GESTALT THERAPY

 Gestalt therapy is an existential humanistic-phenomenological therapy. It focuses on

using here and now sensory experiences to enhance self-awareness and facilitate
personal growth. Gestalt therapy occurs within a relational context.

Theoretical principles

1. The field theory

 Kurt Lewin (1951) originally discussed field theory. Field theory includes
propositions that individuals and the environment are together within a field of
constant interaction. Field theory is holistic. Everything is relational within field
theory.
 Field theory can fundamentally guide therapist behavior and practice.
i. The therapist is not detached or separated from the field. This concept is
consistent with subatomic physics. People are both in the field and of the field.
ii. Therapist and client explore the field together. All field have patterns and
interrelationships that repeat and are interdependent. Gestalt therapists are
saying (metaphorically), “Let’s wade right into the field and try to see it as a
functioning whole and, at the same time, become more intimately familiar
with how its parts work.”
iii. Gestalt therapists work in the immediate, here-and-now field. Time is relative
and captured in memories; everything of import is in the here and now field.
 Gestalt therapists attend to what’s happening within the whole field; the contact or
boundary between the person and environment is of special interest. As these
boundary contacts are explored, awareness is stimulated in clients and therapists.
Awareness, in turn, stimulates self-regulation.
2. I and thou; here and now; what and how
 Yontef (2010, p. 31) used nine words to describe Gestalt therapy. These words speak
to three core theoretical processesin Gestalt therapy:
i. I and Thou: An authentic therapist–client relationship. The Gestalt therapy
relationship is viewed as an authentic contact between two collaborative experts
working to develop and refine client self-awareness. Therapists are experts on the
Gestalt change process; clients are experts on their own experiences. These two
 parties are interdependent and mutually responsible for therapy process and
success.
ii. Here and Now: Immediacy or being present in the here and now. The opposite of
Here and Now is Then and There. The operation of Then and There is to distance
ourselves from ourselves. We can tell stories about our experiences rather than
accessing our experiences directly. Although this may feel safer, it’s more dead
and less alive. For Gestalt therapists, the lively Now is all that’s worthy of focus.
iii. What and How: An emphasis on process over content; moment-to-moment
examination of what’s happening.
3. Contact and boundaries
 The Gestalt concept of contact can be defined as the exchange of information between
I-ness and otherness.
 Individuals are organisms in and of the world (field) that come in contact with other
objects and organisms. Contact is perceptual. We recognize contact through our
senses.
 Contact implies boundaries. When another person’s scent reaches your nose and into
your brain, two human boundaries are in contact. Depending on the odor and your
mental representations of that odor in your past, you may approach or withdraw; you
may try to prolong or shorten your boundary contact. Boundaries function to connect
and to separate.

Theory of psychopathology

 Healthy functioning in the Gestalt world is characterized by contact, full

awareness, full sensory functioning, choice, and spontaneity. In this state, the
individual experiences excitement and a sort of graceful flow. There’s little need
for overthinking or planning as being oneself in the spontaneous moment is
possible.
 Psychopathology occurs when natural processes of contact, excitement, self-
regulation, and new learning are disturbed. Gestalt therapists view
psychopathology through the lens of contact and resistance to contact (i.e.,
defenses against the intrusion that contact can represent).
 Every contact evokes excitement and presents the possibility of new learning.
However, some contacts are especially challenging and can potentially damage
individuals. These challenging contacts must be faced and assimilated or
 integrated into one’s being. The individual or organism needs to face the contact,
bring it into figure (awareness), bite into it (the experience of contact), and then
using maximal self-awareness, digest what is organically vital and intentionally
discard the rest.
 Psychopathology is defined as an individual’s or organism’s (client’s) “creative
adjustment” in a difficult situation.
 Individuals may have characteristic styles of interrupting or resisting contact.
Because learning is an essential by-product of contact, repeatedly interrupting or
resisting contact constitutes psychopathology. Five different boundary
disturbances (aka ways of having resistance to contact).
i. Introjection: This boundary disturbance involves uncritical acceptance of
other’s beliefs and standards. Contact occurs; whatever values and standards
are associated with the contact are swallowed whole. Not much thinking or
chewing is involved.
ii. Projection: This boundary disturbance occurs when people place (or project)
their emotions or traits onto others. Often the emotions or traits are those we
would like to disown or those that make us uncomfortable, but that we can
identify with.
iii. Retroflection: This disturbance has two variations. First, it occurs when
people turn back on themselves something they would like to do to another
person. For example, when working with suicidal clients, one of our former
supervisors used to always ask: “Who is the client wanting to commit suicide
at?” Second, it involves the doing to ourselves what we would like someone in
the environment to do to or for us.
iv. Deflection: This boundary disturbance involves a distraction that diffuses or
reduces contact. This can include avoiding physical contact, using humor
excessively, and talking about others instead of the self. This is similar to what
Perls calls “Aboutism,” which involves talking about things or about the self
instead of directly experiencing contact.
v. Confluence: This occurs when boundaries merge. There can be a feeling of
not really knowing where one person stops and the other begins. This style can
be associated with overaccommodating behavior among people who
desperately want to be liked and approved by others. Eg. Romeo meets Juliet
on the trail. In a few minutes they begin holding hands. They feel they’re
 experiencing something mystical, like they’ve known each other forever. It
doesn’t take long and they’re completing each other’s sentences. They
discover they agree on everything. (DO NOT WRITE THIS EXAMPLE IN
EXAM EVEN THOUGH IT IS FROM BOOK. MENTIONING HERE BCZ I
FOUND IT FUNNY).
4. Awareness
 Awareness of oneself is an important part of gestalt personality theory, referring to
contact within individuals themselves, as well as with others and objects.
 To be fully aware is to be in contact with one’s boundaries.
 Polster and Polster (1973) identify four types of awareness:

(1) Awareness of sensations and actions pertains to sensing through seeing, hearing,
touching, or other senses and then expressing oneself through movement or vocal
expression;

(2) awareness of feelings concerns awareness of both emotional feelings and physical
feelings such as sweaty palms or shortness of breath;

(3) awareness of wants refers to awareness of desires for future events to take place,
such as to graduate from college or to win the lottery; and

(4) awareness of values and assessments concerns larger units of experience than
those mentioned, including how one values others, social and spiritual issues, and
other assessments of events related to these. Awareness refers to what is happening
now rather than what is remembered.

5. Cycle of change
 Sensation/ awareness involves taking in experience through the senses.
 Mobilization refers to moving from awareness to forming a desire for want.
 Contact produces emotional arousal and implies contact with self and others.
 Resolution/ closure takes place as individuals disengage from an experience.
 Withdrawal takes place as the experiencing cycle draws to close and moves towards
other contact experiences. In a sense, it is the end of the resolution/ closure phase.
6. Goodness of fit
 Goodness of fit between the client and therapy approach is a predictor of treatment
outcomes.
 Researchers have identified three specific client types for whom Gestalt and
experiential therapies are likely a poor fit. These include:
i. Clients with depressive symptoms who are also highly reactive or sensitive to
feedback.
ii. Clients with depressive symptoms who also have tendencies to externalize their
problems (e.g., these clients more naturally blame others or their environment for
their depressive symptoms).
 iii. Clients who exhibit observable deterioration when engaging in an expressive-
experiential, emotionally activating treatment.
iv. When clients have a borderline personality disorder diagnosis or show similar
emotional instability, therapists should take more time to establish a therapeutic
alliance before implementing therapeutic tasks; this means using Gestalt
experiments such as the empty chair technique less often early in therapy and
more sparingly throughout.
v. Therapists should avoid using interpretations when implementing Gestalt
experiments. Using interpretations can leave clients feeling disempowered and
pushed around by an expert therapist.

Gestalt therapy

 Polster (1966) identified three specific therapeutic devices or phases within the
Gestalt approach. These included:
1. Encounter.
2. Awareness.
3. Experiment.
I. Encounter
i. Dialogic relationship
 Gestalt therapists strive for a dialogic relationship with clients. A dialogic
relationship involves full presence, authenticity, acceptance, and willingness for
open communication.
 This stance is aspirational, meaning that therapists shouldn’t expect to
continuously achieve it. Of greatest importance is for therapists to hold the
intention to be in a dialogic relationship.
 Gestalt therapists encourage clients to attend to moment-to-moment experiences.
The therapist tries to create a safe therapeutic environment where clients can
explore experiences, enhance awareness, and engage in Gestalt experiments.
 To help make the therapy environment safe, Gestalt therapists try to act as a
nonjudgmental partner in the client’s self-awareness journey.
 Yontef emphasized that this dialogic relationship requires therapist humility,
respect for client–therapist differences, personal therapy, and the ability to bracket
or suspend one’s own thoughts, emotions, and judgments.
  Brownell (2016) noted that it is essential, but difficult for therapists to mindfully
bracket their first impressions; it’s natural to instantly make up a diagnostic
narrative. Similarly, countertransference is inevitable. Bracketing is the cognitive
tool therapists use to keep their own judgments and countertransference from
spoiling the dialogic relationship.
II. Awareness
 Polster’s (1966) second phase of Gestalt therapy is awareness. Awareness runs the
gamut from body sensations to emotions and values.
 Gestalt therapists emphasize body awareness. They attend to movements, gestures,
flushing, and other physical manifestations of emotional and psychological responses
to contact.
 Gestalt therapists consistently engage clients in mindful focusing. Grounding is one
label therapists use to guide clients to a mindful orientation. Often, the best initial
grounding is to have clients pay attention to their breathing in the present moment.
 It can be expanded to include feeling your (a) feet on the floor (b) body in the chair,
(c) muscular tension wherever it appears, (d) body in space, and much more.
 As therapy proceeds, Gestalt therapists consistently notice and sometimes point out
client nonverbal behavior. This process, referred to as body feedback, can be intense.
 Gestalt therapists attend closely to client language and voice quality. Common
examples of using language and voice to enhance awareness include:
i. Moving clients from using “it” or “you” to “I”: “When you talk about yourself it
can be helpful to use the word ‘I.’ Are you willing to try that on?”
ii. Moving clients from talking in past tense to talking in present tense: “I noticed
that you’re talking about your relationship with your daughter and telling me a
story about what happened yesterday. Instead of telling me a story about what
happened, describe it as if it’s happening right here and right now.”
iii. Having clients transform their questions into statements.
iv. Noticing when clients use passive language: Clients will frequently use language
that represents passivity or disempowerment. They speak with qualifiers like
“maybe,” “sort of,” “kind of,” and “I don’t know.” Gestalt therapists have clients
use more direct language and drop the qualifiers. As clients speak more directly
therapists check in on how the change feels.
v. Notice client voice tone and quality: Client voice tone and quality may change
significantly when they speak about different issues or people. These changes may
 reflect unfinished business or emotions like guilt (resentment) or fear. Gestalt
therapists encourage clients to speak with a different voice tone or volume and
then examine how it feels. For example, clients who speak softly might be asked
to raise their voice and then talk about what sensations, thoughts, and emotions
this change stimulates
 Because clients are whole beings, they can’t help but express part of who they are and
what they’ve experienced in the past through language and voice tone. Gestalt
therapists take advantage of this to turn the client’s inner world inside out—what the
client is experiencing internally is open to examination.
 In many ways Gestalt therapy is a here and now therapy that’s all about there and
then. The purpose is to get clients to bring their baggage or unfinished business out
of their crusty old closet and into the present moment. When that happens, change is
possible.
III. Gestalt experiments

Polster’s (1966) third phase of Gestalt therapy process involves implementation of Gestalt
therapy experiments: device which creates new opportunities for acting in a safely structured
situation. Included are suggestions for trying one’s self out in a manner not readily feasible in
everyday life.

1. Staying with the feeling

 Gestalt therapy places an emphasis on immediate feelings. Feelings are to be faced
and confronted, not avoided. Staying with the feeling is less a specific technique than
a general therapy strategy or philosophy.
 Gestalt therapists use several techniques to encourage clients to stay with (rather than
avoid) feelings:
 Therapists persistently ask questions like: “What are you aware of now?” or
“What are you noticing inside yourself right now?”
 Clients are instructed to “voice” their feelings and sensations (e.g., “Let your
anxiety have a voice; what would it say right now?”).
 Clients are encouraged to act out their feelings in the here and now. Perls had
clients pull on and “stretch” him when they felt inner tension and conflict. He
believed that acting on feelings could help clients identify and reintegrate
disowned feelings.
 Sometimes therapists simply say, “Stay with that.”
 Therapists encourage clients to stay with feelings because doing so enhances full
contact, improves awareness (sometimes including an “Ah ha!” or “Wow!”
exclamation of insight), and stimulates self-regulation and personal development.
2. I take responsibility for
 To use this experiment, clients use I take responsibility for as a prefix to what they say
in therapy. If clients are feeling bored, they might be instructed to say, “I’m bored and
I take responsibility for my boredom.” The technique is especially useful when clients
are externalizing symptoms.
3. Playing with projection
 Playing the projection is especially applicable to group therapy. Perls believed that
much of what happens in interpersonal relationships is projective. In therapy groups,
when Perls observed a member making a statement about someone else, Perls would
ask the participant to play the projection. For example, if the participant commented
that Robert (another group member) was too critical, Perls might say, “Try that on.
Stand up and be critical of everyone here. Go around the room and criticize everyone.
 Another way to apply this technique is to direct clients, “Tell me something especially
annoying you’ve noticed about someone else.” When a client states, “I hate it when
Juan is so selfish and insensitive,” the client is asked to act selfish and insensitive.
You can also have clients amplify these selfish and insensitive feelings using an
empty chair dialogue, with one part being selfish and insensitive and the other part
being unselfish and sensitive. As the dialogue ensues, clients are encouraged to focus
on what thoughts and feelings come up while playing the two roles.
4. The exaggeration experiment
 In the exaggeration experiment clients are instructed to exaggerate subtle nonverbal
behaviors. Exaggerating subtle nonverbal behaviors helps clients reclaim their entire
self—including their bodies—and can amplify the meaning of behaviors outside of
awareness.
 This experiment is used with specific instructions. For example, a client who brushes
her hand past her neck when speaking might be asked to exaggerate the motion and
then to focus on what she feels. The therapist might say, “Speak again and make that
motion again, only make it bigger. What are you aware of now?”
5. The empty chair or dialogue experiment
 This technique is the best known and best researched of all the Gestalt experiments.
There are two ways to use the empty-chair dialogue.
 i. Working out an internal conflict: In the first version of the empty-chair, clients
switch seats while playing two different parts of the self. Typically, this
approach to the empty-chair results in the client taking on the “topdog” and
“underdog” polarities. For example, if a client is having trouble getting her
college assignments and projects completed on time, the following interaction
might ensue.
ii. Working out interpersonal conflicts: In the second empty chair alternative,
clients act out old or contemporary life conflicts in the now. For example, if a
female client is in the midst of a conflict with her husband, she would play
both parts of a dialogue with her husband while simultaneously examining the
feelings that emerge. Although this procedure begins differently from the first
version of the empty-chair dialogue, it often progresses into the topdog versus
underdog dialogue. In the first case, the dialogue emerges from an inner
conflict. In the second case, the dialogue emerges from an external conflict.
However, considering the dynamic of defensive projection, intense conflicts
can involve projected parts of the self onto others and the empty chair helps
the disowned parts of the self to become reintegrated. When working out an
old or contemporary interpersonal conflict using an empty-chair technique,
sometimes the focus is entirely on monitoring, reflecting, and coming to terms
with the client’s emotional experiences.

Gestalt approach to dream work

 Dream work was central to traditional Gestalt psychotherapy.

 Dreams are the royal road to integration. They should be experienced, not interpreted.
In keeping with existential philosophy, the dreamer is 100% responsible for all dream
images. If your client dreams of a monster murdering an innocent victim, it’s
important to remember that both monster and victim were “created by” the dreamer.
 There are four main steps to Gestalt dream work.
i. The dreamer tells the dream story.
ii. The dreamer “revives” the dream by changing the language. Instead of telling the
dream in past tense, it’s reported in present tense.
iii. The dreamer becomes a director and organizes the dream as a play, moving
around, setting the stage, and describing where everyone is and where every
object is.
iv. The dreamer then acts out the dream, always using the personal pronoun “I” to
enhance identification with each object and character in the dream.