GESTALT THERAPY

• Gestalt therapy is based on the idea that perception, or awareness, is

disjointed and incomplete in maladjusted per-sons.
• The German word Gestalt means “whole,” or “complete.” Gestalt
therapy helps people rebuild thinking, feeling,and acting into
connected wholes.
• This is achieved by expanding personal awareness; by accepting
responsibility for one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions; and by filling in
gaps in experience (Joyce & Sills, 2001).
• What do you mean by gaps in experience? Gestalt therapists believe that we
often shy away from expressing or “owning” upsetting feelings. This creates a gap
in self-awareness that may become a barrier to personal growth. For example, a
person who feels anger after the death of a parent might go for years without
fully expressing it. This and similar threatening gaps may impair emotional health.
• The Gestalt approach is more directive than client-centered or existential therapy,
and it emphasizes immediate experience. Working either one-to-one or in a
group setting, the Gestalt therapist encourages clients to become more aware of
their moment-to-moment thoughts, perceptions,and emotions (Staemmler,
2004). Rather than discussing why clients feel guilt, anger, fear, or boredom, they
are encouragedto have these feelings in the “here and now” and become fully
aware of them.
• The therapist promotes awareness by drawing attention to a client’s
posture, voice, eye movements, and hand gestures. Clients may also
be asked to exaggerate vague feelings until they become clear. Gestalt
therapists believe that expressing such feelings allows people to “take
care of unfinished business” and break through emotional
impasses(O’Leary, 2006).
• Gestalt therapy is often associated with the work of Frederick (Fritz)
Perls (1969).
• In all his writings, Perls’ basic message comes through clearly:
Emotional health comes from knowing what you want to do, not
dwelling on what you should do, ought to do, or should want to do
(Rosenberg &Lynch, 2002).
• Another way of stating this idea is that emotional health comes from
taking full responsibility for one’s feelings and actions. For example, it
means changing “I can’t” to “I won’t,” or “I must” to “I choose to.”
• How does Gestalt therapy help people discover their real wants?
Above all else, Gestalt therapy emphasizes present experience. Clients
are urged to stop intellectualizing and talking about feelings. Instead,
they learn to live now; live here;stop imagining; experience the real;
stop unnecessary think-ing; taste and see; express rather than explain,
justify, orjudge; give in to unpleasantness and pain just as to
pleasure;and surrender to being as you are. Gestalt therapists believe
that, paradoxically, the best way to change is to become who you
really are (Joyce & Sills, 2001).