Learn Gestalt

Gestalt therapy has long roots. One of the first existentialists can be said to be Soren Kierkegaard (early 19th Century), who proposed the moral responsibility of choice, and the inescapable significance of subjectivity in the larger ethical questions of life. After him there were a succession of other philosophers in the 19th century - Nietzsche, Brentano and Husserl, who echoed and refined those ideas. Out of the work of Edmund Husserl, phenomenology was born as a discipline; this subsequently influenced Freud amongst others, but it came to fruition as a therapy in Gestalt.

Gestalt also draws on the work of Martin Buber, who proposed the ‘I-thou’ relationship, a more horizontal mode which is adopted in Gestalt therapy. The work of Moreno, and psychodrama, is the original basis of the Gestalt experiment.

The Gestalt orientation towards holism was derived firstly from the work of Jan Smuts, previous president of South Africa, and then the work of Kurt Lewin, and Field Theory.

Although other therapies may refer to authenticity, Gestalt was one of the first to allow and encourage therapists to speak their mind and heart directly. Fritz was famous for his brashness.

Gestalt can be classed as an existential therapy. There are currently a number of schools of existential psychotherapy, but Gestalt was one of the first to apply existentialism in a positive and practical way in therapy.

Gestalt is a relational therapy; this term is claimed by many contemporary therapists. However, the Gestalt form of this is quite radical, involving a high degree of therapist transparency, vulnerability, and admission of one’s own struggles.

Gestalt is a very creative therapy, involving not just ‘talking about’ issues, but bringing them into the therapy room, into the here and now, and supporting the client to have their own discoveries through an experiential learning process.

Gestalt is a truly holistic therapy, being interested not only in the individual, but also their field – their multiple levels of context, and their experience and behaviour in all domains – somatic, sensory, interpersonal, food, exercise, etc.

Gestalt is non analytical and non diagnostic. It operates by investigating a person’s subjective experience, without needing to use abstract models to make sense or explain this.

Gestalt therapy is based on the idea that we have ‘unfinished business’, which bubbles to the surface once we bring open awareness into the present.

This unfinished business from the past can then be completed, generally through some kind of Gestalt experiment – a creative way of synthesising needs and feelings in a present-centred action. The result is a felt shift, not simply cognitive awareness.

Such shifts can also occur through somatic awareness, working with body symptoms and experience; it can also occur through a deeper level of relational connection which is found through the therapist revealing their own humaness.

Fritz Perls originated Gestalt therapy, along with his wife, Laura. Their journey took them through psychoanalysis, the creative arts, Gestalt psychology and German philosophy. Their thinking evolved firstly in South Africa in the 1930’s and 40’s, then in the US from the 1950’s where they found a circle of other thinkers and radicals such as Paul Goodman. Gestalt therapy emerged from this process, with the publication of the book in 1951, then the establishment of training in this new form of therapy. Fritz particularly popularised it at Esalen in the 1960’s, and key students took it from there.

Taoism is hard to pin down. Its not a creed, a religion, or a dogma. Its about flowing with life and situations, being in balance, and working with both fullness and emptiness. This language itself is not prescriptive, but more allowing. Gestalt therapy works with what is - described as the ‘Creative Void’ - which is very much akin to what in Taoism is called Wu Wei: doing / not-doing.

Gestalt translates these seemingly abstract concepts into the practical language of therapy. Its relation to a Taoist approach is expressed in the lack of a goal focus of the therapy, and the lack of pushing ‘resistance’. This allows a Gestalt approach to take a more subtle approach to change, allowing for a more organic internal movement, rather than one which is pushed or engineered.

Originally Gestalt was practiced in a dramatic and confrontative manner, especially following in the footsteps of the style of Fritz Perls. This was colourful, and at times produced fast change.

However, over the last 50 years Gestalt therapy has evolved to incorporate more elements of support, more sensitivity towards a client’s shame, and less heavy insistance on individual responsibility. Although this is still in the ground of Gestalt, a person’s lack of responsibility is framed more now by their field context, but what are known as ‘creative adjustments’, and through a relational and co-created lens.

Gestalt can be applied in many domains, including therapy, education, business and management, consulting, children, couples and families, and creative pursuits.

Gestalt therapy can be applied as an adjunct to mental health conditions, as well as in working with addictions.

Gestalt today is becoming more popular than ever, as it provides a rich tapestry of ground for a therapist to draw on. It is practiced in a very relational form, so generally softer in character from the encounter-style of the 1960’s. Gestalt does not have a developmental theory, but it has be integrated with current knowledge of attachment theory and working with trauma. Gestalt today balances support and challenge, according to the needs of each client, at each stage of their development.

The term ‘evidence based practice’ is bandied about currently, to try to discredit less technical modalities, such as the humanistic style of Gestalt therapy.

This has been part of the success of CBT, which is taught in most academic contexts as it is suggested to be proved effective for many psychological issues.

However, looking at the meta studies of therapy across the board, the most effective aspect has been consistently shown to derive from the quality of the therapeutic alliance. More than the particular theory or practice, it is the relationship which makes therapy effective.

Gestalt has always emphasised the therapeutic relationship, and provides a very solid ground for developing and deepending this relationship. Through the practice of the I-Thou approach, relational depth is achieved relatively rapidly, and thus the trust of the client is elicited, allowing for effective therapy.

Gestalt and CBT share a behavioural element. Both are less drive by theory, and more by doing. CBT however tends to be goal focused, measuring itself according to identified targeted outcomes. Gestalt is more existential, staying with the ‘what is’, and allowing change to emerge organically out of that awareness.

Gestalt is in fact an existential psychotherapy. It holds the same roots in common, and shares a phenomenological approach, privilidging the clients experience.

The difference is that Gestalt also incorporates other elements such as the Gestalt experiment, and engagement in a a dialogical exploration, not just a facilitative approach. Gestalt is perhaps a little less explicitly philosophical than some practice of existential therapy, and does not necessarily focus on existential themes (unless they naturally occur), such as meaningless or death.

Gestalt therapy also works with the body, perhaps more than an existential therapist might.

Gestalt and client centred therapy were developed around the same time – the 1940’s. The famous filmed sessions with Gloria were done with Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls and Albert Ellis. Rogers was gentle and focused on connection. Fritz was brash and unconventional. Ellis was, well, rational.

Rogers provided a warm and supportive therapy. Gestalt was not based on warmth, consideration, or tolerance. They may be fine qualities, in certain situations, but in client centred therapy they become shoulds. Whereas Gestalt therapy is more free flowing, less prescriptive, and more open to the nature of what forms in the moment. Relationship is more ‘real’, as the personhood of the therapist is included, unlike Rogerian therapy where the therapist is simply a supportive and facilitative presence.

Most therapies are in some way derived originally from psychoanalysis; Fritz and Laura Perls were firstly analysts. Fritz’s first book was subtitled as a departure from psychoanalysis, taking certain notions and expanding them, or moving them in different directions.

Gestalt therapy emphasises personal responsibility, helps clients focus on the present, and works with awareness, attitudes, feelings and perceptions, rather than interpretations.

Psychoanalysis explores unconscious feelings, thoughts, and the impact of the past on the present. It involves analysis, whereas Gestalt is phenomenological, which means there is no analysis at all – the client’s experiences are explored in their own terms, rather than in reference to theories of human development or human nature.

Both psychodynamic and Gestalt therapy attends to the relationship between client and therapist. In psychoanalysis, the relationship is compared to previous relationships (transference), whereas in Gestalt, the relationship is explored in the present, and considered as a ‘real’ relationship.

The Gestalt psychologists of the late 19th Century proposed an alternative view to the mechanistic, objectivist and analytical science of the day. They suggested, and investigated, human experience and perception as a wholistic matter.

Pioneers include Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka and Kurt Lewin, all of whom were primarily researchers. They were contemporaries of Freud, and attended many of the same lectures by teachers that Freud also learned from.

Gestalt therapy was adapted from these principles, starting in the 1940s, developed in the 1950’s, and popularised in the 1960’s. Gestalt psychology is theoretical, concerned with perception, and is applied to learning and design. Gestalt therapy is concerned with human growth and development and has been applied in areas such as education, management, art, and organisations.

Trauma has become a major source of interest in the world of psychotherapy. The Gestalt approach has been successfully applied to working with trauma for the last 50 years. Because Gestalt works in an embodied way, the talking component is always interwoven with action and new experiences through the Gestalt experiment. Many of the approaches for dealing with trauma, such as Peter Levine, or Somatic Experiencing, are basic extensions of the Gestalt approach to awareness, bringing experience into the present and providing a holding relationship.

Gestalt helps to experience repressed, ambivalent, and unpleasant things in order to achieve integration into a whole self. The split or disowned elements the self need to be uncovered, which is a process that often is opened up by dreams.

Instead of interpreting dreams, Perls outlines a different approach – ‘In Gestalt therapy we don’t interpret dreams. We do something much more interesting with them. Instead of analyzing and further cutting up the dream, we want to bring it back to life”.

This is done by stepping into the dream, owning the various parts (understood as projections of self), and playing with or enacting these aspects.

Gestalt therapy focuses on how the child's maladaptive use of organismic functions impair their ability to be engaged with her world. Gestalt Play Therapy supports children to use their natural aggression toward making contact with their environment and others, rather than the dysfunction forms they have adopted.

Symptoms - behavioral, affective or interpersonal - which bring a child to therapy evidence a lack of integration and natural organismic self-regulation. Such symptoms reveal inner conflicts or fragmentation, contributing to an avoidance of contact and disturbances at the contact boundary.

Thus a child can become a rigid character, rather than an authentic, lively individual. Integration takes place slowly throughout the therapeutic process, helping the child become free of unfinished situations, examining core introjects, and support for assimilating new experiences within the self.

Gestalt Play Therapy asissits the child's energy to find its intended direction—in service of meeting ongoing developmental and growth needs.

The Equine Gestalt method helps clients bring to their awareness emotional blockages and unfinished business, focusing on the present moment, and connecting to body awareness and nature.

Together the horse and human coaches work to support the client to move forward in their lives, releasing pain and trauma that is holding them back. The horse is often referred to as the second Gestalt Coach. One role the horse plays is that of an ‘equidetector’, a term used by Melisa Pearce, to help identify what is authentic and what is not. Together the pair provides a therapeutic approach that allows the client to deeply process emotional healing through the experiential nature of Gestalt work.

PTSD tends to focus people on the past, resulting in experience flashbacks, sometimes leading to panic attacks or other distressing symptoms. Gestalt therapist grounds the client in the here and now or work.

PTSD can be understood as a special case of unfinished business. From a strategic point of view Gestalt therapy offers phenomenology and I-Thou dialogue as effective therapeutic approaches. From a tactical point of view, Gestalt therapy offers unique mechanisms for surfacing trauma-related conflicts from the past and solving them in the present. These mechanisms include attending to the here and now, body movements and non-verbal behavior, retelling the traumatic event as if they were happening in the present, the use of fantasy and visualisation, the creative enhancement of body language, empty chair work, graded experiments, and dramatic enactment.

A Gestalt therapist may bring their own experience of anxiety or depression into the conversation, deshaming the client’s issues. Anxiety is understood as the interruption of the excitement of growth.

Gestalt Therapy focuses on the whole field of experience of an individual, and their collective backdrop. It deals with experiences that are in awareness, and others that are disembodied but still held in their body as tension.

Attention is given to understanding the anxiety, how it arrived, what was the adjustment made in the person’s life to cause this adaptation, what has been taken away or given, and how it is felt in the body.

Some clients are lost in their narrative, so anxiety is processed by being in the Here and Now - walking back from being stuck in past experiences, and tuning into how we feel in the present moment.

The breath is employed to help regulate overwhelming feelings, and increase calm.

Clients autonomy is enlicited to break free from the circuit of patterns. This involves identifying patterns, observing how one becomes enmeshed, and then helping clients slowly own the part they play in continuing the circuit, finding a safe space for to ‘exit’.

The aware mind is awake, no longer asleep, and ready for action; or rather, compelled to act for its own benefit. The awareness of our issues, real limitations, life circumstances, and all the fixed unchangeable entities helps us to move from immobility towards activity. The driving force for this activity is a sense of agency that is created by feeling emboldened by one’s own choices, and thu experiencing autonomy.

Gestalt helps clients recognise what can and cannot be changed, with space for acceptance, and scope for foraging ahead to make new choices; the relationship with the environment moves from social support to self support.

Clients are helped to build their own toolbox of coping responses. With this repertoire, they can exercise a range of psychological techniques including caution, restraint and abundance, as needed; this is the the process of learning to work with ‘what is’.

Gestalt therapy defines depression as a process observed in the therapeutic relationship such that the client is experiences being unable to react flexibly to the present situation, and organises themselves in a rigid and stereotypical way, including a sense of hopelessness, powerlessness and insecurity.

Depression involves coping with emotions by withdrawing from contact with others (including the therapist), and by blocking experiencing and awareness. Gestalt therapist may diagnose, but the manner in which they do this is different. A Gestalt therapist works closely with clients in a collaborative manner utilising a relational approach in the the here-and-now. Moment by moment interactions are highly regarded with curiosity. Gestalt therapy views a person holistically and as more than a sum of their individual parts.

Gestalt provides a therapeutic relationship that is supportive and safe, allowing space for an clients to work through difficulties and obtain a better understanding of what they are going through.

Clients are viewed as distinctive individuals, with no two people experiencing depression in the same way, nor for the same reasons. The focus is on what it is like for them, as a unique human being experiencing depression, in their way. In Gestalt therapy depression doesn’t just rest in the person; depression rests in the situation that they have been through, that they are living now and that they’re carrying with them. All of this is explored in the therapy.

In Gestalt the therapeutic relationship is an core component in the treatment of depression. The Gestalt therapist confirms the client’s experience, normalises it and empathises. This builds trust and encourages a strong working alliance with the client. In this place of safety, the client can explore new coping skills and take risks. Sitting with a therapist may be the first opportunity a person with depression has to feel comfortable and safe enough to let another into their world, a place where shame doesn’t take over and prevent contact. To share the deepest, darkest thoughts and beliefs with someone and have it heard, understood and held, can be transforming and this makes a big difference to their recovery.

Space is made for the client to tell their story without judgment or advice on how to be different. Depression is isolating because it moves away from connection and takes people to a place of shame and insecurity. The client can learn to trust enough to allow another person in; breaking the cycle of depression includes connecting with others and self in meaningful ways.

Addiction is always more than a singular behaviour; it’s a result of underlying emotional, psychological and physical factors, including physical injuries, traumatic experiences, peer pressure, mental disorders, a history of addiction, poor health, and self medication. Gestalt therapy aims at growth and maturation, of the person as a whole individual. Gestalt emphasises existential responsibility and choicefulness, here-and-now awareness (mindfulness), and attention to internal and external triggers for patterns that contribute to addictive behaviours.

By attending to unfinished business, clients find closure and lessen the emotional burden that may be driving their addiction. Clients are encouraged to explore their choices and behaviours, empowering them to recognise agency in their life experiences, and supporting a shift from feeling helpless to being in control of their recovery journey.

Gestalt therapy often integrates creative expression techniques, such as art, experimentation, metaphor and guided imagery, all of which can be used to deal with addiction.

Gestalt therapy considers the whole person in their systems —mind, body, and spirit. This holistic approach aligns with addiction recovery’s multifaceted nature, addressing not only the physical dependence but also the emotional and psychological aspects.

Inner conflicts and fragmentation contribue to addiction; Gestalt therapy aids in integrating these fragments or parts by encouraging clients to communicate with different aspects of themselves, promoting a sense of unity and self-acceptance.

This site provides contact and addresses for Gestalt training around the world. We do not however have a register of Gestalt practitioners. You can either contact a Gestalt institute near you, or web searches will generally reveal Gestalt therapists in your area.