The Gestalt therapy Is an existential psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility and focuses on the experience of the individual in the present, in the patient-therapist relationship, in the social and environmental context, and in the self-regulation that people do as a result of a situation.
It is one of the branches of psychology from which many professionals work, of phenomenological-existential type. This means that it is based on a psychology that embraces an existential philosophical concept.
Existential phenomenology is based on giving meaning to a person's experience of their world and of themselves. Try to include all those personal experiences in the globality of the person and his world.
That is, it would include everything that the person does, feel, say... For the Gestalt psychology, all these aspects are important and have a meaning within the existence of the person.
It is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Frederick S.Perls , His wife Laura Perls and Paul Goodman in the 1940s. Originally they were Freudian analysts, with knowledge of medicine and psychiatry, and what they intended was to create an alternative to conventional psychoanalysis.
What is Gestalt therapy?
The word Gestalt means form and refers to the character or essence of something.
At the therapy level, it focuses more on the process, ie what happens at the time, than the content. For example, if you were arguing with a friend about which football team is best, from this perspective, the important thing would not be football, or if you reach a consensus on which team is better, but the importance would lie in the way That you are debating it.
This means that the emphasis and relevance lie on what is being done, thinking and feeling in the moment, instead of giving importance to what was, could be or should be. We can say then that Gestalt therapy, focuses on the"here and now".
For this psychological current, that the patient or the person becomes aware of itself is the key to be a full personal growth and potential.
From this approach, it is considered that sometimes consciousness may be blocked by thought patterns and negative behaviors that have been established in ourselves without even realizing it. So becoming aware of them, we can grow personally in a healthier and happier. And especially closer to who we really are.
It may now be easier for you to understand that through Gestalt therapy, people learn to discover those feelings, thoughts and experiences that may have been repressed. As well as needs that were not previously covered, at the time of working in therapy surfaced.
The idea is to avoid living in the past, or trying to predict the future. For the Gestalt the present is what matters, since it is the time in which everything goes on constantly. Although the experiences of the past can be treated in the sessions with the therapist, the purpose is to explore the aspects of the past that build the present in which the person lives.
Principles of Gestalt Therapy
Here are key concepts for Gestalt therapy.
To realize
This is perhaps one of the most important concepts in Gestalt therapy. To realize is, as its name implies, to get in touch with what each one really is, how he feels and how he perceives the world.
A person can realize and become aware on three levels; In the outer world, in the inner world and in the intermediate zone, which is considered fantasy.
When realizing is in the outside world refers to what I perceive through the senses, I see, touch, taste, smell... etc.
In the inner world it refers to what happens in our own body. Pressures, physiology, visceral movements... etc
In the middle zone it encompasses mental activity that occurs beyond what is actually present. We would be talking about the effort the brain makes to make sense of reality. Imagine, plan, think, remember...
Also in Gestalt, the patient must take responsibility for their life, their learning processes. The responsibility to be what one is, one's own thoughts and actions.
The here and now
I was already explaining to you above what this principle consisted of. The idea of the past is useful in some moments and sometimes, but you have to keep in mind always, that it is simply that: past. Same as the future, which is also important to keep in mind for many vital and mental functions, but with which we do not have to obsess, because focusing on these two moments we leave aside the most relevant, which would be the present.
In addition, the past and the future do not exist without the present, and both make sense at the mental level thanks to the perception we have of the moment we are living.
Replace the"why"with the"how"
When we center our doubts on a why, we use too much the intermediate zone of which we spoke in the beginning of the realization. This means that in trying to explain events or events, this distances us from reality, since the explanation will always be tinted by our own perception.
So instead of giving importance to why something has happened, the relevance lies on how the event occurred.
How is a Gestalt Therapist?
It is important to also talk about the position that the professional adopts if his line of work is directed by this current.
Gestalt therapists see their patient as a person who brings with them a wide range of qualities and potentialities, which are sufficient to overcome those conflicts or problems that need to be addressed.
Gestalt therapy sessions unlike other streams do not follow predefined or specific guidelines, in fact, therapists are trained in using their own creativity to assist the patient. So it will be the focus, the context and the personality of the therapist and the patient that will direct the sessions.
Together and in a mutual way, both the person and the professional will do an evaluative work on what happens at the moment and what is expected as a result.
The professional does not make interpretations of the facts, but rather focuses attention on the immediate, such as those physical responses that the person gives in consultation.
For example, the Gestalt therapist might consider it relevant to comment on the patient's non-verbal communication session when discussing a particular topic.
By making these kinds of objections, the patient finds the necessary help to realize and become aware of how he is emotionally and physically facing a particular concept or theme.
Gestalt professionals must be fully trained, and the most important thing about their training is the fact of working their own conflicts in a personal way.
The training usually oscillates between 3 and 5 years.
To finish this section I would like to leave here some words written by the founder of the therapy, Friz Perls:
"Consider that your patient is an able and complete individual, that he can do difficult things without you doing it for him, that he can face the pain and that he is not going to leave, that he can take erroneous paths and learn from his own mistakes . Respect their capacity for resilience, respect their capacity for self-management of discomfort, respect their healthy and adaptive part, their resources, assume their self-support and their human potential."
Do not you think a beautiful way of saying that people are capable if they propose?
Laws of Gestalt therapy
Once we have emphasized the therapy as well as the therapist, I would like to speak to you a little about Gestalt theory as such and the laws that govern it.
"The whole is more than the sum of its parts"
The Gestalt gives importance to the way in which we construct the world the people.
Some currents of psychology consider that the mental representations are the sum of fragments soaked with information that reaches us through the senses.
These fragments only make sense when they fit in our brain as if it were a puzzle.
But for Gestalt the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
This means that, from this current, it is considered that there is no perceptual whole that is composed of a set of stimuli, but that the information that reaches our brain and body, is more than the sum of its parts, and that Being a participant of a whole, can only be considered as a whole and as a whole and not fragmented.
That is, what is built in our mind is imposed on the information that comes to us, not the other way around, or what is the same, what we see and how we see it exists in us because we perceive it that way.
This idea is transferred to Gestalt therapy, so that the patient, having the power to perceive the external world in a personal way, can change his perspective to situations and conflicts, so that he adopts a more constructive vision to solve the problems.
For Gestalt theory, people are not considered as blank notebooks where the outside world is imprinting its image, but it is the canvas that determines how the world will draw on our role.
The theory of Gestalt is governed by several laws that reflect the idea that I just said about how we perceive the context that surrounds us.
The main laws are as follows:
Figure background
This principle is based on our tendency to separate whole figures from the backgrounds on which they are arranged. The variables that can be related are contracte, light, color, size... etc. The approach that our perception adopts is the figure, which does not mix with the background being part of it.
But the whole figure-fund constitutes a totality or Gestalt, since there is no bottom without figure, or figure without bottom.
Law of proximity
This law indicates that the elements are perceived as belonging to the same form. Our brain tends to relate and group elements that have properties in common, such as color.
Law of good form or pregnancy
Our brain organizes the elements into figures as simple as possible. This law also includes others such as the law of closure, which stipulates that the brain prefers closed forms, or the law of continuity, by which we see the figures drawn in a continuous and non-segmented form.
The brain rejects those perceptions that give the feeling of unfinished or defective. So sometimes the mind uses the imagination to complete the incomplete.
In the following way you can see that only if you look at it from a certain angle does it make sense, but trying to organize it as a whole is when the conflict appears.
Closing act
Our mind to have a simpler and quicker understanding of the context, adds those missing elements to complete a figure as a whole.
Law of continuity
This principle states that the brain tends to continue forms beyond the points that establish their end.
The mind is prone to follow the direction of an established pattern, rather than to deviate from it. It is capable of perceiving elements united and continuous even if they are interrupted with each other.
The continuity of a line, edge or other stimulus creates a connection of the figure that allows us to introduce aspects of the context into the whole. Perhaps you will understand better with the example I show you below.
