Gestalt therapy
Also known as Gestalt psychotherapy
Humanistic therapy of here-and-now awareness and experiments like the empty chair.
At a glance
The core idea
Here and now, Awareness, Contact …
See all 4Examples
Here and now, Exaggerate it, Body and breath …
See all 8Key techniques
Empty chair, Experiments
See all 2What the research says
Little research, Lives on in EFT, Criticism of style
See all 3Connections
Fritz Perls, Humanistic psychology and 11 others
See all 13
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- Gestalt therapy focuses on what the client experiences right now, in the room.
- Its goal is awareness: noticing what you feel, do and avoid as it happens.
- Change comes from fully accepting what is, not from striving to be different.
- Therapists use experiments, like speaking to an empty chair, to turn talk into experience.
- Its chair work became a root of Emotion-focused therapy.
Why it matters
- Chair work and present-moment focus run through EFT, schema therapy and other approaches; this is where they came from.
Key facts
- Developed by
- Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman, 1940s–1950s1
- Started
- First described in Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (1951)1
- Core idea
- Awareness of present experience, the relationship, and the person's wider context1
- Key technique
- Empty chair: speaking to a person, a part of oneself or a feeling as if it sat in a chair1
- Paradoxical change
- Change comes from "full acceptance of what is, rather than a striving to be different" (Beisser)1
- Evidence
- Gestalt therapists largely ignored research, with exceptions such as Les Greenberg1
The core idea
-
Here and now1
The most useful focus is "the experiential present moment": what is happening as you speak.
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Awareness1
Therapy explores experience by describing it rather than explaining it; awareness itself is the goal.
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Contact1
People lose contact by confluence, introjection, projection, retroflection and deflection; therapy notices these moves.
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A real relationship1
The therapist shows up as an authentic person in dialogue, drawing on Martin Buber's I-Thou.
Examples
-
Here and now1
The therapist names what is happening as it happens: "I notice a slight tension at the corners of your mouth when I say that", "I see you shifting on the couch and folding your arms across your chest".
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Exaggerate it1
Noticing something in the client's posture or tone of voice, the therapist may ask them to exaggerate it and pay attention to what that is like.
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Body and breath1
The therapist may draw attention to the client's breathing or posture and how it changes when they talk about different things.
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An assertiveness experiment1
A client who struggles to be assertive might say assertive things to the therapist or the group, or give a talk about how one should never be assertive.
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Speak to the parent1
Rather than talking about a critical parent, the client imagines the parent present, or the therapist as the parent, and talks to them directly.
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Rehearsal in the chair1
Acting out feelings in the empty chair can help a client prepare for something ahead, such as a new job.
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Confluence1
"It's normal for a baby and mother to merge, but not for a therapist and client": if they merge, there is no boundary to meet at and nothing new is learned.
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Introjection1
Rather than "swallow whole" the therapist's interpretations, the client is to "taste" their own experience and either accept or reject it.
Key techniques
-
Empty chair1
The client addresses someone imagined in an empty chair, often switching chairs to voice both sides. See Empty chair technique.
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Experiments1
"Safe emergencies", such as speaking directly to an imagined critical parent or exaggerating a gesture to feel what it carries.
What the research says
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Little research1
Gestalt therapists largely ignored research; in the US the approach was largely replaced by cognitive behavioral therapy.
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Lives on in EFT1
Emotion-focused therapy, which is researched, adapts Gestalt two-chair work as its enactment tasks.
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Criticism of style1
Isadore From called some of Perls's brief workshops "hit-and-run" therapy.
Connections
Related
- Emotion-focused therapyTopicEFT draws on Gestalt assumptions and adapts its two-chair techniques
- Leslie GreenbergPersonOne of the few to research Gestalt methods
- Ego, Hunger and Aggression: A Revision of Freud's Theory and MethodBookIts first, pre-gestalt statement
- EmotionTopicWorks with emotion through movement and facial expression
- Facilitating Emotional Change: The Moment-by-Moment ProcessBookThe other root
- Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human PersonalityBookThe book that first described it
- Gestalt Therapy VerbatimBookPerls' best-known demonstration of the method
- In and Out the Garbage PailBookPerls' own account of its origins
- Internal Family SystemsTopicGestalt parts work and the empty chair are cited precursors
- Schema therapyTopicIts experiential techniques expand Gestalt imagery and chair work
Links
Sources
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