Gestalt Therapy

The Gestalt integration technique is a therapeutic effort that focuses on dream work. The purpose of the technique is to get the client in touch with his own genuine interests, desires, and needs instead of his continuing to live a life in which he tries to have the interests, desires, and needs he thinks he should have.

The integration technique itself is based on the assumption that the patient's dream is an existential message informing him both about his life circumstances and how to change these circumstances into events and situations that are more satisfying and functional. The technique involves having the client assign meaning to every detail of the dream.

Client-assignment of meaning is important because a key aspect of the technique is that it is the patient and not the therapist that really knows what the dream means. However, the therapist does assume that dream elements are projections on the part of the client.

These projections are such that every aspect of the dream (people, places, objects, etc.) are a part of the client's self; specifically they are parts that have been alienated from his/her self-image. The Gestalt integration technique aims, therefore, at having all alienated parts of self encounter one another in the conscious mind of the client so that he may then integrate these aspects into

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rotic methods of disavowing the recognition. For example, if he states that he is going to quit therapy, one or more group members are going to tell him the real reason that he is making this decision, or they might point out that the decision makes no real sense given that his problem remains unresolved. The individual desires to disavow the recognition associated with impasse because he fears that if he truly looks at his belief that the situation can't be changed and there is no way out, something very terrible and catastrophic will occur. This is his catastrophic expectation. Here Gestalt Therapy works to get the client to look at this catastrophic expectation and make a realistic assessment of the degree to which it is imagined rather than real. What the client finds when he does bring himself to evaluate his catastrophic expectations is that whatever behavior, feelings, or thoughts he has been denying can be felt without anything catastrophic occurring. Also, the group can help with the process by appreciating the efforts the client has made toward greater authenticity. In other words, the group can offer tremendous reinforcement for the individual's efforts to be authentic. 8) In the article "Acting Out versus A
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Approximate Word count = 4902
Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page)

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