Rogerian and Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt and Rogerian theory and application:

Rogers termed his work the person-centered approach to psychotherapy. His ideas evolved over time. For Rogers, this was an evolutionary process, driven by his work with clients. It is important to remember that Rogers represented a break with the traditional Freudians and Jungians; he is the first true psychotherapist, rather than medically trained psychiatrist. So, essentially he felt his way along into his theory and practice. What he learned was that his clients seemed to make more progress when he listened to them, rather than when he made interpretations of their experiences (Rogers, 1980).

Although RogersÆ attempted early to understand human behavior scientifically, he gradually moved more toward an applied science approach. His basic interest became working with people and helping them to grow. In his first important discussion of his philosophy, he set forth his beliefs about the nature of human being and human growth (Rogers, 1961). To him, it was clear that people went through a natural process of becoming themselves. It was an organic

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s (1973, p. 88) book that looks at the patient's feelings about a past experience. Perls asked the patient to return to that past experience in fantasy on two different occasions. He then interpreted the situation in terms of positive and negative cathexis. This is what he termed the shuttle technique devised to recover missing abstractions. In Rogers' case, the dialogue is likely to have been quite different. As noted above, he tended to be minimally interfering with the clientÆs exposition, so he probably would not have asked the leading questions that Perls asked, preferring simply to offer minimal encouragers. He probably would have used some restatement, such as in the third patient utterance. He might have restated that as: Therapist: So you were feeling very excited as your boss was passing you and you could feel your heart pounding. He might also have offered some reflection at the end of the retelling of the incident, or he might not have done so, believing that the client himself would have been able to make any important connections about the reasons for his feelings in the situation. Both emphasized authenticity as a major goal of the therapy. They were interested in helping people become their whole, authe
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Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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