About Gestalt therapy

We human beings are superbly skilled at seeing, noticing, making and using patterns to live our lives and make sense of our world. We are also very good at repeating patterns, sometimes ones that don’t work very well, or serve us. 

Often these repeated patterns are not something we are aware of.  They are present in our thinking, our reactions, our relationships and in the way we move and act.

Gestalt therapy occurs in the professional relationship between therapist and client, where patterns emerge, get noticed and attended to, and where new options can be considered and planned. Gestalt therapy places an emphasis on what is happening in the present, either in someone’s everyday life, or even in the particular moment of the present, the ‘now’.

Many technical terms, particularly psychotherapeutic or philosophical get used when people describe the process of Gestalt therapy, reflecting the history and development of Gestalt since the 1950s. 
So, if you read about it you will come across the concept of awareness - the need to attend to all of our sense and experience, in the present, in order to understand and change our habitual and automatic patterns.

Gestalt therapists are partners in their client’s change.  We take an open and active position, looking to support our client’s growing awareness, capacity for rich contact, and sense of satisfaction and contentment in their lives.

Neil Harris | Gestalt Psychotherapist

Neil Harris is a Gestalt therapist offering psychotherapy in the South of England.  He is based in the New Forest on the edge of Dorset and Hampshire, within easy reach of Christchurch, Bournemouth, Poole, Salisbury, Southampton and Winchester.