Gestalt is a German word which roughly translates as shape or pattern. It is also, as a type of therapy, a relational approach, that is, working with how people relate to others, their environment and themselves.

Gestalt therapy upholds that the individual is always in relationship with their environment, whether that is physical place or other people. How a person makes 'contact' with their environment is a key part of what is explored in gestalt therapy. Is the person able to make good or full contact, or do they block contact through various 'modifications' like desensitisation (e.g. numbing their emotions) or projection (e.g. only seeing certain qualities in others and denying them in themselves)?

Gestalt therapy attempts to integrate the client’s feelings with their actions and perceptions, with the hope that a greater level of self-awareness can help keep the client in the present moment and give them a greater sense of personal responsibility and agency.

Personal responses and explorations of events and feelings are encouraged as a means of finding your own authentic voice and understanding yourself.

The founders of gestalt therapy believed that only by living in the here and now is the client capable of taking responsibility for his/her actions. How the client represents themself and whether they resist being in the present is something the therapist draws upon, to make the client conscious of not only what is happening and what is being said, but also of body language and repressed feelings. Gestalt therapy may includes acting out scenes and recalling dreams.

Therapist Tanis Taylor explains how she works with gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy can be creative and experimental. Some techniques include:

• Empty chair

In this experiment, someone, something or some part of the client will be put in the empty chair. For example, the client may imagine their boss or their child in the empty chair. Or it may be a thing or experience, like their chronic pain. Or it could be a part of themselves, for example the part that is terrified of public speaking.

In an empty chair experiment, the client will be encouraged to dialogue with the occupant of the empty chair, in the hope of raising awareness and broadening their experience of/relationship with that part or person.

The client may be directed to move between the two chairs to embody the different roles.

• Visualisation, imagery or other creative methods

Some clients benefit from using visualisation and metaphor to describe their experiences and feelings. The therapist may initially suggest the exercise based on something the client has said, but otherwise is likely to follow and gently guide the client into a deeper exploration of whatever theme has been raised.

Some gestalt therapists may also work with drawing, writing, making sculptures, using objects etc.

• Exaggerating or leaning into an experience or way of being

Gestalt therapists are as interested in the 'how' as the 'what' and the 'why'. For example, the tone, volume or speed of your speech is considered equally as informative as the content of what you are saying.

You may, therefore, be encouraged to experiment with either leaning into whatever you are naturally doing, or trying out the opposite. For example, if you are speaking very quickly – what is it like to go as fast as you can, or to slow it right down? How different does it feel? Do you get any emotional responses?

Or, perhaps you unconsciously tap your foot every time you mention a particular person in your life – what would it be like to bring attention to this? What's it like to properly kick your leg? What is that foot trying to communicate?

• Working with the body

Gestalt therapy is an embodied approach where you will be supported in raising your awareness of your body sensations and posture.

A trauma-informed gestalt approach will also emphasise the need to be grounded and regulated in session, and some therapists may include exercises like breathwork or body scanning.