Elaboration of two duels with Gestalt therapy: the case of an elderly woman.

Abstract

The process of elaborating the mourning of an older adult woman in the process of therapy with an existential humanistic gestalt approach is analyzed, from the perspective of the stages of mourning proposed by Kübler-Ross (2006). The five stages of grief - denial, anger, negotiation, depression and acceptance - are part of the process of accepting the loss of a loved one that is experienced differently in some cases, since not all people go through it or not. They go through the stages in the same order. In the case analyzed, the therapeutic objective to address the loss of a spouse was reconsidered during psychotherapy. During the process, the elderly woman experienced a second grieving event when she found out that her partner had an extramarital relationship, for which she had to work two hours. duels with the same person. The approach through the stages of grief was effective in the psychotherapeutic process with a Gestalt approach, demonstrating its relevance to work on the emotions present in this psychological condition in a case of an older adult.