Originally published in 2016 and revised for the new website.
Psychology owes much to philosophy. Gestalt psychotherapy is no exception: among its most important roots are the existential view of the person and the phenomenological approach to experience.
The primacy of concrete lived experience
Existentialism draws attention to the uniqueness of human experience. Responsibility is the capacity to respond and choose within conditions that cannot be ignored. They belong to the body and to the history a person has lived; they also take shape in relationships.
In therapy, we encounter more than a symptom or a character structure: we meet a person in time. Their way of existing reveals itself in the relationships they build and in the meaning they give to what they live through.
The focus is on existing: being in time and in relationship, rather than an abstract being.
Phenomenology and intersubjectivity
The phenomenological method invites us to start from what appears in experience, suspending premature judgements and interpretations as far as possible. It shifts attention from “why” to “how”: how an event is perceived and lived in the present, including through the body.
The reality of a session is neither completely objective nor completely subjective. It arises in the encounter and can be explored and checked through dialogue. Bringing different perspectives into relationship gives meaning to the therapeutic work.