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Notes on Weak Areas

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Shreya Arora
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13 views

Notes on Weak Areas

Uploaded by

Shreya Arora
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Gestalt Therapy

Frequently, habitual behaviors and attitudes get in the way of


change. During the early years of Gestalt theoretical
development, Perls, Hefferline and Goodman conceived of
this resistance as the opposition to change.
But eventually they began to see resistance as a deeply rooted
fear of contact caused by an unhealthy blockage that is used to
avoid some form of pain, real or imagined. With this reframe
they came to see resistance as a problem to be worked
through.
The early Gestaltists identified six internal mechanisms of
resistance: introjection, projection, retroflection, deflection,
confluence and desensitization.
Gestalt therapy is a process psychotherapy with the goal of
improving one’s contact in community and with the
environment in general. This goal 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.

A process psychotherapy is one that focuses on process over


discrete events. This means that gestalt therapists are more
interested in the process as a whole, rather than
individual events or experiences. Gestalt psychotherapists use
a relational, here-and-now framework, meaning that they
prioritize the current interactions with the client
over history and past experience. Gestalt therapy draws upon
dialectical thinking and polarization to help the client achieve
balance, equilibrium, contact, and health.

Gestalt therapy borrows heavily from psychoanalysis, Gestalt


psychology, existential philosophy, zen Buddhism, Taoism, and
more (Bowman, 2005). It is an amalgamation of different
theoretical ideas, packaged for delivery to patients using the
traditional psychoanalytic therapy situation, and also includes
elements from more fringe elements of psychology, such
as psychodrama and role-playing.

three founders: Fritz Perls, Laura Perls, and Paul Goodman.

1 Gestalt therapists apply this philosophy of wholeness to their


clients. They believe that a human being cannot be understood
by generalizing one part of the self to understand the whole
person (O’Leary, 2013). For example, the client cannot be
understood solely by their diagnosis, or by one interaction, but
must be considered the total of all they are.

Going through the world, we are engaged in a constant process


of differentiating figures and grounds. The figure is whatever
we are paying attention to, while the ground is whatever is
happening in the background. Healthy functioning is the ability
to attend flexibly to the figure that is most important at the
time (O’Leary, 2013).
2 Gestalt therapy sees healthy living is a series of creative
adjustments (Latner, 1973, p. 54). This means adjusting one’s
behavior, naturally and flexibly, to the figure in awareness.
In contrast, unhealthy living results when one’s attention flits
from one figure to the other without ever achieving wholeness.

3 According to Latner (1973, p. 70), we are responsible when


we are “aware of what is happening to us” and when we “own
up to acts, impulses, and feelings.” Gestalt therapists help their
clients take both kinds of personal responsibility.
When therapy begins, clients do not internalize feelings,
emotions, or problems, often externalizing and shifting
responsibility for their actions as the fault or consequence of
others (O’Leary, 2013). They may be stuck in the past,
ruminating on mistakes or regrets about their actions.

The Empty Chair Technique


Exaggeration. This technique uses physical behavior to try to
uncover thoughts and emotions you may not be aware of. The
therapist pays close attention to your body language. If you
have a physical reaction to something you're talking about,
such as frowning or shifting in your seat, they'll have you
repeat it in an exaggerated way. Then, you'll explore the
emotion you're feeling and how it's connected to your
experience.
Dramatization. Various kinds of acting are a part of gestalt
therapy. You may do role-playing, where you act out both sides
of a conversation between you and someone you're in conflict
with. That's sometimes called the two-chair technique. Or your
therapist may have you recreate a painful or traumatic moment
from your past so you can re-experience the emotions in the
present and process them.
"I" statements. This technique helps you focus on your own
actions and feelings and take responsibility for them, rather
than blaming others. For example, instead of saying something
or someone makes you angry, your therapist will encourage
you to say "I feel angry when.."
Confrontation. If the therapist detects something that you're
trying to avoid, they'll pursue it and challenge you to face it.
This technique can seem too aggressive and is not as much a
part of gestalt therapy as it was earlier.
Creative or physical activities. Rather than passive talking,
gestalt therapy emphasizes movement and activity. It involves
art activities, such as drawing, sculpting, or dancing, to help
you learn to be mindful and focus on the present.

Assessment of Severity
In the course of telling the story of his or her problem, the client
provides the therapist with a rough idea of his or her orientation
toward life, his or her plans, goals, ambitions, and some idea of
the events and pressures surrounding the particular presenting
problem. Over time, the therapist must decide whether this
problem represents a minor deviation from an otherwise
healthy life story. Is this a normal, developmentally appropriate
adjustment issue? Or does the therapist detect signs of more
thorough-going problems in the client’s life story? Will therapy
play a minor, supportive role to an individual experiencing a
low point in his or her life course? If so, the orientation and
major themes of the life will be largely unchanged in the
therapy experience. But if the trajectory of the life story is
problematic in some fundamental way, then more serious, long-
term story repair might be indicated. So, from this perspective,
part of the work between client and therapist can be seen as
life-story elaboration, adjustment, or repair.

Severity = Distress x Uncontrollability x Frequency


Transactional analysis

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