1. Gestalt Therapy Rebecca Cordisco
“Lose your mind and come to your senses”
-Fritz Perls

2. Background Fritz Perls (b. 1893, d. 1970)
Born into a Jewish family in a suburb of Berlin, Germany.
Confrontive, showy, controversial.
Originally trained in psychoanalysis.
Replaced sex drive with hunger drive.
Married Laura Posner Perls in 1929, 2 children

3. Basic Philosophy GT theorists believe that humans are growth oriented.
Most basic value-HOLISM.
Humans can’t be separated from their environments, nor can they be divided into parts (body and mind).
Humanistic/Existential Approach
Emphasizes individual choice and responsibility.
Focused on the growth process.
Emphasis on growth and actualization (seems to support a positive view of human nature).
Emphasis on creativity, spontaneity, and resisting conformity.
Healthy= sometimes being in conflict with societal norms.

4. Human Motivation Motivated by the drive to satisfy needs.
Biological and psychological needs are important
Important need-interaction with other human beings.
Process of self-regulation
Harmony with the environment, maturity, or actualization.
Self-regulation
Knowing what is good and bad for you. This is innate, and humans adapt easily to changing environments.

5. Central Constructs Contact
Seeing, moving, hearing, touching, talking, smelling, tasting are all ways of contacting the environment.
Healthy contact results in assimilation, which in turn leads to growth.
Following contact, the organism retreats to “digest” the results.
Needs
Life is a process of needs satisfaction.
A Gestalt has a figure and a ground
Figure, what stands out
Ground, the rest of the experience (eg. The background).
The notion of Gestalt (meaning “whole” or “pattern” in German)
A need is an incomplete Gestalt that emerges into an organism’s awareness. That becomes figure, everything else becomes ground.
When one need is satisfied, another arrives to take its place.

6. Who do you see here??

7. Central Constructs Polarities
If something exists, the opposite must exist as well.
Sometimes we as humans do not want to accept one end of the polarity.
Top-dog (you should), underdog (I can’t)
Contact Disturbance
Also called boundary problems or resistances (to awareness).
Dysfunctional
Most primitive contact disturbance is “introjection”
Taking in experience or food without digesting it.

8. Resistances Projection
An unwanted part of the self is expelled into the environment. For example, we avoid the experience of our own hate for someone by believing that they hate us.
Confluence
Refers to a complete loss of self in which the individual cannot separate himself from the environment.
Unable to withdraw when it is appropriate to do so.
Has trouble expressing their own beliefs and values.
Kids going into gangs, adopt the identity of the gang.

9. Resistances Retroflection
The unacceptable impulse is turned toward the self.
Tense the muscles to resist hitting someone
During therapy, physical expressions can be clues where awareness was interrupted.
Awareness is key. If you are unaware of your retroflections, you are repressing them.
Isolation
Losing contact with both the environment and the self
Deflection
The impulse is dampened.
Also seen when we avoid or interrupt interaction with another person.

10. Health and Dysfunction
Healthy people live in harmony with the environment.
Self-regulation guides the individual to be aware of shifting needs.
Organism uses natural tendencies to self-regulate and assimilate.
Recognizes the interconnection with the environment
Strikes a balance with herself as well as others
Creative adjustment (used by GT counselors to describe how one changes the environment to meet the needs of the organism and changes the organism to fit the needs of the environment).

11. Anxiety-“futurizing” (failing to remain centered in the present).
Dysfunction in GT is known as “dis-ease” because the person is not in harmony with the environment.
Neurosis is a growth disorder that results from the interruption of the cycle of awareness.
Unfinished Business- when the GT process has failed in some way
The need that was not met will hang around to bother the person.
Anxiety-“futurizing” (failing to remain centered in the present).

12. Nature of Therapy No formal assessment is used
The therapist is generally the assessment tool (uses observation to see how the individual functions in their life).
The counselor will look at the client’s contact with the environment, awareness, support, etc.
Hard core GT analysts say that diagnosing people will label them, and that is de-humanizing.
The most common assessment/diagnostic question used in GT “What do you experience right now?”
Most interested in assessing the client’s current state of awareness

13. Let’s talk to Gloria!

14. Overview of Therapeutic Atmosphere
The essence- the immediate experience of the client.
Does not mean that the past or the future is never discussed.
GT counselors believe that asking “why” is avoiding life.
They feel talking about things strays away from experiencing and acting.
Therapist strives to create an authentic contact with the client.
Good therapy is a result of the therapist paying attention to both the client’s process and the relationship between the therapist and client.
Therapist is active.
Primary task-observation to find where the client has interrupted her experience.
Can be long or short term

15. Roles of Client and Counselor
Confrontation was the hallmark of Perls’ approach.
Different today
Counselors are expected to be authentic and transparent with their clients.
Counselors should be aware of their own being as well as their clients.
The client should engage actively
The GT counselor likes when clients disagree, in fact encourages it. They don’t want their clients to introject their own values!

16. Goals Awareness 2 aspects
Microawareness-awareness of a particular content area
Awareness of the awareness process
Ultimately results in the growth of the individual
Growth

17. Process of Therapy 3 central elements
Relationship, awareness and experiment
Relationship with counselor and client
Interruptions in the awareness process are what bring client to counseling in the first place
Experiments try to bring issues out in the safe environment of counseling.

18. Critical rules
Stay in the now
Emphasis on aware and authentic communication
Using “I” not “it” language (taking responsibility)
Asking no questions
Emphasis on physical or body sensation and functioning.
Unfinished business is often seen in the body of the client.
The notion of “field”
The therapist is an integral part of the process, not just an observer.
The field is everything that is around and goes on between the client and the counselor.
When resistance is shown, the GT counselor wants the client to become aware of it.

19. Countertransference Proactive countertransference
When the counselor’s unfinished business is activated while in relationship with the client.
Reactive countertransference
When the GT counselor responds to the client’s transference behavior.

20. Therapeutic Techniques
Eclectic-any technique that fosters awareness is considered acceptable.
Therapist self-disclosure
Therapist will disclose their awareness to the client.
Dialogues
Empty chair
Helping to resolve unfinished business
The client can switch between being top-dog and underdog.
Playing the Projection
Exaggeration
Wiggling her leg incessantly to become aware
Reversals
Ask the client to play the reverse
A shy client would pretend to be an extrovert

21. Therapeutic Techniques
Dream Work
Takes on the role of the parts of the dream, giving each its own speech and experiences.
Working with Polarities
Love-hate, strong-weak
The client is asked to take the role of each end
Awareness Training or Bodywork
Asked to attend closely to any body sensation
Breathing, tone of voice, physical gesture
Taking Responsibility
Follow statements with “and I take responsibility for it”

22. Let’s check in with Gloria again…

23. Evaluation of the Theory
Criticisms
Characterized as “wild, uncontrolled, and undisciplined”
Highly linked to Perls and his abrasive approach
Connected to the 1960s mindset of being wild, free and dangerous
Emphasis on raw experiencing and lack of structure worries some
Lack of supporting theory
Seen more as a collection of gimmicky techniques

24. Evaluation of the Theory
Qualities of the Theory
Precision and Testability
Based on well-constructed lab research
Empirical Validity
Support for effectiveness is evident