About GESTAL THERAPY

1. SOCIAL GROUP WORK
CLASS PRESENTATION
GROUP
…JJ
GESTALT THERAPY

2. INTRODUCTION
 The word “GESTALT” means “whole, configuration,
integration, pattern or form”.
 Gestalt therapy is a phenomenological-existential therapy
founded by Frederick (Fritz) and Laura Perls in the 1940s.
 It is based on the principle that humans are best viewed as a
whole entity consisting of body, mind, and soul, and best
understood when viewed through their own eyes, not by looking
back into the past but by bringing the past into the present.
 It emphasizes to alleviate unresolved anger, pain, anxiety,
resentment, and other negative feelings, these emotions cannot
just be discussed, but must be actively expressed in the present
time.
 Perls believed that we are not in this world to live up to others'
expectations, nor should we expect others to live up to ours.

3. WHAT IS GESTALT THERAPY?
 Gestalt therapy is a client-centered approach
to psychotherapy that helps clients focus on the
present and understand what is really happening in
their lives right now, rather than what they may
perceive to be happening based on past experience.
Instead of simply talking about past situations, clients
are encouraged to experience them, perhaps through
re-enactment. Through the gestalt process, clients
learn to become more aware of how their own negative
thought patterns and behaviors are blocking true self-
awareness and making them unhappy.

4. When It's Used
 Gestalt therapy can help clients with issues such as
anxiety, depression, self-esteem, relationship
difficulties, and even physical ones like migraine
headaches, ulcerative colitis, and back spasms.
 Gestalt techniques are often used in combination
with body work, dance, art, drama, and other
therapies.

5. HOW IT WORKS
 The major goal is self-awareness.
 Gestalt therapy is practiced in the form of exercise and
experiments.
 It can be administered in individual or group settings.
 The goal is to discover a patient's unresolved issues &
try to engage those people in interactions that
can lead to a resolution.
 Patients work on resolving interpersonal
issues during therapy.
 By building self-awareness, gestalt therapy helps clients better
understand themselves and how the choices they make affect
their health and their relationships. With this self-knowledge,
clients begin to understand how their emotional and physical
selves are connected and develop more self-confidence to
start living a fuller life and more effectively deal with problems.

6. CONCLUSION
 Gestalt therapy is a contemporary system of
psychotherapy.
 It is a relevant and effective theoretical approach that
has also been adapted for organizational work and for
coaching.
 Gestalt therapy is one of the established ways in which
psychotherapy can be conducted, and it comes with
ever-increasing evidence for its practice.
 It is experiential. It is existential. It is phenomenological,
and it is behavioral.
 Gestalt therapy provides a therapist with a natural
way of being with clients, but it defies easy mastery or
simplistic reduction.