Gestalt - what is it? Gestalt Therapy: Techniques

Gestalt - what is it? This question is asked by many modern people, but not everyone can find the right answer to it. The word "gestalt" itself is of German origin. In translation into Russian it means "structure", "image", "form". In psychiatry, this concept was introduced by psychoanalyst Frederick Perls. He is the founder of Gestalt therapy.

Frederick Perls was a practicing psychiatrist, therefore all the methods developed by him were used primarily to cure psychiatric disorders, among them psychoses, neuroses, etc. However, Gestalt therapy was very widely used. What this is, soon became interested in psychologists and psychiatrists working in different fields. Such wide popularity of Gestalt therapy is due to the presence of a reasonable and understandable theory, a wide choice of methods of working with a client or patient, as well as a high level of efficiency.

The main advantage

The main and biggest advantage is a holistic approach to a person that takes into account his mental, physical, spiritual and social aspects. Gestalt therapy, instead of focusing on the question "Why does this happen to a man?" Replaces it with the following: "What does a person now feel and how can this be changed?" Therapists working in this direction try to focus people's attention on the awareness of the processes that are happening to them "here and now". Thus, the client learns to be responsible for his life and for everything that happens in it, and, consequently, for making the desired changes.

Perls Gestalt considered as a whole, the destruction of which leads to the receipt of fragments. The form tends to be one, and if this does not happen, a person finds himself in an incomplete situation, exerting pressure on him. People often have a lot of unfinished gestalt, which is not so difficult to get rid of, it's enough to see them. The huge advantage is that for their detection there is no need to delve into the depths of the unconscious, but you just need to learn to notice the obvious.

The Gestalt approach is based on such principles and concepts as integrity, responsibility, the emergence and destruction of structures, unfinished forms, contact, awareness, "here and now."

The most important principle

A person is an integral being, and it can not be broken down into any components, for example, the body and the psyche or the soul and body, since such artificial devices can not positively influence his understanding of his own inner world.

A holistic gestalt consists of the personality and the surrounding space, while mutually influencing each other. For a better understanding of this principle, one can turn to the psychology of interpersonal relations. It makes it possible to clearly see how much society exerts on an individual. However, changing itself, it affects other people, which, in turn, also become different.

The Moscow Gestalt Institute, like many others, refers to the concept of "contact". A person is constantly in contact with something or someone - with plants, the environment, other people, information, bioenergetic and psychological fields.

The place where the individual comes into contact with the environment is usually called the contact boundary. The better a person feels and the more flexibly the contact difference can be regulated, the more successful he is in meeting his own needs and achieving his goals. However, this process is characterized by characteristic features that lead to a violation of the productive activity of the individual in various spheres of interaction. Gershtalt-therapy Perlsa is aimed at overcoming such violations.

The principle of the formation and destruction of gestalt structures

Using the principle of the emergence and destruction of gestalt structures, one can easily explain the behavior of a person. Each person suits his life according to his own needs, which he gives priority. His actions are aimed at meeting the needs and achieving the existing goals.

For a better understanding, several examples can be considered. So, a person who wants to buy a house, stores money to buy it, finds a suitable option and becomes owner of his own home. And the one who wants to have a child, directs all his forces to achieve this goal. After the desired is achieved (the need is satisfied), the gestalt ends and collapses.

The concept of incomplete gestalt

However, not every gestalt reaches its completion (and further - destruction). What happens with some people and why do they constantly form similar incomplete situations? This question has interested specialists in the field of psychology and psychiatry for many years. This phenomenon was called the unfinished gestalt.

Specialists, whose workplace is one of the Gestalt institutions, managed to recognize that the life of many people is often filled with constantly recurring typical negative situations. For example, a person, despite the fact that he does not like to be exploited, constantly gets into such situations, and the one who does not have a personal life, again and again comes into contact with people unnecessary to him. Such "deviations" are associated with unfinished "images", and the human psyche will not be able to find peace until they reach their logical end.

That is, a person with an unfinished "structure", on a subconscious level, constantly strives to create a negative unfinished situation only in order to resolve it, and finally close this issue. Gestalt therapist artificially creates a similar situation for his client and helps to find a way out of it.

Awareness

Another basic concept of Gestalt therapy is awareness. It is worth noting that the intellectual knowledge of man about his external and internal world has nothing to do with him. Gestalt psychology associates awareness with being in the so-called "here and now" state. It is characterized by the fact that a person commits all actions, guided by consciousness and being vigilant, and does not live by a mechanical life, relying solely on the stimulus-reactive mechanism, as is characteristic of the animal.

Most problems (if not all) appear in a person's life for the reason that he is guided by the mind, not by consciousness. But, unfortunately, the mind is a fairly limited function, and people who live only for them do not even suspect that they are actually something more. This leads to the replacement of the true state of reality by the intellectual and false, and also to the fact that the life of each person proceeds in a separate illusory world.

Gestalt therapists around the world, including the Moscow Gestalt Institute, are confident that to solve most problems, misunderstandings, misunderstandings and difficulties, one needs only to achieve awareness of their inner and outer reality. The state of mindfulness does not allow people to behave badly, yielding to the rushes of random emotions, because they are always able to see the world around them as it really is.

A responsibility

Of the awareness of a person, one more useful quality is born - responsibility. The level of responsibility for one's life directly depends on the level of clarity of the person's comprehension of the surrounding reality. It is always human nature to shift responsibility for one's failures and mistakes to others or even higher forces, but everyone who manages to take responsibility for themselves makes a big leap in the path of individual development.

Most people are not at all familiar with the notion of gestalt. What is it, they find out already at a reception with a psychologist or psychotherapist. The specialist identifies the problem and develops ways to eliminate it. It is for this purpose that the Gestalt therapy of technology has the most diverse, among which there are both own and borrowed from such types of psychotherapy as transactional analysis, art therapy, psychodrama, etc. According to the Gestaltists, Which serve as a natural continuation of the "therapist-client" dialogue and reinforce the processes of awareness.

The principle of "here and now"

According to him, everything is really important at the moment. The mind takes the person back to the past (memories, analysis of the situations that have occurred) or into the future (dreams, fantasies, planning), but does not allow real life, which leads to the fact that life passes by. Gestalt therapists urge each of their clients to live "here and now" without looking into the illusory world. The whole work of this approach is connected with awareness of the present moment.

Types of Gestalt techniques and contracting

All techniques of Gestalt therapy are conventionally divided into "projective" and "dialog" ones. The former are used to work with dreams, images, imaginary dialogues, etc.

The second is a painstaking work that is carried out by the therapist at the border of contact with the client. The specialist, following the mechanisms of interrupting the person he works with, turns his emotions and experiences into a part of his environment, after which he takes them to the contact boundary. It is worth noting that Gestalt techniques of both kinds are intertwined in the work, and their clear distinction is possible only in theory.

The procedure of Gestalt therapy, as a rule, begins with such a method as the conclusion of a contract. This direction is characterized by the fact that the specialist and the client are equal partners, and the latter is not less responsible for the results of the work performed than the first one. This aspect is stipulated at the stage of contract conclusion. At the same time, the client shapes his goals. A person who constantly avoids responsibility is very difficult to agree to such conditions, and already at this stage he needs elaboration. At the stage of contracting, a person begins to learn to be responsible for himself and for what happens to him.

"Hot chair" and "empty chair"

The "hot chair" technique is one of the most famous among the therapists, whose workplace is the Moscow Gestalt Institute and many other structures. This method is used for group work. "Hot chair" is the place where a person sits, who intends to tell present about his difficulties. In the course of work, only the client and the therapist interact, the other members of the group listen silently, and only after the session they tell what they felt.

The main gestalt-technicians also include an "empty chair". It is used to accommodate a person who is meaningful to the client, with whom he can conduct a dialogue, and it is not so important whether he is alive at the moment or has already died. Another purpose of the "empty chair" is the dialogue between different parts of the personality. This is necessary when the client has opposing attitudes that generate an intrapersonal conflict.

Concentration and experimental amplification

With its original technique, the Gestalt Institute calls concentration (focused awareness). There are three levels of awareness - inner worlds (emotions, bodily sensations), outer worlds (what I see, hear), as well as thoughts. Remembering one of the main principles of Gestalt therapy "here and now", the client tells the specialist about his awareness at the moment. For example: "Now I'm lying on the couch and look at the ceiling. I just can not relax. My heart is beating very hard. I know that next to me is a therapist. " This technique enhances the sense of the present, helps to understand the ways of removing a person from reality, and is also valuable information for further work with him.

Another effective technique is experimental amplification. It consists in maximizing any little-understood verbal and non-verbal manifestations. For example, in the case when the client, without realizing it himself, often starts his conversation with the words "yes, but ...", the therapist can offer him to start each phrase in this way, and then the person realizes his rivalry with others and the desire to always leave the last word .

Working with polarities

This is another method, which is often resorted to Gestalt therapy. The techniques of this industry are often aimed at identifying the opposites in the individual. Among them, a special place is occupied by work with polarities.

For example, a person who constantly complains about the fact that he doubts himself, the specialist suggests to present himself confident, and from this position to try to communicate with the people around him. It is equally useful to conduct a dialogue between one's uncertainty and confidence.

To a client who does not know how to ask for help, the Gestalt therapist suggests contacting the group members sometimes even with very ridiculous requests. This technique makes it possible to expand the zone of awareness of the individual by including in it previously inaccessible personal potential.

Work with dreams

This technique is used by psychotherapists of various directions, but the original Gestalt technique has characteristic features only. Here, all the elements of the dream specialist considers as parts of the human personality, with each of which the client must be identified. This is done to assign their own projections or to get rid of retroflections. In addition, in this technique, no one has abolished the use of the "here and now" principle.

So, the client should tell the therapist about his dream, as something happening in the present tense. For example: "I'm running along a forest path. I have a great mood and I rejoice at every moment spent in this forest, etc. " It is necessary for the client to describe his dream "here and now" not only on his own behalf, but also on behalf of other people and objects present in the vision. For example, "I'm a winding forest path. For me now runs a man, etc. ".

Thanks to its and borrowed techniques, Gestalt therapy helps people get rid of stereotypes of thinking and all kinds of masks, establish trustful contact with others. The Gestalt approach takes into account the heredity acquired in the first years of life by experience, the influence of society, but at the same time calls upon each person to take responsibility for his own life and for everything that happens in it.