ABOUT GESTALT THERAPY
What is Gestalt therapy (for us)?
Gestalt therapy, a form of psychotherapy, is about creatively processing “unfinished business” (unresolved past conflicts) with the help of methods of perception and awareness of the here and now.
The therapeutic situation is used to create a kind of experimental field. On the one hand, contact, as it takes place between people on a daily basis, is consciously experienced with the therapist and slowed down in order to let the client understand how their contact works and looks. The therapist supports the client in becoming aware of the learned mechanisms through which they slow down their growth potential and the consequences this has for their interpersonal contacts.
And how what is currently a problem can be the key to how a client can find new – their own – ways for themselves.
On the other hand, the Gestalt therapy situation offers the opportunity to bring inner experience to the stage, so to speak. To experience parts of oneself and not just talk about them, thus offering the possibility of integrating unpopular parts into the whole person. Gestalt therapy offers various techniques for this, the emphasis is on trying out, playing and experiencing. This form of experiencing enables a bridge between thinking and acting.
Gestalt therapy was developed by a group of psychoanalysts, psychologists and social scientists from various therapeutic disciplines: Lore and Fritz Perls, together with Paul Goodman, laid the foundations in the 1960s, with Gestalt therapy borrowing the term “gestalt” from Gestalt psychology.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Gestalt psychology described perception as a holistic process by which a living being structures its environment for itself.
The Gestalt approach is characterised by respect for the self-organisation and potential self-healing of human beings. The Gestalt therapist ultimately serves to awaken and strengthen these self-healing powers through awareness and support.
Self-acceptance, self-responsibility and freedom from unconscious and unwanted tasks play a major role. The goal is the unfolding of my potential, the integration of all parts of my self in the sense of holism.
Book recommandations:
Fritz Perls: Grundlagen der Gestalttherapie
Frank-Matthias Staemmler, Werner Bock: Ganzheitliche Veränderung in der Gestalttherapie