Humanistic approach: Existentialist, Person-Centered & Gestalt Therapy

This blog is part of the series for my reflections on studying different therapy theories. For any citing or quotation, please email nicoyu.w@gmail.com

If the existential theory is the wise-old-man, who has seen it all, done it all, and share his experience in the philosophical, and sometimes abstract ways, Person-centered therapy is everyone’s best friend — who always encourage, support, and believe in you before you believe in yourself. Both therapeutic approaches are less strategic, organized, or directional, but believing that every person can achieve their best version of self; the internal imbalance comes from the unmatched reality and their ideal version. Both therapeutic approaches suggest that the quality of the therapist-client relationship is key to successful therapy. However, these two theories also share a limitation: both theories emphasize less on technique and strategy. As a beginning therapist, I would imagine that these two approaches become challenging to apply in a real therapeutic session without years of experience in life and work.

On the other hand, Gestalt Therapy provides a similar philosophical background with more structured techniques. Gestalt Therapeutic approach holds the belief that clients know themselves the best, and therapists’ job is to provide the environment and guidance to increase clients’ self-awareness. Similar to Person-Centered therapy, Gestalt therapy also emphasize on the authentic self; the more authentic an individual is to his- or herself, the less stress or anxiety the individual would experience.

In other words, by increasing self-awareness and self-acceptance, therapists can help clients to face and solve their problems. This theory also emphasizes on assessing individuals in the holistic view, including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, interactions with environments (field theory and contact), body language, and dreams (Corey, 2017, p. 201). Resistance to Contacts is the phenomena Gestalt therapists describe the disturbance occurs when an individual interacts with the environment (Corey, 2017, p. 202), which is similar to the defense mechanism in Psychoanalytic theory.

My friends and colleagues always describe me as patient, empathetic, and non-judgemental, and the go-to person for any questions. When I exam the style of our conversations, many characteristics of humanistic therapy applied naturally: empathetic, holism (recent sickness, sleeping issue, or relationship with other people), and mild confrontations (“why not try this?” “what is your concern for not doing this?”); also, I rarely give any direction but encourage them to figure out answers by themselves. I agree with the fundamental idea that people can only achieve internal congruence by being more aware of the self and the present, and the idea that we are only victims of our own and change can only happen with self-acceptance. Also, by blending the confrontation and other techniques in Gestalt Therapy, it will overcome the limitation of too non-directional and lose focus in Person-Center Therapy for a new beginning therapist. However, when assessing multicultural clients, some methods in Gestalt Therapy have to be applied cautiously. For example, confrontation is not natural in some cultures and considered rude. To package the same question in the culturally acceptable way is one thing Gestalt Therapists should have in mind. The other example is the “It” talk. In some cultures, for instance, Taiwanese and Japanese, when a person uses too many “I” in a sentence are culturally disapproved; hence it will be awkward to force the patient from these cultural backgrounds to replace “It” to “I.”

To summarize, both existential and humanistic approaches are focused on the positivity and possibility of every individual naturally equipped. The role of the therapist is to assist clients in increasing self-awareness and self-acceptance, hence, to achieve their potential. Moreover, the holism concept in Gestalt Therapy closed the mind-body gap, which allows therapists and clients to see and understand themselves as a complete organism. Even with a few limitations, I firmly believe the humanistic approach is a good and positive method in counseling, which not only providing the tool for clients to follow but also empowers them.

References

Corey, G. (2017). /Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy: Student Manual (10th edition)./ Boston: Cengage Learning