There are a number of professionals who have contributed to the development and progression of Gestalt Therapy. This includes Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler, and the most widely recognized figure associated with Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010). Perls’ work was heavily influenced by Gestalt psychology as well as other key figures in the mental health field, including Sigmund Freud, Karen Horney, Wilhelm Reich, and Otto Rank (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010). Keep reading to learn 10 Gestalt Therapy exercises and activities you can use with your clients in therapy to support awareness, emotional integration, and meaningful personal change.
Gestalt Therapy emphasizes awareness, personal responsibility, and present-moment experience, with the belief that meaningful change occurs through increased insight into thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and bodily sensations. Rather than focusing solely on symptom reduction, Gestalt Therapy interventions encourage clients to explore how they relate to themselves, others, and their environment in the here and now. Experiential exercises play a central role in this approach, helping clients integrate insight through direct experience rather than intellectualization alone.
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Perls believed that we are all good people who have the capacity to cope with the distress we experience in our lives (Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L.W., 2010). Having the ability to cope with distress may be something that our clients can make growth in, and doing so can improve their overall quality of life. Through the use of Gestalt Therapy, clients can develop awareness, inner strength, and self-sufficiency (Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L.W., 2010).
Gestalt Therapists believe that awareness is a catalyst for change (Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L.W., 2010). Self-actualization can occur when individuals are aware of their unfinished business, strengths, and resources (Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L.W., 2010). Not only does Gestalt Therapy emphasize intellectual awareness, but awareness within the body is also an important concept (Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L.W., 2010).
Let’s continue on to 10 Gestalt Therapy exercises you can do with clients.
Gestalt Therapy Exercises to do with Clients
Gestalt Therapy exercises are experiential interventions designed to increase awareness, personal responsibility, and present-moment experiencing. These activities can be used in both individual and group therapy settings and are intended to support Gestalt Therapy’s core focus on the here-and-now, integration of polarities, and holistic awareness. Below are examples of Gestalt Therapy exercises clinicians can incorporate into their work with clients.
1. Empty Chair Technique
Perhaps the most commonly known Gestalt Therapy exercise is the empty chair technique. This technique can be used during individual sessions. Before you begin, you will need to have two chairs, often facing each other, that your client can move to during this exercise. Once you have the chairs arranged, as your client to imagine another person in the other chair. This could be a partner, friend, family member, co-worker, or anyone whom they have unfinished business with. As the Counselor, you will help your client have a conversation with their identified person as they move between the two chairs respectively. Once you have completed this exercise, allow for time to process your client’s experience and any key takeaways they have gained.
What It Is: An experiential exercise in which the client imagines another person—or a part of themselves—sitting in an empty chair and engages in a dialogue with them.
How It Helps Clients: Supports emotional expression, resolution of unfinished business, increased insight into relational dynamics, and emotional integration.
How To Do It: Place two chairs facing each other and ask the client to imagine a significant person or part of themselves in the empty chair. Guide them through a dialogue, encouraging them to switch chairs as they speak from each perspective. Allow time afterward to process emotions, insights, and shifts in awareness.
2. Top Dog / Underdog Dialogue
The Top Dog- Under Dog, exercise is a commonly used Gestalt Therapy activity that can increase awareness of different aspects of our client’s personality. Top Dog refers to the part of our client that is dominant and assertive, whereas the Under Dog refers to the parts of us that may be a bit passive. With this exercise, your client will have a conversation between these two aspects of themselves to increase their awareness of the polarities they are balancing. Allow for time to process your client’s experience, thoughts, and emotions after this activity.
This exercise focuses on internal polarities within the client, highlighting conflicting parts of the self.
What It Is: A structured dialogue between the “Top Dog” (critical, demanding, authoritative) and the “Underdog” (passive, resistant, or avoidant) aspects of the self.
How It Helps Clients: Increases awareness of internal conflict, self-criticism, and power struggles, while promoting self-acceptance and integration.
How To Do It: Ask the client to alternate between speaking as their Top Dog and Underdog, either verbally or by switching chairs. Afterward, process what each part needs and how these polarities interact in daily life.
3. Dream Exploration Exercise
An awareness Gestalt Therapy activity that you can utilize in either a group or individual session would be exploring a recent dream that your client has had. Encourage your client to identify different parts of their dream, and make a note of what they believe each part would say about itself if it had a voice. Once your client has shared their thoughts and observations, spend time exploring anything that they are taking away from the exercise, or that they have learned about themselves from this exercise.
Dream work in Gestalt Therapy emphasizes personal meaning rather than interpretation by the therapist.
What It Is: An awareness-based exercise where clients explore dreams by identifying and giving voice to different elements within the dream.
How It Helps Clients: Enhances insight into unconscious material, emotional states, and unresolved experiences, while increasing present-moment awareness.
How To Do It: Ask the client to describe a recent dream and identify different components (people, objects, emotions). Invite them to speak as each part of the dream and reflect on what they notice or learn through the process.
4. “I Can’t” to “I Won’t” Substitution
The Cant Substitution Worksheet is an example of an activity that a Gestalt Therapist could use in a group or individual session. With this activity, you will ask your client to identify something they feel that they cannot do. After repeating this statement, you will then ask them to replace “I can’t” with “I won’t” and explore any changes that this has for your client. You will then ask them to repeat the same phrase with “I won’t”, and explore any implications this has on the amount of responsibility that your client is owning for this concern. Allow for time to process anything they have learned about themselves and their reactions to the exercise.
This language-based Gestalt exercise highlights personal responsibility and choice.
What It Is: A verbal substitution exercise where clients replace “I can’t” statements with “I won’t” to explore responsibility and agency.
How It Helps Clients: Increases awareness of avoidance, personal choice, and responsibility for behavior and decisions.
How To Do It: Ask the client to state something they feel unable to do, then have them repeat the statement using “I won’t.” Explore emotional reactions, resistance, and shifts in perception, and process insights gained.
5. Object Identification Exercise
If you are looking for a Gestalt Therapy exercise that can be incorporated into a group session, encourage your clients to pick a possession or object that they feel they can identify with. This can be in how the object is viewed by others, its importance, and the way it makes others feel. Once you have provided your clients with an appropriate amount of time, have your group share the item that they identify and why. Allow for time to process anything that the group members have recognized or learned about themselves during this exercise.
This group-oriented Gestalt activity uses symbolism to promote self-awareness.
What It Is: An experiential exercise where clients identify with a personal object to explore aspects of their identity and emotional experience.
How It Helps Clients: Encourages symbolic expression, self-reflection, and interpersonal insight within a group setting.
How To Do It: Ask clients to select an object they identify with and share how the object represents them. Facilitate group discussion and reflection on themes that emerge.
6. Body Awareness and Movement
Using the My Movement Worksheet offered by TherapyByPro can be used to help your clients gain awareness of their body and its movements. As an example, this activity begins by asking your client to turn their head and notice any new sensations they experience within their body. In addition to gaining awareness of their physical being, clients will practice being in the here and now.
What It Is: A somatic awareness exercise focused on noticing bodily sensations, posture, and movement in the present moment.
How It Helps Clients: Enhances body awareness, emotional insight, and grounding in the here-and-now.
How To Do It: Guide the client through simple movements (such as turning the head or shifting posture) and invite them to notice sensations, emotions, or thoughts that arise. Process observations together.
7. Awareness of Nonverbal Behavior
With respect to the goal of gaining awareness, a helpful Gestalt Therapy Activity would be to explore your client’s way of being in the moment and the messages that they believe these behaviors send. Examples of behaviors that can be explored include their use of language, their body language, their use of eye contact, and their natural body movements. Once your client has gained some awareness, spend time exploring differences that can be observed within their body language and their words, and if these differences are related to any internal splits that they are navigating.
This exercise brings attention to incongruence between words and actions.
What It Is: An observational exercise that explores language, body posture, eye contact, and physical movements.
How It Helps Clients: Increases awareness of internal splits, emotional suppression, and unexpressed feelings.
How To Do It: Invite the client to reflect on their nonverbal behaviors during session and explore any discrepancies between what they say and how they present physically.
8. Responsibility for Feelings Exercise
TherapyByPro offers a Now I Feel Worksheet which can be used to help clients explore the level of responsibility that they feel for their emotions. With this worksheet, your client will be asked to complete the following statement aloud: I feel _____, and I am responsible for that. The next step is exploring how that statement makes them feel. Since we can feel more than one emotion at a time, clients can use this sheet to respect each emotion they are feeling in the present moment.
This activity emphasizes emotional ownership.
What It Is: A verbal awareness exercise where clients state their emotions while affirming responsibility for them.
How It Helps Clients: Promotes emotional accountability, reduces blame, and increases emotional clarity.
How To Do It: Ask the client to complete the statement, “I feel ___, and I am responsible for that,” and explore their reactions and emotional experience after stating it aloud.
9. Exaggeration Technique
Another commonly used approach by Gestalt Therapists is the exaggeration technique. With this technique, clients are asked to repeat and exaggerate a physical movement that they unconsciously engage in to try and gain awareness of any emotional connections the movement may have. As an example, someone who is adjusting or bouncing their leg may feel anxious at that moment and be unaware of their experience at the moment. The repeated engagement and the exaggeration of the movement can help clients tap into what they are feeling emotionally at that time. Allow for time to process your client’s thoughts and emotions after engaging in this exercise.This technique uses physical amplification to uncover emotional meaning.
What It Is: An experiential exercise where clients exaggerate unconscious physical movements to increase emotional awareness.
How It Helps Clients: Helps uncover suppressed emotions, anxiety, or tension linked to bodily habits.
How To Do It: Ask the client to exaggerate a repetitive movement (e.g., leg bouncing, fidgeting) and explore emotions or thoughts that arise during the exaggeration.
10. “I Give You the Power” Exercise
The I Give You The Power worksheet available at TherapyByPro can be used to help clients gain insight into how they give others the power of impacting their emotions. With this therapeutic exercise, your client will identify someone who has made them feel bad. You will then ask your client to imagine that that individual is sitting across them and tell them how they feel. Once your client has verbalized their thoughts and emotions, have them say “I give you the power to make me feel this way” more than once. You will then go into processing your client’s experience and exploring how this statement impacted them.
This exercise focuses on emotional boundaries and personal agency.
What It Is: A guided reflection that explores how clients assign emotional power to others.
How It Helps Clients: Increases insight into relational patterns, emotional dependency, and personal empowerment.
How To Do It: Ask the client to imagine someone who impacts their emotions and verbally acknowledge how they give that person power. Process emotional responses and discuss ways to reclaim agency.
Frequently Asked Clinical Questions
Below are the practical questions clinicians ask when facilitating Gestalt therapy exercises and experiential activities to increase client self-awareness, emotional integration, and personal responsibility:
What primary clinical objective differentiates Gestalt experiential exercises from traditional cognitive interventions?
Evaluate whether your therapeutic strategy relies on intellectual insight or direct, present-moment experiencing. While cognitive interventions focus on restructuring thoughts and analyzing behaviors, Gestalt exercises prioritize holistic awareness of thoughts, emotions, and somatic sensations in the here-and-now. Experiential activities—such as the Empty Chair technique—bypass intellectualization, allowing clients to integrate emotional blockages and resolve unfinished business through immediate lived experience rather than abstract discussion.
How should a clinician address internal polarities when a client exhibits severe self-criticism or ambivalence?
Deploy the Top Dog / Underdog Dialogue to bring structure to the client’s internal conflict. Instruct the client to alternate between the authoritative, demanding voice (Top Dog) and the passive, resistant voice (Underdog) by physically switching chairs or altering their vocal tone. This structured verbalization helps the clinician highlight the power struggles within the client’s personality, transforming an abstract internal cycle into an explicit dialogue that promotes self-acceptance and emotional integration.
What explicit language modifications are most effective for shifting a client from helplessness to personal accountability?
Facilitate verbal substitution frames like the “I Can’t” to “I Won’t” transition or the Responsibility for Feelings exercise. When a client claims they are unable to complete a task, have them repeat the statement aloud using “I won’t” to highlight active choice, avoidance, and agency. Pair this with the verbal prompt, “I feel [emotion], and I am responsible for that,” to help clients claim ownership of their immediate affective states and reduce externalized blame.
When observing nonverbal incongruence during a session, how can a therapist utilize somatic tracking to uncover suppressed emotions?
Direct the client’s focus to their physical movements using the Exaggeration Technique and nonverbal behavior tracking. If a client exhibits an unconscious behavior—such as a bouncing leg or a clenched fist—while discussing a neutral topic, ask them to intentionally repeat and amplify that physical movement. This physical amplification uncovers hidden emotional connections and internal splits, bringing unexpressed anxiety, tension, or anger directly into the here-and-now clinical space for processing.
How can a clinician safely structure dreamwork to ensure the client remains the primary interpreter of their material?
Utilize the Dream Exploration Exercise to guide the client through an awareness-based projection rather than imposing theoretical interpretations. Ask the client to recount the dream in the present tense and systematically give a voice to individual components, whether they are people, objects, or environmental elements. By speaking from the perspective of each dream element, the client uncovers personal phenomenological meaning, exposing unresolved experiences and unconscious material that can be integrated using targeted clinical toolkits.
Final Thoughts On Choosing Exercises for Gestalt Therapy
Thank you for reading this resource on 10 Gestalt Therapy Exercises and Activities to do with your clients in therapy. Gestalt Therapy Exercises can be an effective tool in group and individual sessions, which is an attractive trait of this therapeutic approach. Gestalt Therapy can be used by Clinicians who view themselves as their client’s partner and are passionate about helping their clients develop a deeper understanding of themselves. After all, Fritz Perls believed that with guidance and support, we all have the ability to cope with the challenges we experience in life.
If you are interested in learning more about Gestalt Therapy and helpful interventions, training and continued education courses can provide you with the knowledge and tools needed to integrate Gestalt Therapy into your clinical work.
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Resources:
- Seligman, L., & Reichenberg, L.W. (2010). Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy: Systems, Strategies, and Skills (3rd ed., pp. 191-218). Pearson Education, Inc.