3 modalities of psychotherapy and Gloria

I have been watching some Youtube videos of a lady called Gloria in the 1960s in psychotherapy with three well known psychotherapists of the age: Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls and Albert Ellis in three different types of therapy. Carl Rogers is closest to the type of therapy I have undergone, and is what I most identify with. Perls seems awful to me. I would be interested to find out what others on this site think.
Here are the 3 sessions:

yes i've seen these before. i agree with you; carl rogers seems to be the strongest therapist. if i had perls i would quit straight away.

Gloria therapy tapes are a classic didactic school material for therapists. They are perfect for demonstrating how different therapy modalities work. Since it was recorded for educational purposes in the first place, they present the ideal image of how different therapy methods should be used. So, the sessions are rather the ideal of what therapy with CBT, Gestalt and humanistic therapists "should" be like than the reflection of what therapy is really like But it's fun to watch.

I'm not sure that's possible, as she was a human being and at least one of the therapists positively hurt her. I really felt for her with Perls. I don't know what he demonstrated that was positive.

He was just demonstrating what gestalt therapy looks like- it can be confrontational in nature depending on the T. He's not necessarily showing positive or negative outcomes, just what this therapy looks like in practice. I think these videos are great for illustrative purposes, which is very helpful for a psych student learning about the different therapeutic orientations. I wouldn't use them as a basis for judging a particular type of therapy however. A different T using Rogers' style could be terrible. Or, a T with a different personal style than Perls could be very effective using the Gestalt approach.

As far as I know, most gestalt therapists of today aren't big fans of Perls' style, so they wouldn't agree that what he demonstrated is what gestalt therapy "should" be like. However, he did use many techniques that are used in that type of therapy, so it's educational in that sense.

He demonstrated it at the time the tape was being recorded. Whether the today's gestalt therapists agree or disagree with Perl's methods, the tape represents the history of the profession, and so yeah, one way or another it's educational.

I don't think modern gestalt therapists reject his concepts so much as his personal style, which I guess was was pretty theatrical.

I think in the clips they are exaggerating their techniques a bit for illustrative purposes. So they're actually kind of amusing but still great tools for teaching their theories. It's hard to visualize what each of these therapeutic approaches are like in practice until you see these clips.

Perls is ridiculous. For one, smiling when afraid is a common human fear response. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees bare their teeth when they are afraid, and so do we. A smile can indicate friendship and happiness, or it can be a gesture we use to placate or to inform a stranger that we are no threat.

To take someone who is smiling when she tells you that she is concerned about you and call her a 'phony' isn't just wildly unuseful, it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of human behaviour.

If there was a phony in that video, it was him. What a complete waste of oxygen. How many people did he break while fancying himself so perceptive?

How strange, I was just comparing these tapes for my course homework. Gloria had a tragic outcome after these videos were filmed, but it was interesting to see the person centred approach in action as this seems to be the modality of choice in the UK.

I've become quite hooked on Carl Rogers since I watched these videos. He's a really engaging writer and I've read a couple of his books. He seems to have a very warm persona; I would have liked him as a T I think.
Yeah, I read Gloria's life was quite short and that she never found the happiness she sought. I think she stayed in touch with Rogers though and they had a good relationship up until her death.

I read the book by Gloria's daughter, Living With the Gloria Films, which has a just a little information about the film and the daughter's speculation why her mother became involved. First, she was told they'd be strictly for training and had no idea the films would be available for general consumption.

I was struck though that Gloria sought help during a particularly difficult life transition, after a divorce when she found herself a single mother. The daughter describes a determined, intelligent, high spirited woman, who pulled herself up from waitress jobs, eventually becoming a nurse, who had a close relationship with her children and raised them well.

I too was struck by the richness of a person and life, in contrast to the the inferior and object I thought those lofty therapists treated her as in the film. She should have been giving them life lessons.

I watched these in my psychology class a number of years ago. I remember thinking Albert Ellis was awful! So rude to Gloria, he didn't even let her talk hardly at all. He just talked at her, like he was so great. How was he going to even learn how he could help her if he didn't let her talk? Really detested him and thought he treated Gloria with no respect and made a lot of assumptions about her. What was really strange was that after my class saw these 3 videos, the professor asked us who they would prefer to do therapy with, and 95% of the class raised their hand for Albert Ellis! I remember feeling like I must be some kind of alien since my impression was so different from the majority reaction. I don't know what my classmates saw in him.

Gloria thought it was Fritz Perls who treated her badly. A year later, she formed a lifelong friendship with Carl Rogers and his wife, calling them her spiritual parents and felt Albert Ellis helped her. She died of leukemia when she was still young, in her mid- to late-forties.

I chose REBT as my preferred therapy from watching the Gloria tapes and reading books by all three therapists. I liked both Rogers and Ellis and didn't like Fritz Perls at all. But if you remove his negative persona in later life and look at his contributions earlier, Gestalt therapy has a lot to offer, in the right hands, of course.

I don't regret choosing REBT. It helped me tremendously. I liked Albert Ellis' personality, humor, deft gentleness at vulnerable moments and kick in the rear momentum when that was needed. He was definitely confrontive, saying it wasn't his goal to make clients feel better in the moment, he was aiming to help them get better in the long run. Words to that effect. That's what I needed. I wanted to change my life in the long run, not make myself feel better for a short time. The most important thing REBT taught me was unconditional self, other and life acceptance. It's almost Buddhist in that aspect.

It is interesting that Gloria chose Perls out of the three, when he was doing things like calling her "a phony." His style is abrasive, but I agree with those who say this is not the essence of Gestalt, which can be a gentle, humanistic therapy just as much as Rogers person centered.

Rogers in his own way is infuriating, even though he seems like Mr. Rogers of the kids show. He refuses to give Gloria what she asks for just like old school psychoanalysis, which he was trained in and says that a therapist must avoid gratifying the patient's needs. If you watch it with that in mind, Rogers deflects Gloria almost every time she asks him for something, which would have a negative effect on many people and is now not considered a very helpful approach even in psychoanalytic circles.

Rogers did not break with psychoanalysis as much as he seems to think. In this tape, in its first version a section was cut out that reveals him doing what would be considered transference work/interpretation with Gloria, actively allowing her to project her feelings toward her father onto him and recognizing that as such. That part of the tape was missing for years and then reedited to be included along with a rather defensive sounding explanation of why that part of the encounter was not in fact transference. Me thinks thou doth protest too much!

Yes It is interesting that Gloria chose Perls. There is sometimes something beguiling and enticing about being insulted. Or is it masochistic?

According to her daughter's book, she initially liked Perls, whose style resembled her personal therapist, but in retrospect preferred Rogers. The daughter opined Ellis' talkativeness put viewers to sleep. Her book excerpted from Rogers' and Gloria's quite dear correspondence. The definitely made an argument that Gloria was a competent, loving, charming presence who never needed fixing by anyone.

About a year later, Gloria was the guest of honor when the videos were shown at a psychology convention. After the showing, she stood up and said something like, "Why did I let him do that to me?" She was referring to Fritz Perls. I think she may have been talked into the whole thing by her own Gestalt therapists -- does anyone know? Maybe in the moment it was misplaced loyalty to her T(s) but with time she saw it as bullying and not beneficial.

In other words, Gloria was actually like a lot of us.

Her daughter tells a story that (I think) immediately after taping, Perls made a gestures indicating Gloria cup her hand. Then Perls proceeds to flick a cigarette ash into it. A bona fide pig. I also believe Gloria hesitated to expose him with that incident.

Without finding it in the book, I believe you're correct, that her therapist who recruited her for the taping was Gestalt. Pamela said she "imagines" her daughter shrugging and saying "why not?" However, Gloria understood the films would be solely for a training, and was horrified to see them on PBS and even movie theaters. She tried to sue, unsuccessfully, since she had signed away her rights and the written agreement different from her verbal understanding of it.

In addition to her quite recent divorce, Gloria also had recently had left the church despite a strict upbringing. She had done something contradicting its tenets and was treated disdainfully. The daughter implies factors that brought her to therapy were situational.

The book is hard to find and is far more Gloria's overall biography than her behind-the-scenes experience with the film. The family mostly avoided the "Gloria chasers" as the daughter called them, unless there was a particularly interesting opportunity. If you can access a library database, as available through many town and school libraries, you can read: A Review of: “Pamela J. Burry's Living with “The Gloria Films”: A daughter's memory. The Humanistic Psychologist, vol 37, issue 3, 2009.