist asking “what” and “how” questions, clients are assisted in noticing what is occurring in the present moment.

Question 16

unfinished business

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

Blocks to energy

Answer 17

Paying attention to where energy is located, how it is used, and how it can be blocked.

Question 18

techniques

Answer 18

Exercises or interventions that are often used to bring about action or interaction, sometimes with a prescribed outcome in mind.

Question 19

Exercises

Answer 19

Ready-made techniques that are sometimes used to make something happen in a therapy session or to achieve a goal.

Question 20

Experiments

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

confrontation

Answer 21

An invitation for the client to become aware of discrepancies between verbal and nonverbal expressions, between feelings and actions, or between thoughts and feelings.

Question 22

empty-chair technique

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

Dream Work
.

Answer 23

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