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A case illustration of resistance from a gestalt‐experiential perspective
Author(s) -
Engle David,
Holiman Marjorie
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.1138
Subject(s) - resistance (ecology) , psychology , session (web analytics) , psychotherapist , gestalt therapy , gestalt psychology , experiential learning , perspective (graphical) , presentation (obstetrics) , coping (psychology) , psychological intervention , social psychology , perception , psychiatry , pedagogy , medicine , ecology , radiology , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , world wide web , computer science , biology
The case of Victoria illustrates psychotherapy with a woman faced with a difficult and unexpected divorce. The authors present a summary of typical struggles faced by Victoria through three phases of therapy. The therapy focused initially on coping with the divorce, then moved to work on her career dissatisfaction, and finally to her efforts to develop a new relationship. The case presentation illustrates resistance as it manifested itself in both a behavioral manner and as in‐session resistance to awareness of internal states. The behavioral mode of resistance is manifested by her inability to follow through on decisions made in therapy sessions and by her interruptions of ongoing therapy. A transcript of a typical in‐session exchange illustrates the resistance to awareness. The authors also describe interventions intended to work with the resistance. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Clin Psychol/In Session 58: 151–156, 2002.