What is Gestalt Therapy?
Gestalt therapy is a form of talk therapy that pays close attention to what is happening right now, in the room, rather than working mainly through the history of how you got here. Your history matters, and it comes up. But the useful material tends to be what that history is still doing in the present, and that is something we can look at together as it happens.
It is an experiential approach, which means you are not only describing your life to me from the outside. Over the course of a session we notice what shifts in you as you talk, and we stay with what seems important instead of moving quickly on.
The here and now
Much of what troubles us is not really in the past, even when it started there. It shows up as something happening now: a tightening when a certain name comes up, a change of subject, a joke that arrives just before something painful.
Those moments are the material. When one happens in session I will often slow us down and ask what you just noticed, because whatever moved in you then is closer to the difficulty than any account of it we could construct afterward.
Awareness is the work
In gestalt therapy, awareness is not a step on the way to the change. It is very largely the change itself. Choices that seemed unavailable often become available once you can see clearly what you are doing, how you are doing it, and what it costs.
That is a different aim from being handed a technique to apply. The intent is that you leave with a better working knowledge of yourself, which does not expire when the sessions end.
The whole person, not only the words
Gestalt means something like a whole, a shape complete in itself. In practice that means I am interested in more than the content of what you say. Posture, breath, tone, where your attention goes, what you do with your hands: these are part of how you are experiencing the moment, and they often report something before words do.
None of this is analysis performed on you from a distance. If I notice something, I will say so and ask what you make of it. You are the authority on your own experience.
What a session is like
Mostly it is a conversation, though a more attentive one than usual. We begin with what you bring, and follow what has energy in it.
Sometimes I will suggest an experiment: saying something out loud that you have only thought, speaking to an absent person as though they were here, exaggerating a gesture to find out what it carries. These are invitations, never requirements, and their point is to let you feel something directly rather than discuss it abstractly. You can decline any of them and the work continues.
There is no worksheet and no assigned homework, though people often find that the noticing carries on between sessions by itself.
Two people in the room
Gestalt therapy is dialogic, meaning I am present as a person rather than as a blank screen. I will tell you honestly what I observe and, where it is useful to you, how I am affected in the moment.
The relationship is not incidental to the method. How you and I make contact, and where that contact falters, is frequently a live and usable example of what happens elsewhere in your life.
What people bring to it
People come with anxiety, depression, substance use, grief, relationships that keep arriving at the same argument, low self-esteem, and life transitions that have left them unsure who they are now.
The approach suits people who are curious about themselves and willing to look, and it is a poor fit for anyone hoping to be handed a set of instructions. If, after we have talked, this does not seem like the right approach for what you are facing, I will say so and help you find something that fits better.
Where this comes from
The account above is how I work and how I understand the approach. If you would like to read it from the source, these are the standard texts and the professional bodies.
Foundational texts
- Perls, F., Hefferline, R., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality.
The founding text, and still the densest statement of the theory.
- Beisser, A. (1970). “The Paradoxical Theory of Change,” in Fagan, J. & Shepherd, I. (eds.), Gestalt Therapy Now.
A short, much-cited essay: we change by becoming what we are, not by striving to be what we are not.
- Perls, F. (1969). Gestalt Therapy Verbatim.
Transcripts of Perls working, which show the method rather than describe it.
- Polster, E., & Polster, M. (1973). Gestalt Therapy Integrated.
The most readable bridge between the theory and ordinary clinical practice.
- Yontef, G. (1993). Awareness, Dialogue and Process: Essays on Gestalt Therapy.
Where the dialogic, relational emphasis described above is set out most clearly.
- Joyce, P., & Sills, C. Skills in Gestalt Counselling & Psychotherapy.
A current, practical overview, and a reasonable first book.
Associations and journals
- International Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy
The international professional association, formerly AAGT.
- European Association for Gestalt Therapy
Training standards and a directory of member institutes.
- Gestalt International Study Center
Training centre, and publisher of Gestalt Review.
- New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy
Founded in 1952 by the originators of the approach.
- Gestalt Review
Peer-reviewed journal, published twice a year by Penn State University Press.
- Gestalt therapy – Psychology Today
A brief general-audience summary, if you would like a second description.
