Fifty years of Gestalt therapy

Abstract

A rapid analysis of the scientific and clinical literature over the last twenty years shows that innovative aspects of Gestalt therapy have been widely applied. Gestalt therapy has made important contributions to clinical thinking and practice. The major contribution of Gestalt is the holistic perspective, the idea that the interrelations between objects and persons are such that no situation can be reduced to the simple sum of its parts. For Yontef, psychoanalysis, in recent developments, has clearly integrated many elements borrowed from humanistic psychology and Gestalt therapy, including recognition of the importance of the real relationship. Additionally, many researchers and clinicians have applied Gestalt therapy to a diverse set of clinical syndromes such as eating disorders, sexual disorders, post-traumatic stress, speech disorders, and alcoholism. Gestalt therapy was created by psychoanalysts just after the Second World War, as a reaction to the rigidity of classical psychoanalysis.