Gestalt Therapy – Fritz Perls – Flashcards

Gestalt therapy is based on the premise that people must become aware of their need for connection and effective in satisfying it. Gestalt means a whole or a completion, and emphasizes the need for people to be as fully as possible who they are. It emphasizes self-awareness and self-acceptance and is grounded in the here and now, promoting direct experiencing as an agent of client change, rather than education or explanation.

Sudden insight or awareness into a problem or its solution

The therapist uses here-and-now relationship to help the client become aware of their style of moving towards and away from others, engaging and disengaging, and of when and how this occurs and whether this does or does not work for the client, etc.

Uninterested or disavowed parts of the personality that are in conflict.

Determined by the client

The ground is everything that is possible to bring into awareness or consciousness. the Figure is that which is the focus of interest in any given moment. The therapist follows that which is figurative, from moment to moment, in the client's expressions and between therapist and client.

Integrating dichotomies into a whole, self-awareness into unfinished business and contact boundaries. Developing congruence between inner experience and outward behavior. According to Gestalt therapy theory, "change occurs when you become what you are, not when you try to become what you are not. Change does not take place through a coercive attempt by the individual or by another person to change him, but it does take place if one takes the time and effort to be what he is -- to be fully invested in his current positions." (Beisser, Arnold, Paradoxical Theory of Change, 1970)

The ability of two selves to meet in an authentic encounter, instead of as two objectivities (it/it) or a subjectivity and an objectivity (I/it). The therapist tries to make him or herself fully present and available for such encounters as a way of exploring contact boundaries and providing clients with a positive experience of self, as worthy of having genuine I-Thou contact with others.

A situation in which the client does not have the internal support to get his/hers need met and thus continues to be stuck

Putting oneself, as fully as possible, into experience of another.

Here-and-now process comments Experiments Role playing Empty chair Inclusion techniques

When we stop trying to change what we are, when we really accept all parts of ourselves, it is at that moment that change begins to happen all by itself.

Problems as seeing as unfinished business, unmet needs. " If we don't know our need we cannot meet them, then we get resentful

The most frequent and debilitating type of unfinished business, resulting in guilt.

Directive, active, authentic, self-disclosing, congruent confrontational

Increased awareness Acceptance of responsibility Reconcile and integrate polarities Increased ability to make contact with self and others Increased ability to get one;s need met.

here and now, emphasis on in-the-room experiencing

Two parts of the personality which manifest in character types; the top dog righteous, authoritarian bully who makes demands. The underdog is defensive, apologetic, fawning, plays "the crybaby"

Unexpressed feelings and resentments that linger in the mind and interfere with the ability to be present and to have genuine contact with self and others

Individuals, couples, families