Today We Will Discuss Gestalt Therapy

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Today We Will Discuss Gestalt Therapy

• What it is
• Why it is effective
• The here now legacy
• Healing through meeting
• A paradoxical theory of change
• Some things you can take away

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Introduction Support

• Creating The Right Conditions For Contact
• Open
• Confidential
• Mutual
• Direct
• Non-shaming
• Reciprocal

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What Exactly IS Gestalt Therapy?
Gestalt therapy is a process psychotherapy with
the goal of improving ones contact in community
and with the environment in general. This is
accomplished through aware, spontaneous, and
authentic dialogue between client and therapist.
Awareness of differences and similarities is
encouraged while interruptions to contact are
explored in the present therapeutic
relationship. - Bowman, 2002
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Common factors in effective psychotherapy

• A warm, positive relationship
• A rationale providing a plausible explanation for
  symptoms
• A set of procedures to produce positive change
• Positive expectancies for beneficial change
• -Handbook of Psychotherapy
  Integration, 1992

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The Roots of Counseling Therapy
MEDICINE
SCIENCE
PHILOSOPHY
Phenomenology Existentialism
Observation Experiment
Psychoanalysis
Client-Centered Present-Centered Psychotherapy
Cognitive-Behavioral Evidenced Based Practice
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Archeological
Gestalt Formation
Pragmatics
Past Intrapsychic Relationship To The Present -A
recollection of the past
Holistic Relationship To The Field -An
impressionist painting
Inner Relationship To Outer World -A photograph
The subjective story of why I am the way I am.
How I tell the story of why I am the way I am to
you.
The objective story of why I am the way I am.
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Orientation Of The Field
CLIENT
THERAPIST
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• History is more or less bunk. Its tradition.
  We dont want tradition. We want to live in the
  present and the only history that is worth a
  tinkers damn is the history we make today.
• -Henry Ford

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Gestalt TherapyHealing Through Meeting
Healing is a series of progressively deepening
steps as the therapy develops. Therapist and
client engage in a parallel-spiraling-down and
contacting each other at deeper and deeper levels
of being. This fosters an intimacy that we
rarely allow to develop in our daily lives.



-captured from M. Buber
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Ways to Increase Contactful Experiences

• Make "I" Statements
• Make statements -- avoid questions
• Use short sentences
• Look directly at the person
• Share feelings and fantasies
• Touch the person
• Use vivid language (no it language, change
  nouns to verbs)
• Speak directly to the person (no speeches into
  the air)
• Use the person's name
• Stay in the here and now of experience
• Make statements of acceptance and recognition

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change occurs when one becomes what he is, not
when he tries to become what he is not



-Arnie
Beisser, 1970

• Change doesnt occur by trying, persuasion,
  insight, etc. Change occurs only after we accept
  fully where we are and what we are.
• By not knowing, not hoping to know, and not
  acting like we know whats happening, we begin to
  access our inner strength.

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Suggested Reading Buber, M. I and Thou. New
York Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970. Crocker, S.
F. A Well Lived Life Essays in Gestalt Therapy.
NY Gestalt Journal Press, 1999. Joyce, P.
Sills, C. Skills in Gestalt Counseling
Psychotherapy. NY Sage, 2001. Phillipson, P.
Self in Relation. NY Gestalt Journal Press,
2005 Woldt, A. Tomin, S. Gestalt Therapy
History, Theory Practice. NY Sage, 2005.