Key Concepts of Gestalt Therapy

Practitioners of gestalt therapy – developed by Laura and Friedrich (‘Fritz’) Perls in the 1940s and 1950s, and defined as ‘a distinctive method of counselling and therapy … which emphasises immediacy, experiencing and personal responsibility’ (Feltham and Dryden, 1993: 75) – are guided by four theoretical pillars:

phenomenology
dialogical relationship
field theory
experimentation
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[gesswa]

Empathy, curiosity, and dialogue allowing for genuine contact at the boundary of our beings, are indeed key to a Gestalt-therapy that is respectful and engaged. I recognize my work in this description. Self-disclosure, though, needs to be tactfully employed. Each of us therapists feel when it is appropriate and when it is not; as long as counter-transference is consciously dealt with. What matters most for healing, as said here, is quality of presence and authentic contact with client.

[gavinhealy]

Thank you for clarifying very simply what phenomenology means. This video has helped me so much

[alllowercase]

i have my first ever face-to-face client tomorrow and this was a great inspiration.

[Counsellingtutor]

Download the Four Pillars of Gestalt * FREE PDF handout HERE
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[laurieharrington]

Greatly appreciate you creating this video!! This helped me to get a clearer understanding! Thank you so very much!!!

[susanvarbanova]

You both explain this so very well and I find it easy to understand being new to counselling and soon to be doing a course.

[joannahong]

Really enjoying the podcast! Would love for both of your to share the modalities that you presently use and how that has evolved over the years. And maybe any advice to new therapists too (: thank you!

[daisymarquez]

Thank you for this video and for these amazing handouts! :)

[matejnozar]

small correction: I believe better translation of "gestalt" into english is "shape"

[ducanhvu]

thank you for this video and the website

[connorm]

Hey guys, I dont know if you've covered this topic before but I am in my masters program to become a counsellor and I have a question. How do you support a client who has experienced or is currently going through major life events (breakups, death, etc).

[Smoorepainter]

Good job. I'd like your opionion of the title of my book that I'm about 2/3 finished. Considering this, Men are from are from some other place! Bet it hits #1.

[hansdeutsch]

So what are the four pillars? I heard nothing of subsance until the 10 minute mark which s where you lost me with your chatter. Is there any medical or (neuro-)physiological evidence of any benefits of Gestalt therapy?

[karate]

The phenomenon of our world views is based on facts of is based on corporeal experiance from conception. Chemistry,
Energy
Flow and interaction
Of those in the field
Of which they are apart.
I could be mistaken
but phenomenology seems to be beliefs and the experiences of others introjected or not.
I'm thinking about this but one's body and physical re-membering
One's ability to respond or not to that
(responsibility) cannot
happen unless the therapist or other environmental response recognises the real..the actual events and experiences are recognised as just that...not just abstract phenomena.
If the therapist cannot find what the client seeks in these developmental fields,
S/he are likely excluding those truths...

There's a lack of recognition in most
Theapies...of how time is a part of the field which is not just in a line but a phenomena which presents as the past and future.
So the time before the (football) field..when it was a forest or a desert, beach or whatever...can be very dismissed if not recognised as intrusive and without choice..if that 'forest' was destroyed as a fundamental powerful absence in the complete gestalt of a person.

The table might be built on holes left as holes rather than the whole of a person if we just choose to see it as a table with legs...but for sure a good therapist, including a gestalt therapist...will see time as part of unfinished gestalts...
Or business which may seek to be allowed to be from whatever time and whichever experience as part of whatever field.
Its like the archelogical dig of the football field..
The psycho surgery of tracing to what's needing, releasing energy, allowing chemisty within the client, to make it's way to completeness or more balance...also then can come the same between client and the field of therapist/space of session/s and out into the broader field of the client (and perhaps the therapist's and others...Holding the client in trust and safety, seeking together to find the ways for corporeal incomplete gestalts
to be completed must be yes held in trust.

[petermartin]

'We don't set out to change people's minds"...?!