Fritz Perls is credited with much of the development of "awareness theory". His work emphasized a phenomenological and subjective approach to therapy, based on the notion that many of us split off our experience (thoughts, sensations, emotions) that are uncomfortable. A primary goal of his therapeutic style was to move people into owning their experience, which would aid the mending of their fragmented view into a healthy gestalt (or whole). Perls' book, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, is an interesting description of this approach drawn from transcripts of his work.
Gestalt Defined
Ge·stalt:
A configuration so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.
Gestalt Therapy:
A psychotherapeutic approach that supports the process of
developing awareness of the intrinsic nature of one's True Self.
"Gestalt therapy is existential, experiential, and experimental. But what techniques you use to implement that and to apply it, that depends to the greatest extent on your background, on your experiences professionally, in life, your skills and whatever. The Gestalt therapist uses himself and herself with whatever they have got and whatever seems to apply, at the time, to the actual situation: a patient, a group, a trainee, whatever." Laura Perls, Co-founder of Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt Therapy is an experiential therapy emphasizing what is happening in the here and now to help individuals become more self-aware and learn responsibility for and integration of thoughts, feelings, and actions.
A configuration so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.
Gestalt Therapy:
A psychotherapeutic approach that supports the process of
developing awareness of the intrinsic nature of one's True Self.
"Gestalt therapy is existential, experiential, and experimental. But what techniques you use to implement that and to apply it, that depends to the greatest extent on your background, on your experiences professionally, in life, your skills and whatever. The Gestalt therapist uses himself and herself with whatever they have got and whatever seems to apply, at the time, to the actual situation: a patient, a group, a trainee, whatever." Laura Perls, Co-founder of Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt Therapy is an experiential therapy emphasizing what is happening in the here and now to help individuals become more self-aware and learn responsibility for and integration of thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Therapist Role
Gestalt Therapy draws on classical Gestalt psychology's notion that all stimuli (data) that is presented to us by the environment is essentially "raw" or neutral. The raw mass of data is then organized and shaped by the perceiver into "wholes" which we call "gestalts". These subjectively structured wholes (gestalts), not the raw data, comprise what is then called "experience". Everything that is experienced through thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations, associations, culture, gender, appetite, desire, impulses, needs, and so forth, influences the way a person experiences reality. Thus all of experience becomes a co-creation. Because individuals are so unique, Gestaltists believe that no two people will ever view the same experience the same way.
The Gestalt Therapist views life (the way we play, work, live, make love, die, etc.) as a "creative process". Therapy becomes a modality to objectively examine the way individuals, couples, groups and systems creatively adapt to their environment. Change occurs by heightening awareness and modifying the behaviors that impede the process of effective adaptation
The Gestalt Therapist views life (the way we play, work, live, make love, die, etc.) as a "creative process". Therapy becomes a modality to objectively examine the way individuals, couples, groups and systems creatively adapt to their environment. Change occurs by heightening awareness and modifying the behaviors that impede the process of effective adaptation
Values and Principles
* Gestalt Therapy recognizes the creative processes inherent within all of life.
* Therapy is a process of transformation and transcendence.
* The relationship between the therapist and the individual/couple/group is one of mutual transformation.
* The individual is viewed as an integration of mind-body-spirit, in the process of contact with, and creative adjustment to, his environment. It respects the individual's defenses (resistance) as the process of "creative adjustment".
* The couple is a system with multiple levels of phenomenon simultaneously in action and synergistically interacting.
* The system evolves over time through successive phases which can be defined operationally.
* Individual and systemic change, as a growth process, requires insight (awareness) and experiential action which is specific and focused upon the figural tension in order to be integrated into system patterns and processes.
* Change in one level of system will have a "ripple effect" at other levels.
* Systemic processes are holographic and the present event is the contemporary manifestation of multiple levels of the past.
* Contact is the essential experience for growth and change.
* Awareness of process is the best hope for change.
* Value the present moment.
* Gestalt Therapy recognizes the creative processes inherent within all of life.
* Therapy is a process of transformation and transcendence.
* The relationship between the therapist and the individual/couple/group is one of mutual transformation.
* The individual is viewed as an integration of mind-body-spirit, in the process of contact with, and creative adjustment to, his environment. It respects the individual's defenses (resistance) as the process of "creative adjustment".
* The couple is a system with multiple levels of phenomenon simultaneously in action and synergistically interacting.
* The system evolves over time through successive phases which can be defined operationally.
* Individual and systemic change, as a growth process, requires insight (awareness) and experiential action which is specific and focused upon the figural tension in order to be integrated into system patterns and processes.
* Change in one level of system will have a "ripple effect" at other levels.
* Systemic processes are holographic and the present event is the contemporary manifestation of multiple levels of the past.
* Contact is the essential experience for growth and change.
* Awareness of process is the best hope for change.
* Value the present moment.
Gestalt Therapy Foundational Beliefs
Field Theory
Field theory originally derived from the work of Kurt Lewin (1951) and is our primary way of looking at the world. Simply stated, all reality is viewed within the context of the sum total of many subsets (desires, environment, economics, relationships, etc.) and it is accepted that all of these variables influence, impact and overlap holographically.
As psychotherapists and agents of change, we look at how the system, be it individual, couple, family, or culture, organizes itself. We learn to examine phenomena both broadly and narrowly... without judgment and, to the extent possible, without prejudice. Our lens can shift from the precise notation of the flicker of an eyelid, to a sweeping social and even global perspective (Melnick).
Phenomenology
Gestaltists believe that one can only know what one experiences. "Phenomenology" reflects the various levels of awareness and the degree of focus that people attend to as they give meaning to their lives. The concept further accepts the uniqueness of each individual and considers all perspectives legitimate.
With the phenomenological approach to therapy, one also adopts a method in which the observation and description of data (phenomenon) become paramount to therapeutic process. As much as possible, the therapist avoids interpretation and assumption and relies on the process of feedback to be the tool to bring about awareness and consequential change or adaptation
Dialogue
Because Gestaltists believe that all experience is co-created, dialogue is used as a method to encourage the open engagement of two phenomenologies(the therapist and the client). Appropriate self-disclosure of the therapist through dialogue helps to encourage authenticity within the relationship and also serves to create a shared language of meaning. The intent is to allow growth through the field of interpersonal transaction.
Figure/Ground
Although the Gestalt psychologists talked of figure and ground in relation to perceptual phenomena, Gestalt therapists have applied it more broadly. They see it as relevant to all functions of the individual, of intimate systems such as couples and families, and of larger systems such as organizations and cultures.
Basically, as we experience the environment, a primary form, or "figure," stands out and is organized against its background, or "ground." The ground in contrast to the figure is unbounded and formless (Polster and Polster, 1973). It includes past experience, physiology, beliefs, constructs, culture, and so on, with its main function being to provide context.
As a figure emerges from the ground, it draws attention for a varied, but always finite, length of time. Eventually, when it no longer holds the focus (because of some form of completion or perhaps competition from another figure), it recedes back into the ground where it is, one hopes, reintegrated in such a way as to make new meaning. Gestalt therapists have spent much time articulating this process of figure formation and destruction (Perls et al., 1951).
Resistances as Creative Adjustment
In Gestalt therapy every symptom or defense is viewed as an attempt to solve a problem through creative adjustment. However, when these adjustments, originally spontaneous, fitting, and developmentally correct, become a contextual and chronic, the figure/ground process becomes distorted. These response patterns (known as resistances) include projection, retroflection, introjection, confluence, and egotism. Unlike some other approaches, Gestalt therapy does not seek to remove or interpret them but instead seeks to bring them into awareness, with the goal of supporting new organization and self-regulation by the individual. More recently, some Gestalt therapists have preferred to use the phrase "contact styles," which subsumes the old label of resistance and stresses instead the individual's patterns of contacting the self, the other, or the environment (Wheeler, 1991).
Field Theory
Field theory originally derived from the work of Kurt Lewin (1951) and is our primary way of looking at the world. Simply stated, all reality is viewed within the context of the sum total of many subsets (desires, environment, economics, relationships, etc.) and it is accepted that all of these variables influence, impact and overlap holographically.
As psychotherapists and agents of change, we look at how the system, be it individual, couple, family, or culture, organizes itself. We learn to examine phenomena both broadly and narrowly... without judgment and, to the extent possible, without prejudice. Our lens can shift from the precise notation of the flicker of an eyelid, to a sweeping social and even global perspective (Melnick).
Phenomenology
Gestaltists believe that one can only know what one experiences. "Phenomenology" reflects the various levels of awareness and the degree of focus that people attend to as they give meaning to their lives. The concept further accepts the uniqueness of each individual and considers all perspectives legitimate.
With the phenomenological approach to therapy, one also adopts a method in which the observation and description of data (phenomenon) become paramount to therapeutic process. As much as possible, the therapist avoids interpretation and assumption and relies on the process of feedback to be the tool to bring about awareness and consequential change or adaptation
Dialogue
Because Gestaltists believe that all experience is co-created, dialogue is used as a method to encourage the open engagement of two phenomenologies(the therapist and the client). Appropriate self-disclosure of the therapist through dialogue helps to encourage authenticity within the relationship and also serves to create a shared language of meaning. The intent is to allow growth through the field of interpersonal transaction.
Figure/Ground
Although the Gestalt psychologists talked of figure and ground in relation to perceptual phenomena, Gestalt therapists have applied it more broadly. They see it as relevant to all functions of the individual, of intimate systems such as couples and families, and of larger systems such as organizations and cultures.
Basically, as we experience the environment, a primary form, or "figure," stands out and is organized against its background, or "ground." The ground in contrast to the figure is unbounded and formless (Polster and Polster, 1973). It includes past experience, physiology, beliefs, constructs, culture, and so on, with its main function being to provide context.
As a figure emerges from the ground, it draws attention for a varied, but always finite, length of time. Eventually, when it no longer holds the focus (because of some form of completion or perhaps competition from another figure), it recedes back into the ground where it is, one hopes, reintegrated in such a way as to make new meaning. Gestalt therapists have spent much time articulating this process of figure formation and destruction (Perls et al., 1951).
Resistances as Creative Adjustment
In Gestalt therapy every symptom or defense is viewed as an attempt to solve a problem through creative adjustment. However, when these adjustments, originally spontaneous, fitting, and developmentally correct, become a contextual and chronic, the figure/ground process becomes distorted. These response patterns (known as resistances) include projection, retroflection, introjection, confluence, and egotism. Unlike some other approaches, Gestalt therapy does not seek to remove or interpret them but instead seeks to bring them into awareness, with the goal of supporting new organization and self-regulation by the individual. More recently, some Gestalt therapists have preferred to use the phrase "contact styles," which subsumes the old label of resistance and stresses instead the individual's patterns of contacting the self, the other, or the environment (Wheeler, 1991).