Integrative Gestalt therapy at SFU

IG Lehrtherapeut*innen – Juni 2025.pdf (in German)

What is ‘Integrative Gestalt Therapy’?

Integrative Gestalt therapy was developed in the 1940s by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman. It is based on an interdisciplinary approach and integrates elements from psychoanalysis (e.g. K. Horney, W. Reich, S. Ferenczi), Gestalt psychology (e.g. Ch. von Ehrenfels, M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler, K. Koffka), creative indifference (S. Friedlaender), field theory (K. Lewin), existential philosophy (e.g. M. Heidegger, M. Buber, P. Tillich), the concept of organismic self-regulation (K. Goldstein) and holism (J. Smuts).

At the centre of Integrative Gestalt Therapy is the human being as a holistic being in a lifelong process of growth, integration and self-realisation. The method understands people as beings capable of responsibility, orientated towards social encounters and relationships, who can develop their full potential through the perception and integration of experiences.

Integrative Gestalt therapy places particular emphasis on the present. Client and therapist pay attention to the mental, emotional and physical phenomena that emerge in the process of the present, therapeutic encounter in the ‘here and now’, which can be experienced in their meaning and thus integrated more easily. Special emphasis is placed on the dialogue-based relationship between therapist and client. The central goals of Integrative Gestalt Therapy include the promotion of the ability to establish contact and relationships, a deeper experience of meaning and an increase in joie de vivre and vital energy.

Unfavourable developmental conditions can significantly impair and permanently disrupt the lifelong process of growth and integration. As a result, perceptions are repressed, emotional impulses are suppressed, opportunities for action are limited and life energy is blocked. These processes often lead to a fragmentation of central parts of the personality and the fixation of maladaptive patterns in conflict processing (so-called ‘fixed patterns’), which can manifest themselves in a variety of psychological and psychosomatic symptoms or in dysfunctional social relationships.

Integrative Gestalt therapy aims to reactivate these interrupted and blocked processes in order to make individual development potential and vitality accessible again. Consideration of the client’s personal background is a central component of the therapeutic dialogue and forms the basis for possible changes.

In order to enable a holistic experience beyond understanding, experience-activating methods (creative media, imaginative techniques, scenic expression, as well as body and movement work) can be incorporated into the therapeutic process in addition to dialogue. Integrative Gestalt therapy is used in the context of individual, group, couple and family therapy, as well as in therapeutic work with children and adolescents.

• IG-Curriculum – Stand Mai 2025 (pdf, in German)
• Integrative Gestalttherapie – Curriculum Tabelle (pdf, in German)

Further information will follow soon…

Please note that the templates below are only available in German.

• IG-Vorlage-Bestaetigung-Praxisstunden-Abschluss.xlsx
• IG-Vorlage-Abschlussarbeit-Einverstaendniserklaerung.docx
• IG-Information-Praktikumsbestaetigungen.docx
• IG-Antrag-Verlaengerung-Status-PthiAuS.docx