Gestalt Therapy Flashcards
Irving Polster
faculty chairman at Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. Wrote Gestalt Therapy Integrated: countours of Theory and Practice. openined Gestalt Training Center. Wrote Every Poerson’s Life is Worth a Novel.
Miriam Polster
undergrad in music.coauthored Gesetal Therapy Integrated: Countours of Theory and Practice.highlighted women’s roles. heroism of every day life
Gestalt therapy is
existential, phenomenological, process-based. individuals must be understood in contest of ongoing relationship w/ environment.
Focus on…
Procss much more than content
how people behave in the present moment is…
far more crucial to self-understanding than why
field
dynamic system of interrelationships. important for client to be able to make contact with it
Contemporary Relational Gestalt Therapy
stresses dialoge and I/Though relationship btwn client and therapist. collaborative. supportt, increased sensitivity, and compassion.
Fritz Perls
confrontational dramatic style. parternalistically. cleint’s have to grow up, stand on own two feat. deal w/ problems themselves. 2 person agendas of Perls” move client from environment support to self-support and reintegrating disowned parts of one’s personality.
basic assumption of gestalt
individuals have capacity to self regulated
gestalt theory of change
the more we work at becoming who or what we are not, the more we remain the same (paradoxical theory of change)
arnie beisser
fritz’s friend. coined paradoxical theory of change.
field theory
organism must be seen in its environment, or context, as part of a constantly changing field
figure
aspects of individual’s experience that are most salient at any moment
ground
aspects of client’s presentation that are outside of awareness
figure-formation process
tracks how individual organizes experience from moment to moment as some aspect of the environmental field emerges from the background and becomes the focal point of the individual’s attention and interest.
organismic self-regulation
process by which equilibrium is “disturbed” by the emergency of a need, sensation, or interest. organisms will do their best to regulate themselves, given their own capabilities and resources of environment.
contact
necessary for change and growth. made by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, moving. effective contact means interacting w/ nature and w/ other people w/out losing one’s sense of individuality.
contact boundary phenomena
resistances developed as a means of coping
introjection
uncritical acceptance of others’ beliefs
projection
reverse of introjection. disowning certain aspects of self by assigning them to environment
retroflection
turning back ontour ourselves what we would like to do to someone else or doing to ourselves what we would like some else to do for us
deflection
process of distraction or veering off, so that it is difficult to maintain a sustained sense of contact
confluence
involves blurring differentiation between the self and the environment. striving to blend in and get along w/ everone. no clear demarcation btwn internal experience and outer reality.
premise in gestalt therapy
contact is both normal and healthy, and clients are encouraged to become increasingly aware of their dominant style of blocking contact and their use of resistance.
phenomenological inquiry
paying attention to “the now.” tl help client make contact with present moment, Gestalt therapists ask “what” and “how” questions, but rarely ask “why” questions.
impasse
stuck point; occurs when external support is not available or the customary way of being does not work. The therapist’s task is to accompany clients in experiencing the impasse w/out rescuing or frustrating them.
basic goal
assisting client to attain greater awreness, and with it, greater choice.
therapist’s job
invite clients into active partnership where they learn about themselves by adopting experimental attitudes towards life in which they try out new behaviors and notice what happens.
dialoge
I/Thou dialogue in a here-and-now framework.
body language
pay attention to non-verbal cues
relatinoship btwn language patterns and personality
speech patterns are often an expression of feelings, thoughts, attitudes. eg, “it” talk, “you talk,” using question in place of statements to depersonalize. listent to metaphors, language that denies power, language that uncovers story
3- stage integration sequence characterizing client growth in therapy
- discovery
- accommodation
- assimilation
exercises
ready-made techniques that are sometimes used to make something happen in a therapy session or to achieve a goal. can be catalysts for individual work or for promoting interaction among members of a therapy group.
experiments
grow out of interaction btwn client and therapist. emerge w/in dialogic process. can be considered cornerstone of experiential learning. Frew defines the experiment “as a method that shifts the focus of counseling from talking about a topic to an activity that will heighten the client’s awareness and understanding through experience.”
experiment 2
an intervention and active technique that facilitates collaborative exploration of a client’s experience. goal of an experiment is learning.
experiments take many forms
imagaging a threating future encounter; setting up a dialogue btwn a client and some significan person in his or her life; dramatizing the memory of a painful event; reliving a particularly prfound early experience in the present; assuming identity of one’s mother or father through role playing.
confrontation
invites clients to examine behaviors, attitudes, thoughts. therapists can encourage clients to look at certain incongruities, especially gaps btwn verbal and nonverbal expression.
exercises
preplanned activities that can be used to elicit emotion, produce action, or achieve a specific goal.
internal dialogue exercise
top dog vs underdog. constant struggle “critical parent” vs victim
empty-chair technique
chair is a vehicle for technique of role-reversal
future projection technique
anticipated even brought to present and acted out.
making the rounds
group exercise: and individual goes to others in the group and either speaks or does something w/ each person. purpose is to confront, risk, disclose self
reversal exercise
certain symptoms and behaviors represent reversals of underlying or latent impulses. thus, therapsts could ask client who claims to suffer from sever inhibitions and excessive timidity to play the role of an exhibitionist.
rehearsal exercise
rehearse out loud to therapist
exaggeration exercise
exaggerate “small” movements or gestures repeatedly to intensify the feeling and make the meaning clearer
staying with the feeling
therapist may urge clients to stay w/in feeling and encourage them to go deeper into the feeling or behavior they wish to avoid.
dream work
intent is to bring dreams back to life and relive them as though they were happening now.
therapist’s agenda
no agenda beyond assisting clients to increase their awareness.
role of therapist
help clients identify most pressing issues, needs, and interests and design experiments that sharpen those figures or that explore resistances to contact and awareness.
max wertheimer
learning theory. two blinking lights give impression of movement.
kurt lewin
Kurt Lewin developed field theory for psychology by
noting the organism must be seen in its environment or context, as part
of the constantly changing field.
disequilibrium
To a Gestalt theorist, a psychological
fact is anything which influences behavior. All these facts make up the
person’s life space. A change in any psychological fact changes the
whole space—which in turn rearranges the person’s entire life space. A
state of disequilibrium is set up when an organism is confronted with a
problem.
law of pragnanz
(pregnant with meaning) states
“Psychological organization will always be as good as the controlling
circumstances permit,” (Koffka). Every psychological event will move
to be as simple, concise, symmetrical, or harmonious as possible—
striving towards balance. The brain is always attempting to make
sense of what is perceived—like seeing figures in clouds or
recognizable patterns in the random coloring of floor tiles or walls.
support
includes all meaningful experiences such as breathing or using one’s own legs for support
fritz perls
“A living organism is an organism, which consists of thousands of
processes that require interchange with other media outside the
boundary of the organism”—Perls. Life is nothing but a series of
uncompleted gestalts–as soon as one situation is completed another
one comes up.
A. Perls saw personality as multilayered, like an onion which needs to
be pealed to get to the core:
1. Cliché Layer (The phony): Little of genuine self is seen through
the use of polite sentences. The client has little or no selfawareness.
2. Role-playing Layer (Phobic): automatic and serves as a mask
of genuine self. We are afraid to find out who we really are and
don’t like it when we see the real person.
3. Impasse Layer: Nothingness–the experience of being without
roles or clichés is extremely frightening, but the client is stuck in
his/her growth process. He wants to manipulate the environment
to take care of him, and then may become dependent on the
system.
4. Implosive Layer: The client becomes aware of emotions that
are either expressed or imploded, makes meaningful contacts
and exposes defenses to get to the real self.
5. Explosive or Genuine Personality Layer: The client strips
away learned (usually phony) ways of being in the world, and
gets in touch with the real self. This releases a great deal of
energy which has been stored up by living as a genuine person.
goal of gestalt psychotherapy
integration
key figures
