Gestalt therapy is a mindfulness-based, transpersonal therapy theory that is based in holism, where we honor the wholeness of a client and do not try to reduce them down into distinct “parts.” As we stay in the present moment, here and now with a client, we attune to how they express as they share their meaning-making with us. We reflect to them how they seem, as we invite them into their present moment experience. For example, do they seem agitated? Do they seem sad? Do they seem tense? Do they seem open?
When we consider that other therapy theories encourage therapists to analyze, interpret, and fix a client, we can see that this is quite a unique approach to counseling. This process is considered to be a relational meditation, where the therapist and the client increase awareness of the ways a client disrupts contact with themselves and their environment. These contact disruptions are the adaptive strategies the client created during development in an attempt to create balance in the environment, known as homeostasis. Homeostasis is the state of balance that person maintains in their internal psychology in response to environmental conditions.
The patterns that were originally created to ensure balance within the environment become rigid ways of being that cause a client distress. In order to support our clients in expanding their awareness of the ways they disrupt contact with the environment via these rigid patterns, a gestalt therapist will offer the client an opportunity to do an experiment. An experiment is a therapeutic intervention that is co-created by the therapist and the client.
Through the process of an experiment, homeostasis is disrupted in service of increasing awareness, resolving unfinished business, and integrating aspects of themselves they had disowned.
By the end of the experiment, a client will arrive at homeorhesis, which is a dynamic trajectory. As opposed to returning to a stagnant state, a client opens into their developing sense of self, where they become and emerge with curiosity and self-trust. Homeorhesis is a generative process, by which a client re-sensitizes to themselves. As opposed to one way of being, a client has many options available to them. Their mind is clear and present, and their nervous system is regulated. This is where we discover the beauty of disrupting homeostasis, where outdated patterns dissolve and sovereign choice guides a client’s interactions.
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