Gestalt and Person-Centered Therapy Debate Essay Example

counseling session (Joseph, & Murphy, 2013). Following the fact explained above, differentiation between people-centered therapy and Gestalt therapy students in a position to formulate a debate based on the two treatments regarding why and how people become aware of psychological problems.

Being the moderator of Gestalt and Person-Centered Therapy Debate some the questions that I will ask the defenders of the Gestalt and the person-centered approach therapist are as listed below:

• Following the fact that person-centered therapy focuses on empathy and identification, how important is the role of empathy and identification when finding out why and how psychological problem develop.

Following the question raised, Gestalt therapy defender would oppose the issue claiming that empathy and identification do not posit strong relationship when a therapist is in the quest of identifying a psychology problem of an individual. Instead of taking the trouble of finding out the cause of a client's social problem a Gestalt therapist will directly focus on the teaching the person in the ways of becoming aware of the situation of the underlying psychology problem.

On the other hand, a defendant of person-centered therapy at first collects the allegation put forward by Gestalts defender arguing that a competent therapist focuses on identifying the cause of the client’s problem. The only way of solving problems of a person under psychology problem is to first scrutinize the causes of the problem. Once the foundation of the crisis is noted, a therapist stands in a position of explaining the possible reason that resulted in the underlying predicament. After rectifying the first Gestalt defendant, person-centered therapy defendant supports the question claiming that presence of a connection between the client and a

therapist is important since it aids a therapist in connecting with the individual’s client. Once this regard is established, a therapist can define why and how people become aware of a psychological disorder. In fact, after establishing a connection between the client and therapist, the client opens up his individual's mind with the therapist thus increasing the chance of becoming aware of a person’s psychological problem.

• With reference to the response of the first question asked, how important is the role a therapist in assisting a client with psychology problem?

After posting the question to a Gestalt therapist, the therapist would answer the question by whether they make available or facilitate solutions for their client subjected to a psychological problem. With this response, I believe the Gestalt therapist would respond claiming that their role is ensuring that the clients understand the significance of individuals understanding of the importance of their relationship with the problem they are subjected (Joseph, & Murphy 2013). The therapist continues to argue that the recognition of the relationship between the world and the problem provides the answer of how and why the underlying problem came in existence.

When addressing the same question defending, the person- centered therapy approach makes an argument that since counselors are appropriate in addressing issues related to the psychological problem, then they should provide answers to the underlying client’s problem. With this reference, person-centered approach defendant argues that the role of a therapist is not facilitating the solutions of client problem but rather provide the solution to the underlying client problem.

• In a counseling session aiming at finding out why and how a customer is subjected to a psychological
  

problem, who determines the direction in which a therapy session takes.

In response to this question, the person-centered approach would argue that it client’s role to establish the direction of a counseling session. On the other, that individual’s counterpart would say that it is the professional’s role to control the direction of a counseling session (Blair, 2013). In response to person-centered therapist approach, Gestalt therapist would argue that by letting the client determine the direction of a counseling session there is a high probability that the customer will not reveal all the essential details of the underlying psychological problem.
Following the weight of the asked question, the person-centered defendant would argue that unless a therapist wishes to reveal individuals wits to the client, a therapist should depend on the customer to determine counseling sessions.

• Considering an example of a person who sought to do harm himself or herself, how is a therapist supposed to handle the client?

A defendant of centered person therapy would focus on a wide array of revealing the main cause of the situation from the individual. With response person-centered therapist argument, a Gestalt therapist would focus on the notion of examining specific connections between the individual’s world and the possible reasons that could have led to the individuals making that decision (Corey, 2015). With response to the answer given to the defendant of the centered person therapist, the Gestalt therapist would criticize the answer provided claiming that in the process of finding out the cause of the client's problems there are high probabilities that the customer would have a chance of doing the intended harm. Thus, the Gestalt approach would go straight to defining

how and why the individual wants to do harm to him and the others.

Reference

• Blair, L. J. (2013). Ecopsychology: challenges for person-centered therapy. Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 12(4), 368-381.
• Corey, G. (2015). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. Nelson Education.
• Joseph, S., & Murphy, D. (2013). Person-centered approach, positive psychology, and relational helping building bridges. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 53(1), 26-51.
• Wampold, B. E., & Imel, Z. E. (2015). The great psychotherapy debate: The evidence for what makes psychotherapy work. Routledge.