Psychology Today
Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt therapy is an approach to psychotherapy that helps clients focus on the present to understand what is actually happening in their lives at this moment, and how it makes them feel in the moment, rather than what they may assume to be happening based on past experience. Along with person-centered and existential therapy, it is one of the primary forms of humanistic therapy.
The term “gestalt” is derived from a German word that means “whole” or “put together.” Gestalt therapy was developed in the 1940s and 1950s by Fritz Perls, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and his then-wife, psychotherapist Laura Perls, as an alternative to traditional, verbally-focused psychoanalysis. Their foundational premise is that people are best thought of as a whole entities consisting of body, mind, and emotions, and best understood when viewed through their own eyes. (View Highlight)
Instead of simply talking, clients in gestalt therapy are often encouraged to engage in intellectual and physical experiences that can include role-playing, re-enactment, or artistic exercises like drawing and painting. In this way, clients can learn to become more aware of their thoughts and actions, of how negative thought patterns and behaviors may be blocking their self-awareness and making them unhappy, and how they can change (View Highlight)
The empty chair. In this exercise, the client sits across from an empty chair, representing a partner, relative, boss, or other person—or in some cases, a part of themselves—and, with the therapist’s encouragement, improvises a dialog with it. (View Highlight)
Exaggeration. A gestalt therapist will closely observe a client’s gestures and physical responses as they speak—for example, slouching, frowning, or bouncing their leg. In an exercise known as exaggeration (View Highlight)