Close gestalt - what is it? Value and features. Gestalt therapy: how this method works

Gestalt therapy is Psychotherapy method humanistic orientation (humane and respectful)

For example, I will give other methods: psychoanalysis, existential therapy.

Gestalt therapy duration:

Gestalt therapy, among others, is a relatively short-term method. The course can last from 10-20 to 100-200 sessions. The duration of therapy depends on the complexity of the problem and on the client’s desire to solve it more deeply or more superficially, on the client’s willingness to move further or closer to the high quality of his life.

Who the Gestalt therapist works with:

First of all, with mentally healthy people, although correction of people in border status is also possible.

What problems does a gestalt therapist work with:

With the whole spectrum of psychological difficulties

Problems of interpersonal relationships (parent-child, male-female, business and friendly: adultery, loneliness, flirtation, personal attractiveness, love triangles, etc.).
Intra-personal problems (difficulties in self-esteem, self-acceptance, emotional states, depression, addiction, psychosomatic disorders, panic attacks, physical illnesses of unknown origin)).

Goals and values \u200b\u200bof gestalt therapy:

achievement of the client’s internal integrity (gestalt is integrity)
healthy aggressiveness (activity) of the client
client awareness and overcoming self-interruptions in achieving a goal
recognition and realization by the client of his true needs
development of client’s abilities for effective contact and dialogue with others.

The theoretical basis of gestalt therapy (features of the method):

1.Figure and background

What do you see in the picture? This is a very famous gestalt picture, which demonstrates the features of our perception. It is proved that a person can see only one thing at a time - a vase or 2 profiles, but not both at the same time!

Looking around, into the world, we see only one of our figures. The rest remains in the background, we just ignore it!

Example: people came to a party. An alcoholic sees, first of all, a bottle, a lover sees his girlfriend, who wants to chat with potential interlocutors. You, reading this text, also hear your own, choose your figure from the text.

Behind any figure is always a need, but it is not obvious. One of the first tasks of a gestalt therapist is to identify the figure of the client’s needs with which he came, and the way in which the person’s need is interrupted.

I want to clarify that there can be many desires, but people have just three basic needs: security - trust, closeness - autonomy and recognition.

2. The principle of unfinished situations

In the course of research and experiments, Gestalt psychologists noticed that people tend to form negative situations of the same type in their lives. The phenomenon was calledIncomplete gestalt

Have you noticed that in the life of any person you can easily see repeatedly repeating similar unpleasant situations? For example, a cheating or drinking husband, or someone all sits on his neck, while someone is chronically lonely, poor, abandoned, etc.

So, the principle of unfinished situations is that the psyche cannot calm down, it maintains tension until it resolves the problem. That is, a person provokes the reproduction of unpleasant situations with a secret goal - finally to resolve them.

An incomplete situation is a source of chronic stress pumping out our vital energy. The best thing you can do is complete / close / resolve the situation.

As in life, and in the process of psychotherapy, the client recreates his unfinished situation in relations with the therapist. And this is very good, since the gestalt therapist in the process of work helps to get a new positive experience inside this painful scheme and safely complete the gestalt. The client brings this new completion experience to his ordinary life, solving a lot of problems.

3. The principle of "here and now"

In the theory of gestalt therapy, it is believed that right here and now all incomplete situations are manifested, which means that here and now, at any moment of life, there is an opportunity to resolve them! There is no great need to recall childhood or past lives. Right here and now, by the pose, look, voice, words, choice of conversation topics, the emotional background that the client creates, an experienced gestalt therapist detects and goes to work with actual injuries, internal conflicts, incomplete situations, and bodily illnesses of the client.

4. The principle of dialogue

A conversation with a client in gestalt therapy is based on the principle of dialogue, i.e. equal positions (and not from above, from above or from below). This is an honest conversation between two equal unique people. It seems that nothing special, however, according to research, such a conversation has very strong healing properties.

The client has automatically mastered the dialogical conversation with a psychotherapist in his usual life, and this helps to establish, establish dialogic, harmonious relationships there, and solve a lot of difficulties.

5. Contact Theory

Gestalt therapy is based on contact theory. This theory explains the interaction of man with the environment in the process of fulfilling his needs. The so-called contact arc has 4 stages:

Precontact. A person feels vague anxiety, agitation, or discomfort. Having listened to his physical, emotional sensations, having realized that he is now attracting his interest in the world around him, he can, for example, realize that he is hungry, but his types of food and grocery stores attract him.The essence of this phase is to identify the figure of your need on the basis of your sensations — physical, emotional, etc., and answer the question: what do I want now? If this succeeds, the energy in a person increases, and he goes on to the next phase, advances towards the realization of his need. If he does not answer the question, i.e. he does not have a clear experience, “Yeah, that’s what I want!”, then he freezes in troubled discomfort.

Contacting. At this phase, the person contacts the environment, trying to choose what will most fully satisfy his need. In the case of food, he is trying to choose what he wants to eat now - a fruit or sausage, maybe trying both, trying to decide. The successful end of this phase is the selection of an object of need (for example, sausage). The choice should not be made arbitrarily, but on the basis of sensations, feelings, tests, experiments. If a person avoids choosing, trying, then hangs in painful doubts at this phase.

Full contact. At this phase, a person comes into direct contact with the object of his need, satisfies it. For example, enjoys eating sausage. The successful completion of this phase is a feeling of deep satisfaction and relaxation. In case of failure, dissatisfaction and tension remain.

Post contact. Stage of summing up, assimilation and digestion of what happened, as well as departure from the object of need. In the case of sausage, a person puts it off gratefully and digests it. An unsuccessful post-contact, when a person, for example, does not move away, but clings to an object, or devalues \u200b\u200bthe contact that occurred.

Any psychological difficulty is associated with the interruption of the contact cycle on one or several phases at once through the use of psychological defenses / interruptions.

Psychological protections / contact cycle interruption mechanisms:

We all use psychological defenses. In gestalt therapy, they are also called contact interruption mechanisms, because, unfortunately, they not only protect us from unpleasant experiences, but also interrupt the realization of our needs.

Basic psychological defenses / interruptions in gestalt therapy:

merging - a person becomes weakly sensitive to what he now feels and wants, his psychological boundaries are weakening, he poorly understands where his desires are, and where are strangers, where is his responsibility, and where is not his. And often voluntarily become a toy in the hands of others.

introjection is swallowed beliefs, such as: “to succeed, you have to work hard”, “all men are ...”. Any generalizations starting with the words: “must”, “always”, “never”, “all” are introjection. These installations - introjects come into conflict with each other and with reality itself, causing internal and external conflict.

projection - when a person fantasizes about what others think, feel, want and sincerely believes in his fantasies. As a rule, he avoids contact with reality, and ascribes to others his own forbidden desires and feelings, projects his inner “film” onto their “white screen”. It turns out such a phenomenon as non-contact, communication with oneself.

deflection is a discharge of stress. The downside is that energy is not spent on achieving a goal, not solving a problem, but simply merges to the side

egotism - when a person at the moment of a desired event, contact holds himself, is not completely surrendered to this event, contact and his feelings. So he loses part of his satisfaction, giving rise to a feeling of incompleteness, incompleteness

retroflexion - when a person draws upon himself those feelings that are actually directed by another, towards the world around him. An extreme example is suicide, when a person turns anger towards another. In the theory of gestalt therapy, it is believed that any experience is born in a person ONLY in contact with the environment and, accordingly, is directed only outward. That is, initially a person cannot be annoyed, offended by himself, this is a psychological defense.

Noting that the client uses psychological defense / interruption, the gestalt therapist works with this interruption, there are certain methods and techniques for this, helping the client advance towards the realization of his need.

Gestalt Therapist Techniques:

The arsenal of gestalt therapist techniques is quite large. I will name the most common.

Therapeutic dialogue. The purpose of the dialogue is to support experiences, awareness and identification of customer needs and mechanisms for its interruption.
Experiment - here and now the therapist organizes a game situation in which the painful situation of the client is manifested. The Gestalt therapist offers the client to act in a new way, as a result of which the client experiences a new positive experience, which he then transfers to his life.

Experiment Options:

Projective techniques - art methods (drawings, crafts, etc.)
Psychodrama - constellations, theatrical scenes
Body practices - working with voice, posture, body sculptures
An empty chair (or hot chair) - the client presents on a set empty chair a significant person from his life, the hero of his dream, or part of his own personality and addresses him in a new way. It may sound strange, but it works very hard. When the client in the present tense turns to an empty chair, typical ways of the client’s behavior always appear and strong actual experiences arise, which are not so easy to find in the “conversation about ...”.

The Gestalt therapist and client, creatively using techniques, identify and work out the repressed, unconscious client material. As a result, the client achieves greater integrity, successfully passing here and now, already without self-interruptions, the entire contact cycle.

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The founder of Gestalt therapy, Frederick Solomon Perls was a German psychiatrist and psychotherapist. Having received professional education from many famous representatives of psychoanalysis and psychiatry of that time, after working as a psychiatrist in Germany, at the end of the thirties of the twentieth century, becoming disillusioned with psychoanalysis, he began to develop gestalt therapy. Already in his first work, “Ego, Hunger, and Aggression,” published in 1942, in the chapter “Revision of Freud's Theory and Method,” Perls distances himself from traditional psychoanalysis, and over time this distance will increase more and more.

Since 1933, after the Nazis came to power in Germany, Perls, his wife and eldest daughter, were forced to emigrate, first to Holland, then to South Africa. In South Africa, Perls works as a full-time army psychiatrist, and in 1946, with the rank of captain, he moved to the United States, New York.

In New York, he is actively developing his own line of psychotherapy, calling it gestalt therapy, probably due to the great contribution of his wife Laura to the development. Laura Perls was engaged in gestalt psychology, studying the issues of perception. Also, thanks to Laura, existential paths, for example, Martin Buber's philosophy or Paul Tillich's existentialism, opened up to gestalt therapy.

This work leads to the fact that in 1951, with the active support of a New York group, which included Laura Perls, American psychotherapist and playwright Paul Goodman, Perls's student, Ralph Hefferlin, the theoretical foundations of the method based on gestalt psychology, psychoanalytic concepts were developed and laid , phenomenology and existential psychology. The crown of their joint work was the fundamental work of Perls, Hefferlin and Goodman - "Gestalt therapy, stimulation and growth of the human personality", which became fundamental in gestalt therapy. In the same year, Isidore From joined them, and Perls created the Institute of Gestalt Therapy.

At the beginning of the Gestalt approach, the formation of its theoretical and practical method was strongly influenced by Perls' closest associates: the doctor Kurt Goldstein, who wrote the work “Body Structure”, known for his perseverance and attention to the integrity of the body. Perls was his assistant for a while. Max Reingar, founder of the theater school in which Perls studies. Karen Horney, Clara Gappel, Elena Deutsch, Paul Schilder, psychoanalysts who were his analysts or supervisors. Wilhelm Reich, who through his work, in particular about the “muscle shield” and characterological structures, introduced work with the body and physicality into gestalt therapy. The philosopher J. Smoot, who also contributed to the formation of a holistic view of man, is the creator of the term "holism." Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl, German philosopher, founder of phenomenology. Which, although he was not a direct associate of Perls, his ideas about phenomenology were deeply and powerfully rooted in gestalt therapy.

The further rise of gestalt therapy was accompanied by ups and downs, and should be described in a separate material. It is worth saying that thanks to Perls' incredible creative enthusiasm, gestalt therapy was able to go through, at times a difficult path, such as the “period of 68 years”, and become what it is now.

After Perls' death in 1970, many followers moved to other areas of psychotherapy, or began to search for scientific and theoretical justifications, considering those that already had insufficient. And only a few returned to the origins, and to those who continued to develop gestalt therapy. Thanks to this, Laura Perls, Isidore From, and other members of the group that founded gestalt therapy became very famous, which made it possible for the gestalt community to again find the meaning of the gestalt approach around the theory of "self", developed by Perls and Goodman in 1951.

Gestalt therapy today

Gestalt therapy is now one of the three main psychotherapeutic areas recognized and used throughout the world. Today in the world there are many institutions and communities of gestaltists involved in the practice and teaching of gestalt therapy. Most are united in large communities and organizations on a global scale. Here are some of them:

FORGE (International Federation of Gestalt Training Organizations): Holds congresses to which the leading staff of Gestalt training institutes (rectors and vice-rectors, directors and their deputies) are invited. The congresses discuss topics related to theory, practice and research in the field of training gestalt therapy, as well as invitations of training gestalt therapists for workshops at the institutes that are part of FORGE.

GATLA (Los Angeles Association of Gestalt Therapists): This is one of the oldest gestalt therapy training programs in the world, formed back in the early 60s of the twentieth century, when Fritz Perls and Jim Simkin develop a training program in Los Angeles. And today GATLA brings together therapists from more than 30 countries. For almost 50 years, training programs have been held in Europe and America.

EAGT (The European Association for Gestalt Therapy): an association of European gestalt therapists, training gestalt institutes and national gestalt associations to promote the spread of gestalt therapy in Europe, exchange knowledge and resources, establish high professional standards in gestalt therapy and encourage research in this area.

ARGI (Association "Federation of Russian-speaking Gestalt Institutions"): the founders of ARGI were Nifont Dolgopolov (MIGiP), Daniil Khlomov (MGI), Oleg Nemirinsky (MIGTiK) and Natalya Lebedeva (SPIG). The main goal of ARGI is to maintain in Russia the effective areas of activity of gestalt institutions and to promote the social status of the gestalt approach.

There are many institutes in Russia where Gestalt students study, including four leading ones: the Moscow Institute of Gestalt and Psychodrama (MIGIP), the Moscow Institute of Gestalt (MGI), the St. Petersburg Institute of Gestalt (SPIG), and the East European Gestalt Institute (VEGI )

From year to year, the number of practitioners is growing, their competence is deepening and expanding, and with the advent of the latest technologies for studying the human brain and psyche, the achievements of medicine and neuroscience, new studies are being carried out confirming the effectiveness of gestalt therapy.

At the same time, the 21st century, distinguished by its direction towards integration, brings its spirit to gestalt therapy: now you can notice a gradual assimilation with other methods and approaches, psychoanalysis, from which Perls once distanced himself, psychodrama, art therapy and even, in some aspects, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy.

Gestalt therapy method

In Gestalt therapy, one of the most important principles of working with a client is the awareness of what is happening at the current moment at various, inextricably linked levels: bodily, emotional and intellectual. This important experience of what is happening "here and now" affects the whole organism in all its manifestations, due to the fact that it contains memories, previous experience, dreams, unfinished situations, foresights and intentions.

This is the essence of Gestalt therapy: not to explain to the client, but to give him the opportunity to be integral, inextricable, present here and now, to understand and respect himself. The first part of the name, the word gestalt comes from the German Gestalt, which means "holistic image."

What happens in the process of gestalt therapy is a study of the client’s experience in contacting with himself, other people and with the environment surrounding him. The main psychotherapeutic process focuses on the awareness of how a person contacts, how he can interrupt this experience, notice or ignore his needs and desires, regularly repeat past experiences and situations, stop creative adaptation to the environment. Awareness provides an opportunity for a person to notice what is happening to him, what was previously not obvious, to realize his needs, and regain the opportunity and ability to make choices.

The basic concepts of gestalt therapy

Field "organism - environment"

Gestalt therapy implies that the body cannot exist outside the environment and without the environment (there is no organism without the environment). Therefore, the body and its environment are understood and considered as a single whole, inseparable from each other. Such indivisibility of the field underlies the theory of the method of gestalt therapy. In the light of this view, the environment appears not as a poorly defined space around the body, but as a concrete world, and the world of a particular person.

Contact and the border of contact are the basic concepts of gestalt therapy. Contact is both the awareness of the field and the physical action of "contacting" with it. And at the same time, it is the acceptance or rejection of that with which contact occurs, with which the medium is filled. And it is through contact that the body feels its difference, and due to the preservation of contact, it also retains its difference.

The border of contact is a place, a point where the body comes into contact with its environment. It always occurs from within, and continues already in the surrounding world. "... The contact border, for example, sensitive skin, is not so much a part of the" organism "as an organ of the special connection of the organism and the environment" (Perls).

Awareness

One of the most important terms constantly used in the therapeutic process is “awareness”. This awareness occurs immediately, here and now, and differs from the reflection stretched in time. In English, the word "awareness" is used, meaning an immediate awareness of everything that happens in a moment - feelings, thoughts, actions, manifestations of physicality, other people, the environment. Such awareness has, inter alia, an integrating function, as if gathering in a single whole everything that happens at different levels of perception.

A Gestalt therapist helps the client to learn to be aware, to do it consciously and at any time, to get out of fixation, a stationary state, in order to achieve real contact with the environment.

Here and now

The principle that the most relevant for the client is happening in the present, be it feelings, thoughts, actions, relationships and so on. Thanks to the principle here and now, or here and now, the process of awareness is more intense and pronounced.

Responsibility is a person’s ability to realize, accept the consequences of his own actions and choices, both positive and negative, to continue to live with these consequences. Responsibility is related to awareness. The more a person is aware of reality, the more he is able to answer for his life - for his desires, actions, rely on himself.

Self-regulation

Perls (1973) puts it this way: "The body strives to maintain a balance that, due to its needs, is constantly disturbed and then restored when the needs are met or eliminated." Self-regulation does not guarantee good health, but provides confidence that the body does what it can with what it has at its disposal. If a person is missing something, then he tries to fill the gap; if there is a lot of something, then the body gets rid of the excess.

Creative fixture

This is a synthesis of adaptation and creativity. Gestalt adaptation refers to the interaction of the needs of the body with the environment. Creativity is the ability to seek and find new solutions, the most suitable, the best possible, based on what is "at hand" or by obtaining new ones. Creative adaptation is the ability to combine one with the other, and establish a balance between the needs of the body and what the environment provides. The development of a creative fixture at the client is an important part of the work of a gestalt therapist.

Gestalt therapy techniques

It’s a little funny that a fairly large part of psychologists, and not only, determine gestalt therapy by various methods. So, for example, the technique of dialogue with an empty chair, which metaphorically represents someone significant in the life of a client, probably known to most readers, was borrowed by Perls, at the end of his life, from Moreno's psychodrama.

It is important to understand that any techniques are just ways to implement the very essence of gestalt therapy, its fundamental approach, and in general, with sufficient skill, a gestalt therapist can use any technique from other approaches, if only they are compatible with the method and relevant to what is happening here and now. Gestalt techniques are not an end in themselves. The Gestalt approach is mainly focused on the work of awareness ("awareness") of what is happening on the border of the contact, and the possibility of realizing or restoring the ability to creatively adapt in contact with the environment.

Due to such high plasticity, the forms that therapy can take change with each new client, providing an individual approach, emphasizing the uniqueness of each person, his life experience. Also, the process and form of therapy may vary depending on the personality, individual experience, sensuality of each individual therapist.

And yet, there are basic techniques that are constantly, one way or another, used in the work of gestalt therapists.

And the first one is experimentation, the core of the method. In addition to high efficiency, it provides a unique peculiarity of gestalt therapy. During therapy, the client is invited not only to talk about something, but to expand his story based on the principle of "here and now."

So, for example, a therapist can:

Focus the client on awareness, suggesting, for example, to notice, feel and become aware of any phenomenon occurring in the current therapy process, for example, breathing, emotions or bodily manifestations.
Offer to implement a metaphor that the client can use (“I feel under pressure!”, “I’m as if in a cage”, “I want to be treated like a child”).

The therapist may ask you to strengthen or focus on the identified phenomenon, so you can get information "about what will happen" in situations that are difficult or impossible to simulate in action.

In order to explore fantasies, catastrophic expectations, unfinished situations or “frozen” situations, the resolution of which seems impossible, some form of projection can be used. Experimentation provides ample opportunities for a deep study of the boundaries of the self and contact: the limitations of self-expression, the boundaries of self-expression, ways to interrupt contact, sensations, movements, values, etc.

Here and now

This principle has become a symbol, the slogan of gestalt therapy, by which it is uniquely recognized among psychologists. However, there is some misunderstanding of this principle: there is an opinion that the past and future of the client are not at all interesting for gestalt therapy with its principle of "here and now". Of course, this is not so: the past is undoubtedly as important as the present and future. Moreover, “here and now” is not a “mantra” that must be hammered into the client.

The principle of “here and now”, or “here and now”, is the therapist’s working tool necessary to draw the client’s attention to the fact that “it’s now that you remember” or that “it is now that you anticipate events.” And if, thanks to experimentation, the client can open access to some solutions and to implement creative adaptation, then only in the present can this happen.

Perls repeated many times that "nothing exists except the present"; bearing in mind that the present contains the past and the future. That is why there is no constant need to return to the past, because it is already here, convicted of life experience, unfolding right here and now.

Dream work

Once, thanks to his approach to dreams, Perls struck an hour of glory in his last years. He considered the dream, as a set of projections of the individual parts of the dreamer's personality, allowing us to detect a certain "existential message" with which the sleeper turns to himself. This work is a little theatrical, partially taken from psychodrama, which, however, only adds not only showiness, but also efficiency.

Bodily work

The Gestalt therapist takes a holistic approach to the client's experience. And this means that the therapist takes into account both physical and emotional manifestations, along with the cognitive processes and other client phenomena that the therapist works with, and can use this to be in contact with the client.

It also means that the therapist does not share what we are usually used to sharing: that the “body” is one thing and the “mind” is another. “Physicality” or “emotions” are particular manifestations of a person’s experience. In pathological processes, these manifestations can be disrupted or closed and, of course, they cannot be considered separately if the goal of our work is to restore their integrity.

Practical training and education of gestalt therapists

All gestalt therapy training takes place in an atmosphere of care and safety created by trainers. Thanks to the atmosphere of safety, leisurely, students have the opportunity not only to receive high-quality training in psychotherapy, but also to deeply know themselves, their own boundaries, opportunities, to work out the difficulties that prevent them from living comfortably and happily. The preparation of a gestalt therapist takes place in two main and one additional cycle.

The first cycle is a closed therapeutic group, where once a month, for six months, there is a basic training in the basics of the method combined with group psychotherapy, which takes a large amount of time. This method of learning through immersion in the method is effective, due to the fact that during the training in the group each participant undergoes intensive therapy, working out their own internal difficulties, gaining valuable experience in contacting themselves and others, while at the same time studying the basic principles of gestalt therapy and here putting them into practice.

The second cycle takes from two to four years, depending on how the curriculum is designed, and includes 20 blocks of three days. In this cycle, the basic training of gestalt therapy, method, techniques, and the basics of psychological counseling takes place. This stage simultaneously allows you to deepen the knowledge and skills already gained, and in addition to partially, but to a much lesser extent, continue to work on yourself using gestalt therapy in the group, and lay the practical and theoretical foundations of gestalt therapy. Each phase of training is a combination of teaching the scientific foundations, experience and learning in practice.

At the end of the second cycle, students who decide to become gestalt therapists undergo certification, which is a theoretical and practical exam. For admission to exams, the student must regularly pass to one of the trainers the minutes of the exercises performed in special mini-groups, traditionally called triples. Such groups are formed at the end of the first block of the second cycle, and students work in them until the completion of training.

In addition, during the training it is also necessary to go through about 80 hours of personal therapy and supervision, to attend a certain number (different, depending on the issuing organization) of intensives and conferences. These requirements must also be met in order to be eligible for certification.

The third, additional cycle, is open after completing the previous two cycles and exams for those who want to deepen their professional education, having gained practical knowledge of working with the therapeutic group and various complex topics, specific requests that require additional knowledge and skills.

In Russia today there are many institutes and communities involved in the professional training or retraining of gestalt therapists, which differ both in their approach to training and in the quality of education. Among them, four large institutes stand out especially:

1. - One of the leading Russian educational institutions responsible for educational programs on the gestalt approach and psychodrama. Created in 1996 by Nifont Borisovich Dolgopolov, MIGiP is a co-founder of the Association of Russian-speaking Gestalt Institutes (ARGI), the Federation of Psychodramatic Training Institutes of Russia (FPTIR) and is one of the four basic Russian institutes both in the field of gestalt method training and psychodrama.

The Institute is a member of the main international professional associations of gestalt therapy and psychodrama: FEPTO (Federation of Europian Psychodrama Training Organization) - Federation of European Psychodramatic Training Organizations, FORGE (International Federation of Gestalt Training Organization) - Federation of Organizations Teaching Gestalt Therapy, AAGT (The Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy) - Association for the Development of Gestalt Therapy, IAGP (International Association for Group Psychotherapy and Group Processes) - International Association for Group Psychotherapy, EAGT (European Association for Gestalt Therapy) - European Association for Gestalt Therapy. MIGIP created its centers and representative offices of the institute in many cities of Russia and abroad.

2. The Gestalt Approach Society of Practicing Psychologists, founded in the early 90s by Daniil Khlomov, aims to support and develop Gestalt therapy based on the Moscow Gestalt Institute program in accordance with the standards of Moscow State Institute of Psychology and EAGT; MGI also has a developed network of representative offices in Russia.

3. grew up from the St. Petersburg Center for Gestalt Therapy, founded in 1994. He is engaged in the training of specialists in the field of psychotherapy, organizational and psychological counseling; he is also a member of the main professional associations of gestalt therapy and has representative offices in Russian cities.

4. . VEGI has existed since 1996. The Institute's programs are developed in accordance with the standards adopted in Russia for advanced training, retraining and specialization in the field of Gestalt therapy and Gestalt consulting. The East European Gestalt Institute is integrated into the international system of organizations practicing gestalt and teaching the gestalt approach in counseling, business and organizational development.

Conclusion

Gestalt therapy is an amazing deep psychotherapeutic approach that successfully combines the achievements of psychological science and practice, the therapeutic experience of the founders and modern practitioners. Thanks to the concept of integrity, in gestalt therapy there is a huge respect for the person, for each of his manifestations, and through this the opportunity for acceptance and support opens up.

Using the phenomenological approach, the here and now principle, allows the client to independently and without additional interpretations of the therapist feel and understand what is happening with him and around him, noting the features of his contact with the environment, building boundaries, feeling what is happening on the border of the contact.

Gestalt therapy may not be developing as fast as other approaches, but this type of therapy is widespread and actively affects other areas. Based on the totality of human experience in all its aspects: bodily, emotional, intellectual and spiritual, gestalt therapy has great potential and remains the leading type of psychotherapy.

Bibliography:

1. "Ego, hunger and aggression" - Frederick Perls.
   2. "Inside and outside the garbage can" - Frederick Perls.
   3. "Gestalt therapy" - Robin Jean-Marie.
   4. "The construction and destruction of gestalt" - Robin Jean-Marie.

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In modern psychology, such a direction as gestalt therapy is gaining popularity. She uses very gentle approaches to people. There is also a term such as "incomplete gestalt", which can be closed. But what kind of words are these? What is it - to close gestalt? Consider all the answers below, but first you need to understand what this word generally means.

What does gestalt psychology mean?

In general, gestalt is translated from German as “form”, “personality”, image “and” figure. What is gestalt in simple words? This is the term and basic unit of consciousness and psyche in gestalt psychology, which originated at the beginning of the 20th century. that from these units of perception a whole is formed, irreducible to the sum of its parts. Max Wertheimer is considered the founder of this direction (or, in other words, school) of psychology. Gestalt psychology explains the issues of perception and thinking.

Gestalt therapy

Above we talked about gestalt psychology. But do not confuse this direction with gestalt therapy, which appeared only in the 50s of the last century. Although she adopted a significant part of her ideas from gestalt psychology, here she refers more to psychiatry. In gestalt therapy, greater importance is given to the practice of working with people. Usually this term is used when talking about a psychiatrist or psychologist who helps his client develop self-awareness, work out what worries him, and let go of a disturbing past. A very important concept in gestalt therapy is the phrase “closed gestalt”. What does it mean to close it? What does this term mean?

Close Gestalt - What Does It Mean?

Almost every person in his life has events that he mentally sometimes or often returns to, experiences again and again, or even thinks about how to do otherwise. Cases come in varying degrees of severity. For example, a woman has experienced a sharp and painful breakup with the man she loved, and now she constantly remembers it, reflects on how everything had to be done “correctly” in order to prevent it. For example, the death of loved ones can also be attributed to this. And just such a state of a person when he mentally returns to something disturbing from the past constantly is called an incomplete gestalt. He happens in love, in relationships with people, in self-realization and much more.

This concept includes even ordinary anxiety about unfinished business. This does not apply to the past, but everyone feels a burden on his shoulders if he has any unfinished business. They “hang” on the list, but sometimes it’s very difficult for people to take on them. And things continue to pile up. But what is it to close gestalt? In simple words - this means letting go of all this burden that crushes.

In such situations, a psychologist or psychotherapist specializing in gestalt therapy can very well help. It helps to understand yourself and close gestalt with an individual approach to a person.

Why are unfinished gestalt harmful?

Now we turn to a more detailed consideration of the dangerous consequences. First of all, if a person has accumulated a lot of unfinished business, plans, projects, then sooner or later this will overload him, cause constant alarm. Here you can draw a parallel with a brand new car or apartment. If you never look after them after the purchase, then everything will start to get dirty over time, dirt, dust, possibly scratches, damage, breakages, cockroaches, etc. will appear.

With incomplete gestalt in a relationship or after a situation that caused psychological trauma, things are usually more complicated. The help of a specialist is desirable here, because it is difficult for a person to take and get rid of anxiety. In order to continue to live normally or even happily in society, it is worth closing gestalt. What does it mean? And this means that anyone can have depression, apathy and other more serious problems. Health and sleep problems may also occur.

How to neutralize gestalt?

In general, there are several steps in gestalt therapy to neutralize the feeling of incompleteness:

Awareness of the true causes of your anxiety. Here you can try to make a list of tasks that you still can not finish.
Next, you need to pull yourself together, set aside some time and complete all projects, tasks and more.
Now the gestalt is closed. But for prevention, overloading by unfinished business or worries should not be allowed.

In other words, you first need to understand your feelings, to realize what is really important, and why. Do not keep the experience in yourself. You can tell someone about this, relive feelings that will help them to let them go later.

Then you need to "clean up" in your life: get rid of the unnecessary, finish things, remove all the "stones" that interfere. It happens that a person does not really understand what he needs to finish and what worries him. In such cases, it often happens that in the literal sense you need a general cleaning of your house, getting rid of trash and garbage, as well as "cleaning" your environment and streamlining your regime. Anyone such big and small things accumulate throughout life. In order not to overtighten with them, it is advisable to clean at least a couple of times a month.

In addition to small matters, the question of incomplete gestalt often concerns more global things: these are dreams and life goals, for example. The problem is that our desires can be deceiving. Behind one dream lies a thirst for a completely different one. And here the analysis of oneself is important. Perhaps incomplete gestalt is better to let go in some cases than to close, to understand that this is not yours, than to worry about the lack of implementation.

But to achieve true goals will require a push. For example, you want to be a dancer all your life, but didn’t go beyond thinking about it? You should get together and finally sign up for dance courses or take any other action that can begin the path to the realization of a dream.

How to close gestalt in a relationship

With a man or woman - parting or severe loss can happen to everyone. Usually this is more often experienced by female representatives. The main reason for the feeling of incomplete gestalt in a relationship is reflection, an attempt to find a reason in yourself, even if the partner was the initiator of the break. To this can also be attributed constant thoughts about what had to be done then, to behave differently, to be different, and this would not have happened.

If a situation arose when the past does not let go, then it is undesirable to keep everything in yourself. If you want to cry, then you should do it. After the emotions are released, you need to come to your senses, get distracted by something else (a hobby, for example). This will help to analyze the situation and better understand yourself, to realize the reasons for unclosed gestalt.

It makes sense at first to “let off steam” and emotions after a past relationship, then forgive the former love and, finally, thank for everything good and bright and let it go.

But if it does not work out in any way, and over time this does not work, then it is advisable to consult a therapist.

The consequences of incomplete gestalt in a relationship

From feelings and signs of incompleteness, anger, anger, resentment against a partner may be present. This is usually felt along with a feeling of longing and a desire for the former half to return. Some of the main problems that can arise due to incomplete gestalt in a relationship are:

depression, apathy;
fear and distrust of the opposite sex;
unpreparedness for a new relationship (it is difficult to fall in love again and open up to a person if there is still a sense of incompleteness in past relationships);
pessimism, the formed negative scenario in thoughts regarding relations;
there are new relationships in which everything seems to be fine, but internal anxiety and thoughts about the past do not allow a person to completely relax;
also an unclosed gestalt of past relationships can spill over and manifest in new ones; for example, a partner has changed a person, and in his subsequent relationships he will expect treason, suspect, be jealous;
a woman can become very dependent on a partner for fear of losing him again.

It is worth noting that incompleteness can occur even with a constant relationship, when there was no break. This can happen if a woman is prone to dependence on a partner, invests much more in their relationship than a man.

How to prevent incomplete gestalt?

The best way to deal with something is prevention. In order to prevent the appearance of unclosed gestalt, you should:

by all means to prevent laziness and in time to do all things;
2-3 times a month to give time to incomplete gestalt;
carry out general cleaning regularly;
express feelings if it is difficult to keep them in yourself;
regularly review their desires.

Psychologist visits are also suitable for prevention.

These are just the main points. For each person, everything is individual. Nevertheless, we can definitely say that it is more than realistic to close gestalt alone.

Conclusion

Close Gestalt - What Does It Mean? In short, this means ending the business and everything unfinished that bothers us. It sounds simple, but it can cause great difficulties in a person. To the incomplete gestalt, there are many things, from accumulated projects to an unreleased past.

If a person has worked through all this, completed external affairs and got rid of the feeling of incomplete internal, then we can assume that gestalt is closed. This means freeing oneself: now you can live in peace and have almost no worry.

“Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Call me with you, and I will understand. " Confucius (ancient thinker and philosopher of China).

Perhaps everyone knows psychology as a system of life phenomena, but few know how to use a system of proven knowledge, and those who specifically deal with it, solving all kinds of scientific and practical problems. The term "psychology" first appeared in scientific use in the sixteenth century, and denoted a special science that was engaged in the study of mental and psychological phenomena. In the XVII - XIX centuries, the scope of psychologists' research expanded significantly and encompassed unconscious mental processes (unconscious) and human detail. And already from the XIX century. Psychology is an independent (experimental) field of scientific knowledge. Studying the psychology and behavior of people, scientists continue to look for their explanations, both in the biological nature of man and in his individual experience.

What is gestalt psychology?

Gestalt psychology (German gestalt - image, form; gestalten - configuration) is one of the most interesting and popular areas in Western psychology that arose during the open crisis of psychological science in the early 1920s. in Germany. The founder is a German psychologist Max Wertheimer. This direction was developed not only in the writings of Max Wertheimer, but also in Kurt Levine, Wolfgang Keller, Kurt Koffka and others. Gestalt psychology is a kind of protest against Wundt’s molecular program for psychology. Based on studies of visual perception, “ gestalt"(Gestalt - an integral form), the essence of which is that a person is inclined to perceive the world around him in the form of ordered integral configurations, and not individual fragments of the world.

Gestalt psychology opposed the principle of the division of consciousness (structural psychology) into elements, and the construction of them according to the laws of creative synthesis, complex psychic phenomena. Even a peculiar law was formulated, which read as follows: "the whole is always greater than the sum of its constituent parts." Originally subjectgestalt psychology was a phenomenal field, in the future there was a fairly rapid expansion of this topic, and it included questions that study the problems of the development of the psyche, the founders of this direction were also worried about the dynamics of the needs of the person, memory and creative thinking of a person.

School of Gestalt Psychology

The Gestalt psychology school originates from the important experiment of the German psychologist Max Wertheimer - "Fi - phenomenon", the essence of which is as follows: M. Wertheimer, using special devices - a stroboscope and a tachiostoscope, studied two stimuli in the tested people (two straight lines) by transmitting them at different speeds. And I found out the following:

If the interval is large - the subject perceives the lines sequentially
Very short interval - lines are perceived simultaneously
The optimal interval (about 60 milliseconds) - a perception of movement is created (the subject's eyes observed the movement of the line “to the right” and “left”, and not two lines of data in series or simultaneously)
At the optimal time interval - the test subject perceived only pure motion (he realized that there was movement, but without moving the line itself) - this phenomenon was called "Fi-phenomenon."

Max Wertheimer outlined his observation in the article “Experimental Studies of Motion Perception” - 1912.

Max Wertheimer -the famous German psychologist, the founder of gestalt psychology, gained wide fame thanks to experimental work in the field of thinking and perception. M. Wertheimer (1880-1943) - was born in Prague, received his elementary education there, studied at universities in Prague, in Berlin with K. Stumpf; from O. Külpe - in Würzburg (received in 1904 the degree of Doctor of Philosophy). In the summer of 1910 he moved to Frankfurt - on - Main, where he became interested in the perception of movement, due to which new principles of psychological explanation were later discovered.

His work attracted the attention of many prominent scientists of that time, among them was Kurt Koffka, who participated as a test subject in Wertheimer's experiments. Together, based on the results, on the method of experimental research, they formulated a completely new approach to explaining the perception of movement.

So Gestalt psychology was born. Gestalt psychology is becoming popular in Berlin, where Verheimer returns in 1922. And in 1929 he was appointed professor at Frankfurt. 1933 - emigration to the USA (New York) - work at the New School for Social Research, here he dies in October 1943. And in 1945 it comes out book: Productive Thinkingin which he experimentally from the position of Gestalt psychology explores the process of solving problems (the process of ascertaining the functional significance of individual parts in the structure of a problem situation is described).

Kurt Koffka (1886 - 1941) is considered to be the founder of Gestalt psychology. K. Koffka was born and raised in Berlin, where he was educated at a local university. He was especially fascinated by the natural sciences and philosophy, K. Koffka was always very inventive. In 1909 - received a doctorate. In 1910 - fruitfully collaborated with Max Wertheimer at the University of Frankfurt. In his article: “Perception: An Introduction to Gestalt Theory,” he outlined the basics of Gestalt psychology, as well as the results of many studies.

In 1921, Koffka published book "Fundamentals of mental development"dedicated to the formation of child psychology. The book was very popular not only in Germany, but also in the United States. He was invited to America to lecture at the universities of Cornell and Wisconsin. In 1927, he received a professorship at Smithton College in Northamptop, Massachusetts, where he worked until his death (until 1941). In 1933, Koffka publishes book "Principles of gestalt psychology", which turned out to be too difficult to read, and therefore did not become the main and most comprehensive guide to the study of a new theory, as its author had hoped.

His research on the development of perception in children revealed the following: a child, as it turned out, actually has a set of not very adequate, vague images of the outside world. This prompted him to the idea that in the development of perception, a combination of the figure and the background on which the given object is shown plays an important role. He formulated one of the laws of perception, which was called "transduction." This law proved that children perceive not the colors themselves, but their relationships.

Ideas, laws, principles

Key ideas of gestalt psychology

The main thing that Gestalt psychology works with is consciousness. Consciousness is a dynamic whole where all elements interact with each other. A striking analogue: the harmony of the whole organism - the human body has been working faultlessly and regularly for many years, consisting of a large number of organs and systems.

Gestalt - This is a unit of consciousness, an integral figurative structure.
Subject Gestalt psychology is consciousness, the understanding of which should be based on the principle of integrity.
Method cognition of gestalt - observation and description of the contents of their perception. Our perception does not come from sensations, since they are not in reality, but is a reflection of fluctuations in air pressure - sensations of hearing.
Visual perception - The leading mental process that determines the level of development of the psyche. And an example of this: a huge amount of information obtained by people through the organs of vision.
Thinking - This is not a set of skills formed by mistakes and trials, but the process of solving the problem, carried out through structuring the field, that is, through insight in the present.

The laws of gestalt psychology

Law of figure and background: the figures are perceived by man as a closed whole, but the background, already as something continuously extending behind the figure.

Law of Transposition: the psyche does not respond to individual stimuli, but to their ratio. The meaning here is this: elements can be combined if there are at least some similar signs, such as proximity or symmetry.

The Law of Pregnancy: There is a tendency to perceive the simplest and most stable figure of all possible perceptual alternatives.

The law of constancy: everything strives for constancy.

Law of proximity: the tendency to unite in a holistic image of elements that are adjacent in time and space. As we all know, it is easiest for all of us to combine similar objects.

Closure law (filling in the gaps in the perceived figure): when we observe something completely incomprehensible to us, our brain tries with all its might to transform, translate what we see into an understanding that is accessible to us. Sometimes it even carries a danger, because we begin to see what is not in reality.

Gestalt Principles

All the above-mentioned properties of perception, whether it be a figure, background, or constants, certainly interact with each other, thereby bringing new properties. This is Gestalt, the quality of the form. Integrity of perception, orderliness are achieved thanks to the following principles:

Proximity (everything that is nearby is perceived together);
Similarity (everything that is similar in size, color or shape, tends to be perceived together);
Integrity(perception tends to simplify and integrity);
Enclosure(acquisition of a shape);
Adjacency (proximity of stimuli in time and space. Adjacency can predetermine perception when one event triggers another);
Common area(Gestalt principles form our daily perception along with learning and past experience).

Gestalt - quality

The term "gestalt quality" (German Gestaltqualität) introduced into psychological science X. Ehrenfels to denote the integral "gestalt" properties of some formations of consciousness. The quality of "transpositivity": the image of the whole remains, even if all parts change in their material, and examples of this:

different keys of the same melody,
picasso paintings (for example, Picasso's "Cat").

Perception constants

Size Constancy: the perceived size of the object remains constant, regardless of the change in the size of its image on the retina.

Form constancy: the perceived shape of the object is constant, even when the shape changes on the retina. Just look at the page you are reading right first, and then at an angle. Despite the change in the "image" of the page, the perception of its shape remains unchanged.

Brightness constancy: The brightness of the subject is constant, even under changing lighting conditions. Naturally, subject to the same illumination of the object and background.

Figure and background

The simplest perception is formed by dividing visual sensations into an object - figurelocated on the background. Brain cells, having received visual information (looking at the figure) give a more active reaction than looking at the background. This happens for the reason that the figure is always pushed forward, and the background, on the contrary, is pushed back, also the figure is richer and brighter than the background in content.

Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy - The direction of psychotherapy, which was formed in the middle of the last century. The term "gestalt" is a holistic image of a certain situation. The meaning of therapy: a person and everything around him - a single whole. Gestalt founder - therapies - psychologist Friedrich Perls. Contact and border are two basic concepts of this direction.

Contact - The process of interaction of human needs with the capabilities of his environment. This means that human needs will be satisfied only in case of contact with the outside world. For example: to satisfy the feeling of hunger - we need food.

The life of absolutely any person is endless gestalt, whether it be small or large events. Quarrel with a dear and close person, relationships with dad and mom, children, relatives, friendship, love, talking with colleagues at work - all these are gestalt. Gestalt can occur suddenly, at any time, whether we want it or not, but it arises as a result of the emergence of a need that requires immediate satisfaction. Gestalt tends to have a beginning and an end. It ends when satisfaction is achieved.

Gestalt therapy technique

The techniques used in gestalt therapy are principles and games.

The most famous are the three games presented below on the understanding of themselves and those around them. Games are built on an internal dialogue, the dialogue is between the parts of the self (with its own emotions - with fear, anxiety). To understand this, remember yourself when you experienced a sense of fear or doubt - what happened to you.

Technique of the game:

For the game you will need two chairs, they must be placed one on the contrary, to the other. One chair is for an imaginary “participant” (your interlocutor), and the other chair is yours, that is, a specific participant in the game. The task: to change chairs and at the same time lose the internal dialogue - to try to identify yourself as much as possible with various parts of your personality.
Making circles. A direct participant in the game, in a circle, should turn to fictional characters with questions that concern his soul: how he is evaluated by the participants in the game and what he himself experiences with an imaginary group of people, with each person individually.
Unfinished business. Incomplete gestalt always requires completion. And how to achieve this, you can learn from the following sections of our article.

All gestalt therapy comes to the completion of unfinished business. Most people have many unresolved tasks, plans related to their relatives, parents or friends.

Incomplete gestalt

It is unfortunate, of course, that human desires are not always embodied in reality, but in the language of philosophy: the completion of a cycle can take almost a lifetime. An ideal gestalt cycle looks like this:

Emergence of need;
Search for the possibility of its satisfaction;
Satisfaction;
Exit contact.

But there are always some internal or external factors that impede the ideal process. As a result, the cycle remains incomplete. In the case of complete completion of the process, gestalt is delayed in the mind. If the process remains incomplete, he continues to exhaust a person throughout his life, while also delaying the fulfillment of all other desires. Often incomplete gestalt cause malfunctioning mechanisms that protect the human psyche from unnecessary overload.

To complete the incomplete gestalt, you can use the advice that a hundred years ago gave the world - a wonderful poet, playwright and writer - Oscar Wilde:

"To overcome the temptation - you need to ... succumb to it."

Completed gestalt certainly gives its fruits - a person becomes pleasant, easy to communicate and begins to be not burdensome for other people. People with incomplete gestaltes always try to complete them in other situations and with other people - forcibly imposing roles on them in the scenarios of their incomplete gestalt!

A small, simple, effective rule: start by completing the simplest and most surface gestalt . Fulfill your cherished (preferably not serious) dream. Learn to dance tango. Draw nature outside the window. Take a parachute jump.

Gestalt exercises

Gestalt therapy is a general therapeutic principle that helps to help “oneself” learn to understand the mysterious mazes of one’s soul and recognize the sources of causes of internal contradiction.

The exercises below are aimed at the simultaneous realization of oneself and the being of another. In general, they urge us to step beyond the possibilities. As you exercise, try to analyze what you are doing, why, and how you are doing it. The main task of these exercises is to develop the ability to find your own grades.

1. Exercise - “Presence”

Goal: focus on a sense of presence.

close your eyes
Concentrate on bodily sensations. Correct posture if necessary.
Be natural every moment
Open your eyes, relax them, remaining frozen body and thoughts
Let the body relax
Concentrate on a sense of “existence” (feel “I'm here”)

After concentrating for some time on the feeling of I, having relaxed at the same time and with silence of reason, bring your breath into awareness and turn attention from “I” to “here”, and mentally repeat “I am here” at the same time as you inhale, pause, exhale .

2. Exercise - Feeling “You”

The purpose of the exercise: to be able to experience a state of presence "in another person", that is, to be able to feel the state of "You" in exchange - the state of "Ego". The exercise is performed in pairs.

Face each other
Close your eyes, take the most comfortable postures.
Wait for a state of complete peace.
Open your eyes
Start a wordless conversation with a partner
Forget about yourself, focus only on the person looking at you.

H. Exercise “I / You”

The exercise is also performed in pairs, you need to sit opposite each other.

Concentrate;
The eyes should be open;
Maintain mental silence, physical relaxation;
Concentrate on both the “I” and “You” feelings;
Try to feel the "cosmic depth", infinity.

The purpose of the exercise is to achieve the state: “I” - “YOU” - “Infinity”.

Gestalt Pictures

Changeling drawings (visual illusions): What do you see? What emotions are conveyed on each side of the pictures? It is not recommended to give these pictures to children of preschool age, as they can cause mental disorders. Below are the famous “dual” images: people, animals, nature. And what could you see on each of the drawings?

In addition, the idea of \u200b\u200bGestalt psychology is the basis of such pictures, which are called "Drudle". Read more about Drudles at.

With this article we wanted to arouse a desire in each of you, to start taking care of ourselves - to open ourselves to the world. Gestalt, of course, is not able to make you richer, but happier - no doubt.

Which was formed in the middle of the last century. The theory of this direction includes a number of practices. This is a body-oriented therapy, and traditional psychoanalysis, and gestalt psychology, and psychodrama, as well as many other psychological directions and concepts. The term " gestalt"Came from the German word" gestalt", Which means" figure" or " the form". In simple terms, the following definition can be given to this concept: gestalt - This is a holistic image of a certain situation. In scientific language, it sounds like this: gestalt - This is an integral structure on the field of interaction between a person and his environment, which covers the gap between the emergence of needs and their satisfaction. According to this direction, a person and everything that is around him are one. The founding father of this therapy is considered to be a psychologist. Friedrich Perls.

Have a contact?

Contact and Border - These are two basic concepts of gestalt therapy.
By contact is meant the process of the interaction of human needs with the capabilities of the environment. Satisfaction of certain needs is possible only when a person comes into contact with the world around him:

food is needed to satisfy hunger;
when we are thirsty, we begin to search for water;
in order to satisfy the need for communication, we seek other living beings.

The boundary of contact is the place in which the human body meets with the outside world. Most often, a person perceives this place as the boundary between the inner part of his body and what is outside. However, these boundaries are not always so clear. So, for example, water is considered to be part of the outside world.
But what if a person drank water, and it was inside him?

Identification and Alienation:

Both of these phenomena appear at the borders. Under the identification is the division into " his"And" alien"Where" his»Under any circumstances is dearer and closer. All positive relationships in the face of friendship, love and partnership are within internal boundaries. As for the negative relations, they are classified as aliens, since they are always rejected by man. As soon as the boundaries are violated, a person almost immediately has numerous problems that he begins to overcome.

When does gestalt occur?

The life of every person is endless gestalt, and they can be both small and large. A quarrel with a loved one, relationships with children or parents, love, friendship, talking with a work employee are all gestalt. Gestalt can occur at any time, and not by our will, but as a result of a need that requires immediate satisfaction. Gestalt has a beginning and an end. It ends when satisfaction is achieved. Unfortunately, far from always fulfilling all human desires, without exception. As a result, the completion of the cycle may take a second or a lifetime.

Ideally, the gestalt cycle is as follows:

1. Emergence of need;
2. Search for the possibility of its satisfaction;
3. Satisfaction;
4. Exit contact.

Often this process is hindered by certain internal or external facts. As a result, the cycle remains incomplete, since the contact boundary breaks.
In the case of complete completion of the process, gestalt is delayed in the mind. If the process remains incomplete, he continues to torment a person throughout his life, while interfering with the satisfaction of other needs. Often incomplete gestalt cause malfunctioning mechanisms that protect the human psyche from unnecessary overload.

What could break?

1. Introjection - the inclusion in the inner world of a person of attitudes, ratings or motives of other people without critical attitude towards them. In childhood, introjection is especially important, as it helps the child become a person. Pathological introjection is a consequence of the perception of all principles, ideas and habits as a whole, without having to test them for compatibility with experience.

2. Projection - represents a tendency to shift the responsibility for what begins in a person to the outside world. People use projection most often when they are not able to control their negative emotions. Using normal projection, it is possible to establish a relationship with other people. As for its pathological form, it replaces reality.

3. Confluence or merger - state of lack of contact boundary. In such cases, a person loses self-awareness. In a normal state, a temporary fusion can be observed in lovers or in mother and baby. The psyche of such people is most often independently identified in a short period of time. In the event of a pathological merger, people begin to control the behavior of other people in excess of permissible norms.

4. Retroflexion - the desire to do yourself what I would like to do with others or get from others. Pathological retroflexion in most cases is noted along with some kind of psychosomatic disease. Such patients deliberately hurt themselves. Some commit suicide.
It is clear that gestalt should be completed in all cases, so that a person has the opportunity to avoid all these troubles. If this does not happen, then you should get the advice of a gestalt therapist.

Gestalt therapist - what is his role?

A gestalt therapist is a specialist who practices gestalt therapy directly. All specialists in this area proceed from the fact that they are part of a therapeutic interaction. A Gestalt therapist is obliged to reveal himself to his patient as well as he reveals himself to him, that is, completely. Its role is to provoke reactions in the patient, as well as to lose situations “ here and now».

The words " here and now"It is considered to be a key concept of gestalt therapy. Each of us recalls what happened to him before. In addition, we constantly fantasize about our future. What is happening to us at the moment, we often do not even think about. In fact, we live " here and now". None of us can change our past.

So why then remember him?
We need to think about today and how it will affect our future life. This approach helps to take a different look at one’s feelings and feelings. This is what Gestalt therapists teach.

Gestalt therapy technique

Gestalt therapy is an experimental as well as existential approach to psychotherapy and counseling, which is based primarily on experience. The purpose of this method is to expand one’s own consciousness with the help of meaningfulness of one’s own life, as well as improve the relationship with the world and other people. This method of therapy is based on several key concepts. One of these concepts is contact. By learning to contact with the outside world, with people around him, as well as his outer world, a person can radically change his whole life. This approach also helps to gain the respect of other people, while taking one of the leading positions in society.

Gestalt - what is it?

Translated from German, this term means " figure», « form», « the form". From the point of view of psychology, this term hides a specific organization of parts, which makes it possible to obtain a certain whole. As for gestalt psychology, in this case we are talking about the direction of psychological thought, which is based on the fact that the study of certain parts makes it impossible to obtain a holistic image. Experiments conducted by specialists in this field have shown that the perception of each person is endowed with his own organization. These or other external stimuli do not exert a mechanical effect on him.

What does our perception stop at?

Contemplating the outside world, perception chooses only those things that are really interesting to him or those that are in the first place for him. So, for example, feeling thirsty, a person will first of all see a glass of water, and not the dishes that surround him. As soon as the thirst is quenched, attention will immediately switch to more delicious food. Our perception works in such a way that the most important figure comes to the fore. This applies not only to food, but also to pain, the image of a loved one, and even words. All the rest, in such cases, evaporates or loses its clear outline. It turns out that a person simply does not see everything else, since everything else does not matter to him. To illustrate this phenomenon, special pictures consisting of two images are used.

Man and the environment - are they the same?

Each person is a holistic sociological, biological, as well as psychological being. A person in conjunction with his environment is nothing more than gestalt, that is, one whole. The world around us has a direct effect on the human body, and vice versa, each organism creates its own environment. The same thing happens with interpersonal relationships. Each person is regularly exposed to the surrounding people, however, he himself by his behavior often forces other people to change, both in a positive and in a negative direction.

Gestalt therapy technique:

To date, gestalt therapy is most often practiced in groups. The technique for conducting such classes is as follows:

Hot stool: all members of the group sit in chairs arranged in a circle. In the circle is the so-called "hot chair", on which one of the members sits, and of their own free will. A person sitting in a circle begins to talk about all the problems that concern him. All other participants can ask him questions that he is obliged to answer frankly. It is very important that this person feels a warm atmosphere that will give him self-confidence.

Here and now: During the conversation, only those problems that concern people at the moment are discussed. No talk of the past. If someone plunges into past events, all the other members of the group immediately switch him to reality. Everything happens unnoticed by the participants. During the conversation, all actions are carried out tactfully.

Two roles: opposite the man who sits on " hot stool"Lay an empty chair. A person should imagine that another person is sitting in this chair with whom he is in conflict. The client begins to play the role of two people at once, while periodically changing his location. While in his chair, he speaks on his behalf, but in the chair of an imaginary partner, he must speak on his behalf. In this way, he manages to understand the true state of that person with whom he has not developed a relationship. Most often, during such a conversation, the therapist remains indifferent. He only watches what is happening and draws his conclusions. He can intervene in the situation only when it begins to painfully affect the patient.

Feedback: this term hides the constant psychological connection of the patient with his doctor, who in this case acts as a mirror. Looking in this mirror, the patient manages to see his true face. He begins to look differently at the current situation, which helps him deal with it much faster and easier.

Act: Gestalt therapy specialist makes all necessary efforts for his patient to take action. By actions we mean qualities such as activity, self-awareness, and initiative.

Now I realize: the essence of this exercise is to train the patient’s efforts and activity, which are aimed at analyzing the content of his consciousness at this particular moment. During the execution of this exercise, it is very important to regularly repeat the same phrase, namely “ i am now aware ...».

During such classes, clients manage to:

expand awareness;
find your true place in the world;
get rid of memories of a past life;
improve concentration of consciousness and thoughts.

The goals of gestalt therapy:

The main goal of this direction is to achieve a person's more complete self-awareness. He knows:

your bodily processes;
thoughts;
feelings;
desire;
needs;
interpersonal relationships;
relationship with the outside world.

As a result, the patient is able to control his behavior by applying certain aspects of his own personality. The life of such people becomes more meaningful and fulfilled. They get rid of all neurotic and psychological complexes and symptoms.

Gestalt therapy practice:

This area is a specific psychotherapeutic methodology. Initially, specialists used techniques taken from a variety of therapeutic practices. So, for example, Perls applied psychodrama techniques. The psychodrama hides the method of working in groups, during which an instrument of dramatic improvisation is used to change and understand the inner world. To date, the list of techniques used is huge. It includes dance and body therapy techniques, as well as various types of art therapy in the form of music therapy and drawings. All of them help to develop a holistic image in five areas of human life:

1. Emotional - the sphere of feelings and emotional experiences and the ability to understand and express them;
2. Social - cultural environment, a complex of social relations, relationships with other people;
3. Physical - a complex of aspects of physical and material life, sexual maturity, material well-being, physical health;
4. Spiritual - knowledge of the outer space, knowledge of spiritual values, knowledge of oneself and the laws of life;
5. Rational - the ability to rational analysis, thinking, creativity, planning, foresight.

Where is gestalt therapy used?

family therapy;
gestalt pedagogy;
clinical psychotherapy;
trainings for representatives of certain professional groups;
consulting organizations;
trainings for people who seek to improve communication skills and personal growth.

Gestalt therapy course duration:

This method of treatment is referred to as medium-term treatment methods. Such treatment involves at least 10 appointments with a frequency of 1 time per week. Some patients have to undergo treatment, reaching 30 meetings. It all depends on the problem, the tasks that are set before the specialist and some other facts.
Before use, consult a specialist.