Importance Of The Self In Gestalt Therapy

The “self” in Gestalt Therapy: What it is and how is it used within the therapeutic process between therapist and client.

Introduction:

Explain why your question is interesting:

The search for an understanding of the nature of the self has been at the forefront of our dialogue for millennia (Philippson, p.1). Whether in the form of the search for the self, or for consciousness, this question has been at centre of man’s intellect as it appears in religion philosophy, art(Philippson, p.11) . We have looked far and wide for an understanding of ourselves. The experience of the self is qualia; we each experience something immediate when we contemplate the self, but then articulating that can take one down many paths.

For the purpose of this

This, and the fact that psychotherapy is introspective and a self-reflexive process for both client and therapist indicates that the different distinctions in each school of psychotherapy of the definition of the ‘self’ are fundamental to the psychotherapy; “All psychotherapies are psychotherapies of the self". (Mahoney, quoted in Counseling Directory, 1991) The self is at the core of psychotherapy.

This essay will focus on Gestalt therapy and will examine how the self is defined and employed in

To summarise: the Ego (is reliant on the Id and Personality), it is concerned with current desires and decisions, the Id is concerned with sensations (conscious and unconscious) – hunger, thirst, sexual desire- often this is outside of our control. The Personality is what is permanent in a person, their memories, their past, it is the ‘self-image’ of a person constructed by these experiences (Ginger, p. 34). These functions further demonstrate how the self is considered in Gestalt