Defining Gestalt Psychotherapy

Defining Gestalt Psychotherapy 1
What is Gestalt Psychotherapy?
Anthony Sosa
“Gestalt” is a German word for which there is no exact English equivalent translation. A
gestalt can mean “in completion, shape, configuration, integration, and form of organizational
patterns constituting a whole.” The founder and progenitor of the Gestalt therapy movement is
Fritz Perls, who was a maverick and eclectic in his style and integrating many elements from
different traditions to create a new system as a kind of living therapy. The history of Gestalt
therapy is based in the traditions that influenced Perls. These are Freud’s psychoanalysis,
William Reich’s Character Analysis, Existential Philosophy, Gestalt Psychology, and Eastern
spiritual traditions such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism (Naranjo, 1993; Smith, 1976).
From Gestalt psychology and the natural organismic perspective of Eastern traditions,
Perls synthesized a holistic doctrine for psychotherapy. Gestalt therapy borrows from Gestalt
psychology work on human perception relating how Gestalt deals with “wholes” by being
concerned with “fields” (dynamic system that may be empirical/objective and
phenomenal/subjective in which any change in any part affects the entire system or whole). Perls
unique view about the nature of man as whole is that humans are a “unified organism” (Perl,
1973, pg. 9).
Properties of wholes are “emergent,” inherent in no single part, but perceived when parts
or fragments organically come together; the basic units of data of wholes are experiences or
“phenomenon”(Smith, 1976, pg. 26). Wholes are understood in terms of field theory. The merit
of Gestalt comes from how wholes differentiate according to the organization of a field in terms
of “figure and ground” or “foreground and background,” that provide an understanding of every
person in terms being an integral part of a broader field-environment in the context of one’s
culture, society, political systems, and historical background (Sabin & Plummer, 2005).
Following Gestalts influences from field theory, systems thinking, and phenomenology we come
to see the human psyche, identity, and personality as ecological - where a gestalt entity i.e., a
whole is something that functions as more than or different than the sum of its parts, and how
any change in any portion of any part has the ability to affect the whole system of an organism.
In Gestalt therapy, the nature of human is seen as an organism within a unified field
containing equally valid biological and psychological needs. The core biological function of an
organism is integration as the process of assimilation for digesting all energy-information forms
of nourishment from the environment. According to theory, one the primary objective of Gestalt
therapy is restore one’s ability for functional organization in the process of biological and
psychological homeostasis by (Taoist) “organismic self-regulation” (Naranjo, 1993). The main
tenets of Gestalt therapy are the extensions of actuality (living here & now – the only actual
place the physical body lives), awareness (experiencing the real – stopping unnecessary thinking,
over conceptualizing, manipulating with moral evaluations, and accepting our suffering) and
responsibility (not avoiding our pain, accepting no should or ought to, being responsible for
one’s actions, feelings, thoughts, and words) as the three main general principles or attitudes in
Gestalt therapy (Naranjo, 1993, pg. 14).
Gestalt psychotherapy can be defined as an “experiential here-and-now” transpersonal
therapy (Perl, 1973, pg. 62) Gestalt utilizes implicit attitudes upon intuition or living
understanding, in contrast to letting ideas or theory substitute real experience, as the substance in
the therapeutic process for transmitting a direct experience of presence, awareness, and
responsibility which engenders “maturation as the transition from environmental support to self-
support” to fully differentiate oneself as real human being (Naranjo, 1993, pg. 8).
The interventions and techniques used in Gestalt therapy designed to access the psyche
from the present moment are best understood as ‘experiments.’ Experiments in Gestalt are
intuitively strategized to help the therapist not be invested on any one intervention and allows a
client to try on new ways of being by facing a “safe emergency” with adequate support to face
the risk of change (Joyce & Sills, 2014). The scientific and artistic application of Gestalt
experiments can include the following: the empty chair dialogue between parts such as topdog
(mental and intellectual body) and underdog (emotional and physical body), expressive
techniques (repetition, exaggeration, explication), suppressive techniques (staying with an
impasse, restricting non-responsibility language such as “it, they, always, never, should, must,”
and containing voluntary movements), acting out conflicts through psychodrama, reversing or
inventing a new response, and guided visualizations all as ways to raise awareness (Clements &
Talmor, 2016; Joyce & Sills, 2014). Gestalt recognizes neuroticism as protective tendencies and
imbalances that create self-interruption behaviors that prevent meeting the needs for homeostatic
equilibrium of a person in form of four main contact boundary disturbances: introjection,
projection, confluence, and retroflection (Perl, 1973).
Gestalt therapy is transpersonal because awareness itself is transpersonal. Gestalt brings
the transpersonal into the interpersonal through the practice of attention to the present moment
like practicing “verbalized meditation” while in the relationship of an interpersonal setting
(Naranjo, 1993, pg. 24). The Gestalt therapist, while in their neutral/zero-point presence, uses the
continuum of awareness as a way to awareness through all forms of expression and voluntary
inhibition. Self-expression is self-awareness; the capacity to express one’s consciousness – to
translate one’s feeling into actions, forms, words in presence of another – is to actualize self-
realization or to realize oneself, in the literal sense of making oneself fully real (Naranjo, 1993).
References:
Clements, C. & Talmor U. (2016). Towards a Transpersonal Structure of the psyche. In F. J.

Kaklauskas, C. Clements, D. Hocoy, & L. Hoffman, Shadows & Light: Theory, research, and
practice in transpersonal psychology (pp. 45-70). Colorado Springs, CO: University Professors
Press.
Joyce, Phil and Sills, Charlotte (2014). Experimenting (95-106). In Skills in Gestalt: Counseling
& psychotherapy. Los Angeles: Sage.
Naranjo, C. (1993). Gestalt Therapy: The Attitude and Practice of an Atheoretical

Experimentalism. California: Gateway Publishing.
Perl, Fritz. (1973). The Gestalt Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy. CA: Science and
Behavior Books, Inc.
Sabin, Fernbacher and Plummer, Deborah. (2005). Cultural Influences in Considerations in

Gestalt Therapy (pp. 117 - 132). In Woldt, Ansel L. and Toman, Sarah M. Gestalt Therapy:
History, Theory, Practice. Sage Publications, Inc
Smith, Edward. (1976). The Roots of Gestalt Therapy. In Smith, Edward (Ed.) The Growing
Edge of Gestalt Therapy. NY: Gestalt Journal Press.

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Defining Gestalt Psychotherapy 1

What is Gestalt Psychotherapy?

concerned with “fields” (dynamic system that may be empirical/objective and

1973, pg. 9).

psychological homeostasis by (Taoist) “organismic self-regulation” (Naranjo, 1993). The main

Gestalt therapy (Naranjo, 1993, pg. 14).

Gestalt psychotherapy can be defined as an “experiential here-and-now” transpersonal

techniques (repetition, exaggeration, explication), suppressive techniques (staying with an

equilibrium of a person in form of four main contact boundary disturbances: introjection,

projection, confluence, and retroflection (Perl, 1973).

Gestalt therapy is transpersonal because awareness itself is transpersonal. Gestalt brings

like practicing “verbalized meditation” while in the relationship of an interpersonal setting

inhibition. Self-expression is self-awareness; the capacity to express one’s consciousness – to

Clements, C. & Talmor U. (2016). Towards a Transpersonal Structure of the psyche. In F. J.

Naranjo, C. (1993). Gestalt Therapy: The Attitude and Practice of an Atheoretical

Sabin, Fernbacher and Plummer, Deborah. (2005). Cultural Influences in Considerations in

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