Gestalt Therapy
Frederick and Laura Perls
The Field Theory Perspective
The Phenomenological Perspective
The Existential Perspective
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.
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.
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.
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).
The Existential Perspective
• Existential phenomenologists focus on people’s
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.
Goal of Gestalt Therapy
• By becoming aware, one becomes able to
choose and/or organize one’s own existence in a
meaningful manner. (Jacobs, 1978; Yontef, 1982,
1983).
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.
Contact:
– The relationship between "me" and others.
Contact involves feeling a connection with
others or the world outside oneself while
maintaining separation from it.
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. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” (Similar
to Denial)
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.
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 one’s existence is
by self.
View of Mental illness
• When the person does not know how to selfregulate, 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 client’s work. (No
rescuing/infantilizing)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Awareness:
• Attending to and observing what is happening
in the present. Types of awareness include
sensations and actions, feelings, wants, and
values or assessments.
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.
FOUR CHARACTERISTICS OF
GESTALT DIALOGUE
1. 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 one’s
separate, autonomous presence. Inclusion
provides as environment of safety for the
client’s phenomenological work and, by
communicating an understanding of the
client’s experience, helps sharpen the client’s
self-awareness.
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.
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.
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.