Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques

297 Pages·2010·0.71 MB·English

by  Dave Mann

Gestalt Therapy
‘I wish this book had been available when I was beginning to learn about
therapy. Mann, writing in his conversational style, draws the reader into
gentle conversation with a wise elder who makes gestalt therapy accessible
without reducing its wisdom.’ – Lynne Jacobs, Ph.D., Co-Founder, Pacific
Gestalt Institute, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
‘I recommend this book to all practitioners, students and professionals, as
well as to clients wishing to review the journey they have made with their
therapist.’ – Terry Browning, Gestalt Counsellor, London & Member of
the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
‘Whether you are familiar with Gestalt Therapy, or just starting out, this
book is a must.’ – Dr Sally Denham-Vaughan, UKCP Registered Gestalt
Psychotherapist, Trainer, Supervisor and Writer.
Gestalt therapy offers a present-focused, relational approach, central to
which is the fundamental belief that the client knows the best way of
adjusting to their situation. By working to heighten awareness through
dialogue and creative experimentation, gestalt therapists create the condi-
tions for a client’s personal journey to health.
Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points & Techniques provides a concise guide
to this flexible and far-reaching approach. Topics discussed include:
(cid:127) the theoretical assumptions underpinning gestalt therapy
(cid:127) gestalt assessment and process diagnosis
(cid:127) field theory, phenomenology and dialogue
(cid:127) ethics and values
(cid:127) evaluation and research.
As such this book will be essential reading for gestalt trainees, as well as
established therapists, counsellors and psychotherapists wanting to learn
more about the gestalt approach.
Dave Mann is a UKCP Registered Gestalt Psychotherapist, Supervisor
and Trainer affiliated with the Metanoia Institute, Gestalt Psycho-
therapy Training Institute and Sherwood Psychotherapy Training Insti-
tute. He is also a former Assistant Editor of the British Gestalt Journal.
100 Key Points
Series Editor: Windy Dryden
ALSO IN THIS SERIES:
Cognitive Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques
Michael Neenan and Windy Dryden
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy: 100 Key Points and
Techniques
Windy Dryden and Michael Neenan
Family Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques
Mark Rivett and Eddy Street
Transactional Analysis: 100 Key Points and Techniques
Mark Widdowson
Person-Centred Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques
Paul Wilkins
Gestalt Therapy
100 Key Points and Techniques
Dave Mann
First published 2010 by Routledge
27 Church Lane, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2010 Dave Mann
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
This publication has been produced with paper manufactured to strict
environmental standards and with pulp derived from sustainable
forests.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mann, Dave, 1957–
Gestalt therapy : 100 key points & techniques / Dave Mann. – 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Gestalt therapy. I. Title
RC489.G4M355 2010
616.89′143—dc22 2010004663
ISBN 0-203-84591-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN: 978-0-415-55293-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-55294-3 (pbk)
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xii
Part1 MAPS FOR A GESTALT THERAPY JOURNEY:
THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS UNDERPINNING
THE APPROACH 1
1 What is gestalt? 3
2 What is a gestalt? 6
3 Creative adjustment 8
4 Figure and ground 11
5 The here and now 15
6 Self as process: selfing 18
7 The self: concepts of id, ego and personality 20
8 Holism and the orientation towards health 23
9 Gestalt’s relationship to the psychiatric/
biomedical model 26
10 The awareness continuum 29
11 Individualism and field paradigms 32
12 The contact boundary 34
13 The gestalt cycle of experience: early
formulations 36
14 The gestalt cycle of experience: later
developments 38
15 Resistances, interruptions, moderations
to contact 41
16 Introjection 44
v
CONTENTS
17 Retroflection 47
18 Projection 50
19 Confluence 53
20 Dimensions of contact 55
21 Unfinished business: the Zeigarnik effect 57
22 Caring and creative indifference 60
23 The Paradoxical Theory of Change 62
24 Autonomous and aesthetic criterion 65
25 Support as ‘that which enables’ 68
26 Contact and resistance 71
27 The five abilities 73
Part2 BEGINNING THE THERAPY JOURNEY:
PREPARATIONS AND SETTING OFF 75
28 The therapy setting and context 77
29 Expectations explored, contracts established 79
30 Listening to the client’s story 83
31 Process diagnosis 85
32 Assessment 88
33 The client’s situation 91
34 The client’s contact functions 93
35 The client’s awareness (three zones of
awareness) 96
36 Transference, counter-transference, and
co-transference possibilities 98
37 How the client ‘bodies forth’ 101
38 Treatment planning: planning the journey 104
Part3 THE THERAPY JOURNEY 107
Part3.1 Exploring the client’s ‘lifespace’, field, or
situation 109
39 The lifespace and the field 111
40 Viewing the lifespace through a
developmental lens 114
41 The therapy space as present situation 117
42 The need organises the field 119
43 Investigating supports 121
vi
CONTENTS
44 Shame and guilt as functions of the field 124
45 A setting for challenge and experiment 127
46 The cultural field 129
47 Creative experimentation 132
48 Use of metaphor and fantasy 135
49 Homework and practising 138
Part3.2 Focus on experience: phenomenology
in gestalt therapy 141
50 Sensations and feelings 143
51 Co-creation, temporality, horizontalism 145
52 Intentionality: reaching out and making
sense of my world 148
53 Transcendental phenomenology and Husserl 150
54 The discipline of phenomenological reduction 152
55 Existential phenomenology: ‘I am’ 154
56 Intersubjectivity: I am always embedded in
my experience 156
57 Attending to the bodily ‘felt sense’ 158
58 Projective identification 160
59 Energy, interests, needs, vitality 163
60 Awareness and diminished awareness 165
61 Patterns of contacting 167
62 Working with dreams 170
Part3.3 Dialogue: emerging through relationship 173
63 Martin Buber: I–Thou and I–It relating 175
64 The between 177
65 Inclusion – a cautionary note regarding empathy 179
66 Presence 181
67 Confirmation 183
68 Commitment to dialogue 185
69 Non-exploitation 187
70 Living the relationship 189
71 Attunement 191
72 The I–Thou attitude, the I–Thou moment 193
73 Self-disclosure 195
74 Language 198
75 Rupture and repair 200
vii
CONTENTS
Part4 BECOMING: TRANSITIONS ALONG
THE JOURNEY 203
76 Aggressing on the environment 205
77 Developmental theory 207
78 The five layer model 210
79 Experimentation 213
80 Developing supports 216
81 Polarities and the top dog/under dog 219
82 ‘Aha’ experience 222
83 Catharsis and release 224
84 Developing awareness of awareness 227
85 Individual and group therapy 229
86 Endings 232
87 On-going self-therapy 235
Part5 ETHICS AND VALUES: KEY SIGNPOSTS FOR
ALL JOURNEYS 237
88 Therapeutic boundaries 239
89 Assessing risk 242
90 Attending to the wider field 245
91 Working with difference 248
92 Sexual issues 251
93 Touch in therapy 254
94 Gestalt supervision 257
95 Therapist support 260
Part6 RESEARCH AND EVALUATING THE APPROACH:
DESTINATION AND LOOKING BACK 263
96 Gestalt’s spiritual traditions and the
transpersonal 265
97 Research and appropriate research paradigms 267
98 Applications of gestalt beyond 1:1 and group
therapy 270
99 Looking back and reviewing 272
100 On uncertainty 274
References 276
viii
Preface
Just as our perception of the world in the present does not spring
from a void, neither did gestalt therapy suddenly appear from
nowhere. Just as our way of being in the world has a deep multi-
layered history that shapes the way in which we relate now, so too
was gestalt therapy’s theory and practice shaped by the past
multi-layered field prior to its conception. That field contained
a rich diversity, creatively synthesized when the founders of the
approach first published Gestalt Therapy (Perls, Hefferline and
Goodman, 1951 – hereafter referred to as ‘PHG’). The process of
creating a truly integrative approach from gestalt’s rich ground
is reflected in the personal journeys of its founders – Frederick
‘Fritz’ Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman. They learnt experi-
entially in an embodied way and this is mirrored in the founding
text and throughout gestalt theory. This rich ground, which we
can think of as fertile earth supporting the acorn’s growth into an
oak tree, contains amongst others such philosophies as: holism,
existentialism, phenomenology, field theory, dialogue and Eastern
philosophies such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism. All were part of
the pre-existing fertile ground from which gestalt emerged and
continues to form the ground upon which it stands today. The way
in which these philosophies – which might at this point appear to
be a confusing collection of terms – integrate to create gestalt
therapy will unfold over the next 100 points.
Gestalt therapy is as much an art as it is a science. We need the
science of theory, research and technique to support us in our
work in the clinical setting where we lead with the art of the
approach – intuition, creativity and immediacy. What art and
ix