The term “gestalt” is derived from a German word that means “whole” or “put together.” Gestalt therapy was developed in the 1940s and 1950s by Fritz Perls, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and his then-wife, psychotherapist Laura Perls, as an alternative to traditional, verbally-focused psychoanalysis. Along with person-centered and existential therapy, it is one of the primary forms of humanistic therapy. Gestalt therapy is an approach to psychotherapy that helps clients focus on the present to understand what is actually happening in their lives at this moment, and how it makes them feel in the moment, rather than what they may assume to be happening based on past experience.
