You’ve likely heard the phrase "close Gestalt." It’s one of those expressions that gets tossed around, sometimes fittingly, other times not so much. But what does it actually mean? What is this "Gestalt" that we’re all supposed to be closing? It’s more than just a trendy psychological term; it’s a profound way of looking at life, an art of living, rooted in the "here and now." Gestalt isn't just about our biology; it sees us as whole beings—psychological, social, and spiritual. Often, we might not even realize how truly vital the goals we chase are, or if they are even our own. The Gestalt approach can powerfully help us connect authentically with others and foster our innate ability to creatively adapt to whatever life throws our way.

So, let's delve into what Gestalt therapy truly is, where it came from, and who shaped its path.

The Spark of an Idea: Where Gestalt Began

Gestalt therapy emerged in New York City in 1951, born from the collaborative minds of Frederick Perls and his colleagues. Perls, initially a psychoanalyst and a firm believer in Freudian ideas, began to rethink his stance. These first stirrings of Gestalt therapy can be seen as a fresh look at psychoanalysis. He observed that we often pour immense energy into self-sabotaging patterns that hinder our growth. However, his ideas didn't stay a mere revision for long; they rapidly blossomed into a distinct system of psychotherapy.

Naturally, there was skepticism. Many critics felt that the founders of Gestalt therapy hadn’t unearthed anything entirely new about human nature, but had simply woven together existing threads of knowledge. And in a way, they were right. Gestalt therapy drew inspiration from psychoanalysis, psychodrama, Eastern philosophies like Buddhism, and various philosophical currents. Yet, this didn't deter the core group, often referred to as key figures in its development. This group included Frederick Perls himself, Laura Perls (his wife), Isidor Fromm, Paul Goodman, Elliot Shapiro, Richard Kitzler, and Paul Weisz. Frederick Perls, together with Paul Goodman (and Ralph Hefferline, crucial for the foundational text), penned the landmark work, "Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality."

Following this, in 1952, Perls established the New York Gestalt Institute, initially operating right out of his home. The concepts quickly resonated, leading to the founding of the Cleveland Institute of Gestalt Therapy in 1954. By the 1960s, Gestalt therapy was making its way across Europe. The counterculture movement of 1968, with its epicenter in California, sent ripples across the globe, championing new humanistic values, creativity, and individual responsibility. Germany began teaching the Gestalt approach in several institutes from 1969, and its popularity soon spread to Canada, South America, Australia, Japan, and beyond. Today, in major U.S. cities alone, numerous Gestalt training institutes systematically train psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and even clergy and youth leaders.

More Than Therapy: An Art of Living

Gestalt, in its essence, reaches beyond the therapist's office. It acts as a genuine existential philosophy, a way of living centered on the "here and now," offering a unique perspective on our place in the world.

Over time, Gestalt therapy evolved. Initially, individual therapy was somewhat downplayed, seen as an outdated format. However, it saw a resurgence. Secondly, the approach to the client softened. The sometimes harsh, confrontational style, often employed by Perls himself, gradually gave way to a more cooperative and supportive therapeutic relationship.

What makes the Gestalt approach stand out, particularly from traditional psychoanalysis and behaviorism, is its emphasis on experimentation. It seeks to expand our life space, empowering us with the freedom to choose and express our responsibility. This understanding fosters genuine human connection and helps us creatively adapt to our surroundings.

The Whole Person: Living in the Present

According to Frederick Perls, a truly "whole" person is a rarity. Such a person lives in tune with themselves, their needs, and their experiences. They understand and accept all facets of their personality, even the parts they’d rather ignore or forget. Their life isn’t stuck in yesterday or fixated on tomorrow; it unfolds in the present.

Think about it: if you see three dots not in a line, your mind likely connects them into a triangle. Even if the drawing is incomplete, you recognize the shape. Our perception naturally strives to complete images, to connect elements into a whole, even with missing pieces. "Gestalt," a German word, signifies this holistic image, this drive towards completion.

Finding Balance: Organismic Self-Regulation

A cornerstone of Gestalt is "organismic self-regulation." This is our innate ability to satisfy our own needs and maintain balance. Perls used the theory of homeostasis to explain this: a living being is motivated to restore equilibrium when it’s disturbed. It’s simple to see in daily life:

• Low oxygen? We breathe.
• Low blood sugar? We seek food.
• Dehydrated? We look for water.
• Sexual tension? We seek a partner.

Humans, however, operate on psychological, social, and spiritual levels too. We have needs beyond the purely biological, stemming from our complex intelligence. These different levels of needs intertwine:

• Sexual needs, the desire for children, emotional support, and physical security integrate into the need for family.
• The need for food, shelter, recognition, respect, and realizing one's abilities transform into the need for work and a career.

Gestalt therapy posits that these psychological, social, and other needs are rooted in our biological makeup and are felt just as intensely as physiological ones. It's also crucial to distinguish genuine needs from "quasi-needs"—those desires often manufactured by media, advertising, or social pressure, like needing the latest gadget or excessive wealth. These often create more problems than they solve. People frequently don't grasp how vital their self-set goals truly are, or if they are vital at all. For instance, someone might overwork, leading to exhaustion and strained family relationships, driven by a deep-seated fear of financial insecurity rooted in childhood, a fear that may no longer be relevant to their current reality.

When we are functioning healthily, our needs arrange themselves in a hierarchy of importance, and we naturally address the most urgent ones first. This is organismic self-regulation. However, upbringing or traumatic experiences can disrupt this natural process, blocking the satisfaction of crucial needs.

The Power of Now: Awareness

Recognizing and prioritizing needs happens through "awareness." This is deeply connected to the famous Gestalt principle: Awareness = The Present Moment = Reality. Unlike approaches that delve deep into the past, Gestalt focuses on what's on the surface, the situation unfolding "here and now," in our current relationships. Any attempt to escape into the future or dwell on the past is seen as resistance to the present moment.

The practice of awareness in Gestalt drew inspiration from Buddhist meditation and phenomenology. Imagine this: Sit comfortably, spine straight, eyes closed. Don’t focus on external objects, don’t think about the past or the future. Just be in the moment. When thoughts arise, acknowledge them without following them. Maintain awareness of the present. It’s harder than it sounds, isn't it? The mind naturally wants to wander.

Gestalt therapy uses this focus on the present, but with a slight difference: it emphasizes the phenomena our consciousness is experiencing in that moment. Perls suggested an exercise: Sit comfortably and describe your current experience, starting each sentence with "Here and now, I am aware of..." Describe everything that enters your attention—sensations in your body (inner zone), what you see, hear, touch, or smell (outer zone), and your thoughts, interpretations, and fantasies (middle zone).

You and Your World: The Field and Contact

Gestalt therapy sees an individual not in isolation, as early psychiatry and psychoanalysis often did, but as part of a complex web of mutual influences and relationships. What happens between a person and their environment is paramount. The "field" in Gestalt means you are part of your environment and simultaneously influence it; together, they form a single whole. A predator is shaped by its landscape and other animals, while also being an environment for smaller creatures. Our environment includes family, social circles, culture, politics, climate, and so much more. It's constantly changing, affecting us, and we, in turn, react and influence it. This dynamic flow is always happening "here and now," shaped by our history and future plans. For example, past national traumas can still color present thinking, just as a young person's college plans influence their current relationships.

Satisfying needs is only possible through interaction with this environment. We make "contact" by engaging with it—touching food when hungry, connecting with another person for intimacy. Our psychological boundaries, unlike physical ones, are fluid. The "contact boundary" is where we meet the world—our skin against the air, our feelings towards loved ones. Healthy boundaries must be permeable enough for closeness but distinct enough for autonomy. Understanding and adjusting these boundaries is a key learning in Gestalt therapy.

Taking the Reins: Personal Responsibility

Another vital principle is personal responsibility. Knowing your boundaries helps you understand what's within your influence and what isn't. Feeling resentful? That’s your choice. How you handle that feeling is up to you. However, others' feelings, behaviors, expectations, and opinions are not your responsibility, just as your expectations of them don't belong to them. Increased awareness leads to true responsibility. Genuine choice is possible only when you are aware of your needs, your real situation, and your available options.

So, Gestalt therapy helps individuals move from relying on others to relying on themselves. This means making choices based on your own feelings and needs, not others' expectations, and actively engaging with your environment to meet your needs, rather than passively waiting or using manipulation.

The Gestalt Experiment: Trying New Ways

Behavioral techniques aren't the be-all and end-all in Gestalt. Therapists often create new "experiments" tailored to the client's needs, allowing them to have new experiences—perhaps becoming more aware of feelings or trying unfamiliar ways of acting. As Laura Perls said, "There are as many styles of therapy as there are therapists and patients." She might work with a musician on their instrument or a writer on their manuscript.

Some well-known techniques include:

• Focusing on the present: Guiding attention to current experiences with questions like, "What are you feeling right now?" especially when someone speaks impersonally ("we," "they").
• Amplification: Intensifying emotions or behaviors (e.g., raising one's voice, repeating a gesture) to make internal reactions external and easier to understand.
• Use of nonverbal expression: Expressing experiences through gestures, voice, dance, touch.
• Monodrama or the "Empty Chair" technique: Dialoguing with an imagined other (e.g., a relative, a symbolic figure) seated in an empty chair to experience emotions and work through conflicts.
• Reversal: Playing a role opposite to one's usual behavior (e.g., a calm person portraying aggression) to discover hidden aspects of oneself.
• Working with the body: Analyzing posture, gestures, breathing, and muscle tension to understand one's state and mood.
• Fantasizing: Exploring imagined situations that are exciting or concerning.

A Meeting of Equals: The Therapeutic Relationship

Gestalt therapy is an existential-humanistic approach, viewing the therapist-client relationship as a meeting of equal partners. Frederick Perls famously ditched the psychoanalytic couch for face-to-face interaction. This setup aims to reduce the therapist's perceived authority and allow the client to see the therapist as a real person. How the client engages in this relationship reveals much about their issues, and the interactions themselves become therapeutic experiences applicable to everyday life.

An "equal relationship" doesn't mean the therapist lacks special knowledge. It means the therapist doesn't have ready-made answers. Solutions emerge from a joint search. For therapy to succeed, a strong alliance is needed, encompassing emotional and rational components. The client needs to feel the therapist genuinely wants to help, understands (or tries to understand) their experiences, and provides a safe space. Therapists, in turn, need to be interested in their clients and feel comfortable. Rationally, clients must understand the therapeutic process, their role, and take responsibility for their part. Therapists, likewise, uphold their responsibilities. Without this alliance, therapy is unlikely to be effective.

The Fruits of Gestalt: Wholeness and Adaptability

Through therapy, individuals deeply explore their personalities, engage in self-discovery, get to know different parts of themselves, and stop suppressing aspects that once seemed "wrong." This fosters development, helps overcome fears, and unlocks potential. Inner life becomes more balanced, decision-making more flexible, and adaptability increases. Clients learn to pay attention to their current thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, leading to a better understanding of their problems, needs, and personality. Awareness helps them live fully in the present.

The result of Gestalt therapy is improved adaptation to the world. While we have innate defense mechanisms, some can become detrimental over time, preventing a full life. "Closing a Gestalt" in therapy isn't about fixing every single incomplete aspect of a person's psyche. Instead, the specialist works on processes that disrupt adaptation, causing discomfort or dissatisfaction. The aim is to restore that natural ability to adapt.

Living Gestalt: Beyond the Session

The principles of Gestalt extend into how we live and interact. For example, Gestalt practitioners often emphasize acting only upon a clear "request." In professional terms, a request is a desire to obtain something. How often do we meddle in the lives of loved ones or colleagues, trying to "help" or "improve" them without their asking, telling them they're living "wrong" from our perspective? This usually leads to wasted energy and irritation. Think of the classic comedic movie character who has his room redecorated by well-meaning family without his consent – a perfect example of good intentions gone awry without a request.

A person living by Gestalt principles doesn't expect mind-reading. They state their needs directly: "Stay with me." "Help me carry these bags; they're heavy." "I need some quiet right now."

Interestingly, Gestalt-minded individuals might shift from the common "How are things?" to "How are you?" The first can often be met with a formal, socially expected reply like "Fine." But "How are you?" invites a deeper look inward, a check-in with one's current state: Are you happy to see them? Upset? Surprised? Anxious? To answer authentically, you need to connect with yourself and your feelings. This is why asking a child or a loved one "How are you?" can be far more meaningful.

Gestalt therapy is a modern approach that doesn't offer ready-made recipes. It invites exploration of one's inner world and relationships. The therapist doesn't interpret the unconscious but helps the client become aware of their experiences and actions in the present moment.

Closing the Gestalt—completing what's been started, creating that whole image—is vital for mental well-being. When a Gestalt is closed, there's a sense of satisfaction, calm, and harmony, allowing attention to shift to other aspects of life. An unclosed Gestalt can lead to tension, confusion, and various psychological issues like anxiety, depression, or guilt. Many of our problems arise because our true awareness of reality gets replaced by intellectual interpretations or distorted perceptions of others. We expect things, invent their attitudes towards us, and these false perceptions cloud reality, preventing full satisfaction.

If a person perceives external and internal reality accurately, they can independently solve their problems and enjoy life more fully. The outcome of Gestalt therapy is the ability to consciously choose behaviors depending on the situation. The life of someone embracing all aspects of their personality becomes richer and more intense, less prone to neurotic patterns or manipulation. In simple terms, Gestalt therapy teaches us how to stand firmly on our own two feet.

References:

• Perls, F. S., Hefferline, R. F., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. Gestalt Journal Press.

  This is the foundational text of Gestalt therapy. It lays out the core theoretical principles discussed in the article, such as organismic self-regulation, the nature of contact, the concept of the whole or "Gestalt," and the importance of awareness in the here and now. It provides the intellectual underpinning for the entire approach.

• Perls, F. S. (1969). Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. Real People Press.

  This book captures Perls' therapeutic style and thinking in a very direct way, often through transcripts of workshops. It vividly illustrates concepts like unfinished business (the "unclosed Gestalt"), personal responsibility, and the experiential nature of Gestalt therapy, including techniques like the empty chair, which are mentioned in the article. It gives a strong sense of the "here and now" focus.

• Yontef, G. M. (1993). Awareness, Dialogue, and Process: Essays on Gestalt Therapy. Gestalt Journal Press.

  Yontef, a prominent second-generation Gestalt therapist, clarifies and expands on key concepts. His work delves into the importance of awareness (as heavily emphasized in the article), the therapeutic relationship as a dialogue between equals, and the process-oriented nature of Gestalt therapy. This book helps to understand the evolution and contemporary understanding of the principles discussed, such as the field theory and contact boundaries.