Gestalt Approach or Therapy

Question 1

● is an existential,
phenomenological, and process-based
approach created on the premise that
individuals must be understood in the
context of their ongoing relationship with
the environment.
● The initial goal is for clients to gain
awareness of what they are experiencing
and how they are doing it. Through this
awareness, change automatically occurs.
● The approach is phenomenological
because it focuses on the client’s
perceptions of reality and existential
because it is grounded in the notion that
people are always in the process of
becoming, remaking, and rediscovering
themselves.
● A basic assumption of Gestalt therapy is
that individuals have the capacity to
self-regulate when they are aware of what
is happening in and around them. Therapy
provides the setting and opportunity for
that awareness to be supported and
restored.

Answer 1

Gestalt Therapy

Question 2

Describe what is Gestalt Therapy or Approach

Answer 2

● Gestalt therapy is an existential,
phenomenological, and process-based
approach created on the premise that
individuals must be understood in the
context of their ongoing relationship with
the environment.
● The initial goal is for clients to gain
awareness of what they are experiencing
and how they are doing it. Through this
awareness, change automatically occurs.
● The approach is phenomenological
because it focuses on the client’s
perceptions of reality and existential
because it is grounded in the notion that
people are always in the process of
becoming, remaking, and rediscovering
themselves.
● A basic assumption of Gestalt therapy is
that individuals have the capacity to
self-regulate when they are aware of what
is happening in and around them. Therapy
provides the setting and opportunity for
that awareness to be supported and
restored.

Question 3

Who is/are the proponents of Gestalt Therapy?

Answer 3

Fritz/Frederick Perls
Laura Perls

Question 4

What are the goals of counseling in this approach?

Answer 4

● Gestalt therapists clearly attend to a basic
goal — namely, assisting the client to
attain greater awareness, and with it,
greater choice.
● Awareness includes knowing the
environment, knowing oneself, accepting
oneself, and being able to make contact
(Jacobs, 1989; Yontef, 1993).
● Through a creative involvement in Gestalt
process, Zinker (1978) expects clients will
do the following:
a. Move toward increased awareness
of themselves.
b. Gradually assume ownership of
their experience (as opposed to
making others responsible for what
they are thinking, feeling, and
doing).
c. Develop skills and acquire values
that will allow them to satisfy their
needs without violating the rights
of others.
d. Become more aware of all their
senses
e. Learn to accept responsibility for
what they do, including accepting
the consequences of their actions
f. Be able to ask for and get help from
others and be able to give to others

Question 5

What are the roles of the counselor?

Answer 5

● The therapist’s job is to invite clients into
an active partnership where they can learn
about themselves by adopting an
experimental attitude toward life in which
they try out new behaviors and notice
what happens.
● Gestalt therapists encourage clients to
attend to their sensory awareness in the
present moment.
● Gestalt therapists do not force change on
clients through confrontation. Instead,
they work within a context of I/Thou
dialogue in a hereand-now framework.
● An important function of Gestalt therapists
is paying attention to clients’ body
language.
● In addition to calling attention to clients’
nonverbal language, the Gestalt counselor
places emphasis on the relationship
between language patterns and
personality.

Question 6

TRUE OR FALSE:

In terms of relationship between the therapist and client, it does not involve person-to-person relationship between the therapist and client.

Answer 6

FALSE: It does involve…

Question 7

TRUE OR FALSE:

In terms of relationship between the therapist and client, therapists build a genuine, present-focused relationship with clients, fostering a supportive environment for self-exploration.

Answer 7

TRUE

Question 8

TRUE OR FALSE:

In terms of relationship between the therapist and client, they stay true to themselves, share honest reactions, avoid manipulation, and help clients gain awareness of their actions. Therapists respectfully engage with clients’ fears and resistances, maintaining an attitude of acceptance and openness.

Answer 8

TRUE

Question 9

What are the gestalts therapy interventions or techniques?

Answer 9

1. The Internal Dialogue Exercise
2. Making the Rounds
3. The Reversal Exercise
4. The Rehearsal Exercise
5. The Exaggeration Exercise
6. Staying with the Feeling
7. The Gestalt Approach to Dream Work

Question 10

● One goal of Gestalt therapy is to bring about integrated functioning and acceptance of aspects of one’s personality
that have been disowned and denied.
● Gestalt therapists pay close attention to splits in personality function. A main division is between the “top dog” and the
“underdog,” and therapy often focuses on the war between the two.

Answer 10

The Internal Dialogue Exercise

Question 11

What are the exercises in internal dialogue exercise?

Answer 11

The Top Dog and the Underdog
Empty Chair Technique

Question 12

● is righteous, authoritarian,
moralistic, demanding, bossy, and manipulative.
● This is the “critical parent” that badgers with “shoulds” and “oughts” and manipulates with threats of catastrophe.

Answer 12

The Top Dog

Question 13

● manipulates by playing the
role of victim: by being defensive, apologetic, helpless, and weak and by feigning powerlessness.
● This is the passive side, the one without responsibility, and the one that finds excuses.

Answer 13

The Underdog

Question 14

● one way of
getting the client to externalize the introject, a technique Perls used a great deal.
● Using two chairs, the therapist asks the client to sit in one chair and be fully the top
dog and then shift to the other chair and become the underdog.
● Essentially, this is a role-playing technique in which all the parts are played by the
client. In this way the introjects can surface, and the client can experience the conflict more fully. The conflict can be resolved by the acceptance and
integration of both sides.
● The goal of this exercise is to promote a higher level of integration between the polarities and conflicts that exist in everyone. The aim is not to rid oneself of certain traits but to learn to accept and live with the polarities.

Answer 14

Empty Chair Technique

Question 15

is a Gestalt exercise that 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 purpose is to confront, to risk, to disclose the self, to experiment with new behavior, and to grow and change.

Answer 15

Making the Rounds

Question 16

● Certain symptoms and behaviors often represent reversals of underlying or latent impulses. Thus, the therapist could ask a person who claims to suffer from severe inhibitions and excessive timidity to play
the role of an exhibitionist.
● The theory underlying the ________ _________ is that 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.
● This technique can help clients begin to accept certain personal attributes that
they have tried to deny.

Answer 16

The Reversal Technique

Question 17

● When clients share their rehearsals out loud with a therapist, they become more
aware of the many preparatory means they use in bolstering their social roles.
● They also become increasingly aware of
how they try to meet the expectations of others, of the degree to which they want to
be approved, accepted, and liked, and of the extent to which they go to attain
acceptance.

Answer 17

The Rehearsal Exercise

Question 18

● In this exercise the person is asked to exaggerate the movement or gesture
repeatedly, which usually intensifies the feeling attached to the behavior and makes the inner meaning clearer.
● If a client reports that his or her legs are shaking, the therapist may ask the client to
stand up and exaggerate the shaking. Then the therapist may ask the client to put words to the shaking limbs.
● Other examples of behaviors that lend themselves to the exaggeration technique are trembling (shaking hands, legs),
slouched posture and bent shoulders, clenched fists, tight frowning, facial grimacing, crossed arms, etc.

Answer 18

The Exaggeration Exercise

Question 19

● At key moments when clients refer to a feeling or a mood that is unpleasant and from which they have a great desire to flee, the therapist may urge clients to stay with their feeling and encourage them to go
deeper into the feeling or behavior they wish to avoid.
● Facing and experiencing feelings not only takes courage but also is a mark of a
willingness to endure the pain necessary for unblocking and making way for newer
levels of growth.

Answer 19

Staying with the Feeling

Question 20

● In the gestalt approach, the intent is to bring dreams back to life and relive them
as though they were happening now.
● The dream is acted out in the present, and the dreamer becomes a part of his or her
dream.
● Each part of the dream is assumed to be a projection of the self, and the client creates
scripts for encounters between the various characters or parts.
● All of the different parts of a dream are expressions of the client’s own contradictory and inconsistent sides, and,
by engaging in a dialogue between these opposing sides, the client gradually becomes more aware of the range of his or her own feelings.
● Perls’ concept of projection is central in his theory of dream formation; every person
and every object in the dream represents a projected aspect of the dreamer.

Answer 20

The Gestalt Approach to Dream Work

Question 21

What are the application of gestalt therapy to group counseling?

Answer 21

1. Promoting interpersonal exploration, self discovery and experimentation within a supportive group.
2. The counselor emphasizes that each group member is responsible for their feelings, thoughts, and actions.
3. Group leaders tend to actively participate in developing experiments to assist members in accessing their resources, and enhance their awareness.
4. Gestalt therapy employs a rich variety of interventions to intensify what group members are experiencing in the present moment.
5. It encourages direct experience and actions instead of merely talking about conflicts, problems, and feelings.