Gestalt therapy is foremost a wholistic approach, the German word Gestalt does not have a literal translation in English but a close approximation would be ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its parts’. It considers all of you and what you bring and does not usually focus in on any one aspect of your personality or experience, but rather on Integrating mind body and spirit. By bringing attention to bodily sensations and movements and connecting emotional experiences to these sensations it can open new understanding and awareness.

 

Gestalt therapy avoids as far as possible the hierarchical relationship, as in the traditional doctor patient sense, and instead promotes a more horizontal between person and person way of working. All emotions are equally welcome and met with empathy and absence of judgement. The freedom of this approach may work well for clients with a particularly strict upbringing with a lot of rules.

 

Gestalt therapy is a creative approach that uses experiment to promote experiential learning and to develop new awareness. You may already be familiar with the empty chair, or two chair work traditionally used in Gestalt however the experimental approach offers much more that a technique and encourages a move from talking ‘about’ something to ‘experiencing’ something and in doing so can help achieve new insight.

 

Gestalt explores how we are in the world in the here and now. It seeks to understand how we are shaped and impacted not only by our situation and physical environment, but also our history of experience and relationships. Gestalt therapy looks at how this history is showing up in our everyday and how past experience might be getting in the way of how we might wish to live today. With this comes an emphasis on developing autonomy and choice, experiencing the freedom and satisfaction of real growth and change.