Contemporary psychoanalysis theory for gestalt-therapist.

About this course

This course helps to expand the work through an analytical understanding of moment-to-moment actions, which is a strength of gestalt therapy. The combination of analytical thinking with gestalt therapy helps anticipate the support the client may need in the next phase of the process. "Such an expanded perspective has broadened and enriched my work," says Lynn Jacobs.

It is no wonder, that when we think of self-psychology, the first one who comes to mind is H. Kohut. But another significant name in this course is Robert Stolorow - his ideas are connected with a "gestalt-like" awareness.

In this sense, Kohut transformed Freudian analysis into a more experimental form, which can be seen as a kind of distant relative to gestalt therapy.

Self-psychology and intersubjectivity theory influence gestalt therapy mainly in two areas. They reinforce and enrich our developmental perspective on psychopathology and therapy, and they enrich our understanding of contacting, its phenomenology, its psychic function, and its vicissitudes in the therapy process. Assimilating the newer psychoanalytic constructs may encourage a shift in emphases in gestalt therapy, moving us to focus on some of the less developed aspects of our theory.

We offer to refine the theory and practice of gestalt therapy in light of clinical and theoretical insights from self-psychology and intersubjectivity theory. These theories have stirred a great deal of controversy in the psychoanalytic community, and many practitioners claim that either one or both of the theories have revolutionized their approach to treatment. The theories challenge basic assumptions of psychoanalysis, and through these challenges, are moving psychoanalysis closer to humanism. Since gestalt therapy was born in part as a humanistic critique of psychoanalysis, insights from these theories offer a chance both to enrich our current clinical theory and to stretch our own concepts to take into account psychoanalytic perspectives that have emerged since the basic concepts of gestalt therapy theory were articulated.