→ Psychotherapy generally → Gestalt TherapyGestalt Therapy
This therapy method, founded by Fritz Perls (1893–1971), regards the human organism as a wholeness that cannot be split into “body” and “soul”. Only an organism which constantly stays in conscious contact with the entourage is able to discern and satisfy the own needs. Often this self-consciousness is disturbed; gestalt therapy tries to restore it.
Figures (gestalts), forms and patterns are always perceived with a specific background, and similarly our feelings and experiences have their own reference framework in specific life and family situations. Problems, conflicts and these recurring unpleasant experiences are “outstanding duties” which inhibit individual growth and make adequate conducts in the present difficult.
Gestalt therapy wants to join the “origin” background and the “problem” foreground back together so that this experience can be understood and integrated. Then the “gestalt” is cohesive.
The central point of gestalt therapy is the present perception of own processes and blockades, the real experience “now and here”. Basic existential and individual experiences are reconstructed, re-experienced and worked up. The goal is integration of feelings, experience and perception.
The starting point of this work is always the clear contact between “I” and “you”. The opportunity of cure is in a new experience with someone else.
Gestalt therapy is growth oriented and emphasizes the person’s positive potential. The unrealized possibilities are discovered e.g. in the “interior dialog” between two emotions like hate and love, in the dialogue with frightening visions, and in the role play with the “empty chair”. This growth process is stimulated by perception and body exercises and by creative media like music, dance, painting and clay work.
An integrated person can develop a sane sensibility for oneself and others and assume responsibility for the own individual growth.