What Is Gestalt Therapy, And How Can Gestalt Therapists Help Your Mental Health?
"Gestalt" is the German word for "shape" or "form," and in Gestalt psychology, it refers to the idea of an organized whole or shape seen as more than the sum of its parts. In turn, the Google dictionary defines gestalt therapy as "a psychotherapeutic approach (that) focuses on insight into gestalt in patients and their relations to the world, and often uses role-playing to aid the resolution of past conflicts."
What is the Gestalt therapy Fritz Perls developed?
Gestalt therapy was largely developed by Frederick S. Perls, MD, commonly known as Fritz, Lore Perls, Ph.D., and Paul Goodman, Ph.D. The following are the main principles that underlie gestalt theory and gestalt psychology.
Context affects experience
Therefore, a Gestalt therapist usually believes that they cannot fully understand you as a person unless it is in the context of your connections. According to the principles of gestalt therapy, you are seen and known in and through the bigger picture of your life and your unique experience of it.
Here and now
Gestalt therapists also understand that your context (or life) influences your life experiences. For this reason, gestalt therapy focuses mainly on your experiences, such as your feelings, emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations, as they are at the present moment. The process also focuses on how they are connected to your environment, family, past, etc. This is done through gestalt therapy techniques and exercises that can be performed one-on-one with a gestalt therapist or in a group.
Through the gestalt process, a therapist aims to guide you to become more aware of your immediate experiences, feelings, and emotions to help you become more self-aware. It’s one of the many potential benefits of gestalt therapy. There is usually no digging into the past, with in-depth mental analyses of traumatic events or such. The process's main aim is to show you how your perceptions, thoughts, and behaviors influence your life and mood and how erroneous perceptions can make you unhappy and affect your mental health.
Nobody is objective
Gestalt theory accepts that no person is completely objective, including the therapist, who is influenced by their own unique context, as their client is by theirs. In this form of psychotherapy, by accepting that your (the client's) experiences are true and valid for you, the therapist uses understanding, unconditional acceptance, and empathy to ensure positive therapeutic outcomes.
Nobody can be forced to change
Since Gestalt therapy accepts your experiences as valid and true for you, one of its most important characteristics is that therapists do not aim to change you. According to Gestalt theory, outer change can only take place if or when a person's inner environment has changed. This is accomplished through developing your awareness of your reality at the moment and taking personal responsibility for it.
Taking responsibility for your own life experience may feel daunting because a common response is to project our problems onto external causes and blame them. With gentle guidance from the therapist and gestalt therapy techniques, gaining self-awareness and taking ownership of experiences can be among the most empowering aspects of this form of Gestalt therapy.
Cycle of experience
In Gestalt therapy, the self is not usually seen as a fixed or static thing but rather as something perpetually changing and evolving. This evolution occurs in response to how you connect with your environment, family, past, etc. Gestalt theory illuminates these changes via a process it calls the “cycle of experience,” which Perls also referred to as the “organismic or world metabolism.”
This describes the instinctive process we all engage in to achieve inner balance and can be divided into the following constituents:
- Sensation
- Awareness
- Mobilization
- Contact
- Satisfaction
- Withdrawal
The most commonly used example to illustrate the cycle of experience is the act of eating. You feel hungry (sensation), you acknowledge the sensation (awareness), you find food (mobilization), you eat the food (contact), your hunger is gone and you feel satiated (satisfaction), and you are done with eating and don't think about it any longer (withdrawal).
Perls theorized that if the cycle of experience is disrupted or arrested through internal or outside influences, a person will always seek ways to heal the disruption or complete the cycle to satisfy the original need, and in this way, achieve balance or equilibrium. In practical terms, this can be demonstrated when someone continues to replay certain dramas in their life.
How is this disruption of the cycle of experience explained in psychological terms?
Let's suppose a young boy feels the need for closer contact with his mother. He reaches out to her and tries to hug her. For unknown reasons, the mother pushes him away and repeatedly rejects his bids for affection. Since the boy has no way of knowing why his mother repeatedly pushes him away (which could be as innocent as her having a cold and not wanting him to catch it), the boy perceives that she doesn't want physical contact with him.
Because he doesn't want to feel the pain of rejection again, the boy creates his reason for the rebuff, such as "There's something wrong with me; I'm not worthy of women's love" or "It is not OK to hug women."
The disruption that took place in the boy's cycle of experience was at the point of contact.
The reason why the mother refused to hug the boy is not usually a focus in gestalt therapy, but how he experienced or perceived the rebuff often is. This is because especially these early-life interruptions can remain with us throughout our lives and affect all our experiences. According to Gestalt theory, we unconsciously seek to mend or heal the interrupted process but most often only repeat the original trauma. This is due to the influence of the conceptions of “reasons” we created for ourselves, often referred to as “unfinished business” in gestalt therapy.
A gestalt therapist often uses this map, the cycle of experience, to determine where and how the process has been disrupted. This can provide information for diagnosis and suggest which type of therapy and treatment plan to follow.
Techniques used by Gestalt therapists
Gestalt theory tends to use exercises and techniques to elicit a response from the client or “make something happen” in the therapeutic situation to raise self-awareness. To this end, a therapist may use any number of exercises or techniques.
Experiments
Experiments as an exercise may involve role-playing, enactment, homework, etc. For example, a person who feels very shy and awkward on romantic dates may be given the experimental task of starting a conversation with a date. Simply thinking about what to say is likely to promote self-awareness and give the person more confidence in dating situations.
Empty chair
The Empty Chair method is probably one of the best-known techniques used in Gestalt therapy. The empty chair technique aims to facilitate dialogue between you and others or between different parts of your personality. The therapist places two chairs facing each other. One empty chair represents you or your personality, and the other represents somebody else or an opposing part of your personality. You may be guided to alternate roles and swap chairs as you do so.
The therapist's role during the empty chair technique is sometimes to observe as the dialogue develops, or they may suggest sentences to say or tell you when to change chairs. They may also call your attention to what you say or ask you to exaggerate certain words or actions. The purpose is to elicit emotional responses or conflicts so that these can be resolved.
Topdog/underdog
A therapist may use this technique when they notice two opposing opinions or attitudes in you. The idea is that you distinguish between these parts and take on the role of each in a dialogue. Your inner tyrant, the Top Dog, will likely struggle for control with the Disobedient Child, the Underdog.
Bodytalk
According to Gestalt theory, because it’s not only your thoughts and emotions but also your body that’s important to evoke a sense of wholeness, gestalt therapy focuses on guiding you through using your body as a vehicle for communication. The therapist may ask, for instance, where you “feel” the emotions in your body. An answer might be “tightness in my chest” or “pain in my abdomen.” This, again, may bring you closer to self-awareness.
Exaggeration of a habitual, mostly unconscious movement, such as drumming your fingers on your leg or pulling on your hair, may help identify the emotions related to the movement and give valuable insight into a stressor or trigger.
Other techniques
Other techniques used in gestalt therapy include the empowering use of language by the therapist, dream analysis, fantasy or guided imagery, and confrontation or the act of inducing frustration.
Talk to an online Gestalt therapist to improve your mental health
If you’re interested in trying gestalt therapy but feel hesitant to go to a therapist’s office, you might try online therapy, which studies have shown to be just as effective as traditional in-person therapy. With Regain, you can talk to a Gestalt therapist from the comfort of your own home or anywhere with an internet connection. You can also get access to therapists specializing in other types of therapy, including cognitive therapy, family therapy, gestalt therapy, and others. You can connect with a therapist via audio or video chat, in addition to contacting them in between sessions via in-app messaging.
Takeaway
Gestalt therapy can be a valuable tool to help you accept and gain insight about yourself. If you have mental health concerns unrelated to gestalt, it can be important to reach out to your healthcare professional for medical advice, treatment advice, diagnosis, and more. If you’d like to try this therapeutic method, you can be matched with a Regain therapist with training and experience in gestalt therapy. Whatever you’re going through, you don’t have to face it alone. Take the first step and reach out to Regain.
Frequently asked questions
What is the main goal of Gestalt therapy?
Gestalt therapy can serve as a useful integrative healing approach. Generally, Gestalt therapists assist people in concentrating on their present thoughts, behavior, and feelings and comprehending how they interact with others. The enhanced awareness generated by this existential therapy can afford individuals an opportunity to find a novel perception, visualize the broader scene, and implement changes.
One of the main objectives of Gestalt therapy is to produce improved self-awareness through the use of psychological exercises. Gestalt treatment was designed by notable psychoanalysts, namely Paul Goodman, Laura Perls, and Fritz Perls. These professionals saw the therapy as experimental and behavioral therapy, which was initially developed as an everyday psychoanalysis option. Gestalt practitioners tend to use experiential and creative methods to improve awareness, self-direction, and freedom.
As a recognized approach to self-awareness, gestalt therapy aims to improve a person’s contact with their community and with their milieu in general. This aim is often approached via spontaneous, original, and present dialogue between the professional gestalt therapist and client. As gestalt therapy is a focused existential therapy, the various processes involved in Gestalt therapy tend to encourage becoming aware of similarities and differences as disruptions to contact are discovered in the current therapeutic rapport.
As a psychotherapy procedure, gestalt therapy tends to concentrate on procedures over separate incidents. This is to say that gestalt therapists are usually greatly concerned about the process entirely, instead of individual experiences or occurrences. Moreover, Gestalt practitioners often deploy an interactional, present structure. This means they tend to put the present interactions with the client first over experience and history.
What are the five Gestalt principles?
Gestalt principles flowing from behavior therapy are rules of visual sensitivity—an outcome of the Gestalt concept in psychology. The concept is that people are likely to visually perceive structure or layout over their personal parts where specific methods are utilized. Essentially, people consequently see the entire layout or style over the totality of its units. The five gestalt principles are as follows:
Similarity
This concept states that if units or items look identical to one another, they’ll be visually seen as part of a structure, group, or pattern. For instance, if certain parts have similarities in features like color, shape, or dimensions, a person's mind will assemble these parts.
Continuity
The principle of perception states that people desire relationships between units and, as a result, follow lines and shapes further than their terminal points.
Figure and ground
The law of figure and ground states that human thinking divides an item from its environs. A part is seen as either a “ground” (the environs) or a “figure” (the item of focus). The eye sees these figures as distinct from the backdrop depending on the features, such as contrasting size or color.
Closeness
The rule of proximity or closeness holds that people tend to graphically assemble shapes or parts if they are proximate to each other. Objects that are distant from each other are seen as divided.
Closure
The principle of closure is usually part of what Gestalt therapists use to achieve their goal in gestalt therapy. The principle of closure as a law of behavior therapy operates when humans visualize total, whole figures, even where there are missing bits of information or gaps. The human brain tends to close cracks and offer the missing piece(s) of information, particularly when the style or arrangement is conversant. For such closure to happen, the gaps between the forms or patterns need to be easily completed.
Is Gestalt therapy used to treat mental health and physical health problems?
Many psychotherapists continue to see gestalt therapy as a potent therapy for various mental health concerns. Also, it can be of great advantage to individuals who are trying to develop self-awareness.
Gestalt therapy may be used for the following concerns:
Relationship challenges: Gestalt treatment can allow partners, either independently or with their significant other, to become aware of destructive and negative behaviors and substitute them with more affirming behaviors.
Behavioral health concerns: A centered therapeutic approach such as gestalt therapy can benefit individuals who live with symptoms of eating disorders, compulsive gambling, mood or behavioral disorders, substance use, and bipolar disorders.
Anxiety: The essence of gestalt therapy is to assist people with self-awareness problems, which may help relieve anxiety.
Physical health problems: Gestalt rehabilitation techniques may help people who have experienced physical health problems at one time or another. Gestalt therapists may assist people who experience migraines, back spasms, sexual concerns, and ulcerative colitis.
What are the key concepts of Gestalt therapy, according to Fritz Perls?
The Gestalt approach's major concepts account for stability and schisms, “unfinished business,” figure and ground, personal responsibility, awareness, and ongoing centeredness. Internal processing happens via concentrating inwards.
Fritze Perls, one of the founders of Gestalt therapy, compared gestalt analysis to the peeling of an onion. Gestalt therapists reveal that the steady unfolding can be seen via five working levels: the phony or the cliché; the phobic or role playing; the impasse; the implosive; and the explosive.
What happens in Gestalt therapy with a Gestalt therapist?
Gestalt therapy aims to provide individuals with a helpful setting to discover difficult sensations during personal training. Gestalt treatment processes can help people come to terms with core styles in individual rapports with others and start working on applied modifications.
The word gestalt is of German origin. The nearest interpretation is “style,” “form,” or “pattern.” The word gestalt bears the sense that import cannot be discovered in breaking things apart but instead in appreciating the whole. In sum, gestalt therapy is an inclusive procedure. It tends to see the person as an entirety of emotions, body, mind, and spirit.
Gestalt therapists can help people focus on their self-awareness. By self-awareness, what is meant is that they can focus on what occurs one moment after the other. Enhanced awareness and comprehension of a person’s instant thinking, behavior, sensations, and interacting can lead to lasting change and newer perceptions. The focus of gestalt therapy tends to be based on the present moment and on instant feelings and thoughts.
The more inclusive awareness and enhanced perception of how we reflect, sense things, and act can enhance self-confidence, liberate individuals to handle personal matters, and help them live to their greatest potential.
What are Gestalt therapy exercises usually conducted by Gestalt therapists?
The exercises in gestalt therapy, also known as awareness exercises, come in various phases. Below are some common gestalt exercises:
Exercise 1: Right here
In the course of the next few minutes, say what you become aware of. Start each sentence with “Right here...” or “At this instant…” As you do that, take note of the resistances and complications that come up. Repeat the process one more time, maximizing all your thoughts and stating whether they are close, distant, or within.
Exercise 2: Confronting forces
Get excited by your habitual assessment of bad or good, desired or offensive. Be contented to be between them but not taking sides with them.
Exercise 3: Focus
Allow your focus to alter from one item to another, taking note of the object's figure and context and your emotions.
Exercise 4: Absorption
Let your thoughtfulness liberally hover around some item. Note the features of this item and note in detail how they cohere.
Exercise 5: Recalling
Choose a recent memory. Incorporate as many senses as imaginable—smell, taste, sounds, touch, and feelings. Can you receive prompt sights exclusively, or can you track the particulars without losing the entire scene?
Who is the father of Gestalt therapy?
Gestalt therapy was largely developed by Frederick S. Perls, MD, commonly known as Fritz, Lore Perls, Ph.D., and Paul Goodman, Ph.D. They collaborated closely to develop a therapeutic approach grounded in humanistic principles. This method emphasized the distinctiveness of each person's experiences and perspectives.
What does a Gestalt therapist do?
The job of a Gestalt therapist is to help their patients learn a lot about their present conditions, feelings, experiences, and even their thoughts in order to help them understand their selves better and achieve personal growth.
What is an example of a Gestalt therapy session?
In a therapy session, a Gestalt therapist may consciously observe the client's body language and movement when describing some previous experiences. They may observe from the shaking of the legs to tapping their fingers on the table or pulling a clear facial expression.
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