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Re:Need some assistance
Philip Brownell · 02/10/04 at 12:58 ET
"Reflecting" is not really a Gestalt therapy term or idea as much as it is a client-centered, Rogerian one. What might come close is the phenomenological method. That consists of observation, bracketing, and description. One observes the whole person, not just listens to their words. They take in non-verbal behaviors. As they do this, some thoughts or theories come up, sometimes some of their own life distractions come to mind, and these things are bracketed, or set aside to attend to later. Then, the therapist describes what they observe in the company of the client. They just describe what the client is doing. This might be called reflecting by some, but reflecting in client-centered therapy often includes an empathic component (and, unfortunately, it is the kind of empathy in which the therapist interprets what they observe, giving it a feeling tone, and then putting that feeling tone back onto the client, telling them something like, "You're feeling -----.") Actually, there is no way to know what the experience of the client is, and that is why this differs from reflecting in the Rogerian sense. This is description of what is observed. Sometimes it includes the self-disclosure of the therapist, who shares what it's like for them to be in the presence of the client.
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