About Gestalt Therapy In Your Own Words

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

For a long time I gathered my strength to write a short and understandable article about what Gestalt therapy is. First, I am often asked about what I do. Secondly, I want to share it myself. Thirdly, after all, for a professional, in my opinion, it is important to be able to tell about his activities simply, clearly and, if possible, as briefly.

In fact, it is difficult for me. How can I fit everything important and interesting that I know in just a few pages? Every time I started writing, it seemed to me that I was missing something, I was not saying something. Something important, essential, necessary to understand.

But I still want to tell you. And now I will try. Let the story be very subjective and far from complete. Now it is important for me that it will be mine.

I hope that I will succeed, and the story will be interesting, useful and, perhaps, even important for someone else besides me.

Gestalt. How much of this word…

I'll start with the very concept of "gestalt".

The word "gestalt" came to us from the German language (gestalt). In dictionaries you will find as a translation: form, holistic form, structure, image, etc.

The most understandable for me is the definition of gestalt as a holistic image, not reducible to the sum of its parts.

Scientists have found that a person perceives reality with integral structures (gestalts). That is, in the process of perception, individual elements of reality are combined into a single meaningful image and become a clear integral figure against the background of some other elements that were not included in this image.

A very clear and simple example is the following text:

“According to Rzelulattas, Ilsseovadny odongo unviertiseta, we do not have a problem, there are bkuvs in solva in the cooks. Galvone, chotby preavya and pslloendya bkwuy blyi on msete. Osatlyne bkuvymgout seldovt in a ploonm bsepordyak, everything is torn tkest chtaitseya without wandering. Pichriony egoto is that we do not chiate every day by the way, but everything is solvo tslikeom."

So, we do not read individual letters, but in a sense, the sum of the letters. In the process of perception, we very quickly combine letters into single words that we understand.

Reading this text, we are more likely to highlight words in it than spaces. We can say that the words of this text become a figure for us, and the spaces are the background. The necessary background is for us to see exactly such words, and not some others. If you remove the spaces, then the perception of the text will be significantly difficult.

Gestalt is an integral form, an image that acquires completely different properties than the properties of its constituent elements. Therefore, the gestalt cannot be understood, studied by simply summing its constituent parts:

1. The text written above as an example is not the same as the simple sum of letters, punctuation marks, spaces, etc.
2. A melody and the simple set of sounds that make up it are not the same thing.
3. An apple seen on a store counter does not equal "round + red"
4. "Execute, you can't pardon" or "You can't execute, you can't pardon." The elements are the same. But the phrases are fundamentally different from each other in meaning.

The perception of a person at any given moment is influenced by many factors - internal and external. We can refer to the external features of the environment. Returning to the example with the text, it matters which letters are written, in what order the words are arranged, what type of font they are written in … what is the lighting in your room now and much, much more.

Internal factors include: past experience, momentary state of the body (psychological, physiological), stable individual psychological characteristics (character traits, peculiarities of worldview, beliefs, world views, peculiarities of the nervous system, etc.). The influence of internal factors on the perception of a person is vividly illustrated by such popular phrases: "Whoever hurts, he talks about that", "Everyone understands to the extent of his depravity", "Who wants to see what he sees," "Look at the world through rose-colored glasses "and so on.

External and internal factors, acting together, mutually affect how a person perceives this or that object, phenomenon, this or that situation.

Gestalt psychology and gestalt therapy

I often come across the fact that novice students and simply interested ones confuse, combine the concepts of Gestalt psychology and Gestalt therapy.

It is not the same.

Gestalt psychology Is a scientific school of psychology, German in origin, which arose in connection with the research of perception and discoveries in this field. Its founders include German psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler.

The focus of Gestalt psychology is the characteristic feature of the psyche to organize experience into an understandable whole (into gestalts). Gestalt psychologists investigated the laws of the gestalt structure, the processes of the formation and destruction of gestalts, the factors and patterns of these processes.

Gestalt therapy - This is one of the modern and now quite widespread areas of psychotherapy in the world. That is, it is a practice-oriented approach in psychology and the resulting method of providing psychological (psychotherapeutic) assistance.

The most famous founder of Gestalt therapy is Friedrich Perls. It was he who formulated the first key ideas, which he then developed together with colleagues (Laura Perls, Paul Goodman and others). Gestalt therapy is developing now.

Gestalt therapy is, of course, related to Gestalt psychology. But it is not a direct descendant of it. Discoveries and ideas of Gestalt psychologists were one of the foundations for Gestalt therapy. Other reasons include phenomenology (the direction of philosophy of the 20th century), the ideas of Eastern philosophy, psychoanalysis.

Gestalt therapy did not immediately get its name. Alternatives are said to have been Concentration Therapy and Experimental Therapy (from experience, feeling). And these names just as well, in my opinion, reflect the essence of the approach.

Personally, I also like the definition of Gestalt therapy as slowing down therapy.

What is Gestalt Therapy (Gestalt Approach to Psychotherapy)?

Gestalt therapy, like any independent approach and method, is based on certain ideas about human nature, about the structure of the human psyche, about the emergence of psychological problems and ways to solve these problems.

In general, when I tell people something about psychology, I have doubts about whether to use the word "problem". It is worn out. It has many different everyday interpretations. It often causes some rejection in a modern person, because it is not very pleasant to talk or think of yourself as someone who has problems. On the other hand, the word is quite simple, short and convenient. I thought I'd leave him. I’ll just tell you first what I mean by this word.

There is a wonderful, in my opinion, definition. A problem is a condition, question, position, or even an object that creates difficulty, even a little prompts to action and is associated either with a deficiency or with an excess of something for human consciousness.

Since the difficulty, as well as the excess and / or lack of something for consciousness, is primarily determined by the person himself, then it is up to you to decide whether you have any psychological problem. Anyway, since you are an adult. And until you yourself start to pose a problem to other people.

If we talk about my personal experience and opinion, then a person always has problems - very different. And almost all of them are somehow connected with the psychology of a particular person. And they can be solved in different ways: some independently, some with the help of people around (relatives, friends, acquaintances, colleagues … hired specialists of different profiles). This is also a subjective question and everyone ultimately chooses for himself.

I will return to the description of the approach.

In the Gestalt approach, a person is considered as an organism endowed, like all other living organisms, with a natural ability for self-regulation. Emotions and feelings are one of the most important natural foundations of self-regulation. They are markers of our needs. And the whole life of a person is the process of meeting different needs. Some needs are vital. That is, without their satisfaction, the body simply physically cannot exist. Others are "secondary" - that is, their satisfaction is important for physical and psychological health. If these needs are not satisfied, then, in general, it is possible to live, but with less pleasure and with more problems.

By the way, the need is one of the main sense-forming (system-forming) factors of perception. It depends on what need is dominant in a person at a given moment, how exactly different elements of the environment will be structured by a person and what kind of image of the situation he will have, what meaning he will give to the situation. For example, if a person is very hungry, then objects, objects of the environment that have nothing to do with food will remain in the background, and his entire consciousness will be occupied by thoughts about food, and his attention will be attracted by those objects that are directly or indirectly related to food. Moreover, he may even begin to “recognize” food where it is not (distortion of perception). If a person has a headache, he wants peace and quiet, then playing and noisy kids outside the window can greatly annoy him. He can perceive the situation as extremely unpleasant, and children, as an annoying misunderstanding of nature. In a different mood, when other needs are relevant, he can be glad to the bustle outside the window, watching with emotion how the children frolic and learn the world.

So, emotions and feelings help a person to navigate their own needs, in the environment and satisfy their needs, interacting with the world in one way or another.

It so happens that during the time of socialization (education and training, starting from birth), a person learns to intervene in the natural process of self-regulation. That is, in an attempt to resolve the conflict between his own "want" and the public reaction to them, a person (who cannot exist outside of society) often betrays himself in order to be with other people. In childhood, this is very justified from the point of view of survival, in particular biological (not only psychological). After all, a child is dependent on others, especially adults. And without the love and acceptance of adults, the chances of survival for him are significantly less. Therefore, to change yourself in order for mom or dad to love, not get angry, continue to feed, drink and give their warmth (or at least spend time with the child) is a very understandable way out.

But. Betraying himself in childhood, from day to day, the child is increasingly moving away from the ability given to him by nature to navigate in the environment with the help of his own sensitivity. And gradually, out of the once integral, but still unintelligent person who does not know how to live in society, a smart, reasonable person grows up, who knows how to live in society, but at the same time a split person. Split into reason and feelings, into "must" and "want", etc. In other words, instead of increasing rationality and awareness to natural self-regulation, a person often learns to replace natural self-regulation with rationality and consciousness.

Here's a story like that. In short.

How does this happen?

In several ways:

1. A person learns not to notice his needs. Because it can be dangerous. And it hurts. It is dangerous and painful to want something if others do not like it or if there is no chance that this “something” can be obtained. Then it's better not to want at all.

It also happens that the child is taught not to believe himself literally. When an adult brings up a child, regularly using something like these messages: "You don't want this, you want this" (For example, you don't want to go out anymore, you want to go home), "You don't want to be angry with your mom, do you?" "You want semolina porridge!"

Gradually, self-sensitivity atrophies (to one degree or another). And in a number of areas of his life, a person hardly distinguishes where his desires are, and where not his. Or he can’t answer the question “what do I want?” At all. Moreover, I do not mean a question about life, in general, but the question of "what do I want right here and now, at the moment, in this situation?"

2. A person learns in different ways to avoid collision with their own needs. Here I mean that he recognizes the needs well, but in every possible way prevents himself from satisfying them. Without even noticing it, sometimes. For example:

- frightens himself with catastrophic fantasies. Sometimes these fantasies are based on personal past experiences, sometimes on someone else's. Sometimes - on some knowledge and ideas.

- avoids satisfying this or that need, because, for example, to do this means somehow violating one's own idea of oneself, of some ideals, etc. He can interrupt himself with some abstract or even very specific prohibitions, such as "This is not allowed," "So ugly," "Decent people do not behave like that," and so on.

- instead of interacting with the world, it interacts with itself. For example, instead of talking to a person, he conducts internal dialogues with him (in fact, he talks to himself). Or, instead of expressing his outrage at someone, he gets angry with himself, punishes himself. Etc.

3. A person learns not to notice his feelings or suppress and control them. And they do not lend themselves well to suppression and rough control. And therefore they crawl out (or even "shoot") at the most inconvenient moments and remind of themselves. Sometimes just by bringing pain, sometimes leading to the fact that the person is in an uncomfortable, awkward or just unpleasant situation. Those who still manage to suppress feelings very well receive psychosomatics or, as an option, chemical addiction as a sad prize. The most common psychosomatic bonuses are allergic reactions, headaches, and gastrointestinal problems.

You may ask me, "What about now - forget about all the norms, principles of morality, do not give a damn about others and do only what you want?" I will say no. Extremes are not appropriate here. After all, if a person needs others (as he does to them), then none of the extremes suits us.

The essence of the problem and the irony of "fate" is that a person often confuses in his life what is really impossible or not worth doing, and what is quite possible and sometimes even worth doing. A person gets used to living in accordance with those stereotypes of perception, thinking and behavior that develop during his growing up. It gets used to and ceases to be aware of these stereotypes, to notice. He lives in adulthood in much the same way he used to live and react in childhood, when he was young and addicted. And sometimes he doesn't even know that it can be done differently. Moreover. outwardly, he may already be a completely independent successful person. And it seems that he has matured. And internally he is still the same little boy or girl. And behind the mask of adulthood, he hides a lot of confusion, resentment, anger, guilt, shame, fear … by the way, not less often - tenderness, joy, sympathy, etc. And sometimes those around him do not even know what is hidden behind his smile or external equanimity.

To summarize, we can say that from the point of view of the Gestalt approach, psychological and, to some extent, somatic problems of a person are largely related:

- with how a person has learned to perceive himself and the world around him, - with how much a person is attentive to what is happening with him and around him (how well he notices the nuances of what is happening), - with what importance it attaches to what is happening, what meaning it gives, - and with how, in connection with all of the above, he organizes his experience (his life, his interaction with the world around him).

All this becomes the subject of joint study by the client and the Gestalt therapist, when the client turns to the therapist with a particular problem (in this article, the concepts of "psychologist", "therapist" and "Gestalt therapist" are used synonymously).

The Gestalt therapist invites the client not to look for the causes of existing problems, turning to the past. People often strive for this, believing that if they find out the reason, their problem will be solved and it will become easier for them. The Gestalt therapist invites the client to carefully study his own actual experience, that is, what and how is happening in the present. The Gestalt therapist invites the client to be more involved in his own life “here and now” - to learn better, to more accurately notice his feelings, thoughts and actions at the moment. In proposing this, he relies on the idea that a solution to a problem is more likely if we are looking for an answer not to the question "why did this happen?", But find the answer to the question "how is this happening now?"

For example, if you find out that your problem is related to something that happened to you as a child, it is not at all necessary that this will greatly help you in solving it. It may even slightly violate your belief in the possibility of a solution to the problem. If only because your childhood is in the past. And the past cannot be returned or changed. And then the question arises of how now, in the present, you continue to perceive yourself and the world around you, you continue to organize your interaction with the world, that the problem continues to exist and is not being solved (or even gets worse every day).

By the way, many problems are somehow connected with our childhood. With what we did not learn, what we learned, what we really lacked or what was too much. So, in general, you can not dig into the reasons.

In Gestalt therapy, awareness is the primary means and goal. It is an included presence in the here and now. This is both a sensory experience of reality and its comprehension. To be aware is to notice as fully and accurately as possible what and how you see, hear, feel, think and do right now. How attentive you are to your own experience at the moment depends on what kind of gestalt you have (how you perceive the situation, how you understand it, what value you attach to it, what choice you make in it).

Thus, in gestalt therapy, the client is offered:

- develop your ability to be aware, study your own way of perceiving yourself and the world around you, - to study how this way of perception affects not his own well-being and behavior - in general, on self-regulation, - to restore the processes of self-regulation.

The client does this together with the therapist in the process of talking about the problems that concern him, and on his own (doing homework and simply transferring the experience from the therapy sessions into his daily life).

Gradually, in this way, the client learns to discover his own contribution to what his life is like now, what his state of health is, how he feels, what his problems are at the moment.

When the client discovers and acknowledges how he is participating in the fact that a problem arises or that the problem still exists, two scenarios are possible:

1. The therapy will end. The client no longer needs the therapist, because the solution will come naturally. That is, having studied the situation in detail (by making up for the lack of data or, conversely, getting rid of the excess), the client himself will discover what he needs and what he wants to do, and then he will do it on his own.
2. The therapy will continue. The client can discover, understand and accept how he is involved in a problem situation. He can find a solution to the problem. But he may lack the skills to make his decision a reality. Then the client continues to work with the therapist in order to acquire the skills that he needs to solve the problem, change the situation. If, of course, these skills are psychological.

There are also situations when the problem is not that a person cannot find or implement a particular solution. It so happens that it is impossible to change the situation. I mean a situation where a person is faced with some inevitable reality (both objective and subjective). A reality that cannot be changed for some time or NEVER at all.

I am talking about losses, serious illnesses, injuries, objective changes in living conditions that do not depend on the person himself. Here we are talking not only about the inevitable objective reality - "It happened and it cannot be deleted or changed." But also about the changes in subjective reality associated with the occurred - "It happened WITH ME", "I am now THAT", "I am the person with whom this happened, is happening."

In such situations, the essence of the problem may be that a person cannot accept, recognize reality as it is. He continues to be hopeful, looking for a solution that is impossible in principle. He ignores reality or some part of reality. And thus, at times, he harms himself - either by prolonging his pain, or exhausted to exhaustion and destroying his life even more.

What, then, is a therapist needed for? How can he help? What is he doing?

The Gestalt therapist still maintains the client's awareness, helping him to notice the reality from which the client is hiding. And when the client notices and acknowledges, the therapist helps him to experience this encounter with reality, to live the feelings associated with this (pain, anxiety, fear, longing, despair …) and to find a resource in order to navigate the new reality, creatively adapt to it and to live on.

What does the therapist-client work like during therapy sessions look like?

In general, there are two options:

1. This is a conversation during which the therapist helps the client to focus on his experience, to notice what is happening and how, and how the client is involved in it.
2. These are experiments that the therapist offers to the client to test certain client fantasies, beliefs, as well as to live and acquire new experiences for the client in a safe environment.

Conversation in Gestalt therapy is not just a conversation like what happens in the kitchen, in a cafe or somewhere else between relatives, acquaintances, or even random people. This is a special conversation.

This is a conversation for which both participants (client and therapist) specifically set aside a certain amount of time. Traditionally, it is 50-60 minutes.

This is a conversation for which a certain space is allocated. The secluded, which no one will enter without asking, will not burst in unexpectedly, disrupting the atmosphere that the client and therapist create for communication with each other.

The therapist in Gestalt therapy is not a detached listener, a kind of expert who knows the answers to all questions and treats the client as an object of another study. No. The therapist is an active participant in the conversation, who is present in it entirely, and not just as a certain function or role. He is present in the conversation not just as a professional, but also as an ordinary living person - with his own worldview, experience, and his experiences. This is a very important aspect. I will dwell on it in more detail.

The therapist is, in fact, a part of the client's environment. This means that those ways of interacting with the world (stereotypes of perception, thinking, behavior), which are inherent in the client, are likely to manifest themselves in the client's relationship with the therapist. The therapist turns out to be an included witness. And also thanks to this, it can be useful for the client. He shares what he notices in the client's behavior, how he feels in the relationship with the client, how he perceives the client, etc. Thus, the client receives feedback from the therapist - important information about himself in the world from another person. Of course, he gets feedback in his daily life as well. But here, too, there are some peculiarities:

1. Communication between people is governed by different traditions, rituals, vowel and unspoken rules. What kind of feedback he receives depends on what rules and traditions are adopted in the environment where the client lives and communicates. It so happens that the therapist is one of the first people in the client's life to tell him the truth that other people, due to certain circumstances, keep silent.
2. Hearing some kind of response from people with whom you are in close and sometimes confusing relationships is one thing. Hearing the same thing from a person with whom you do not communicate closely in life, do not intersect is another. Clients sometimes say so: "I needed to hear this from someone outside, from someone who does not know me, and who I do not know" or "It is important for me that it was you who said it."
3. The task of the therapist is not only to give feedback, to communicate some information to the client, but also to be very attentive to how the client perceives this information - to what extent it is understandable, important, and transferable for him. Does he want to use it, does he use it for himself, does he know how to do it? In everyday life, the interlocutors care about this much less. Partly out of ignorance and inability. And just because the tasks of everyday communication are different.

Conducting a therapy conversation is not an easy task. Gestalt therapists have been learning this for a long time. From 3 to 6 years old to start. And then my whole professional life. They learn not only how to use some techniques and techniques, but also necessarily how to be with the client:

- clear, understandable for him;

- how to be honest and at the same time helpful in your honesty. Including how not to destroy (injure) the client with it (after all, honesty is not always pleasant);

- how to be close to the client, enduring complex and strong feelings - the client's feelings, their own, which arise in communication with the client. To be near, to remain feeling, alive, without collapsing oneself, without destroying the client and not interfering with the client.

And also, therapists learn how not to fall into their own "traps" of perception, or at least notice in time that they are "caught". After all, the therapist is the same person, with his own personal history and individual characteristics.

No matter how much the therapist learns the technique, if he himself is not personally present in contact with the client, does not live the experience of communicating with the client, does not remain a simple living person next to the client, he will be of little use. These are the fundamental principles of the Gestalt therapy method, as I understand them.

Now a little about experiments.

The therapist can offer the client some action or some form of interaction in a therapy session. To:

- the client felt more vividly, noticed better what was happening to him, if it turns out to be difficult in the course of the conversation;

- the client has checked one or another of his fantasies, attitudes, beliefs, which are in the center of attention during the conversation. Many experiments are possible within the session itself in the presence of the therapist. Others can be carried out by the client himself in his daily life. They are discussed in the therapy session both before and after their implementation.

- the client lived a new experience, tried to do something new for himself. Do this with or next to the therapist in a safe atmosphere during the therapy session. To see what else is possible in a given situation, is it possible at all, and what consequences (internal and external) this action can lead to.

Gradually, thanks to such tests, the client transfers the new experience into his daily life, if he finds it useful and pleasant for himself.

That's probably all. Summing up, I want to say that, in my opinion, gestalt therapy, or rather, a gestalt therapist, can help a person:

1. Learn to be more sensitive, observant in relation to yourself and the world around you. And learn to use it in your life.
2. Learn to adapt more creatively to the constantly changing conditions of our world. To be in some ways more flexible, but in others, on the contrary, more stable.
3. Live in greater harmony with yourself and the world, with other people. Find a comfortable balance between autonomy and human interdependence, privacy and closeness.
4. Be more aware. And to experience, to feel like an author, a co-author of his own life.
5. Just more fun out of life. But not at the expense of ignoring problems or artificially nurtured optimism. And thanks to the ability to notice different sides of being, the experience of feelings in all their diversity and the included conscious participation in one's being.

Gestalt therapy can help a person be more alive.

However … in my opinion, this is the goal of any psychotherapy that exists for a person. Only the therapists have different ways and means.