092: Gestalt Therapy: Beyond the Empty Chair

The Australia Counselling Podcast

Gestalt therapy is an effective and powerful relational therapy that helps clients raise their awareness about how they are in the world so they can self-regulate and move towards health.

Gestalt therapy is also synonymous with the 'empty chair' technique made famous by Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy. However Gestalt therapy is much more than this technique and has a rich tradition and evolution to become the modern relational psychotherapy it is today.

So we spoke with world-renowned Gestalt therapists Drs. Bob and Rita Resnick from Gestalt Therapy Training Associates Los Angeles (GATLA) about what Gestalt therapy is and why it is such an effective therapeutic approach for working with individuals and couples.

In this interview Bob and Rita discuss:

• What Gestalt Therapy is about and how it works
• Why Gestalt Therapy became synonymous with the empty chair technique
• What is character and how it is formed
• How Gestalt Therapy works with interruptions to self-regulation in the present
• What Gestalt Therapy has that other theories and methodologies lack
• The relevance of Gestalt Therapy today in a culture of governments and consumers expecting effective outcomes in limited sessions
• The biggest mistakes people, including therapists, make about understanding Gestalt Therapy

Get the show notes at http://australiacounselling.com.au/session92