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5010 Midterm - Gestalt Therapy Concepts

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Answer
Paradoxical theory of change   we change when we become aware of what we are as opposed to trying to become what we are not  
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Figure-Formation process   Describes how the individual organizes experience from moment to moment  
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Figure-Formation process   Tracks how some aspect of the environmental field emerges from the background and becomes focal point of the individual’s attention and interest  
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Figure-Formation process   the dominant needs of an individual at a given moment influence the process  
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Organismic self-regulation   Equilibrium is disturbed by the emergence of a need, a sensation, or an interest  
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Organismic self-regulation   Intertwined with the figure-formation process  
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Organismic self-regulation   What emerges in therapeutic work is associated with what is of interest to or what the client needs to be able to regain a sense of equilibrium  
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Field theory   Grounded on the principle that an organism must be seen in its environment, or in context, as part of the constantly changing field  
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Field theory   Everything is relational, in flux, interrelated, and in process  
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Holism   according to a client's thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body, and dreams  
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Holism   therapists place no superior value on a particular aspect of the individual  
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Holism   Emphasis may be placed on a figure or foreground or the ground or background  
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Holism   “attending to the obvious”, rather than attending primarily to verbal content  
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Holism   constantly scans for postures, gestures, mannerisms, tiny facial twitches, sudden changes in tone of voice, and other cues that often tell far more about how a client is responding emotionally than the verbal statements do  
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figure   those aspects of the individual’s experience that are most salient at any moment  
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ground   those aspects of the client’s presentation that are often out of his or her awareness  
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Unfinished Business   Can be manifest in unexpressed feelings such as resentment, rage, hatred, pain, anxiety, grief, guilt, and abandonment  
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Unfinished Business   feelings linger in the background and are carried into present life in ways that interfere with effective contact with oneself and others  
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Unfinished Business   effects usually show up in some blockage within the body in the form of some physical sensations or problems  
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Unfinished Business   the impasse, or stuck point, is the time when external support in not available or the customary way of being does not work  
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Unfinished Business   therapist’s task is to help clients experience the impasse without rescuing or frustrating them  
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Exaggeration Exercise   Person is asked to exaggerate the movement or gesture they normally do repeatedly which usually intensifies the feeling attached to the behavior and makes inner feelings more clear  
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Staying with the Feeling   Client is asked to stay with their feelings, maybe even go deeper, when they are wanting to avoid it  
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Making the Rounds   Group exercise in which one person goes up to others and either speak or do something with each person  
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Making the Rounds   Purpose is to confront, to risk, to disclose to self, to experiment with new behavior  
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Reversal Exercise   Playing the role of the opposite personality.  
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Reversal Exercise   Purpose is to have client take the plunge into the very thing that is fraught with anxiety and make contact with those parts of themselves that have been submerged and denied  
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Rehearsal Exercise   Clients share their internal rehearsals out loud to become more aware of the many preparatory means they use in bolstering their social roles, of how they try to meet the expectations of others, or of the degree to which they want to be accepted and liked  
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Internal Dialogue Exercise   Top dog (tyrannical) and underdog (obedient victim) are engaged in constant struggle for control which is rooted in introjections  
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Empty chair technique   Internal dialogue exercise where person sits in top dog chair then moves to underdog chair in role playing activity  
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Internal Dialogue Exercise   Goal is to promote higher level of integration between polarities and conflicts within a person – not get rid of these traits, but to accept and live with them  
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Dream Work   No interpretation or analysis; but each part of the dream is assumed to be a projection of the self and the client creates scripts for each part  
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Dream Work   Bring dreams back to life to relive them as though they are happening now  
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Dream Work   Represent unfinished situations and existential messages regarding oneself and one’s current struggle  
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Experiments   flow directly from psychotherapy theory and is crafted to fit the individual as he/she exists in the here and now  
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Experiments   They are spontaneous, one of a kind, and relevant to a particular moment  
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Continuum of experience, The here and now, The paradoxical theory of change, The experiment, The authentic encounter, and Process-oriented diagnosis   methodological components integral to Gestalt theory  
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Introjection, projection, retroflection, deflection, and confluece   Five different kinds of contact boundary disturbances  
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Introjection   Tendency to uncritically accept other’s beliefs and standards without assimilating them to make them congruent with who we are  
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Introjection   Passively incorporating what the environment provides rather than clearly identifying what we want or need  
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Projection   Reverse of introjections  
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Projection   Disown certain aspects of ourselves that are inconsistent with our self-image by assigning them to the environment such as blaming others for our problems  
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Projection   We avoid taking responsibility for our own feelings and who we when we see qualities in others that we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves  
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Projection   tend to feel that they are victims of circumstances and that others have hidden meanings behind what they say  
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Retroflection   Turning back onto ourselves what we would like to do to someone else or what we would like someone else to do to or for us  
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Retroflection   Usually involves a fair amount of anxiety  
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Retroflection   Tend to inhibit themselves from taking action out of fear of embarrassment, guilt, and resentment  
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Retroflection   this usually results ins Depression and psychosomatic complaints  
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Retroflection   People who self-mutilate or injure themselves are often directing aggression inward out of fear of directing towards others  
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Retroflection   Maladaptive styles of functioning are adopted outside of our awareness  
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Deflection   Distraction or veering off, so that is it difficult to maintain a sustained sense of contact  
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Deflection   Examples include overuse of humor, abstract generalizations, or questions rather than statements  
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Deflection   When we deflect we speak for others, beating around the bush rather than being direct and engaging the environment in an inconsistent and inconsequential basis, which results in emotional depletion  
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Confluence   Blurring the differentiation between the self and the environment  
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Confluence   No clear demarcation between internal experience and outer reality  
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Confluence   in relationships involves the absence of conflicts, slowness to anger, and a belief that all parties experience the same feelings and thoughts that we do  
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Confluence   these clients tend to have a high need to be liked and are comfortable with enmeshment which makes genuine contact extremely difficult  
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Fritz and Laura Perls (founders), Miriam and Erving Polster   Individuals that provided major contribution to Gestalt  
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Fritz Perls   Focused on intrapsychic phenomena and awareness  
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Laura Perls   Paid great deal of attention to contact and support  
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The Now   Appreciate and fully experience the present moment  
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The Now   Power of the present diminishes when focusing on the past and/or the future  
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The Now   Phenomenological inquiry  
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“It” talk   using depersonalizing language  
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“You” talk   global and impersonal language tends to keep the person hidden  
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Questions   tend to keep the person hidden, safe, and unknown  
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Language that denies power   adding qualifiers or disclaimers to their statements making their statements ambivalent such as maybe, perhaps, sort of, I guess, possibly, I suppose  
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Blocks to Energy   Manifested by tension in some part of the body, by posture, by keeping one’s body tight and closed, by not breathing deeply, by looking away from people when speaking to avoid contact, numbing feelings, etc.  
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Block to Energy   Therapist helps clients identify the ways this is occurring and transform it into more adaptive behaviors  
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Discover, Accommodation, and Assimilation   Polster’s three stage integration sequence characterizing client growth in therapy  
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Accommodation   clients recognizing that they have a choice, begin by trying out new behaviors in therapy then outside  
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Assimilation   client learning how to influence their environment such as taking a stand on critical issues  
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“Interruption in contact” or “boundary disturbance”   the characteristic style people employ in their attempts to control their environment through one of these channels of resistance  
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Resistances   developed as a coping mechanism and possess positive and negative qualities; chronic resistance can lead to dysfunctional behavior  
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Resistances   Coping processes that prevents one from experiencing the present include interruptions, disturbances, and resistances to contact  
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Contact   necessary for change and growth and is made by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and moving  
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Effective contact   involves interacting with nature and with others without losing one’s sense of individuality  
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Good contact   involves clear awareness, full energy, and the ability to express oneself  
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withdrawal   necessary after contact to integrate what has been learned is also necessary for healthy functioning  
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Awareness   includes the ability to make contact with their field (a dynamic system of interrelationships) and the people in it  
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Moving client from environmental support to self-support and Reintegrating the disowned parts of one’s personality   Two of Fritz's personal agendas  
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