4 Keys To Gestalt Therapy To Treat Depression

Treating depression with Gestalt therapy is a useful and interesting strategy. It allows us, for example, to readjust to our reality in a more creative way, resolving emotional blocks to relate to ourselves and everything that surrounds us in a more valid and safer way.

We are facing a type of approach that, it must be said, is still finding its place in the clinical world. However, its effectiveness is evident, and it is worth delving a little deeper into this stream of psychology. For example, the central point that defines it is the idea that people are always in continuous transformation. 

Thus, and in this constant mutation, it is common for conflicts, imbalances and tensions to arise. In this continuous interaction between our organism and what surrounds us, there are often pieces that do not fit and that break that balance between oneself and the “whole” that surrounds us.

Depression is undoubtedly one of the most common problems (or imbalances). Moreover, according to Gestalt psychotherapy, depressive disorders occur when there is a blockage, when our reality ceases to be in harmony and we even lose the ability to connect with ourselves and our needs.

It is clear, however, that each psychological approach and each therapeutic school has its own particular strategy to deal with this disease; However, it must be said that Gestalt therapy is very effective in working on these blocks mentioned above and in turn favoring our self-realization. Let’s see 4 keys to understand your line of work a little better.

1. Expressive Gestalt techniques to treat depression

With the expressive techniques of Gestalt Therapy, something very concrete is sought: to bring out our internal tensions, channel that energy that generates the knot of our conflicts and define little by little and aloud the root of our problems.

• We cannot forget that according to this approach,  depression is for humans an adverse experience that corners us and isolates us. We are so self-centered that all we do is accumulate negative energy. Feeding exclusively on that torrent of feelings and thoughts so adverse fragments us even more …

It is therefore necessary to express what is inside us, get in touch with our emotions and let them go, allow them to emerge into the light.

2. Suppressive techniques

In treating depression,  Gestalt therapy says it is very helpful to get the patient to apply a “suppressive” approach. Now, what do we mean by suppressive technique? As the word itself indicates, we are going to eliminate something, something that breaks that harmony with the whole that surrounds us and that in turn blocks that healthy union with our inner being.

• We must therefore “suppress”, control and manage all those thoughts and dynamics that take us away from the present moment, from the  here and now.
• Instead of sinking into an infertile torrent of worries that lead us nowhere, we must allow ourselves to “experience” the moment, feel each second openly and responsively.
• We must also eliminate from our internal discourse the “should”, the “may what”, the “maybe”, the “it is possible what” … All this also takes us away from the here and now.

3. Integrative techniques

For Gestalt, the depressive experience is a personal defragmentation. Our reality is decomposed and we ourselves disconnected in turn from our internal needs and from that context that surrounds us where, suddenly, we do not feel identified. Gestalt therapy seeks to promote that integration between our body and the environment, that balance now lost. Integrative techniques have this purpose and work it through two strategies:

• The intrapersonal encounter.  There where to promote a skillful and effective dialogue. An exchange where you become aware of certain elements and circumstances. For example: “I think I am worthless” ⇔ what concrete facts make me reach this conclusion?

• Assimilation of projections. For example “I think that all my co-workers hate me” ⇔ projection ⇔ Now put yourself in the shoes of all your co-workers and imagine that you are all of them. What concrete and logical reasons do they have for hating you?

Likewise, it should be said that this process between the therapist and the patient achieves excellent results whenever the “awereness” occurs. That is, that step by which the person “realizes”, becomes aware of what he thinks, feels and happens inside.

4. The creative setting

The therapeutic work of Gestalt not only seeks to free us from our blocks or solve pending issues that sometimes also break the balance with that totality that makes us up. What the therapist will try to achieve from us is that with therapy we end up being freer people, more creative when it comes to solving our daily problems.

Therefore, it is not enough to heal, to overcome a depression. You have to learn from this process through a creative adjustment, getting something new out of it, an empowering impulse where you can acquire new resources and capacities to create a richer, more flattering, and of course, happy present.

As Fritz Perls said, creative adjustment is a transformative drive. An impulse that allows us to move forward, feeling renewed, stronger and also more skilled. In this way, and to conclude, we cannot forget that on this path to recover our internal homeostasis and that perfect harmony with what surrounds us, it is also necessary to integrate new skills to flow in the journey of life with greater solvency.