Let's go deeper into Gestalt...
Gestalt was created in the 40's by Fritz and Laura Pearls, neuropsychiatrists and psychoanalysts.
Claudio Naranjo, Chilean psychiatrist and writer, brought Gestalt to Spain in the 70's. Claudio emphasizes the importance of values such as love and affection in therapy.
Gestalt helps to unlearn ideas and introjects transmitted from generation to generation by parents, teachers, society and/or culture.
The goal is to help the person to accept and integrate all the characteristics that are his or her own. Gestalt has a restorative function and favors the resolution of problems and/or conflicts in the present. It is also a growth tool that allows you to develop healthy habits.
It focuses on the present experience rather than on past events. It emphasizes awareness of what is happening in the here and now, mentally, emotionally and physically. It considers that unresolved issues from the past and conflicting aspects of the personality manifest in the present, tending to emerge and complement each other.
The therapeutic work focuses on living in the present, realizing and taking responsibility for "taking the helm of your life", becoming aware and taking charge of what you say and how you say it, what you do and how you do it, what you think and your attitude towards yourself and in your relationship with others.
Gestalt tools
In Gestalt Therapy we work with the patient's demand, avoiding judgments and interpretations and dispensing with labels.
The techniques I use the most are:
Suppressive: These are exercises to prevent or suppress attempts to avoid the here and now, and the experience it entails.
Expressive: Through exercises the person externalizes his or her internal experience and becomes aware of it. It can be through the use of a visualization, the technique of the empty or hot chair and others.
Integrative: These are experiential exercises for the subject to incorporate into his personality those parts that are alienated, that he projects onto others, that he does not assume and/or that he finds difficult to see.
"Healing the child to heal the adult"
