Gestalt therapy
Updated onJulia Dobmeier is currently completing her master's degree in clinical psychology. Since the beginning of her studies, she has been particularly interested in the treatment and research of mental illnesses. In doing so, they are particularly motivated by the idea of enabling those affected to enjoy a higher quality of life by conveying knowledge in a way that is easy to understand.
More about the experts All content is checked by medical journalists.Gestalt therapy is a psychotherapeutic procedure. The focus here is in the present, in the here and now. As part of gestalt therapy, the patient becomes an active creator of his or her everyday life. Read here how Gestalt therapy works, when it can be useful and what you need to consider.
What is Gestalt Therapy?
Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy and belongs to the group of so-called humanistic therapies. According to the humanistic approach, every person has the ability to develop further. The therapist sees the patient as a self-determined being. In Gestalt therapy, he learns to activate the necessary powers so that he can cope with his problems independently.
The German psychoanalysts Fritz and Lore Perls founded Gestalt therapy together with Paul Goodman. Due to its psychoanalytic roots, Gestalt therapy contains some approaches from psychoanalysis. Gestalt therapists, for example, like psychoanalysts, assume underlying unconscious conflicts. The procedure for dealing with such conflicts is very different in Gestalt therapy than in psychoanalysis:
In Gestalt therapy, the therapist is interested in how the patient sees the world and why they perceive it in a certain way. The patient is not seen as a victim of his past, and no attempt is made to interpret past experiences. Instead, Gestalt therapy for the patient is about becoming aware of the current situation. Because Gestalt therapy is based on the assumption that people can also change what they are aware of.
The term "shape"
The term "Gestalt" comes from Gestalt psychology, which emerged at the beginning of the 20th century. The idea behind this is that a shape is not simply the sum of its individual parts.
For example, when we see a triangle, we do not put three lines together in our minds, but perceive the triangle as a whole. Just as we do not hear the individual notes in a piece of music, but a melody. In an analogous way, Gestalt psychologists also see humans as a complex whole, which is shaped, among other things, by culture and social contacts. They see the psyche and the body not as separate, but as a unit.
When do you do gestalt therapy?
Gestalt therapy can help in coping with psychological problems, but also with professional problems. When it comes to family-related issues, in some cases the therapist also involves the partner or family member in the therapy.
Gestalt therapy is not always about problematic situations - it can also serve to develop one's own abilities.
For a gestalt therapy, the patient should be ready to cooperate actively. The Gestalt therapist asks the patient to live his life independently and to take responsibility for his thoughts and actions.
The Gestalt therapy can take place in an individual setting as well as in a group. A therapy session can last between 50 and 100 minutes. The therapist decides on a case-by-case basis how many sessions are sensible or necessary in total.
What do you do with gestalt therapy?
The aim of Gestalt therapy is for the patient to gain more control over their life and develop their full potential. To do this, the therapist does not consider past events or future concerns of the patient. The focus always remains in the current situation. Because changes can only take place in the present.
"How do I experience myself or other people at this point in time?" The therapist asks this question over and over again. After all, people never stand still, so the answer tomorrow or next week can be completely different.
The central technique of Gestalt therapy is the dialogue between therapist and patient. In dialogue with the therapist, the patient trains the perception of how he himself behaves, how he perceives things and what he feels.
The therapist confronts the patient with possible contradictions in his behavior that lead to conflicts. He also encourages the patient to question his previous worldview. This should give the patient a new awareness of their situation. This changed perception enables the patient to have new experiences and try new behaviors.
During therapy, the therapist is always appreciative and empathetic towards the patient, but he also challenges him to develop further.
Gestalt Therapy: Methods
In Gestalt therapy, the therapist uses creative methods. Role plays have an important meaning in this form of therapy:
The patient should deal with conflicts by staging a dialogue with the person concerned. The person concerned is not present, but is represented by an empty chair. The patient moves into both positions. He speaks once from his position and then answers from the position of the conflict partner who is not present.
Such role-plays can help the patient understand the content of existing problems more clearly and try out other ways of communicating.
The therapist also identifies possible problems through the patient's body language. For example, he asks him why he wriggles his legs or crosses his arms on certain topics. However, the therapist does not interpret the patient's behavior. Only the patient himself knows the meaning of his actions. The Gestalt therapist merely guides the patient so that he can gain a deeper understanding of himself. He can also ask the patient to experiment with new body movements.
What are the risks of Gestalt therapy?
In Gestalt therapy, the patient should take full responsibility for his or her life. Some patients feel overwhelmed by this. Patients who are in severe depression, for example, are physically and mentally unable to be active.
It is the Gestalt therapist's responsibility to accompany the patient well and to identify problems in therapy. In some cases, drug treatment may be necessary first or another form of therapy may be more suitable.
Whether a therapy is successful depends largely on the relationship between therapist and patient. In Gestalt therapy, the therapist repeatedly challenges his patient by pointing out contradictions. Some Gestalt therapists use a highly confrontational style in conversation. Not every patient can handle it. It is therefore important to find the right therapist and, if in doubt, to switch to another.
What do I have to consider after gestalt therapy?
After the individual Gestalt therapy sessions, you should give yourself some time to relax - the sessions can be physically and emotionally very demanding. Among other things, the high level of personal responsibility in therapy contributes to this. Therefore, do not undertake any strenuous activities immediately after therapy.
Especially at the beginning of therapy, personal responsibility may feel like a burden and unfamiliar. Once you have got used to it, the self-determined attitude also enables you to take your life into your own hands and to influence it positively.
Towards the end of gestalt therapy, the therapist often increases the interval between sessions. This will allow you to slowly get used to being able to cope without the therapist in the future. If you don't feel ready to move on without help just yet, talk to your therapist about it. If necessary, he can extend the gestalt therapy.
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