Gestalt Therapy

Founded by Fritz Pearls, based on the premise that the individual is capable of assuming personal responsibility for his or her thoughts, feeling and actions and can live then as a “whole” integrated person. As a thinker of humanistic psychotherapy, Fritz Pearls drew many of his concepts from psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and existentialism as well as from the concepts of Gestalt psychology that addresses issues related to perception. Fritz Pearls theorized that an individual’s personality is shaped and dominated by the individual’s early interactions with the environment, especially during childhood.

According to Fritz Pearls, the personality consists of the self and the self-image. The self is the creative aspect of the personality that promotes the individual’s inherent tendency for self-actualization or the ability to live as a whole integrated person. The self-image, the “darker side” of the personality, hinders growth and self-actualization by imposing external standards.

Goals

In accordance with the goals of humanistic psychology, the major goal of Gestalt therapy and the role of the therapist is to help the client achieve integration of the various aspects of the self so to achieve self-actualization and a unified self.  Specific goals of Gestalt therapy include the clients’: awareness of self, sense of responsibility for their actions and destiny, live in the moment, the here and now, become more sensually aware, gain intrinsic satisfaction and support, rather than relying on external sources.