Gestalt Therapy
“The buried parts, deep inside of you, will not be released until you are willing to come into contact with the emotion, experience or event, which entombed you. The resistance to experiencing the fullness of this process keeps us six-deep. You cannot let go of something until you willing to experience the fullness of the feeling of what underlies the condition.
I invite an interlude, a recess, a pause.
I ask you to stay before it, stay in front of it, stay behind it, but have a willingness to stay with it in some way.”
Santina Giardina-Chard
THE MEANING OF GESTALT
Translated from the German, gestalt implies wholeness, or if used as a verb ‘to make whole’.
Gestalt therapy was originally developed it by a group of avant-garde psychologists, psychiatrists, philosophers and educators as a reaction to the orthodoxy of the psychoanalysis of the time. It provides a holistic philosophical engagement with the nature of the human condition. It privileges experience, authentic living and human relating.
Read More About the Meaning of Gestalt
Gestalt therapy was founded and developed by Fritz Perlz , Laura Perlz and Paul Goodman in the 1940’s. It was influenced by the knowledge and disciplines of multiple pre-existing ideas, and theories (Kritchner, 2015). To grasp more fully what gestalt therapy is, reading a description of its theory or practice is not enough. One must sense what led up to it, how it took form in the lives of the people who became gestalt therapists, trainers, thinkers, and writers, and what the chief interests are in the work of its contemporary theorists.
Gestalt therapy synthesized and assimilated gestalt psychology, psychoanalysis, humanism, existential philosophy, phenomenology, holism and Eastern philosophies to develop its own theoretical perspective and pragmatic applications ( Yontef & Jacobs, 2013).
Gestalt therapy does not rely on a theoretical framework of human functioning nor is it bound to a particular model as are many other therapies (Frew, 1997). This has been considered a limitation by some, due to the limited research to support the application of gestalt psychotherapy in clinical treatment settings (Gold & Zham, 2008). This is largely due to its focus on experiential learning over theoretical discussions and empirical validations (Gold & Zham, 2008).
An opposing view is that gestalt therapy is more eclectic because it borrows from many approaches and disciplines, which enables it to draw from a variety of techniques and interventions with a creative and experimental approach (Joyce and Sills, 2010). Unlike other approaches, a gestalt approach is able to offer a unique, holistic and individualized approach focused on the therapeutic relationship (Yontef, 2005).
“It provides a comprehensive theory and method, based on understanding and observation of healthy human functioning-organismic self-regulation” (Gold & Zham, 2008, p.32).
HOLISTIC
The gestalt therapist holds a perspective that we are always in relationship: that we are fully embedded in a relational world. We, therefore, bring to our clients a curiosity for the full context of their lives.
Gestalt therapy has a here-and-now focus on the clients’ awareness of the world they live in and their relationships with others. Gestalt therapy has a sensitivity to the ways that past experience (and future hopes and fears) may be organising current experience.
The relational worldview is informed by the foundational gestalt philosophical principles of field theory, existential phenomenology and existential dialogic relating. These philosophies support more nuanced and complex ways of staying with experience. Including as much of the client’s world as possible, understanding is slowly arrived at together.
GROUNDED IN THE CLIENT/ THERAPIST RELATIONSHIP
Central to Gestalt therapy is the therapeutic relationship. Gestalt therapists believe that by working with the therapeutic relationship, in the here and now that clients can increase their awareness about how they relate to themselves, their environment and to the other. Ultimately by building a person’s awareness they can better understand who they are and in turn better understand what they are doing and how they are doing it, with acceptance and without judgement. With awareness, choice becomes known. If I do not know what I’m doing and or how I am doing it, then I cannot choose to do anything differently.
To assist a client to build awareness a Gestalt Therapist observes how a client makes and breaks contact with themselves, the other (in the therapeutic environment this would be the therapist) and or their environment. To do this Gestalt Therapists refer to the contact cycle.
Read More About the Client/Therapist Relationship
The client /therapist dialogue offers the opportunity for a healing experience. Here the emphasis of the therapy is not only talking about what has happened but on fully experiencing what is. This supports change to occur.
By being curious, and through cultivating uncertainty, the therapist assists the client to deepen their existential experience and together there is an emergent exploration. In this way, the client comes to understand how their creative adjustments have supported them in the past. By developing this awareness, the client may develop a greater capacity to be more fully who they are in the world
The working relationship provides an opportunity for an authentic and meaningful meeting where the focus is on the relationship and there is an acknowledgement of mutual influence and co-creation of the therapeutic process.
PRESENT CENTRED AND FOCUSED ON AWARENESS
Relational gestalt therapy promotes self-awareness and holds that therapeutic change occurs through an authentic meeting with another. A key focus is on supporting the client to relate, embody and live in the here-and-now.
With awareness we develop the ability to become fully who we are and to recognise that we have the potential within us for change. The aim is to become aware and curious of what we are doing and how we are doing it, with acceptance and without judgment.
To build awareness a Gestalt therapist focuses more upon the process (what is happening – ‘the experience’) rather than content (what is being discussed). The emphasis in therapy is on our experience moment to moment and what is being thought, felt and done, rather than what was, might be, could be, or should be. For example when sharing about the end of an important relationship – the details would be the content. Tears, sadness, anger, feelings of regret, are the experience.
Gestalt therapy increases our capacity to become aware of the process of experiencing as it is happening. We become increasingly skilful at noticing our conditioned patterns of behaviour, develop a greater awareness of choices and potential for change, and experience an increasing sense of and ease and acceptance with the way things are.
CREATIVE ADJUSTMENTS
Fritz Perlz believed that we all ‘creatively adjust’ to our life circumstances. Creative adjustment is derived from the notion that people will try and solve their problems living the best way possible. However, whilst our creative adjustments may be functional at one point in time they don’t necessarily continue to be so. Creative adjustments can result in us developing habitual behaviours that are often outside of our awareness and often affect our capacity to function effectively and flexibly, preventing us from fully experiencing and enjoying our lives
“I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
If not, it cannot be helped.”
Fritz Perls, 1969, in Gladding, 2000
ABOUT CHOICE + FLEXIBILITY
The goal of relational gestalt therapy is for clients to become more fully aware of how they organise themselves in the world. Change occurs when one becomes what s/he is, not when s/he tries to become what s/he is not (Arnold Beisser).
By learning to follow their own ongoing process, and to fully experience, accept, and appreciate their complete selves, clients can free themselves to make more appropriate, spontaneous and creative contact with the environment.
From a field relational perspective, change occurs when we change our relationship to, or increase, the supports in our environment.
Working With Me
The principles we work with are simple...
• change results from finding out who you are, and living that to the full.
• change is assisted by genuine dialogue
• change is often difficult; with support it can also be rich, creative and satisfying
What you can expect
• The first session we check each other out – are we going to be able to work together?
• We ask you about the bigger picture, and then about the issues you bring.
• After that, we generally set up another five sessions to continue in more depth.
Therapy involves this:
• the issue you want to work with
• your feelings
• the bigger picture and wider influences – past, future, family, culture
• the places you get stuck
• your organising beliefs
• your core needs
• who you are – the way you move through life – your personal style
• questions of meaning and purpose
• unfinished business
• experimenting with new ways of being
• dialogue between the two of us
• the exploration of relationship, blind spots, and the need for support
How many sessions?
It depends…
Sometimes its only possible to do one session. For a very specific issue, and with a willingness to have a strong focus, this can be very productive.
Generally though, to have a serious look at an issue requires at least 6 sessions.
If this issue is entrenched, complex, or has been around a long time, its more likely to need 6 months of therapy.
For deeper work which is oriented towards a profound restructuring of ways of being in the world, dealing with significant trauma, or turning a marriage around, its more likely to require a year of consistent therapy.