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Gestalt Therapy Frederick and Laura Perls

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Title: Gestalt Therapy Frederick and Laura Perls


1
Gestalt TherapyFrederick and Laura Perls
  • The Field Theory Perspective
  • The Phenomenological Perspective
  • The Existential Perspective

2
Gestalt Personality Theory Concepts
  • Gestalt psychology
  • A psychological approach that studies the
    organization of experience into patterns or
    configurations. Gestalt psychologists believe
    that the whole is greater than the sum of its
    parts and study, among other issues, the
    relationship of a figure to its background.

3
Gestalt Personality Theory Concepts
  • Ground The background that contrasts with the
    figure in the perceptions of a field.
  • Figure That part of a field that stands out in
    good contour clearly from the ground.

4
The Field Theory Perspective
  • The field is a whole in which the parts are in
    immediate relationship and responsive to each
    other and no part is uninfluenced by what goes on
    elsewhere in the field. The field replaces the
    notion of discrete, isolated particles.
  • No action is at a distance what has effect must
    touch that which is affected in time and space.
  • Work is in the here and now, with sensitivity to
    how the here and now includes residues of the
    past, such as body posture, habits, and beliefs.
  • The phenomenological field is defined by the
    observer and is meaningful only when one knows
    the frame of reference of the observer.

5
The Phenomenological Perspective
  • A method of awareness, in which perceiving ,
    feeling, and acting are distinguished from
    interpreting and reshuffling pre-existing
    attitudes.
  • Phenomenology is a discipline that helps people
    stand aside from their usual way of thinking so
    that they can tell the difference between what is
    actually being perceived and felt in the current
    situation and what is residue from the past
    (Idhe, 1977).

6
The Existential Perspective
  • Existential phenomenologists focus on peoples
    existence, relations with each other, joys and
    suffering, etc., as directly experienced .
  • Most people operate in an unstated context of
    conventional thought that obscures or avoids
    acknowledging how the world is.
  • Self-deception is the basis of inauthenticity
    living that is not based on the truth of oneself
    in the world leads to feelings of dread, guilt,
    and anxiety.

7
Goal of Gestalt Therapy
  • By becoming aware, one becomes able to choose
    and/or organize ones own existence in a
    meaningful manner. (Jacobs, 1978 Yontef, 1982,
    1983).

8
Gestalt Personality Theory Concepts
  • CONCERNS RELATED TO CONTACT
  • When there are disturbances in the contact
    boundaries, several difficulties result.
    Awareness of these disturbances is one focus of
    Gestalt therapy.

9
Contact
  • The relationship between "me" and others. Contact
    involves feeling a connection with others or the
    world outside oneself while maintaining
    separation from it.

10
Levels of Contact (Neurosis) The Polarity of
Creating Adjustment
  • 1. The Phony layer Reacting to others in
    unauthentic or patterned ways every day, casual
    interaction or small talk.
  • 2. The Phobic layer An avoidance of
    psychological pain. Im fine, Im fine.
    (Similar to Denial)

11
Levels of Contact (Neurosis) The Polarity of
Creating Adjustment
  • 3. Impasse Is the point at which we are afraid
    to change or move.
  • An impasse is a situation in which external
    support is not forthcoming and the person
    believes he cannot support himself.
  • The individual attempts to manipulate the
    environment to do his seeing, hearing, thinking,
    feeling, and deciding for him.

12
View of Health
  • An self-regulating person takes responsibility
    for what is done for self, what is done by others
    for self, and what is done for others by self.
    The person exchanges with the environment, but
    the basic support for regulation of ones
    existence is by self.

13
View of Mental illness
  • When the person does not know how to
    self-regulate, external support becomes a
    replacement for self-support rather than a source
    of nourishment for the self.
  • In Gestalt therapy, clients get through the
    impasse because of the emphasis on loving contact
    without doing the clients work. (No
    rescuing/infantilizing)

14
Levels of Contact (Neurosis) The Polarity of
Creating Adjustment
  • 4. At the implosive level, the client may
    experience their feelings, start to become aware
    of the real self, but may do little about the
    feelings.
  • 5. Contact with the implosive level is authentic
    and without pretense.

15
Contact boundaries
  • The boundaries that distinguish between one
    person (or one aspect of a person) and an object,
    another person, or another aspect of oneself.
    Examples include body-boundaries,
    value-boundaries, familiarity-boundaries, and
    expressive-boundaries.

16
CONTACT BOUNDARY DISTURBANCES
  • Introjection This occurs when individuals accept
    information or values from others with our
    evaluating them or without assimilating them into
    one's personality.
  • Projection When we ascribe aspects of ourselves
    to others, such as when we attribute some of our
    own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or behaviors
    to friends, projection takes place.

17
CONTACT BOUNDARY DISTURBANCES
  • Retroflection When we do to ourselves what we
    want to do to someone else or do things for
    ourselves that we want others to do for us, then
    we experience retroflection.
  • Deflection When individuals avoid meaningful
    contact by being indirect or vague rather that
    being direct, deflection occurs.

18
CONTACT BOUNDARY DISTURBANCES
  • Confluence When the separation between one's
    self and others becomes muted or unclear, we
    experience confluence. Thus, it can be difficult
    to distinguish what is one's own perception or
    values from those of another person.

19
Awareness
  • Attending to and observing what is happening in
    the present. Types of awareness include
    sensations and actions, feelings, wants, and
    values or assessments.

20
Unfinished business
  • Unexpressed feelings from the past that occur in
    the present and interfere with psychological
    functioning. They may include feelings, memories,
    or fantasies from earlier life (often childhood)
    that can be dealt with in the present.

21
FOUR CHARACTERISTICS OF GESTALT DIALOGUE
  • Inclusion This is putting oneself fully as
    possible into the experience of the other without
    judging, analyzing, or interpreting while
    simultaneously retaining a sense of ones
    separate, autonomous presence. Inclusion provides
    as environment of safety for the clients
    phenomenological work and, by communicating an
    understanding of the clients experience, helps
    sharpen the clients self-awareness.

22
2. Presence
  • The Gestalt therapist expresses herself to the
    client. Regularly, judiciously, and with
    discrimination she expresses observations,
    feelings, personal experience, and thoughts,
    modeling phenomenological reporting. If the
    therapist relies on theory-derived
    interpretation, rather than personal presence,
    she leads the client into relying on phenomena
    not in his/her own immediate experience as the
    tool for raising awareness.

23
3. Commitment to Dialogue
  • Contact is more than something two people do to
    each other. Contact is something that happens
    between people, something that arises from the
    interaction between them. This is allowing the
    contact to happen rather than manipulating,
    making contact, and controlling the outcome.

24
4. Dialogue is lived
  • Dialogue is something done rather than talked
    about. Lived emphasizes the excitement and
    immediacy of doing. The mode of dialogue can be
    dancing, song, words, or any modality that
    expresses and moves the energy between or among
    participants, including the awareness of
    nonverbal expressions.
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