Body, Mind & Spirit Articles and Latest News

Gestalt therapy in a social psychiatric setting: the ‘oil & water’ solution.

Adolescence. 1979;14(56):775-96

Authors: Neill RB

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.

PMID: 525518 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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The gestalt experiment in sex therapy.

J Sex Marital Ther. 1979;5(2):117-33

Authors: Mosher DL

The couple with a sex dysfunction is at an impasse. The natural process of sexual self-regulation is interrupted by the self. Growth requires experimenting with new solutions for unsolved problems. The gestalt experiment is a major modality of treatment applicable to sex therapy. To experiment is to invent and discover solutions and to find and make meanings. In posing an experiment, the therapist attempts to create a safe emergency in which risk and support are balanced, permitting the person to stay with the mounting excitement and coming solution. An atmosphere of playfulness and creativity invites experimentation. Thorough familiarity with modes and methods of experimenting permits the therapist’s creativity to emerge. Applications of sexual metaphors and sex dysfunction as a nightmare are presented which use methods drawn from gestalt dream work. The use of gestalt experiments are illustrated in a client-therapist dialogue.

PMID: 490663 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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[Gestalt therapy: an orientation]

Tijdschr Ziekenverpl. 1978 Nov 14;31(23):1058-64

Authors: Bierkens PB

PMID: 252314 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Individual and family growth: a Gestalt approach.

Fam Process. 1978 Jun;17(2):195-205

Authors: Kaplan ML, Kaplan NR

Gestalt therapy is described as a comprehensive framework of theory and techniques for experiential family threapy. Like other experientially oriented therapies, it is systems-oriented, immediate-experience-oriented, and affect-oriented. Unlike others, this method regards the client system’s emergent processes as the central focus, and it emphasizes that growth occurs as the family and its members are helped to greater self-awareness and responsibility for their own functioning.

PMID: 678352 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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[Significance of the gestalt, primary, and family therapy for psychoanalysis]

Z Psychosom Med Psychoanal. 1978 Apr-Jun;24(2):169-79

Authors: Sperling E

The technical therapeutic premises and the application of gestalt-, primal- and familytherapy are investigated. It is concluded, that these premises and application attempt to do justice to the change of the patients and to the widely varied offer of serious syndromes rather than to psychoanalytic routine by “Uberinvestierung” in the patient. Not only the insistence on ego-psychology but also the emphasis on transference as the only therapeutic medium are viewed critically. The confrontation is in competition with the interpretion; The acting out can help to intensify experience. As the most important result for psychoanalytic work appears the conclusion “ex omissione”.

PMID: 645240 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Some notes on the use of family sculpture in therapy.

Fam Process. 1978 Mar;17(1):69-76

Authors: Jefferson C

Therapists learning to use family sculpture as a tool often find difficulty in exploiting the technique to its fullest. This article, designed to encourage therapists to take the risks involved in using a technique new to them, describes how the author and his cotherapists used sculpture in three cases in different ways. In each case, the author explains how the therapists made the choices involved in directing the therapeutic process. He suggests that even when a sculpture itself seems to have failed to produce useful information, it can elicit from clients signals that will indicate opportunities for effective use of other techniques and that a sculpture, once used, can be restaged to reinforce client behavior change.

PMID: 700071 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Related Articles

The Gestalt approach to stuttering.

J Commun Disord. 1978 Feb;11(1):1-9

Authors: Kaplan NR, Kaplan ML

This article describes the application of Gestalt therapy concepts to the treatment of stuttering. Within this framework stuttering is seen as an organized self-system rather than a symptom. This self-system is maintained and reinforced by the stutter’s experience of this physical self, self-expectancies, self-messages, projections on others, and total viewing of self as a limited and inadequate person. The individual enmeshes himself or herself into this system and restricts himself to familiar behaviors, in this case stuttering, because he has no framework for other ways of functioning. The Gestalt therapeutic framework as a basis of unlocking the individual’s limited style of functioning is explored.

PMID: 624782 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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[Psychotherapy in general practice. Gestalt therapy]

ZFA (Stuttgart). 1979 Nov 20;55(32):1847-51

Authors: Schaeffer E

PMID: 539085 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Preferences for behavioural, analytic and gestalt psychotherapy.

Br J Med Psychol. 1979 Sep;52(3):263-9

Authors: Sobel HJ

This study investigated preferences for behavioural, analytic and gestalt psychotherapy among a sample of 40 SES class III and IV adult females and 67 college freshmen who had never been actual therapy patients. A scaled survey assessed general preference, preference given an imagined long-standing depressive disorder, preference given an imagined specific phobia, and preference for the therapist-patient relationship. Three audio tapes were designed, each describing one of the modalities. High inter-rater reliability and agreement were determined by three independent judges. Results showed that young females had a general preference for gestalt therapy. Young and old females, but not young males, significantly preferred behavioural therapy for a specific phobia. Under forced-choice conditions the group as a whole significantly preferred gestalt therapy. No differences were found for the relationship or preference given a depressive disorder. Preference was hypothesized as a cognitive structure with potential use in therapist-client matching.

PMID: 486371 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Attraction to therapy and therapist credibility as a function of therapy orientation.

J Clin Psychol. 1979 Jul;35(3):682-6

Authors: Schroeder DH, Bloom LJ

Exposed male and female Ss (N = 96) to psychoanalytic, behavioral, client-centered, or gestalt therapy, in the form of a brief written description and a 5-minute videotaped simulation. Attraction to therapy and various dimensions of therapist credibility were measured. The psychoanalytic presentation generated the greatest attraction and the greatest perceived total credibility. The gestalt presentation was next highest on these variables, followed by the behavioral and client-centered presentation. No significant effects for sex of S or sex by therapy approach interaction were reported. Explanations for and implications of these findings are discussed.

PMID: 489757 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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