Today We Will Discuss Gestalt Therapy …

What it is Why it is effective The here & now legacy Healing through meeting A paradoxical theory of change Some things you can take away

Introduction & Support

Creating The Right Conditions For Contact:

Open Confidential Mutual Direct Non-shaming Reciprocal

What Exactly IS Gestalt Therapy?“Gestalt therapy is a process psychotherapy with the goal of improving one’s contact in community and with the environment in general. This is accomplished through aware, spontaneous, and authentic dialogue between client and therapist. Awareness of differences and similarities is encouraged while interruptions to contact are explored in the present therapeutic relationship.”

- Bowman, 2002

Common factors in effective psychotherapy: A warm, positive

relationship A rationale providing a

plausible explanation for symptoms

A set of procedures to produce positive change

Positive expectancies for beneficial change

-Handbook of Psychotherapy Integration, 1992

MEDICINE SCIENCEPHILOSOPHY

Psychoanalysis

PhenomenologyExistentialism

ObservationExperiment

PsychodynamicPsychotherapy

Client-CenteredPresent-Centered

Psychotherapy

Cognitive-BehavioralEvidenced Based

Practice

Archeological Gestalt Formation Pragmatics

Past Intrapsychic Relationship

To The Present-A recollection of the

past

Holistic Relationship To The Field

-An impressionist painting

Inner RelationshipTo Outer World

-A photograph

The subjective story of why I am the way I am.

How I tell the story of why I am the way I am

to you.

The objective story of why I am the way I am.

The Roots of Counseling & Therapy

The Experiential Field

NOW

THEN

HERETHERE

The Experiential Field

NOW

THEN

HERETHERE

The Experiential Field

NOW

THEN

HERETHERE

The Experiential Field

NOW

THEN

HERETHERE

CLIENT

THERAPIST

Orientation Of The Field

“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”

-Henry Ford

Gestalt Therapy:Healing Through MeetingHealing is a series of progressively deepening steps as the therapy develops. Therapist and client engage in a “parallel-spiraling-down” and contacting each other at deeper and deeper levels of being. This fosters an intimacy that we rarely allow to develop in our daily lives.

-captured from M. Buber

Ways to Increase Contactful Experiences Make "I" Statements Make statements -- avoid

questions Use short sentences Look directly at the person Share feelings and fantasies Touch the person Use vivid language (no “it”

language, change nouns to verbs) Speak directly to the person (no

speeches into the air) Use the person's name Stay in the here and now of

experience Make statements of acceptance

and recognition

…change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not … -Arnie Beisser, 1970

Change doesn’t occur by trying, persuasion, insight, etc. Change occurs only after we accept fully where we are and what we are.

By not knowing, not hoping to know, and not acting like we know what’s happening, we begin to access our inner strength.

Suggested Reading:

Buber, M. I and Thou. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970.

Crocker, S. F. A Well Lived Life: Essays in Gestalt Therapy. NY: Gestalt Journal Press, 1999.

Joyce, P. & Sills, C. Skills in Gestalt Counseling & Psychotherapy. NY: Sage, 2001.

Phillipson, P. Self in Relation. NY: Gestalt Journal Press, 2005

Woldt, A. & Tomin, S. Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory & Practice. NY: Sage, 2005.