Perls would ask for someone in the group to sit in a chair, facing him and the audience. Then Perls would launch an attack on the client's defenses. At times, he could be almost merciless. He did not believe in mothering clients; this served only to keep their defenses intact.
Perls would notice nonverbal clues to the client's feelings. If the client was an inhibited woman, he would comment about her thighs, which were pressed firmly together. If the client was shy, he would remark about how the client held one hand in the other: Did he feel a need to have his hand held by Mother?
If the client burst into tears, Perls would make no attempt to stop the tears with reassurance but would try to make the client aware of his motivation in crying: Was it to elicit pity? Were the tears a way of hiding from self-responsibility? Were the tears another mask, standing in the way of self-acceptance, authenticity, and growth?
The objective of Gestalt therapists is to tear away clients' defensive masks and roles that usually keep them from real, sometimes painful or frightening, feelings. In this, the therapists' main technique is to frustrate the clients' attempts to hide behind their masks and roles and to block their attempts to control their therapist. Clients often do this by trying to make the therapist feel sorry for them, give them parental warmth, respond to their inadequacies, and so on. Instead, Gestalt therapy is comparatively tough. Perls used these instructions in beginning a workshop:
So if you want to go crazy, commit suicide, improve, get "turned-on," or get an experience that will change your life, it's up to you. I do my thing and you do your thing. Anybody who does not want to take responsibility for this, please do not attend this session. You come here out of your own free will. I don't know how grown up you are, but the essence of a grown-up person is to be able to take responsibility for himself—his thoughts, feelings, and so on. Any objections? ... O.K.[[1]]
[[1]] Frederick Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (Lafayette CA: Real People Press, 1969), p. 79.
By refusing to give unnecessary emotional support even when clients cry for it, Gestalt therapists convey through their behavior that clients do have what it takes to stand on their own two feet. Ideally, Gestalt therapists are genuine, mature people; they refrain from interfering in the lives of others and expect them to be self-supporting. They try to impress on their clients that they do not exist to live up to the expectations of others, nor do others exist to live up to theirs.
APPLICATIONS OF GESTALT THERAPY
Gestalt therapy is most effective in treating persons with these characteristics: