1Kennedy, K. and Tang, M. (2009). Beyond Two Chairs: Why Gestalt Psychotherapy? Clinical Psychology Forum, 194, p22-25. Beyond Two Chairs – Why Gestalt Psychotherapy?

This article describes some key concepts in gestalt psychotherapy from the perspectives of both a clinical psychologist working in the NHS and training in gestalt and a gestalt psychotherapy trainee. ‘[There] is no Gestalt therapy cookbook. Cookbooks are for craft, and therapy is an art. And I think that doing therapy is an art that requires all of the therapist’s creativity and love. ’ – Yontef (1993) One of the advantages of clinical psychologists ’ involvement in the NHS is the ability to draw on multiple models when understanding any particular clinical situation. Despite the large quantity of psychotherapeutic process-outcome literature emphasising the importance of pan-theoretical factors, the use of multiple theories continues to be a defining characteristic of the profession. We believe that this diversity is something to be encouraged, not least because of the flexibility it offers in both clinical work and research. In our paper we describe gestalt because it is a minority model which is not 2widely understood despite there being a sizeable minority of clinical psychologists who use and draw from it. What we find is that even those people who use parts of it in thei