What is Gestalt Therapy?

Often I get the question, "What is gestalt therapy?" and I believe I never give the same answer. Because Gestalt therapy is about being in the moment, with what "is there" in one's life. Soon an explanation becomes too abstract or just too flat. But since I think it is silly not to try to formulate an answer, this is my explanation now. Gestalt therapy is a form of therapy in which authenticity is paramount. Someone has come to a point in his/her/its life where "something" no longer fits, sometimes with a very clear form (I feel depressed), sometimes more a very vague physical feeling in the body (lump in the throat/knot in the stomach).

A person has come to this point with all the experiences of his/her/their life. Depending on how good the beginning of life was, a person has formed "smoothly" or less "smoothly. The smoother the beginning was, the easier a person has learned to cope with life. Getting and giving love, learning to bear adversity, tuning in to another-all more or less cut and dry for the person who grew up in a safe situation (doesn't necessarily have to have been your family-we all know it takes a village to raise a child).

But what if it wasn't all so safe, growing up? If you didn't have the mega loving nest, but a parent with their own wound? Not the network you could always fall back on? Or if, somewhere in life, violent events took place? What then? Then that person is most likely less flexible in dealing with the chores you encounter in life. And what I have described above in terms of developmental tasks may be only partially laid out.

Promptly you are back in what you thought you had left behind....

A new situation at work, in your relationship, or in the world (layoff, covid, racism, inequality, war, economic crisis) can just trigger a very old, unfinished feeling. Promptly you are back to what you thought you had left behind, find yourself in that same conflict again, or simply unable to put one leg in front of the other. The body "remembers" well when you were unsafe and turns on your alarm system.

Consequence? Paralysis, fleeing, fighting, freezing and pleasing people are set in motion so that you are safe -for now. But is it really safe when the survival mechanism, your creative adaptation to what life/other has done to you, causes you to be stuck? To some extent, for the moment it is safe, but living like this for longer is not sustainable. Unbearable at times. The good news: your frustrations bring you to your desire to live without this old brake. There is something in the here and now through which what wants to be healed presents itself to you as possibility.

You are welcome just as you are.

No matter how obvious or vague your complaint is, it is welcome in therapy. You are welcome just as you are. You don't have to explain it clearly, we don't have to root endlessly in the past, we don't even have to talk-it's all present in every moment. For that, we don't have to do anything except be present for what wants to show itself to you. Physical undefined feelings will gain meaning and from there direction will emerge.

I help you (re)listen to yourself and offer a contact within which we can explore and experiment.

No worries, that sounds more vague than it really is. Gestalt therapy is a down-to-earth, no nonsense therapy where I do not reduce you to your complaints, where I like to see you as a whole, in your body- in your environment.

Because; everything that is lost in contact, will have to be restored in contact. So no quick solutions, no super smooth story when someone asks "What is gestalt therapy?", no pill and no endless hollow vessel into which you pour your problems. But a way to be able to carry your life (again), your way.