Gestalt Therapy
View of Human Nature: people are
self-reliant
 spontaneous
 capable of self-regulation
 able to reintegrate the disown parts of
themselves
 striving toward actualization and growth
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The present (here and now)
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Directly Experience rather than talking about
situations
 Becoming the hurt child rather than talking about
childhood trauma experiences.
Ask “what” and “how” instead of “why”
The power is in the present.
However, many people focus on past mistakes and
future plans.
Unfinished Business (UB)
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Definition: Feelings about the past are unexpressed
May be of anger, hatred, guilt, fear…
May be memories and fantasies
Interfere with effective contact
Tend to result in physical symptoms
By working through unfinished business, the
preoccupation with the past is complete.
Contact & Resistance to contact
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Contact – interaction with nature and other
people without losing one’s individuality
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Contact is necessary for change to occur
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Resistance to contact – the defenses that
prevent us from experiencing the present
fully
Contact Boundary Disturbances
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Clients are encourage to be aware of their dominant style of
blocking contact
Introjection: uncritically accept others’ view without reviewing
them
 Children often take parents’ opinions as fact
Projection: disown certain aspect of ourselves by assigning them
to others
 Feeling anger may lead a person to project anger onto others
Retroflection: doing to ourselves what we want to do to others,
 Biting one’s nails can be a substitute for aggression toward
others
Energy and blocks to energy
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Attend to where energy is located, how it is used,
and how it can be blocked
Blocked energy is a form of resistance
Recognize how their resistance is being expressed
in their body
 feeling numb
Exaggerate their tension and tightness in order to
increase awareness
Therapeutic Goals: helping clients
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to enhance awareness
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to depend on themselves
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to bring the past or future into the present
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to achieve integration of the whole person
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Verbal behavior, nonverbal behavior, feelings,
thoughts, perceptions.…
Therapist’s function and Role
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Increase clients’ awareness
Attend to the present moment
Attend to verbal, nonverbal, and inconsistent message
Help clients to experience their being “stuck”
Make “I” statement
 It is difficult to make friendsI have trouble
making friends
The Therapeutic Relationship
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Therapeutic relationship is important for the
therapy to be effective
Be empathetic, genuine, and understanding
Share therapists’ experiences to clients in “hereand-now”
Apply the notion of “use of self” in therapy
Therapeutic Change
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Not making progress is due to fear of change
(Perls, 1969)
Exploring the reluctance
The Change Process: three-stage (Polster, 1987)
 Discovery (get a new perspective)
 Accommodation (learn that they have a choice)
 Assimilation (change their environment)
Therapeutic techniques and procedures
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The experiential work
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Use experiential work in therapy to work
through the stuck points and gain new insights
Preparing client for experiential work
Obtain permission from clients
 Be sensitive to cultural differences
 Respect resistance
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Therapeutic techniques and procedures
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The internal dialogue exercise
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Making the rounds
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Top dog (critical parent) and underdog (victim)
Empty-chair (two sides of themselves)
Go around to each person and say “What makes it hard
for me trust you is……”
Reversal exercise
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Reverse the typical style (e.g., behave as negative as
possible)
Therapeutic techniques and procedures
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Rehearsal exercise
 Share the rehearsals out loud with a therapist
Exaggeration exercise
 Exaggerate gesture or movement, which usually
intensifies the feelings attached to the behavior
Staying with the feeling
 Go deeper into the feelings they wish to avoid
Therapeutic techniques and procedures
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The Gestalt approach to dream work
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Do not interpret or analyze dreams
Bring dream back to the present life as though they are
happening now
Every person or object in the dream represents a
projected aspect of the dreamer
Dreams serve as an excellent way to discover personality
Not rememberingrefuse to face what it is at that time
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Research on Gestalt Therapy
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Compare with a waiting list control or no
treatment, Gestalt therapy is effective
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In general, results are similar among Gestalt
therapy, P-C therapy, or CBT.
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Leslie Greenberg and colleagues conducted a
series of research on empty chair technique
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Across studies, the empty chair technique is
helpful by reducing self-criticism and increasing
self-understanding.
From a multicultural perspective
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Contributions
 Work with clients from their cultural perspectives
Limitations
 Focus on “affect” may not be appropriate
 Asians value emotion self-control
 Direct expression of the negative feelings to
their parents is not appropriate.
Summary and Evaluation--contribution
Enhance awareness
 Attend to verbal and nonverbal cues
 Directly experience rather than talking
about it
 Focus on growth and enhancement
 See each aspect of a dream as a projection
of themselves
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Summary and Evaluation-limitation
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Ineffective therapists may manipulate the
clients with powerful experiential work
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Some people may need psycho-education