There are many myths surrounding the need for therapy. Many believe that therapy is only necessary for people passing through severe psychological or psychiatric conditions; at times psychotherapy is actually confused with psychiatry. In reality therapy can also help many everyday life situations like anxiety, relationship issues such as marital breakdown, parent-child conflicts, work-related problems, loss and grief and self issues like lack of self esteem and problems with image.
Signs that you could benefit from therapy include:
- You feel an overwhelming, prolonged sense of helplessness and sadness.
- Your problems don’t seem to get better despite your efforts and help from family and friends.
- You find it difficult to concentrate on work assignments or to carry out other everyday activities.
- You worry excessively, expect the worst or are constantly on edge.
- Your actions, such as drinking too much alcohol, using drugs or being aggressive, are harming you or others.
What is Gestalt psychotherapy?
Gestalt is a word derived from German which means “an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts“. That is, in fact, the rationale of Gestalt psychotherapy where the resultant growth and change from the therapeutic experience is not only the result of all the experiences put together but also that extra experience coming from your internal processing and the new awareness and perception you have of yourself and and world.
The mainstay of Gestalt psychotherapy is awareness that comes from genuine contact in the form of the therapeutic relationship. It is through the new experience in relating that old ways of relating, and the resultant unhealthy contact with ourselves and our world, that is the way we affect our world and are in turn affected by it, are revisited and worked through with the support of the therapist.
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