Gestalt Psychotherapy
We do not heal in isolation. Emotional wounds formed in relationships often heal through safe, nurturing connections with others, not in isolation.
Gestalt Psychotherapy in Brisbane
Gestalt Psychotherapy is a relational approach that explores what is happening in the present moment, including your body, thoughts, emotions and relationship with your environment. We notice how you relate to yourself and relate to others, creating space for awareness and new choices.
It is a holistic form of psychotherapy developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls, and Paul Goodman that helps people focus on self-awareness, personal responsibility, and the "here and now".
Who this therapy may suit
- You can describe your patterns accurately and nothing about them has changed.
- You do fine in therapy and then find the same difficulty waiting outside it.
- You'd rather work with what's alive now than build a chronological account of your history.
- You lose track of what you want in the presence of what other people want.
- You want to explore unresolved conflict, grief or experiences that still feel unfinished.
- You want to become more aware of what you feel and need in the present moment.
- You want greater confidence in your choices and responses to difficult circumstances.
- You want to feel more connected with your thoughts, emotions and body.
How we explore it
- Empty chair: A gentle experiment where you speak to a person or a part of yourself as if they were present, giving a voice to the feelings that never got to be said.
- Experiential practice: Using movement, art, or creative role-play to let the unconscious habits and hidden emotions surface in the room.
- Body awareness: Noticing physical sensations, posture and breathing as we explore your experience.
What to expect in a session
Gestalt Psychotherapy is an experiential and relational approach. We explore your needs, boundaries, emotions and recurring patterns as they arise in the present. Gentle experiments may help you notice something that is difficult to understand through explanation alone.
The aim is to support self-awareness and authenticity, helping you recognise what matters to you and how you want to respond. Your inner wisdom and experience guide the work.
The four foundations of Gestalt psychotherapy
Relational. Gestalt psychotherapy explores how relationships shape us, including what happens between therapist and client. We can notice moments of connection, distance, trust or discomfort and use this awareness to understand your relationship patterns.
Phenomenological. Rather than assuming what your experience means, we start with your experience as you are living it. We explore what you notice in your body, emotions, thoughts, sensations, impulses, and perceptions in the present moment. This allows us to become curious about your experience without immediately judging, analysing, or trying to change it.
Experiment. Gestalt psychotherapy is not only about talking about change; sometimes we explore it through experience. A therapeutic experiment might involve noticing a bodily sensation, trying a different way to express something, exploring a boundary, or bringing attention to what's happening between us. These experiments are collaborative and tailored to you. They are invitations to discover something new, never something you are forced to do.
Field. Gestalt psychotherapy understands you within the context of your whole environment. Your experiences are influenced not only by what happens inside you, but also by your relationships, family, culture, work, community, history, and the circumstances around you. Instead of asking, “What is wrong with you?”, we can ask, “What is happening between you and your environment, and how are you adapting to it?”
Becoming more aware, becoming more able to choose
Through Gestalt psychotherapy, greater awareness can create new possibilities. You may begin to recognise patterns that once happened automatically, understand your needs more clearly, notice where you lose contact with yourself or others, and explore different ways of responding.
Gestalt psychotherapy supports awareness, choice and connection. It helps you become more present in your life and explore what you need to move forward in a way that feels meaningful to you.
What this isn't
I work collaboratively, without confrontation or pressure to perform an emotion. Experiments such as the empty-chair exercise are optional and only used when they feel appropriate for you.
Common questions
- Is this the therapy with the empty chair?
The empty-chair exercise is one of many Gestalt experiments. It can be useful when it fits the work, but it is not the focus of Gestalt psychotherapy and you will never be expected to do it if it does not feel appropriate for you.
- Do we talk about my childhood?
When your history is relevant, we can explore it. The emphasis, however, is on how those experiences continue to shape your life now, including your relationships, emotions, body, patterns, and the way you experience yourself in the present.
- Why does what happens between us matter?
Because the way you relate to your therapist can offer valuable insight into how you relate to other people. The therapeutic relationship gives us an opportunity to notice patterns as they happen and, when appropriate, explore different ways of relating in the moment.
- Is this where your somatic work comes from?
Yes. Gestalt psychotherapy's phenomenological approach, paying close attention to what is happening in the present moment before rushing to interpret it, has strongly influenced my somatic way of working. This attention to lived experience, including what happens in the body, became an important part of my path into somatic psychotherapy.
Before we start, one important thing
This therapy is not a substitute for crisis or safety intervention. It isn't appropriate if you are currently in an unsafe or dangerous situation, or if you are at immediate risk of harming yourself or ending your life. In those circumstances you need crisis, emergency or specialised support first.
Somatic psychotherapy is also unsuitable for people who have recently faced, or are currently facing, legal allegations.
You might also be looking at
Somatic Counselling
Compassionate Inquiry
Ready to start?
Book a first session, or write to me if you'd rather ask something before you do.