Chapter 8: Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt approach focuses on the following:

• The here and now

• The what and how of experiencing

• The authenticity of the therapist

• Active dialogic inquiry and exploration

• The I/Thou of relating

Initial goal of Gestalt therapy

For clients to expand their awareness of what they are experiencing in the present moment.

• Increased awareness is curative.

• Through becoming aware of one’s denied parts and working toward owning their experience, clients can become integrated, or whole.

  • Awareness includes knowing the environment, knowing oneself, accepting oneself, and being able to make contact

Some Principles of Gestalt Therapy Theory

• Holism

The whole of all parts

• The full range of human functioning includes thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body, memories, and dreams.

Some Principles of Gestalt Therapy Theory

• Field Theory

What is very salient in the session

• Client is a participant in a constantly changing field.

  Emphasis may be on a figure and on the ground (most salient aspects of client’s experience) (unaware)

Some Principles of Gestalt Therapy Theory

• Figure Formation Process

How an individual organizes experiences from moment to moment

• Foreground: figure

• Background: ground

Some Principles of Gestalt Therapy Theory

• Organismic Self-Regulation

Emergence of a need, a sensation, or an interest disturb an individual’s equilibrium

Contact

Interacting with nature and with other people without losing one’s individuality (through the senses by seeing, hearing, touching, and moving)

• Moving away from people in the elevator, we create the distance even when we cannot, by avoiding contact

• Looking at our cellphone to assume no one is around us

• Sometimes we can lie but our nonverbal cues tell the truth

Boundary disturbances/resistance to contact

• The defenses we develop to prevent us from experiencing the present fully

• Behaviors that keep us from exploring personal conflicts or painful feelings

Ex: (what will you do to avoid contact with yourself?) disassociate, distract yourself aka workaholic, listening to music, people not looking at themselves in the mirror

Ex: (losing contact with others): withdrawing from them or pushing people away

Five different kinds of contact boundary disturbances

1. Introjection

2. Projection

3. Retroflection

4. Deflection

5. Confluency

Boundary disturbance

• Introjection

tendency to uncritically accept others’ beliefs and standards without assimilating them to make them congruent with who we are.

the tendency to uncritically accept others’ beliefs and standards without assimilating them to make them congruent with who we are.

• We passively incorporate what the environment provides rather than clearly identifying what we want or need.

• If we remain in this stage, our energy is bound up in taking things as we find them and believing that authorities know what is best for us rather than working for things ourselves.

boundary disturbance

• Projection

the reverse of introjection. In projection we disown certain aspects of ourselves by assigning them to the environment. (both good or bad elements of you)

• Those attributes of our personality that are inconsistent with our self-image are disowned and put onto, assigned to, and seen in other people; thus, blaming others for lots of our problems.

• By seeing in others the very qualities that we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves, we avoid taking responsibility for our own feelings and the person who we are, and this keeps us powerless to initiate change.

• People who use projection as a pattern tend to feel that they are victims of circumstances, and they believe that people have hidden meanings behind what they say.

boundary disturbance

• Retroflection

turning back onto ourselves what we would like to do to someone else or doing to ourselves what we would like someone else to do to or for us. (

People who self-mutilate or who injure themselves, for example, are often directing aggression inward out of fear of directing it toward others.)

• Ex., I throw birthday parties for others, I want them to do it for me, but they don’t so I do it for them

• Ex., In marriage, some partners devote everything for the others

  • we are not honest in telling people

Consists of turning back onto ourselves what we would like to do to someone else or doing to ourselves what we would like someone else to do to or for us.

• This process is principally an interruption of the action phase in the cycle of experience and typically involves a fair amount of anxiety.

• People who rely on retroflection tend to inhibit themselves from taking action out of fear of embarrassment, guilt, and resentment.

• People who self-mutilate or who injure themselves, for example, are often directing aggression inward out of fear of directing it toward others.

• Depression and psychosomatic complaints are often created by retroflecting.

• Typically, these maladaptive styles of functioning are adopted outside of our awareness; part of the process of Gestalt therapy is to help us discover a self-regulatory system so that we can deal realistically with the world.

boundary disturbance

• Deflection

diffuse/defuse contact via overuse of humor, abstract generalizations, and questions rather than statements. The process of distraction or veering off, so that it is difficult to maintain a sustained sense of contact.

Ex., dadada oh I am just kidding

Ex., Joke about something when you really mean it

• use jokes to cover it up

The process of distraction or veering off, so that it is difficult to maintain a sustained sense of contact.

• We attempt to diffuse or defuse contact through the overuse of humor, abstract generalizations, and questions rather than statements.

• When we deflect, we speak through and for others, beating around the bush rather than being direct and engaging the environment in an inconsistent and inconsequential basis, which results in emotional depletion.

boundary disturbance

• Confluency

Blurring the differentiation between the self and the environment. As we strive to blend in and get along with everyone, there is no clear demarcation between internal experience and outer reality. Confluence in relationships involves the absence of conflicts, slowness to anger, and a belief that all parties experience the same feelings and thoughts we do.

• You blame the environment for what is actually your factor, or sometimes you blame yourself when it was the environment’s fault

Involves blurring the differentiation between the self and the environment.

• As we strive to blend in and get along with everyone, there is no clear demarcation between internal experience and outer reality.

• Confluence in relationships involves the absence of conflicts, slowness to anger, and a belief that all parties experience the same feelings and thoughts we do.

• This style of contact is characteristic of clients who have a high need to be accepted and liked, thus finding enmeshment comfortable. T

• his condition makes genuine contact extremely difficult.

• A therapist might assist clients who use this channel of resistance by asking questions such as these: “What are you doing now?” “What are you experiencing at this moment?” “What do you want right now?”

The Now

Our “power is in the present.”

• Nothing exists except the “now.”

• The past is gone and the future has not yet arrived.

• Phenomenological inquiry involves paying attention to what is happening now.

For many people, the power of the present is lost.

• They may focus on their past mistakes or engage in endless resolutions and plans for the future.

Unfinished Business

Refers to unresolved emotions or experiences from the past that continue to affect a person in the present. These are feelings — like anger, guilt, sadness, or resentment — that were never fully expressed or processed, so they linger in the background of awareness.

• These feelings are associated with distinct memories and fantasies.

• Feelings are not fully experienced, so they linger in the background and interfere with effective contact

Result of Unfinished Business

When incomplete directions get powerful to seek completion, individual is beset with reoccupation, compulsive behavior, wariness, oppressive energy, and self-defeating behavior.

When external support is not available, the Impasse (feeling stuck)

• Often show up in some blockage within the body,

Impasse

feeling stuck

A point where clients feel stuck — when their usual coping strategies don’t work, and they lack external support.

• Occurs when external support is not available or the customary way of being does not work.

Energy and Block to Energy

• Gestalt therapists focus on where energy is located, how it is used, and how it can be blocked.

  • Cab be psychosomatic, ulcers, back pain → that’s why being able to talk and release it is important

• Blocked energy is a form of defensive behavior that may result in unfinished business and emotional stagnation.

• Clients are encouraged to recognize how their resistance is being expressed in their body and transform their blocked energy into more adaptive behaviors.

  • Blocked energy shows up in the body through signs like muscle tension, shallow breathing, closed posture, a restricted voice, or avoiding eye contact. These are forms of defensive behavior that protect people from uncomfortable emotions or situations. For instance, someone might tighten their jaw or clench their fists to avoid expressing anger or sadness.

    • Instead of trying to suppress or eliminate these sensations, clients are encouraged to lean into them — to notice, exaggerate, or explore them.

Theraputic Goals

• Clients move toward increased awareness of themselves.

• Assume ownership of their experience.

• Develop skills and acquire values.

• Become more aware of all their senses.

• Learn to accept responsibility for what they do.

• Be able to ask for and get help from others and be able to give to others

Therapist’s Function and Goals

• Invite clients into an active partnership.

• Increase clients’ awareness, freedom, and self-reflection.

• Pay attention to clients’ body language.

• Emphasis on the relationship between language patterns and personality.

• Clients express their feelings, thoughts, and attitudes.

• “It” talk

• “You” talk

• Questions

• Language that denies power

• Listening to clients’ metaphors

• Listening for language that uncovers a story

“It” talk

• “It makes you feel bad.”

  • “I feel bad.”

• “It’s hard to talk about feelings.”

  • “I find it hard to talk about my feelings.”

• “It just happens.”

  • “I let it happen.”

Saying “It’s hard to make friends” distances the speaker. The therapist invites the client to say, “I have trouble making friends,” fostering ownership.

From You Statement to I statement

• “You make me so angry.”

  • “I am angry.”

• “You don’t listen to me.”

  • “I don’t feel listened to.”

• “You always judge me.”

  • “I feel judged.”

  • “I feel discarded.”

  • “I feel dismissed.”

Questions to Statements

• “Why do I always mess things up?”

  • I feel like I always mess things up, and by me asking why, I want to understand why

• “What should I do now?”

  • I feel confused because I don’t know what to do (ownership)

• “Why doesn’t anyone like me?”

  • I feel like people don’t like me, and I feel…sad, unincluded, isolated

    • Get in touch with your feelings

Listening to Client’s Metaphor

• “I feel like I have been through a meat grinder”

  • Any internal dialogue of an unfinished business being suppressed

  • Any reactions to what is happening to the client?

  • How to turn the metaphor into exploring the client’s deeper and more concrete experience?

    • “Tell me, what does the meat grinder feel like.”

Gestalt Therapy Interventions

• The Internal Dialogue Exercise

• The Empty-Chair Technique

• Making the Rounds

• The Reversal Exercise

• The Rehearsal Exercise

• The Exaggeration Exercise

• Staying With the Feeling

• The Gestalt Approach to Dream Work

• Future Projection Technique

The Internal Dialogue Exercise

(Top Dog vs. Underdog)

pay close attention to splits in personality

• Focuses on splits within the self — especially the ongoing “inner war” between:

  • Top Dog: The demanding, judgmental, bossy, “should” voice (like a strict parent).

  • Underdog: The passive, helpless, excuse-making side (like a rebellious child).

• This internal battle causes procrastination, guilt, and frustration.

• Through awareness and dialogue, clients learn to integrate both parts instead of letting one dominate.

  • Root cause: Introjection — taking in others’ rules and values (often from parents) without questioning them.

  • Goal: Identify and release toxic introjects to restore self-acceptance and balance.

The Empty-Chair Technique

a role reversal technique to bring into consciousness the fantasies of what the “other” might be thinking or feeling.

• Originated from psychodrama (Jacob Moreno) and adapted by Fritz Perls.

• A role-playing dialogue between different parts of the self or between the client and another person.

• The client sits in one chair as themselves and in another as the other person (or the other side of their personality).

  • Goal: Bring hidden or conflicting emotions to awareness, experience them directly, and integrate both sides.

• Clients realize that each feeling—positive or negative—is a real and valid part of themselves.

Making the Rounds

it involves asking a person in a group to go up to others in the group and either speak to or do something with each person

• Used in group therapy.

• A client goes around the group interacting with each person—saying or doing something specific (e.g., “I don’t trust you because…”).

  • Goal: Encourage risk-taking, honesty, and connection; break through social fears or feelings of unworthiness.

• Helps clients experiment with new behaviors in a supportive setting.

The Rehearsal Exercise

oftentimes we get stuck rehearsing silently to ourselves so that we will gain acceptance, therefore acting these inner rehearsals out loud to attain acceptance is the goal.

• Focuses on inner rehearsals people do to prepare for approval or social acceptance.

• Clients say their rehearsals out loud to see how much energy goes into self-editing and meeting others’ expectations.

  • Goal: Increase awareness of people-pleasing patterns and develop spontaneity and authenticity.

The Exaggeration Exercise

becoming more aware of the subtle signals and cues that are sent through body language

• Clients amplify a movement or gesture (like tapping, shaking, or slouching) repeatedly.

• The increased intensity often reveals the emotion or message behind the body language.

  • Goal: Help clients connect body sensations with feelings, making unconscious emotions more conscious.

Staying With the Feeling

urging clients to stay with fearful or unpleasant feeling to encourage a deeper feeling or behavior they wish to avoid.

• When clients want to avoid or escape unpleasant emotions, the therapist encourages them to stay with the feeling.

• Helps clients face fear, sadness, or anger rather than repress it.

  • Goal: Promote emotional courage and growth.

    • Staying with discomfort helps unblock emotions and make space for healing.

The Gestalt Approach to Dream Work

intent is to bring back dreams back to life and relive them as though they were happening now.

• Unlike Freud’s dream interpretation, Gestalt therapists don’t analyze or interpret dreams.

• Clients act out their dreams in the present tense, becoming each object or person in the dream.

• Every element of the dream is viewed as a projection of the dreamer’s own personality.

• Example: A client dreams of monkeys in cages → acts out being the monkeys, the cage, and even the mother in the dream.

  • Through this, she realizes it reflects her struggle with family responsibilities and her need for balance and communication.

• Goal: Bring unconscious conflicts into awareness and integrate opposing parts of the self.

  • Dreams are seen not as “the royal road to the unconscious” (Freud), but as “the royal road to integration” (Perls).

Future Projection Technique

an anticipated event is brought into the present moment and acted out.

• The client acts out an anticipated future event in the present moment.

  • Can involve fears, hopes, or important goals.

• Helps clients see their expectations more clearly and decide what changes are needed to achieve their desired outcome.

  • Goal: Gain perspective and make practical steps toward self-directed change.

The Reversal Exercise

as certain symptoms and behaviors often represent reversals of underlying or latent impulse a therapist could ask the client to role play

• Clients are asked to act out the opposite of how they usually behave.

  • Example: a shy client acts confident and expressive; a “sweet” person acts angry.

    • Goal: Reveal hidden or denied emotions and increase acceptance of all parts of the self.

• Facing the feared or opposite behavior often brings greater self-awareness and balance.

Exercises

• Preplanned or structured activities (e.g., ready-made techniques).

• Used to make something happen or to achieve a goal

• Can sometimes feel artificial if not adapted to the client.

Example: A therapist routinely uses the “empty chair” technique in every session.

Experiments

• Spontaneous, co-created in the session between therapist and client.

• Arise naturally from the client’s present experience or theme in therapy.

• Unique, tailored, and relevant to the moment.

Example: A client expresses guilt about a parent, and the therapist invites them to dialogue with an imagined version of that parent in the empty chair.

Application to Group Counseling

• Gestalt therapy encourages direct experience and action.

• Here-and-now focus allows members to bring unfinished business to the present.

• Experiments need to be tailored to each group member

• Leaders can use linking to include members in the exploration of a particular individual’s problem.

• Leaders actively design experiments for the group while focusing on awareness and contact.

• Group leaders actively engage with the members to form a sense of mutuality in the group.

Strengths From a Diversity Perspective

• Gestalt experiments can be tailored to fit the unique ways in which clients perceive and interpret their culture.

• Gestalt therapy helps people integrate the polarities within themselves, which can assist bicultural clients in reconciling diverse aspects of their cultures.

• Creative experiments can emphasize nonverbal behaviors.

Shortcomings From a Diversity Perspective

• Clients who are culturally conditioned to be emotionally reserved may find the emphasis on feelings to be off putting.

• Those who use Gestalt techniques in a mechanical way to elicit certain effects (e.g., intense emotions) may lead clients to terminate from therapy prematurely.

Contributions of Gestalt Therapy

• It is a creative and lively approach that uses experiments to move clients from talk to action and experience.

• Clients are provided with a wide range of tools for discovering new facets of themselves and changing their lives.

• The Gestalt approach to working with dreams is a unique pathway for people to increase their awareness of key themes in their lives.

• It is a holistic approach that values each aspect of the individual’s experience equally.

• The therapist’s role is assisting the client to increase awareness that will allow reidentification with parts of the self.

• A key strength of Gestalt therapy is the attempt to integrate theory, practice, and research.

Limitations and Criticisms of Gestalt Therapy

• Fritz Perls style placed more attention on using techniques to confront clients and getting them to experience their feelings.

• The approach has the potential for the therapist to abuse power by using powerful techniques without proper training.

• This approach may not be useful for clients who have difficulty abstracting and imagining.

• The emphasis on therapist authenticity and self-disclosure may be overpowering for some clients.

Stages of Miriam Polster’s integration sequence

• Discovery

1

Stages of Miriam Polster’s integration sequence

• Accommodation

2

Stages of Miriam Polster’s integration sequence

• Assimilation

3

Stages of Miriam Polster’s integration sequence

• Discovery

• Clients gain new insights about themselves—sometimes unexpectedly.

• They might suddenly realize something about a relationship, a behavior pattern, or how they’ve been avoiding responsibility.

• This stage often feels like a moment of awakening or self-recognition.

Clients are likely to reach a new realization about themselves or to acquire a novel view of an old situation, or they may take a new look at some significant person in their life. Such discoveries often come as a surprise to them.

Stages of Miriam Polster’s integration sequence

• Accommodation

• Clients start to experiment with new behaviors and recognize that they have choices.

• They might try acting or responding differently—first in the safe space of therapy, then in real life.

• It may feel awkward or uncertain at first, but with the therapist’s support, clients begin to expand their comfort zones.

Involves clients’ recognizing that they have a choice. Clients begin by trying out new behaviors in the supportive environment of the therapy office, and then they expand their awareness of the world. Making new choices is often done awkwardly, but with therapeutic support, clients can gain skill in coping with difficult situations. Clients are likely to participate in out-of-office experiments, which can be discussed in the next therapy session.

Stages of Miriam Polster’s integration sequence

• Assimilation

• Clients now apply and integrate what they’ve learned into everyday life.

• They become more capable of influencing their environment rather than passively reacting to it.

• This stage shows confidence and self-efficacy—clients feel empowered to make meaningful choices and take stands on important issues.

• The therapist acknowledges their growth and progress, reinforcing their new sense of agency.

Involves clients’ learning how to influence their environment. Clients feel capable of dealing with the surprises they encounter in everyday living. They are now beginning to do more than passively accept the environment. Behavior at this stage may include taking a stand on a critical issue. Eventually, clients develop confidence in their ability to improve and improvise.

• Improvisation: the confidence that comes from knowledge and skills. Clients are able to make choices that will result in getting what they want. The therapist points out that something has been accomplished and acknowledges the changes that have taken place within the client. At this phase clients have learned what they can do to maximize their chances of getting what is needed from their environment.

Improvisation

The confidence that comes from knowledge and skills. Clients are able to make choices that will result in getting what they want. The therapist points out that something has been accomplished and acknowledges the changes that have taken place within the client. At this phase clients have learned what they can do to maximize their chances of getting what is needed from their environment.

Erving Polster

• A major Gestalt therapist, born in 1922, who is still active in the field.

• He discovered Gestalt therapy in 1953 through a workshop with Frederick Perls, one of the founders of the approach.

Miriam Polster

• A Gestalt therapist and former classical musician and opera singer (1924–2001).

• Her approach: Integrated her artistic background, often using music to help clients explore emotions.

  • Emphasized the relational and compassionate side of Gestalt therapy, countering its reputation for being harsh or confrontational.

  • Her therapy style valued mutual connection, presence, and optimism over force or manipulation.

Gestalt therapy is

an existential, phenomenological, and process-based form of psychotherapy.

Existential

It focuses on personal growth, choice, and responsibility — seeing people as constantly changing and capable of shaping their own lives.

Phenomenological

It emphasizes how each person perceives and experiences reality, rather than labeling or interpreting their behavior.

Process-based

It centers on what’s happening in the moment — the “here and now.”

The main idea of Gestalt therapy

The main idea is that awareness brings change. When people become more aware of what they feel, think, and do in the present moment, they naturally begin to grow and make healthier choices.

Fritz Perls

• The main founder of Gestalt therapy, was originally trained in psychoanalysis but disagreed with Freud’s focus on the unconscious mind and past experiences.

  • Freud viewed human behavior as determined by early childhood and internal conflicts.

  • Perls, however, believed in a holistic approach — understanding the whole person in their current environment.

• Perls focused on process (what’s happening right now) rather than content (the story or explanation of why it’s happening).

• Therapists fully engage with clients in the present moment rather than analyzing or interpreting.

• They design experiments (interactive activities or roleplays) that help clients notice how they think, feel, or act as it happens.

• The goal is awareness — being conscious of your ongoing experience and choices.

In Gestalt therapy, clients are encouraged to:

• Take responsibility for their own choices.

• Become aware of their environment and their place within it.

• Experience their feelings directly rather than just talking about them.

• Clients are not expected to rely on the therapist for insight; instead, they learn through self-discovery and direct experience.

Perls’s style of doing therapy involved two personal agendas:

1. Moving the client from environmental support to self-support and

2. Reintegrating the disowned parts of one’s personality.

paradoxical theory of change

• Developed by Arnie Beisser

  • Fritz’s good friend and psychiatrist colleague Arnie Beisser

    • Suggested that authentic change occurs more from being who we are than from trying to be who we are not.

    • We are constantly moving between who we “should be” and who we “are.”

Holism

• The term Gestalt is a German word meaning whole or complete.

  • This reflects the idea that a person cannot be understood by breaking them into separate parts — their thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and physical sensations all work together to form a unified whole.

  • Pay attention to everything from body language and emotions to memories and dreams.

    • No single part of a person is considered more important than another.

    • Explore how different aspects of a person’s experience connect and influence each other.

Field Theory

Emphasizes that people can only be truly understood within the context of their environment — they are always part of a larger, constantly changing field of relationships and experiences.

• Gestalt practitioners focus on what happens at the boundary between the individual and their environment — where contact and interaction occur.

• At any moment, certain experiences stand out as the figure (what captures awareness), while other experiences remain in the background or ground (less noticeable but still present).

  • Therapists “attend to the obvious” by observing cues like gestures, tone, and posture to understand how clients make contact with their surroundings and themselves. This helps uncover hidden patterns of awareness or avoidance.

The Figure-Formation Process

• This concept describes how people focus their attention and give meaning to what they experience in each moment. It comes from studies of visual perception — for example, when you first see a shape or person from far away, and as you move closer, the details become clearer.

• What becomes “figure” at any moment often reflects the client’s current needs or concerns.

Organismic Self-Regulation

This principle explains how people naturally strive for balance and growth.

• When something disturbs equilibrium — such as an unmet need, feeling, or tension — the individual becomes aware of it and seeks to restore balance.

  • For example, feeling lonely may motivate someone to seek connection; feeling stressed may lead to rest or change.

    • This process supports natural self-regulation, awareness, and healing.

Contact and Resistances to Contact

Contact is made by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and moving. Effective contact means interacting with nature and with other people without losing one’s sense of individuality. Prerequisites for good contact are clear awareness, full energy, and the ability to express oneself.

• “creative resistance,” which implies that resistive behavior can be a desirable characteristic.

  • Because resistances are developed as a means of coping with life situations, they possess positive qualities as well as problematic ones, and many contemporary Gestalt therapists refer to them as “contact boundary disturbances”

Integration and Wholeness

Through awareness, clients begin to accept and integrate the denied or disowned parts of themselves, becoming more whole and authentic

Gestalt therapy encourages clients to:

• Move toward increased awareness of themselves

• Gradually assume ownership of their experience (as opposed to making others responsible for what they are thinking, feeling, and doing)

• Develop skills and acquire values that will enable them to satisfy their needs without violating the rights of others

• Become more aware of all of their senses

• Learn to accept responsibility for what they do, including accepting the consequences of their actions

• Be able to ask for and get help from others and be able to give to others

experiments

activities or experiences that promote awareness

nonverbal communication

gestures, posture, tone, and facial expressions

• these often reveal unspoken emotions or conflicts.

Language that denies power

• Words like “maybe,” “I guess,” or “I can’t” weaken agency. Therapists may encourage clients to say “I won’t” instead of “I can’t” to acknowledge choice and responsibility.

  • The therapist’s goal is not to overcorrect clients’ speech but to help them become aware of what their words reveal or conceal.

“You” talk

Overusing “you” generalizes experience. Clients are asked to say “I” to stay personal.

Questions

Turning questions into statements helps clients stop hiding behind uncertainty and instead own their thoughts (“I wonder if…” → “I think…”).

Listening to Client’s Metaphors

Erv Polster (1995) emphasized that clients’ metaphors often reveal deep emotional truths.

• For example, a client who says, “I feel like I’ve been put through a meat grinder,” may be expressing exhaustion or emotional pain. The therapist might ask, “Who is doing the grinding?” or “What does being ground up feel like?”

Listening for language that uncovers a story

• Polster also discussed “fleshing out a flash”—noticing small, vivid phrases or moments that hint at deeper stories. The therapist helps clients expand these into fuller narratives, encouraging self-expression and liveliness.

• Polster believed storytelling isn’t always avoidance; it’s often central to healing. Therapy helps people retell and reshape their life stories—not to escape their past, but to discover new meaning and vitality in it.

dialogue-based

Meaning that therapy is a genuine conversation and interaction between two people—the client and the therapist.

• dialogue, an engagement between people who each bring their unique experiences to that meeting

Language patterns

• “It” talk

• “You” talk

• Questions

• Language that denies power

• Listening to Client’s Metaphors

• Listening for language that uncovers a story

Miriam Polster’s (1987) Three-Stage Integration Sequence

• that characterizes client growth in therapy

1. Discovery

2. Accommodation

3. Assimilation

Resistance

Gestalt therapists welcome this

• Reveals valuable information about a client’s personality and how they relate to the world.

  • The term resistance doesn’t fit Gestalt theory — it wrongly implies clients are “not doing what the therapist wants.”

    • It’s “the energy,” not “the enemy.”

The Role of Confrontation

• In modern Gestalt practice, confrontation is not aggressive or attacking—it is an invitation to self-awareness.

• Therapists use it gently and purposefully to help clients notice inconsistencies in their experience.

• Examples include:

• Pointing out gaps between what clients say and how they act (verbal vs. nonverbal behavior).

• Encouraging clients to see how they might be blocking their own strengths, not just their weaknesses.

• Helping clients explore unconscious patterns or avoidance behaviors in a respectful way.

  • Goal: To awaken awareness, not to criticize.

In essence, confrontation means: “I care enough to invite you to see yourself more clearly.”

Linking

Group leaders may use this →  inviting other members to connect if they share similar feelings or experiences.

• Example: If one member expresses guilt about asserting themselves, others might be invited to share when they’ve felt the same way.

Gestalt therapy emphasizes the integration of content and process.

• What is content?

What the client talks about (past experiences, causes, explanations).

Gestalt therapy emphasizes the integration of content and process.

• What is process?

How the client talks — their body language, tone, eye contact, and emotions in the present moment.

bracketing

Therapists need to be aware of their own biases, assumptions, and cultural values, and try to set them aside

polarities

conflicting parts of clients’ self