© 2010 - Gestalt Counseling & Training. All rights reserved.
Gestalt Institute
of Ann Arbor
Values and Principles
* Gestalt Therapy recognizes the creative processes inherent within all of life.
* Therapy is a process of transformation and transcendence.
* The relationship between the therapist and the individual/couple/group is one of mutual transformation.
* The individual is viewed as an integration of mind-body-spirit, in the process of contact with, and creative adjustment to, his environment. It respects the individual's defenses (resistance) as the process of "creative adjustment".
* The couple is a system with multiple levels of phenomenon simultaneously in action and synergistically interacting.
* The system evolves over time through successive phases which can be defined operationally.
* Individual and systemic change, as a growth process, requires insight (awareness) and experiential action which is specific and focused upon the figural tension in order to be integrated into system patterns and processes.
* Change in one level of system will have a "ripple effect" at other levels.
* Systemic processes are holographic and the present event is the contemporary manifestation of multiple levels of the past.
* Contact is the essential experience for growth and change.
* Awareness of process is the best hope for change.
* Value the present moment.
* Gestalt Therapy recognizes the creative processes inherent within all of life.
* Therapy is a process of transformation and transcendence.
* The relationship between the therapist and the individual/couple/group is one of mutual transformation.
* The individual is viewed as an integration of mind-body-spirit, in the process of contact with, and creative adjustment to, his environment. It respects the individual's defenses (resistance) as the process of "creative adjustment".
* The couple is a system with multiple levels of phenomenon simultaneously in action and synergistically interacting.
* The system evolves over time through successive phases which can be defined operationally.
* Individual and systemic change, as a growth process, requires insight (awareness) and experiential action which is specific and focused upon the figural tension in order to be integrated into system patterns and processes.
* Change in one level of system will have a "ripple effect" at other levels.
* Systemic processes are holographic and the present event is the contemporary manifestation of multiple levels of the past.
* Contact is the essential experience for growth and change.
* Awareness of process is the best hope for change.
* Value the present moment.
