Gestalt Therapy - an introduction

Gestalt therapy, is the term given to a form of psychotherapy that came from Gestalt school of thought. The basic principle of the Gestalt shool is 'The whole is greater than the sum of its parts'. In other words, when you look at the individual elements of a situation, it may not make much sense, but viewed in entirety, it can be explained and fits perfectly. That's your 'Aha' moment.

The Gestalt psychologists are also famous for studying perception - both auditory and visual to explain how human beings perceive objects and ideas, analyse events and integrate experiences.

Gestalt therapy was started and deveoped largely by Fritz Perls. Gestalt psychology, though also had large contributions in terms of Max Wertheimer, Paul Goodman, Larvae Perls, Kohler in addition to Perls.

Gestalt therapy focuses on the way persons experience their reality. It means that one takes responsibility to determin one's present experience. Gestalt therapy focuses on the fact that boundaries between self and others must be flexible for any meaningful communication, in a way one experiences one's sense of autonomy. When these boundaries are not clear, there will be psychological problems.

Perls always stated that the goals of therapy should be to make a person mature and grow. It implies that there is an integration of person's thoughts, feelings and experiences. And the basic process or technique through which this integration can be reached is awareness.

Different exercises and techniques are used to help a client learn new methods and levels of awareness. Some of the techniques are:

• Asking questions like 'What are you aware of now?' while the person is involved in some activity.
• Emhasizing on awareness of certain feelings in the background of several others helps a person to sharpen the awareness of a certain feeling and in coming to the present.
• Awareness of how one takes or avoids responsibility while talking about oneself is brought to focus by the therapist. Shifting from vague words like 'it', 'they' to 'I', 'me' help in getting more aware and taking responsibility for one's own experiences.
• Therapists also focus on nonverbal behaviors. While listening to therapists, clients get so immersed in listening that their non-verbal behavior becomes spontaneous and acts as a window to what is happening inside them. By asking the clients and bringing their awareness to what is happening in different parts of their body, therapists help to bring clarity in them.
• Role Play: Some people understand better by 'becoming someone else' in such cases, this is an effective technique where people are asked to play different roles in order to experience different feelings and emotions . This is also adopted as a common exercise in most workshops these days.
• Therapists also ask clients to write a 'self-dialogue' between the different polarities or poles that they are stuck between. In a variation of this technique, different chairs are used, where the clients are shifted from chair to chair and play the roles. It is similar to doing pros and cons of a situation.
• Gestalt therapy also emphasises that dreams do play an important role. Perls used the technique of asking his clients to relive his/her dreams by playing the different objects and people in the dream. As one played each role, they were asked 'What are you aware of now?'. Dreams, in Gestalt therapy are just an extension of the spontaneous aspects of oneself.

The concepts, which Gestalt emphasizes have already been established in our cultures for long and resonates well with spirituality . For example, Vipasana meditation teaches that all is present in the here-and-now and it's primary technique is based on self awareness. Similarly one aspect of yoga pranayama, where focus is on conscious breathing, is to bring ourselves to present moment. Whether Gestalt found its inspiration in such spiritual and religious cultures can not be determined, however such Gestalt therapy concepts continue to find alignment in our practical lives, helping us to get better.