Gestalt Therapy and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Irony and the Challenge

Abstract

AbstractThe purpose of the present study is to review the theoretical, strategic, and tactical/technical contributions of Gestalt therapy to the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and to examine its contributions to the professional literature. From a theoretical point of view, the conceptualization of PTSD as a special case of “unfinished business” posits Gestalt therapy as a treatment of choice for this syndrome. From a strategic point of view Gestalt therapy offers phenomenology and I-Thou dialogue as effective therapeutic components. Finally, from a tactical point of view, Gestalt therapy offers unique mechanisms for surfacing trauma-related conflicts from the past and solving them in the present. These mechanisms include: attending to the “here and now,” body movements and non-verbal behavior, insisting on retelling the traumatic event as if it were happening in the present, the use of fantasy and visualization, the creative enhancement of body language, two-chairs and empty chair work, graded experiments, and psychodrama and enactment. In spite of all these assets of Gestalt therapy, a thorough literature search yielded a meager testimony to the utility of Gestalt therapy for treating patients suffering from PTSD. The author challenges Gestalt therapists to document and report case studies of Gestalt therapy applications with PTSD patients, and to take part in quantitative studies on PTSD to enable the practice of Gestalt therapy to actualize its full potential, and gain its appropriate status among therapeutic approaches.