What is Gestalt therapy, and how can it help you?

Gestalt therapy is a “whole person” approach, which means that it embraces all of a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This form of mental healthcare is helpful for people who want to maintain a present focus instead of dissecting the past. This approach can help you heal from mental health challenges like stress, anxiety, or trauma. 

Gestalt therapists play an active role in the therapeutic process as they guide their clients through their sessions. They often use well-known Gestalt activities like the empty chair technique, where the client imagines having a conversation with someone sitting in an empty chair across from them while staying aware of their own internal state. Gestalt therapists use this technique along with many others to help clients strengthen their mental health.

What is Gestalt therapy?

Gestalt therapy is a form of therapy created by husband-and-wife psychotherapists Fritz and Laura Perls in Europe in the 1940s. They developed their methods as a response to Sigmund Freud’s approach to therapy, which viewed the mind as having a three-part structure and focused heavily on exploring the past.  

Instead, the goal of Gestalt therapy is to help people gain insight into their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in the present moment. Gestalt therapy focuses on the “here and now” in lively and creative ways to help people make sense of how their unique experiences affect them. This kind of therapy results in a more practical and positive mental state with less worry about the future or dwelling on the past. 

To achieve these outcomes, Gestalt therapists use three guiding philosophies:

• Field theory: This concept is derived from physics and states that each part of a whole influences all of the other parts. The Gestalt therapist considers the “total field” of a person, which includes their past experiences and their current thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.  
• Phenomenology: This concept guides how the Gestalt therapist interacts with the client in sessions. The therapist attempts to guide the person as much as possible without explaining or interpreting. In doing so, the person feels empowered to better understand themselves.
• Dialogue: This concept refers to the way that the Gestalt therapist and the client shape the outcomes of therapy together. The therapist sees and accepts the person as they are, and the client and therapist are mutually involved in the experience of therapy.

Who is Gestalt therapy for?

Gestalt therapy can be helpful for anyone who seeks greater understanding and acceptance of themselves. It can take place in individual therapy sessions, but it’s also particularly well suited for group therapy. In a group setting, members can practice authentic communication, explore interpersonal dynamics, and gain insights into their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. They do this through various experiential techniques, like play therapy.

Research shows that Gestalt therapy can significantly reduce depression, anxiety, and stress in people who have experienced trauma. By focusing on the present moment, Gestalt therapy can help people uncover the thoughts and feelings that make them feel anxious. This approach can also help heal dysfunctional relationships or low self-esteem and support people living with substance use disorder or bipolar disorder. 

In addition to its benefits for mental health, Gestalt therapy can encourage physical healing too. Sometimes, unexplained physical symptoms can be the result of unexpressed emotions. Gestalt therapy provides a way to explore those suppressed emotions in healthy ways. 

The benefits and limitations of Gestalt therapy

There are many benefits to Gestalt therapy. By working with a Gestalt therapist, you can learn to:

• Understand emotional patterns. Gestalt therapy provides a supportive space to explore difficult emotions and identify unhelpful patterns. 
• Improve relationships. By examining your experiences and how you feel about them, you can develop more authentic ways of relating to others. 
• Build self-acceptance. Gestalt therapy emphasizes understanding and accepting one’s experiences without judgment. 
• Increase self-awareness. Becoming more in tune with yourself and how you respond to both past and present experiences can help you understand why you feel the way you do. 

While Gestalt therapy can be incredibly helpful for some people, that doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for everyone. Gestalt techniques may not be appropriate for people with severe cognitive disorders, impulse control difficulties, or personality disorders. It’s also not ideal for people who experience psychosis or those who need acute crisis intervention. But fortunately, there are many other treatments that may be more effective for people living with these mental health concerns.

What can you expect from Gestalt therapy?

In Gestalt therapy, the therapist takes an active part in the process because the interaction between the therapist and client is one of the foundations of this technique. Each experience in a Gestalt therapy session can be different than the last. But the focus is always on helping you understand how you are feeling in the present moment — rather than how you felt in the past — and how you might expect to feel in the future. 

A common Gestalt therapy activity is the empty chair technique. In this exercise, you imagine a person sitting in a chair across from you. You can talk to that person and express yourself out loud, with the therapist helping you recognize and understand how you feel along the way. 

Find a therapist with Rula

Working with a Gestalt therapist can help you increase your self-acceptance and embrace the present moment as you work to strengthen your mental health. And whether you’re drawn to Gestalt therapy or a different type of therapy, Rula is here to make it easier to find the specialized support you deserve. In just a few minutes, we can connect you with a therapist who takes your insurance and who you can meet with from the comfort of home.

Find a therapist with Rula