PYC4809 GESTALT THERAPEUTIC APPROACH - assignment 2 example and summary 2022
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Course
PYC4809 - Therapeutic Psychology
Institution
University Of South Africa (Unisa)
Past assignment 2 (over 80%). In depth summary of gestalt therapeutic approach from the prescribed 2022 textbook. List of additional resources with active links to download.
Summary of the prescribed textbook
chapter 8
Past assignment 2
INFORMATION IS ONLY RELATED TO THE
GESTALT THERAPEUTIC APPROACH
TEXTBOOK USED:
Corey, G.T. (2017). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy: A South African 1|Page
Perspective (2nd ed).
The second and third editions have no explicit differences in the content.
,Table of Contents
Assignment 2 Instructions................................................................................................................................................. 3
Active link to download pdf version of assignment 2 via MyUnisa: ............................................................................. 3
Assignment 2 format:.................................................................................................................................................... 3
Document Format: ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
Additional resources for your own research .................................................................................................................... 4
GESTALT THERAPY APPROACH.......................................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 8 Summary ...................................................................................................................................................... 5
Assignment 2 That Received 80% On The Gestalt Therapy Approach ....................................................................... 17
2|Page
,PYC4809 THERAPEUTIC PSYCHOLOGY
Assignment 2 Instructions
In Assignment 02, you will be required to discuss a therapeutic approach of your choice.
You will also be asked to explain how this approach contributes to your self-insight and personal growth.
And how it could be applied in the context where you did your voluntary work.
Active link to download pdf version of assignment 2 via MyUnisa:
https://mymodules.dtls.unisa.ac.za/mod/assign/view.php?id=218619
Assignment 2 format:
Font = Arial 12
Line spacing = 1.5
The margins must be set to normal (25.4 mm)
The page size must be A4
The pages must be numbered
Assignments must be submitted in the PDF format
Gestalt therapy is an existential, phenomenological, and process-based approach created on the premise
that individuals must be understood in the context of their ongoing relationship with the environment.
The initial goal is for clients to expand their awareness of what they are experiencing in the present
moment. Through this awareness, change automatically occurs.
The approach is phenomenological because it focuses on the client’s perceptions of reality and existential
because it is grounded in the notion that people are always in the process of becoming, remaking, and
rediscovering themselves.
As an existential approach, Gestalt therapy gives special attention to existence as individuals experience it
and affirms the human capacity for growth and healing through interpersonal contact and insight
This approach focuses on the here and now, the what and how of experiencing
Fritz Perls was the main originator and developer of Gestalt therapy.
This process involves Gestalt therapists putting themselves as fully as possible into the experience of the
client without judgment, analyzing, or interpreting, while concurrently holding a sense of one’s individual,
independent presence
Perls asserted that how individuals behave in the present moment is far more crucial to self-understanding
than why they behave as they do. Awareness usually involves insight and sometimes introspection, but
Gestalt therapists consider it to be much more than either.
A defining characteristic of awareness is paying attention to the flow of your experience and being in
contact with what you are doing when you are doing it (Corey, G., 2017, p.199).
Contemporary relational Gestalt therapy stresses dialogue and the I/Thou relationship between client
and therapist. Therapists emphasize the therapeutic relationship and work collaboratively with clients in a
search for understanding
The majority of today’s Gestalt therapists emphasizes support, acceptance, empathy, respect, and dialogue
as well as confrontation.
Gestalt therapy is lively and promotes direct experiencing rather than the abstractness of talking about
situations
Gestalt therapy is an experiential approach in that clients come to grips with what and how they are
thinking, feeling, and doing as they interact with the therapist.
Gestalt practitioners value being fully present during the therapeutic encounter with the belief that growth
occurs out of genuine contact between client and therapist (Corey, G., 2017, p.200).
5|Page
, Key Concepts
1. View of Human Nature
Gestalt view of human nature is rooted in existential philosophy, phenomenology, and field theory.
Therapy aims at awareness and contact with the environment, which consists of both the external and
internal worlds.
By becoming aware, clients become able to make informed choices and thus to live a more meaningful
existence
Perls’s style of doing therapy involved two personal agendas: moving the client from environmental
support to self-support and reintegrating the disowned parts of one’s personality. His conception of human
nature and these two agendas set the stage for a variety of techniques and for his confrontational style of
conducting therapy. He was a master at intentionally frustrating clients to enhance their awareness.
A basic assumption of Gestalt therapy is that individuals have the capacity to self-regulate when they are
aware of what is happening in and around them. (Corey, G., 2017, p.200).
authentic change occurs more from being who we are than from trying to be who we are not.
Beisser called this simple tenet the paradoxical theory of change. We are constantly moving between who
we “should be” and who we “are.” Gestalt therapists ask clients to invest themselves fully in their current
condition rather than striving to become who they should be.
Gestalt therapists believe people change and grow when they experience who they really are in the world
(Corey, G., 2017, p.201).
2. Some Principles of Gestalt Therapy Theory
Holism
Gestalt is a German word meaning a whole or completion, or a form that cannot be separated into parts
without losing its essence.
All of nature is seen as a unified and coherent whole, and the whole is different from the sum of its
parts.
Gestalt practice attends to a client’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body, memories, and dreams
Field Theory
Asserts that the organism must be seen in its environment, or in its context, as part of the constantly
changing field.
Emphasis may be on a figure (those aspects of the individual’s experience that are most salient at any
moment) or the ground (those aspects of the client’s presentation that are often out of his or her
awareness).
6|Page
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