Gestalt therapy

What is Gestalt therapy?
Gestalt comes from the German verb gestalten, which means “to give structure to”. It aims to enlarge the field of possibilities, increase our sense of responsibility and independence, re-establish emotions often condemned by Western culture and improve our ability to adapt to different people and environments.
Unlike many approaches that attempt to explain the inner mind in static terms (the it and I in psychoanalysis and the ego states in transactional analysis), gestalt therapy is a dynamic concept. It focuses on the permanent adjustment between the individual and his perpetually changing environment. According to gestalt theory, it’s vital we understand that we are inseparable from our environment. It also involves approaching time differently and looking at problems in the framework of the “here and now”.

Who is it for?
Gestalt therapy is used in psychotherapy to help people suffering from psychological or psychosomatic problems, or people who want to better deal with a specific situation like a bereavement or break-up. People also resort to gestalt therapy for personal development, self-help, training, advice or coaching within a company. However, it isn't advised for people who are too unstable, for whom it’s difficult to distinguish between “enactment” and “acting out”.

What happens during a session?
A typical individual or group session is divided into three parts:
- The patient explains their difficulty or feelings that are causing concern.
- The therapist pinpoints the patient’s unconscious actions and gestures, then asks the patient to exaggerate and enact them. These actions put the patient's behaviour in the spotlight; becoming aware of our behaviour enables us to to correct it, to look at a problem from another angle and to rediscover hidden emotions.
- Enactment is the final part: with the therapist's aid, the patient experiments with ways of changing his attitude if the difficult situation arises (changing “contact habits” with the environment). The patient learns to create links between what is experienced in a therapy session and the realities of the outside world.

How much does it cost?
Individual therapy usually lasts for about two years if you have one hour-long session per week. A session costs around £40 on average. 6-week group therapy programmes cost an average of £100 to £150 per day.

Gestalt vocabulary
- The here and now
Some forms of therapy are centred on the reasons behind trauma. Other approaches aim to liberate behaviour and enable the patient to live more freely. Gestalt therapy is a therapy of movement: the process is more important than the reasons why. The problem is examined in the framework of the here and now.
- The cycle of contact
This describes the steps that we normally follow when we make contact with a person, a need or an emotion. It’s a cycle of contact and retreat: in other words, the way in which a need emerges in our consciousness, develops, is satisfied and then disappears, leaving room for a new need.