A Gestalt Approach

Nothing exists, lives or grows in isolation. Neither can anything or anybody be fully comprehended outside of its context. This goes for flowers, people, work-teams, organisations, and nations.

We find the Gestalt framework immensely helpful when interacting with individuals as well as organisations, supporting them in living their potential, in fruitful relationship with their environment. Gestalt gives us a philosophical, theoretical and practical framework for living and working.

Gestalt means whole, or complete. As Gestaltists, we are concerned with the whole person. That means seeing body, feelings, intellect, imagination and soul as an unbreakable whole inextricably linked to our environment. We are relational beings, affecting and affected by people, things, phenomena, and life around us. Philosopher Martin Buber describes the interhuman nature of our existence beautifully in Healing through Meeting (1957). As he puts it; “In meeting a you – I become an I”. And each one of us has her/his unique way of being in the world.

As individuals, families, work-teams, organisations… we are often able to respond flexibly to life around us. And there are times when our patterns of dealing with ourselves, our life, our work, colleagues… have outlived their usefulness. The Gestalt framework helps us explore our ‘being-in-the-world’, how we relate to ourselves, to others, and to life around us. Increased awareness gives us the opportunity to make new choices. We become more able to respond to our own needs and to the needs of our surroundings – taking responsibility – which helps us live more truthfully to ourselves and to our potential.

The openness and creativity of the Gestalt Approach allows us to make fruitful use of what happens in the moment, using words as well as visualisations, movement, meditation, art, nature, body-work, and metaphors.