ABSTRACT
Possible applications of gestalt therapy beyond what the people may consider to be ‘the clinical setting’ are wide ranging. Gestalt’s field perspective directs the people to consider what interventions could be made to improve the whole situation rather than manage a part of the situation. Gestalt is as much a philosophy as it is a therapy and as such can be applied to a variety of settings to facilitate healthy functioning. Since gestalt moved on from a ‘figure-bound’ way of working during Fritz Perls Esalen’s days in the 1960s, it is the approach’s ability to explore the structure of the ground from which the organisation of the figure emerges that lends gestalt to a wide range of applications beyond individual and group therapy. One of gestalt therapy’s elder statesmen, Philip Lichtenberg, lives in a retirement community where although the population of 350 are not gestalt therapists, the community does practice gestalt principles.
