"So, what are you feeling right now?"

My client Sarah paused mid-sentence. She'd been telling me an elabourate story about an argument with her sister last week, complete with backstory going back to childhood.

"Right now?" she asked, confused.

"Yes—this moment. What's happening in your body? What are you aware of?"

She sat with it. "My jaw is really tight. And... I think I'm angry."

"At your sister?"

"No," she said slowly. "At myself. For not saying what I actually wanted to say."

This is Gestalt therapy in action—shifting from narrating your life to experiencing it.

TL;DR: Key Takeaways

Gestalt therapy emphasises present-moment awareness rather than analyzing the past
The "here and now" focus helps you experience what you're avoiding or suppressing
Key techniques include empty chair work, experiments, and heightening awareness
"Contact" means being fully present to yourself, others, and your experience
Unfinished business gets completed by bringing past experiences into present awareness

What Is Gestalt Therapy?

Developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls, and Paul Goodman in the 1940s-50s, Gestalt therapy is a humanistic, experiential approach that focuses on personal responsibility and present experience.

The word "Gestalt" is German for "whole" or "form." In psychology, it refers to the idea that we naturally organise our perceptions into meaningful wholes—but sometimes those patterns don't serve us.

Core Principles

1. Here and Now Focus Rather than spending sessions analyzing childhood or planning the future, Gestalt therapy asks: What's happening right now?

2. Personal Responsibility You're not a passive recipient of circumstances. Gestalt explores how you actively create (or avoid) your experience.

3. Experiential Learning Instead of talking about feelings, you experience them. Instead of analyzing problems, you experiment with solutions.

[EXPERT QUOTE]

"Lose your mind and come to your senses." — Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt therapy

This famous quote encapsulates the Gestalt philosophy: stop overthinking and start experiencing.

The Five Key Concepts of Gestalt Therapy

1. Figure and Ground

Imagine looking at a room. Your attention focuses on certain objects (figure) while others fade into the background (ground). This natural process of organizing perception happens constantly.

In Gestalt therapy, we explore:

What's emerging as important for you right now (figure)?
What's being pushed into the background (ground)?

Example: You might come to therapy talking about work stress (figure), but as we explore, it emerges that relationship anxiety is actually driving the stress (new figure).

2. Contact and Contact Boundaries

"Contact" means meeting your experience fully—being present to yourself, others, and your environment.

Healthy contact involves:

Awareness of what you need
Expression of those needs
Engagement with others
Withdrawal to integrate experience

Contact boundary disturbances are ways we interrupt healthy contact:

Disturbance	What It Looks Like	Example
Introjection	Swallowing others' beliefs without questioning	"My dad always said emotions are weakness" (accepting without examining)
Projection	Attributing your own feelings to others	"They probably think I'm incompetent" (assuming without evidence)
Retroflection	Doing to yourself what you'd like to do to others	Self-criticism instead of expressing anger externally
Deflection	Avoiding contact through distraction	Joking or changing the subject when emotions arise
Confluence	Blurring boundaries between self and others	"I feel exactly how you feel" (losing your own experience)

3. Awareness

Gestalt distinguishes three zones of awareness:

Inner Zone: Body sensations, emotions, thoughts "My chest feels tight. I notice irritation."

Outer Zone: What you perceive in your environment "You're leaning back in your chair. The room feels warm."

Middle Zone: Imagination, interpretation, beliefs "I'm worrying about what you think of me. I'm imagining you judging me."

Problems often arise when we live primarily in the middle zone—lost in stories rather than present to actual experience.

4. Unfinished Business

Unexpressed feelings or unresolved situations from the past create "unfinished business" that interferes with present functioning.

Signs of unfinished business:

Recurring relationship patterns
Persistent resentment or guilt
Difficulty moving on from past events
Unexplained emotional reactions in the present

Gestalt therapy completes this business by bringing it into present awareness—often through techniques like empty chair work.

5. The Paradoxical Theory of Change

Here's the beautiful paradox at the heart of Gestalt: Change happens when you become what you are, not when you try to become what you're not.

Fighting against yourself creates resistance. Accepting and fully experiencing where you are creates the conditions for organic change.

Gestalt Techniques in Practice

Empty Chair Work

This is probably the most famous Gestalt technique. You imagine someone (or a part of yourself) sitting in an empty chair and speak to them directly.

How it works:

Place an empty chair opposite you
Imagine a person (or part of yourself) sitting there
Speak directly to them
Switch chairs and respond as them
Continue the dialogue

Why it's powerful: It moves you from describing conflict to experiencing it. You're not talking about the conversation you wish you'd had—you're having it now.

Real example: James used empty chair to speak to his deceased father. In that conversation, he finally expressed the anger he'd suppressed for 30 years. "It sounds weird, but it felt like closure. My dad wasn't there, but somehow he was. And I could finally say what I needed to say."

Experiments

Gestalt therapists propose experiments—new behaviours to try in the safety of the therapy room.

Examples:

If you typically avoid eye contact, the experiment might be maintaining eye contact while speaking
If you minimise your needs, the experiment might be making an exaggerated demand
If you speak quietly, the experiment might be raising your volume

These aren't prescriptions for "better" behaviour—they're explorations of what happens when you try something different.

Heightening Awareness

The therapist might ask you to exaggerate a gesture, repeat a phrase, or stay with a feeling longer than is comfortable.

Example:

Client: [taps foot while speaking]
Therapist: "I notice your foot is tapping. Could you make that movement bigger?"
Client: [starts stamping foot]
Therapist: "What are you aware of now?"
Client: "I'm angry. I didn't realise how angry I was."

The "How" Question

Gestalt focuses on process ("how") rather than content ("why").

Instead of: "Why do you think you're anxious?" Ask: "How do you make yourself anxious? What happens in your body? What are you telling yourself?"

This shifts from analysis to experience.

What Happens in a Gestalt Therapy Session?

The Beginning: Check-In

Sessions typically start with: "What are you aware of right now?" or "What's present for you today?"

This immediately grounds you in the here-and-now rather than launching into story-telling.

The Middle: Exploration

The therapist tracks what's emerging—what you're focusing on, avoiding, or emphasizing. They might:

Point out discrepancies ("You're smiling while talking about something painful")
Invite experiments ("What would happen if you said that louder?")
Draw attention to process ("I notice you always qualify your statements—'kind of,' 'maybe,' 'I think'")

The End: Integration

Sessions close with space to integrate what emerged. The therapist might ask:

"What are you taking from this session?"
"What do you notice now compared to when we started?"

There's no homework in traditional Gestalt—the work happens in the room, in real time.

Gestalt vs. Other Therapeutic Approaches

Approach	Focus	Key Question
Psychodynamic	Past experiences and unconscious patterns	"Why?" (analyzing causes)
CBT	Thoughts and behaviours	"What can you do differently?"
Person-Centred	Self-acceptance and self-actualization	"What do you need?"
Gestalt	Present-moment awareness and experience	"How?" (process in the moment)

At Kicks Therapy, I use an integrative approach combining Gestalt with Person-Centred and Transactional Analysis methods. This means:

You're in control of what we explore (Person-Centred)
We might identify relationship patterns (Transactional Analysis)
We work experientially in the present moment (Gestalt)

Who Benefits from Gestalt Therapy?

Gestalt is particularly helpful if you:

Get stuck in rumination or overthinking
Have difficulty identifying feelings ("I don't know how I feel")
Struggle with authenticity or feel disconnected from yourself
Have unfinished business from past relationships
Want to move from insight to action ("I understand my patterns but can't change them")
Feel emotionally numb or disconnected
Avoid conflict and struggle with assertiveness

It's less suitable if you:

Prefer structured, directive therapy
Are in acute crisis (it's powerful but intense)
Want primarily practical problem-solving

Common Misconceptions

"Gestalt therapy ignores the past" Not quite. Gestalt brings the past into the present. Instead of analyzing childhood events, you might re-experience them through empty chair work or other techniques.

"It's all touchy-feely woo-woo" Actually, Gestalt is phenomenological—based on direct observation of experience rather than interpretation. It's grounded in what's actually happening, not theories about what might be happening.

"The therapist will make me do weird exercises" A good Gestalt therapist suggests experiments—they don't force them. You're always free to decline.

Gestalt in Everyday Life

You don't need to be in therapy to use Gestalt principles:

Practice Present-Moment Awareness Throughout your day, pause and ask: "What am I aware of right now?" Notice sensations, feelings, thoughts—without judgment.

Complete the Sentence "I Resent..." This Gestalt exercise helps identify unexpressed feelings. Write "I resent..." and complete it multiple times. You'll be surprised what emerges.

Take Responsibility for Your Language Replace "I can't" with "I won't" or "I choose not to." Replace "I have to" with "I choose to."

Notice how this shifts your experience of agency.

Experiment with Contact If you usually avoid conflict, experiment with expressing a small disagreement. If you usually overshare, experiment with keeping something to yourself. Notice what happens.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How is Gestalt therapy different from mindfulness? A: They share present-moment focus, but Gestalt actively works with what emerges in awareness through dialogue and experiments, whereas mindfulness typically involves non-judgmental observation.

Q: Is empty chair work as weird as it sounds? A: It can feel strange initially, but most clients find it surprisingly powerful. You're not roleplaying—you're giving voice to real parts of your experience.

Q: Can Gestalt therapy help with anxiety? A: Yes, particularly if your anxiety involves avoidance or disconnection from bodily experience. Gestalt helps you stay present with anxiety rather than fighting it, which often reduces its intensity.

Q: How long does Gestalt therapy take? A: It varies. Some people find short-term work (12-20 sessions) helpful for specific issues. Others engage in longer-term therapy for deeper personal growth.

The Power of Now

Fritz Perls wrote: "I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine."

This captures the Gestalt emphasis on authenticity, personal responsibility, and contact. You can't meet someone authentically if you're performing who you think you should be.

The invitation of Gestalt therapy is simple but profound: Show up. Be present. Experience fully. Take responsibility for how you create your life.

Not as an intellectual exercise, but as lived experience—right here, right now.

Experience Gestalt Therapy at Kicks Therapy

If you're curious about experiencing Gestalt therapy rather than just reading about it, I offer a free 15-minute consultation where we can discuss how this approach might work for you.

At Kicks Therapy, I integrate Gestalt with other humanistic approaches, creating a flexible, personalised therapy experience. Available:

In-person in Fulham (SW6)
Online throughout the UK

Book your free consultation and discover what becomes possible when you stop narrating your life and start experiencing it.

This article is for educational purposes and doesn't replace professional therapeutic support. For mental health crises, contact emergency services or Samaritans on 116 123.

References: Perls, F., Hefferline, R., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt Therapy; Yontef, G. (1993). Awareness, Dialogue, and Process; Clarkson, P. (2004). Gestalt Counselling in Action.

Understanding Gestalt Therapy: The Art of Being Present