Gestalt psychotherapy

Gestalt therapy is an existential, phenomenological and process-based approach, founded on the principle that:

People must be understood in the context of their ongoing relationship with their environment

Fritz Perls believed that clients must grow up, stand on their own two feet and deal with the problems of their lives themselves.

Perls’s style of therapy

Perls had two aims in therapy: moving the client from environmental support towards self-support, and reintegrating the disowned parts of their personality.

In Gestalt, maladjustment rests on two principles:

1. Body and mind are inseparable.

2. The person and the environment form an organismic unity.

In Perls’s view, neurosis comes down to three main issues:

1. The growth and development of aggression

2. Self-preservation and the search for balance

3. The interaction of person and environment

The Gestalt theory of change holds that the harder we try to become who we are not, the more we stay the same. It matters that clients be as fully as possible what they are now, rather than trying to become who they “should be”. Rather than relying on change directed by the therapist, Gestalt therapists focus on creating conditions that help the client grow (Yontef, 2005).

Key concepts in Gestalt therapy:

The here and now

Organismic self-regulation

Responsibility

Polarities and polarisation

Holism

Therapeutic goals:

Although Gestalt therapists do not stress predetermined goals for their clients, they do attend to one particular goal: helping the client gain greater awareness, and with it greater choice. Awareness includes knowing the environment, knowing oneself, accepting oneself, and being able to make contact.

Six elements of method are vital in Gestalt therapy: 1) the continuum of experience, 2) the present moment, 3) the paradoxical theory of change, 4) experiment, 5) authentic encounter, 6) process-oriented diagnosis.

For those interested in this approach, Moeen Counselling Centre plans to run workshops and specialist Gestalt therapist training courses taught by Dr Amir Askari. To hear when workshops are held, join our network.