Chapter 8- Gestalt Flashcards
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.
field
A dynamic system of interrelationships.
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.
holism
Attending to a client’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body, and dreams.
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.
ground
Those aspects of the individual’s experience that tend to be out of awareness or in the background.
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.
organismic self-regulation
An individual’s tendency to take actions and make contacts that will restore equilibrium or contribute to change.
Introjection
The uncritical acceptance of others’ beliefs and standards without assimilating them into one’s own personality.
Projection
The process by which we disown certain aspects of ourselves by ascribing them to the environment; the opposite of introjection.
Retroflection
The act of turning back onto ourselves something we would like to do (or have done) to someone else.
Deflection
A way of avoiding contact and awareness by being vague and indirect.
Confluence
A disturbance in which the sense of the boundary between self and environment is lost.
Phenomenological inquiry
Through a therapist asking “what” and “how” questions, clients are assisted in noticing what is occurring in the present moment.
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.
Blocks to energy
Paying attention to where energy is located, how it is used, and how it can be blocked.
techniques
Exercises or interventions that are often used to bring about action or interaction, sometimes with a prescribed outcome in mind.
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.
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.
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.
Dream Work
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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
