GESTALT THERAPY

FRITZ PERLS

INTRODUCTION TO THE AUTHOR:

Friedrich (Frederick) Salomon Perls (July 8 1893, Berlin – March 14, 1970, Chicago), better known as Fritz Perls, he was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist who belonged to a lower class jweish famiy. Being a mediocre student he managed to completed his M.D. degree with a specialization in psychiatry. After serving in World War I Perls worked with Kurt Goldstain at the Goldstain Institute for brain damaged soldier in Frankfurt. From there his interest in human psychology incresed and he went Vienna to have trainning in psychoanalysis, there he was supervised by some key figures form the Psychoanalytic movement including Karen Horney. Perls broke with the psychoanalytic tradition in 1946 and he established the NewYork Institute for Gestalt therapy in 1952. The Great pioneer of gestalt therapy finally died at March 14, 1970 in Chicago. (Corey, p 223)

He coined the term 'Gestalt Therapy' for the approach to therapy he developed with his wife Laura Perls, his approach is related but not identical to Gestalt psychology howerver some of the concepts and terminology of gestalt therapy are directly borrowed from Gestalt theory, a theory of perception developed by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka in Germany. At his therapy’s core is the promotion of awareness, the awareness of the unity of all present feelings and behaviors, and the contact between the self and its environment.

Gestalt prayer

Perls has been widely evoked outside the realm of psychotherapy for a quotation often described as the "Gestalt prayer". The "Gestalt prayer" is a 56-word statement that is taken as a classic expression of Gestalt therapy as way of life model of which Perls was a founder.

·         Text of "prayer"

I do my thing and you do your thing.

I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,

And you are not in this world to live up to mine.

You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.

If not, it can't be helped.

This "prayer" has a remarkable similarity to a statement made by Rabbi Menachem Mendel;

“If I am I because I am I and you are you because you are you, then I am and you are. But if I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not and you are not”.

The prayer is well known in gestalt and psychotherapy circles, where it is generally taken as a summarising statement of the philosophy of personal independence central to gestalt therapy. This philosophy still attracts critics, generally arguing that interpersonal relationships require real, hard work to maintain. Supporters counter that an attitude of independence does not refute this, but rather encourages people to realise that relationships need not be founded on obligation or expectation is a major overhaul psychoanalysis. In its early development it was called "concentration therapy" by its founders, Fritz and Laura Perls. However, its mix of theoretical influences became most organized around the work of the gestalt psychologists; thus, by the time, Gestalt Therapy, Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman) was written, the approach became known as "Gestalt Therapy."

KEY CONCEPTS:

He took an existential and phenomenological approach to his therapy, based on a principle that if people wants to be mature than they must gain awareness and find out their own ways, in addition take the personal responsibility for that. Awareness includes insight, self acceptance and knowledge of the environment. Responsibility includes making the choices and takes the credit and discredit for that. Finally having the ability to make healthy contacts with others. What makes it phenomenological is its focus on the individual’s focus on reality. It is an existential approach that it is grounded on the “here and now’, and have emphasis that each person is responsible for his existence and his destiny.

VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE:

As it is earlier discussed that this approach is based on phenomenological and existential approach, according to the gestalt therapy individuals can deal with their life problems they have the full capacity to handle their issues the problems is that some times they lose contact with reality that makes them ignorant from their environment. The therapy aims of therapy is not the analysis of the individual rather they focus their attention on the conflicting areas of the personality and make the client aware of them and try to “reown” the parts of his/her personality that were disowned. This amalgamation process proceeds step by step until clients become strong enough to carry on with their own personal growth. Many times people strive for becoming what they are not, Gestalt approach to therapy emphasis on the point that people should try to explore them selves as deep as possible and to become fully what they are rather than wasting their energies in thinking and trying to become what they should be.

THE NOW:

Fritz Perls believed that the past is gone and the future has not yet arrived so one must live in the “now”, the present only has the significance. Only focusing on the past makes the individuals not fully experience the bliss or harmony of the present so in gestalt therapy they learn to appreciate and fully experience the present. E. Polster and Polster (1973) says “power is in the present” (sited in Corey G.), people being a part of the present sometimes lose their contact of the present and invest their energies on be repentant and meditating about how the life could or should have been different, how ever, later theorists belonging to this School of thought do pay attention to past, present and future in the same way.

To encourage this philosophy the Gestalt therapist rarely asks “why” questions rather they focus their attention to “what” and “how” questions. In order to do that they ask questions in the present tense e.g. how you are feeling now? What you experiencing as you sits here? Etc. Perls believed that in response to “why” questions people often start rationalization and these type of questions serve no purpose except to self deceptions and away to experience the immediacy, they also lead to purposeless and endless pondering of the past issues and again drags one away from the present.

When dealing with past issues which have significance in one’s present attitude or behavior, they try to bring it to the present as much as possible. For example if the client talks about the pain, misery, and the sorrow of their past life the therapist would makes his best effort to make the client think all that in the present moment. To facilitate this there are several techniques in the Gestalt therapy, one of them is empty chair technique for instance rather than talking about the conflictual childhood relationships of one’s with his father he will be encouraged to become that hurt child and talk to his father directly by assuming that he is sitting on that chair.

UNFINISHED BUSSINESS: 

This refers to those unexpressed feelings which remain pinching the person forever; some of them are remorse, humiliation, anxiety, sting, hatred, anger, resentment, or abandonment. According to Gestalt therapy unfinished businesses persist until they are not faced or fully dealt with. Some time unacknowledged or unshared they may also be converted into bodily symptoms e.g. conversion disorder.

AVIODENCE:

This is a concept very much related to the unfinished business. The thing once remained unfinished is never touched upon. For human beings have that tendency to avoid fully or not facing the situations once abandoned but those feeling do come to cause problems in the present because they were not completed there and then.

They also prevent one to take necessary risks important for growth for they may be related to those feelings which the individual do not want to face or talked upon.

LAYERS OF NEUROSIS:

Unfolding the personality of the individual is like peeling off the onion, layer by layer you keep on exploring the core of the personality. According to Perls in order to achieve the psychological maturity five layers of Neurosis must be stripped off.

“These superimposed growth disorders are, (1) the phony, (2) the phobic, (3) the impasse, (4) the implosive, (5) the explosive”.(Corey G.)

 The phony:

It consists of reacting to others in stereotypical and inauthentic ways. People try to live up to those standards which were made by others and do not follow what they really are. They are actually the fake and in genuine ways. When people become aware of the phoniness of their behaviour and become more honest to them selves they experience unpleasantness and the pain.

The phobic

Those aspects of personality which are pain full and people want them to refuse o deny, this is basically done on this layer. For people often believe that if they will reveal themselves to the other people they would tend to reject them.

The impasse:

Here people have this strong belief that they lack the resources within themselves to survive in the environment. This is the feeling of nothingness and denial of personal capacity to maturity and growth; people become stuck in these areas of life. and they see, hear, feel, think, and decide through environment. They adopt a passive role.

The implosive:

If people allow them to fully experience their deadness or stuck ness and not adopt the passive role or escape from the situation then this layer comes into being. In order to do this people will have to expose or reveal their defenses and begin to make their contact to the real self who is without any facades or faces.

The explosive:

This is the most important layer when it comes to the therapy for this the layer which if achieved successfully people will start gaining that energy back which was being wasted and utilized in becoming what they were not . And they will not be bothered of what they are not instead the contentment and satisfaction of what one really is will take place.

CONTACT AND RESISTANSES TO CONTACT:

Contact to the environment has a distinct position when it comes to gestalt therapy; it is inevitable for the change to take place. Contact can be made by using all the five senses e.g. hearing, seeing, smelling, touching and moving. The effective and healthy way of contact is to interact with the surroundings and the people around without losing the sense of individuality which includes clear awareness, full energy, and the complete ability to express oneself without shame or guilt. Miriam Polster claims that contact is the life blood of growth.

When people are resistant to contact that is the time which marks for the behavioural and psychological disturbances. From a Gestalt perspective resistances are the shields or the defenses that people develop in order to prevent them from experiencing the present in a full and real way. Here also becomes the practicality of the layers of the neurosis; these layers “represent a person’s style of keeping energy pent up in the service of maintaining pretenses” Gerald Corey, ego defense mechanisms also serves the same purpose. E Polster and Polster says that there are five major channels of resistances that are challenged in Gestalt therapy Namely  Introjection, Projection, retroflection, deflection, and confluence.

Introjection:

This refers to the uncritical and passive acceptance of others’ beliefs and norms without incorporating them to make them harmonious with who one is. Because they have not analyzed critically and in their assimilating process there is no contribution from the person’s own thinking so they do never quite fully become a part of personality and remain alien. Such standards are submissively incorporated from the environment as they occur whether they are needed or not.  

Projection:

It is completely the reverse of the concept just described. Projection here refers to the same meaning as it gives in the classic Freudian theory. Those aspects of our personality which are threatening and are inconsistent are referred to others. By refusing to acknowledge these feelings the individual actually avoids taking the responsibility. This projection of the disowned aspects of one’s personality makes people powerless to initiate change.

Retroflection:

It has two main and important points as follows;

      Doing to ourselves what we would like to do to some one else

      Doing to ourselves what we would like someone else to do to us.

This really increases the difference between the person and his environment. It is also one of the functions of the Gestalt therapy to make the individual realistic, do not create utopian rather handling the situations sensibly.

Deflection:

This is a mechanism through which people distract their attention from the difficulties and conflicts, because they do not want to face them that is an other way through which they lose contact with the environment and confined their feeling into the over use of humor, abstract generalizations, and questions rather than statements.

Confluence:

The literal meaning Confluence of is convergence; here it refers to a blurring of the differentiation of the self and the outer reality, for instance this belief that all people experience the same feelings.

All of the upper noted resistances are the styles which block the contact to reality and environment so the basic premise of gestalt therapy is to encourage and facilitate the normal and healthy contact to the environment.

ENERGY AND BLOCKS TO ENERGY

This is something involves almost in all the concepts given above; almost all are the examples of where it is located, how it is used and how energy is blocked. However it is also a form of resistance, which is manifested in bodily tension, in posture, to avoid contact in any way etc.

GESTALT APPROACH TO PSYCHOPATHOLOGY:

Some of the concepts and terminology of gestalt therapy are directly borrowed from gestalt theory, a theory of perception developed by Max Wertheimer, and Wolfgang Kohler in Germany. The health is also defined in the terms of Gestalt psychology that an individual will be healthy if he has the ability to recognize and act on the elements present in our environment to satisfy his impulses. According to the Gestalt therapy healthy individuals have this ability to easily form 'gestalts' from the experiential 'ground' of daily life, recognizing opportunities for fulfillment in the environment and acting on them with vigor and grace.

Psychopathology on the other hand, is conceived of in Gestalt Therapy as 'interrupted excitement', a customary breaking of contact with our environment and our desires, aspirations, and wishes, an inability to form gestalts, this work by avoiding novelty, tensing our muscles against impulses, and projecting our desires and resentments onto others, consider these examples, "What excitements do I refuse to accept as my own? Where do I begin to avoid or suppress them? How do I do hinder myself?" These neurotic strategies, Goodman and Perls observe, “Are pandemic in our culture, and manifest themselves in widespread anxiety, boredom, resentment, and violence.

GESTALT THERAPY

 It was launched in 1952 via a book ‘Gestalt Therapy – Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality’ by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman. It is often associated with Fritz Perls although in reality it was developed by a group of people including his wife Laura. In its early development it was called "concentration therapy" by its founders, Frederick and Laura Perls. However, its mix of theoretical influences became most organized around the work of the gestalt psychologists; thus, by the time Gestalt Therapy, Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman) was written, the approach became known as "Gestalt Therapy."

 Gestalt Therapy stands on top of essentially four load bearing theoretical walls:

·         Phenomenological method

·         Dialogical relationship

·         Field-theoretical strategies

·         Experimental freedom.

Some have considered it an existential phenomenology while others have described it as a phenomenological behaviorism. Gestalt therapy is a humanistic, holistic, and experiential approach that does not rely on talking alone, but facilitates awareness in the various contexts of life by moving from talking about situations relatively remote to action and direct, current experience.

Perls work emphasized a phenomenological and subjective approach to therapy, noting that many of us split off our experience (thoughts, sensations, emotions) that are uncomfortable. One goal of his work is to move people into owning their experience and developing into a healthy gestalt (or whole). Gestalt is practiced both as an individual and group therapy. Groups in general cost less than individual and vary in length from a couple of hours to weekend workshops, or even longer residential. They offer the opportunity to explore relationships and share experiences within a safe environment. Typically groups will cost £15 - £25 for three hours. Individual therapy is usually conducted in weekly 50 minute or 1 hour sessions and will cost £30 - £50 per hour. Individual sessions are usually weekly.

THERAPEUTIC PROCESS:

STAGES IN GESTALT THERAPY SESSIONS:

Stage 1: Emergence of the Problem

First stage involves a client bringing into awareness with increasing intensity a major conflict in the "here and now" of a counseling session. Initial interventions guide the client's attention to his or her immediate experience -- the "what and how" of behavior -- and away from speculations as to causes -- the "whys" for such action. During this process, clients are encouraged to assume increasing responsibility (ability to respond) for individual thoughts, feelings, and sensations; and to experience the intimate, basic connection between verbal and nonverbal behaviors.

Stage 2: Working with External Polarities

The client is now asked to take the growing tension that is experienced and explore it within the framework of an external dialogue. Whether the conflict is presented as an intra- or interpersonal one, it is most often necessary to initiate the dialogue as a conversation between two people, the client and a significant other. In the closing phase of Stage 2, clients can become quite immersed in the process of self discovery and need little overt guidance to shuttle between chairs, appropriately express feelings, monitor and modify behavior patterns.

It is useful to have the client sequentially express: (a) what are the direct issues and feelings present in the relationship with the significant other; (b) what are the covert feelings and hidden agendas perceived in the relationship; and, (c) what are the desired solutions to the stated issues and conflicts. Be alert to a sudden withdrawal of involvement, confusion, and reluctance to continue.

Stage 3: Working with Internal Polarities

All external difficulties, in a Gestalt framework, can be reperceived and potentially resolved as internalized tensions. Inner imbalances, cognitive, emotional, physical, are based on conditioning in our personal history and tend to be maintained by reinforcement of established behavior patterns. It is clear that such imbalances focus and shape our perceptions and emotional reactions to external reality, and less obvious but profoundly critical in our experience is the fact that these very imbalances draw into our lives a further compounding of external problems. The central focus of activity at this stage is a growing confrontation between two significant and opposing aspects within the client's personality. The more fully each aspect or pole of tension is dramatized and experienced, the more likely it can be resolved. The basic ambivalence, the polar nature of tension, strikes us as we observe each aspect surface in its identity. As each polarity expands its "territory" in awareness, the tension may painfully stretch until, from the client's point of view, it is irresolvable, unbearable, a desperate void. This phenomenon, while not present in all sessions, is indicative of the "implosive layer" of personality and is a necessary precondition for the formation of a new Gestalt.

Stage 4: Integration

When successful, this stage celebrates the triumph of unifying over separate factors within the client's personality, signals the emergence of a new Gestalt, and reflects that within the struggle between the yin and the yang is the Tao. The core element here is a resolution of the internal conflict resulting from a major reorganization and reperception of the problem. The more powerfully the conflict raises into awareness, the greater the potential for release. In its more dramatic form, the release is a spontaneous, uncontrolled physiological outpouring -- tears, laughter, rage -- a manifesting of the "explosive layer" of personality.

To facilitate a client's cognitive reorganization you may at times present your perceptions of the changes you observed from the beginning to the end of a session. In order to close the psychological distance between client, counselor and group, some limited sharing of reactions are often helpful after the client leaves the hot seat. Keep in mind, however, that the sharing phase is still part of the therapeutic session and prolonged interactions among participants can seriously scatter a client's awareness and hamper the subtle integrations taking place.

THERAPEUTIC GOALS:

The basic goal of Gestalt therapy, is attaining awareness and, with it, greater choice and responsibility. Awareness includes knowing the environment, knowing oneself, accepting oneself, and being to able to make contact.

Gestalt therapy is basically an existential encounter out of which client tend to move in certain directions. These directions are outlined by Zinger (1978). Through a creative involvement in Gestalt process, he expects, clients will:

      move towards increased awareness of themselves

      gradually assume ownership of their experience

      develop skills and acquire values that will allow them to satisfy their needs without violating the rights of others

      become more aware of all their senses

       learn to accept responsibility for what they do, including accepting the consequences of their actions

       Move from outside support toward increasing internal support

      Be able to ask for and get help from others and to give to others

THERAPIST’S FUNCTION AND ROLE:

 In Gestalt therapy the aim of therapist is not to change their clients. The therapist’s function is, through engagement with clients, to assist them in developing their own awareness and experiencing how they are in the present moment. According to Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman(1951), the therapist’s job is to invite client into an active partnership where they can learn about themselves by adopting an experimental attitude towards life in which they try out new behaviors and notice what happens.

Gestalt therapist notice what is in both foreground and the background. They focus on the client’s feelings, awareness at the moment, body messages, energy, avoidance and blocks to awareness.

The Gestalt counselor places emphasis on the relationship between language pattern and personality. This approach suggests that client’s speech patterns are often an expression of their feelings, thoughts, and attitudes. Following are the examples of the aspects of language that the Gestalt therapist might focus on:

“It” talk:

When client say “it” instead of “I” they are using depersonalizing language.

 The counselor asks the client to use ‘I’ instead of ‘it’. For example “It is difficult to make friends”. Client could be asked to restate this by making an “I” statement--- “I have trouble in making friends”

“You” talk:

The counselor will point out generalized use of “you” and ask the client to substitute “I” when this is what is meant. For example “You feel sort of hurt when people don’t accept you” ”. Client could be asked to restate this by making an “I” statement---“ I feel hurt when  I am not accepted”.

Questions:

Questions have the tendency to keep the questioner hidden, safe, and unknown. In Gestalt therapy clients are asked to change their questions into statements. In making personal statements, client begins to assume responsibility for what they say. They may become aware of how they are keeping themselves mysterious through a barrage of questions and how this serves to prevent them from making declarations that express them selves.

Language that denies power:

Some clients have a tendency to deny their personal power by adding qualifiers or disclaimers to their statements like client says “I want to stop feeling like a victim, but I feel powerless to change.” Omitting qualifiers such as may be, perhaps, sort of, I guess, possibly, and I suppose can help client change ambivalent messages into clear and direct statements. By changing these “I should” to “ I choose to” or “ I want to”, they can begin taking active steps that reduce the feelings of being driven and not in control of their life.

Listening to a client’s metaphors:

By paying attention to metaphors, the therapist gets rich clues to a client’s internal struggles. Examples of metaphors: “I need to be prepared in case some one blasts me.” Therapist can ask who will blast you? What is your experience of being blast? It is essential to encourage the client to say more about what the client is experiencing. The art of therapy is to translate the metaphors into manifest content so that they can be dealt in therapy.

 Listening for language that uncovers a story:

Polster also teaches the value of what he calls “fleshing out a flash”. He reports that clients often use language that is elusive yet give significant clues to a story that illustrate their life struggles. He suggests that therapist learn  to pick out a small part of what someone says and develop this element.

CLIENT’S EXPERIENCE IN THERAPY:

The general orientation of Gestalt therapy is towards clients’ assumption of more and more responsibility for themselves—for their thoughts, feelings, and behavior.  The therapist ask the client to decide what they wish to learn in therapy, and about how they want to use their therapy time.  Other issues that can become the focal point of the therapy include the client/therapist relationship and the ways clients relate to the therapist and to other in the environment.

The client in Gestalt therapy is active participant who make their own interpretations and meanings. It is they who increase awareness and decide what they will or will not do with their personal meanings.

 Miriam Polster (1987) describes a three-stage integration sequence that characterizes client growth in therapy.

i. Discovery:

 Clients are likely to reach a new realization about themselves or to acquire a novel view of an old situation or they may take a new look at some significant person in their life. Such discoveries often come as a surprise to them.

ii. Accommodation:

It involves clients’ recognizing that they have a choice. Client began to trying out new behaviors in the supportive environment of the therapy office, and then they expand their awareness of the world.

ii. Assimilation:

It involves clients’ learning how to influence their environment.  Clients feel they are capable of dealing with surprises that they encounter in every day life.  Behavior at this stage may include a client’s taking a stand on crucial issues.  Eventually client develops confidence in their ability to improve and improvise.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THERAPIST AND CLIENT:

As an existential brand of therapy, Gestalt practice involves a person-to-person relationship between the therapist and the client. Therapists are responsible for the quality of their presence, for knowing themselves and the client, and for remaining open to the client.  They are also responsible for establishing and maintaining a therapeutic atmosphere that will foster a spirit of work on the client’s part.  It is important that therapist allow themselves to be affected by their client as they encounter clients in the here and now.  

The therapist encounter client with honest and immediate reactions and explore with them their fears, catastrophic expectations, blockages, and resistances.

The central importance is given to I/ thou relationship and quality of therapist’s presence as compared to technical skills. Techniques are not the issue; rather, the therapist’s attitudes and behavior and the relationship that is established are what really count. (Jacobs, 1989; E. Polster, 1987a, 1987b; M. Polster, 1987; Yontef, 1993)

 Certainly, techniques are still important in Gestalt practice, yet they must always be a phenomenological part of the therapeutic process.

GESTALT THERAPY TECCNIQUES:  

Although Gestalt therapy has many things in common with the Humanistic and the existential approaches to psychotherapy yet they are different in many respects e.g. in the usage of techniques they apply to therapy.

These techniques form the practical core of Gestalt Therapy, and deal variously with focusing attention on breathing, body sensations, emotional reactions, eating, and speech, etc.

1-      Changing one’s language.

This specific technique aims at making the client take responsibility of whatever he does; do not alienate disturbing the aspect of their beings from them selves. Here the therapist instructs the client to change their language from “it” into “I” e.g.

                         

                         Therapist: what do you hear in your voice?

                        Patient: my voice sounds like it is crying.

                        Therapist: can you take responsibility for that by saying, I am crying?

                         (Levitsky & Perls, 1970, p.142)

It helps the client by adopting an active rather than the passive role.

2-      The empty chair:

This is an example of a very effective technique used in psychotherapy, in this particular technique the client is asked to project a feeling person or an object to an empty chair and than speaks to their projections. For example if the client has some interpersonal conflict with his father that is making him disturb he will be asked by the therapist to assume that his father is sitting on the chair opposite to him and the client has to speak to him and say whatever he wanted to say without censoring the feelings, emotions and thoughts attached. It serves two purposes, catharses and confrontation.

  

 3-Two chair technique:

It is basically the variation of the empty chair technique. What happens here is that the client presumes himself in two roles, one of himself and the other of the person he has the conflict with. He will engage himself in a dialogue where he will sit on one chair and puts a question or a statement then will move to the other chair and will respond to that as if he or she were the projected feelings or the person. Besides catharses and confrontation it serves other purpose that is when the client sits on the chair opposite to him and adopts a role other than him he can objectively analyze his own feelings from other person’s perspective and understands the other person’s stance as well.

4-Projection of feelings:

This technique requires a dyad, here the clients are asked to close their eyes and imagine the face of the person they are closely attached to and then open up and look at the face of their partner and analyze their feelings, then again close their eyes, thinking of a neutral entity than opening their eyes and see if there is any difference in the feeling they had for their partner the two times they looked at him. The exercise is designed to address a common problem of the intrusion of our inner feelings into what ever is happening outside around us. Consider this example Nazia is feeling low someday, she left for the college after a hot argument with her mother and in the way to college she stumbles she stands up and is self stating e.g. “this is all happens to me all the time, oh yes actually this is all my fate, my bad luck, it will continue to happen as my life is a dark journey heading towards failures, and disapproval from all the people I love or care for, I will remain stumbling like this in whatever I will try to do”.

5-Attention to non verbal and paralinguistic cues:

This particular technique pays attention to the linguistic e.g. nonverbal cues like body movements, facial expressions, or gestures. Paralinguistic cues include tone of voice, speech rate, and other such components of spoken language “often without realizing it, people use nonverbal or paralinguistic cues to negate their words with their hands or their eyes”. This is a very important point emphasized in Gestalt therapy that the therapist must observe these cues in order to determine what the client might be feeling.

“What we say is mostly lies or bullshit. But the voice is there, the gesture, the posture, the facial expression”.  (Perls, 1969, p. 54)

      6- Working through unfinished Business:

Unfinished business or unexpressed feelings such as anger, sadness, loneliness, guilt, pain, or insecurity, though unexpressed, they are associated with distinct memories and fantasies. Its purpose is to understand “leftovers” from previous experiences (Perls, 1969). When experiencing a strong unwanted emotion, first, let go and feel the emotion full strength, no matter how unreasonable, dangerous, crazy it may be. Second, go looking for hidden emotions, asking “Do I also something else?. Third, investigate bodily sensations and emotions for more subtle additional feelings. Fourth, ask yourself “What do these current feelings and situation remind me of in the past? And “Have I been there before?” Relive the earlier experience over and over until the strong emotions are drained.  

 Classic Examples of Intense Emotions:

Crying hides anger

Dependency suppresses anger

Excessive smiles hide depression

Physical complaints contradict anxiety

Anger overshadows fears

       7-Centering:

It is used to become comfortable in the present; to reach a state of rest mentally, emotionally, and physically when doing something.

Sit down comfortably with closed eyes and do nothing but be aware of what is going on. Don’t try to do anything in particular, and don’t try to not do anything in particular. Just notice what is happening, what sounds are in the room, how your body feels, and the thoughts going through your head. Don’t try to change or stop any of it. Just perceive it all as naturally occurring noise. Simply allow every thing and thoughts and feelings will become quiet.

      8-Four magic questions to handle upsets:

It is used to uncover something hidden that causes the upset. These questions are general enough to cover most recent upsets:

1. What did ___________ do that wasn’t right?
2. What did ___________ fail to do?
3. As far as ___________ is concerned, what did you do that wasn’t right?
4. As far as ___________ is concerned, what did you fail to do?

Another series of questions along similar lines would be:

1.      What should I have known?

2.      What should ________ have known?

3.      what should you have known?

4.      what should have been known?

Fundamentally, the upsets is there because somebody didn’t know what the other person expected and therefore acted differently.

      9- Dialoguing:

It is to be done to find something that is in need of resolution; to narrow down an area so that a more specific technique can be used (Perls, 1969)

Dialoguing is a free form method of assessing or resolving an area and the client’s answers. This goes on until either enough information has been compiled or until the area has been resolved. The purpose of the dialoguing process is for the facilitator and the client to both understand the nature of the subject to a point where it is either resolved for the client or the client knows what to do with it. The object is to get a mutual understanding about what it is, and the client to take responsibility for it.

To help the client, the therapist can ask various things concerning the subject:  Possible causes, ideas, thoughts, data, considerations, solutions, attempted solutions, failed solutions, feelings, remedies, improvements, who, what, where, when, and how, possibly taking responsibility for it, how things would be with out it.

Any question is to help the therapist clarify what the client said, and summarize it without judging it.

       10- Unblocking:

 The counseling intention is to provide a list of meaningful questions that will unblock an area. Unblocking is a list of keys that are useful to use in dialoguing to free up some kind of positive direction. The keys on the list are mostly factors that might inhibit a positive outcome:

Holding back, obstacles, resources, attempts, failures, consequences, judgments, anxiety, mistakes, forgotten, inhibition, obsessions, suppressed.

Out of each key concept, the therapist constructs a question, such as: “In regarding to ______ is there anything that you are holding back”? “Do you have any anxiety about _________?”

      11- Hot Seat:

It is used to confront a group member regarding interpersonal issues or resistance (perls, 1969)

It is a technique to focus intensely on one member of the group at a time. The member sits opposite the group leader and dialogues on life problem with intermittent input from other members upon request by the group leader.

    12-Mirror:

It is to be done to provide feedback to the client regarding hoe he or she is perceived by the group or one member.

A technique employing role-playing: The role playing group member with the problem is asked to remove himself or herself from the group setting while a volunteer group member comes forth to imitate the role player and also to provide alternatives role played behavior. The original role-player observers as an objective, non participatory learner.

    13- Monotherapy:

It facilitates awareness and a therapeutic dialogue (Perls, 1969)

It is a technique in which a counselor requests that the client write or create a dramatic scene and role-play personal fantasies or repressed wishes.

    14- Playing the projection:

It is to gain a deeper awareness of one’s own projections from the perspective of others (Perls.1969)

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate how often we see clearly in others the quality or traits that we do not want to see or accept within ourselves. Group members are to make a direct statement to each person in their group, and then apply that statement to them. For example, one member might say to another member, “I think you are very manipulative” and then say “I think I am very manipulative.”

    15- Territoriality and group interaction:

The purpose of this technique is to reveal a group sociogram of member interaction. In this after the group has been in session for a time, ask them to change seats. Process the issues of territoriality___ that is, did the group members tends to arrange themselves in the same seating order? How did they feel when they saw someone else sitting in their seat? Discuss the cross currents in the group. Who are isolates? Who are stars? Is there ease of communication, direct eye contact, and equal air time?

    16- Think--- Feel: 

It focuses on discrepancies between thoughts and feelings. In this technique members are instructed to write on one side of a 3x5 index card a sentence beginning with the phrase “Now I am thinking” and on the other side sentence beginning with “ Now I am feeling”. Members are asked to process their thoughts and feelings from both sides of their cards.

    17- Making the round:

Making the round is a Gestalt exercise that involves asking a person in a group to go up to other in the group and client speak to or do something with each. The purpose is to confront, to risk, to disclose the self, to experiment with new behavior, and to grow and change. For example, a group member might say: “ I have been sitting here for a long time wanting to participate but holding back because I am afraid of trusting people in here. And besides, I do not think I am worth the time of the group any way”. Counselor would ask “Are you willing to do something right now to get yourself more invested and to begin to work on gaining trust and self-confidence? If the person answers affirmatively, counselor suggestion could well be “Go around to each person and finish this sentence: ‘I don’t trust you because………..’ ”.

     18- I take responsibility for:

The therapist may ask the client to make a statement and then add, “and I take responsibility for it.” Some examples: “I am feeling bored, and I take responsibility for my boredom.” “I am feeling excluded and lonely, and I take responsibility for my feelings of exclusion.”