Hi, I am curious and surprised that Gestalt therapy is not mentioned or discussed here as a contemporary therapy modality that works with multiplicity, parts, voice dialogue, chair work, personification and embodiment. Chairwork came into Gestalt therapy via psychodrama and this may be the earliest example of a therapeutic modality using chairwork. Gestalt therapy has evolved over many decades and continues to do so, long since moving beyond the perhaps familiar empty chair and hot seat work of one of the founders, Fritz Perls. Greenberg and Emotion Focused Therapy, for example, drew from Gestalt re parts/wholes, chairwork, enactments etc. and if IFS was inspired by chairwork, then the lineage and influence could be more thoroughly surfaced here. In our contemporary psychotherapy environment/s globally, it would appear that everyone is seeking a model or a ‘brand’ (both therapists and clients), but perhaps there is far more convergence, now, than divergence in the fundamental principles and conditions of therapeutic benefit across modalities.
Hi, I am curious and surprised that Gestalt therapy is not mentioned or discussed here as a contemporary therapy modality that works with multiplicity, parts, voice dialogue, chair work, personification and embodiment. Chairwork came into Gestalt therapy via psychodrama and this may be the earliest example of a therapeutic modality using chairwork. Gestalt therapy has evolved over many decades and continues to do so, long since moving beyond the perhaps familiar empty chair and hot seat work of one of the founders, Fritz Perls. Greenberg and Emotion Focused Therapy, for example, drew from Gestalt re parts/wholes, chairwork, enactments etc. and if IFS was inspired by chairwork, then the lineage and influence could be more thoroughly surfaced here. In our contemporary psychotherapy environment/s globally, it would appear that everyone is seeking a model or a ‘brand’ (both therapists and clients), but perhaps there is far more convergence, now, than divergence in the fundamental principles and conditions of therapeutic benefit across modalities.