Some clients ask me – what is Gestalt therapy? My top line response is that it’s about the relativity of perception, and how we can learn more about how we are perceiving the world and others so that we can have an expanded ability to choose how we want to respond to the world/others as part of reducing shame, increasing connection with others, alleviating depression, creating more hope, etc.
Gestalt theory can be DENSE. Add to that, not everyone in the Gestalt world agrees on the various theoretical concepts (as it probably should be). To increase my own understanding of Gestalt therapy, I train with the Pacific Gestalt Institute, and I slowly work my way through recommended books from my instructors and my own Gestalt therapist. One book I have YET to finish after owning it now for almost 3 years is Gordon Wheeler’s Beyond Individualism. It’s dense but it helped me make sense of some of the Gestalt theories about self/other and what is in between.
Megan Hanson Psychotherapy 