Form therapy. Gestalt translated from German means “form”, “structure”. In its most general sense, Gestalt therapy is a process in which the client learns to change the shape and structure of his life. This applies to both the external, social life of the client (he changes, for example, a job or field of activity, creates a family), and internal, mental life (he gets rid of old grievances, learns to sympathize, show tenderness or anger). How do these changes happen? The evidence of the present. The Gestalt approach is phenomenological. A phenomenon is something that is visible, audible, and accessible to direct observation. This means that the therapist pays attention to how a person lives here and now, during a consultation, how he breathes, moves, and with what intonation he speaks. The therapist's main focus is on what worries the person at the time of consultation and how the person communicates this. A person brings into the therapist's office all the difficulties that he has in his life, and the therapist's task is to help the person realize how his habitual behavior leads to these difficulties. Awareness is the first step to change. Man and the environment. A Gestalt therapist carefully studies how a person interacts with his environment. A person can only exist in an environment that provides him with the opportunity to satisfy his physiological and psychological needs. “The orientation system detects what is needed; all living beings are capable of feeling which external objects can satisfy their needs” (F. Perls). If a person’s relationship with the environment is harmonious and satisfies him, this is good contact and there is no reason for therapy. If contact is broken and a person’s needs are not met, there is a reason for therapy. How is human contact with the environment disrupted? Why and how is the normal, satisfactory interaction between man and environment disrupted? A Gestalt therapist studies, first of all, a person’s interaction with other people, relationships. Even if a person complains of physical pain, which has no organic basis, a close study of this pain leads to the conclusion that this pain is the body’s reaction to problems in a relationship with a significant person. People have “invented” many ways to interrupt contact with their own kind: 1) accept other people’s beliefs, experiences, desires as their own (“My mother and I think that...”); 2) attribute their personality and character traits to another person (“My neighbor is a bitch”); 3) are guided in their behavior by other people’s rules without critical evaluation (“Boys are ashamed to cry”); 4) avoid direct contact with an interesting person (“Tell N. that I like him”); 5) restrain their feelings and impulses, remaining outwardly indifferent to the people around them; 6) do to other people what they want to get themselves (the person wants to be pitied, but instead feels sorry for others). A person cannot see these violations of contact himself, he is used to living like this, and begins to see what prevents full-fledged relationships, and It can be difficult for him to act differently even with the help of a therapist. What is "creative adaptation"? When a person becomes aware of how he cuts off contact with other people, he has the freedom to choose different behavior. This is called creative adaptation. In the process of therapy, a person’s ideas about himself change, he learns to recognize his own real desires and begins, as they say, to “live with his own mind” and act in accordance with his desires. This also happens due to.