Gestalt therapy
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Gestalt therapy | |
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MeSH | = OPS301 = |
Gestalt therapy is a form of
Overview
- that the most helpful focus of psychotherapy is the experiential present moment, and that everyone is caught in webs of relationships;
- thus, it is only possible to know ourselves against the background of our relationships to others.[3]
The historical development of Gestalt therapy (described below) discloses the influences that generated these two ideas. Expanded, they support the four chief theoretical constructs (explained in the theory and practice section) that comprise Gestalt theory, and that guide the practice and application of Gestalt therapy.
Gestalt therapy was forged from various influences upon the lives of its founders during the times in which they lived, including the
Gestalt therapy is not identical to Gestalt psychology, but Gestalt psychology influenced the development of Gestalt therapy to a large extent.[7]
Gestalt therapy focuses on process (what is actually happening) over content (what is being talked about).[8] The emphasis is on what is being done, thought, and felt at the present moment (the phenomenality of both client and therapist), rather than on what was, might be, could be, or should have been. Gestalt therapy is a method of awareness practice (also called "mindfulness" in other clinical domains), by which perceiving, feeling, and acting are understood to be conducive to interpreting, explaining, and conceptualizing (the hermeneutics of experience).[9] This distinction between direct experience versus indirect or secondary interpretation is developed in the process of therapy. The client learns to become aware of what they are doing and that triggers the ability to risk a shift or change.[10]
The objective of Gestalt therapy is to enable the client to become more fully and creatively alive and to become free from the blocks and unfinished business that may diminish satisfaction, fulfillment, and growth, and to experiment with new ways of being.
When Gestalt therapy is compared to other clinical domains, a person can find many matches, or points of similarity. "Probably the clearest case of consilience is between gestalt therapy's field perspective and the various organismic and field theories that proliferated in neuroscience, medicine, and physics in the early and mid-20th century. Within social science there is a consilience between gestalt field theory and systems or ecological psychotherapy; between the concept of dialogical relationship and object relations, attachment theory, client-centered therapy and the transference-oriented approaches; between the existential, phenomenological, and hermeneutical aspects of gestalt therapy and the constructivist aspects of cognitive therapy; and between gestalt therapy's commitment to awareness and the natural processes of healing and mindfulness, acceptance and Buddhist techniques adopted by cognitive behavioral therapy."[9]: 174
Contemporary theory and practice
The theoretical foundations of Gestalt therapy essentially rests atop four "load-bearing walls": phenomenological method, dialogical relationship, field-theoretical strategies, and experimental freedom.
Richard G. Erskine, the originator of Integrative Psychotherapy (Developmentally Based, Relationally Focused), has written about the treatment of shame and self-righteousness in "A Gestalt therapy approach to shame and self-righteousness: theory and methods“ from his book Relational Patterns, Therapeutic Presence: Concepts and Practice of Integrative Psychotherapy (2015).[clarification needed]
Phenomenological method
The goal of a phenomenological exploration is awareness.[15] This exploration works systematically to reduce the effects of bias through repeated observations and inquiry.[16]
The phenomenological method comprises three steps:[17]
- Applying the rule of epoché - one sets aside one's initial biases and prejudices in order to suspend expectations and assumptions.
- Applying the rule of description - one occupies oneself with describing instead of explaining.
- Applying the rule of horizontalization - one treats each item of description as having equal value or significance.
The rule of epoché sets aside any initial theories with regard to what is presented in the meeting between therapist and client. The rule of description implies immediate and specific observations, abstaining from interpretations or explanations, especially those formed from the application of a clinical theory superimposed over the circumstances of experience. The rule of horizontalization avoids any hierarchical assignment of importance such that the data of experience become prioritized and categorized as they are received. A Gestalt therapist using the phenomenological method might say something like, "I notice a slight tension at the corners of your mouth when I say that, and I see you shifting on the couch and folding your arms across your chest ... and now I see you rolling your eyes back". Of course, the therapist may make a clinically relevant evaluation, but when applying the phenomenological method, temporarily suspends the need to express it.[18]
Dialogical relationship
To create the conditions under which a
Field-theoretical strategies
Field theory is a concept borrowed from physics in which people and events are no longer considered discrete units but as parts of something larger, which are influenced by everything including the past, and observation itself. "The field" can be considered in two ways. There are
Experimental freedom
Gestalt therapy is distinct because it moves toward action, away from mere talk therapy, and for this reason is considered an experiential approach.[22] Through experiments, the therapist supports the client's direct experience of something new, instead of merely talking about the possibility of something new. Indeed, the entire therapeutic relationship may be considered experimental, because at one level it is a corrective, relational experience for many clients, and it is a "safe emergency" that is free to turn out however it will. An experiment can also be conceived as a teaching method that creates an experience in which a client might learn something as part of their growth.[23] Examples might include:
- Rather than talking about the client's critical parent, a Gestalt therapist might ask the client to imagine the parent is present, or that the therapist is the parent, and talk to that parent directly
- If a client is struggling with how to be assertive, a Gestalt therapist could either:
- have the client say some assertive things to the therapist or members of a therapy group
- give a talk about how one should never be assertive
- A Gestalt therapist might notice something about the non-verbal behavior or tone of voice of the client; then the therapist might have the client exaggerate the non-verbal behavior and pay attention to that experience
- A Gestalt therapist might work with the breathing or posture of the client, and direct awareness to changes that might happen when the client talks about different content.
With all these experiments the Gestalt therapist is working with process rather than content, the how rather than the what.
Noteworthy issues
Self
In field theory, self is a phenomenological concept, existing in comparison with other. Without the other there is no self, and how one experiences the other is inseparable from how one experiences oneself. The continuity of selfhood (functioning personality) is something that is achieved in relationship, rather than something inherently "inside" the person. This can have its advantages and disadvantages. At one end of the spectrum, someone may not have enough self-continuity to be able to make meaningful relationships, or to have a workable sense of who they are. In the middle, their personality is a loose set of ways of being that work for them, including commitments to relationships, work, culture and outlook, always open to change where they need to adapt to new circumstances or just want to try something new. At the other end, their personality is a rigid defensive denial of the new and spontaneous. They act in stereotyped ways, and either induce other people to act in particular and fixed ways towards them, or they redefine their actions to fit with fixed stereotypes.
In Gestalt therapy, the process is not about the self of the client being helped or healed by the fixed self of the therapist; rather it is an exploration of the co-creation of self and other in the here-and-now of the therapy. There is no assumption that the client will act in all other circumstances as they do in the therapy situation. However, the areas that cause problems will be either the lack of self-definition leading to chaotic or psychotic behaviour, or the rigid self-definition in some area of functioning that denies spontaneity and makes dealing with particular situations impossible. Both of these conditions show up very clearly in the therapy, and can be worked with in the relationship with the therapist.
The experience of the therapist is also very much part of the therapy. Since we co-create our self-other experiences, the way a therapist experiences being with a client is significant information about how the client experiences themselves. The proviso here is that a therapist is not operating from their own fixed responses. This is why Gestalt therapists are required to undertake significant therapy of their own during training.
From the perspective of this theory of self, neurosis can be seen as fixed predictability—a fixed Gestalt—and the process of therapy can be seen as facilitating the client to become unpredictable: more responsive to what is in the client's present environment, rather than responding in a stuck way to past introjects or other learning. If the therapist has expectations of how the client should end up, this defeats the aim of therapy.
Change
In what has now become a classic of Gestalt therapy literature, Arnold R. Beisser described Gestalt's paradoxical theory of change.[24] The paradox is that the more one attempts to be who one is not, the more one remains the same. Conversely, when people identify with their current experience, the conditions of wholeness and growth support change. Put another way, change comes about as a result of "full acceptance of what is, rather than a striving to be different."[25]
The empty chair technique
Empty chair technique or chairwork is typically used in Gestalt therapy when a patient might have deep-rooted emotional problems from someone or something in their life, such as relationships with themselves, with aspects of their personality, their concepts, ideas, feelings, etc., or other people in their lives. The purpose of this technique is to get the patient to think about their emotions and attitudes.
Historical development
Early influences
Perls grew up on the bohemian scene in Berlin, participated in
Perls served in the German Army during World War I, and was wounded in the conflict. After the war he was educated as a medical doctor. He became an assistant to Kurt Goldstein, who worked with brain-injured soldiers. Perls went through a psychoanalysis with Wilhelm Reich and became a psychiatrist. Perls assisted Goldstein at Frankfurt University where he met his wife Lore (Laura) Posner, who had earned a doctorate in Gestalt psychology.[31] They fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and settled in South Africa. Perls established a psychoanalytic training institute and joined the South African armed forces, serving as a military psychiatrist. During these years in South Africa, Perls was influenced by Jan Smuts and his ideas about "holism".
In 1936 Fritz Perls attended a psychoanalysts' conference in
The seminal book
Perls's seminal work was Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, published in 1951, co-authored by Fritz Perls,
First instances of Gestalt therapy
Fritz and Laura founded the first Gestalt Institute in 1952, running it out of their Manhattan apartment. Isadore From became a patient, first of Fritz, and then of Laura. Fritz soon made From a trainer, and also gave him some patients. From lived in New York until his death, at age seventy-five, in 1993. He was known worldwide for his philosophical and intellectually rigorous take on Gestalt therapy. Acknowledged as a supremely gifted clinician,[citation needed] he was indisposed to writing, so what remains of his work is merely transcripts of interviews.[33]
Of great importance to understanding the development of Gestalt therapy is the early training which took place in experiential groups in the Perls's apartment, led by both Fritz and Laura before Fritz left for the West Coast, and after by Laura alone. These "trainings" were unstructured, with little didactic input from the leaders, although many of the principles were discussed in the monthly meetings of the institute, as well as at local bars after the sessions. Many notable Gestalt therapists emerged from these crucibles in addition to Isadore From, e.g., Richard Kitzler, Dan Bloom, Bud Feder, Carl Hodges, and Ruth Ronall. In these sessions, both Fritz and Laura used some variation of the "hot seat" method, in which the leader essentially works with one individual in front of an audience with little or no attention to group dynamics. In reaction to this omission emerged a more interactive approach in which Gestalt-therapy principles were blended with group dynamics; in 1980, the book Beyond the Hot Seat, edited by Feder and Ronall, was published, with contributions from members of both the New York and Cleveland Institutes, as well as others.
Fritz left Laura and New York in 1960, briefly lived in Miami, and ended up in California. Jim Simkin was a psychotherapist who became a client of Perls in New York and then a co-therapist with Perls in Los Angeles. Simkin was responsible for Perls's going to California, where Perls began a psychotherapy practice. Ultimately, the life of a peripatetic trainer and workshop leader was better suited to Fritz's personality—starting in 1963, Simkin and Perls co-led some of the early Gestalt workshops and training groups at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, where Perls eventually settled and built a home. Jim Simkin then purchased property next to Esalen and started his own training center, which he ran until his death in 1984. Simkin refined his precise version of Gestalt therapy, training psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and social workers within a very rigorous, residential training model.
The schism
In the 1960s, Perls became infamous among the professional elite for his public workshops at Esalen Institute. Isadore From referred to some of Fritz's brief workshops as "hit-and-run" therapy, because of Perls's alleged emphasis on showmanship with little or no follow-through—but Perls never considered these workshops to be complete therapy; rather, he felt he was giving demonstrations of key points for a largely professional audience. Unfortunately, some films and tapes of his work were all that most graduate students were exposed to, along with the misperception that these represented the entirety of Perls's work.
When Fritz Perls left New York for California, there began to be a split with those who saw Gestalt therapy as a therapeutic approach similar to psychoanalysis. This view was represented by Isadore From, who practiced and taught mainly in New York, as well as by the members of the Cleveland Institute, which was co-founded by From. An entirely different approach was taken, primarily in California, by those who saw Gestalt therapy not just as a therapeutic modality, but as a way of life. The East Coast, New York–Cleveland axis was often appalled by the notion of Gestalt therapy leaving the consulting room and becoming a way of life on the West Coast in the 1960s (see the "Gestalt prayer").
An alternative view of this split saw Perls in his last years continuing to develop his a-theoretical and phenomenological methodology, while others, inspired by From, were inclined to theoretical rigor which verged on replacing experience with ideas.
The split continues between what has been called "East Coast Gestalt" and "West Coast Gestalt," at least from an
Post-Perls
In 1969, Fritz Perls left the United States to start a Gestalt community at Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island, Canada. He died almost one year later, on 14 March 1970, in Chicago. One member of the Gestalt community was Barry Stevens. Her book about that phase of her life, Don't Push the River, became very popular. She developed her own form of Gestalt therapy body work, which is essentially a concentration on the awareness of body processes.[35]
The Polsters
Erving and Miriam Polster started a training center in La Jolla, California, and published a book, Gestalt Therapy Integrated, in the 1970s.[13]
They were influential in advancing the idea of contact boundary phenomena, which is a key part of Gestalt theory. The standard contact boundary resistances were confluence, introjection, projection, and retroflection, but the Polsters added "deflection" as a way of avoiding contact. Boundary phenomena can have good or bad effects, depending on the situation. For example, it's normal for a baby and mother to merge, but not for a therapist and client. If the therapist and client become too merged, then there can be no progress because there is no boundary for them to connect with. The client will not be able to learn anything new because the therapist will just become a part of them. [36]
Influences upon Gestalt therapy
Some examples
There were a variety of psychological and philosophical influences upon the development of Gestalt therapy, not the least of which were the social forces at the time and place of its inception. Gestalt therapy is an approach that is holistic (including mind, body, and culture). It is present-centered and related to existential therapy in its emphasis on personal responsibility for action, and on the value of "I–thou" relationship in therapy. In fact, Perls considered calling Gestalt therapy existential-phenomenological therapy. "The I and thou in the Here and Now" was a semi-humorous shorthand mantra for Gestalt therapy, referring to the substantial influence of the work of Martin Buber—in particular his notion of the I–Thou relationship—on Perls and Gestalt. Buber's work emphasized immediacy, and required that any method or theory answer to the therapeutic situation, seen as a meeting between two people.[37] Any process or method that turns the patient into an object (the I–It) must be strictly secondary to the intimate, and spontaneous, I–Thou relation. This concept became important in much of Gestalt theory and practice.
Both Fritz and Laura Perls were students and admirers of the neuropsychiatrist
There were additional influences on Gestalt therapy from existentialism, particularly the emphasis upon personal choice and responsibility.
The late 1950s–1960s movement toward
Psychoanalysis
Fritz Perls trained as a neurologist at major medical institutions and as a Freudian psychoanalyst in Berlin and Vienna, the most important international centers of the discipline in his day. He worked as a training analyst for several years with the official recognition of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), and must be considered an experienced clinician.[30] Gestalt therapy was influenced by
Central to Fritz and Laura Perls's modifications of psychoanalysis was the concept of dental or oral aggression. In Ego, Hunger and Aggression (1947), Fritz Perls's first book, to which Laura Perls contributed
In contrast to the psychoanalytic stance, in which the "patient" introjects the (presumably more healthy) interpretations of the analyst, in Gestalt therapy the client must "taste" his or her own experience and either accept or reject it—but not introject or "swallow whole." Hence, the emphasis is on avoiding interpretation, and instead encouraging discovery. This is the key point in the divergence of Gestalt therapy from traditional psychoanalysis: growth occurs through gradual assimilation of experience in a natural way, rather than by accepting the interpretations of the analyst; thus, the therapist should not interpret, but lead the client to discover for him- or herself.
The Gestalt therapist contrives experiments that lead the client to greater awareness and fuller experience of his or her possibilities. Experiments can be focused on undoing projections or retroflections. The therapist can work to help the client with closure of unfinished Gestalts ("unfinished business" such as unexpressed emotions towards somebody in the client's life). There are many kinds of experiments that might be therapeutic, but the essence of the work is that it is experiential rather than interpretive, and in this way, Gestalt therapy distinguishes itself from psychoanalysis.
Principal influences: a summary list
- Paul Goodman
- Wilhelm Reich's psychoanalytic developments, especially his early character analysis, and the later concept of character armor and its focus on the body
- Jacob Moreno's psychodrama, principally the development of enactment techniques for the resolution of psychological conflicts
- Gestalt theory
- Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue and relationship ("I–Thou")
- Kurt Lewin's field theory as applied to the social sciences and group dynamics
- European phenomenology of Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty
- The existentialism of Kierkegaard over that of Sartre, rejecting nihilism
- The Jungian psychology of Carl Jung, particularly the polarities concept
- Some elements from Zen Buddhism
- Differentiation between thing and concept from Zen and the works of Alfred Korzybski
- The American pragmatism of William James, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey
Therapies influenced by Gestalt therapy
Psychotherapies influenced by Gestalt therapy include:
- Acceptance and commitment therapy[39][40]
- Emotion-focused therapy[41]
Current status
Gestalt therapy reached a zenith in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Since then, it has influenced other fields like organizational development, coaching, and teaching.[citation needed] Many of its contributions have become assimilated into other schools of therapy. In recent years[when?], it has seen a resurgence in popularity as an active, psychodynamic form of therapy which has also incorporated some elements of recent developments in attachment theory.[citation needed] There are, for example, four Gestalt training institutes in the New York City metropolitan area alone, in addition to dozens of others worldwide.
Gestalt therapy continues to thrive as a widespread form of psychotherapy, especially throughout Europe, where there are many practitioners and training institutions.[citation needed] Dan Rosenblatt led Gestalt therapy training groups and public workshops at the Tokyo Psychotherapy Academy for seven years. Stewart Kiritz continued in this role from 1997 to 2006.
Training of Gestalt therapists
Pedagogical approach
Many Gestalt therapy training organizations exist worldwide. Ansel Woldt asserted that Gestalt teaching and training are built upon the belief that people are, by nature, health-seeking. Thus, such commitments as authenticity, optimism, holism, health, and trust become important principles to consider when engaged in the activity of teaching and learning—especially Gestalt therapy theory and practice.[42]
Associations
The Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy holds a biennial international conference in various locations—the first was in New Orleans, in 1995. Subsequent conferences have been held in San Francisco, Cleveland, New York, Dallas, St. Pete's Beach, Vancouver (British Columbia), Manchester (England), and Philadelphia. In addition, the it holds regional conferences, and its regional network has spawned regional conferences in Amsterdam, the Southwest and the Southeast of the United States, England, and Australia. Its Research Task Force generates and nurtures active research projects and an international conference on research.[43]
The European Association for Gestalt Therapy, founded in 1985 to gather European individual Gestalt therapists, training institutes, and national associations from more than twenty European nations.[44]
Gestalt Australia and New Zealand was formally established at the first Gestalt Therapy Conference held in Perth in September 1998.[45]
Limitations
it has been shown that Gestalt Therapy is neither designed nor intended for treatment of young adolescents, especially those who manifest severe psychiatric or behavioral disorders.[46]
See also
References
- ISBN 0939266245.
- ^ Nevis, E. (2000). Gestalt therapy: Perspectives and Applications, "Introduction". Edwin Nevis (ed.). Cambridge, MA: Gestalt Press, p. 3.
- ^ Latner, J. (2000). "The Theory of Gestalt Therapy", in Gestalt therapy: Perspectives and Applications, Edwin Nevis (ed.). Cambridge, MA: Gestalt Press.
- ^ Mackewn, J. (1997). Developing Gestalt Counselling. London, UK: Sage publications; Bowman, C. & Brownell, P. (2000) Prelude to Contemporary Gestalt Therapy. Gestalt!, vol. 4, no. 3, available at http://www.g-gej.org/4-3/prelude.html Archived 6 February 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Validating Gestalt. An Interview with Researcher, Writer, and Psychotherapist Leslie Greenberg by Leslie Grennberg and Philip Brownell; in: Gestalt!, 1/1997.[1] Archived 8 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ NGI har fått verdens første dosent i gestaltterapi
- ^ Some Gestalt psychologists distanced themselves strongly from Gestalt therapy, like Henle, M. (1978): Gestalt psychology and Gestalt therapy, in: Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 14 (1), pp. 23-32. Henle, however, restricts herself explicitly to only three of Perls' books from 1969 and 1972, leaving out Perls' earlier work, and Gestalt therapy in general. See Barlow criticizing Henle: Allen R. Barlow: Gestalt Therapy and Gestalt Psychology. Gestalt – Antecedent Influence or Historical Accident, in: The Gestalt Journal, Volume IV, Number 2, Fall, 1981.
- ISBN 978-0470617939.
- ^ a b c d Brownell, P. (2010) Gestalt Therapy: A Guide to Contemporary Practice. New York, NY: Springer Publishing
- ^ Beisser, A. (1970). "The Paradoxical Theory of Change". In J. Fagan & I. Shepherd (eds.). Gestalt Therapy Now: Theory, Techniques, and Applications, pp. 77-80. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books
- ^ Zinker, Joseph (1977). The Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy. New York, Vintage Books.
- ^ Brownell, P. (ed.) (2008). Handbook for Theory, Research, and Practice in Gestalt Therapy. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- ^ a b Polster, E. & Polster, M. (1973) Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of theory and practice. New York, NY: Brunner-Mazel.
- ^ Wheeler, G. (1991). Gestalt : A new approach to contact and resistance. New York, NY: Gardner.
- OCLC 32049593.
- ^ a b Yontef, G. (2005) Gestalt Therapy Theory of Change, in Gestalt Therapy, History, Theory, and Practice. Ansel Woldt & Sarah Toman (eds). London, UK: Sage Publications.
- ^ Spinelli, E. (2005). The interpreted world, an introduction to phenomenological psychology, 2nd edition. London, UK: Sage Publications.
- ^ Brownell, P. (2009) "Gestalt therapy". In Irmo Marini and Mark Stebnicki (eds) The Professional Counselor's Desk Reference, pp. 399–407. New York, NY, US: Springer Publishing Co.
- ^ Brownell, 2009.
- ^ Brownell, 2012.
- ^ Brownell, 2008.
- OCLC 43360600.
- ^ Melnick, J.; March Nevis, S. (2005). "Gestalt Therapy Methodology" in Gestalt Therapy, History, Theory, and Practice. Ansel Woldt & Sarah Toman (eds). London, UK: Sage Publications.
- ^ Beisser, A. (1970). "The paradoxical theory of change", in J. Fagan & I. Shepherd (eds) Gestalt Therapy Now: Theory, Techniques, Applications. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books.
- ^ Houston, G. (2003). Brief Gestalt Therapy. London, UK: Sage Publications.
- ^ "Chapter15 - page 21 of 108". www.psychologicalselfhelp.org.
- ISBN 978-0-205-54320-5.
- ISBN 978-1429237192.
- ^ "Cool Intervention #9: The Empty Chair". Psychology Today.
- ^ OCLC 1162413729.
- ^ a b For Goldstein's influence on the theory and practice of Gestalt therapy see: Allen R. Barlow: Gestalt Therapy and Gestalt Psychology. Gestalt-antecedent influence or historical accident, The Gestalt Journal, Volume IV, Number 2, (Fall, 1981)
- ^ Perls, F. (1969) In and Out the Garbage Pail. Lafayette, CA: Real People Press.
- ^ "Oral Link". www.gestalt.org.
- ^ "Esalen Founders - Esalen". www.esalen.org.
- ^ Stevens, B. (1970) Don't Push the River (It Flows by Itself), Lafaette, CA: Real People Press.
- ^ Jameel, Mohammad. "Gestalt Therapy Concepts In Psychology". Retrieved 19 March 2023.
- ISBN 9780791434383.
- ^ "Oral Link". www.gestalt.org.
- PMC 1284396.
Instead of the familiar litany of behavior analytic-terms and concepts, this book is replete with terms and themes that are more commonly associated with such philosophical and therapeutic traditions as existentialism, humanism, Zen Buddhism, Gestalt, and other experiential-based therapies.
- ^ Steven C. Hayes – Interview about ACT (Video). Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico: Centro Integral de Psicología. 24 July 2017. Event occurs at 18:21. Archived from the original on 12 December 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021 – via YouTube.
I would have to say a lot of what's in ACT is in Gestalt, is in Est, is in mindfulness-based traditions, but I'm not embarrassed by that; I think it's to be expected that things like the wisdom traditions, spiritual traditions, human potential/growth traditions, Gestalt, these things were there because very very creative people put them there.
- S2CID 2961270.
Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is a process-experiential approach to therapy that incorporates assumptions and practices from Gestalt and other humanistic therapies (Elliott, Watson, Goldman & Greenberg, 2004; Greenberg, Rice & Elliott, 1993). ... Enactment tasks (or enactments) represent the adaptation and elaboration of Gestalt therapy two-chair techniques.
- ^ Woldt, A. (2005) Pre-text: Gestalt pedagogy: Creating the field for teaching and learning, in Ansel Woldt & Sarah Toman (eds), Gestalt Therapy, History, Theory, and Practice. London, UK: Sage Publications.
- ^ "AAGT – Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy". www.aagt.org.
- ^ "EAGT European Association for Gestalt Therapy". www.eagt.org.
- ^ GANZ Gestalt Australia & New Zealand
- ^ Neill RB (1979). "Gestalt therapy in a social psychiatric setting: the 'oil & water' solution". Adolescence. 14 (56): 775–796.
Further reading
- Perls, F. (1969) Ego, Hunger, and Aggression: The Beginning of Gestalt Therapy. New York, NY: Random House. (originally published in 1942, and re-published in 1947)
- Perls, F. (1969) Gestalt Therapy Verbatim[permanent dead link]. Moab, UT: Real People Press.
- Perls, F., Hefferline, R., & Goodman, P. (1951) Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and growth in the human personality. New York, NY: Julian.
- Perls, F. (1973) The Gestalt Approach & Eye Witness to Therapy. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
- Brownell, P. (2012) Gestalt Therapy for Addictive and Self-Medicating Behaviors. New York, NY: Springer Publishing.
- Levine, T.B-Y. (2011) Gestalt Therapy: Advances in Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.
- Bloom, D. & Brownell, P. (eds)(2011) Continuity and Change: Gestalt Therapy Now. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Mann, D. (2010) Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points & Techniques. London & New York: Routledge.
- Truscott, Derek (2010). "Gestalt therapy". Becoming an effective psychotherapist: adopting a theory of psychotherapy that's right for you and your client. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. pp. 83–96. OCLC 612728376.
- Staemmler, F-M. (2009) Aggression, Time, and Understanding: Contributions to the Evolution of Gestalt Therapy. New York, NY, US: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group; GestaltPress Book
- Woldt, A. & Toman, S. (2005) "Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory and Practice." Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
- Bretz, HJ; Heekerens, HP; Schmitz, B (1994). "Eine Metaanalyse der Wirksamkeit von Gestalttherapie" [A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of gestalt therapy]. Zeitschrift für klinische Psychologie, Psychopathologie und Psychotherapie (in German). 42 (3): 241–60. PMID 7941644.
- Toman, Sarah; Woldt, Ansel, eds. (2005). Gestalt Therapy History, Theory, and Practice (pbk. ed.). Gestalt Press. ISBN 0761927913.
External links
- Gestalt therapy at Curlie