Gestalt Coaching. What Is This?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Gestalt coaching is a fairly young direction and tool for work. In this work, I will outline the essence of the method, its tasks and goals.

As you can see, the name itself consists of two parts: gestalt and coaching. For a more complete vision, it is important to reveal each concept separately.

Gestalt (German Gestalt - form, image, structure).

Gestalt therapy is one of the directions in psychotherapy, created in the twentieth century. Founder - F. Perls. Irwin and Mariam Polster, Joseph Zinker, John Enright, Serge Ginger, and others also made a great contribution to the development of the methodology and theory of gestalt therapy.

A triad of fundamental principles of gestalt therapy:

1) relevance.

2) awareness.

3) responsibility (K. Narankho).

My acquaintance with gestalt therapy happened in 2010, when I was a student psychology. Since then, this method has become a part of my life and my work, my spiritual haven. What is gestalt therapy for me? The ability not to live in the illusory world of the past or future, but to feel your own actual the state of "here and now", at the moment. I can be aware how I build my relationships with other people, friends, colleagues, family. Understand your real needs, desires, dreams. Do not be ashamed or afraid of them, pretend that I do not notice, but, on the contrary, speak and fill your life with new colors, ideas and actions.

Gestalt therapy taught me how to take responsibility for everything that happens to me, for choosing the way in which I build my life. We can endlessly complain about the people around us, colleagues, husband / wife, children, etc., but after all, each of us has the right to choose how to act, what to say and what to feel. My quality of life has changed, to put it simply, I have become livelier, happier, happier than ever. This is the greatest discovery, to see the world in a new way.

Gestalt coaching is a creative interaction of psychotherapy and classical coaching, which makes it possible to more deeply and voluminously explore the work task, to determine the true motives and goals of the client. In a sincere dialogue with a coach, internal and external resources are opened to achieve a result.

The essence of coaching is unleashing a person's potential in order to maximize his effectiveness. Coaching does not teach, but helps to learn. (T. Gellway).

The goal of coaching is to develop awareness, responsibility and self-confidence (J. Whitmore)

Coaching itself is more problem-solving. At the same time, the coach himself may not be a specialist in a particular field, and in some cases, it even harms the process.

The main formula according to T. Gellway:

Performance = Potential - Interference (the maximum result is achieved by creatively unlocking the client's potential, researching obstacles on the way to the goal and eliminating them in various ways)

The only person who knows the best about the problem, the current situation, is not a coach, trainer or consultant. This is the client himself. The coach does not advise how to solve the problem, does not provide a specific tool, he is convinced that each person has his own potential, does his best and already has the necessary knowledge.

Coaching in its purest form cannot provide a study of the deep motives of the client, they are not available at this level. As a result, the goal may be achieved, but satisfaction may not come, because there is a concept of "false" motive.

The main differences between Gestalt coaching and other types:

· The work is built on the basis of the gestalt "cycle of contact", which makes it possible to go through all the stages to the completion of the gestalts (the Zeigarnik effect);

· A professional gestalt coach monitors the movement of the client's energy at all stages through non-verbal communication;

· Lack of concepts of morality, correctness, condemnation and evaluation. As a result, creating a safe atmosphere for sincere dialogue, expression of feelings and emotions;

· High-quality and delicate work with resistance to customer changes;

· Ability to experiment in situations of anxiety and uncertainty.

Getting support and recognition

At the end of this review, I want to note another highlight of gestalt coaching: as practice shows, the method is suitable not only for solving business problems, but also works great in the field of family issues, interpersonal relationships and other areas.