Gestalt therapy was developed in the 1940s to help clients gain awareness of their present experiences and behaviors. The therapist's role is to increase clients' self-awareness and understanding of themselves and their environment. Gestalt therapy techniques include exercises like the empty chair method where clients imagine dialoguing with parts of themselves. The overall goal is for clients to accept responsibility for themselves and grow towards wholeness in the present moment.

2. Introduction
Gestalt therapy is developed by Fritz Perls and his wife Laura
Perls in 1940s. The initial goal of gestalt therapy is to gain awareness
of what they are experiencing and doing. The basic assumption is
that each person can effectively deal with his or her own life
problem. Especially if they are aware of what is happening in and
around them.
One of the Therapist’s role is to increase clients self
awareness of what they are doing and experiencing it. This
awareness include insights, self awareness, acceptance, Knowledge
of the environments, responsibility for choice and ability to make
contact with others. It is based on here and now experience .

3. AIM OF GESTALT THERAPY
 To make a person realise his wholeness.
 To understand his/er individualities and accept them as
his/her own.
 To become more aware of all their senses.
 Teach them to learn to accept responsibility for what they
do including accepting the consequences of their action.
 Help them to develop skills acquire values that will allow
them to satisfy their needs with out violating the rights of
others.
 Move from outside support towards increasing internal
support.
 To help them to ask get help from others and to give
others.

4. The objective of Gestalt Therapy
a. To overcome symptoms
b. To enable the client to become more fully and
creatively alive
c. To be free from the blocks and unfinished issues.

5. Role and functions of Therapist
1. Paying attention to clients body language:- It provides rich
information from the clients posture, gestures, movements, voice,
hesitation etc. tells ther real story. It may be beyond the words.
2. “IT talk”:- When client say “it” instead of “I”, The therapist may ask
them to substitute personal pronouns instead of impersonal.
3. “You talk”:- The therapist will point out generalized use of “you” and
ask the client to substitute “I”.
4. Questions- Asks the clients change their questions into statements.
5. Language that denies power. The therapist must be aware of the
client may denai realities by using languages.
6. Listening to clients metaphares: By paying attention the therapist
will get rich clues to a clients internal struggles.

6. Approaches of Gestalt therapy
1. Dialogue exercises
2. Role playing
3. Staying with feelings
4. Focus on language
5. Focus on the body
6. Reliving ‘unfinished business’
7. Exaggeration
8. Changing questions into statements
9. Being the projection (owning the split-off parts of self)
10. Taking responsibility for self

7. At the core of gestalt therapy is the holistic view that
people are intricately linked to and influenced by their
environments and that all people strive toward growth and
balance. Gestalt therapy is similar to person-centered therapy in
this way, as well as in its emphasis on the therapist’s use of
empathy, understanding and unconditional acceptance of the
client to enhance therapeutic outcomes.

8. Gestalt Therapy Techniques
1. Exercise and experiments:-
Gestalt therapy is practiced in the form of exercise
and experiments. It can be administered in
individual or group settings.

9. Gestalt Therapy Techniques
2. The empty chair technique :-
He or she is asked to imagine that someone (such as a
boss, spouse, or relative), they, or a part of themselves is
sitting in the chair. The therapist encourages dialogue
between the empty chair and person in therapy in order to
engage the person’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Sometimes the roles are reversed and the person in therapy
assumes the metaphorical person or part of a person in the
chair. The empty chair technique can be especially useful for
helping people become mindful of the whole situation and
forgotten or disengaged pieces of their own self.

10. Gestalt Therapy
Techniques
3. Exaggeration exercise.
Another common exercise in gestalt therapy is the
During this exercise, the person in therapy is asked to
repeat and exaggerate a particular movement or expression,
such as frowning or bouncing a leg, in order to make the
person more aware of the emotions attached to the
behavior.
The empty chair technique and the exaggeration
exercise are two of many gestalt therapy techniques used to
help people in therapy increase their awareness of
immediate experiences. Through exercises and
spontaneous experiments, gestalt therapy also allows
people reconnect with parts of themselves they may
minimize, ignore, or deny.

11. Moral injunctions of Gestalt
therapy
 Live now, stay in the present.
 Live here, be with the present.
 Stop imagining, experience reality.
 Stop unnecessary thinking.
 Express, rather than manipulating, explaining, justifying,
or judging.
 Give in to unpleasantness do not restrict your awareness.
 Accept no "should" or "ought", other than your own.
 Take full responsibility for your own actions, feelings and
thoughts.
 Surrender to being who you are right now.

12. Advantages of Gestalt Therapy
 Gestalt therapy places emphasis on gaining awareness of the
present moment and the present context.
 Client discover new facts of themselves.
 It brings relevent aspect to the present.
 Provides growth and development.
 Through therapy, people learn to discover feelings that may have
been suppressed or masked by other feelings and to accept and
trust their emotions.

13. Advantages of Gestalt Therapy
The focus on the here and now does not negate or
reduce past events or future possibilities; in fact, the
past is intricately linked to one’s present experience.
The idea is to avoid dwelling on the past or anxiously
anticipating the future.
Experiences of the past may be addressed in therapy
sessions, but the therapist and client will focus on
exploring what factors made a particular memory
come up in this moment, or how the present moment
is impacted by experiences of the past.
It has greatest potential for creativity.

14. Disadvantage of Gestalt Therapy
 Clients who are inhibited, or scared of expressing
themselves in front of others, may struggle in Gestalt
therapy (although they may gain a lot if the reluctance
can be overcome). Similarly people who lack
imagination or creativity, or who are frightened to
express feelings, are unlikely to benefit from Gestalt
therapy).
 Some clients may have cultural or social inhibitions
against, for example, conversing with dead relatives or
confronting a parent (even in imagination).

15. Conclusion
Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy, based on
the experiential ideal of "here and now," and
relationships with others and the world. At the centre
of Gestalt therapy lies the promotion of "awareness".
The individual is encouraged to become aware of his or
her own feelings and behaviors, and their effect upon
his environment in the here and now.