What is Gestalt therapy ?
Frederick S. Perls developed Gestalt therapy in 1945’s.
With the help of a New York team, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman, theoretical and practical bases are established in 1951 on the foundations of Gestalt psychology, but also from the psychoanalytic (Freud, Ferenczy, Rank, Reich …), phenomenological and existential research.
Gestalt therapy focuses on the awareness of what is happening in the present moment at body, emotional and mental level. This experience includes past experiences, fantasies, unfinished situations, projects …
The present moment is basically a contact experience with others or the environment. The therapeutic process develops awareness of how the subject distorts experience, locks himself in rehearsals, refrains creative adjustment to the environment.
It is therefore to focus on the ‘how’ of the experience rather than the “why”.
This awareness allows to live new experiences of contact and to regain some ability to choose.
The direct therapeutic contact energizes the current experience and enables the creation of conditions for development, integration, change and the unification of the person.
This is an analysis of what is happening in yourself and what is happening in relation to the world. It develops responsibility and creativity which will allow you to adjust in a more flexible way to your environment.
