Cognitive Behavior Gestalt and Person Centered Therapy

Compare and Contrast Cognitive Behavior, Gestalt, and Person-Centered Therapy
The cognitive behavioral therapy mainly focuses on how a person's thoughts and perceptions will affect how they feel and behave. People are reactive beings that respond to a variety of external stimuli and people's behavior is normally a result of learning and conditioning. Many research studies have demonstrated that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most effective approach for numerous psychological problems including anxiety. CBT is based on the notion that learning and thinking will play roles when an individual's emotional and behavioral problems emerge (Ung, Selles, Small, & Storch, 2015). The main goal of CBT is to reduce the distress that the individual might suffer or suffers by unlearning the maladaptive habits, providing new information processing skills, and changing the maladaptive beliefs. CBT works on the premise that behavior is learned, which means that the same way an individual learned something it can be unlearned.
CBT treats problems and boosts the individual's happiness by modifying dysfunctional emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. CBT will focus on solutions, encouraging the client to challenge their distorted cognitions and modify destructive patterns of behavior. The therapy relationship is collaborative and goal-oriented. Therapy will focus on thoughts, assumptions, behaviors, and beliefs that are held by the client (Hofmann, Wu, & Boettcher, 2014). The overall aim of therapy is for the client to develop more realistic and rational perspectives that allow them to make healthier behavioral choices and for them to feel relief against negative emotional states.
The aim of Gestalt therapy is increasing the awareness of the client so that they are able to come to a resolution for the unfinished business and to integrate their thinking, feeling, and sensing processes. Gestalt therapy places emphasis on the present experience, direct awareness of emotions and actions, and the perception of the individual. Gestalt therapy is an existential, process-based, and phenomenological approach that was created on the assumption that individuals must always be understood in the context of their ongoing relationship with their environment. According to González-Ramírez et al. (2017) gestalt therapy can also be used to assist individuals with existential problems like conflict, sexual problems, separation, depression, unemployment, and loneliness. Therefore, it is not just limited to individuals who are suffering from psychosomatic or psychological difficulties. Gestalt therapy has been used in different situations like individual psychotherapy, family therapy, couple therapy, and group therapy. The emotional problems and frustrations experienced by individuals are mainly attributed to the individual's lack of understanding and recognition of their own feelings.
Gestalt therapy can be used to assist clients who have issues with anxiety, self-esteem, depression, and relationship difficulties. The best candidates for gestalt therapy are the ones who are willing to work on their self-awareness, but they find it hard to understand the role they play in their own discomfort and unhappiness. The aim is normally to build the client's self-awareness in order for them to better understand themselves and how the choices they make will affect their health and relationships. Once the client gains self-knowledge they are able to begin understanding how their physical and emotional selves are connected and they can develop more self-confidence for them to start living a fuller life.
Person-centered therapy makes use of a non-authoritative approach, which allows the client to take a leading role in discussions so that as the process continues they are able to discover their own solutions. The role of the therapist is to act like a compassionate facilitator who listens without judgment and acknowledges the client's experience without them moving the conversation in a different direction. The therapist encourages and supports the client and also guides the therapeutic process without any interference or interrupting the client's self-discovery process (MacLeod & Elliott, 2014). This approach empowers and motivates the client during the therapeutic process. Person-centered therapy understands that each individual has the capacity for personal growth and change. Clients tend to go out of touch with their self-actualizing tendency by introjecting the evaluations of others, which results in them treating them as if they are their own. Valuing the client allows them to learn to accept who they are and they can reconnect with their true selves.
The three therapy concepts focus on the conscious mind and they are mainly interested in what is happening in the present. The past is only used as a reference and it does not play a key role in the therapy process. All of them have a positive view of the human nature and they focus on the current issues and problems that the client might have. The client is never a product of their past experiences, but rather the concepts see the client as being able to determine their own futures. The concepts attempt to improve the well-being of the client by a collaborative therapeutic relationship that facilitates and enables for a healthy coping mechanism by the client. Cognitive behavioral therapy will see behavior as being learned whereas person-centered and gestalt therapy view is that the client has not managed to previously be self-actualized.
CBT is more respected in academia as compared to the other two concepts. CBT is highly structured whereas gestalt and person-centered therapy are very unstructured. Educating and informing the client is the main emphasis that is placed on the CBT approach and the theories that are behind it. However, gestalt therapy has a non-descriptive and philosophical approach. In person-centered therapy, the client does most of the talking and the therapist will not attempt to direct the client in a preferred way or line. CBT and gestalt therapy sessions will highly involve the therapist and they will continuously prod the client based on what the client says. Gestalt therapy will request the client to experience their feeling instead of just talking about them. In CBT, the client learns to identify the painful and upsetting thoughts they might have about current problems.


References
González-Ramírez, E., Carrillo-Montoya, T., García-Vega, M. L., Hart, C. E., Zavala-Norzagaray, A. A., & Ley-Quiñónez, C. P. (2017). Effectiveness of hypnosis therapy and Gestalt therapy as depression treatments. Clínica y Salud, 28(1), 33-37.
Hofmann, S. G., Wu, J. Q., & Boettcher, H. (2014). Effect of cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders on quality of life: a meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 82(3), 375.
MacLeod, R., & Elliott, R. (2014). Nondirective Person-centered therapy for social anxiety: a hermeneutic single-case efficacy design study of a good outcome case. Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 13(4), 294-311.
Ung, D., Selles, R., Small, B. J., & Storch, E. A. (2015). A systematic review and meta-analysis of cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety in youth with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 46(4), 533-547.