GESTALT THERAPY
What is Gestalt Therapy?
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Gestalt is a German word, the definition of which is as follows: 'an organized whole that is more than the sum of it's parts.' This is a great summation of the essence of Gestalt therapy.
Popularized in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1960s, primarily by Fritz Perls, it's a form of therapy that focuses on the whole person, and bringing into alignment maligned or neglected parts in order to create a holistic internal journey of healing.
In short, it is not a purely 'neck-up' approach to therapy, but one that honors the whole person.
What is a Gestalt therapy session like?
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A Gestalt therapy session can be very different to a traditional talk therapy session. The first thing that might surprise you is how forthcoming and transparent your therapist is. Unlike a lot of therapy modalities where you can feel your therapist holding back their humanity and actively disguising and hiding aspects of themselves, with a Gestalt therapist you are sat with a real human being. You are safe to ask questions without them being avoided or dodged. At times the relaxed and warm nature will help you forget you are even in a therapy session, although rest assured your therapist never does.
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Beyond that, in addition to the more traditional talk therapy interventions, you will also find in a Gestalt therapy session that you are invited into a space of experimentation and play that helps unlock younger or more repressed aspects of your being, and helps you to begin to somatically shift stuck parts of yourself that can't be shifted by talking alone. Some of these include:
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Empty chair technique. In this approach, you are invited to externalize and talk to parts of yourself that do not usually have a voice.
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Contact boundaries: In this approach you get to play with the experience of contact between you and your therapist.
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Somatic exploration: In this approach the focus is switched from the thinking mind to other parts of the body, and gives an opportunity, for many people for the first time, to really listen to what their body is trying to tell them. ​
Here and now
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Another underpinning aspect of Gestalt therapy is a focus on the here and now, rather than the past and the future. There is much more attention paid to what is happening right at this moment than on the storytelling of events from the past that come primarily from thought alone, and neglect what is happening in the body, and what is occurring in the space between the client and the therapist.
In summation, Gestalt therapy is a vibrant and lively approach to the process of therapy that can facilitate radical change, particularly in areas where traditional talk therapy has not been so effective. In this regard, clients can experience getting un-stuck in areas that have previously been hard to shift.
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If Gestalt therapy is something that sounds like it would be a good fit for you, or you are interested in learning more about it, book a consult now.