What is Gestalt Therapy?
A Humanistic, Holistic & Experience-Oriented Approach
Gestalt Therapy – A Humanistic, Experience-Oriented Approach
Gestalt therapy is an experience-oriented, humanistic form of therapy developed in the
1940s by Lore and Fritz Perls, emerging from psychoanalysis. At its core lies the belief that
every human being holds within them the potential for transformation, growth, and
self-healing.
The Human Being as a Whole
The human being is viewed as a unity of soul, mind, body and the environmental field. We are naturally inclined to create what feels complete and integrated.
However, due to biographical experiences, we often had to develop responses that ensured
our survival. These survival strategies can now limit our authentic and free expression in creating what feels complete.
In Gestalt therapy, these survival mechanisms are honoured as forms of creative adaptation.
One goal is to bring these individual survival based responses to awareness, so they begin to de-automate.
Contact – Relationship as Healing
The Gestalt therapist is especially interested in what happens “between” themselves and the
client – in line with Martin Buber’s idea that “All real living is meeting.”
To make this “in-between” space tangible, the therapist slows down the process, allowing
feelings and bodily sensations to come to the forefront.
Internal blockages are also explored together in therapeutic dialogue. The client is invited to
experiment within the therapeutic relationship and to take risks by trying out new behaviors.
Revitalizing the Self
The self is not seen as a fixed structure. In different moments of contact, the self performs
various functions. These functions become tangible in the course of therapy – for example,
you might suddenly notice how you hold yourself back in contact with me, and how this
pattern also shows up outside of therapy.
Another goal for the client is to become aware how he/she uses their energy in contact.
According to Fritz Perls, awareness itself is already healing.
Responsibility in the Here and Now
Gestalt therapy invites the client into an experience of immediacy. The therapist supports the
client in directly experiencing themselves throughout the process.
Responsibility can only be taken in the here and now.
The client’s awareness is refined over time through interventions, active experiments in the
present moment (e.g., the empty chair technique) and through the therapist’s dialogical
stance.The therapist does not simply stay in the realm of “talking about” but instead guides
the client toward a creative, experimental attitude in the present.
By helping the client make the here-and-now experience tangible, the therapist empowers
them to find new responses to current life situations.