Gestalt Therapy

[BSWdavid]

Curious if anyone practices Gestalt Therapy or has any experience/opinions on the modality. I find Gestalt pscyh. to fit well within my personal belief system and wonder if it wouldn't be a great may to augment my MSW education. What's more, we have a Gestalt training center in town.

How is Gestalt therapy viewed in the professional world?

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[Cosmo75]

I'd say the closest I come to using Gestalt therapy is teaching clients to use mindfulness, and practicing that in session. I'm primarily CBT oriented, but incorporate humanistic theory as well. Considering the rising popularity of ACT, I'd guess Gestalt therapy has a decent reputation in the psych community. I've never heard anyone speak positively or negatively of it. I've also not really come across anyone who considers themselves a Gestalt therapist, but may use some of its components.

 

[hereandnow]

Gestalt is great. It is often used in addition to other modalities, although there are some purists. It is typically easier to use with higher functioning clients. Additionally, there is a process of "patient/client" education in gestalt -- and some people simply are not as adept or able to process in a gestalt manner. [For a client to do gestalt work requires a certain level of emotional / psychological sophistication.]

In terms of how gestalt is viewed in the professional world... the truth is, as a psychotherapeutic "brand" [or style of therapy], it is neither widely hailed or criticized, I believe. However, frankly, so many people, whether they call themselves gestaltists or not, utilize techniques and concepts from gestalt.

 

[cara susanna]

Wait, isn't mindfulness more associated with CBT than with Gestalt therapy?

 

[hereandnow]

Wait, isn't mindfulness more associated with CBT than with Gestalt therapy?

No. At least not in my experience.

Foundational to gestalt is the practice of "continuum of awareness" -- which is basically vipassana mindfulness meditation practice. Most people, however, do not fully understand or utilize this aspect of gestalt, as it is one of the most subtle pieces of the work.

While there is a specific kind of cognitive behavioral therapy which integrates mindfulness directly -- called mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy -- by and large typical implementations of cognitive behavioral therapy do not make strong reference to the practices typically implemented in "mindfulness" work. At least this is my experience.

 

[cara susanna]

Odd, because all of the therapies I know that incorporate mindfulness (DBT, ACT, MBSR, etc) are viewed as being under the CBT umbrella.

 

[Cosmo75]

Odd, because all of the therapies I know that incorporate mindfulness (DBT, ACT, MBSR, etc) are viewed as being under the CBT umbrella.

I think Gestalt has fallen in the shadow of the CBT therapies because those are gaining much more attention now and Gestalt had its heyday a few decades ago. Mindfulness has been around a lot longer than any of these psychological therapies, so if anything the Gestalt folks figured out its usefulness before the CBT world 😀

 

[cara susanna]

Wow, I didn't know that Gestalt did it first, even though I do research in mindfulness. 😀 Thanks for enlightening me. The only Gestalt therapy I've seen was in those Gloria videos.