Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy which takes a humanistic and existential approach to counseling. Formulated by the Freudian psychoanalyst Frederick S. Perls and his wife Laura Perls in the early 1940s. Gestalt therapy proposes a theory of holism with a theoretical orientation to counseling which believes human beings have a natural capacity for growth and change and that they are responsible for their own existence and life choices. The primary goal of Gestalt therapy is to increase the individual's self-awareness so that they may integrate the self into a gestalt (or, whole).
Gestalt therapy's primary focus is on bringing the client to the here-and-now of the present.