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Gestalt therapy, a particular type of psychotherapy, draws on existential and various Eastern philosophies, and aims to enable the individual to seek his or her own solutions to personal problems. Literally translated as 'whole', Gestalt focuses the individual to appreciate and experience the present. This article examines the Gestalt theory and considers its application to a terminally ill client and his wife.
Based upon assumptions of Gestalt Therapy, an objective, reliable scoring system for analyzing a specific aspect of verbal behavior, avoidant verbalization, was developed. Verbal samples were elicited from 30 female college students who previously had been rank ordered on the Neuroticism scale of the Maudsley Personality Inventory. The expectation that psychologically stressful questions would result in a significantly greater number of avoidant verbalizations was confirmed. Contrary to another expectation, no significant correlation between neuroticism as measured by the MPI and total number of avoidant verbalizations uttered by the Ss was found. Results were interpreted on the basis of the Gestalt Therapy theory of personality.
The authors describe Gestalt Therapy. They retrace its fundamental theoretical axes. These are psychoanalysis, character analysis, the german Gestalt theory of perception, existentialism, and the Orient. Some principal concepts are then elaborated more fully such as the cycle of awareness, desensitization, excitation anxiety and the five defense mechanisms: retroflection, introjection, projection, deflection, and confluence. The nature and goals of the therapeutic process are also described before the presentation of some techniques specific to this approach such as enactment and role playing. Finally, certain basic Gestalt rules, which aim at facilitating and intensifying the communication process among group members, are enunciated.
This article discusses the theory and operations of Gestalt Therapy from the viewpoint of learning theory. General comparative issues are elaborated as well as the concepts of introjection, retroflextion, confluence, and projection. Principles and techniques of Gestalt Therapy are discussed in terms of learning theory paradigm. Practical implications of the various Gestalt techniques are presented.
This metaanalytical assessment of evaluation research in the field of Gestalt therapy has been conducted on the basis of 38 studies which took place between 1970 and 1986. Its scope is substantially broader than the metaanalysis of Smith, Glass and Miller (1980) or the secondary analysis of Grawe's Berner Workgroup documented in Forschungsgutachten zu Fragen eines Psychotherapeutengesetzes (1991). The results indicate Gestalt therapy to be an effective psychotherapeutic treatment which is not inferior to other comparable methods of treatment. No definitive statement can be made concerning differential indication, individual therapy setting or long-term measures.
Gestalt therapy extends considerably psychoanalysis. 1. Transfer in psychoanalysis allows to work on the disturbed relations which the patient transfers onto his analyst, relations created by the parents and repeated now. The extended transfer in a therapeutic group of life allows to work on the fact that the patient recreates here and now the difficulties he encounters in life. 2. The game of the analyst and the encounter show that beyond transfer and projection, a real encounter may take place, a precious means to create life here and now. 3. The difference between individual therapy and group-therapy is about this: the former is centered on illness, the latter on life; the former helps to understand, the latter to live; the individual talks about facts from the past and from elsewhere and the group lives "here and now", which allows to test feelings, a powerful source of life. 4. A session of group-therapy, as developed here, allows to see how one can find a response to a need or avoid to find a response to it. 5. A comparison-table between psycho-analysis and gestalt shows the difference of method, diagnosis, therapeutic process, therapeutist's attitude and of the position of the patient. 6. Psycho-analysis is perhaps a relay after religion? Several elements make us believe this: tension in contacts, ritual, authority, protection, neutrality, guilty making. 7. To contest or contest one-self has helped me to compare the contester with the psycho-analyst: both contest society, but they don't change their behavior. The gestalt-therapeutist is in a way like a hippie: though contesting society, he brings a change to his way of life, while being closer to life.
In this case study, a provincial government residential treatment center for mentally and emotionally disturbed adolescents, used Gestalt Therapy as its primary therapeutic and staff-development ideology. Based on participant observation, document analysis, source material Survey on Gestalt Therapy, staff-sample interview and patient sample (of diagnostic, socioeconomic status and intelligence) data, it was demonstrated that Gestalt Therapy was neither designed nor intended for treatment of young adolescents manifesting severe psychiatric or behavioral disorders, for people from lower socioeconomic status families, or of low verbal skill and intelligence. It was discovered that a disporportionately large number of the case study population were: young adolescents, from lower socioeconomic status families, and that a significant proportion were of low verbal skill and intelligence. It was further suggested th,t Gestalt criteria for: physical environment, behavioral expectations (on staff and patient) and group-living ideology were incompatible with professional, legal and treatment expectations in an institutional treatment setting.
This is a report on death therapy with a 36-year-old cancer patient. Gestalt therapy and creative media (clay, poetry, and colors) were used to facilitate an integration of life and to give the person a sense of balance with life. The author tries to communicate his thoughts and feelings as they were during the course of the therapy, to show that counseling the dying means walking along a stretch of the path together. The companion-therapist cannot avoid his own perplexity and confusion by simply falling back on his professional role. Once he has become involved in an interpersonal relationship, he does not treat the patient as some kind of object. With the aid of transcripts taken from tape recordings, the integrating effect of using gestalt dialogue, and fantasy work becomes evident.
The aim is to demonstrate the presence of transference within Gestalt Psychotherapy, opinion not shared by many gestaltists. For this purpose she includes Freud's findings and comments on transference. She also takes into consideration Jung's and Melanie Klein's concepts on transference. The author concludes that transference is in Psychoanalysis a decisive concept in diagnosing and defining a prognosis. She refers to the fact that in Gestalt Psychotherapy the patient projects on the therapist disturbed aspects of his personallity as well as healthy ones, which determines the characteristics of the relationship. In Gestalt Therapy transference is made easy by the self-responsibility the patient has to assume in the process. Within this frame-work some of the techniques which facilitate the use of transference are mentioned: gestual observation, conscience awareness, an alliance with the healthful aspects of the patient, work in the "here-and-now", clarifying projections, switch from environmental support to inner support.
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