gestalt therapy

Gestalt and Grief Therapy

Posted on by Mark Moran

Licensed counselors, Human Service professionals, and other specialized behavioral health therapists can help the bereaved through advanced therapies.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT is one such example, but there are other humanistic approaches that are also patient centered in design.  Gestalt Therapy is one such humanistic approach that avoids psycho-analysis and looks to the present state of the person.  It looks for the fullness and wholeness of the entirety of the person and issue instead of reviewing merely smaller parts.  Designed by Fritz Perls. his wife, Laura Perls and John Goodman in the early 1940s, this approach helps individuals face and cope with emotion in the present moment (Good Therapy, 2018, p.1).

In regards to the bereaved, Gestalt can be an excellent way to help the grieving come more into contact with the emotions they are feeling in the present moment.  It can help the depressed focus on the emotions of the now moment and help them find resolution and self-awareness about these feelings.  This can usher forward a inner healing for some and help one find resolution with the present moment.  The important theme of Gestalt Therapy is that it focuses on the now and how one is feeling in the moment not how one felt in the past or the issues of the past.

Gestalt Therapy 

Gestalt focuses on the current emotional state of the client and emphasizes discussion of those emotions

Gestalt Therapy focuses on the now.  This is one of its defining qualities.  The counselor or therapist will help the client focus on what the client is experiencing in the moment and how to address those emotions in the now moment.  This now moment involves a mind and body connection and an awareness within the body of these feelings (Lindsey, 2022).  A strong counselor-client connection is important for the client to feel comfortable enough to identify these emotions and discuss them.  Furthermore, the Gestalt has a strong phenomenological emphasis on experiencing the process of emotion itself and exploring and evaluating it within the session.  This brings one closer to true feeling.  Within Gestalt, one is not so much looking for change, but acceptance and understanding of self to better cope and push forward in a productive and non-maladaptive way.

Fritz Perls wished for clients to find more self-awareness of oneself.  He hoped one to become more attune with one’s feelings and to better cope with them by identifying and feeling them (Guy-Evans, 2022).  Gestalt pushes for the here and now of the moment. It emphasizes that the past cannot change, but the present exists now and can produce transformation.  Hence, even past emotions are encouraged to be expressed in the present moment (Guy-Evans, 2023).   By understanding the emotion now, one can conclude the unfinished business of the past.

Gestalt Techniques

Gestalt Therapists will utilize a variety of techniques to help the client experience present emotion.  Many counselors encourage clients to utilize “I” statements.  When discussing an emotion such as anger, instead of stating “they made me angry”, the counselor encourages the client to say “I feel angry when”.  This again emphasizes the importance of individual emotion within the moment (Langmaid, 2024).

In addition to this, Gestalt therapists will identify various bodily manifestations correlated with emotion.  A person may clench a fist, look downward, raise one’s voice, tap their foot against the ground, twitch, or frown.  When these physical manifestations appear, the counselor will help the client identify these manifestations with the emotion felt.  Counselors should encourage the client to exaggerate these manifestations during the session.  This process in Gestalt is referred to as exaggeration (Good Therapy, 2018, p. 1). This will help clients become more aware of their emotions and how to better regulate them in the future.

The empty chair is perhaps the most famous Gestalt technique. It involves an empty chair where the client is able to speak to the person who is the source of the client’s frustration, abuse, or source of emotion.  It could represent an abuser, ex spouse, deceased family member, or even be a conversation between the self (Guy-Evans, 2023).  This permits the client to express present emotion but also allows the client to better understand that the power to heal does not depend upon another person but the power is within oneself.

Empathetic confrontation is sometimes a technique employed by therapists as well within Gestalt.  This was more widely common in its earlier phases, but in recent times is not as employed.  The purpose was to confront the false emotion or shield and help the true emotion to emerge.

Goals and Benefits of Gestalt Therapy

The primary goal of Gestalt is to help clients become more self aware of present emotion and how that emotion is affecting one’s life. It helps to push one to become more self aware and regulating of emotion and to find resolution by accepting the emotional reality that exists.  This promotes responsibility on the part of the client to accept certain emotions and work through them.

Guy Evans lists these benefits from Gestalt

  • Improved sense of self-control

  • Increased awareness of needs

  • Improved ability to monitor and regulate emotions

  • Improved communication skills

  • Increased tolerance for negative emotions

  • Improved mindfulness

  • Increased emotional understanding

  • Improved ability to view things from another perspective

  • Increased self-esteem

  • Increased decision-making skills

  • Increased interpersonal skills

  • Increased empathy for others

(Guy-Evans, O. (2023). “Gestalt Therapy: Definition, Types, Techniques, And Efficacy”.  Access here

Conclusion

Gestalt is another tool for the counselor.  It does not necessarily work for everyone.  It may need to be utilized with other therapies.  In some cases, clients who wish for more structure, or wish to focus on the past, may find it unhelpful.  While others who are still too traumatized by emotion, may find it disturbing.  It can definitely bring up strong emotions, so it should only be utilized in a secure setting with a strong client/counselor relationship.  Obviously, those who are only pastoral or only certified in grief counseling but lack a professional and clinical license in counseling should not utilize this therapy.

Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification and if it matches your academic and professional goals

For many though, it can help individuals find peace with the present moment and express emotion in a healthy and safe way.  It can help a person transform and move beyond past negative emotions and find new resolutions in life to move beyond the pain.  In grief, this is especially true.  It can provide for the bereaved an outlet to express current emotion and also sort through feelings and emotions with the deceased.

Please also review the American Academy of Grief Counseling’s Grief Counseling Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals.  The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification as a grief counselor.

 

 

 

 

Additional Resources

“Gestalt Therapy”. (2018). Good Therapy.  Access here

Langmaid, S. (2024). “How Does Gestalt Therapy Work?” WebMD. Access here

Guy-Evans, O. (2023). “Gestalt Therapy: Definition, Types, Techniques, And Efficacy”. Simple Psychology.  Access here

Lindsay, C. (2022). “All About Gestalt Therapy”. PsychCentral.  Access here

 

 

Humanistic Approach in Counseling and Grief

Posted on by Dominick Flarey

There are many schools of thought in treatment of individuals facing emotional and mental distress.  Psycho-analysis, behavioral and cognitive schools look at each different human lens of existence to help individuals find balance and happiness.  Psycho-analysis delves deep into the past to find answers to trauma, pain, pathology or issues plaguing a person.  In this venue, we see the seed of Sigmund Freud’s thoughts.   Behavioral strategies look how one’s behavior can be modified to alter mental and emotional issues.  Ivan Pavlov demonstrated the role of classical conditioning on the a person’s behavior.  Cognitive schools emphasized the rethinking aspect to helping others overcome mental and emotional issues. Aaron Beck in the 1960s would combine behavior and cognition as a way to help others via Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Another type of way to address human distress is Humanist Therapy.  This type of behavior which has success for many is holistic in nature and looks at the now instead of the past to find healthy balance within a person.  It is far more patient based and subjective in nature.  Due to its greater emphasis on self-happiness and subjective view of self, it focuses more on the person’s emotion in the present and its interaction with others.  It looks to restore and find balance within the person.  It finds its conclusion through authenticity with self and room for self growth in the present and relationships with others (Sherrell, Z,, 2023)

This has many implications within grief.  Grief can shatter a person’s self image and world view.  Humanistic approaches can help restore confidence and hope. It is very sensitive to the needs of the person.  While it may not alone suffice for all cases, it can definitely contribute to specific needs of the grieving person.  In this blog, we will shortly review the nature of the Humanistic Approach for grief, its strengths, its weaknesses, and how it can be incorporated.

Humanistic Approach

Humanistic Therapy is a more holistic and emotional direct therapy that focuses on emotion in the present and how to deal with those emotions in relationship to self and self worth

 

The idea of meeting human needs to find balance has many strengths in psychological thought.  Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs sketched a thorough outline of how when human needs are not met, pathology and dysfunction can occur.    Carl Rogers, however, established the Humanistic school of thought.  Rogers wished to treat the entirety of the human person and felt the imbalance or lack of fulfillment in life constituted the biggest problem to individuals.  He labeled the term congruence to distinguish between healthy balance in life that reflected interior perceptions with the outside world.  When balance occurred, Rogers believed human beings display healthy mental and emotional behaviors.  When incongruence emerged or imbalance between self and the world, then person’s mental and emotional health suffered (Mcleod, S., 2024).

Rogers Humanistic Approach centered upon the needs and desires of the person.  It revolved around the now and the relationships within the person’s realm.  The first key elements were regarding self image and self worth.  A person’s self image correlated with how the person viewed oneself in life, his/her existence and relationship with others and how the person fits (Mcleod. S. 2024).  Self image focuses on a person’s perceived value (Mcleod, S., 2024).   In contrast, the existence of the real self, the actual depiction of the person’s existence can cause distress and imbalance.  Identifying the real self is essential in understanding oneself in all the good and bad that exists within.  It is the starting point to reaching the ideal self.  The ideal self is what one hopes and strive to become.  When the ideal self and self image are imbalanced, congruence is not achieved and a state of incongruence exists that causes unhappiness and discontent as well as unhealthy psychological conditions (Mcleod, S., 2024).

According to Rogers, it is hence important to have a high positive regard with self worth.  Individuals with a high self worth can grow and handle stressors and difficulties, while those with a lower self worth encounter difficulties in life and have a hard time growing from negative events (Mcleod, S., 2024).   Rogers believed that a full functioning person reaches a state of actualization when congruence occurs ands is able to better live a fulfilled life.  He identified five primary characteristics to congruent individual.  He pointed out that one is open to new experiences, living existentially in the moment, trusting one’s feeling, displaying creativity  and living a fulfilled life (Mcleod, S., 2024).

The Humanist Therapist hence needs to help the person cultivate a higher self worth and find congruence.

Humanistic Techniques

In cultivating higher self and congruence, unconditional positive regard is employed that accepts the person for who he/she is and offers little criticism.  Rogers felt that conditional positive regard later put conditions on love or behavior that could negatively shape an individual’s development.  This less structured technique embraces the authenticity of the person and looks at the subjective needs of the person.  It places the Humanist Therapist into a place more of guide and equal than true authority figure in counseling.  The counselor utilizes deep empathy and rephrasing skills to help the person find congruence and balance.

One critical technique employed by the Humanist Therapist is Gestalt Therapy.  Gestalt Therapy focuses on the present and its emotions and how to better understand and grow from them (Dexter. G., 2022).  It helps one be more mindful of current situation and emotions and how emotions interact with current relationships in life.   It helps an individual better identify emotions, utilize them and communicate them with others (Dexter, G., 2022).   Some common themes found within Gestalt Therapy includes the “Empty Chair” where one pretends to speak to someone and role playing with the therapist to communicate emotion (Dexter, G. , 2022).

In addition to Gestalt Therapy, Humanist Therapists utilize a very Patient-Centered approach that acknowledges the needs of the patient and places a great importance on equality between client and counselor.  The counselor plays a key role in building the person’s self worth and avoiding judgement.  The therapy again is focused on the present and is more broad spectrum holistic instead of focusing on one particular issue.

Other techniques include Narrative Therapy which identifies values, Existential Therapy which identifies place in the world, and Logotherapy which focuses on helping individuals cope with difficulties and trials in life (Cherry, K., 2023).

Benefits and Disadvantages

When Humanistic Therapy is utilized there are benefits and disadvantages.  Obviously, helping one’s self esteem can empower someone to retake one’s life and move forward in life.  Self image and how one perceives oneself is essential to mental and emotional well being.  This holistic approach treats the entirety of the human person, helps one find empowerment, self acceptance and confidence, and grants the client an empathetic and non-judgmental guide (Sherrell, Z., 2023). However, there are limitations and possible weaknesses to the therapy.  It has the potential side effect of creating a dependency on the therapist, as well as not addressing acute issues in one’s mental health.  The lack of structure can also be counterproductive to certain personalities, as well as being very intensive emotionally and time consuming than other therapies (Sherrell, Z., 2023). It is also very subjective in nature.  The ontolology towards happiness is not a particular code but instead revolves around what one needs and wants.  This can sometimes create a disordered approach to what is right and wrong versus what makes someone happy.

Humanistic Approach in Grief

I think the approach has many benefits for grieving, albeit, I do not think it should be the only way one works with the grieving.  Obviously, different people need different strategies.  Some grieving individuals may need more cognitive and behavioral guidance with structure, while others may greatly benefit from a unstructured and holistic approach on emotion.  Some may greatly benefit from a mixture and blending of strategies.

Obviously when dealing with depression and emotion, the self image, self worth and the ideal self is key for happiness. Many depressed individuals have major self esteem issues and the techniques and practices in the Humanistic Approach can play a key benefit in helping a grieving individual find congruence and balance.  It can help the person understand the emotions, their connections with others, and how one can grow from loss and find connection again in life.

Conclusion

The Humanistic Approach has many advantages but its ultimate success depends on the needs of the griever and what therapy is best. Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification

I feel the Humanistic Approach is  best utilized in an integrative approach with cognitive and behavioral practices to better help the person not only emotionally but also grant the person ways to cognitively reframe issues.  The grave importance of self image, happiness and balance cannot be overlooked and are essential aspects of finding long term emotional and mental health.  Different individuals have different needs.  Some benefit better from a singular approach, while others from an integrated approach. Ultimately, when helping the grieving, the best therapy for the individual is the one that best meets the needs of the person.  If a licensed counselor is not comfortable or acquainted enough with one therapy, then referrals should be encouraged, but for those with comfort in a particular therapy or multiple disciplines, then one can truly begin to help others from a multi-faceted angle.  The Humanistic Approach is definitely one that all licensed counselors or those in grief theory should be familiar with.

Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in Grief Counseling.

 

 

Additional Resources

Mcleod, S. (2024).  “Carl Rogers Humanistic Theory And Contribution To Psychology”. SimplyPsychology. Access here

“Different approaches to psychotherapy”. APA. Access here

Sherrell, Z. (2023). “What is Humanist Therapy”. MedicalNewsToday.  Access here

Dexter, G. (2022). “What Is Gestalt Therapy?”. VeryWellHealth.  Access here

“Humanistic Therapy”. Psychology Today.  Access here

Cherry, K. (2023). “What Is Humanistic Therapy?”. VeryWellHealth. Access here