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APA Psychotherapy Training Videos are intended solely for educational purposes for mental health professionals. Viewers are expected to treat confidential material found herein according to strict professional guidelines. Unauthorized viewing is prohibited.
In Gestalt Therapy, Dr. Gordon Wheeler discusses and demonstrates the underlying theory of this therapeutic approach: The growth occurs through new awareness brought to bear on old habits of self-organization and through supported experiments in new ways of organizing meaning-making and behavior. In Dr. Wheeler's demonstration of Gestalt therapy, the client attempts to gain a model for understanding how she views the meaning of her experiences, or more accurately, how she constructs the meaning of her experiences through the lens of her specific viewpoint.
The Gestalt system of therapy is based on a model for understanding how we as human beings put our experiences together. This view is founded on the idea that our experience—or our understanding of our experience—is not given to us as a complete whole. Instead, each individual constructs his or her understanding of life as he or she lives it, piece by piece. In this sense, Gestalt therapy's viewpoint is similar to constructivist therapy. Through this process of constructing experience, people develop a deep-rooted pattern of how they "make contact" with the world. The primary goal of the Gestalt therapist is to understand how a client makes contact with the world.
Gordon Wheeler, PhD, is president and CEO of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. He is a licensed psychologist with a long experience in clinical practice, teaching, and extensive organizational consultation to nonprofits, with a concentration on mission development and strategic planning.
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