Gestalt psychotherapy is a holistic and integrative approach to psychotherapy that focuses on the relationship between the client and the therapist as well as on self-awareness and in tracking the client’s felt experience in the ‘here-and-now’.
In gestalt therapy there is an emphasis on meeting you where you are now and through a mixture of support and challenge, facilitating a process of self-discovery and growth.
One of the fundamental premises of gestalt psychotherapy is that the mind and body are not separate entities and therefore in the process of psychotherapy, the body is incorporated. A gestalt therapist might invite a client to notice sensations and feelings as part of an ongoing expansion of awareness. Although working in this way is not the only option for a gestalt psychotherapist, sometimes emotions and past traumas can be held out of awareness in the body and by exploring this, emotional, psychological and physical blocks may become less fixed.
What makes gestalt psychotherapy distinct is that it is an approach that supports action and change both through creative exploration and through the here-and-now relationship between the client and therapist. Through this way of working the client can gain an experience of change, rather than the possibility or idea of change. Alongside this is the recognition of the paradoxical nature of change; that the more we try to change the more we can stay the same and that change can naturally occur when we have greater awareness.
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