There are many theories that have been advanced by psychologist as they try to explain the human mind, ways of thinking and the factors that shape personality among other issues. It all began with Freud then Piaget. Other theories built on the works of these psychologists either to refute or reinforce the ideas of the postulated theories. This paper focuses on Gestalt person centered therapy in regards to what it posits, its core concepts and how it works in leading to self awareness and personal development.
Person–Centered Experimental Psychotherapies Gestalt therapy was created by Fritz Perls in defiance of the overly-analytic and rigid forms of psychotherapy that existed in his time. (Clarkson, 2004) Gestalt therapy is a dynamic process that aims to find synergy in all the disparate parts of an individual (Clarkson 2004), and builds on the premise that the unconscious mind has great influence on the behavior and conscious functioning of a person in psychotherapy.
(Rogers, 1980) Psychotherapy builds from the observations made by Freud, where clients with mental disorders or hysteria exhibited some recovery or improvement as soon as the unconsciously repressed memories and forgotten events were brought to the conscious mind, discussed, and addressed.
Fall, Holder and Marquis (2003), noted that although Gestalt psychotherapy borrows some concepts from the Freudian psychotherapy, it differentiates itself in the sense that it focuses attention on the recent/here and now events as opposed to the childhood events. Gestalt means whole configuration and thus gestalt psychotherapy concerns itself with helping clients attain a sense of wholeness in the emotional, metal, spiritual and physical aspect of being that is an interactive whole and works towards attaining a healthy balance of sorts.
Thus, a major concern of gestalt therapy is to develop the client’s self awareness and self support system, which helps to sustain a creative, harmonious and spontaneous relationship with others (Joyce and Sills, 2001, Woldt and Toman, 2005). A salient point to note is that gestalt psychotherapy is experimentally oriented and focuses on what is obvious and taking place in the here and now (Fall, Holder and Marquis, 2003)