to be dependent on others and have everything done for him. It is the self that provides excuses for irresponsible behavior.
2) Explain Perls' method of integrating Top and Underdog.
The essential method of integrating is encounter, in the conscious mind of the patient, of the various alienated aspects of self with one another. The method is perhaps best explained by example.
With respect to the foregoing, Perls provides an illustration of a psychotic client who stated that he dreamed he saw a young man walk into a library and proceed to shout, scream, and throw books around. The man was rebuked by an elderly, spinster librarian and responded by behaving in an erratic manner. The librarian then called the police.
The boy, Perls' noted, was the underdog or the voice of self that is attempting to escape responsibility for self and self's actions. The librarian and the police are Topdog because they are the one's enforcing societal dictates. Accordingly, to facilitate the conscious encounter between Top and Underdog, Perls told the patient to act out and experience the encounter between the boy and the librarian.
For a long while, the patient simply had the two parts fight one another. However, as he grew tired, the parts ceased hostilities and began to listen to one another and their explanations for why they were each behaving in certain ways. Through this single, prolonged encounter, the client came to recognize that his psychotic behavior was the way in which he tried to outwit the commanding, punitive, inner voice he had created for himself; in other words, it was Underdog's way of handling Topdog.
The client also came to understand that he was playing "crazy" because the crazy are not expected to listen, understand, or obey. As the client moved toward successful integration, he eventually came to fully see that he could behave in a spontaneous and freer manner and that he did not need the defense...