Healing and growth through gestalt therapy
What is gestalt therapy and can it support you in dealing with life’s inevitable challenges?
The word “gestalt” comes from the German language and has no direct translation to English. Loosely, the meaning could be described as the shape or form of a whole totality of someone or something. What happens in gestalt therapy closely reflects this complex, yet somewhat intangible definition. There are many reasons why this holistic, relational, integrative and experiential psychotherapeutic style can benefit a wide range of people. In this article, I will go through some of the main principles of gestalt therapy and the reasons I fell in love with it.
Awareness
One of the main goals of gestalt therapy is clients’ increased awareness. This may not seem like a big goal for a therapeutic process, however, a common observation is that when clients become more aware of the way they make contact with the world, they are able to engage in life more meaningfully and with a stronger sense of satisfaction. Many people live their lives based on deeply entrenched assumptions about who they should be and how they need to act. While such fixed beliefs often served us well at the time they were created, becoming aware of them provides the opportunity for reassessing their usefulness and impact on our current life. A lot of growth and healing takes place simply by becoming aware of something that had been out of our awareness.
Working in the present moment
The focus of our therapeutic work is on what is happening in the here and now. This doesn’t mean that gestalt therapists ignore the history clients bring with them or their fears and hopes about the future. All of this is more than likely, at least to some extent, the reason they’ve come to therapy. However, instead of sifting through the past or painting all of the possible future scenarios in detail, we focus on what’s happening for them in the present moment, while they share their experiences with us. This way, we are working through how the past might be impacting clients’ life at present and helping them process these experiences. Feeling accepted, heard and seen exactly the way clients are in the present moment provides an opportunity for an experience of relating differently to another human being. This can be incredibly healing. Clients’ experiences, which in the past might have been dismissed, ridiculed or not allowed enough space, get acknowledged while being supported by the therapist. This experience of connection and support happens in the present moment and the client gets to feel in their body what it’s like not to be alone in it. What happens in the therapy room is like a microcosm of what takes place for clients out in the world, but is often out of the clients’ awareness. By focusing on what’s happening right now, we assist clients in becoming aware of the patterns in which they live and which could be keeping them stuck.
Gestalt therapy is relational
Humans are hard-wired for connection and we heal in a relationship. What takes place in the space between a therapist and their client in sessions will inevitably reflect or even mirror something important to the client and their story. This comes back to the principle of focusing on the present moment and working through what’s emerging between the therapist and their client right now as it’s happening. That doesn’t mean moving away from what the client might be coming to therapy for. Quite the opposite. For example a client that seeks help because they feel undeserving of love, acceptance and consequently anything positive in life, will have a lot of trouble receiving comments from their therapist on their achievements or value as a person. They might minimise these, divert the attention to another topic or generalise by saying things like “it’s really not that great, anyone could do that”. This is an opportunity to address the client’s struggle to accept acknowledgment while it’s happening. By gently unpacking this fixed way of relating, the client can explore and become aware of what’s happening for them. This takes place in an empathic and caring environment, which provides support, builds trust and closeness. Moments like these are moments of true authentic connection as we get precious glimpses of our clients without their protective masks on and we can show them that we’ll stay and won’t judge or dislike them when they are truly themselves. The healing and growth that comes from having such an experience is what psychotherapy is all about.
Recognising everyone’s uniqueness
One of the main principles of gestalt therapy is its phenomenological approach to exploring the clients’ experiences. This essentially means that we recognise everyone’s uniqueness at any given moment and set aside our assumptions about the world and people’s experiences. We treat everything the client is sharing with us, and also what’s being left out, as equally important. We acknowledge the meaning we attach to our clients’ experiences and place it in a little pocket on the side, knowing that this is our interpretation while the client’s view may be very different. We then invite the client’s own description of their experience and work on getting as close an understanding as possible of what’s happening for them. We don’t lead the client in a certain direction, as they are the expert on their own life. By working this way, clients often feel they have been really heard and seen without any judgement. This allows them to have less judgement on themselves as a result. It also gives room to explore their experience on a much deeper level, which brings insight and awareness to the way they form meaning of what happens in their life.
Holistic approach
While the idea of working holistically has become very trendy in recent years, it has been one of the main principles of Gestalt psychotherapy since its foundation by Fritz and Laura Perls in the 1950's. Gestalt therapists hold the perspective that there is no split between body, mind, spirit and the environment in which they exist. Everything is interconnected and inevitably influences each other. Our aim for working holistically is the integration of all parts and dimensions of what it is to be human. Many of us are familiar with the phrase “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. What does this actually mean on a practical level and specifically in psychotherapy? Gestalt therapists pay close attention to everything from the way clients arrive, their tone of voice and the cadence of their words, as well as the content of what they say. We notice clients’ facial expressions, posture, movements and gestures and how these change through the session. We also work very closely with the impact the client is having on us as we are present with them, the energy in the room and what seems to be happening between us. All of this helps us to explore the clients’ full experience and the different parts that make them their unique self. We explore the relationship between these different parts, the conflicts and tension between them and get curious about the way the client might seem much more approving of some of their expressions than others. By inviting all of these parts to take up space and express themselves, clients are supported in becoming more aware of what makes them whole. It is this awareness that facilitates clients’ growth and healing.
When I first came across a gestalt therapist in my training and had first-hand experience of what it feels like to sit in the client chair with them, I was a bit shocked. I felt seen in a way that was unknown to me. It made me aware of just how much of myself was still hiding somewhere underneath what I had deemed acceptable to the world. This experience was quite eye-opening and led to me pursuing gestalt therapy as my chosen modality, which I combine with other creative, expressive and body-focused therapeutic styles. I have since been very privileged to witness clients on their own journeys of growth and healing, which keeps deepening my passion for this work.
