Intensification of defense
Definition
The patient may begin by stating a particular life problem that disturbs him; and if silent, he may be asked by the therapist to express his immediate awareness. However he begins, the focus is on his moment-to-moment "here and now" experience as much as possible; intensification and exaggeration of this experience is encouraged by a variety of exercises. Techniques could include:
Exaggeration Technique
Fritz Perls[1] used the Exaggeration Technique to assist the client in understanding his/her defenses.
The next stage of chairwork, writes Friedman[2] is to "encourage both the two sides to confront one another and to intensify the conflict. In other words, it aims to produce the "reenactment" of "unfinished business" which, according to Perls' theory, is essential to experiencing and assimilating unacknowledged feelings.
