Fritz Pearls and his wife are considered the pioneers behind the development of Gestalt Therapy and its numerous techniques. While, like many numerous systems, Gestalt by itself is limited by its own definitions and guidelines, but still nonetheless has supplied the counseling sciences with numerous theories as well as practices to aid counselors in helping people. Pearls, a German immigrant, spent most of his later lifetime in the USA, developing and implementing the concepts of Gestalt. It remains to this day an original way to help individuals face psychological issues and pursue change.
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Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt is very focused on the now of the person. It sees current problems in how individuals hide behind their issues and avoid them. It is less concerned with issues of the past but how more so the person deals with the now and how that person transforms. It is very person centered in finding the answers in the client but unlike classical person centered therapies which has a more gentle guiding approach, Gestalt employs more direct confrontation when necessary to push a person in facing oneself in the present. Like most person centered therapies, Gestalt feels the power of change and how to live resides in the subjective reality of the person and that when a person accepts who he or she is and faces the illusions of self and takes responsibility for oneself, then one can become free and have a more healthy mental life. In this way, Gestalt looks at the wholeness of the person and challenges the person to self awareness. It is because of this approach, Gestalt is immersed in the human experience and how life is experienced. In its concern of the here and now, as well self awareness, it is more concerned with the question of how than the question of why.
Utilization of Gestalt
Pearls utilized exercises and experiments as the way to help clients find self awareness. Exercises helped clients experience the now of emotion, but experiments were deeper techniques to help a person become self aware and challenge oneself. Many of these experiments employed by the therapist was utilized as ways for the client to become self aware and how to properly express oneself to find balance with one’s inner voice. In many cases, Pearls would identify acts of phoniness by a person due to external pressures that subdued the internal personality of a person. He would note how one’s tone of voice, or facial expressions, or body postures would not match the feeling internally. He utilized various exercises and experiments to help the person break free of these uncomfortable anxieties and to better express oneself.
Pearls employed various linguistic alterations to a person’s vocabulary or how the person stated something in therapy. This involved utilizing personal pronouns more in the client’s speech. Instead of making a statement that was void of personal need, Pearls would instruct the person to utilize the pronoun “I” to own the statement. Instead of a passive declaration of what one desired or wanted or disliked, Pearls instructed the client to say “I need, or I want, or I dislike”. In addition, he removed such contractions as “can’t” to “won’t”. Instead of stating I cannot do something, he pushed clients to say I will not do something. Also, instead of the conjunction “but” used to imply an excuse, he instructed clients to use the word “and”. For example, if someone has a paper to write and states “I cannot write the paper tonight, but I may try to do it tomorrow”, Pearls would have the client transfer the statement to “I will not write the paper tonight and I will try do it tomorrow”. Pearls also would emphasize the use of the phrase, “I take responsibility for this”. Hence a person would say “I take responsibility for not writing the paper tonight”. This clearly shows an emphasis of owning one’s inner feelings more deeply and also expressing what one wants in a more authoritative, responsible and personal way. Excuses, passive language and not asserting one’s own needs into a sentence were signs of the person not being self aware of what one needs and not taking responsibility for it. Hence, Pearls was less concerned about other pronouns of “them” or “us” or how others make one feel but more interested in how oneself makes one feel.
In addition to speaking with more authority and emphasizing responsibility for one’s words, thoughts and actions, Pearls would help individuals identify body posture, nervous ticks, or uncomfortable laughs as the ways the body and its physiology would manifest discord between expression and the actual feeling. Pearls would frequently call a person out with confrontation for expressing oneself in contradiction to how one felt. He would suggest exaggeration of these tics, or tones, to see how truly silly or phony they were in contrast to how the person felt in the moment. Through the experiment of exaggeration, Pearls encouraged one to bite one’s lip harder, or tense their jaw more pronounced so that the person could recognize these manifestations when internal feelings emerged. The key for Pearls was to help the client discover and become aware of one’s deeper feelings in the now moment and how to properly communicate and express them. This involved analyzing one’s own bodily reactions in correlation with the feelings internally.
The most famous experiments of Pearls was the empty chair. This created an opportunity for one to confront oneself, or another in the safety and privacy of therapy. It permitted one to become aware of self, but also to express emotions that may have been kept in check. The first usage of this experiment was direct dialogue between self. For example, a middle age man may have many regrets in life and has two images of himself; namely the driving and commanding side of himself and then the more relaxed version of self. At direction of the therapist, the man would move from his chair to the other chair and imagine speaking to himself in a more authoritative way. In response, the man then would remove to his original chair and respond to his more aggressive and demanding side. This dialogue would continue to until the man discovered his many needs. In other cases, the empty chair can be utilized as a way for an individual to confront another person. This may be an ex spouse, a parent, a boss, a deceased family member, or even God. The client is encouraged to speak to this person if as the person was truly sitting there. Obviously this is an advanced therapeutic tool and should be conducted by a trained therapist due to emotional eruptions that can occur. Pearls saw this as a way for a person to truly express one’s emotions without filter or restraint free from possible danger of physical confrontation.
Conclusion
Gestalt has many beneficial applications to help people properly express their feelings, be aware of themselves and become more connected to how they truly feel. It is beneficial for those suffering from anxiety as well as depression. However it does possess some limitations. It is more emotional in nature and does not give enough attention to the intellectual and cognitive issues surrounding mental health. It also focuses more the now without less concern for the past. Questions such as why and what are more replaced with how can we handle this now. It is also weighs heavily on one’s own personal needs for self actualization and less concern for the needs of others. This is a double edged sword if not properly put into context. Further, it possesses a more subjective morality in place of universal objective standards of behavior or morality. Yet, many of its experiments and uses are widely accepted and utilized in daily practice. Very few counselors completely adhere to one particular school over another, so the percentage is quite low of a counselor being a strictly Gestalt therapist. Most modern day counselors share Gestalt techniques and implement them with person centered therapies and behavioral therapies for maximum results.
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Additional AIHCP Blogs
Person Centered Counseling. Access here
Existential Counseling. Access here
Jungian Psychology. Access here
References
Tan, S-Y. (2022). Counseling and psychology: A Christian perspective (2nd Edition). Baker Academic.
Additional Resources
Clark, J. (2025). How Gestalt Therapy Works. Very Well Mind. Access here
Gestalt Therapy. Psychology Today. Access here
Guy-Evans, O. (2025). Gestalt Therapy: Definition, Types, Techniques, and Efficacy. Simply Psychology. Access here
Lindsey, C. (2022). All About Gestalt Therapy. PsychCentral. Access here
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