What is Gestalt?

Gestalt practice is not just another form of psychotherapy. Currently, psychotherapy is a collection of

cognitive, behavioral and pharmacological methods for the treatment of carefully diagnosed symptoms.

In contrast, Gestalt practice addresses the suffering that arises from a poverty of being. The distinct

advantage of this approach for Gestalt practitioners is that they are liberated from the culture wars of

the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, as well as the marketing strategies of major pharmaceutical

companies.

Gestalt practice is a phenomenological-existential process of self discovery. Basically, Gestalt is an

awareness practice in which present sensing, feeling and acting are emphasized over analysis. In

Gestalt practice, explanation is considered less reliable than direct experience.


 

Gestalt focuses on what exists here and now. Clients of Gestalt practitioners are alerted to the

difference between talking about what occurred a few minutes ago, or yesterday, or ten years

ago, as opposed to experiencing what is happening right now. In Gestalt practice the client learns

to discriminate between ideas and experience, between habitual patterns of thought and new ways

of being. 

Gestalt practitioners help their clients understand the ongoing process of being-in-the-world. Gestalt

practice teaches a client howto use their internal and external awareness so they can become

self-supportive. Through here-and-now experiments, awareness is enhanced, and clients discover

their capacity for self-regulation and self-responsibility. 

Text by John Callahan