Gestalt draws heavily on an area of philosophy called phenomenology. Essentially, this means the study of experience. My concern as a gestalt therapist is the exploration of how you experience your reality. This is in contrast with psychoanalytical approaches in which your analyst interprets your experience.
Gestalt therapy invites you to effectively do your own analysis. I support you in exploring your experience, and will offer you my own experience; it is up to you what you then do with that information. Gestalt is a process therapy in the sense that I’m more interested in the way you make meaning than the actual meanings you make.
The spirit of gestalt’s phenomenological method is this: your experience is different to mine. By exploring your experience, you will gain a deep sense of how you make meaning, and how your meaning making in turn shapes what is possible for you in your life. When these ways of making meaning are brought into awareness, it can then be possible to make changes to them if you want.
I find gestalt’s focus on our process of experiencing and meaning making to be hugely empowering.
Here and now
Gestalt therapy focuses on the here and now. That’s not because the past and future are unimportant; they just don’t exist. When you and I meet in a therapy room, the experience takes place in the here and now. Every experience takes …
About gestalt
There is no better way of explaining gestalt therapy than through demonstration. And the best way of demonstrating gestalt therapy is for you to meet me for an initial session. Of course, that doesn’t help you know ahead of time whether …
