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Predicting Benefit from a Gestalt Therapy Marathon

Workshop
a b
James Healy & E. Thomas Dowd
a
Tallahassee, Florida
b
Florida State University, Tallahassee
Version of record first published: 31 Jan 2008.

To cite this article: James Healy & E. Thomas Dowd (1981): Predicting Benefit from a Gestalt Therapy Marathon Workshop,
The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 6:2, 90-95

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 Predicting Benefit from a
Gestalt Therapy Marathon
Workshop
James Healy
E. Thomas Dowd

The authors use regression analysis to test the utility of the Per-
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sonal Orientation Inventory, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator,

and the Girona Affect Scale in predicting the outcomes of a
marathon Gestalt therapy workshop. The treatment, a marathon
Gestalt therapy workshop, generated significant predictive equa-
tions that use the Personal Orientation Inventory to predict gains
on the Cirona Affect Scale.

In the 1970s there were countless arti-
cles in counseling literature on the
“group.” Bednar and Lawlis (1971),
however, found most of this literature
to be nonexperimental and descriptive
in nature, often consisting merely of
statements of a particular therapist’s
experience or recommendations. They
called for more research directed to-
ward something more definitive than an
examination of groups as a unit, specif-
ically for research focused on statistics
relating to the individuals in groups.
Similarly, Blocher (1967) emphasized
that such questions as “which treat-
ments in the hands of which counselors
can offer what benefits to particular
clients” literally “cry out for answers”
(P.16).
Fagan and ‘Shepherd (1971) echoed
this need for an individual-differences
James Healy is in private practice in
Tallahassee, Florida. E . Thomas Dowd
is associate professor in Counseling
and Human Systems at Florida State
University, Tallahassee.
90
approach to group counseling research.
In particular, they suggested that more
research is needed to broaden the pres-
ent limits of Gestalt therapy.
Most of the current literature on Ges-
talt therapy has been devoted to pre-
sentations of techniques and case his-
tories. Smith (1976) stated that “Ges-
talt Therapists would rather ‘do it’ than
write about it,” and has suggested this
as an explanation for the relatively
small number of published research
studies in Gestalt therapy. In particu-
lar, there have been few studies dealing
with specific outcomes of Gestalt
therapy, and none predicting the kinds
of clients who might benefit from
marathon Gestalt therapy workshops.
Most of the outcome studies in Ges-
talt therapy have been conducted by
Foulds and his colleagues. His several
studies (Foulds, 1971) indicated that
individuals’ scores on the Personal
Orientation Inventory (POI, Shostrom,
1974) changed significantly in a positive
direction after ongoing Gestalt therapy
growth groups. Likewise, he reported
positive changes by individuals on the
Journolfi)r Speciolists in Group Work
 Girona Affect Scale (Girona, 1969)
after an ongoing Gestalt therapy growth
group. In a further study, he found in-
dividual changes on the Rotter Locus
of Control Scale towards greater inter-
nality subsequent to a weekly growth
group. There were no changes for con-
trol groups.
Guinan and Foulds (1970) investi-
gated the effects of a 48-hour weekend
marathon on levels of self-actualization
as measured by the Personal Orienta-
tion Inventory. They found significant
changes between the pretest and post-
test scores for 7 of 12 scales; for the
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control group there were no significant
changes.
Foulds, Girona, and Guinan (1970)
investigated the effects of a 24-hour
marathon Gestalt Therapy workshop
on the degree of affect that individuals
attach to themselves and others, as
measured by the Girona Affect Scale
(Girona, 1969). They found significant
changes for the treatment group, while
there were no changes for the control
group.
Foulds and Hannigan (1976) also
studied the effects of a 24-hour Gestalt
therapy marathon workshop on ex-
traversion and neuroticism, as mea-
sured by the Eysenck Personality Inven-
tory. A significant change towards
lower neuroticism scores was found
compared to a control group, but not in
extraversion-introversion.
These outcome studies suggest that
Gestalt therapy can be beneficial to
clients along several dimensions.
Foulds and Hannigan (1976) state that
prediction studies are now in order to
discover the kinds of clients who might
benefit from Gestalt therapy work-
shops. Accordingly, the present study
attempted to identify which clients
benefited from the therapeutic treat-
ment and then to determine if two per-
sonality inventories would have pre-
dicted this benefit. The inventories
Muy 1981
used were the Myers-Briggs Type Indi-
cator (Myers, 1962) and the Personal
Orientation Inventory. These were
selected because of their use in previ-
ous studies. The measures were also
selected on the basis of hypotheses
about the kinds of changes to be ex-
pected in Gestalt therapy.
METHOD
Participants
The participants were self-referred
general university students who had
applied for a weekend Gestalt therapy
workshop through the counseling cen-
ter at a large state university. Although
no screening of applicants was at-
tempted, they participated in an orien-
tation presession to discover how a
Gestalt therapy workshop would oper-
ate. Subsequently, 37 individuals (14
males and 23 females) chose to commit
themselves to the workshop. The age
range of the participants was 20 to 38.
Procedure
The presession consisted of the follow-
ing: a) leading the applicants through a
guided fantasy; b) explaining to the ap-
plicants how the therapist would oper-
ate during the workshops; and c) ask-
ing the applicants to verbalize their ex-
pectations of the benefit they wished to
gain from the workshop. If there was a
discrepancy between the agenda of the
therapist and the applicants, they were
asked to accept the former's agenda or
to withdraw.
The treatment was a 20-hour
weekend Gestalt marathon workshop
consisting of five 4-hour meetings over
the weekend, conducted as follows:
Friday, 7- 11 PM; Saturday, 9 AM- 1
PM, 2-6 PM, 7-11 PM; Sunday, 9
AM- I PM. Participants returned home
to sleep, but ate together during the
lunch and dinner breaks.
91
 The initial meeting of the marathon
focused on development of trust among
the participants, using water color
self-representation ("Blindfolded,
sculpt yourselfin wet clay"), sharing in
dyads one's hopes and fears for the
group, sharing first impressions, and so
forth. The Saturday sessions were de-
voted to individual "hot-seat" work or
the development of an inner group for
individuals interested in the floating hot
seat (Polster & Polster, 1973). The data
collected on Friday night were pro-
cessed as individual work or became
the starting point of some specific con-
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cern. All of the Sunday meeting time
was spent in focusing on unshared posi-
tive impressions of the participants.
The therapist had practiced Gestalt
therapy for five years and had trained
under some of the leading Gestalt
therapists.
Instruments
The personality measures selected for
the study were the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (Myers, 1962) and the Per-
sonal Orientation Inventory (POI)
(Shostrom, 1974). The measure of in-
terpersonal growth selected was the
Girona Affect Scale (Girona, 1969).
Participants completed the affect scale
four times: upon enrolling in the work-
shop, immediately before and after the
workshop, and about two weeks after
the workshop.
The Girona Affect Scale was con-
structed to measure attitudes toward
self and others, using a bipolar seman-
tic differential. The scale is composed
of 29 pairs of self-descriptive adjectives
that lie on a single 7-point dimension,
with one pole of each pair connoting a
favorable evaluation or positive feeling
toward self or others and the other pole
connoting an unfavorable evaluation or
negative feeling toward self or others.
The total score can range from 29 (un-
92
favorable) to 203 (highly favorable) on
each of the two dimensions: Affect
Scale - Self and Affect Scale-Ot hers.
Reliability was reported at .79 (Girona,
1969).
Design
The efficacy of the two personality in-
ventories as predictors of growth as de-
fined by the Girona Affect Scale was
tested by means of a stepwise back-
ward regression analysis (Nie, Hull,
Jenkins, Steinbrenner, & Bent, 1970).
RESULTS
Figures 1 and 2 present the results of
the regression analysis. It can be seen
that the Affect Scale-Self gain score
produced a significant prediction equa-
tion, using the POI-4 (Inner Dwected),
POI-7 (Feeling Reactivity), and POI-9
(Self-Regard). The regression equation
was:
"ASGS = (.5227-~, +
( - I. 54741~2=
(-2.3736).~, +
15.4052
Where: .v, = POI-4
.Vz = POI-7
.v:, = POI-9
"ASGS = Affect Scale-Self
gain score
and accounted for 53% of the variance.
The Affect Scale-Others gain score
also produced a significant prediction
equation, using the POI-3 (Inner Di-
rected). the POI-6 (Existentiality). and
the Affect Scale-Others, but that only
accounted for 42% of the variance.
The regression equation was:
''AOGS = (-.48421~, +
(-2.3023).\-2 +
(-.61031~3 +
154.5455
Jortmtr/fi)r. Spc,cicr/ists in Group Work
 Where: x1 = Affect Scale-
Others
xz = POI-6
x3 = POI-3
'AOGS = Affect Scale-
Others gain score
These results indicate that five of the
POI scales might have some use in pre-
dicting growth in a marathon Gestalt
group, as measured by the Girona Af-
fect Scale. These equations could eas-
ily be employed by practitioners in the
field, since the administration of only
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two instruments is required, the POI
and the Girona Affect Scale.
DISCUSSION
Two benefits can be seen as resulting
from this study: the presentation of a
methodology and the significance of the
relationship among the variables.
One of the purposes of this study was
t o present a methodology to the
psychotherapy field. No research was
found that attempted to predict benefit
from Gestalt therapy.
The regression equations generated
in this study basically suggest that the
higher a participant scored on the
Inner-Directed Scale and the lower the
same person scored on both the Feeling
Multiple R
Rs sm
Adjusted R Square
Standard Deviation
Variables in the Equation
Variable
POI-3 Inner Directed
POI-7 Feeling Reactivity
POI-9 Self Regard
Constant
Figure 1
Regression Analysis Equation Meet Scale-Self Gain Scores
May 1981
Reactivity and Self-Regard Scales, the
greater his or her gain on the Affect
Scale-Self instrument. Likewise, the
lower the participant's score on the
Existentiality and Inner-Directed
Scales, the greater the gain on the Af-
fect Scale-Others instrument. An indi-
vidual is more likely to evaluate self
more positively after the workshop if
he or she was more independent, not
sensitive to own feelings, and had
lower self-regard before the workshop.
Likewise, an individual is more likely
to evaluate others more positively after
the workshop if he or she was more
lacking in flexibility in application of
values and more dependent before the
workshop.
These results suggest that the partic-
ipants who were most lacking in self-
regard and sensitivity had the most
room to grow and, in fact, did grow the
most. The significance of the POI-3
scale with the Affect Scale-Self might
indicate that inner-directed individuals
are in a position to benefit more from a
Gestalt therapy marathon than other-
directed persons. The logic is self-
evident; what is interesting, however,
is why the other scales were not signifi-
cant parts of the prediction equation.
Rediction equations of some signifi-
cance were generated in this study, al-
though they are not suitable for applica-
.73 F = 12.33
.53 df = 3/33
.49 p <.MI
10.93
B
S227
- 1.5474
- 2.3736
15.4052
93
 Multiple R
R Square
Adjusted R Square
Standard Deviation
Variables in the Equation
Variable
Affect Scale-Others
POI-6 Existentiality
POL3 Inner Directed
Constant
Figure 2
Regression Analysis Equation Affect Scale- Others Gain Scores
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tion at this time. More research is
needed to demonstrate the utility of
these particular measures. Specifically,
the interpretation of the prediction
equation for the Affect Scale-Others is
problematical. Only 42% of the vari-
ance was accounted for by the three
highest variables. In addition, one of
the three highest variables was the Af-
fect Scale-Others, thus saying in effect
that the instrument predicts changes in
itself.
This study should, of course, be re-
plicated with more groups and with par-
ticipants drawn from a different popula-
tion. In particular, since there was only
one therapist (thus making it in some
ways a single-case study), the experi-
ment should be replicated with other
therapists. This is particularly impor-
tant since Gestalt therapy practitioners
tend to have highly individual styles. In
addition, the study should be replicated
with other psychotherapeutic ap-
proaches where attempts are made to
identify successful and unsuccessful
clients, and the measures that might
have predicted this.
IMPLICATIONS FOR
PRACTITIONERS
This study offers a simple methodology
that can be easily applied to clinical set-
94
.65 F = 7.90
.42 df = 3/33
.37 p<.oOl
12.95
B
- .4042
- 2.3023
- .6103
154.5455
tings. Practitioners can, with relatively
little difficulty, develop their own pre-
diction equation and use it in their prac-
tice. Such a methodology may greatly
increase the efficiency of the direct
service psychotherapist. A clinician
may be able not only to identify indi-
viduals who would most likely benefit
from Gestalt therapy, but also identify
possible casualties and refer them to
other therapists who may be more ef-
fective with them.
Also, therapists of orientations other
than Gestalt could develop their own
prediction equations. In this fashion,
not only could possible casualties be
identified, but differential therapeutic
treatments could be planned for dif-
ferent clients based on predicted gain.
Finally, agencies could develop a
series of predictors modeled on this re-
search to use their resources more effi-
ciently and effectively. This could ben-
efit the entire mental health delivery
system.
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Bergin & S. L. Garfield (Eds.), Handbook
of psychotherapy and behavior change.
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Journal for Specialists in Group Work
 Blocher, D. What can counseling offer
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Whiteley (Ed.), Research in counseling.
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Fagan, J., & Shepherd, I. L. Gesralt therapy
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Foulds, M. L. A review of personal research
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Foulds, M. L.; Girona, R.; & Guinan, J. F.
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