Contemporary Gestalt Therapy Approach to Social Work Practice

Catalog description

This course will focus on learning to use the basic concepts of Gestalt Therapy, an evidence-based humanistic psychotherapy that intensely focuses on the client's experience of living in the world. Gestalt therapy theory, with its holistic, relational, and existential approach to working with clients at the interface of the person and environment, provides a multidimensional frame for clinical social work practice. Much of this course will be experiential, with a great deal of time spent on enhancing students' ability to track their clients' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in order to deepen their clinical work. Case examples will also be discussed utilizing Gestalt therapy's strength-based approach to working with all populations