1. Gestalt
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
Gestalt therapy requires extensive and specific training. It is much too specialized to be summarized adequately, but it is mentioned for several interesting premises that link it to anger management.
First, Gestalt reasons that the only proper focus of psychology is the “experiential present moment,” a perspective of living in the here and now. This is concordant with the efforts of anger management, which seeks to give the subject access only to the present moment instead of being in an emotionally reactive state according to patterns established in the past and distant past.
The second reason is that Gestalt maintains a premise that we are inextricably linked in an interaction with all living things. The correlation here with anger management is obvious, as anger management focuses exclusively on dismantling a particular type of reactive interactive behavior and focus on establishing new, healthy patterns of behavior that creates a healthier interaction with all things.
The idea of patterns and symbols is fundamental to Gestalt, which states that we view our lives through symbolic meanings and interpretations. These symbols need to be analyzed, reworked, and redefined in order for us to be free of the limitations of the older patterns we have adopted and accepted. It is no surprise that Gestalt Therapy, once relatively dormant, has enjoyed a resurgence of interest and activity as a potential anger management model and resource.
Obviously Gestalt is a type of cognizant approach, with behavior altered through the understanding, recognition and redefining of these symbols. It provides an interesting correlation to other approaches, in that the anger management client is rarely acting “in the moment” and/or specifically to the environment and situation in which he/she is erupting. Rather, some form of symbolic transfer is taking place in which the subject is acting to a perceived threat to survival The subject is suffering from some transference of association when insignificant or displaced events provoke the kind of rage exhibited by those with anger problems.