Gestalt therapy is a shared experience between client and therapist, and so the relationship that is established with each person that comes to therapy is crucial. This relationship is based on confidentiality and non-judgment and creates an intimate space where all beliefs, emotions, thoughts, desires, fantasies, malaise and overwhelming experiences can be freely expressed. The dialectic between support and confrontation enables the client to develop greater awareness. Attention and awareness are focused on the present, and from the “here and now” we explore the past and its effects on both the “now” of the therapy session and the “today” of the client’s daily life. In this way clients are able to increasingly access their own resources, those that are appropriate to integrate their past experiences. This integration, which helps us to understand that we are not our experiences (disidentification) but rather that we have experiences (ownership), is what enables us to live in the present with more resources, more vitality and greater calm.
When is gestalt therapy recommended? In two cases:
- When, faced with a crisis or overwhelming situation and having tried different solutions unsuccessfully, we wish to understand what is happening to us and move forward. And even learn from our pain. This is a therapeutic process of integration.
- When we wish to gain a greater understanding of ourselves, even though we feel fine and our life is going fairly well. We can learn to observe ourselves and realise how we position ourselves in the world and relate to others. We discover our limits and we own our possibilities. This is the personal growth process.
How does gestalt therapy help us?
Nobody grows up alone or isolated. The relationship that the client and therapist create is the means through which the support occurs; which is why it is so important in the therapeutic process.
Through the relationship that the client and therapist create, the contact mechanisms that the client uses to relate with the other are activated. Together they begin to build a secure attachment that helps the client to explore his/her vulnerable aspects and wounded parts, helping them to grow and mature, to identify their emotions and to transit them without fear, to find inside their own source of help and trust, and the resources that enable them to take care of themselves and lead a more fulfilling life. From this process – a movement that goes from the inside to outside – emerges a feeling of respect and appreciation for oneself (self-esteem).
For more information or to make an appointment, please contact us.