What is Gestalt-therapy?
Gestalt therapy is a humanistic therapeutic approach that emerged in the United States after the Second World War, in the 1950s.
Its founders are Frederick (Fritz) Perls, a neuropsychiatrist, his wife Laura Perls (birth name Lore Polsner), a doctor of psychology, and Paul Goodman, a writer, thinker and philosopher.
Gestalt, gestaltung
The word "gestalt" originates from German language and means "a form", "to take shape", "to organize", "to build", so it refers to how an experience takes shape. When we become aware of how we do something, we get the ability to choose of doing it differently.
Gestalt therapy is applied individually, for couples and groups.
Like the majority of the other approaches in psychotherapy, Gestalt also originated from psychoanalysis. It questioned certain aspects of Freudian theory, but then continued its own development.
Gestalt method is based on a relational approach, i.e. it assumes that the organism or the individual is inseparable from its environment (which also includes other individuals). In Gestalt therapy, the human experience is closely linked to the contact between the individual and his environment. Modern research in the field of neuroscience now confirms the presumptions/intuition of the founders of Gestalt therapy, such as:
- the discovery of mirror neurons, which revealed the neural connections involved in mother-infant bonding;
- the advances in epigenetics, which highlighted the plasticity of the brain according to the environmental modifications.
A gestalt-therapy session
When in a Gestalt therapy session, the client together with the therapist explore what is problematic, interfering, blocking or lacking in client’s interaction with the environment. When the client is struggling to thrive in his/her personal or professional life, or is experiencing difficulties in relationships, Gestalt therapy helps to re-establish the “tools” that the client needs to step forward into or draw back in order to make a contact.
In Gestalt therapy, these coping tools are called the creative adjustments. This is what allows us to be able to adapt continuously to novelty and change. When this ability is lacking, the person risks locking up into sterile rituals, mental ruminations or isolation. It is then up to the therapist to activate the creative adjustment of the patient.
Key words
Another key word of Gestalt therapy is therefore a contact: It is not only the organism's (physiological) contact with its environment (non-physiological), but also the contact with itself and its needs. Being in good mental health means being in touch with oneself (one's feelings, emotions and desires).
Being aware of your emotions, expressing them therefore becomes a prerequisite for establishing healthy contacts with those around you. In order to become conscious, we would not look for the causes of the trauma or certain behavior, but rather explore how that behavior manifests. In Gestalt therapy session, we are not interested in the why, which is a question often asked in psychoanalysis, but in the how.
"Understanding the reasons why we act in such and such a way can be an intellectually satisfying game, but is there any point in it?"
Particularities of gestalt-therapy
Another core concept of Gestalt therapy is a focus on the here and now. Gestalt therapy focuses on the present experiences, rather than looking for the causes of discomfort in the past. However, it does not eliminate the interest in the past as such. Chantal Masquelier-Savatier, Gestalt therapist, says, "We don't ignore the past. But our gateway to the past is the present. When I talk about my memories today, I am reconstructing my story. What seems imprisoning to us is the idea of being determined by one's past.” As Jean-Paul Sartre said, "The important thing is not what has been done to me, but what I do with what has been done to me". Therefore, in a therapy session we observe the aspect of the past that is present in the here and now.
Another important underpinning, according to Perls, is the concept of the unity of the physiological and psychological notion. According to this concept, a physiological adjustments operate with what is a non-physiological (the world), which in turn again becomes psychological through a contact.
