Gestalt psychotherapy
Gestalt therapy is a humanistic approach to psychotherapy. Originally developed in the early 1950's by Fritz and Laura Perls gestalt therapy influenced many other therapy approaches.
Word "gestalt" is the German word for "form" or "shape". The term itself came from Gestalt psychology which was the ground for developing gestalt psychotherapy.
Gestalt therapy in the past was quite different from the practice of gestalt therapy now. Even though changes in clinical practice occurred during the years, gestalt therapists continue to encourage people to find their own identities through creativity of the person and awareness achieved in therapy.
Therapeutic process is guided by client's experience and aesthetic process of contacting within the session and not by the therapist judgment of the person by outside standards.
The basic concept in gestalt therapy is contact. Contact is the core of human beings and meeting the other in the world. Through contact we are experiencing the world and world is experiencing us. Contact itself is the process of experience. Diagnostic tool of gestalt therapists is the clinical theory of contacting.
During the process of contacting the therapist is interested in how client experience something not why something is experienced. Moreover, experience is positioned in the present moment, in the here and now. This is the process of gestalt formation. Fixed gestalts represent the repeating patterns that diminish awareness and obstruct free flow of the process of contacting. Person can feel anxious, depressed or isolated. During the therapy person experience new embodied experience (integrative experience of mind and body) which support the person's awareness and help blocked emotional to be released. The concept of here and now does not mean that the past is neglected. In the present moment the history of the person is alive and embodied. Thus, past contribute to each present moment.
Gestalt therapy is a phenomenological, hermeneutical and existential approach. The contemporary gestalt therapy assume that all is relational. Human beings cannot live without relations. We need others and we are confirmed by others. Our meaning in life is built on the contact with others. Therefore, our existence is purely relational.
Some of the basic concepts that gestalt therapists are using in their work are contact boundaries, theory of self, creative adjustment, organism/environment field, paradoxical theory of change.
My approach
The perspective of my own understanding of Gestalt therapy is being with the client in the present moment with all fields present in the here and now and co-creating new embodied experience in between two human beings. It is a transformative process for both, therapist and client. Reaching new perspective and being is possible only through lived experience and co-creative process which is emerging in between therapist and client. For me, therapy is an art itself. Aesthetic dimension is prerequisite to work as a therapist. During my sessions with clients we are working on various life difficulties and important topics in their life through art, photography and dreams.