Fritz Perls's Use of Gestalt Therapy: a Review

The Gestalt approach to therapy emerged during the 1950’s and was developed by Frederick Perls (1893-1970). The aim of Gestalt therapy is to increase awareness, so that the client comes to resolution of unfinished business and the integration of the thinking, feeling and sensing processes. In Gestalt therapy the emphasis is placed on the present experience, the perception of the individual as a whole and the direct awareness of emotions and action. Gestalt therapists believe that the emotional problems and frustrations that are experienced by individuals are attributed to the lack of recognition and understanding of their own feelings. In addition to this Gestaltist believe that many individuals lose

This paper will carry out a comparative analysis of the two most important psychological therapies, the Adlerian Therapy and the Gestalt Therapy.

Gestalt therapy took its name from the school of academic psychology called Gestalt psychology. Perls asserted that Gestalt psychology had influenced the development of his ideas, but the Gestaltists claimed that there was no connection between the two. Later scholars suggested a common substrate linking the academic Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967), and Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) and the Gestalt therapy of the Perls and their collaborators Ralph Hefferline (1910–1974) and Paul Goodman (1911–1972). This commonality involved appreciation of the whole rather than a reductionistic approach to understanding psychological phenomena and behavior.

identifying the causes of the client feeling. Gestalts therapy focus on the here and now of the

Wood, A. (2004). Alfred Adler’s treatment as a form of brief therapy. The Journal of contemporary psychotherapy. 33 (4), 287-301.

Perls’s wife was a huge influence on him. Laura wrote a chapter in his first book. As stated before, she was a psych student when she met Perls. She received her D. Sc. degree from the University of Frankfurt in 1932. She was influenced and came in contact with theologians Martin Buber and Paul Tillich (Beddoe, 2010). The majority of the Gestalt phenomenological and existential influences in Gestalt therapy was provided by Laura. She wasn’t given much credit because not much was written under her name (Beddoe, 2010).

In the 1890’s Sigmund Freud, a German neurologist developed a theory later to be called psychoanalysis, which allowed individuals to tell their problems to a ‘psychoanalyst’ an individual trained in interpreting the ‘subconscious’. He played an important part in the history of counselling but the actual word “counselling” did not come into everyday language until 1960’s.

I had the opportunity to experience a Gestalt technique with a therapist while in high school. I was having trouble committing to my studies and had a lot of anxiety about the imminent national School Certificate exams. My therapist brought out two chairs and asked me to sit in one and imagine that School Certificate was in the other chair and then let me dialogue my fears before swapping chairs and having me respond to myself as School Certificate. From my perspective, the best thing about this therapy is that by bringing the past or future problem into the current moment, it gives the client the opportunity to step into and experience both sides of the conflict. This gives them an

Psychology explores human behavior and the human mental process figuring ways to improve the thinking and attitude of an individual’s existence. Sometimes, different techniques are used and tried to properly resolve the problem within the multitude of possible behavioral issues. Moreover, Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist, developed many theories, psychodynamic therapy, for clinically treating people with mental health problems through their unconscious mind; Then, Sigmund Freud’s theories or therapy, rather, diverged into other types of therapies such as Biological Psychology or Cognitive Psychology. No doubt, there are various perspectives, both strong and weak, in the field of Psychology using different techniques on different

It was the way Thelma approach therapy all this years what had made it so hard for any sort of improvement. She had a clear idea of what could help her get better and being truly upfront about it was not really one of them. No wonder why the therapy with the other doctors did not work out, she was hiding the biggest and most important reason of all for her obsessions. Dr. Yalom interpret this as an error on the other therapist, even imagined they had little experience in the practice and that is way they couldn’t see what was really tormenting her. By Thelma hiding her true emotions, fears and wants from Dr. Yalom it made it hard to build a relationship of trust between therapist-patient.

Gestalt therapy, which was founded by Fritz and Laura Perls in the 1940s, teaches the therapists and their clients the phenomenological awareness method, where feeling, perceiving and acting are differentiated from interpreting and rearranging the pre-existing attitudes. Gestalt therapists and clients’ dialogue, thus communicating their phenomenological perspectives, and their differences in perceptions form the basis and focus of experimentation and continued dialogue. The desired outcome of the therapy process is for the client to become aware of their actions, how they are acting, and the ways they can change their actions and learn to accept and appreciate themselves. Here, the emphasis is mainly on the process rather

. . and denying responsibility for their own choices” (Moreira, et all, 2011, p. 177). Perls points out how Gloria projects as being phony, and analyzes her non-verbal communication, making her extremely uncomfortable and defensive with him. Okun and Kantrowitz (2014) explain her thoughts of being afraid but yet smiling as an inconsistency “between the organism and its environment” that “create conflict – that is, avoidance of contact and denying negating covering up a present experience rather than accepting it, and emphasizing what is not present rather than what is present” (134). This orgasmic balance that Gestalt therapy aims to achieve is obtained by promoting strong feelings which produce the energy to experience the “I and thou of the here and now” (Perls, 1965). My observation was that this balance was achieved when Gloria realized that she was not experiencing fear of Perls, but was angry with him for now fulfilling her need to be respected and comforted by him. Her defense levels appear to drop when she realized that he really isn’t superior to her, and he is no different than her in the fact that she could accept him as a child like herself that could be comforted like a baby. Thus her

Looking for new and more effective ways to treat the issues of their clients, counselors and therapists may often begin to consider leading a group therapy session. Group therapy is a form of therapy in which a therapist either treats or provides psychoeducational skills to a small, carefully planned target group of individuals in an effort to ameliorate the issues and dysfunctions of each individual in that particular group of patients together (Scheidlinger, 2004). In this group, therapists often utilize some of the psychotherapy theories such as Gestalt, transactional analysis, psychotherapy or psychodrama which they often use to treat clients individually.

For starters, the instrument they chose to administer, the POI, has been shown to a higher degree of construct validity, that is, it is reasonably reliable and valid in measuring what it claims to measure, and also is unsusceptible to dissimulation. Additionally, they followed an empirically supported report (Damn, 1972) to determine the best method for using this instrument to derive an overall measure for self-actualization. Another strength of the study was the use of voluntary participants, to remove a potential barrier involving motivation to change, which was further discussed in a pre-treatment screening to ensure no severe malfunctioning. Random assignment to decide individual group status ensured group equivalency, which the researchers took a step farther by matching participants based on sex. Using techniques outlined by Perls himself ensured the experimental group received proper Gestalt therapy, which was further strengthened through the use of group leaders who were well-trained and well-educated practitioners. Finally, an evaluation pre-test, post-test and during a six-month follow up provided a good timeline for examining treatment

Integrative Gestalt therapy deals with the multilayered human being: body, soul, spirit - the therapist is essential that man perceives through all the components.