Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt Therapy is an awareness-oriented approach to working with people that emphasizes content and relationship. The Gestalt approach embraces a person’s physical, psychological, emotional, interpersonal, and spiritual experience. Each of these interconnected aspects of living is considered inseparable from a person’s environment, history, and culture.
Gestalt therapy seeks to develop an awareness of ourselves and what’s around us in order to create choices. It encourages responsibility in a person’s effort to realize a meaningful and fulfilling life. From a Gestalt perspective, a fulfilling life is grounded in a person’s awareness of how they function in their world and conduct their relationships in the present. In the process of therapy, the therapist works to create a relationship with each patient that is respectful and attuned. The immediacy of the emerging dialogue creates a space in which the patient feels seen, heard, and validated.
“I cannot perceive your conscience. I know only your observable behavior and what you are willing to share.” -Fritz Perls
Gestalt therapy has been described as a creative and confrontational therapy and requires of the therapist a delicate balance of support and challenge in session. The approach places more emphasis on describing and understanding the unique experience of a client rather than interpreting and generalizing about the client’s experience, meaning, you are the expert in you. There is a reliance on creative experiments that are used in co-creating new ways for the patient to be in the world with greater satisfaction and wholeness.
“Nobody can stand truth if it is told to him. Truth can be tolerated only if you discover it yourself because then, the pride of discovery makes the truth palatable.” -Fritz Perls
We suffer, not because we are broken, but rather due to being out of alignment. As we develop, we are all impacted by who we are as individuals as well as the environment that surrounds us including family of origin, peer groups, religious groups, socioeconomic, environmental, and political climate. We learn ways of coping or responding – this is survival, and this is needed and healthy. Energies can get confused and stuck which manifests in our body, psychological/mind and spiritual misalignment, or patterns that no longer serve you (this is unhealthy). When these patterns become habitual, are characterological (out of our awareness), we carry these challenged energy patterns through to adulthood and habitually reinforce them with our behaviors and reactions. Becoming unstuck happens when we are in alignment with ourselves.
“The body knows everything. We know very little. Intuition is the intelligence of the organism.” -Fritz Perls
It is a widely known and accepted truth that our bodies have an innate wisdom to heal. Neuroscience has proven that even the most severe past traumas can be erased and these disenfranchised parts of ourself can be invited and known with a supportive, embodied present-day experience. When allowed with an approach of curiosity, in a safe and contained space of therapy, you are able to become familiar with all the parts that make up you, creating a space for all the fragmented parts to coexist providing you with a sense of wholeness, and living life authentically will emerge. Embodied awareness around maladaptive behaviors, thoughts, and core beliefs is crucial to mindfulness and awareness. Life becomes easier. More of “you” is available and present to make choices that lead to a happier, fuller life.
Gestalt therapy is based in mindfulness which is designed to deliberately focus our attention on the present experience in a way that is non-judgmental. This practice requires that we intentionally notice thoughts, feelings, physical sensations within ourselves, and each other, and invite all of our experiences to be present and known with curiosity, to observe and accept the present situation and all it has to offer, regardless of whether that is good or bad - it just is.
