Description
ayers of the personality: When the natural self-regulatory processes
are disrupted, interruptions to awareness occur. Parts of the self are
disowned, andincomplete gestalts become abundant. Each complete
style represents an unfinished situation, which interferes with the
formation of any novel gestalts. Instead of growth, a person lives life
with inauthentic layers of the personality.
Interruptions Interruptions to awareness and contact also known as
boundarydisturbances, refer to a dysfunctional process developed early
in life, that mostpeople employed in an attempt to meet their needs.
Gestalt therapists bring awareness to these interruptions to try and
reduce them and restore self- regularization.
Examples:
• Introjection: To uncritically accept others’ beliefs and standards
without discriminating and assimilating what belongs to self and
eliminating whatdoes not.
*******************************************************************
Final p301-312
Humanistic-Existential Therapy
Psychotherapeutic Interventions: Psychotherapy Techniques-as change occur,
Gestalt therapists are concerned with what is currently changing to bring the past,
present, and future together to this point. They focus on organismic self-regulation
process and interruptions. Twocritical therapeutic skills are I-Thou relationships and
creative experimentation.
I. Thou Relationship-authentic, nonjudgmental, dialogic relationship carefully
nurtured betweenpatient and therapist. First discussed by existential philosopher
Martin Buber (1937), major component of Gestalt therapy and is necessary for
change. Both persons are “subjects” and the patient is “communicating with” a
therapist who is aware, vulnerable, authentic, and human.
Suspends preconceptions and brackets anything interfering with an ability to attend
an immediateexperience. Therapist creates a safe environment where the client
feels understood.
Creative Experimentation- Designing and implementing creative experiments is
the cornerstone of Gestalt therapy interventions. Experiments heighten awareness,
promote the expression of emotionally laden material, support contact, and guide
attentional focus to stimulate novel experiences. Creative experiences require the
therapist to be aware and attentive to the verbal and nonverbal content of the
patient’s narratives in order to understand and focus and what is alive and
immediate for the patient. Gestalt therapists work is uniquely different. One