Gestalt Therapy

 

​Gestalt therapy is an approach to modern psychological counselling and psychotherapy. It is widely used in individual, family, and couples’ counselling and psychotherapy, as well as for children and adolescents, and in organisations and businesses.

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Gestalt therapy has gone beyond the boundaries of “psychological treatment.” It is directed toward the process of personal development and growth. In this regard, it draws on knowledge from psychology, medicine, and philosophy. At the same time, Gestalt therapy can, to some extent, also be regarded as an art form, as the psychotherapist’s creative approach is essential to successfully helping the client.

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“Gestalt” is a German word that, in Georgian, means wholeness. It is used in a broad sense, referring to a complete form or integration. In psychotherapy and psychological counselling, the term “Gestalt” refers to the integration of the personality.

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The method is based on a holistic view of the human being. Gestalt therapy aims to integrate the “personality divided into parts.” It focuses on overcoming conflicts with oneself or the environment and on harmonising the intellectual, emotional, and physical aspects of the human being.

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Gestalt therapy is a highly effective method. It helps people resolve conflicts, change their attitude toward an unchanging problematic reality, and overcome neurotic symptoms (anxiety, panic, phobias, depression, obsessions, ritualistic behaviours, feelings of depersonalisation–derealisation, and sleep problems),as well as overcome inner weakness, activate personal resources, and achieve their goals.

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Through Gestalt therapy, people learn to manage stress, overcome emotional discomfort, develop “contact skills,” communicate successfully, and learn strategies for avoiding and resolving conflicts. Gestalt therapy develops the capacity for self-regulation; through experience, a person learns how to overcome anxiety and discomfort and contribute to their own sense of happiness and a harmonious way of living.

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Methodological Foundations of Gestalt Therapy

​This modern psychotherapeutic approach emerged in the 1940s. Its founder was Friedrich Solomon Perls (1893–1970), whose theoretical works and highly popular group psychotherapy trainings gave rise to a new therapeutic model.

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Although Gestalt therapy is an original method, many different approaches influenced its development. Among them is psychoanalysis. In addition to Freud, it was strongly influenced by Wilhelm Reich’s views, particularly his body-oriented concept and the so-called “theory of resistance.” Issues concerning the involvement of the body in the neurotic process and bioenergetics in general were particularly significant.

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Perls was greatly influenced by Gestalt psychology, as presented in the works of Wertheimer, Köhler, Goldstein, and Lewin. The ideas of personality wholeness and the figure-ground relationship were adopted from this German school of general psychology.

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Existential psychology had a major influence on the formation and development of Gestalt therapy. The Gestalt psychotherapeutic method represents an existential model.

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Zen Buddhism also had a significant influence on the development of Gestalt therapy. The ideas of perfecting and developing human nature, gaining access to one’s own essence, and harmonising with the world originate from ancient Indian and Chinese teachings.

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Despite being influenced by so many different approaches, Gestalt therapy remains a psychotherapeutic model with a distinct identity, integrated into a coherent system. Gestalt therapy continues to change and develop today. Contemporary practitioners give it a modern form and expand its application into new areas.

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The Nature of Gestalt

​The essence of a theory of personality and a psychotherapeutic approach is determined by how it understands human nature. Because Gestalt therapy has been influenced by many different approaches, its understanding of personality reflects a variety of worldviews. Nevertheless, it remains an original, non-eclectic psychotherapeutic approach.

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Perls openly stated that he was less interested in theoretical views; his attention was focused on directly accessing human existence and a person’s experience in action. The important question a Gestalt therapist asks in order to understand human behaviour is “How?” rather than “Why?”, as in psychoanalysis. This emphasises the degree of human freedom and the individual’s ability to change reality by drawing on their own potential.

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The concept of Gestalt therapy is based on a holistic understanding of the human being. It rejects the fragmented study of a person as mind and organism, soul and body, feeling and thinking, will and action, and so forth. The holistic approach rejects both dualism and the idea that the whole is simply the mechanical sum of its parts. Body, mind, and soul are aspects of the whole organism.

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Gestalt psychologists described many examples illustrating the relationship between the whole and its parts. Dots placed separately on a sheet of paper are simply dots, but if we arrange them in a particular sequence, they form a circle. In this case, the circle is a new form, a characteristic of the unity of the dots that does not exist in an individual dot as a part. In other words, the whole circle possesses something that does not exist in its constituent parts.

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A drink whose components are coffee, milk, and sugar has a taste that exists neither in the coffee alone, nor in the milk, nor in the sugar. Through their synthesis, something qualitatively new emerges that cannot be reduced to the taste of any individual component. The Gestalt resulting from the synthesis of these products is a new whole, which is more than the sum of its parts or the mechanical sum of their individual tastes.

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Life is nothing other than an endless number of situations, that is, incomplete Gestalts. As soon as one situation is completed, a new situation emerges. A healthy individual successfully completes each situation, completes each unfinished Gestalt, and experiences personal growth in the process.

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Gestalt, Figure and Ground

​Gestalt therapy incorporates five main theoretical postulates. These are: the relationship between figure and ground, awareness of and concentration on the present, the unity of opposites, defensive functions, maturation, and responsibility.

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Gestalt psychologists, while studying the process of perception, concluded that it is structured and regulated according to certain principles. In particular, human perception is organised in such a way that the most important sensory information emerges as the figure in the perceptual field. This figure stands out from the rest of the field, known as the ground.

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According to Gestalt therapy, a person functions according to the principle of self-regulation. Objects corresponding to current and important needs become figures in the perceptual field. Once the need is satisfied, these objects lose their status as figures and recede into the ground, while a new figure corresponding to the current need emerges in their place.

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As soon as a need is satisfied, the Gestalt is completed, the figure loses its attraction, returns to the ground, and makes room for a new figure. The rhythm of Gestalt formation and completion determines a person’s normal, natural functioning and self-regulation.

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Another noteworthy phenomenon is the unfinished Gestalt, specifically an unfinished task. Kurt Lewin conducted an interesting study of this phenomenon. This effect is known as the “Zeigarnik effect,” named in honour of Lewin’s student. In Lewin’s experiments, waiters remembered the amount of money a customer owed until the customer paid the bill, but after payment they could no longer remember the amount owed.

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In Gestalt therapy terms, people remember the content well until the Gestalt is completed, while after completion they easily forget it, because the content of a new Gestalt has become relevant and important to them. Completing a Gestalt means satisfying the corresponding need.

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There are many instances in which this effect creates seemingly insurmountable problems for people and may even require psychotherapeutic assistance. When important needs remain unsatisfied, or behaviour is interrupted halfway because of a prohibition, the reason is an unfinished and personally significant Gestalt.

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The ground is the reservoir, the ocean that facilitates or hinders the formation of the figure. Gestalt therapists often encounter situations in which a client ignores or represses important contents in the ground in an attempt to regulate a need present in the ground. As a result, it becomes impossible to establish contact and bring important objects into focus.

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At this point, the task of the Gestalt therapist is to revive the part of the ground that has become a “blind spot” and return its hidden, repressed content to the individual’s awareness.

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Contact

​Contact is the most important process in Gestalt therapy. Gestalt therapy is also understood as a contact-oriented approach, whose task is to identify and diagnose a person’s state of non-contact in order to restore contact.

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Contact is the relationship between the “I” and the “not-I” (referring to another person or an object), through which the “I” satisfies important, necessary, and current needs. As a result, the “I” grows by assimilating what is gained through contact.

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At the level of interpersonal relationships, a person’s relationship with another person faces two extremes. One is isolation, when a person breaks contact with another, withdraws from them, and as a result is unable to assimilate anything. The opposite extreme is when one person merges with another. In this case, the person loses their boundaries.

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In contrast to these two states, when an individual is aware of themselves and of the other person, as well as of their boundaries, they have the ability, based on their own needs, to attract or repel other people, establish contact with an object that satisfies their needs, and assimilate what is necessary for them. This is how personal growth occurs through contact.

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For full functioning and the satisfaction of biological and social needs, a person requires deep contact both with external reality and with their own “I.”

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Personal growth, the expansion of the boundaries of the “I” – is the process of gaining freedom.

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Biography of Friedrich Solomon Perls

​Friedrich Solomon Perls was born in Berlin in 1893. Fritz Perls’ calling was creativity and science, which occupied a central place in his life. Fritz received his medical education in Germany and defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Frankfurt.

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In 1926, Perls became the assistant of the prominent Gestalt psychologist Kurt Goldstein. At the same time, he became interested in psychoanalysis. During this period, Perls was a successful psychoanalytic practitioner.

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In the 1930s, apocalyptic and catastrophic events took place in Europe. In Germany, the National Socialists came to power. By this time, Perls had married; his wife, Laura Perls, would later become a renowned Gestalt therapist. Perls and his family first moved to the Netherlands. Then, in 1934, they moved to South Africa. In Johannesburg, he practised psychoanalysis together with his wife.

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It was here that Perls wrote his work “Ego, Hunger and Aggression”, which was titled “A Revision of Freud’s Theory and Method” in its first edition, and “An Introduction to Gestalt Therapy” in its second edition.

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In 1946, Perls moved to the United States to live and work. He worked in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. At the same time, he travelled to Japan, where he studied the wisdom of Zen. In America, he lived a relatively free life in communes, where he engaged in group therapy and processes focused on personal growth.

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In 1952, he founded the Gestalt Institute in New York, which became very popular.

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The final place where Perls lived and worked was Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, where he founded the Gestalt community. Perls died there in 1970 at the age of seventy-eight.