CHAPTER 8 GESTALT THERAPY Flashcards
The process of attending to and observing
one’s own sensing, thinking, feelings, and
actions; paying attention to the fl owing nature of
one’s present-centered experience.
Awareness
Paying attention to where
energy is located, how it is used, and how it can
be blocked.
Blocks to energy
A disturbance in which the sense
of the boundary between self and environment
is lost.
Confluence
An invitation for the client to
become aware of discrepancies between verbal
and nonverbal expressions, between feelings and
actions, or between thoughts and feelings.
Confrontation
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.
Contact
Staying with the moment-to-moment fl ow of experiencing, which leads individuals to discover how they are functioning in the world.
Continuum of awareness
A way of avoiding contact and
awareness by being vague and indirect
Deflection
A split by which a person experiences
or sees opposing forces; a polarity (weak/
strong, dependent/independent).
Dichotomy
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.
Dream work
(EFT) entails the practice of therapy
being informed by understanding the role of
emotion in psychotherapeutic change.
Emotion-focused
therapy
A role-playing intervention
in which clients play confl icting parts.
This typically consists of clients engaging in an
imaginary dialogue between different sides of
themselves.
Empty-chair technique
Ready-made techniques that are
sometimes used to make something happen in a
therapy session or to achieve a goal.
Exercises
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.
Experiments
A dynamic system of interrelationships.
Field
Paying attention to and exploring
what is occurring at the boundary between the
person and the environment.
Field theory
Those aspects of the individual’s experience
that are most salient at any moment.
Figure
Describes how the
individual organizes the environment from moment
to moment and how the emerging focus of
attention is on what is fi gural.
Figure-formation process
Those aspects of the individual’s experience
that tend to be out of awareness or in the
background.
Ground
Attending to a client’s thoughts, feelings,
behaviors, body, and dreams.
Holism
The stuck point in a situation in
which individuals believe they are unable to support
themselves and thus seek external support.
Impasse
The uncritical acceptance of others’
beliefs and standards without assimilating
them into one’s own personality.
Introjection
An individual’s
tendency to take actions and make contacts that
will restore equilibrium or contribute to change.
Organismic self-regulation
A theoretical
position that authentic change occurs more from
being who we are than from trying to be who we
are not.
Paradoxical theory of change
Through a therapist
asking “what” and “how” questions, clients
are assisted in noticing what is occurring in the
present moment.
Phenomenological inquiry
The process by which we disown
certain aspects of ourselves by ascribing them to
the environment; the opposite of introjection.
Projection
A supportive, kind, and compassionate style that emphasizes dialogue in the therapeutic relationship, rather than the confrontational style of Fritz Perls.
Relational Gestalt therapy
The act of turning back onto
ourselves something we would like to do (or have
done) to someone else.
Retroflection
Exercises or interventions that are
often used to bring about action or interaction,
sometimes with a prescribed outcome in mind.
Techniques
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.
Unfinished business
- Resistance refers to defenses we develop
that prevent us from experiencing
the present in a full and real
way.
t
T F 2. Blocked energy can be considered a
form of resistance.
t
T F 3. The basic goal of Gestalt therapy is
adjustment to society.
f
T F 4. Recent trends in Gestalt practice include more emphasis on confrontation, more anonymity of the therapist, and increased reliance on techniques.
f
T F 5. Dreams contain existential messages,
and each piece of dream
work leads to assimilation of disowned
aspects of the self.
t
T F 6. Gestalt therapy is well suited for
group counseling, especially when
there is a here-and-now emphasis
within the group.
t
T F 7. One of the functions of the therapist
is to pay attention to the client’s
body language.
t
T F 8. Gestalt techniques are primarily
aimed at teaching clients to think
rationally.
f
T F 9. A major function of the therapist is
to make interpretations of clients’
behavior so that they can begin to
think of their patterns.
f
T F 10. The founder of Gestalt therapy contends
that the most frequent source
of unfi nished business is resentment.
t
11. The main founder of Gestalt therapy is a. Carl Rogers. b. Fritz Perls. c. Albert Ellis. d. William Glasser. e. none of the above. .
b
- Which is not true of Gestalt therapy?
a. The focus is on the “what” and
“how” of behavior.
b. The focus is on the here and now.
c. The focus is on integrating fragmented
parts of the personality.
d. The focus is on unfi nished business
from the past.
e. The focus is on the “why” of
behavior.
e
13. Which of the following is not a key concept of Gestalt therapy? a. acceptance of personal responsibility b. intellectual understanding of one’s problems c. awareness of the present moment d. unfi nished business e. dealing with the impasse
b
14. According to the Gestalt view, awareness a. is by itself therapeutic. b. is a necessary, but not suffi cient, condition for change. c. without specifi c behavioral change is useless. d. consists of understanding the causes of one’s problems.
a
15. The basic goal of Gestalt therapy is to help clients a. move from environmental support to self-support. b. recognize which ego state they are functioning in. c. uncover unconscious motivations. d. work through the transference relationship with the therapist. e. challenge their philosophy of life.
a
16. The impasse is the point in therapy at which clients a. do not have external support available to them. b. experience a sense of “being stuck.” c. are challenged to get into contact with their frustrations and accept whatever is. d. do all of the above.
d
17. Gestalt therapy can best be characterized as a. an insight therapy. b. an experiential therapy c. an action-oriented therapy. d. an empirically validated treatment. e. a cognitive approach.
b
18. Gestalt therapy encourages clients to a. experience feelings intensely. b. stay in the here and now. c. work through the impasse. d. pay attention to their own nonverbal messages. e. do all of the above.
e
- The focus of Gestalt therapy is on
a. the relationship between client
and counselor.
b. free associating to the client’s
dreams.
c. recognizing one’s own projections
and refusing to accept
helplessness.
d. understanding why we feel as
we do.
e. all of the above.
c
20. A contribution of the Gestalt approach is that it a. sheds light on transference. b. is primarily a cognitive perspective. c. stresses talking about problems. d. deals with the past in a lively manner.
d
21. The process of distraction, which makes it difficult to maintain sustained contact, is a. introjection. b. projection. c. retrofl ection. d. confl uence. e. defl ection.
e
22. The process of turning back to ourselves what we would like to do to someone else is a. introjection. b. projection. c. retrofl ection. d. confl uence. e. defl ection.
c
23. The tendency to uncritically accept others’ beliefs without assimilating or internalizing them is a. introjection. b. projection. c. retrofl ection. d. confl uence. e. defl ection.
a
24. The process of blurring awareness of the boundary between self and environment is a. introjection. b. projection. c. retrofl ection. d. confl uence. e. defl ection.
d
25. What is a limitation (or limitations) of Gestalt therapy as it is applied to working with culturally diverse populations? a. Clients who have been culturally conditioned to be emotionally reserved may not see value in experiential techniques. b. Clients may be “put off” by the emphasis on expressing feelings. c. Clients may be looking for specifi c advice on solving practical problems. d. Clients may believe showing one’s vulnerability is being weak. e. All of the above are limitations.
e
