Gestalt Flashcards
Gestalt Therapy is what?
Phenomenological
What does phenomenological mean?
People must be understood holistically and contextually.
What does the therapist help the client do?
Become more aware of who they really are
What develops when a person avoids direct contact with the environment or parts of the self?
Neuroses and other problems
Gestalt methods are what?
Active, provocative and experiential
Gestalt is what?
Atheoretical
What does atheoretical mean?
The therapist focuses more on the moment-to-moment flow of experience
What is body awareness?
Awareness of one’s body and the emotions expressed through the body
What is used to increase the client’s affective intensity while supporting the client with affirmation?
Safe Emergency
What is an example of body awareness?
Where do you feel (emotion) in your body? What would (body part or movement) say if it had a voice?
Who are the main theorists connected to Gestalt?
Fritz and Laura Posner Perls
Erving and Miriam Polster
What is the goal of Gestalt therapy?
To help people achieve a greater sense of wholeness, awareness, and aliveness, like peeling an onion.
What is the Phony Layer
Shoulds and habit living
What is the phobic layer in Gestalt Counseling?
Internal irrational fears
What is the Impasse Layer?
Being Stuck
What is the Implosive Layer ?
When the phony layer collapses, client feels empty and lost which opens up personal exploration
What is the Explosive Layer
Abandoning of habitual pretenses releasing a new burst of possibilities previously denied or suppressed.
Who developed the integration sequence?
Polsters
What is the integration sequence?
- Discovery
- Accommodation
- Assimilation
- Integration
New figures emerge from the ground into the foreground
Discovery
New behavior in existing context. Awkwardness and self-conscious
Accommodation
What is Assimilation
Client begins to take ownership of new behavior
The new behavior becomes seamless and effortless
Integration
How can the counselor create a therapeutic relationship while using Gestalt?
- Eschewing professional pretense of role
- Here and now; presence and spontaneity
- Dialogic Engagement
- Confirmation and Inclusion
Being real and a transparent human being
Eschewing professional pretense of role
What does Dialogic Engagement entail on behalf of the counselor?
Honesty and self-disclosure
Joining with another person’s worldview while maintaining a clear sense of self (empathy)
Confirmation and Inclusion
The client’s subjective reality is what?
Essential
What are Gestalt examples of polarities and disowned parts?
- Social versus natural self
- Adult versus child
- Perfect versus failure
- Emotional versus logical
- Shallow versus deep
- Responsible versus carefree
The only goal is what?
Awareness
What type of living is a goal of Gestalt?
Self-regulated
What are you removing in Gestalt therapy?
Barriers as opposed to correcting defects
What are you accepting in Gestalt Therapy?
“what is” and make peace with what one is
What are you integrating in Gestalt therapy?
Polarities
Increase ________ while decreasing _______
self-awareness/avoidance
Identify and accept _____ in all its variations
self
What is a common intervention used within Gestalt therapy?
Empty Chair: action over talk
What are the Steps to a successful experiment.
- Identify focus- unfinished business, polarities, resistance, etc.
- Initiate experiment
- Focus experiment
- Experience the experiment- debriefing
