Person-Centered, Gestalt, and Behavior Therapies

Person-Centered Therapy

Key Figure:

Carl Rogers

Key Concepts:

• How client's react in their world with others
• How client's can move forward in constructive directions
• How client's successfully deal with internal and external obstacles

Person-Centered Therapy Goal:

• To help client's with their growth process so they can better cope with problems as the client identifies them.

Techniques used in Person-Centered Therapy:

Therapist creates an environment that is conducive to self-exploration by:

1. Being congruent (genuine, integrated, and authentic)
2. Having unconditional positive regard and acceptance
3. Having accurate empathetic understanding

Gestalt Therapy

Key Figures:

Frederick ("Fritz") Perls and Laura Posner Perls

Key Concepts:

• Holism - the treating of the whole person, including mental and social factors
• Field Theory - examining patterns of interaction between the individual and the environment.
• Figure-Formation Process - examining how a client organizes experiences from moment to moment
• Organismic Self-Regulation - examining how mental stability is distributed by the rise of a need, a sensation, or an interest.

Gestalt Therapy Goal:

To raise clients' awareness regarding how they function in their environment

(with family, at work, school, friends).

Techniques used in Gestalt Therapy:

Experiments that involve exercises that elicit emotion, produce action, or achieve a specific goal.

Exercises include:

• The Internal Dialogue Exercise - Empty-chair Technique - used to promote a higher level of integration between the polarities and conflicts that exist in everyone.
• Making the Rounds - purpose is to confront, to risk, to disclose the self, to experiment with new behavior, and to grow and change
• The Reversal Exercise - used to help clients begin to accept certain personal attributes they have tried to deny.
• The Rehearsal Exercise - used to show clients the many preparatory means they use in bolstering their social roles.
• The Exaggeration Exercise - used to make clients more aware of the subtle signals and cues they are sending through body language.
• Staying With the Feeling - used to help clients face and overcome feelings that they would normally avoid.
• The Gestalt Approach to Dream Work - used to help clients become more aware of his or her range of feelings.  

Behavior Therapy

Key Figures:

B. F. Skinner

Albert Bandura

Arnold Lazarus

Key Concepts:

• Focus is on overt behavior, specifying goals of treatment, development of specific treatment plans, and evaluation of therapy outcomes.
• Therapy is based on principles of learning theory.
• Normal behavior is learned through reinforcement and imitation.

Behavior Therapy Goals:

• Help clients eliminate maladaptive behaviors. 
• Help clients learn more effective behaviors.
• To identify factors that influence behaviors.
• Help clients learn how to cope and deal with problematic behaviors.
• To encourage clients to take an active role in setting treatment goals and evaluating how well goals are being achieved.

Techniques used in Behavior Therapy:

• Applied Behavioral Analysis - Operant Conditioning Techniques: Positive and Negative Reinforcement - Positive and Negative Punishment
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation
• Systematic Desensitization
• Exposure Therapies
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
• Social Skills Training
• Self Management Programs and Self-Directed Behavior
• Multimodal Therapy: Clinical Behavior Therapy
• Mindfulness and Acceptance-Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy