What is Gestalt?

Gestalt is a humanistic and experiential approach that emphasises how individuals perceive and understand the world around them. The term "Gestalt" comes from the German language and can be described as "the Form" or "the Whole".

Gestalt therapy was primarily developed from the 1950s by Fritz and Laura Perls, by Paul Goodman and Ralph Hefferline, based on the principle that human beings must be understood holistically, taking into account the body, soul, and spirit.

Gestalt is concerned with contact, that is, how we interact with the world around us. For contact to occur, it is necessary for a figure to emerge from the background; it will be determined by our current needs or by our habits. Gestalt, by illuminating the ongoing process in the here and now of the situation, achieves this goal: to allow exploration of the existential difficulties that influence daily experience.

Drawing on the principles of Tao and Zen, Gestalt considers that nothing exists outside the present; it explores how unfinished situations from the past produce in the present fixed ways of reacting, repetitive emotions and feelings.

The aim of Gestalt is to increase self-awareness through the experience gained in sessions in order to consider new ways of reacting and adjusting to the situations that arise. These new acquired possibilities will modify the representations we have of ourselves and the world around us and allow us to make choices as freely as possible in the face of existential constraints while fully assuming our responsibility.

The expansion of consciousness and possibilities can be achieved through Gestalt practices such as Gestalt therapy, work in companies and organisations, coaching, etc.

Bringing to light and awareness the process, thanks to the openness and non-judgmental attitude of the Gestalt practitioner, allows for example the person or structure to realise how they are turning away from their experience and, thereby, ignoring their needs. This awareness gives them the opportunity to discover new experiences of contact and thus to adjust creatively to the situations that will arise.

Gestalt develops autonomy by using several verbal and non-verbal techniques and by mobilising the body and speech to express emotional feelings, imagination, dreams, and movement.

In therapy, by activating its different dimensions (physical, mental, social, and spiritual), the client will give more energy to what they are experiencing in the present moment. This leads to change and the unification of the person.

Gestalt has gradually integrated other fields of intervention such as personal coaching or within companies and organisations.

In short, Gestalt is an approach that emphasises how we perceive and understand the world and organise our environment accordingly.

Key concepts of Gestalt

Perception and cognition

Gestalt focuses on perception and how we visually organise elements to derive meaning from them. For example, when we look at an image, we do not just see lines, shapes, and colours, but we perceive a whole image.

Principle of figure and ground

Gestalt introduces the concept of “figure” (what is in the foreground and perceptible) and “ground” (what is in the background and has not yet emerged). We often perceive a distinct figure highlighted against an undifferentiated surrounding ground.

Holism

Gestalt promotes the idea that our understanding of an experience or problem requires a holistic approach, where the whole contains more information than the sum of its parts.

This means that analysing individual elements is not enough for us to fully understand a situation: we are an indivisible whole that cannot be simply explained by its different components (physical, physiological, or psychological).

The here and now

Gestalt explores the moment of contact between a person and their environment (field or situation). Relational, personal, and social contexts are at the heart of what is explored, through the way they emerge and evolve, particularly during therapy or coaching sessions.

The phenomenological approach

What we perceive and understand is constantly influenced by our environment, the situation, and our experiences. The traces of our past stories colour our beliefs which, in turn, influence the way we relate. The work of the Gestalt therapist is to stay as close as possible to what is happening here and now and is observable. He suspends his judgment and interpretations.