Gestalt Therapy Frederick and Laura Perls

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Gestalt TherapyFrederick and Laura Perls

• The Field Theory Perspective
• The Phenomenological Perspective
• The Existential Perspective

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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).

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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.

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Contact

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

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Awareness

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.