An introduction to Gestalt therapy – part II
Clients often enter therapy feeling disconnected, struggling to stay grounded in the present moment. Gestalt therapy addresses this through techniques that deepen present-moment awareness. Part 1 introduced the core ideas behind Gestalt, while this piece explores how awareness develops in practice. Therapists use structured “experiments” to help clients reconnect with themselves and their environment more authentically.
Exploring Awareness In The Present Through Gestalt Therapy
This blog aims to explain how Gestalt therapy helps clients build awareness in the present moment. Therapists use experiments to explore emotional blocks and habitual patterns that limit awareness. Clients are encouraged to observe their immediate experiences and notice how they relate to their environment. Through this process, they begin to develop self-support and a deeper understanding of their behaviour. So long story short, the goal is to foster lasting personal growth by integrating awareness into everyday life.
How Awareness In The Present Shapes the Therapeutic Process
Although awareness and cognitive insight are essential, they must be followed by emotional experience to create real change. Therefore, Gestalt therapy encourages clients to express, relive, or complete unresolved experiences through present-focused techniques. Typically, therapists use spontaneous experiments tailored to the client’s current emotions, behaviours, and the therapeutic moment being explored together. Moreover, techniques such as confrontation, role play, and focusing on nonverbal cues help increase awareness and deepen the client’s experience.
Noticing What Happens in the Here and Now
Importantly, Gestalt therapy attends not only to content but also to how the client communicates their experience. Additionally, attention is given to body language, breathing, posture, and subtle behaviours occurring in the present moment. Hence, this approach is often called the “therapy of the obvious” due to its focus on observable experience. Meanwhile, the therapist holds their knowledge in the background, remaining open to whatever the client brings forward. Through this openness, the client’s direct experience becomes clearer, helping them explore its meaning in a more embodied way.
Awareness In The Present as a Path to Personal Growth
Gestalt therapy views the individual as a whole, capable of growth, self-regulation, and meaningful contact with their environment. Rather than focusing on changing the person, therapy supports them in becoming more fully who they already are. Unlike directive approaches, the Gestalt therapist offers no ready-made answers and avoids judging or interpreting the client’s behaviour. Instead, the therapist helps clients raise awareness and discover insights that empower them to make authentic choices for themselves.
Exploring Responsibility and Wholeness in Gestalt Therapy
Therapy supports individuals in reclaiming rejected or unconscious parts, helping them feel more whole and authentic overall. Awareness involves recognising how personal choices shape behaviour, experience, and relationships over time. Clients explore past events and circumstances, even those they could not control, to understand their emotional impact today. However, the emphasis remains on present-moment experience and individual responsibility within the therapeutic process. Ultimately, Gestalt therapy encourages ownership of one’s actions to foster meaningful change and deeper self-understanding.
Who Can Gestalt Therapy Best Support?
Gestalt therapy is applied when working with individuals, couples, families, and even within professional organisational settings. Therapists guide clients to become aware of unhelpful patterns that no longer serve their wellbeing or relationships. Clients are supported in discovering new behaviours that align more authentically with their values and emotional needs. This process helps reduce the intensity of automatic reactions and encourages more intentional, self-supportive responses. Ultimately, the goal is to foster lasting behavioural change that reflects the individual’s true nature and capacity for growth.
Awareness In The Present for Meaningful Emotional Insight
Often, primary candidates are individuals unaware of how they maintain dissatisfaction, yet open to building awareness through therapeutic exploration. Equally, Gestalt therapy supports those who understand their behaviour but struggle to make changes despite clear cognitive insight. With these clients, therapists focus on experiential techniques designed to unlock emotional understanding and enable more congruent actions. This approach empowers clients to bridge the gap between knowing and doing, leading to more fulfilling and intentional living.
Final Thoughts on Awareness In The Present
To wrap things up, gestalt therapy encourages creativity, spontaneity, and active participation, allowing clients to fully engage with their personal growth process. Clients are invited to step outside their comfort zones and experience therapy as an inclusive, dynamic, and engaging journey. Therapists model presence and flexibility, helping clients internalise these qualities and apply them meaningfully in everyday life. Long story short, this approach inspires lasting change by supporting individuals to live more freely, authentically, and responsively beyond the therapy room.
Written by Branka Mlinar
If you think that you can benefit from professional support on this issue you can reach out here.
Branka Mlinar is a psychologist and Gestalt therapist offering psychotherapy and counselling to adolescent and adult individuals. She’s mostly worked with problems of anxiety, interpersonal and relationship issues, procrastination, work-related stress, trauma, and grief.
References
Kostić, M. (1983). Odnos terapeuta i klijenta u geštalt terapiji. Psihijatrija Danas.
Perls, F., Hefferline, R.F., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt therapy: Excitement and growth in the human personality, New York: Julian
Yontef, G. M. (1993). Awareness, dialogue and process: Essays on Gestalt therapy. Gouldsboro, ME: Gestalt Journal Press.
Zinker, J. (1977). Creative process in Gestalt therapy. New York: Random House.
