Principles of Gestalt therapy Perls. Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy

The unfamiliar word “Gestalt” still hurts the ears of many, although, if you look at it, Gestalt therapy is not such a stranger. Many concepts and techniques developed by it over the 50 years of its existence have literally become “folk”, since in one way or another they are included in various areas of modern psychotherapy. This is the here and now principle, borrowed from Eastern philosophy; a holistic approach that considers man and the world as a holistic phenomenon. This is the principle of self-regulation and interchange with the environment and a paradoxical theory of change: they occur when a person becomes who he is, and does not try to be who he is not. This is, finally, the “empty chair” technique, when you express your complaints not to a real, but to an imaginary interlocutor - a boss, a friend, your own laziness.

Gestalt therapy is the most universal direction of psychotherapy, providing the basis for any work with the inner world - from combating childhood fears to coaching top officials. Gestalt therapy perceives a person as a holistic phenomenon, in which simultaneously and constantly there is conscious and unconscious, body and mind, love and hate, past and plans for the future. And all this is only here and now, since the past no longer exists and the future has not yet arrived. Man is designed in such a way that he cannot exist in isolation, as a “thing in itself.” The outside world is by no means hostile to us (as psychoanalysis claimed); on the contrary, it is the environment that nourishes us and in which our life is the only possible one. Only in contact with the outside world can we take what we lack and give what fills us. When this mutual exchange is disrupted, we freeze and life becomes like an abandoned circus arena, where the lights have long gone out, the spectators have left, and we habitually walk and walk in circles.

The goal of Gestalt therapy is not even to understand why we walk in this circle, but to restore freedom in our relationships with the world: we are free to leave and return, run in circles or sleep in the open air.

Granddaughter for grandmother

Gestalt therapy is called the granddaughter of psychoanalysis. Its founder, the Austrian psychiatrist Frederick Perls, was a Freudian at the beginning of his professional career, but, like any good student, he went further than his teacher, combining Western psychotherapeutic schools with the ideas of Eastern philosophy. For the creation of a new direction (as well as for Perls’s personal life), his acquaintance with Laura, a doctor of Gestalt psychology, who later became his wife, played an important role. The word gestalt (German) itself does not have an exact translation. Approximately, it denotes a complete image, a complete structure. At the beginning of the 20th century, a school of experimental psychology emerged, called “Gestalt psychology.” Its essence is that we perceive the world as a collection of integral images and phenomena (gestalts). Narmiper, bkuvy in solve can follow in any place - we still understand the meaning. If we see something unfamiliar, the brain first quickly tries to find what it looks like and adapt new information to it. And only if this fails, the orienting reflex is activated: “What is it?”

The postulates of the new direction were strongly influenced by the “field” theory developed by Gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin. Essentially, this discovery showed: the world has everything we need, but we see only what we want to see, what is important to us at this moment in our lives, and the rest becomes an unnoticeable background, rushing by, like the landscape outside a car window. When we are cold, we dream of warmth and comfort; when we are looking for boots, we look at everyone’s feet. When we are in love, all other men cease to exist for us.

Another theory - “unfinished actions” - has experimentally found that unfinished tasks are best remembered. Until the work is done, we are not free. She holds us like an invisible leash, not allowing us to leave. We all know very well how this happens, because at least once everyone has wandered around the table with an unfinished coursework, no longer able to write it, but also unable to do anything else.

In Perls's life there was a series of meetings that influenced the emergence of the theory of Gestalt therapy. For some time he worked as an assistant to the doctor Kurt Goldstein, who practiced a holistic approach to a person, not considering it possible to divide him into organs, parts or functions. Thanks to Wilhelm Reich, who introduced the bodily dimension into psychotherapeutic work, Gestalt therapy became the first direction to consider bodily manifestations not as separately existing symptoms requiring treatment, but as one of the ways of experiencing internal, emotional conflicts. Perls's views were also strongly influenced by the ideas of existentialism of the 20s and 30s.

And, finally, the essence and philosophy of Gestalt therapy, its view of the world as a process, and of man as a traveler, its love of paradoxes, the desire for truth hidden in the depths of everyone - all this surprisingly resonates with the ideas of Buddhism and Taoism.

mission Possible

Perls based his theory on the idea of ​​balance and self-regulation, that is, in essence, the wisdom of nature. If nothing interferes with a person, he will inevitably be happy and contented - like a tree growing in favorable conditions, capable of taking everything it needs for its own growth. We are children of this world, and it contains everything we need to be happy.

Perls created a beautiful theory about the cycle of contact with the environment. What this is can be easily understood using a simple example of your lunch. How does it all begin? At first you feel hungry. From this feeling a desire is born - to satisfy hunger. Then you correlate your desire with the surrounding reality and begin to look for ways to realize it. And finally, the moment comes to meet the object of your need. If everything went as it should, you are satisfied with the process and the result, you are full and almost happy. The cycle is complete.

Included in this big contact cycle are many small ones: perhaps you had to finish or reschedule something to go to lunch, or you went to lunch with one of your colleagues. You had to get dressed to go out, and then choose from a variety of dishes what you wanted (and could afford) right now. Likewise, the lunch itself could be included in a larger gestalt called "Business Meeting" (or "Romantic Date" or "See You at Last"). And this gestalt is even greater (“Job Search”, “Career Advancement”, “Crazy Romance”, “Creating a Family”). So our whole life (and the life of all humanity) is like a nesting doll, made up of different gestalts: from crossing the street to the construction of the Great Wall of China, from a minute conversation with an acquaintance on the street to fifty years of family life.

The reasons for our dissatisfaction in life lie in the fact that some cycles of contact are interrupted somewhere, gestalts remain incomplete. And at the same time, on the one hand, we are busy (until the work is done, we are not free), and on the other hand, we are hungry, since satisfaction is possible only when the job is done (lunch is eaten, the wedding took place, life is good).

And here is one of the key points of Gestalt therapy. Perls focused his attention not on how the outside world interferes with us, but on how we prevent ourselves from being happy. Because (remember field theory) there is everything in this world, but for us there is only what we ourselves select from the background. And we can highlight either our powerlessness in the face of evil circumstances that did not allow us to dine, or the opportunity to somehow change them. Those who want, look for ways, and those who don’t want, look for reasons. And in fact, people differ from each other not so much in what circumstances they were given, but in how they react to them. Obviously, an employee who is inclined to feel powerless in front of a tyrant boss is much more likely to remain hungry, because he stops himself much more effectively than his boss.

The goal of therapy is to find a place and a way to interrupt contact, find out how and why a person stops himself, and restore the normal cycle of events in nature.

Stereo effect

Gestalt therapy is sometimes called contact therapy. This is its uniqueness. Until now, this is the only practice in which the therapist works “by himself,” in contrast to classical psychoanalysis, where the most neutral position (“blank slate”) is maintained. During a session, the Gestalt therapist has the right to his own feelings and desires and, aware of them, presents them to the client if the process requires it. People turn to a therapist when they want to change something - in themselves or in their lives. But he refuses the role of a person who “knows how to do it”, does not give directive instructions or interpretations, as in psychoanalysis, and becomes one who facilitates the client’s meeting with his essence. The therapist himself embodies that piece of the world with which the client is trying to build a familiar (and ineffective) relationship. The client, communicating with the therapist, seeks to transfer onto him his stereotypes about people, about how they “should” behave and how they “usually” react to him, and encounters a spontaneous reaction from the therapist who does not consider it necessary to adapt to a changing world the one with whom you are in contact. Very often this reaction does not fit into the client’s “script” and forces the latter to take a decisive step beyond the usual barrier of his expectations, ideas, fears or resentments. He begins to explore his reactions to an unusual situation - right here and now - and his new possibilities or limitations. And in the end it comes to the conclusion that, by building relationships, everyone can remain themselves and at the same time maintain intimate contact with the other. He gains or restores the lost freedom to get out of the script, out of the usual circle. He himself gains the experience of a new, different interaction. Then he can integrate this experience into his life.

The goal of such therapy is to return a person to himself, to restore freedom to deal with his life. The client is not a passive object of analysis, but an equal creator and participant in the therapeutic process. After all, only he himself knows where his magic door and the golden key to it are. Even if he forgot or doesn’t want to look in the right direction, he knows.

Responsible for everything

There are several “whales” on which the earth called “Gestalt therapy” rests.

Awareness– sensory experience, experiencing oneself in contact. This is one of those moments when I know “in my gut” who I am, what I am like and what is happening to me. This is experienced as insight, and at some point in life the awareness becomes continuous.

Awareness inevitably entails responsibility, but not as guilt, but as authorship: this is not happening to me, this is how I live. It’s not my head that hurts, but I feel pain and compression in my head, I’m not being manipulated, but I agree to be the object of manipulation. At first, accepting responsibility causes resistance, since it deprives the enormous benefits of psychological games and shows the “wrong side” of human exploits and suffering. But if we find the courage to face our “shadow”, we will be rewarded - we begin to understand that we have power over our own lives and over our relationships with other people. After all, if I do it, then I can redo it! We develop our possessions and sooner or later reach their borders.

So, after experiencing the euphoria of power, we encounter the uncontrollable - with time and losses, with love and sadness, with our own strength and weakness, with the decisions and actions of other people. We humble ourselves and accept not only this world, but also ourselves in it, after which the therapy ends and life continues.

The principle of reality. It is easy to explain, but difficult to accept. There is a certain reality (given to us in sensations), but there is also our opinion about it, our interpretation of what is happening. These reactions are much more varied than the facts, and they often turn out to be so much stronger than sensations that we take a long time and seriously solve the problem: is the king naked or am I stupid?

Gestalt therapy is sometimes called “therapy of the obvious.” The therapist does not rely on the client’s thoughts or his own generalizations, but on what he sees and hears. He avoids judgment and interpretation, but asks the questions “what?” And How?". Practice has shown that it is enough to focus on the process (what is happening and how it is happening), and not on the content (what is being discussed), for a person to exclaim that same “aha!” A common reaction to meeting reality is resistance, because a person is deprived of illusions and rose-colored glasses. “Yes, it was true. But it’s some kind of treacherous truth,” admitted one of the group members. In addition, reality sometimes forces a person to admit that the king is really naked, and then it will no longer be possible to live as before. And the newness is scary.

Here and now. The future does not exist yet, the past has already happened, we live in the present. Only here and now am I writing this text, and you read it, or remember what happened, or make plans for the future. Only here and now is change possible.

This principle does not deny our past at all. The client’s experience, the field of his life, does not disappear anywhere and determines his behavior at every moment, including during the session. And yet, here and now he is talking to a therapist - and why about this? What is here and now that could be useful (at the moment)?

Dialogue in Gestalt therapy it is a meeting of two worlds: client and therapist, person and person. When the worlds come into contact, in this contact it is possible to explore the border that exists between “me” and “not-me”. The client (sometimes for the first time!) experiences the experiences that arise in the process of interacting with someone who is “not me” while simultaneously maintaining his own identity. These are those I–You relationships in which there is I with my feelings, You with my feelings and that living, unique thing that happens between them (happens for the first time, this very minute and will never happen again).

This is a unique experience because the therapist is a person outside the client's life who does not need anything from him, and can truly allow the client to be himself and experience what he is experiencing without trying to influence his feelings.

Gestalt therapy is beyond morality and politics. Its only task is to make the client’s inner world accessible to him, to return the person to himself. She has no educational goals. She doesn’t care at all whether a person grows cabbage or rules a kingdom - it is important that everyone lives their own life, minds their own business and loves with their own love.

Walking together

In classical psychoanalysis and in everyday consciousness, individuality and society are opposed to each other. In everyday life, we often have the idea (and feeling) that another person limits our freedom, since it ends where our neighbor’s nose begins. Then the most logical conclusion seems to be that the fewer people there are around and the further we are from them, the more free we are, the easier it is to be ourselves. That is, psychologically speaking, loneliness is necessary for deep individualization. In most philosophical practices, the process of individualization involves immersion in oneself and withdrawal from the world.

Perhaps at some stage this is really necessary. But Gestalt therapy says: in order to come to yourself, you need to come to others. Go to another person - and there you will find your essence. Go into the world - and there you will find yourself.

But why does contact with the world and another person allow individualization to occur? Alone with ourselves, we can think whatever we want about ourselves. But we will never know if this is true until we interact with the world. A person may think that he can easily lift a car until he tries - in fact, this ability does not exist, but only fantasies about it. This is the false self, the false uniqueness. True uniqueness involves real action in the real world.

What happens to our uniqueness when it meets the uniqueness of another? Only when we come into contact with the world (another person) does our uniqueness take on a practical character. Two realities collide, giving birth to a third. In this way, the socialization of individuality occurs: a person’s originality is the uniqueness of his functions, and this determines his value to others. Individuality brought to the boundary of contact turns into a function for others. For example: “I’m authoritarian” - Well, then lead.” “I am a poet” - “And make your soul sing.”

Thus, we go beyond the definition of society as restraining frameworks and regulations; they simply cease to play a determining role. What becomes significant is what in a person is of value to others. And what in others is of value to this person. These are our experiences, experiences and ideas, our unique characteristics or simply abilities that others do not have. This determines our need for each other and determines our relationships.

Very sharp eye

Remember the prayer attributed to the Optina elders: “Lord, give me the strength to change what I cannot bear! Lord, give me patience to endure what I cannot change! And, Lord, give me wisdom to distinguish the first from the second!” I have the impression that Gestalt therapy is gradually teaching me this wisdom. She has made my life interesting because it helps me to be very selective, to quickly abandon what does not suit me, to search and find what I need. And everything that happens in my life: people, business, hobbies, books - this is what I like, is interesting and needs.

Gestalt therapy also gave me peace. I can trust the river that is my life. She lets me know when and where I need to be alert, and when and where I can drop the oars and just surrender to the flow and the sun.

Where it all began: Gestalt psychology.

In psychology, the word “gestalt” appeared at the beginning of the 20th century thanks to the work of German researchers M. Wertheimer, W. Keller, K. Koffka, K. Lewin, who were the creators of a new direction - Gestalt psychology. One of the main areas of interest of Gestalt psychology was the study of patterns of perception...

Proponents of Gestalt psychology adopted a holistic approach long before humanistic psychology announced itself as a new direction. The history of Gestalt psychology (German: Gestalt - structure, form) originates in Germany in 1912, when M. Wertheimer studied the so-called. “phi-phenomenon” is an illusion of movement that occurs when stationary objects are seen in a rapid succession of different positions. This “moving picture” effect is created, for example, by sequentially switching on and off neon or electric lamps framed by a stationary frame. This phenomenon well illustrates the point that the whole is greater than its parts and contains qualities that cannot be found in its components. So, in the above example, movement characterizes the phenomenon as a whole, but if you examine its component parts, no movement can be noticed in them. Wertheimer was soon joined by W. Köhler and K. Koffka, thanks to whom the Gestalt approach penetrated into all areas of psychology. K. Goldstein applied it to the problems of pathopsychology, F. Perls - to psychotherapy, E. Maslow - to the theory of personality. K. Lewin explained many psychological phenomena in terms of the field theory he developed on the basis of the principle of integrity. The Gestalt approach has also been successfully used in such fields as learning psychology, perceptual psychology and social psychology. Among other achievements of Gestalt psychologists, it should be noted: the concept of “psychophysical isomorphism” (the identity of the structures of mental and nervous processes); the idea of ​​“learning through insight” (insight is a sudden understanding of the situation as a whole); a new concept of thinking (a new object is perceived not in its absolute meaning, but in its connection and comparison with other objects); the idea of ​​“productive thinking” (i.e. creative thinking as the antipode of reproductive, patterned memorization); identification of the so-called phenomenon “pregnancy” (good form in itself becomes a motivating factor). Gestalt psychology - a psychological movement that arose in Germany in the early 1990s and existed until the mid-1930s. XX century (before the Nazis came to power, when most of its representatives emigrated) and continued to develop the problem of integrity posed by the Austrian school. First of all, M. Wertheimer, V. Köhler, K. Koffka belong to this direction. The methodological basis of Gestalt psychology was the philosophical ideas of “critical realism” and the positions developed by E. Hering, E. Mach, E. Husserl, J. Muller, according to which the physiological reality of processes in the brain and the mental or phenomenal reality are related to each other by isomorphism.
Because of this, the study of brain activity and phenomenological introspection, focused on different contents of consciousness, can be considered as complementary methods that study the same thing, but use different conceptual languages. Subjective experiences are merely the phenomenal expression of various electrical processes in the brain. By analogy with electromagnetic fields in physics, consciousness in Gestalt psychology was understood as a dynamic whole, a “field” in which each point interacts with all the others.
For the experimental study of this field, a unit of analysis was introduced, which began to act as a gestalt. Gestalts were discovered in the perception of shape, apparent movement, and optical-geometric illusions. As the basic law of grouping individual elements, the law of pregnancy was postulated as the desire of the psychological field to form the most stable, simple and “economical” configuration. At the same time, factors were identified that contribute to the grouping of elements into integral gestalts, such as “proximity factor”, “similarity factor”, “good continuation factor”, “common fate factor”.
In the field of psychology of thinking, Gestalt psychologists developed a method for experimental research of thinking - the method of “reasoning out loud” and introduced such concepts as problem situation, insight (M. Wertheimer, K. Duncker). At the same time, the emergence of one or another solution in the “productive thinking” of animals and humans was interpreted as a result of the formation of “good gestalts” in the psychological field. In the 20s XX century K. Lewin expanded the scope of Gestalt psychology by introducing the “personal dimension”. Gestalt psychology had a significant influence on neobehaviourism, cognitive psychology, and the “New Look” school.

M. Wertheimer is one of the founders of Gestalt psychology.

Gestalt psychologists believed that a person perceives the world around him in the form of certain integral units - gestalts. For example, when you read this text, you perceive each word in a sentence not as a sum of letters, but as a separate integral unit. That is, you perceive the word “flower” not as c + v + e + t + o + k, but this word simply somehow appears on its own in the form of an integral structure, just like “flower”. In the same way, you perceive each letter in this word not as a sum of horizontal and vertical lines, but as an integral configuration, as a separate letter. Therefore, the whole is not equal to the sum of the parts that make it up, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts that make it up, and the whole sets the context in which the individual parts acquire a certain meaning. In addition, human perception functions on the principle of the interaction of figure and ground. Each gestalt is perceived as a clearly distinguished figure against a blurred, undifferentiated background.
For example, when you read this text, you do not pay attention to the white background on which it is written, your attention is focused on the black text, or rather, at each moment in time - on a certain word or letter, which at that moment appears as a figure. Once you pay attention to the white background on which this text is written, the relationship will change. Now the text will be blurry and undifferentiated, the text will become the background, and the background will become a shape. Moreover, you cannot perceive both the background and the figure (both the text and the white background). In any case, you “switch” your attention from one to the other, but you can do this at different speeds.

K. Koffka - a key figure in the development of Gestalt psychology Another example is the famous Rubin Vase - a drawing in which a person can perceive either a vase or two profiles. If you can switch your attention from figure to background and vice versa at a high enough speed, the illusion of simultaneous perception of both figure and ground is created. Thus, attention constantly “slides” from one figure to another, and the figure-ground relationship is constantly changing.

Ruby Vase.

When I cross the road, the figure for me becomes a speeding car that honks at me, I do not notice the chirping of the birds that are sitting on the branches of a tree by the side of the road. As soon as I cross the road, this chirping noise catches my attention and the honking car becomes a blur in the background. By isolating gestalts, perception acts according to the law of pregnancy or equilibrium, which lies in the fact that the human psyche, like any dynamic system, strives for the maximum state of stability under given conditions. By highlighting a figure, a person tries to give it the most acceptable form from the point of view of initial interest; in this process, individual components are combined into a gestalt according to the principle of filling in the gaps (A), the principle of proximity (B), the principle of similarity (C), the principle of good continuation (the principle of continuity) (D), the principle of symmetry (E), the principle of common purpose.

(adapted from J. Godefroy. “What is psychology.” Moscow, “Mir”, 1996) Somewhat later, K. Levin proposed the so-called “field theory”. According to this theory, a person, on the one hand, is separated from his environment, and on the other hand, is inextricably linked with it. The organism and the environment, thus, represent a field, that is, integrity, a set of interconnected elements. In this case, the integrity again turns out to be greater than the sum of its constituent parts. A field is not an organism + environment. A field is an organism + environment + all possible relationships in this system. In a field, all elements are interconnected with each other. Thus, it makes no sense to consider a person separately from his environment, just as it makes no sense to consider different mental phenomena of a person separately from each other. The works of K. Lewin and his students - studies of the processes of group dynamics, the phenomenon of unfinished actions - had a huge influence on the development of psychology in general and Gestalt therapy in particular.

K. Levin - creator of field theory

How it all began: Frederick Solomon Perls.

Fritz (Frederick Solomon) Perls was born on July 8, 1893 in Berlin into a middle-class Jewish family. His father Nathan was a traveling salesman who sold wines, and his mother Amelia was a believing Jew. The family situation in Perls's house was not the best for him and his two sisters - the parents constantly quarreled among themselves, and Frederick often became the object of assault. Therefore, Frederick’s relationship with his parents was difficult - he was constantly at enmity with them, and spoke quite harshly to his father. At school, Frederic did not study too hard and was even expelled from there once, but then he still finished school. In general, even as a child, Frederick was a rebel. In the future, he will become a rebel in psychotherapy, doubting the truth of the ideas of psychoanalysis.
In 1913, Frederick entered the medical faculty of the University of Freiburg, then continued his studies at the medical faculty of the University of Berlin. During World War I, Perls serves as a military doctor.

F. Perls in service In 1918, he returned from the front and joined the Berlin Bohemian Society, and in 1921 he graduated from the Faculty of Medicine with a doctorate degree, specializing in psychiatry. In 1926, he worked at the Institute of Military Brain Injuries with Kurt Holzstein. From cooperation with him, ideas of human integrity emerged, the so-called holistic approach in the future of Gestalt therapy.

F. Perls in his youth

In 1927, Perls moved to Vienna. There he became seriously interested in psychoanalysis and underwent training analysis with Wilhelm Reich, Helen Deutsch, Karen Horney and Otto Fenichel. At this time, Perls became a practicing psychoanalyst. In 1930, Perls married Laura Posner. Laura would later make a huge contribution to the emergence of Gestalt therapy, developing its theoretical foundations. Frederick and Laura have two children together - Renata and Stephen...

Frederick and Laura Perls Children

In 1933, after Hitler came to power, Perls, along with Laura and Renata, fled to Holland, then to South Africa, where he founded the South African Institute of Psychoanalysis in Pretoria. In 1936, he came to Germany, where he made a presentation at a psychoanalytic congress. There he met Sigmund Freud. This meeting brought Frederick great disappointment. It lasted about four minutes and did not provide any opportunity to talk about Freud's ideas, which Perls had dreamed of for years.
F. PerlsLaura Perls

How to develop everythingit was:

Fritz Perls and “Ego, Hunger and Aggression.” It is difficult to say what was the main reason for Perls’s break with the psychoanalytic community - either resentment towards Freud, who never listened to Frederick’s ideas, or simply the time was right for a change in concepts, but in 1942 In 2010, a book was published that marked the final separation of Perls from the ideas of psychoanalysis. The book “Ego, Hunger and Aggression,” created largely thanks to Laura Perls, provides a critical examination of the ideas of S. Freud and marks the beginning of a new direction in psychotherapy. In the first edition the book was subtitled “Revisiting Freud’s Theory and Method”, in the second edition – “Introduction to Gestalt Therapy”. This book introduced the concept of mental metabolism. If Freud considered the leading instinct in human life to be sexual, Pearl suggests considering the functioning of the psyche by analogy with the process of digestion, thus shifting the emphasis to the oral zone and the instinct of hunger. In addition, this book laid the foundation for the principle of “here and now”, awareness and focus on the present. From that time on, Frederick Perls changed his name to Fritz Perls, gaining fame as a rebellious rebel who challenged Freud's authority.
From 1942 to 1946, F. Perls served in the army as a psychiatrist. In 1946, at the invitation of Karen Horney and Erich Fromm, he moved to New York. Here he meets Paul Goodman, a writer and writer.

At the invitation of Karen Horney and Erich Fromm, famous for his definition of “existential psychoanalysis” and enjoying some authority among the “initiated group” thanks to his book, Perls comes to New York. Having set foot on American soil, he could, like Freud, his hated teacher, say: “They don’t know that I came to bring them the plague!” Some time later, having entered New York life, Perls began collaborating with Paul Goodman , who quickly became a major figure in the development of Gestalt therapy. Perls undoubtedly had brilliant clinical and theoretical intuition, but he was neither a brilliant intellectual nor a talented writer. He needed a "Negro" to put the manuscripts in order, on which he worked for twenty years in Africa. Paul Goodman, an unrecognized writer, essayist, poet, and man of letters, was thus forced to put all his literary, philosophical and psychoanalytic knowledge into the service of Perls's ideas. But now, it is quite clear that he did much more than just the correspondence work that was required of him, and that he gave harmony, consistency and depth to Perls's intuitive findings, which without him might have remained in rough drafts. Then these ideas will form the basis of the work “Gestalt Therapy”, published in 1951, and will be discussed for a long time in a small New York group and subjected to experimental testing. Around Perls, his wife Laura, Paul Goodman, Isidore Frome and several others unite, known as the "Seven". Soon they create the first Institute of Gestalt Therapy in New York.

When the book that Goodman and Perls and other members of the group were working on was ready, its last chapter hastily edited, the publisher demanded that a practical part be added to the book. And to the great regret of the entire group, the part written by Hefferlin, consisting of experiments conducted among university students, turned into the first part of the book.

From the publisher's point of view, this made it clear to the public that the publication was supported by the authority of the university. On the other hand, the book was in keeping with the existing fashion for publishing "Do-it-yourself" type essays. All this was supposed to make this difficult book easier to sell. The effect was almost the opposite, as Hefferlin's portion of the book alienated the professional reader for whom the manifesto book was really intended, and its distribution remained relatively modest for several years.

It was with the help of Paul Goodman that Perls's manuscripts, which he worked on in Africa, and his ideas acquired literary form, filled with philosophical content. In addition to Paul Goodman, Laura Perls, Ralph Hefferline, Jim Simkin, and Isidore From work together with Perls in New York. The New York group developed the basic principles of Gestalt therapy, which was first called existential psychoanalysis, then Gestalt analysis, then “concentration psychotherapy,” but ultimately the new direction was called Gestalt therapy.
In 1951, a fundamental work created by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman entitled “Gestalt Therapy, Arousal and the Growth of the Human Personality” appeared. In this book, the concept of contact was introduced, the cycle of contact and the mechanisms of its interruption were described, and the theory of “self” was proposed...

Although several other groups adhering to this approach very quickly formed, in particular in Cleveland (on the basis of which the Cleveland Institute of Gestalt Therapy arose around E. Polster) and in California (around Jim Simkin), still Gestalt therapy in general and Perls, in particular, had already begun their long trek across the desert. Perls was already relatively at an age when he wanted to gain more recognition. Laura Perls and Isidore Frome continued their work as psychotherapists and trainers in New York and developed the method. Paul Goodman, after ten years of practical work and teaching, left his therapeutic practice to devote himself entirely to literary creativity and his essays. He finally achieved such fame that after his death, the writer Susan Sontag wrote: “He was our Sartre, he was our Cocteau.” The other founding members went their own ways, and Perls divided his time between semi-retired backpacking and teaching trips throughout the United States.
The creators of Gestalt therapy are F. Perls, P. Goodman, R. Hufferline. Then a split occurred in the group of creators of Gestalt therapy; Fritz Perls and Jim Simkin left New York. Fritz Perls began to work mainly with groups, believing that individual psychotherapy was outdated. The New York group disagreed.

California years...

As J.-M. later wrote. Robin, “fashion constantly demanded something new from him (Perls) at any cost, sometimes even at the cost of confusing the very foundations of the Gestalt approach.” Thanks to the bright style of F. Perls, Gestalt therapy gained popularity. However, the lack of clear positions and all kinds of extremes among a significant part of people interested in psychotherapy caused distrust in the new approach, which to some extent persists to this day.

In 1969, Perls moved to British Columbia, where he founded a Gestalt community on Vancouver Island. In the same year, he published two works - Gestalt Therapy Verbatum and In and Out of the Garbage Pail.

Perls died in 1970 on Vancouver Island, at the residence of the first Gestalt therapeutic society. Shortly before his death, he was working on two books - “The Gestalt Approach” and “Witness to Therapy”. These works were published posthumously in 1973.

After Perls
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After the death of Perls in 1970, the following important processes in Gestalt therapy can be traced: Some, following fashion, turned to other methods of psychotherapy. Others, mistaking their ignorance of the theoretical and clinical foundations of Gestalt therapy for their lack, compensated for this deficiency by accepting theoretical positions that, it seemed to them, bore some resemblance to the practice of Perls of the last period. In particular, some Gestaltists, having retained the Gestalt methodology and technology, turned to psychoanalytic theory, most often to Anglo-Saxon movements - to the analysis of object relations or interpersonal theory. Some made up for their inconsistency by accumulating and combining various techniques, such as the introduction of bioenergetic and psychodramatic techniques, work in the pool, massage or other techniques make it possible to replace the missing “spine” of adequate metapsychology. Finally, some again turned to forgotten sources - to fundamental texts and practical teachers who did not stop relying on them, developing the approach. Thus Laura Perls, Isidore Frome and the other members of the group that founded Gestalt therapy emerged from the shadows in which Perls's Californian sun had left them, and enabled a large part of the Gestalt community to rediscover the meaning of this approach, with all its radicality and creative energy, in self theory outlined by Perls and Goodman in 1951.

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There are many psychological trends that exist today. Perls Gestalt Therapy is one of them. Psychologists may not adhere to the basic principles and theory of this direction, but they often mix their methods of work with the techniques of Gestalt therapy.

Psychology in general examines the spiritual component of a person from different angles. Since man is a multifaceted being, many directions arise that do not replace each other, but rather complement each other.

The main tenet of Gestalt therapy is conscious living. What is awareness or consciousness? This is a person’s ability to direct his attention to what is happening here and now. He does not get lost in his thoughts, does not have his head in the clouds, does not remember the past or dream about the future. The present moment is the most important thing for a person who is conscious.

What is Gestalt therapy?

Like psychology, Gestalt therapy is a relatively young science that was developed in the 20s of the last century. Its main ideas and principles were developed by Frederick and Laura Perls, Paul Goodman. What is Gestalt therapy? This is work on developing one’s own consciousness and responsibility for what happens to a person.

Conscious awareness is a core concept in Gestalt therapy. It means that a person should pay attention only to what is happening here and now. He must experience it, feel, understand and even remember. Analysis in Gestalt therapy of problems and feelings occurs only with those units that are relevant at the present moment.

Gestalt therapists do not pay attention to the past or the future. The past has already passed and the future has not yet arrived. The human body is only in the present moment. What can we say about what has already happened or has not yet happened? No matter how you twist it, a person lives only in the present moment. Only “here and now” can he let go of the past, understand it, correct mistakes and do something good for his future.

There is no need to get lost in any thoughts, fly away into memories or dreams. Notice what surrounds you, what happens around you, what your body feels, how certain things arise. Track your emotions, from the time you hear or see something to the way certain feelings arise within you.

Enjoy what you are doing now. Do only what you think is necessary at the moment. Solve only those issues that are important to resolve now. Be here now. What's really important now? What do you think needs to be done at this moment? Give reasons for your criteria for assessing importance. This will allow you not to regret what you are doing now in the future. Yes, you may doubt the correctness of your choice. However, in the future you will remember that today's choice seemed to be the right one. And this already means that you did the right thing.

Understand what is happening to you, how you feel and what goals you want to achieve. Don't let chance or other people rule you. You are free to decide for yourself what to think, say and do. But to do this, you need to live in the present time, understand the motives of your actions, and also see the goal you want to achieve. Usually people don't achieve what they want because they don't know what they want, forget about it when emotions take over, and do nothing to realize it. However, if you are mindful, you will understand that you can not give in to your emotions, which simply make you do stupid things rather than solve issues so that in the end you get what you need.

To live, you need to be here and now. Learn to spend as much time as possible in the present moment. And then you will see many advantages in living here and now, and not soaring in dreams and not being immersed in memories.

Perls Gestalt Therapy

The main desire of a person is to maintain homeostasis, when he performs only those actions that, under current conditions, will allow him to achieve a balanced state. Perls's Gestalt therapy is based on the importance of present circumstances and the unimportance of everything else.

It is based on these 5 pillars:

1. Relationship between background and figure. A person cannot satisfy his needs separately from the world around him. The background or figure becomes those elements that are currently important for achieving what you want. As soon as the goal is achieved, the gestalt stops and the figure fades into the background. If the goal is not achieved, then the gestalt remains incomplete.
2. Opposites. A person is constantly in contact with the surrounding and internal worlds, which do not always manifest themselves in the same way. To make a quick assessment, a person operates with unambiguous concepts, for example, “good” and “bad.” However, nothing is ever clearly good or bad. Even a person experiences emotions that are ambiguous in relation to the world around him (he sometimes loves, sometimes he hates, sometimes he cries, sometimes he laughs).
3. Awareness and concentration on the present. In order for a person to be able to take advantage of existing circumstances to achieve a goal, he must be here and now. His attention should be paid to two components: internal sensations and external factors. A striking example is that a person puts on a warm sweater in cold weather, which corresponds to the external and internal.

The problem arises when a person focuses his attention on the middle area - these are thoughts, desires, beliefs, emotions, etc. In this case, he does not notice either the external or the internal. He operates with arguments that are absolutely inconsistent with the real facts.

In such a state, a person plans, despairs, remembers, hopes. He does not act, but hopes that his mental processes will somehow influence real life without his participation.

1. Responsibility and maturity. In achieving a happy life, a person must be mature. What it is? This is when a person stops waiting for outside help, and relies only on his own strength. In this case, he stops blaming, waiting, and inaction, because he takes responsibility for his own life, existing achievements, successes and failures.

Maturity comes when a person stops being afraid and frustrated. While a person is immature, he is only engaged in searching for various manipulations that will help him get from others what he needs. A person must go through several stages to become mature:

• Get rid of clichés, that is, get rid of stereotypes.
• Get rid of games and roles that help manipulate others.
• To get out of the “deadlock” when outside help cannot be obtained and self-help is not provided. This level is dangerous because people feel deceived and lost, so they begin to look for new ways to manipulate others.
• Reach an “internal explosion” when you cross the threshold when “you are owed” and enter a period when “you can do everything yourself and help yourself.”

In Gestalt therapy, a person is helped to create a safe environment for himself at a “dead-end” level in order to successfully move to the next one.

1. Protection functions. The psyche has various protective functions that should help protect against stressful or dangerous situations. It can make you run away (leave), not pay attention to pain, or go into delirium or hallucinations. Sometimes a person is so worried about what is happening around him that he considers the world dangerous for himself and runs away from it even when nothing threatens him.

Gestalt therapy theory

Gestalt therapy was not initially aimed at developing theoretical knowledge. However, over the years, so much information has accumulated that psychologists had to formulate a theory in this direction. This was done by P. Goodman, who outlined the basic terms of Gestalt therapy.

The main tenet of this direction is the individual’s tendency to self-regulation based on the unity of external and internal and a creative approach to adapting to the world. Here, the maturity and responsibility of a person who is guided by his actions, expectations and goals become important. The psychotherapist helps the client concentrate on the here and now in order to solve all pressing problems.

Gestalt therapy is aimed at making a person aware of his true needs, as well as turning to his own experience, which is more valuable and important than someone else’s opinion.

A person cannot live separately from the world around him, therefore Gestalt therapy teaches one to maintain one’s isolation from it, but to understand that he is constantly in contact with and influences what is happening outside.

A person cannot be understood unless he is considered as a whole in conjunction with his past, thoughts and actions. What is happening now and here is an indicator of what has been done in the past. A person can only achieve one result as a result of the decisions and actions he has taken. This means that if a person does not like his present life, this indicates that in the past he did not do something or made a decision that led him in a different direction.

Gestalt therapists are not aimed at solving problems that concern people, but at teaching clients to be aware of reality, live in it and concentrate only on the present.

Basic principles of Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy techniques are based on the basic principles of this direction. The website for psychotherapeutic assistance highlights the following principles:

• "Here and now". A person must concentrate on the feelings, thoughts, sensations that are happening to him now. If he talks about the past, he must pronounce words as if this is happening to him now.
• "I, you". Teaching a person to openly and directly address the person he is talking about.
• Continuum of consciousness. Concentrating on the flow of thoughts and feelings that are happening at a given second, refusing to constantly analyze the situation and statements.
• Subjectivization of statements. Teaching a person to talk about himself, his body, failures, etc. in such a way that he “disturbs” himself, “does not help,” “does not give,” etc. It seems to a person that someone from the outside is preventing him from living happily. In fact, he himself is the author of his own misfortunes.

The biggest mistake you can make is being happy in the past. All people know that life can be both joyful and sad. However, after the “black streak” there is always a “white” streak, and you should not forget about this when you again encounter troubles and problems that will force you to return to those memories when you lived carefree.

Why does a person live in the past? If you are immersed in past memories and do not want to get out of them, this only means that real life does not capture you, does not make you happy, and is not filled with something interesting and new. Your life is boring now or you are mired in a lot of problems, which is why you decided to go back to memories of a time when everything was good, fun and carefree.

However, this is a trap. You returned to the past, not wanting to see the present state of affairs. Why would you go back to the present time if you are already happy by remembering the past when you were successful? This is a mistake that simply plunges you into a state of hopelessness.

First, you live in the past without paying attention to the present. Accordingly, you are unhappy “here and now”, but happy “then and there”. Secondly, if you are constantly in the past, it means that you are not solving the issues that made you run away from the present. You avoid the problems that are hanging over you now, not realizing that they will not go away and will remind you of themselves every time you return to the present.

Don't be happy in the past. Let your past life be an indicator that you can achieve something and solve problems. Let the past be your incentive to not give up in the present while you solve the problems that have arisen. And once you learn to cope with your current troubles without avoiding them, you will become more confident in yourself, stop giving up before every failure and realize that you are living a happy life.

A past life is an indicator that you can be happy. But even then, in the past, you had to overcome certain difficulties in order to achieve success. This gives you the understanding that now you need to continue to live in the present, overcome obstacles, so that in the future you can return to the present and again believe in yourself that you can achieve everything and cope with everything.

Bottom line

Every direction in psychology is designed to make the life of any person happy. This is possible if you take the steps and follow the recommendations given by psychologists. The result may be higher than all the expectations that a person initially had.

It is easy to say that Gestalt therapy does not help. However, until a person tries, he will not understand what will be useful to him and what will not have any effect. If there is an inner desire to achieve happiness, as well as to deal with many internal problems, then it’s time to do something. In this case, the prognosis will be more favorable than if you do nothing.

​​​​​​​Gestalt therapy, the Gestalt approach to psychotherapy is an independent and authoritative direction in practical psychology, a synthesis of psychoanalysis, bioenergetics, psychodrama and some ideas of Gestalt psychology. The author of this approach was Fritz Perls, currently this is a real movement, developing in its own logic and still looking for its prospects.

To clearly see and understand the features of Gestalt therapy, it is useful to compare its approach with the synton approach.

Gestalt therapy is a developing and controversial phenomenon, especially since not everyone who practices as a Gestalt therapist has sufficient culture and qualifications. Perhaps in connection with this, many distorted ideas and myths have accumulated around Gestalt therapy. Without pretending to be the ultimate truth and remembering that Gestalt therapy does not remain static, it changes itself, we will try to outline its main features, the positions characteristic of Gestalt therapy.

A popular trend in psychological counseling today is Gestalt therapy. Its main developers are Frederick and Laura Perls, as well as Paul Goodman. Translated, Gestalt therapy means “holistic image” - this is the task that specialists set for themselves when working with clients on the basic principles, techniques and theory of g.

To explain what exactly Gestalt therapy does, the online magazine site will give a parable. For a long time, a poor man sat near his shack. He was sitting near the river along which a kind man was passing. One day a poor man asked a kind man to feed him. So the kind man caught him some fish and fed him. The next time the situation repeated itself. The kind man was tired of constantly fishing, so he showed the poor man how to do it, so as not to ask for help in the future.

Gestalt therapy helps a person achieve a holistic image through self-awareness. Here the therapist is not a passive participant, he is actively involved in the process, but not with the goal of doing all the work for the client, but in order to help the client learn to achieve understanding.

What is Gestalt therapy?

The two main problems that many modern people suffer from are: the inability to cope with existing problems that can drag on for many years, and the inability to take responsibility. Gestalt therapy solves both of these problems. What it is? This is a method of psychological counseling, which has its own tasks and techniques.

The main goal of Gestalt therapy is to eliminate emotional experiences, pressures and fears that prevent you from enjoying life and achieving your goals in the present time. This is done through awareness of all the experiences that block a person from taking the necessary actions, resolving problems that could have bothered the individual for years, as well as taking responsibility for one’s own emotions and feelings.

The specialist works with a person in the “here and now” state, which is also a “trick” of Gestalt therapy. The psychotherapist does not care about the person's problems, past or experiences. He is only interested in what is currently still bothering his client, influencing him, influencing him. This problem may have happened in the past, but emotional experiences and thoughts about it still affect behavior.

Only those feelings and experiences that a person still experiences are processed. When analyzing a problem that happened in the past, the specialist is not interested in what the individual felt then, in the past, he is only concerned with what the person is experiencing now, when he returns his thoughts to this event from the past.

Being “here and now” a person can more calmly talk about a problem that happened to him in the past, because it has already happened, remains in the past, now it does not physically affect the person in any way. An individual, while working with a specialist, must realize that he is talking about events that are not happening to him now, at a particular moment. Now next to a person there is no enemy who humiliated or insulted him in the past. Now a person is not in the same situation that happened to him in the past. This means he is safer. He can talk more calmly about what happened. Moreover, he realizes that now everything in his life is calm and good, nothing threatening exists.

The situation from the past can be looked at from different angles. The more a person realizes that the problem is not now, it is in the past, and he may not worry about it as much as he did when he was directly in it, the better he begins to see it. You can look at it from different angles. In this case, nothing threatens the person.

Gestalt therapy practices not only consideration of a specific problem that worries a person, but also hypothetical situations that have not yet occurred or, in principle, worry a person. Various techniques are used here, for example, the “empty chair” method, when a person imagines an opponent in an empty chair with whom he would like to talk, get some kind of answer from him, and learn to communicate with him.

The Gestalt therapist has several tasks:

1. Help a person maintain awareness and a state of “here and now” when considering a situation that worries him, which can be frightening.
2. Help a person realize what specific experiences he experiences when considering a situation.
3. Understand the reasons why a situation evokes in a person the emotions that he experiences. Based on this, together with the client, you can develop an action plan on how to no longer allow these experiences, how to cope/eliminate those feelings that already exist.
4. Restore internal balance, become a holistic person who should live “here and now”, and not in the past or in the future.
5. Help the client take responsibility for the experiences that he allows to influence his decisions and actions in the present time.

Gestalt therapy theory

The developers of Gestalt therapy did not consider it necessary to create various theories, since they created a completely practical system. Gestalt therapy acts as a method when the main task of the specialist is to preserve the client’s consciousness in the “here and now” state (so that he does not fly into the past or future). Also, the main aspect is placed on the individual’s ability to be creative.

However, over time, the developed methodology began to be considered by many psychologists, who brought many theoretical bases to it:

• Contact-border is the line on which a person begins to come into contact with the environment, while he can isolate himself from the world.
• Resistance is the way an individual interacts with the external environment. Currently, a person contacts the world in a way that is accessible to him, or in a way that is familiar to him. If problems arise as a result of this contact, it means that the methods that the person uses were appropriate in the past, but are ineffective in the present.
• Awareness of your true needs. Often a person, unable to satisfy his basic need, covers it up with another, tries to compensate for it with something else. However, this does not allow a person to remain completely happy, which is why he continues to compensate for his basic need without being completely satisfied, since he is not even aware of it.

Gestalt therapy views the individual as a holistic system. He does not share it like specialists in psychoanalysis, although he can consider its individual aspects. The fact is that what happens in one area of ​​a person’s life directly affects other aspects of the system. Thus, if feelings change, then experience, beliefs, worldview, behavior and even goals for the future life change.

Gestalt therapy does not aim to eliminate the problems that people came with. It aims to eliminate those emotional pressures that prevent a person in the present time from enjoying life to the fullest, and not just partially. The emphasis here is on becoming aware of present experiences and problems, rather than dwelling on the past.

The founder of the already formed Gestalt therapy is Perls. He sets as his main task the maintenance of homeostasis - the balance that a person strives for at any moment of his life. Here it is necessary to satisfy all his needs, which allow him to achieve this balanced state, by any means.

Gestalt therapy is based on 5 main pillars:

1. Relationship between background and figure. The figure is a gestalt - a certain holistic being, either the person himself, or his need. The background is a situation that is currently significant and interesting for the formation of a gestalt. If the need is satisfied, then the background disappears and a new one appears to form a new gestalt. If the need is not satisfied, then the gestalt remains incomplete, where the person gets stuck. Here it is important for a person to learn to satisfy his needs, so that over time he does not go into the “fantasy zone”, from where hopes, neuroses, etc. are formed.
2. Awareness and concentration on the present moment. If a person is able to realize his own needs in the present, then he must look for methods to satisfy them in what is available today. If he goes into fantasy, then various anomalous states arise when a person begins to wait, hope, aggression due to unfulfilled desires, etc.
3. Opposites. This is the division of the world and man into opposites. However, man or the world cannot be divided. In Gestalt therapy, everything is perceived as a single whole, as black and white together.
4. Responsibility and maturity. Here Perls saw a man who does not wait for outside help, but tries to find a way out of any situation, based solely on what he himself can do for it.
5. Protection functions.

Gestalt therapy techniques

Techniques in Gestalt therapy are based on the principles and games:

1. Principles:

• "Here and now". Awareness of your experiences, which are present in the present time, and not in the past.
• "I, you". Awareness of oneself separately from other people in order to be able to contact them.
• Subjectivization of statements. Transformation of subjective judgments into objective ones.
• Continuum of consciousness. Elimination of control for the purpose of simply observing one’s own experiences and thoughts that are happening at the moment, without subjecting them to interpretation and evaluation.

1. Games.

Why is Gestalt therapy needed in the end?

People resort to Gestalt therapy when they want to get rid of the influence of past problems and possible future events, due to which various emotions and thoughts arise that interfere with a full present life. Gestalt therapy brings a person back to the present moment so that he finally realizes that the past and future do not affect him in any way now, so he can remain calm and direct his strength to satisfy his needs and desires.

In the process of Gestalt therapy, experiments (games) become important, during which a person reproduces situations that excite him in various ways, tracking his own emotions and thoughts in order to then understand how they influence his further behavior and building the future. Only with understanding can something be changed in a direction that is beneficial to the person himself.

Gestalt therapy also helps develop the ability to constantly maintain a state of “here and now”, so as not to immerse yourself in memories that frighten you, or not to fantasize about a future that may not happen, but to live and look for resources in the present moment.