Gestalt therapy is one of the methods of psychotherapeutic counseling that arose in the middle of the 20th century. Its fundamental principles, ideas and techniques were developed by Paul Goodman, Frederick and Laura Perls. The central principles of Gestalt therapy are the desire to form and expand awareness, relevance, taking responsibility for everything that happens to oneself. The main goal and means of Gestalt therapy is "conscious awareness". This definition implies the living of a specific situation "here and now", as well as the conscious presence in such living. Work in Gestalt is always carried out only with those problems, experiences that are relevant for patients precisely “here and now”.

Gestalt therapy in modern psychotherapy is built on the basis of the experience of comprehending consciousness and the identification of essential features in it (philosophical phenomenology) and Gestalt psychology.

Theory of Gestalt Therapy

The founders of Gestalt therapy saw this method of psychotherapy as deeply practical, not subject to theoretical research. However, over time, the amount of information and comprehension of the experience of Gestalt therapy required the systematization of theory and analysis. Theoretical systematization and analysis was first taken up by P. Goodman. It was he who first built the cycle-contact curve. It is to Goodman that modern psychotherapy is indebted for introducing most of the terms of Gestalt therapy.

Gestalt therapy and its main provisions are based on the ability of the psyche to in the process of unity of all the functions of the body and the psyche, on the ability of the body to creatively adapt to the environment.

The theory of Gestalt therapy is also based on the responsibility of the individual for his own actions, goals and expectations. The main role of the psychotherapist is to focus the patient's attention on the awareness of the happening "here and now".

S. Ginger argued that everything that happens to the subject is an event that occurs at the border-contact. In other words, the boundary-contact simultaneously involves the isolation of the individual from the environment and the potential possibility of interaction with such an environment. In Gestalt therapy, the approach to resistance is radically different from the approach of research directions.

Gestalt therapy presents resistances as methods of interaction between the individual's body and the environment, previously highly effective for the purpose of interaction, but in the actual present, either completely inappropriate, or the only methods of interaction available to the patient. So, for example, for a drug-addicted client, a characteristic method of interaction will be the merging of the organism with the environment, which is considered quite organic in the interaction between the baby and the mother. It follows that the patient's resistances, naturally shown by him in the process of interaction with the psychotherapist, are used as the basis for an effective search for needs that are unconscious to the patient.

Gestalt therapy practice is also focused on bringing the client to awareness of their own true needs. Gestalt theory, first of all, considers the boundaries of contact between the individual's organism and its environment. Practical experience is of the utmost importance in this theory. In fact, Gestalt sees any situations through the prism of experience while striving to abstract from any opinions that precede the experienced experience.

In Gestalt therapy, in contrast to psychiatric practice, the main place belongs to experimental analysis and action, which should lead to creative adaptation, perception of the new, awakening and growth.

From the point of view of anthropology, Gestalt therapy considers the body as a whole, the individual for it is integrity. And different methods of interaction with the environment, such as emotions, thinking, are functions of the whole. This theory proceeds from the concept of the animal nature of the individual, according to which, he cannot be separated from the environment and is forced to constantly adapt to it for the sake of his own survival.

From the standpoint of Gestalt therapy, a person at each stage of his development lives in a certain field that combines his past experience, self-image, beliefs, values, attitudes, hopes for the future, significant relationships, career, environment, material possessions and culture. .

Gestalt therapy is considered a field concept, since it states that in order to understand the behavior of an individual, one should consider the entire configuration of relationships in her life. Such a configuration covers the past experience of the individual, her views and values, desires and expectations, actual needs, the modern arrangement of life, determined by her place of residence, work, family ties, those immediate circumstances in which she now resides. The term gestalt refers to the configuration of connected parts.

The state of each part of the field is to some extent due to its mutually directed action with the other part. The field also includes the biological state of the individual at the moment, his actual "now" desires and needs, immediate circumstances. Actions and experiences will be determined at any given moment by the interaction of all these parts. Since certain transformations will always occur in some part of this field, i.e. the individual can never remain the same as he was before.

Gestalt therapy brings to the fore the awareness of what is happening at the moment at various levels, inextricably linked to each other - the bodily level, emotional and intellectual levels. Everything that happens "here and now" is a fully flowing experience that affects the organism in unity, and also consists of memories that precede the experience, fantasies, incomplete situations, anticipations and intentions.

The goal of Gestalt therapy is not to help the patient resolve a specific problem that worries him and with which he came to the psychotherapist. According to the Gestalt, the existing complaint is a signal or a symptom of the habitual lifestyle that is the real problem. Gestalt therapy is focused on increasing the individual's ability to maintain meaningful contact and increasing awareness of what is happening, resulting in the individual gaining the ability to make effective choices. However, it should be understood that Gestalt does not mean by "increasing awareness" the achievement of insight. The essence of Gestalt therapy is to increase the client's ability to stay centered on the actual present moment and to learn to be aware of it.

Perls Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt literally translated from German means image, form. Gestalt theory states that the individual functions based on the principle of self-regulation. The personality maintains its homeostasis (dynamic balance) by constantly comprehending such needs that are formed in it and generated by the environment, and satisfying these needs gradually as they appear, along with this, all the remaining objects or events that have no connection with this process, recede into the background.

Gestalt therapy and its main provisions are based on five core theoretical definitions: the relationship between the background and the figure, awareness and concentration on the actual present, opposites, responsibility and maturity, protection functions.

One of the central definitions in Gestalt therapy theory is the relationship between ground and figure. Self-regulatory processes of the body lead to the formation of a figure - a gestalt. The concepts of "gestalt" should be understood as a pattern or form - a special organization of details that make up a certain unified whole, which cannot be transformed without destroying it. Gestalt formations are born only with a specific background or against a specific background. For the background, the individual chooses what is important or significant to him, and this is important or interesting to him becomes a gestalt.

Once the need is satisfied, the gestalt ends. In other words, the gestalt loses its relevance and importance. It fades into the background at the same time, making room for the formation of a new gestalt. Such a rhythm of development and completion of gestalts is a normal rhythm of the life of the human body.

If the need cannot be satisfied, then the gestalt remains incomplete.

In order to be able and able to develop and complete gestalts, the individual must be fully aware of himself at a given moment in time. Awareness and concentration on the actual present are the central concepts of Gestalt therapy. To satisfy their own needs, people need to be constantly in contact with areas of their inner self and external environment. The inner area of ​​awareness covers the processes and phenomena occurring in the human body. People respond to their own inner needs when, for example, they put on a sweater when they feel cold. The external area combines the totality of external phenomena that enter the human consciousness as perceiving signals. Data coming from internal and external areas are practically not evaluated and not interpreted.

In addition to the inner and outer regions, there is also a middle region. Perls called this area the zone of fantasy, which contains thoughts, fantasies, beliefs, connections and other intellectual, thought processes. He believed that neuroses appear as a result of a tendency to concentrate on the middle region due to the exclusion from consciousness of the phenomena of internal and external regions. This tendency conflicts with the natural rhythm of the body's processes. Basically, a significant part of the private and cultural experience of people arises in the course of improving the processes of the middle area. People learn to argue their own thoughts, justify beliefs, defend relationships, and evaluate others.

Perls argued that the causes of anomalous states lie in human desires to fantasize and comprehend when interpreting what they are aware of. When an individual is in the middle region, he mainly works with his past or future: he remembers, plans, despairs and hopes. People do not live in the actual present and invariably do not pay attention to the need for awareness of the processes occurring in external and internal areas. Self-regulation of the body depends on the awareness of the actual and the ability to live according to the principle of "here and now" to the fullest.

Perls called the opposite of a single assessment or a set of such assessments. So, for example, the assessments "bad" or "good" are two opposites of such a set. According to Gestalt therapy, people form their own perception of the world through such opposites. Perls believed that the personality is formed according to the same principles. Subjects experience opposing emotions throughout their lives. Every day in a person alternately dominate, then hatred, then love, then happiness, then frustration. So, for example, throughout life, an individual loves and hates his own parents, wives or husbands, children. It is important to understand that such opposites are not irreconcilable contradictions, but are differences that can form and complete the gestalt.

The concept of opposites can also be applied to the functioning of the personality. Personality is interpreted as a kind of holistic formation that combines two components: "I" and "It". In cases where the individual acts according to impulses from the sphere of his "I", he is able to distinguish himself from others. Such a border "I" appears in order to feel one's own uniqueness, dissimilarity with the rest of the world. In cases where individuals act according to impulses from the “It” sphere, then they are closely interconnected with their own environment, the “I” barrier is transformed into a vague and flexible line. Sometimes there is even a feeling of identity (identity) with the outside world. These aspects of the functioning of the personality, complementary to each other, are responsible for the development and completion of gestalts. Aspirations from the sphere of "I" help to distinguish a clear image from the background. In other words, they form an image, and aspirations from the “It” sphere complete the gestalt with the subsequent return of the image to the background environment.

The individual's psyche responds to threats or stressors by avoiding problems, developing immunity to pain, and sometimes with hallucinations or delusions. Such reactions are called protection functions. They are capable of distorting or interrupting an individual's contact with a threatening situation. However, when the danger affects the subject for a long period of time or the individual is exposed to many dangers at the same time, as a result of which the brain will protect him even from ordinary sneezing without the use of protection. The result of this will be the individual's learning that contact with the environment is unsafe, as a result of which he will resort to protective reactions in all situations, even when the danger is not threatened.

In Gestalt theory, optimal health is considered maturity. To achieve maturity, the subject must cope with his desire to receive help from outside. Instead, he needs to learn to find new sources of help within himself. If an individual is not mature, then he will rather be inclined to manipulate the environment in order to satisfy desires and needs than to take responsibility for his own disappointments and failures. Maturity comes only when the individual mobilizes his own resources in order to overcome the state and fear that appear due to the lack of outside help and the inadequacy of self-help. Circumstances in which an individual cannot take help from outside and rely on himself are a dead end. Maturity is the ability to take risks in order to get out of an impasse. In cases where an individual does not take risks, behavioral role stereotypes are updated in him, which allow him to manipulate other people.

Perls believed that the adult person must diligently, step by step, work through all his own neurotic levels in order to take responsibility for himself and achieve maturity. The first level is called the "cliché" level. At this level, people act stereotypically. The next level is an "artificial" level, which is dominated by roles and games of various kinds. Here they manipulate others in doing so, trying to get the help they think they need. The "artificial" level is followed by the "dead end" level, characterized by the lack of outside help and the inadequacy of self-help. Individuals shun this level in the same way that they shun all pain, because in dead-end situations they feel frustrated, lost, and deceived. Then comes the level of "inner explosion". Having reached this level, people touch their real "I", their own personality, which was previously, as it were, "buried" under various protections.

Most often, Gestalt therapy practice is focused on the experiences of the "dead end" level. The therapeutic intervention creates a non-hazardous emergency, and the group provides a safe atmosphere that encourages risky decisions.

Gestalt Therapy Techniques

For adequate interaction of the individual with the environment, other individuals and himself, the so-called "contact boundary" must always be respected. Its blurring, violation leads to neurosis and other problems of a psychological, personal and emotional nature. This can manifest itself after the termination of contact without its proper completion. Failure to complete contacts in the future can be fixed in the actions of the individual and lead to neuroticism.

With the help of Gestalt therapy techniques, an individual can restore the contact boundary, rally their own feelings, thoughts and reactions, thereby freeing themselves from psychological problems.

The techniques used in Gestalt practices are united around two key areas of work: principles and games. The principles are used at the initial stage of therapy. The main principles in Gestalt therapy are the principles: "here and now", "I - you", the subjectivization of statements and the continuum of consciousness.

The principle of "here and now" is a functional concept of what is happening at the moment. So, for example, momentary memories from childhood will relate to the “here and now” principle, but what is happening a couple of minutes ago will not.

The principle of "I - you" demonstrates the desire for open and natural contact between human individuals.

The principle of subjectivization of statements consists in the transformation of subjective statements into objective ones. For example, the phrase "something presses in the chest area" should be replaced with "I suppress myself."

An integral part of all techniques of Gestalt practices and one of the central concepts is the continuum of consciousness. It can also be used as a separate technique. The continuum of consciousness is a focus on the spontaneous flow of the essence of experience, a way of leading the individual to natural excitement and renunciation of verbalizations and interpretations.

Techniques are called gestalt games, which consist in a variety of actions performed by clients on the instructions of a psychotherapist. They promote a more natural confrontation with essential content and experiences. Games provide an opportunity to experiment with yourself or other group members.

A lot of psychological trends exist today. Perls Gestalt Therapy is one of them. Psychologists may not adhere to the main provisions and theory of this direction, however, they often mix their methods of work with Gestalt therapy techniques.

Psychology as a whole considers the spiritual component of a person from different angles. Since a person is a multifaceted being, there are many directions that do not replace each other, but rather complement.

The main position of Gestalt therapy is conscious living. What is mindfulness or consciousness? This is the ability of a person to direct his attention to what is happening here and now. He doesn't get lost in his thoughts, he doesn't have his head in the clouds, he doesn't remember the past, or he doesn't dream about the future. The present moment is the most important thing for a person who is conscious.

What is Gestalt Therapy?

Like psychology, Gestalt therapy is a relatively young science that was developed in the 20s of the last century. Its main ideas and principles were developed by Frederick and Laura Perls, Paul Goodman. What is Gestalt Therapy? This is work on the formation of one's own consciousness and responsibility for what happens to a person.

Conscious awareness is a core concept in Gestalt therapy. It means that a person should pay attention only to what is happening here and now. He must live it, feel it, understand it, and even remember it. Analysis in Gestalt therapy of problems and feelings occurs only with those units that are relevant at the moment.

Gestalt therapists do not pay attention to the past or the future. The past has already passed, and the future has not yet arrived. The human body is only in the present moment. What to say about what has already happened or has not yet happened? No matter how you twist it, a person lives only in the present moment. Only "here and now" he can let go of the past, understand it, correct mistakes and do something good for his future.

No need to immerse yourself in some thoughts, fly away into memories or dreams. Notice what surrounds you, what is happening around, what your body feels, how certain things arise. Track your emotions, from hearing or seeing something to when certain feelings flare up in you.

Enjoy what you are doing now. Do only what you feel is right for the moment. Solve only those issues that are important to solve now. Be here and now. What is really important now? What do you think needs to be done at the moment? Explain your criteria for assessing importance. This will allow you not to regret what you are doing now in the future. Yes, you may doubt the correctness of your choice. However, in the future, you will remember that today's choice seemed to you the most correct. And this already says that you did the right thing.

Understand what is happening to you, what you feel and what goals you want to achieve. Don't let chance or other people control you. You are free to decide for yourself what to think, say and do. But for this you need to live in the present tense, understand the motives of your actions, and also see the goal that you want to achieve. Usually people don't get what they want because they don't know what they want, forget about it when they get emotional, and don't do anything to achieve it. However, if you are mindful, you will understand that you can not give in to your emotions, which simply make you do stupid things, and not resolve issues so that in the end you get what you need.

To live, you need to be here and now. Learn to spend as much time in the present moment as possible. And then you will see many advantages in living here and now, and not soaring in dreams and not immersing yourself in memories.

Perls Gestalt Therapy

The main desire of a person is to maintain homeostasis, when he performs only those actions that, under present conditions, will allow him to achieve a balanced state. Perls' Gestalt therapy is based on the importance of present circumstances and the unimportance of everything else.

It is based on these 5 pillars:

1. The relationship between background and figure. A person cannot satisfy his needs separately from the outside world. The elements that are currently important to achieve the desired become the background or figure. As soon as the goal is reached, the gestalt stops and the figure fades into the background. If the goal is not achieved, then the gestalt remains incomplete.
2. Opposites. A person is constantly in contact with the surrounding and inner worlds, which do not always manifest themselves in the same way. For a quick assessment, a person operates with unambiguous concepts, for example, “good” and “bad”. However, nothing is ever unambiguously good or bad. Even emotions a person experiences are ambiguous in relation to the world around him (sometimes he loves, sometimes he hates, sometimes he cries, sometimes he laughs).
3. Awareness and concentration on the present. In order for a person to have the opportunity to use the existing circumstances to achieve the goal, he must be here and now. His attention should be drawn to two components: internal sensations and external factors. A striking example is that a person in cold weather puts on a warm sweater, which corresponds to the external and internal.

The problem arises when a person focuses his attention on the middle area - these are thoughts, desires, beliefs, emotions, etc. In this case, he does not notice either the external or the internal. He operates with arguments that are absolutely not consistent with the real facts.

In this state, a person plans, despairs, remembers, hopes. He does not act, but hopes that his mental processes will somehow influence real life without his participation.

1. Responsibility and maturity. In achieving a happy life, a person must be mature. What it is? This is when a person stops waiting for outside help, and relies only on his own strength. In this case, he stops blaming, waiting, doing nothing, because he takes responsibility for his own life, achievements, successes and failures.

Maturity occurs when a person ceases to be afraid and frustrated. While a person is immature, he is only looking for various manipulations that will help him get what he needs from others. A person must go through several stages to become mature:

• Get rid of cliches, that is, get rid of stereotypes.
• Get rid of games and roles that help manipulate others.
• Get out of the “dead end”, when outside help cannot be obtained, and self-help is not provided. This level is dangerous because people feel deceived and lost, so they begin to look for new ways to manipulate others.
• Reach the "internal explosion" when you cross the threshold when "you have to" and enter the period when "you can do everything yourself and help yourself."

In Gestalt therapy, a person is helped to create a safe environment for himself at the "dead end" level in order to successfully move to the next.

1. Protection functions. The psyche has various defense functions that should help guard against a stressful or dangerous situation. It can make you run away (leave), not pay attention to pain, or go into delirium, hallucinations. Sometimes a person is so worried about what is happening around him that he considers the world dangerous for himself, runs away from it even when nothing threatens him.

Theory of Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy was not originally aimed at developing theoretical knowledge. However, over the years, so much information has accumulated that psychologists had to form a theory in this direction. This was done by P. Goodman, who outlined the basic terms of Gestalt therapy.

The main position of this direction is the inclination of the individual to self-regulation based on the unity of external and internal and creative approach to adapting to the world. Here, the maturity and responsibility of a person who focuses on his actions, expectations and goals become important. The therapist helps the client to focus on the state of the here and now in order to solve all pressing problems.

Gestalt therapy is aimed at a person's awareness of their true needs, as well as turning to their own experience, which is more valuable and important than someone else's opinion.

A person cannot live separately from the world around him, therefore Gestalt therapy teaches to keep his isolation from him, but to understand that he is constantly in contact and influences what is happening outside.

A person cannot be understood unless viewed as a whole in conjunction with his past, thoughts and actions. What is happening now and here is an indication of what has been done in the past. A person can come to only one result as a result of the decisions and actions that he has made. And this means that if a person does not like real life, this indicates that in the past he did not do something or made a decision that led him in a different direction.

Gestalt therapists are not aimed at solving problems that concern people, but at teaching clients to be aware of reality, to live in it and concentrate only on the present.

Fundamentals of Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy techniques are based on the main provisions of this area. The site of psychotherapeutic help site highlights the following principles:

• "Here and now". A person should concentrate on the feelings, thoughts, sensations that are happening to him now. If he talks about the past, then he should pronounce such words as if it is happening to him now.
• "I, you". Teaching a person to openly and directly address the person he is talking about.
• continuum of consciousness. Concentration on the flow of thoughts and feelings that are happening in a given second, the rejection of a constant analysis of the situation and statements.
• Subjectivization of statements. Teaching a person to talk about himself, his body, failures and other things in such a way that he “interferes”, “does not help”, “does not give”, etc. It seems to a person that someone from outside is preventing him from living happily. In fact, he himself is the author of his own misfortunes.

The biggest mistake you can make is being happy in the past. All people know that life can both please and grieve. However, the “black stripe” is always followed by the “white” one, and this should not be forgotten when you again encounter troubles and problems that will make you return to those memories when you lived carefree.

Why does a person live in the past? If you are immersed in past memories and do not want to get out of them, this only means that real life does not capture you, does not please you, is not filled with something interesting and new. You are now bored with life or you are mired in a lot of problems, which is why you decided to return to memories at a time when everything was good, fun and carefree.

However, this is a trap. You have returned to the past, not wanting to see the present state of affairs. Why would you go back to the present when you are already happy, remembering the past when you were successful? This is a mistake that simply plunges you into a state of hopelessness.

First, you live in the past without paying attention to the present. Accordingly, you are unhappy "here and now", but happy "then and there". Secondly, if you are constantly in the past, it means that you are not solving those issues that made you run away from the present. You avoid the problems that are hanging over you now, not realizing that they will not go anywhere and will remind you of themselves every time you return to the present.

Don't be happy in the past. Let the past life be an indicator that you can achieve something and solve problems. Let the past be your incentive to stick with the present as you work through your problems. And as soon as you learn to cope with the current troubles without avoiding them, you will become more confident in yourself, stop giving up before every failure and realize that you are living a happy life.

Past life is an indicator that you can be happy. But even then, in the past, you had to overcome some difficulties in order to achieve success. This gives you an understanding that even now you need to continue to live in the present, to overcome obstacles in order to be able to return to the present in the future and believe in yourself again that you can achieve everything and cope with everything.

Outcome

Each direction in psychology is designed to make the life of any person happy. This is possible if you take the steps and follow the recommendations given by psychologists. The result may be higher than all the expectations that a person originally had.

It is easy to say that Gestalt therapy does not help. However, until a person tries, he will not understand what will be useful to him, and what will not have any effect. If there is an inner desire to achieve happiness, as well as deal with many internal problems, then it's time to do something. In this case, the forecast will be more favorable than when doing nothing.

INTRODUCTION

This book began as a manuscript by Frederick S. Perls. The material was developed and developed by Paul Goodman and received practical development from Ralph Hefferlin. In the form in which this book exists now, it is the result of the joint efforts of three authors.

We had one goal in common: to develop a theory and create methods that would expand the boundaries and scope of psychotherapy. We had a lot of disagreements; in discussing them, instead of politely concealing them, we have more than once arrived at decisions that none of us could have foreseen. Many of the ideas of the original manuscript survived, but just as much was added as a result of the combined efforts of the three authors and, more importantly, much took on new meaning in the context of the book in its final form.

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The first half of this book invites you to dive in and offers a technique for doing so. What can come out of this venture - that's the question that you will immediately ask; but the answer to it cannot be brought to you on a verbal silver platter. In fact, the most essential part of the response is non-verbal, and so it should remain. If you get this answer, then only after doing such work as described here. But since we cannot expect you to take on a job that takes time and effort, believing that in the end the game is worth the candle, we will try in this book to describe the general human situation, and also to show why we are sure that that we can give something important to everyone who really wants to improve themselves and their situation.

What we offer you to do for yourselves, at first glance, may resemble hackneyed truths, as we want to help you discover yourself, your self and mobilize it, make it more effective in meeting your needs as a biological organism and a social human being.

Revealing yourself might remind someone of the old story of "pulling yourself by the hair." But, as we understand the term, it is a difficult process. Far from being a sudden flash of insight, this process is more or less permanent and cumulative - and does not stop as long as the person is alive. It involves taking a special attitude towards yourself and seeing yourself in action. To consider oneself in action - that is, to consider oneself as action - requires a technique quite different from the one you may have already tried and found insufficient - the technique of introspection.

If self-discovery seems useful but intimidating, we won't argue with that reaction. The assumption that you have some kind of secret or hidden self, that it is much worse than you and it is better to leave it alone - you have not always had it, and it is hardly worth keeping it forever. It comes from the fact that in the past, in a moment of stress, you rejected some part of yourself that gave you too much anxiety. Under the circumstances, those parts of you were the worst parts of you, and in order to live in that situation, you had to get rid of them. This is similar to how a wild animal behaves when its paw is in a trap. Under such conditions, the paw becomes a threat and sometimes the animal bites it off to escape, although it remains crippled.

Your life may be completely different now than when you rejected part of yourself, but unlike the paw of the beast, this part can be returned. Do the original reasons you rejected her still exist, or have they long since disappeared? This is at least worth considering. We offer you a method for systematically reviewing and reconstructing your present situation. You can move at your own pace. The procedures are organized in such a way that each previous one forms the necessary basis for the next one. How much work you can do in a certain amount of time depends on what part of yourself you have discarded and what your current life situation is. In any case, you will not take one step faster or more than what you yourself want.

We are not offering you an "easy path to mastery," a program of moral improvement, or rules to ensure that the bad habits you really want to keep are broken. We are not going to do anything for you at all. We offer you instructions by which you - if you wish - can go on a personal adventure and in the process you, by your own active efforts, can do something for yourself, for your self - open it, organize it and direct it to constructive use. in living your life.

We will explain the paradoxes in these statements later. For now, suffice it to say that by saying "Your I" instead of just saying "You", we would like to emphasize the special sense of havingness that lies in the possessive pronoun "you": this is your "I". Note also that the “You” in question is the same “You” who will make discoveries during your “journey”, and, at the same time, it is an integral part of “Your self”. This is the part that reads these lines, most likely speaking them to itself.

This undertaking is not supposed to be easy. It may seem easy to follow the instructions - so easy that it is quite possible that by the end you will decide: there is nothing to it; you will skip it all, you will not get any results that you did not foresee in advance, and stop there. If, on the other hand, you come into closer contact with the experimental situations you create, you may find that in some ways this is the most difficult and annoying job you have ever encountered - but also the most amazing.

On these pages we try to talk to you as if we were face to face. Of course, you do not have the opportunity, as in a normal conversation, to take the floor - to answer, ask a question, add details about your personal situation; and we, unfortunately, do not know you personally. If we knew the details concerning you - age, gender, education, work, your successes and failures, your plans and your fears, we would reduce something or, on the contrary, develop it in more detail, somewhere, perhaps, we would rearrange the accents , changed the order; but that would not fundamentally change what we want to convey. We believe that practically everything we will deal with applies to one degree or another, in one way or another, to every human being living in our time in the conditions of Western civilization. To apply what suits your situation and in the way that suits you is your job in our joint venture.

The content of the article:

Gestalt therapy is an independent direction in practical psychology, it is engaged in the study and adjustment of emotions. It is aimed at healing neuroses, psychoses and other mental disorders that cause a conflict of the individual with his inner self and the outside world, changes behavior, conforming it to external circumstances.

Features of Gestalt Therapy as a New Direction in Psychiatry

Gestalt therapy was developed and put into practice in the middle of the last century by the German psychoanalyst Fritz Perls (1893-1970). This is an independent direction of psychotherapy, including elements of bioenergetics, psychoanalysis and psychodrama, valued for its humanistic, existential approach to the patient's personality.

Its essence can be briefly characterized by the “Gestalt prayer” of the founder of a new method in the treatment of mental disorders:

“I do my thing and you do your thing.
I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations
And you are not in this world to match mine.
You are you and I am me
And if we happen to find each other, that's great."

That is, I can help you, but you yourself must want it and believe in yourself. And then the meeting of the patient and the Gestalt therapist will be useful.

It should be distinguished from Gestalt psychology, the latter, as a scientific direction, operates with such a concept as Gestalt (German - representation, image). This first part of the name, perhaps, only makes them related, although some ideas are still borrowed.

It is believed that Gestalt therapy is based on the feminine principle in psychotherapy, when one should not deal with the problems that have arisen in a purely masculine way - willpower, but accept them, realize and gradually change their attitude towards them, based on the conviction: “I am small, and big world." All emotions cannot be considered bad, they must be treated with respect, understand the reason for their occurrence and gradually, without excessive effort, extinguish.

Gestalt therapy is based on such a concept as authenticity - the authenticity of feelings and experiences that allow you to live in harmony with your inner world. The "harmony of the senses" should prevail over the "harmony of the mind", in other words, trust your feelings more than your consciousness. Rely on your inner "barometer" of behavior, but do not ignore the realities that stand in your way.

It is worth listening to them so as not to enter into discord with the outside world, which will inevitably affect mental health. Authenticity is manifested in congruence, this is when words do not disagree with deeds, a person lives in complete harmony with his personal values.

Principles of Gestalt Therapy

It is based on a biological approach. Man is interpreted as a living organism, which has its own needs and its own environment. Everything that prevents him from living is already a violation, they must be corrected.

This understanding is based on the principles of Gestalt therapy:

• Life is controlled not by reason, but by emotions, the main thing is the energy of human needs.
• Goals are only fully achievable if the person herself quite consciously strives to achieve them, perceives them as her own, and not someone else's, imposed from outside. Only the energy of personal desires can lead to a positive result. Volitional efforts that are not perceived sensually, fueled only by the understanding that it is necessary, is a waste of one's strength.
• A living organism always strives for self-regulation, all its systems must be in dynamic balance. A person also strives for the constancy of his inner world.
• Everyone has their own life and their own worries. Excessive concern for the other raises the question in the Gestalt therapist: “What is it connected with, why is it so important to you?” If, for example, caring for someone is not related to satisfying one's own needs, for the psychotherapist this is a signal that the client has a discord with his "I", a problem with self-realization in society.
• A person lives in the environment that he deserves. The environment "jams" the weak, the strong himself chooses the conditions of his life. Gestalt therapy considers a person's behavior in a given situation as an internal conflict of the body, which leads to a sharp change in behavioral reactions to polar opposites.
• A person is considered as a whole organism, everything is interconnected in it: body, mind and emotions.

Note! Gestalt therapy comes from the fact that human life is controlled by emotions (the energy of needs). The body's energy is spent only on satisfying its personal needs. Reason is only secondary.

The main tasks of Gestalt therapy practice

All of them can be described as therapeutic. The Gestalt therapist tries to recognize the causes of the patient's mental disorder and, based on the fundamental principles of his method, prescribes a course of treatment for him. The psychologist does not educate and is far from preaching the meaning of life. By studying negative emotions, which can even be specially suggested, he finds contradictions that cause serious anxiety, and works with them.

The patient during the session should not think, but feel, and through feelings to realize what is happening to him now. Often conversations with an imaginary character are used. So, with the help of a Gestalt therapist, the client “plays” his feelings, comes to the realization and solution of his problems, gains self-confidence, correct contact with the environment.

The main tasks of Gestalt therapy practice include:

1. Working with emotions. True health is when genuine feelings are expressed, their blocking is unacceptable, various conclusions, that is, “working with the head”, only hinders the manifestation of the true emotional mood of the individual.
2. Traces of the past lie in the present. You need to recognize them and work with them.
3. Analysis. Negative emotions are interpreted as "emotional pus", which should be returned to the one who caused it. It happens in a playful way.
4. Attention to the body. Briefly, this can be characterized by the well-known phrase: "A healthy mind in a healthy body." The Gestalt therapist is not inclined to believe the client's stories about his experiences, only asking about his bodily sensations can give reliable information about what is really happening to him.

The main goals of Gestalt therapy are: the treatment of mental disorders through emotions, the patient, with the help of a doctor, analyzing his negative feelings, must find his inner support; gaining positive vital energy in order to continue to live in harmony with your conscience and the world around you.

Who is Gestalt Therapy for?

Suitable for everyone who is at odds with himself and has difficulties in communication, wants to change his life and position in society for the better. In a word, it is needed for those people who do not get hung up on their problems and want to solve them. However, there are some nuances that you should be aware of.

Gestalt therapists are more often approached by women. They are more sensual, and therefore make better contact with a psychologist, are more willing to participate in role-playing games. It is highly likely that they will heed the advice of a doctor and be able to change their view of the problems that concern them.

Men, by virtue of their nature, are more secretive, they are not inclined to talk about their feelings in group sessions. Although everything largely depends on the personality of the Gestalt therapist, if he can find an unobtrusive approach to his client, then people who are restrained in the manifestation of emotions will also go to him, who feel an urgent need to correct their emotional state for one reason or another.

The Gestalt therapist has a special approach to children. Problematic for him is a child who never takes offense at his parents. This means that he hides his real feelings, constantly lives in fear that if he shows them, his parents will be unhappy, relations with them will deteriorate.

Suppose a mother who complains about her child that the girl does not always speak evenly with her can even be arrogant, the psychologist can answer that this is good. You have a normal relationship, because the child does not hide his emotions, he is sure that you love him. But if she is constantly polite with her father, it means that relations with him are not sincere, and this causes concern, there is something to think about.

Basic Techniques and Techniques of Gestalt Therapy

The set of professional techniques is the techniques used in the Gestalt therapeutic approach. They are used in games when the client has the opportunity to experiment with his feelings. These include the Gestalt therapy technique "hot chair" or "empty chair".

Here the main goal is to achieve the desired level of emotional "enlightenment", which leads to the integration of the personality, when the human body works smoothly.

Let's take an illustrative example. Beautiful gait - good posture (body). Self-confidence is inner peace (zero-state) or inner purposefulness (emotions) supported by knowledge (intelligence). All this together constitutes the integration of personality.

The main task of the therapist, both in group and individual work with the client, is to concentrate his attention on realizing what is happening now, focusing his energy on this, developing a new model of his behavioral reactions and taking responsibility for their implementation.

There are many methods of specific work, we list only the main ones. These include:

• Awareness. John Enright, in his book Gestalt Leading to Enlightenment, said: “We do not so much transfer our feeling into the world as we peer or listen to what is already there and amplify it in perception.” However, it is necessary that the perception of the environment be fully conscious. This is what the Gestalt therapist sets up for his clients.
• Energy Concentration. In order to realize your problems, you need to focus all your energy on them, only then can you come to an understanding of what is really happening to you.
• Decision-making. It logically follows from the previous one, when it is necessary to draw the necessary conclusions and take a decisive step towards new life attitudes.
• Working with polarities. This refers to extremes in behavior, completely different lifestyles, between which the soul of the client splits. Let's say rudeness and politeness, follow the established order once and for all or no regimen, when everything is permissible. And here it is important to understand that Gestalt therapy strives for the unity of all polarities of behavior, and not for the rejection of one in favor of the other. The search for the "golden mean" is also unacceptable, it is considered a mold, a kind of true feelings.
• Monodrama. The essence of the monodrama is that the client plays the role of all the characters related to his problem, which he wants to get rid of.
• Working with dreams. Perls said that in dreams the deepest essence of a person is manifested. By deciphering a dream, you can learn a lot about a person.
• Using hyphenation. When a client, with the help of a therapist, reproduces his past communication experience and relives the feelings that arose then.

What is Gestalt therapy - look at the video:

Gestalt therapy practice in the treatment of various mental disorders has become widespread. The main thing here is a holistic approach that takes into account the bodily, spiritual and mental state of health, the social significance of the individual. Turning to feelings and images (gestalts), the psychologist through games helps the client to realize what is really happening to him and make the right decision, which should radically change the internal state of a person and his contacts with the surrounding reality. This approach is the value of the Gestalt therapy method.

• Fritz Perls is the founder of the method.
• Theoretical foundations of the Gestalt therapy method.
• Human nature.
• Hunger and aggression.
• Personal development.
• The nature of psychological problems of personality.

The founder of the Gestalt method - therapy is considered Fritz Salomon Perls (1893-1970).
His basic education was psychoanalysis and for a long time Perls practiced it. The beginning of the history of Gestalt therapy can be considered the appearance of the book Ego, Hunger and Aggression (1942), which presents a rather radical rethinking of the theory of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.

Features of Gestalt Therapy.

Despite the fact that Fritz Perls himself believed that the theory was based on psychoanalysis, it is quite clear that his offspring was influenced by many different approaches to psychotherapy, as well as, philosophy of existentialism and ideas of currents - Zen Buddhism and Taoism. Thus, the author made an obvious emphasis on the flow of direct experiences of the individual ("here and now") - thoughts and feelings, and also declared personal responsibility man for the state of his own consciousness.

Distinctive features of the Gestalt method was the shift in emphasis in relation to the construction of the most important issues of psychotherapy from the question "why" to the questions "what" and "how".
This seemingly insignificant change had a huge impact on the course of the process itself, because in this perspective, the client's personal history faded into the background, and his actual experience in the present became the most important.
Based on this fact, it is not difficult to understand that this radically changed the whole approach to the work of a psychologist.

Despite the fact that Perls left quite a few works on the method, none of them contains any systematic presentation of the material, so that it could be called a textbook on Gestalt therapy. This seemingly strange fact, however, fits perfectly into the concept of the author, who has always believed that the only way to understand the method of Gestalt therapy is his practical experience in mastering it. That is why many of his works contain a large number of descriptions, namely methods and work directly with clients, but rarely, their theoretical justification.

One way or another, but after the death of Perls in 1970, his followers made an attempt to fill this gap by releasing a guide book called "Integrated Gestalt Therapy" (E. Polster, M. Polster, 1973).
It is on the basis of these data that the theoretical substantiation of the method is presented, which, no doubt, is necessary.

Theory of Gestalt therapy.

The central concept of the method is, in fact, the concept of figure-ground, which reflects the term "gestalt", which in German means "whole, integration, form, stereotype".
This concept was also the main one in Perls' understanding of another important part of his theory - the substantiation of an important chain of need-satisfaction, from which the idea of ​​self-actualization flowed, which gained great popularity in the 50-60s of the last century and became one of the foundations of the humanistic method of therapy.

The main rationale behind the idea of ​​F. Perls was his attitude to the individual as a single whole and the consistent rejection of the concepts of dualism of mental and material realities, thoughts and feelings, as well as human behavior. It is easy to see that the same approach underlies philosophy of holism.

Proceeding from such an attitude towards the individual, the natural consequence was the idea that people are by no means completely under the influence of external circumstances and the circumstances of their personal history, which means that they may well play a decisive role in their condition and behavior, that is, be fully responsible for life events and quality. From this followed the humanistic concept of actualization, proclaiming the freedom of choice, the use of personal potential and the will to change, which underlie the transformation of the individual.
The second important consequence was the already mentioned attitude towards what underlay the essence of the human personality, which was henceforth determined by the question of "how" and not "why".