Gestalt psychotherapy

What is Gestalt Therapy?

It’s a nothingness unique to each person, as it hides your personal story, echoes of past fears, rejections and abandonment, sometimes so painful and devastating that they fill your inner void with anxiety, anger, and loneliness. With the Gestalt techniques we penetrate that void and gradually fill it with meaning. Meaningfulness brings coherence, a deep understanding of the reality you have had to live. This step, essential for you to be able to inhabit your own life without feeling overwhelmed, slowly transforms your past into a linear story in your life, coherent with the person you’ve become with the passing of time. As you start filling that profound void with new sensations of your authentic reality, with this conscious ‘update’ you gradually liberate the painful burden of your memories, until they become part of your history – an integral part of your identity. As you start liberating your mind, you get to fully be yourself.

This is how I’ve experienced Gestalt in my life, and this is how I live it day after day in my practice. Focusing on the here and now, I combine a series of dynamic and creative techniques to unmask your mental judgments – all those “I can’t…,” “I shouldn’t…,” “I have to…,” “why me…,” which prevent you from being who you deeply feel you’re meant to be. They are thoughts and ideas acquired in the past and projected into the future, thereby paralyzing your actual potential. For life and change happen in the present. Herein lies the greatness of Gestalt therapy, through your sensations here and now, during the therapy session you learn to listen to yourself, you become aware of what you are feeling. This profound experience, free of conditioning, opens a horizon of possibilities deriving from this new perspective, your own, beyond your uncertainty, fear, and other unconscious triggers. Hence, you have access to your own inner wisdom, your truth. As your resistances start appearing during counselling, you extract from them and recover your own driving force – you empower yourself to transform your current situation, with your own creative potential. Suddenly, you go from feeling trapped in your circumstances to becoming the player, recognizing the difficult stages in advance and learning to overcome them, in this adventure that is your life.

The origin of Gestalt therapy

Gestalt is more than a therapy; it is a way of life that became established in the 1950s and 1960s. Its creator, Fritz Perls, understood life as something in constant motion, that we permanently keep adapting to. According to Perls, our organism tends toward a natural state of inner balance, both emotional and physical, called homeostasis. This state of well-being is continually interrupted, both by the body’s own needs – like thirst, hunger, cold, heat, etc. – and by the desires that emerge from our interaction with the environment – desires for affection, acceptance, recognition, success, etc. The body naturally restores this state of balance through internal self-regulation, consisting of the six steps of the Gestalt cycle, described by Zinker as:

1. As desires and needs arise, they become a certain sensation.
2. Once this sensation is strong enough, it becomes a conscious awareness of our need or desire.
3. We then get energized and ready to take action, by motivating ourselves and unconsciously bringing energy to our muscles.
4. We step into action to satisfy our need or desire, whether it’s going to the kitchen to drink a glass of water, reaching out to a person, or whatever it is that fulfils our purpose.
5. We get in touch with the environment and satisfy the need or desire; that is, we drink the glass of water or talk to the person in question.
6. Once our need or desire is satisfied, we withdraw and return to a physiological state of balanced rest, thus closing the gestalt cycle until the next desire or need arises.

This Gestalt cycle is the basis of my work in individual therapy, combined with the concepts Perls refers to as ground and figure. In the homeostatic state, you perceive reality as an equanimous ground. Your desires and needs emerge from this mentally balanced ground and take on a form or figure (Gestalt in German), which dissolves back into the ground, once you have satisfied your need, hereby restoring your emotional and physiological state of balance and rest. As an example, when you go to a party or a meeting to speak with a person in particular, upon entering the room you don’t notice the people present. You simply scan them through, looking for the face you expect to see. As soon as you spot the person, that face stands out from the equanimous crowd. In your mind, that person moves to the foreground of your attention and becomes a figure, while the rest of the people move into the background, where you ‘don’t see’ them. They become a crowd that blends in with that balanced background of your mental perception that Perls refers to. Once you have concluded your interaction with that particular person, your attention begins to consciously focus on the other people in the room, until your next need or desire arises, and this unconscious process of background and figure starts all over again.

However, when for some reason you’re unable to satisfy your need (either because the person in question is not there, or you can’t make it to the event, or you lack the means or abilities necessary to satisfy your need, etc.), then that figure remains unfinished and doesn’t reintegrate with the background, thus preventing you from returning to an inner state of balance. Depending on the personal importance of your need or desire, over time these incomplete figures are reintegrated with the rest of your emotional background (largely through your dreams), or else they remain unfinished and therefore re-emerge and turn back into mental figures each time a stimulus triggers them in your memory. This repetitive reactivation of an unfinished figure reinforces the brain synapses it triggers, creating a mental associative ‘shortcut’ that always brings you back to that same emotionally disturbing mental space. Hence the origin of your mental noise, the source of your doubts, insecurities and irritability. Your organism then restores its state of inner balance, by creating a defence mechanism which blocks that unconsciously destabilizing synaptic connection. This adaptive mechanism of conscience “artificially” reestablishes your homeostatic balance, preventing future interference. What remains is a void in your experience, an absence of meaningfulness.

Thus, defence mechanisms allow you to move forward in difficult situations and moments of indecision. In this sense, they have an important protective and adaptive coping function, at least initially. On the other hand, if you don’t adapt them to the changing circumstances of your life, defence mechanisms can eventually become resistances that prevent you from achieving your goals. They, in turn, become the brain synapses that generate your mental confusion, anxiety, rage and solitude.

Demands, prejudices, beliefs, and other external mandates are the main social conditioning interfering with your natural drive and ability to satisfy your needs. Through the expectations and defence mechanisms they trigger in your mind, they disconnect you from your authentic desires and emotions. Over time, these resistances create that deep inner feeling of void.

 In therapy, those unresolved situations which end up becoming a pattern in your life, signal a possible impasse, a moment in which, since early childhood, you didn’t receive the external support you needed to resolve a stressful situation. Since the child you were back then couldn’t learn the skills necessary to find a solution (that is, to close that mental figure), that situation remains mind-mapped as unresolvable in your unconsciousness, feeding your traumatic void. An impasse is a mental trigger, which in your adult life unconsciously puts you on alert, if not in shock, thus hindering your progress because, beyond that subconscious spot you are reacting to (beyond that incomplete figure), unconsciously there is nothing but a great void, an existential fear – those chaotic echoes of your past which your defence mechanisms prevent you from consciously perceiving, for fear of the internal earthquake the repressed nothingness, rage, pain and loneliness could cause. Hence the importance of the Gestalt focus on your emotion, and on adapting those old defence mechanisms to your current situation. Otherwise, no matter how much your present reality is no longer like your past, you will still subconsciously connect with – and thus perpetuate – those old wounds, whenever you perceive an associated mental stimulus in the present.

This is the vicious, dead-end loop in which defence mechanisms can trap you. No matter how stable and secure your life is now, they subconsciously keep bringing stressful situations from the past into your present, thereby keeping you in a permanent and exhausting state of stress and anxiety. Without even noticing, life ends up becoming a mere struggle for survival – a submission to your mental tyranny, devoid of personal meaning and freedom, as you start covering up your emotional experiences with those generalized abstract social ‘labels’, conditionings and expectations that best match with your personal story.

The therapeutic Gestalt process happens in the here and now of the session, by gradually completing your unresolved figures, as you consciously access those repressed sensations of your traumatic impasse – of that emotional fortress safeguarded by your defence mechanisms. Tracing the emerging emotions all the way back to their origin, they lead us to your triggering experiences from the past, herby allowing for an understanding of the individual needs and fears repressed by your mental synapses. The next step is to find alternative ways of resolving the unsatisfactory situations in your life, in the safe environment of the consultation and with the appropriate therapeutic support. When you find your own way of dealing with these impasses now, as an adult, one by one these triggers disappear, thus disintegrating their defence mechanisms. Those figures that have haunted you your entire life stop affecting your present, freeing you to act in ways you previously thought impossible. The old familiar feelings of unease, emptiness, and anxiety transform into an inner experience of meaningful balance and peace. Hence the importance of the here and now in Gestalt therapy.

What are defence mechanisms?

Depending on the stage of the Gestalt cycle in which the impasse arose (see the section ‘The Origin of Gestalt’), we develop the following defence mechanisms, which we each manage in a personal way:

Repression:

It is the most unconscious defence mechanism of all. It prevents a person from feeling desires or needs linked to something traumatic or socially unacceptable. Since there is no direct sensation of that disturbing trigger, it is very difficult to treat in counselling. Gestalt is particularly useful here, due to its work with the void – with that for which there are no words – gradually filling it with meaning. In its positive aspect, repression allows a person with traumatic experiences to move on with his or her life. In its negative aspect, the person cannot understand what is happening to them, as they are unable to perceive the sensation. This defence mechanism primarily represses aggressive and sexual behaviours.

Projection:

This occurs with desires and needs that are socially or personally considered unacceptable. At a pre-conscious level, the person ‘casts out’ these sensations, in order to avoid feeling inadequate. Therefore, we don’t perceive these desires or thoughts as our own, but identify them in other people or situations instead. On the positive side, projections allow for empathy. As a negative aspect, by not recognising our feelings as our own, we disconnect from our purpose and so become void of personality – of our personal sense of direction. Projections can cause symptoms such as anxiety, panic, or paranoia.

Intellectualization or Rationalization:

It applies when a person is not in touch with their own emotions, but rather rationalizes about them, giving objective reasons and explanations.

Introjects:

They are a series of internal mandates such as ‘you must…’ or ‘you can’t…’, learned initially in childhood and which the individual has believed and thus taken as his own. These thoughts block the individual, as they interfere with his own true abilities, needs, and desires. Positively, introjects are indispensable, since they are the bits of information by which we form our identity. Negatively, when they are not in sync with our authentic nature, they prevent us from unfolding our true personality. Introjects can provoke symptoms such as rigidity, difficulty in connecting with emotions, depression, possessive or obsessive-compulsive behaviours.

Proflection:

It consists of doing to others what the person wishes others would do to them. It’s a form of seductive manipulation such as ‘Do you feel like going to the movies?’, flattering to be flattered, or always being nice regardless of our actual mood.

Retroflection:

With this form of self-aggression, the individual directs towards himself those negative emotions which internally agitate him, but he is unable to express outwardly. In this struggle between the impulse to do and the restraint of the act, the individual might lose his connection with the world around. On the positive side, to a certain extent retroflection is a healthy and necessary socializing skill. Depending on the situation, for example, it is better to contain our anger rather than starting a fight. When we hold back too much, though, on the negative side we might lose our spontaneity and in general, unconsciously, block our impulse to act. Retroflection can lead to symptoms such as guilt, narcissism, digestive problems such as stomach ulcers, and other psychosomatic disorders.

Deflection:

This defence mechanism causes the person to act on a superficial level, out of touch with what is really going on. Unlike retroflection, here the person takes action, but does so in a roundabout way, rather than facing the situation. On the positive side, deflection is a form of protection in situations of great exposure, such as when giving a speech. It also provides the ability to handle matters diplomatically. Its negative side is a deep inner emptiness, with manipulation as a deceitful manner of achieving one’s purpose, thereby leading to physiological incoherence. It can cause symptoms such as nervous laughter, verbosity, absent-mindedness, getting angry or crying easily, apathy, laziness, idealization, and denial.

Desensitization:

With this sharpened form of deflection, the person is always keeping busy, as a means to avoid feeling her own inner sensations. Symptoms can include body stiffness and shallow breathing. A common symptom in today’s society is ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).

Denial of the obvious:

Another sharpened form of deflection, with which the individual denies that which makes him suffer or confuses him. As a positive aspect, it allows us to cope with difficult and traumatic situations. Its negative aspect is the denial of reality and the resulting inability to accept that everything has an end, thus avoiding romantic relationships or whatever caused that pain in the past, to prevent ever feeling it again. 

Egotism:

With this defence mechanism, individuals avoid contact by focusing attention on themselves. In this way, they remain in their old familiar space, protected from any potentially disturbing new experiences. Hence, they maintain a sense (or rather, an illusion) of control inside this mental bubble, disconnected from whatever is actually going on around them. The positive aspect of egotism is the capacity for self-observation. Its negative aspect is the inability to see others. Narcissism is a prominent symptom.

Confluence:

Here individuals avoid feeling the pain of separation by intensifying contact. They lose self-awareness, obtaining their sense of existence through the interaction with others. As they are unable to retreat and perceive the boundary between themselves and the other person or the environment, they have a hard time differentiating where their own needs, feelings, and desires end and those of others begin. With this convergence, they avoid seeing themselves and feeling their own painful emotions. The positive aspect of confluence is the capacity for universal love and empathy it provides. On the negative side, it generates a lack of independence and responsibility, as well as the inability of withdrawal. Symptoms tend to be a pathological difficulty to separate, say goodbye, or conclude anything.

As a final note, I would like to emphasize the importance of regarding these defence mechanisms with a non-judgmental attitude. As their name suggests, they are primarily unconscious acts, compensating for a need for security. Any type of criticism tends to trigger their reactive impulse of protection, thus reinforcing the mechanism. If you notice them when interacting with other people, I recommend – as a constructive and healing way to use this list of defence mechanisms – that you retro-project them back toward yourself, since the fact of perceiving them ‘out there’ tends to signal a link with something personal.

How do I work with Gestalt?

Perls developed Gestalt Therapy and its techniques from other therapeutic schools. From Freud’s Psychoanalysis, for example, he derived the idea of becoming aware of our own thinking processes, to allow for our needs to surface, thus forming the unfinished figures. Putting the emphasis on emotions rather than on reasoning stems from Buddhist meditation, as does the recognition that fears are the most difficult thing to talk about. From Reich’s Bioenergetics, he took the idea that our way of defending ourselves psychologically is imprinted in our biological body, generating the emotional blockages reflected in our psychosomatics. Even the concept of homeostasis, the basis of Gestalt work, comes from biology. Other techniques were developed by Perls himself, the most representative being the hot seat and the tyranny of the topdog and underdog’s ‘should-haves’.

 In essence, Gestalt sessions are a creative and liberating adventure, through which you recover your ability to manage your life satisfactorily, as you gradually redefine your own identity, and thus personal life story. Perhaps the most characteristic thing about Gestalt therapy is the surprising way in which we improvise and incorporate different techniques – as well as any unexpected emotions, thoughts, or events that arise during the session – to increase your awareness of the present moment. Thus, step by step, you understand the how and why of your blockages and find more authentic ways of being yourself. We achieve this with the three Gestalt principles:

1. Full attention – becoming aware of the facts, without judging or evaluating them. This impartial attention allows us to identify your defence mechanisms, as they emerge in reaction to your experiences during the session, within your therapeutic safe space.
2. In the present – ​​in touch with your sensations. Here we connect with your impasse, that triggering moment in your past, when you didn’t get the support you needed from your environment.
3. Taking responsibility – understanding and accepting, without judgment, the consequences of your thoughts, words, and actions or inactions. This principle leads you to fully understand the underlying factors of your inability to resolve certain situations. Taking responsibility empowers you, as it allows you to stop blaming external factors – which you cannot change, since they are beyond your control – thus enabling you to find your own creative resources to solve your problem. It implies accepting the lack of response from your environment, which in turn frees you from the emotional burden of blame and anger. Thus, one by one, during counselling we complete the incomplete figures which are preventing you from returning to your inner state of well-being and balance. As the word itself indicates, responsibility restores your ability to respond assertively to what is happening here and now.

With this exploratory curiosity, you find a way out of your automated mental loops of blame and judgement, with which you unconsciously justify and get entrenched in those dead-end corners of your mind – that feeling of being trapped and unable to move forward, which we’ve all felt at one time or another. This new perspective helps you understand your mental noise (those destabilizing echoes of your expectations) as a reminder that those emotions repressed by your defence mechanisms are still there (all that anger, guilt, shame, resentment, blame, regret…), over time crystallizing into a generalized state of restlessness, anxiety, and existential emptiness. In this Gestalt adventure, you find your own universe of possibilities to transform your lack of meaning, hope and motivation into new ways of manifesting the life you desire.

What tools do I use in Gestalt therapy?

In this sense, the basic tool of Gestalt exercises is role-playing, to explore the different roles you play in your life – as a friend, child, sibling, parent, in your leisure time, at work, when you’re alone… Human beings are a conglomerate of roles that form our identity. By exploring your different roles, especially those you tend to avoid in everyday life, you increase your resourcefulness at coherently changing your mental attitude in tricky situations. And the more flexible a player you become at this, the more adaptable you get when it comes to finding successful, fulfilling solutions. On this basis, the hot seat is the Gestalt tool with the deepest therapeutic effect, since it works directly with your defence mechanisms. These protective polarities are basically formed by pairs of opposed projections. As we confront them, through role-play, you gain a deep understanding of the contradictory mental conditionings you are unconsciously trapped in. It is a very powerful way of treating illnesses on a psychological level. Furthermore, through fairy tales we can magically identify those childhood feelings which are affecting your present. Dreams are a gold mine for finding the key to escape the situation in which you feel entrapped. With Gestalt, we even work on non-dreams. When you don’t remember your dreams, it may be related to a deep existential void or trauma. The non-dream provides us with clues as to how to access that painful fear that is so difficult to identify with reason alone. The farewell letter facilitates closure and overcoming grief, as well as other losses or abrupt endings. I use drawing to unleash your creative side, which is your best ally when things get complicated, and visualizations to break through your mental boundaries, so you can experience the spontaneity of the present. We partner with the body to consciously manage your boundaries – an essential factor in personal growth. Your body is the natural boundary between yourself and your surroundings. Through body movements, breathing and other exercises that increase your physiological awareness, you develop an intuitive certainty about your sensations and the distance or proximity you need at any given moment, thus consolidating not only your awareness of yourself and your surroundings, but also your trust in both. My favourite Gestalt tool, though, are guided fantasies, because of their subtle way of elaborating the sadness, fears, and unfinished business you carry with you, sometimes without even realizing it. There are countless exercises that transform the Gestalt consultation into an interesting, enjoyable and even fun space.

How does Gestalt benefit you?

In short, the goal of Gestalt therapy is not to achieve change, but to develop the ability to maintain your attention in the present moment, in touch with yourself, your surroundings, and with what you are directly responsible for, and therefore can change. This way you regain the mastery of your life, as you learn to choose how to act, instead of just reacting.

As Claudio Naranjo says (one of the leading Spanish speaking representatives of Gestalt Therapy), Gestalt techniques shift your attention from the outside, from your concern about demands and self-image, to the inside, toward your inner experience in your current circumstances. In therapy, we don’t talk ‘about’ what is happening to you, because reasoning, explanations, and justifications move your attention and sense of responsibility either towards external factors, or else to a past or future reality, where nothing can really be changed, therefore hindering and slowing down your therapeutic process.

This is why in Gestalt we talk from within the experience of being yourself here and now – what Perls called “is-ness”. From here you connect with Your Truth and can take responsibility for your own life. Quoting Claudio Naranjo in The old and brand new Gestalt, ‘Responsibility (…) is not a duty, but an inevitable fact’, since what you do, think, and say is yours. Fritz Perls claims that you can only be here and now. When you’re in touch with what’s happening in the present moment, a change always occurs within you. This is how you naturally expand your repertoire of behaviours and acquire more resources, to make the changes you desire, in harmony with your true Self. 

When do I work with Gestalt Therapy:

If you feel your life has lost its excitement and has become a burden. If you have lost your creativity – your ability to find effective solutions to your problems – and you feel trapped in recurring situations and emotional states.

In case of:

• Stress, anxiety, loneliness, depression, self-esteem issues, lack of motivation, fears & phobias, PTSD, etc.
• Unsatisfactory ways of relating or behaving, communication problems, jealousy, anger issues, gender violence, unsatisfactory sexual life, overcoming grief, miscarriage, separation, divorce, etc.
• ADHD, alcohol and drug abuse, addictions, psychosomatic symptoms and certain chronic symptoms, such as nervous tics, migraine, skin problems, motor skills disorder, respiratory difficulties, panic attacks, eating or sleeping disorders, digestive disorders, etc.
• Vocational guidance, precarious work situation, unemployment, retirement, etc.