Gestalt Therapy Course

Lesson 1 • Origins and Historical Development

Traces Gestalt therapy from its founders to its current form. Provides context for understanding why core principles emerged as reactions to prior models.

Lesson 2 • Core Philosophical Underpinnings

Examines existentialism, phenomenology, and field theory as the philosophical pillars of Gestalt therapy. Links abstract ideas to practical therapeutic stance.

Lesson 3 • Key Theoretical Concepts

Introduces figure-ground, contact, and awareness as foundational constructs. These concepts recur throughout all subsequent clinical chapters.

Lesson 1 • Therapist Presence and Self-Disclosure

Explores how therapists use their own experience as data within the session. Teaches calibrated self-disclosure that deepens contact without shifting focus.

Lesson 2 • Dialogue and the I-Thou Encounter

Defines genuine dialogue as mutual, present-centered contact between therapist and client. Establishes this as the foundation of therapeutic change in Gestalt.

Lesson 3 • Contact Functions and Styles

Examines how clients make and break contact through sensory, motor, and verbal channels. Builds observational skills for assessing contact quality.

Lesson 1 • The Awareness Continuum

Introduces the three zones of awareness: inner, outer, and middle. Teaches clients to distinguish sensation, perception, and thought in real time.

Lesson 2 • Expanding Awareness Through Language

Teaches language interventions that sharpen client awareness without interpretation. Focuses on 'what' and 'how' questions over 'why' questions.

Lesson 3 • Tracking Awareness in Session

Builds therapist skill in noticing shifts in client awareness moment to moment. Connects tracking to timely, precise intervention selection.

Lesson 1 • Introjection and Projection

Covers swallowing beliefs whole versus attributing inner experience to others. Builds skills for helping clients reclaim projected material and examine introjected rules.

Lesson 2 • Retroflection and Deflection

Addresses turning impulses back on oneself and redirecting contact away from the environment. Links these patterns to somatic symptoms and relational difficulties.

Lesson 3 • Egotism and Proflection

Explores self-monitoring that blocks spontaneous contact and doing to others what one wants done. Introduces less commonly taught disturbances for advanced diagnostic skill.

Lesson 1 • Designing Collaborative Experiments

Frames all Gestalt techniques as experiments co-created with clients rather than prescribed exercises. Teaches the spirit of inquiry over technique application.

Lesson 2 • The Empty Chair Technique

Teaches the two-chair and empty-chair dialogues for working with unfinished business and internal conflict. Covers setup, facilitation, and safe closure.

Lesson 3 • Enactment and Role Play

Guides clients to enact rather than describe significant experiences. Builds skills for directing enactments that generate new insight and behavioral options.

Lesson 4 • Exaggeration and Amplification

Uses deliberate amplification of gesture, posture, or voice to bring implicit experience into awareness. Connects amplification to the awareness continuum from Chapter 3.

Lesson 1 • Somatic Countertransference Awareness

Trains therapists to notice their own bodily responses as relational data. Extends the self-disclosure skills from Chapter 2 into the somatic domain.

Lesson 2 • Somatic Interventions and Experiments

Introduces body-focused experiments including movement, breath work, and physical expression. Connects somatic interventions to contact boundary work from Chapter 4.

Lesson 3 • The Body as Primary Data Source

Establishes the body as the ground from which all psychological experience emerges. Shifts students from cognitive to somatic attunement in clinical observation.

Lesson 1 • Treatment Planning and Goal Setting

Translates case conceptualization into collaborative, process-oriented treatment goals. Balances client-defined outcomes with Gestalt process objectives.

Lesson 2 • Writing a Gestalt Case Conceptualization

Provides a structured format for articulating client dynamics in Gestalt language. Produces a working document that guides session planning and supervision.

Lesson 3 • Gestalt-Informed Assessment Approach

Contrasts Gestalt assessment with diagnostic categorization, emphasizing process over symptom. Teaches observation of contact, awareness, and field conditions as assessment data.

Lesson 1 • Gestalt with Children and Adolescents

Modifies Gestalt techniques for developmental stages, using play, art, and movement as primary media. Addresses consent, parental involvement, and age-appropriate experiments.

Lesson 2 • Gestalt in Group Therapy Settings

Applies Gestalt principles to group dynamics, using the group field as therapeutic medium. Teaches facilitation of group contact, experiments, and interpersonal awareness.

Lesson 3 • Gestalt with Trauma Presentations

Adapts Gestalt experiments for clients with trauma histories, prioritizing stabilization and titrated exposure. Integrates trauma-informed principles with Gestalt contact theory.

Lesson 4 • Gestalt with Couples and Families

Extends contact boundary theory to relational systems, addressing confluence and projection between partners or family members. Teaches dyadic and systemic experiments.