ABSTRACT

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 conditions for a client's personal journey to health.

Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques provides a concise guide to this flexible and far-reaching approach. Topics discussed include:

  • the theoretical assumptions underpinning gestalt therapy
  • gestalt assessment and process diagnosis
  • field theory, phenomenology and dialogue
  • ethics and values
  • evaluation and research.

As such this book will be essential reading for gestalt trainees, as well as all counsellors and psychotherapists wanting to learn more about the gestalt approach.

part |2 pages

Part 1: MAPS FOR A GESTALT THERAPY JOURNEY: THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS UNDERPINNING THE APPROACH

chapter 1|3 pages

What is gestalt?

chapter 2|2 pages

What is a gestalt?

chapter 3|3 pages

Creative adjustment

chapter 4|4 pages

Figure and ground

chapter 5|3 pages

The here and now

chapter 6|2 pages

Self as process: selfing

chapter 8|3 pages

Holism and the orientation towards health

chapter 10|3 pages

The awareness continuum

chapter 11|2 pages

Individualism and field paradigms

chapter 12|2 pages

The contact boundary

chapter 16|3 pages

Introjection

chapter 17|3 pages

Retroflection

chapter 18|3 pages

Projection

chapter 19|2 pages

Confluence

chapter 20|2 pages

Dimensions of contact

chapter 21|3 pages

Unfinished business: the Zeigarnik effect

chapter 22|2 pages

Caring and creative indifference

chapter 23|3 pages

The Paradoxical Theory of Change

chapter 24|3 pages

Autonomous and aesthetic criterion

chapter 25|3 pages

Support as ‘that which enables’

chapter 26|2 pages

Contact and resistance

chapter 27|2 pages

The five abilities

part |2 pages

Part 2: BEGINNING THE THERAPY JOURNEY: PREPARATIONS AND SETTING OFF

chapter 28|2 pages

The therapy setting and context

chapter 30|2 pages

Listening to the client’s story

chapter 31|3 pages

Process diagnosis

chapter 32|3 pages

Assessment

chapter 33|2 pages

The client’s situation

chapter 34|3 pages

The client’s contact functions

chapter 37|3 pages

How the client ‘bodies forth’

chapter 38|3 pages

Treatment planning: planning the journey

part |2 pages

Part 3 THE THERAPY JOURNEY

part |2 pages

Part 4: BECOMING: TRANSITIONS ALONG THE JOURNEY

chapter 76|2 pages

Aggressing on the environment

chapter 77|3 pages

Developmental theory

chapter 78|3 pages

The five layer model

chapter 79|3 pages

Experimentation

chapter 80|3 pages

Developing supports

chapter 81|3 pages

Polarities and the top dog/under dog

chapter 82|2 pages

‘Aha’ experience

chapter 83|3 pages

Catharsis and release

chapter 84|2 pages

Developing awareness of awareness

chapter 85|3 pages

Individual and group therapy

chapter 86|3 pages

Endings

chapter 87|2 pages

On-going self-therapy

part |2 pages

Part 5: ETHICS AND VALUES: KEY SIGNPOSTS FOR ALL JOURNEYS

chapter 88|3 pages

Therapeutic boundaries

chapter 89|3 pages

Assessing risk

chapter 90|3 pages

Attending to the wider field

chapter 91|3 pages

Working with difference

chapter 92|3 pages

Sexual issues

chapter 93|3 pages

Touch in therapy

chapter 94|3 pages

Gestalt supervision

chapter 95|3 pages

Therapist support

part |2 pages

Part 6: RESEARCH AND EVALUATING THE APPROACH: DESTINATION AND LOOKING BACK

chapter 99|2 pages

Looking back and reviewing

chapter 100|2 pages

On uncertainty