Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy was founded by a German psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in the 1950s. Therapy of the "here-and-now" experience, it is mainly interested in contact with the surrounding environment and personal responsibility.

What is Gestalt therapy?
Gestalt comes from the German verb «gestalten», which means «to structure». What is its purpose? Broaden the range of our possibilities, increase the sense of responsibility and autonomy, rehabilitate the emotionality often censored by Western culture and improve our ability to adapt to different beings and contexts ..
Contrary to all those methods that try to explain the human psyche in static terms (the id and the ego in psychoanalysis, the ego states in transactional analysis), Gestalt therapy is situated in a dynamic option. He is interested in the constant necessary readjustment between the individual and the constantly changing surrounding environment. According to the Gestalt, it is essential to understand the inseparable character of the organism-environment unity. Furthermore, in Gestalt therapy, the temporal axis is modified and the difficulty faced in the context of the "here-and-now".

For who?
Gestalt is used in psychotherapy with people who suffer from psychological or psychosomatic disorders or who wish to better manage a particular situation, such as bereavement or the end of a relationship. This therapy can also be used for individual development, or within companies, for training, advice and coaching. On the other hand, this method is not recommended for people who are not mentally structured, for whom it is difficult to distinguish between "acting" and "doing".

How does a session take place?
A "standard" session, individual or group, develops in three moments:
- The patient expresses a present difficulty or sensation.
- The therapist recognizes the patient's unconscious gestures and proposes to exaggerate them or to stage them. These gestures highlight a behavior, becoming aware allows them to correct them, to see the difficulty from another point of view, to rediscover a hidden emotion.
- This is followed by a moment of putting it into practice: the patient can, helped by the therapist, experiment with new paths to change his attitude if the problematic situation arises, that is, change the habits with which he "comes into contact" with the surrounding environment . Learn to create links between what you just experienced in the session and the reality of the outside world.

How much?
Individual therapy lasts an average of two years, with sessions of one hour per week. Rates vary between € 50 and € 80 per hour. For group work, internships cost between € 100 and € 150 per day.

The basic concepts of Gestalt

- The "here-and-now"
Some types of therapy focus on the why of the trauma. Other currents of thought try instead to free behavior, to "remove obstacles" to allow the individual to react faster. Gestalt therapy is movement therapy, the elimination of obstacles: what matters is the what rather than the why. The difficulty is faced in the context of the present moment, of the "here-and-now".
- The contact cycle
It describes the steps we take when we come into contact with a person, with a need, with an emotion. It is the cycle with which a need emerges in our consciousness, develops, is satisfied and dies down, to make way for a new need.