Person-Centered, Existential, and Gestalt Therapies
Carl Rogers discovered person- centered therapy in 1930. He held the belief that a patient should be seen as a client. His theory asserted that the client and the therapist were on the same level unlike before where a therapist was given an upper hand. This theory also held a different view from Freud’s theory in that, it asserts individuals behaviors are motivated by the urge to attain high potential and the good in them. Rollo May and Victor Frankl introduced existential therapy. This theory attempts to explain why human beings exist. It mainly focuses on issues such as death and love and their meanings in the life of individuals. Gestalt therapy is the only form of therapy that maximizes individuals’ awareness of their feelings in an intellectual way than the traditional ways of administering therapy. The idea behind this form of therapy is that individuals at one time were forced to suppress their feelings because others rejected them. In the discussion that will follow, the focus will be on comparing and contrasting the above-described types of therapies in terms of the role of client and therapist, goals of therapy, and types of counseling techniques employed.
Firstly, in person-centered therapy, the therapist has a number of roles that he is supposed to play. One of the roles revolves around improving an individual’s self-esteem and instills the ability to trust one’s self. The therapist can also have a role of reducing panic and anxiety of the client. Additionally, the therapist can assume the role of helping the patient to express opinions and feelings in a comfortable manner. The therapist is anticipated to view the client from the client’s view. It is also expected that the therapist be in a position that would enable him to know the client’s feelings. In the person-centered therapy, the client also has a number of roles that he is expected to play. Firstly, the client should be very open to the therapist in order to develop a good relationship between them. The client should volunteer any details thought to be helpful to the therapist (Henssonow et al, 2010).
Overtime, person centered therapy has accommodated another method through which the client interact with the therapist and this has helped to deal with other forms of psychological disorders. These disorders include panic disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and phobias. For the simple fact that this form of therapy aims at improving self-awareness and self-esteem, it helps in dealing with relationship difficulties, and personality disorders. The client has a big role of attaining the skills to face and overcome difficulties. On the other hand, the therapist has equally a big task of ensuring that the client has attained personal development in a positive manner. In sort, the role of the therapist is to establish therapeutic relationship and to be a facilitator (Henssonow et al, 2010).
On the other hand, in existential therapy, the client and the therapist have several roles as discussed below. The central role of the therapist in this type of therapy is to make the clients see how they have given other people a chance to make decisions for them. On the other hand, clients have roles of understanding that the manner in which they are living and whatever they become in life is their own choice and that they should take the responsibility of directing their lives. Additionally, a therapist in existential therapy has a big responsibility of making individuals realize that they have to give up some circumstances in order to start shaping their lives by exploring opportunities that would make their lives meaningful. The therapist should encourage the client to make informed steps towards independence. One of the major roles of a client is to accept that they are not special in any way and that their present circumstance is coincidental and has nothing to do with either destiny or fate (McBrewster, 2009).
The main goal behind gestalt therapy is to help the client to become creative and to free himself from unfinished tasks or blocks that may hinder fulfillment, growth, and satisfaction. The major role of the therapist is to enable the client to establish new methods of dealing with the present circumstance. The client has a role of being cooperative in order to develop a good relationship with the therapist. A gestalt therapist has a role of assisting a client to concentrate on the experience of the environment he or she is living in. this form of therapy is different from the above two because the client is convinced to expose the feelings inside. Communication between the client and therapist is vital and in the entire therapy, the therapist assists the client to learn their emotional and physical responses. In the light of this form of therapy, the therapist does not have to offer any solution but to allow the client a room to do things on his or her own (Mann, 2010).
While administering each of the above discussed therapies, there are goals that are supposed to be achieved in each case. Firstly, person centered therapy has an objective of helping the client to come up with their own solution of the problems facings them. Although this form of therapy has been criticized, it has been proved as very effective. The goal of existential therapy is to give courage to clients in order to reflect on their life, identify the many alternatives, and make a choice from them. The objective is to help individuals realize the ways they can follow to shape their lives. Gestalt therapy has a goal of emphasizing the need for the clients to have independence to become in charge of their personal developments. It aims at creating confidence in clients thus becoming dependent on their own.
Each of the three types of therapies assumes diverse techniques in their application. For instance, gestalt therapy uses open chair technique. This is a technique where the client sits facing an empty seat and then assumes that the person who has caused them problem is sitting right there looking at them. The client then expresses his or her feeling to the person sitting. In some cases, the client can be advised to answer her own accusations from the perpetrator’s perspective. The person-centered therapy employs talk-psychotherapy technique although it has faced widespread criticism for lack being unstructured. However, this technique has been very effective with this type of technique. Existential therapy employs four dimensions as its technique. These include social dimension, physical dimension, spiritual, and psychological dimension. Through the application of these dimensions, an individual is assisted to develop from all perspectives.
The three types of therapies namely person-centered, existential and gestalt are very helpful to individuals in overcoming some difficulties that may be facing them in their lives. While person-centered therapy asserts that individuals’ behaviors are motivated by the urge to attain high potential and the good in them, existential therapy attempts to explain why human beings exist. On the other hand, gestalt therapy strives to make individuals autonomous in order for them to make decisions on their own (Henssonow et al, 2010).
References:
Henssonow, S. et al (2010). Person-Centered Therapy.
Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Mller AG & Co. Kg
Mann, D. (2010). Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques100 Key Points.
NY: Taylor & Francis
McBrewster, J. (2009). Existential Therapy. NY: Alphascript Publishing
