1.25 CE Credits Available
Psychotherapy with the Unmotivated Patient
by Erving Polster
This video depicts renowned therapist and teacher Erving Polster artfully and adeptly plying his trade with Gerald, the type of client we have all struggled with: bright, cynical, emotionally detached, overly-intellectual, and seemingly determined to defeat this therapist as he has previous ones. 
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Polster summarizes his approach: "Obvious therapeutic techniques will alienate him. Instead I'll try to stay in close contact with him, more like a savvy uncle than a therapist, meeting and matching him with sarcasm, humor, confrontation, and common sense. Everything I say will be as close to the truth and responsive to our interchanges as possible."

In numerous vignettes over the course of treatment, we watch Polster continuously engage Gerald in here-and-now interactions, matching wits, joining him with humor, and challenging his defenses with a delicate balance of confrontation and empathy. Erving and Miriam Polster provide illuminating commentary, sharing with the viewers mature wisdom garnered from a lifetime of practicing therapy and training thousands of therapists. It is hard to imagine any therapist who will not benefit from the viewing of this video.

What therapists are saying…

"Thanks for your super quick reply! I love that video. I think it's the best individual therapy demonstration I have seen."

 -- Nick Gazzola, PhD, Coordinator, Educational Counselling University of Ottawa, Canada
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To cut to the chase..we think this is possibly the best psychotherapy video ever made (and we've seen quite a few!).  Polster is in an elevated league of true master therapists, and this video captures his artistry.  If you can only buy one video, this is the one to get.

From watching this video, you will learn how to:
  • Engage unmotivated clients.
  • Transform clients' beliefs that change is impossible into authentic experiences of change.
  • Use in-session conflict as a therapeutic tool.
  • Increase your authenticity in sessions.
  • Help clients address different aspects of themselves.

Length of video: 1:21:00

English subtitles available

Individual ISBN-10 #: 1-60124-024-4

Individual ISBN-13 #: 978-1-60124-024-8

Group ISBN-10 #: 1-60124-027-9

Group ISBN-13 #: 978-1-60124-027-9

Erving Polster, PhD is the Director of The Gestalt Institute of San Diego, and the author of several important books, including Gestalt Therapy Integrated, Every Person's Life is Worth a Novel, and From the Radical Center: The Heart of Gestalt Therapy, as well as dozens of articles and chapters.

See all Erving Polster videos.



Erving Polster was compensated for his/her/their contribution. None of his/her/their books or additional offerings are required for any of the Psychotherapy.net content. Should such materials be references, it is as an additional resource.

Psychotherapy.net defines ineligible companies as those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no minimum financial threshold; individuals must disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies. We ask that all contributors disclose any and all financial relationships they have with any ineligible companies whether the individual views them as relevant to the education or not.

Additionally, there is no commercial support for this activity. None of the planners or any employee at Psychotherapy.net who has worked on this educational activity has relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies.

CE credits: 1.25

Learning Objectives:

  • Discuss ways to engage unmotivated clients
  • Explain how change is possible by challenging client beliefs
  • Describe how to use in-session conflict as a therapeutic tool

Bibliography available upon request

This course is offered for ASWB ACE credit for social workers. See complete list of CE approvals here

© 1997

Course Reviewed January 2025

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Psychotherapy.net offers trainings for cost but has no financial or other relationships to disclose.
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