Gestalt therapy is an approach that helps clients focus on the present to understand what is actually happening in their lives at this moment, and how this makes them feel at the moment. This therapy does not focus on what people may assume to be happening based on past experience. Gestalt therapy is one of the primary forms of humanistic therapy. This therapy was developed in the 1940s and 1950s by Fritz Perls, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and his then-wife, psychotherapist Laura Perls, as an alternative to traditional, verbally-focused psychoanalysis. Gestalt therapy’s premise is that people are best thought of as a whole entities consisting of body, mind, and emotions, and best understood when viewed through their own eyes.

The gestalt philosophy rejects the notion that any one particular trait, episode, or indeed a diagnosis could define a person. Instead, their total self must be explored, discovered, and confronted. As they encounter and gain awareness of other parts of themselves, individuals can take greater responsibility for themselves and hopefully gain a greater sense of what they can do for themselves and others. Clients in gestalt therapy engage in intellectual and physical experiences that can include role-playing, re-enactment, or artistic exercises like drawing and painting. This makes clients to become more aware of their thoughts and actions. This means how negative thought patterns and behaviors may be blocking their self-awareness and making them unhappy, and how they can change.

One of the principle pillars of gestalt therapy is that experience influence perception. The other pillar is that context matters and the therapists use techniques to help the client become more aware of their experiences, their perceptions, and their responses to events in the here and now. Moreover, the other pillar of gestalt therapy is the focus on the present.