Getalt Therapy by Fitz and Laura Pearls and earving and Miriam Polster

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Major contributor to Gestalt therapy are two couples Fritz Pearls,Laura Posner Pearls and Earving and Miriam Polster. The Polsters theory incorporated aspects of support and acceptance between the therapist and the client. Pearls had two major goals in therapy one being helping people accept parts of themselves that they disowned and begin finding resources from within to make it through their issues versus using external resources. Gestalt is a German word that literally means whole or completion (Corey,196). Specifying the difference between many part together versus one whole. Gestalt therapy focuses on the here and now basing its experiments in physiological and existential thoughts. In this theory people are not just products of their environment but extensions of their environments (Corey,194). In a Gestalt approach session clients are asked to become aware of themselves and their experience in the present moment. In grounding themselves in the present they can change their current situation. The past is gone and the future is not yet come but the present is a time in which the client is in control of. Gestalt therapist's focuses on helping the client become self reliant and not reliant upon a therapist's help (Corey, 196). Gestalt therapists as what and how questions staying away from why questions in order to help the client be engaged in the present. Why questions often trigger memories of the past removing the client from being present in the current session. Often therapist's throughout the session therapist will ask “what is going on with you now?”, “what is happening now” or “how are you experiencing your fear now”. Clients may have previously constructed beliefs about how they experience their emotions that may... ... middle of paper ... ... A client begins to accommodate when they feel comfortable enough to choose to try out new behaviors in the safety of their therapist's office. Since this experience is new for the client the choices may be made with apprehension but with support from the therapist the client may choose to begin making these choices in the outside world. When clients determine that they know how to get what they need from the environment that have reached assimilation. To reach assimilation clients must first find how to influence their environment instead of accepting it. Clients may take a stand on an issue as a way of attempting to get what they want. At this point client has moved from not being aware to making new discoveries, realizing how to accommodate themselves and finally assimilation where the client now has confidence to separate from her environment (Corey, p204-205).

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