Application Assignment: Gestalt Therapy

When Helen reclaims her seat as Helen in the experiment, the therapist asks her to respond to her mother. What evidence do you see that would indicate that Helen has polarized thinking around her mother’s expectations of her? Helen feel anger, pain, fear, or hurt but never show it, she internalize her pain and kept it inside. The therapist asks her to respond to her mother Sara, the anger she feels for her mom. Helen respond to her mother by saying to her mother that she can’t stop being there for her Helen feels disconnected from her mother. When she goes back to her seat she tells her mother she wanted her to feel please about her Helen feels she was good and wanted acceptance. Helen wanted her mother to be please that she was good. Later in the clip, Helen discusses her relationship with her father. Consider the concept of contact in Gestalt therapy, and describe how Helen experiences her father. What defense mechanism might she be using to avoid this contact? Helen relationship with her father is that she feels that it is not fair that he was not there for her and her siblings Helen feels he didn’t make any sacrifices.

Helen feels that her father was never there to help her with her with the relationship she had with her mother because he was working all the time. I believe the defense she uses for her father is that he had to work so that is why he was not there for her and her siblings, Helen feels it is her father’s fault that her brother is mess up and she avoids being angry with her father with not being there for her brother and the family but she is really upset that he wasn’t there to save her from her mother. Helen feels she cannot tell her mother how angry she is at her, I think Helen might feel her mother took anger out on her because the father was not there all the time, Helen is angry with her father because he was not there but she uses in his defense that he had a big responsibility as a doctor but feels that even though he had a big responsibility as doctor that when he was home he should have been more a father in her life and siblings life. I think Helen is more made at her father and is taking this out on her mother, maybe she feels like the mother should have demand her father be there for the family.

I think Helen is reflecting anger towards her mother but she is really upset with her father, it seems like she is upset that her father has a good relationship with her siblings and the grandchildren when he wasn’t there for her and her siblings she feels he doesn’t deserve to have the good relationship with everyone when he wasn’t there when they was coming up in their childhood. Helen she feels the mother was there for her and her sibling but everyone thinks the mother is the one with the issues but she was the one that was there for them and the father wasn’t. I think she is having problems with the choice she chose to be angry with the mother but I think she is angry with the mother because she feels the mother should of made a better choice to make her father be in their lives more coming up but she seems like she is placing blame on her mother for her past when she is really is upset with her father. 7.2 Conceptualizing A Case using From a Gestalt Perspective (note that this is under Building Skills, not Assignments and Activities)

What need is not being met in Helen’s world?
Helen has a need to find out what happen in her past with her relationship with her mother. Helen feels she is at a crossroad with what is going on now in her life to what happen in her past with her mother. Helen’s main need she needs to be accepted and feel acceptance from her mother. Helen’s past is blocking her from feeling happy. Helen needs to clear her past so she can be happy in her life with her husband. I think maybe she is having problems with her husband because of the relationship she had with her father.

What evidence is there in this clip that demonstrates that Helen is experiencing polarization? What is Helen’s “top dog” saying? I believe Helen demonstrates polarization when she says she need to stop more unless feeling bad for help self and the therapist is trying to more unless manipulate Helen or make her into a therapeutic goal. I think Helen is experiencing polarization when the doctor tells her to be made at her internal mother instead of her present mother. I think Helen experience polarization when she says she figures out she needs to stop making she unhappy and that she is killing herself making she unhappy. Helen has put in her head that it was her husband, he is the blame for how she feels and I feel she is trying to do the same thing with her husband blaming him for her unhappiness. How do you see Helen avoiding taking responsibility for her own well-being? Whose beliefs and values has she internalized?

Helen is avoiding taking responsibility for her own well being by placing blame on her mother. Helen feel she has been blaming her husband for being the mess up one when really she was the one with the problems. I believe Helen tried to blame her husband her feeling bad in her life but really it was her, she internalize her parents was not all that bad that her father had a big responsibility as a doctor and her mother had a big responsibility of being the only one at home and taking on all the responsibility of being the only parent there for Helen and her siblings I believe Helen didn’t understand this but she started to get the big picture that it was not her mom’s fault for her being unhappy as child I believe Helen avoid taking responsibility for her own marriage and placing blame on her parents and her husband when it really was her and the way she felt inside which resulted from her childhood. I believe Helen is now being acceptance and having more taking on more self-responsibility, Helen now feels she move and grow and work toward her goals.

Helen has internalized the relationship between her mother and her when she was younger the doctor is using the Transactional Analysis and Gestalt Therapy to encourage Helen to bring the past into the present I think she is trying to change the path from decisions made at a young age, Helen is talking to her the younger Helen so she can be happier in the present. I think she might be having internalizing having a dysfunctional relationship with her husband because her mother had a dysfunctional relationship with her father. I think this is the final stage of Gestalt therapy the integration, the evolutionary process when Helen knows the opposing issues the issues or identified and Helen is conscious of what is really causing her to feel so unhappy. 7.3 Gestalt Therapeutic Process and Techniques

How does Dr. Oaklander forge a therapeutic alliance with Blake in this experiment? Dr. Oaklander is trying to get Blake to express who he is really angry with and speak honestly and reveal what appears to be difficult feelings he have been holding inside. The therapeutic alliance is when Dr. Oaklander asks Blake to use the clay to express how he feels and gives him an opportunity to talk about himself. Blake uses the clay to make a whale and says he feels comfortable in the water just as the whale, Blake feels safe in the water. Dr Oaklander tells Blake to hit the clay to get his anger out so he can express how he feeling. Dr Oaklander theory therapeutic process with the clay is for Blake to express his anger. In the video Blake admits he takes his anger out on his mother and he acknowledge and admits this on the video but he really is angry with his father who he says doesn’t spend a lot of time with him but Blake feels he can’t tell his dad how he feels because he fears of making matters and that his dad will not spend time with him he is comfortable with his mom because she makes him happy.

Which Gestalt techniques does Dr. Oaklander utilize through this experiment? Dr. Oaklander collaborates with Blake to develop a strategy to express his difficult emotions by play and art therapy to help children come to terms with their feelings, emotional needs, wounds and the challenges they face. Dr Oaklander has Blake use clay to represent him and how he is feeling; the clay represents his thoughts, opinions, with the clay he can show aspect of how he can strengthen himself. Dr. Oaklander is encouraging Blake to express how he feels about his dad and his anger but Blake can’t explain how he feels to his dad because he feels his dad will not spend time with him but he is comfortable show anger towards his mom because he knows she will be there for him regardless so Blake holds a lot of his anger inside. 7.4 Using Gestalt Therapy with Varied Populations

From a Gestalt perspective, the relationship is the client. What might be the figure, or focus, of the relationship? What might be preventing this figure from fading into the ground? A Gestalt includes both the formation and the destruction of the whole. As a need grows within a person, it comes to the foreground of attention-seeking resolution. The primary focus of attention is referred to as the figure, and all else in awareness is known as the ground. The figure or focus here is Blake’s father. In gestalt perspective the figure or focus of the relationship is Blake feels no one takes his serious so he holds his feelings inside.