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WHAT IS GESTALT?
"Gestalt" is a German word which roughly means "the whole". It's a holistic therapy that prefers to see people as whole, complex beings with mind, body and emotions all playing a part in who we are. In Gestalt therapy, it's believed that a person cannot be reduced to just one aspect of them (such as a particular personality trait, habit or diagnosis). We can't get to know a forest by knowing a single tree. Similarly, if we want to try to understand a person, all aspects of them need to be explored. Simply speaking, this is the task in Gestalt therapy: to get to know all of ourselves, including the parts that are less familiar, so we can be more empowered and gain more responsibility over our own lives.
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Awareness
Gestalt therapy is focused on developing awareness. Awareness enables us to know how we move through the world - how we see, hear, think and feel, how we perceive others and are perceived by others, and how we modify our behaviour when we come into contact with others. Without awareness, we all too easily fall into automatic and habitual ways of being that do not necessarily bring about the most fulfilling and vibrant life.
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We may become aware of the narratives we hold about our lives, our thoughts and beliefs, and the meanings we make of our experiences. We may become aware of what we are experiencing through our senses, as well as the sensations and emotions we are experiencing in the body.
Body awareness plays a big role in Gestalt therapy. Emotions are experienced in our bodies and are expressed through our bodies. The more body awareness we have, the more fully we can process difficult emotions and allow them to arise and pass away freely.
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Feeling Stuck
In Gestalt, it's believed that all people are naturally inclined to live well and lead satisfying lives, and we are all trying our best to do this. As awareness deepens, though, we realise we have areas that feel stuck and that hold us back from gaining deeper fulfillment.
We all have habits of relating and ways of viewing the world that feel quite fixed and have been established over time in response to our unique life experiences. These ways of being have developed for a reason and it's important to respect them: they are ways we have learned to cope with life's challenges. It's not that these fixed habits are "bad" or "wrong" or in need of "fixing". Rather, it is the rigidity around them that can mean that, in situations where another response may bring about more satisfaction, we are not able to make that choice.
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Gestalt therapy seeks to create a supportive relationship in which to widen our range of possible responses and bring about more freedom.
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The Role of a Gestalt Therapist
Instead of falling into a prescribed role, a Gestalt therapist seeks to be real with you, and offers an attitude of openness, acceptance and curiosity that invites you to share your own truth and to be met exactly as you are. Gestalt therapists facilitate the process of awareness development described above by inviting you to pay attention to your own process, as well as paying attention to their own and sharing this with you, in service of the work. Often, these fixed, habitual ways of relating arise in the therapy itself, and this is explored together.
