"I just Gestalted one of my clients."

This statement always gets my attention.

I am never sure what the person who says it means. I do know that the person who says it probably has a very incomplete understanding of Gestalt therapy. Unfortunately, this is also the case with many clinicians.

During the 1960s and 1970s Gestalt therapy was one of the most recognized systems of psychotherapy. Many of the theoretical concepts and clinical practices of Gestalt therapy have been assumed by other theories and many of the contributions of Gestalt therapy to our field now go unrecognized. However, recent research in the neurosciences is validating and supporting the working premises of Gestalt therapy, such as the nature of the self, the function of awareness (a by-product of a neurologically organized field), the integrative processes of change, and the significance of the therapeutic relationship in the development of integrated functioning.

The Gestalt therapy system is truly integrative and includes affective, sensory, cognitive, interpersonal, and behavioral components. Discovering together what is novel and fresh within the work is essential to emotional growth in Gestalt therapy; both therapist and client are encouraged to be creative in doing the awareness work. And, contrary to the ideas of many, there are no prescribed or proscribed techniques in Gestalt therapy. The main focus is always what is happening in the present moment; Gestalt “experiments” are co-constructed for the purpose of increasing the client’s awareness of how he or she is organizing life experience.

I am often asked what "gestalt" means. Simply answered, it is a German word that refers to a configuration that is so integrated that it is experienced as something different than the sum of its elements.

A gestalt is characterized by coherence, boundedness, and meaningfulness. Once a gestalt is established, our minds lose interest in continuing to organize its structure. For example, a client who struggled with her understanding of her husband’s behavior, at one point in a session reported that during the week she realized something about his intentions that completely changed her ideas about what he was doing. This new insight, new configuration, put the matter to rest, allowing the couple to move on to other issues. An unfinished experience becomes finished, and we move on to what comes next.

The Perls had studied as doctoral students with the Gestalt psychologists Wertheimer and Kohler and were knowledgeable about the laws this research was exploring about the function of sensory perception. The Perls recognized that the same principles functioned in how individuals organize their life experiences. These ideas led to using the name "Gestalt" for their approach to psychotherapy. Other theoretical foundations influenced their work. Among these are: phenomenology, existential-dialogic philosophy, field theory, and mindful practices of Buddhism.

Each of us has become who we are, for better or worse, within the context of our life circumstances. For many of us and our clients, we adapted to these circumstances in order to meet our fundamental organismic needs, including the need for loving and empathic relationships.

Who we are, or who we are becoming, is an organismic response toward maintaining a sense of wholeness. However, most of us interrupt our organismic process toward wholeness resulting in symptoms or other dysfunctional patterns of living our lives. How the person interrupts this process of organismic contact is of interest to Gestalt therapists and patterns of interruption are a major focus of psychotherapy. From the theoretical perspective of Gestalt therapy, with adequate support, a person will strive to complete situations from moment to moment so that he can restore his natural process towards healthy growth and development. When this is achieved, the person’s behavior is purposeful, balanced, flowing from one experience to another. That is, it is integrated.

Daniel Siegel, M.D. (2007) refers to this experience of integration as a state of mental well-being. He describes such a state as flexible, adaptive, coherent, energized, and stable. Siegel writes, "Mental well-being is created within the process of integration, the linkage of different components of a system into a functional whole." He continues, "Personal transformation can be considered to involve three legs on a triangle of well-being: coherent mind, empathic relationships, and neural integration." Siegel depicts the goals of Gestalt therapy perfectly. Those who work with a Gestalt therapist have an opportunity to achieve such mental well-being. The Gestalt therapist focuses on the client’s awareness and contact processes with respect, compassion, and commitment to the validity of the client’s subjective reality, while also affirming the client’s ability to grow towards greater integration and well-being. As the client is supported to become more aware and fully engaged in the present state of his or her existence and being, rather than striving to be something different, greater coherence of mind is achieved. Paradoxically, the client discovers alternative ways of being in relationships and making choices that lead to a stronger sense of mental well-being and satisfaction in life. An adolescent client who had become severely depressed struggled with aspects of her self that she hated: jealousy of her best friend, feeling like a fifth wheel in relationships, rejected by boyfriends. Paradoxically, an essential part of her recovery was becoming aware of and accepting these feelings about herself rather than trying not to have these feelings. As she did this, and as her internal conflict subsided, she was able to become more engaged in her own life with self-support and self-love (Carroll, 2009).

Gestalt therapy is more of a paradigm of human nature than a system of applied techniques designed for symptom reduction. “Gestalt therapy, when true to its principles, is a protest against the reductionism of mere symptom removal and adjustment; it is a protest for a client's right to develop fully enough to be able to make conscious and informed choices that shape her or his life” (Yontef, 2005). Since Gestalt therapy is flexible, creative and direct, it is adaptable to short-term as well as long-term therapy. Gestalt practice includes groups, couples therapy, child and adolescent therapy, family therapy, organizational development, coaching, and educational practice.

It is recognized and practiced internationally, with training institutes and professional organizations all over the world. Research and leading journals are found in most countries.

Felicia Carroll, MFT is a certified Gestalt Therapist through the Gestalt Institute of Los Angeles. She has been in private practice for over twenty five years and recently became a part-time Clinical Director at Domestic Violence Solutions in Santa Barbara. Felicia is the founder-director of the West Coast Center for Gestalt Therapy with Children where she conducts trainings locally and internationally. For more information visit www.feliciacarroll.com.

Resources and References:

Carroll, F. (2009). The pitchfork princess: transforming the torment of shame. Interamerican Journal of Psychology, 45(2), May-August 2009, 260-267.

Perls, F. (1948). Theory and techniques of personality integration. In J. Stevens (ed.) Gestalt is…Moab, UT: Real People Press, 1975, 45-55. (Originally printed in The American Journal of Psychotherapy, 2(4), October 1948, 565-586).

Siegel, D. (2007). The mindful brain: reflection and attunement in the cultivation of well-being. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. 288-289.

Yontef, G. and Jacobs, L. (2005). Gestalt therapy. In R. J. Corisini and D. Wedding (eds.) Current Psychotherapies, Seventh Edition, Belmont, Ca, Brooks