Theory and Practice of
Counseling and Psychotherapy
Psych422
Chapter8: Gestalt Therapy
Questions?
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What key concepts do you know in
terms of Gestalt therapy?
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View of Human Nature
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Self-reliance and reintegration
Dialogue b/w client and therapist (therapist has no agenda
Spontaneous; here and now experience
Human nature is rooted in existential philosophy,
phenomenology, and field theory
Individuals have the capacity to self-regulate in their
environment
The process of “reowning” parts of oneself that have been
disowned
The Now
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Existential & Phenomenological – it is
grounded in the client’s “here and now”
Initial goal is for clients to gain awareness
of what they are experiencing and doing
now
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Promotes direct experiencing rather than the
abstractness of talking about situations
Rather than talk about a childhood trauma the
client is encouraged to become the hurt child
The Now
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Ask “what” and “how” instead of “why”
Our “power is in the present”
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Nothing exists except the “now”
The past is gone and the future has not yet arrived
For many people, the power of the present is lost
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They may focus on their past mistakes or engage in
endless resolutions and plans for the future
Unfinished Business
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Feelings about the past are unexpressed
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These feelings are associated with distinct memories
and fantasies
Feelings not fully experienced linger in the
background and interfere with effective contact
Pay attention on the bodily experience because if
feelings are unexpressed they tend to result in
physical symptom
Result:
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Preoccupation, compulsive behavior, wariness
oppressive energy and self-defeating behavior
Solution: get in touch with the stuck point.
Contact and Resistances to Contact
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CONTACT – interacting with nature and with
other people without losing one’s individuality
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Contact (connect) and Withdrawal (separate)
RESISTANCE TO CONTACT – the defenses we
develop to prevent us from experiencing the
present fully
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Five major channels of resistance:
 Introjection
• Deflection
 Projection
• Confluence
 Retroflection
Contact and Resistances to Contact
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Introjection: uncritically accept others’ belief and
standards without thinking whether they are
congruent with who we are
Projection: the reverse of introjection; we disown
certain aspect of ourselves by assigning them to
the environment
Retroflection: turning back to ourselves what we
would like to do to someone else
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Directing aggression inward that we are fearful to
directing toward others.
Contact and Resistances to Contact
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Deflection: A way of avoiding contact and
awareness by being vague or indirect.
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Confluence: less differentiation between the self
and the environment.
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e.g., overuse of humor
e.g., a need to be accepted---to stay safe by going
alone with other and not expressing one’s true feeling
and opinions.
Clients are encouraged to become increasingly
aware of their dominant style of blocking contact
Questions
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Please provide examples for each five
resistance to contact?
Energy and blocks to energy
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Pay attention to where energy is located, how it is
used, and how it can be blocked
Blocked energy (resistance):
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Tension some part of the body; numbing feelings,
looking away from people when speaking, speaking
with a restricted voice
Recognize how their resistance is being expressed
in their body
Exaggerate their tension and tightness in order to
discover themselves
Therapeutic Goals
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Increasing Awareness and greater choice
Awareness includes knowing the environment,
knowing oneself, accepting oneself, and being
able to make contact.
Stay with their awareness, unfinished
business will emerge.
Therapist’s function and Role
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Increase clients’ awareness
Pay attention to the present moment
Pay attention to clients’ body language,
nonverbal language, and inconsistence b/w
verbal and nonverbal message (e.g., anger
and smile)
“I” message
Client’s Experience in Therapy
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Therapist  no interpretation
Client  making their own interpretation
Three-stage (Polster, 1987)
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Discovery (increasing awareness)
Accommodation (recognizing that they have
a choice)
Assimilation (influencing their environment)
Relationship Between Therapist and Client
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The quality of therapist-client relationship
Therapists knowing themselves
Therapists share their experience to clients in the
here-and-now
Therapist Use of self in therapy
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 get new insights
Preparing client for experiential work
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Get permission from clients
Be sensitive to the cultural difference (e.g., Asian
cultural value: emotional control)
Respect resistance (e.g., express emotionsfear of
lose control, could not stop, or weakness)
Therapeutic techniques and procedures
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Increase awareness about the incongruence
between mind and body (verbal and nonverbal
expression)
The internal dialogue exercise
Making the rounds
Rehearsal exercise
Exaggeration exercise
Staying with the feeling
The Gestalt approach to dream work
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……”
Rehearsal 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
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Exaggeration exercise
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May get stuck when rehearsing silently or internally
Share the rehearsals out load with a therapist
Exaggerate gesture or movement, which usually
intensified the feelings attached to the behavior and
makes the inner meaning clearer.
Staying with the feeling
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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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Not interpret or analyze dreams
Bring dream back to life as though they were
happening now
The dream is acted out in the present to become
different parts of the dream
Projection: every person or object in the dream
represents a projected aspect of the dreamer.
Royal road to integration
Dreams serve as an excellent way to discover
personality
No remember-refuse to face what it is at that time
From a multicultural perspective
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Contributions
 Work with clients from their cultural
perspectives
Limitations
 Focus on “affect”
Asian cultural value: emotional control
 Prohibiting to directly express the negative
feelings to their parents.
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Summary and Evaluation
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Contributions
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Present-centered awareness
Pay attention on verbal and nonverbal cures
Bring conflicts or struggles to actually experience
their conflict and struggles
Focus on growth and enhancement
See each aspect of a dream as a projection of
themselves
Increase awareness of “what is”
Empirical validation for the effectiveness
Summary and Evaluation
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Limitations
 Ineffective therapists may manipulate
the clients with powerful experiential
work
 Some people may need psychoeducation