Gestalt Psychotherapy

psychotherapy

Since birth, mankind experience is made of needs claiming to be satisfied. When a need rises, we feel it with both mind and body, because physical sensations and emotions are parts of a whole experience of ourself. (Example: I’m hungry, I feel pain in the stomach and I feel hunger)

We can use our thought to recognize what’s the need underlying that physical and emotional input, and we could also detect a precise target we desire, to satisfy the need. (Example: I’d like to eat… but not anything, I’d really like lasagna!)

We keep going on through action: needs are usually satisfied by interacting with the physical and relational environment, so we go ask someone or get ourselves lunch, a glass of water …

Then we are able to experience the outcome of what we’ve done. If the need is satisfied, we are going to feel pleasant physical sensations and emotions. In case it isn’t, we are generally going to feel unpleasant ones.

This is also true when dealing with non-primary needs: higher level needs, just like seeking professional satisfation, building significant relationships, self-realization, … and sometimes we could misunderstand our needs (Example: when I’m sad, I detect hunger and I eat to calm my sadness) or we keep unsatisfying certain needs in order to avoid other feelings or experiences with the environment (unpleasant reactions from others, consequences, following thoughts or emotions).

 

The aim of Gestalt psychotherapy is to help you find satisfaction

in your interaction with the world

When is it the time to start psychotherapy? This kind of pathway can help you with:

• • • Facilitating the overcoming of particularly difficult moments of life, in which you feel you cannot move on on your own
    • Supporting the development of resources dedicated to restore your well-being (self-efficacy, self-esteem, empowerment)
    • Guidance in your self-knowledge (experiencing yourself, reconnecting the body-emotions bridge, psychoeducation)
    • Activating a teamwork together with other professionals in the mental healthcare field, such as psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, logopedists and so on, in order to provide you with holistic solutions 

Let’s have a look at the main features of Gestalt approach, at what kind of psychotherapy it is. 

Psychotherapy is a non-judging place, in which  every story

deserves to be listened to and respected

Communication is the baseline of every kind of relationship and any psychological session begins with listening to your story. During the consultation, you have the opportunity to choose if and how to tell your story. Generally, you can freely share (or not share) anything with me. In this confidential space, there would be no prejudices about your socio-economic status, sexual and gender orientation, religious belief, nationality/ethnicity, physical characteristics, as well as the life choices that you did.

Experiencing yourself, following your own time and needs, in psychotherapy

A therapeutical pathway opens wide possibilities of development: seeking for change is like questioning the status quo of your life. Such thing is supposed to happen when you desire something different for yourself and that’s why this can only be a personalized pathway. Many aspects of our joint work will be decided together and therefore there are no pre-established stages suitable for everyone. Instead, feeling what you need and what your internal time is, you can allow yourself to dare while respecting your time as well.

It  is  only  here  and  now  that  we  can  become aware of ourselves 

and  so  make  different choices

Self-knowledge is certainly the first step towards being aware of what is happening inside and outside of us, as well as being able to make a decision about it, and therefore being able to feel better. Awareness is not just an abstract process: it is necessarily linked to sensations, which we can only perceive here and now, and here and now our body provides us with useful clues about our needs.

We can basically experience ourselves in the present, since the past has already become memory and the future has not yet happened. During the consultation, my role is precisely to assist and guide your self-knowledge: understanding your own mechanisms helps dealing with what is happening to you in the first place, and will then also be the basis of the change you wish.

I have a master’s degree in Psychology, but

you have a master’s degree in Yourself

This means that we both cooperate in working on your wellbeing. The relationship between a psychologist and a client has some unique characteristics and has been studied for a long time. Because psychology works with human experience, meaning the way in which we feel about what happens to us (with fear, with sadness, with joy, etc.). the therapeutic relationship is considered to be very particular.

Psychologists studied in order to become a healthcare professionals, but at the same time, their clients are experts on their own life. So, the success of a psychological treatment is based on the cooperation between two parties: a person having competences in certain human experiences (from training, work experiences, even personal experiences) and another person who is competent in his/her own experiences.

This relationship experience is unlike any other we have ever started in our personal relationships, and can teach us a lot about how to relate to others: towards important people in our lives, towards people with whom we periodically relive unpleasant dynamics that we are unable to break, towards relationships from our past that create discomfort in the present, as well as in many other similar situations.

And after all that researching and processing in psychotherapy,

you will finally achieve the PhD in Youself 

Heartful thanks to Simone for gifting us with his metaphor about the end of therapy.

 

© 2023 Elvira Vital