Key points:

A Gestalt is a pattern, a configuration,
a figure and a background. Gestalt psychology describes how
Our perceptions is organised in figure/ground pairs.

Homeostasis is the concept of all living being’s automatic search for and maintenance of inner and outer equilibrium.
The holistic doctrine states that the human being is a unified organism, that all aspects are connected, and that the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
The hot chair technique: Developed by Jacob Moreno in psychodrama, but made famous by Perls.

Building on the gestalt psychology of figure / ground, the client is asked to have an imagined encounter with whatever person or aspect he has an unfinished business, with.

Here and now.

Perls very much emphasises the concept of HERE AND NOW.
Even if the material worked with seemingly is from the past, the emotional releases and transformations seen in the hot chair are acted out in the now.

Fritjof Pearls 1893 - 1970

Perls rejected any notion of an unconscious mind
"Sigmund Freud called dreams "the royal road to the unconscious", and Fritz Perls called them the "royal road to integration". In their way these assertions may be true, but they are overshadowed by the possibility that the awareness of dreams is a path to enlightenment.”

Michael Katz in "Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light" by Namkhai Norbu.

FRITZ PERLS WAY OF WORKING WITH DREAMS

Pearls aim in his work in general
is beautifully described in his Gestalt prayer:

I am I
and you are you
I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations.
And you’re not in this world to live up to mine.
I am I
And you are you.
If by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
If not it can’t be helped

Fritz Perls

Perls, infantile traumas and dreams

Perls had no time for tracing back associations to some dubious infantile trauma, but concentrated, like Jung, on discovering buried treasure within the personality. He focused his attention on actual behaviour in a group situation - facial expression, tone of voice, posture, gesture, reactions to other members, and so on - in order to discover the holes in a person’s present personality. These holes, said Perls, have been caused by the rejection of certain parts of the personality in order to avoid pain. So the task of the therapist is to concentrate on what the person is avoiding in his present existence, help him act out painful situations and reintegrate the alienated parts of the personality into his life.

Dr. Ann Faraday: Dream Power p.143 ff.

The Gestalt oriented approach to dream work

Perls rejected any notion of an unconscious mind,

Perls rejected any notion of an unconscious mind, preferring to think of the personality as a rubber ball floating and turning in water, so that only one portion is visible at a time.
The Gestalt therapist works with the portion that is visible in the context of the moment.

So instead of trying to trace a symptom [or a dream] back to some childhood trauma, he always asks the person what it is doing for him in the here and now.

Dr. Ann Faraday: Dream Power p.143 ff.

Don’t wait for a catastrophe to happen

Suppression […] is the house where you go on throwing into the basement things that you want to do but you cannot because of social conditions culture, civilisation.
But they go on collecting there, and they affect your actions, your life, very indirectly. Directly, they cannot face you - you have forced them into darkness, but from the dark side they go on influencing your behaviour. They are dangerous; it is dangerous to keep all those inhibitions inside you.
It is possible that these are the things that come to a climax when a person goes insane. Insanity is nothing but all these suppressions coming to a point where you cannot control them any more.
[…] The real message […] is to find a healing outlet for this potential explosion. It is essential to find a way to realise whatever tensions and stresses might build up inside you right now.
Beat a pillow, jump up and down, go out into the wilderness and scream at the empty sky - anything to shake up your energy and allow it to circulate freely. Don’t wait for a catastrophe to happen.

Edited from: Osho Zen Tarot;

The Royal road

Perls saw the dream as an added bonus in the form of an existential message which tells us exactly where we are in relation to ourselves and to the world at the present time.
Whereas Freud called the dream the royal road to the unconscious, Perls called it the royal road to integration because he saw in it the possibility of reclaiming the lost parts of the personality and becoming whole.

Dr. Ann Faraday: Dream Power p.143 ff.

Every image in the dream,
is an alienated portion of the self

His method of dealing with dreams is to regard every image in the dream, whether human, animal, vegetable, or mineral, as an alienated portion of the self which we have projected onto that image.
The dreamer is asked to act the part of each image in turn and re-experience the events of the dream from the standpoint of each.
Encounters are then conducted between these images, and when they fight, the dreamer knows he has hit on something important. Whenever his mind goes blank or he feels sleepy, he knows he is trying to avoid something.
For this reason it is good to work out a dream in a group or with another person who can point these things out.
The aim is to bring the fragmented parts of the personality into harmony with each other so that they help, not hinder, our growth.

The best way to use a dream said Perls, is not to cut it to pieces and interpret, but to bring it to life and relive it. [This can be done by using the Hot chair and role reversal technique which we will teach shortly].

Dr. Ann Faraday: Dream Power p.143 ff.

Working with the dream in the context of here-and-now

As a first step Perls asked the dreamer to retell his dream in the present tense in order to bring it into the here-and-now and re-experience the actual feelings of the dream.

When this took place in a group, Perls noted the facial expression, gestures, and so on of the person as he recounted his dream, as these often provided clues to particularly conflictual areas of the dream.

Dr. Ann Faraday: Dream Power p.143 ff.

Short dreams

On the whole, Perls preferred to work with short dreams as they are less confusing than long ones, and he insisted that even a half remembered dream fragment could be enough to start off the creative process of opening up the personality.

Dr. Ann Faraday: Dream Power p.143 ff.

Topdog and Underdog

Perls calls topdog and underdog the two clowns of the personality, constantly acting out their self - torture game beneath the level of conscious awareness. We have a topdog and underdog for each specific conflict, so whenever a conflict is sparked off by some present problem or event in life, the two clowns emerge and start their self - torture game. Both strive for control, and it is a battle to the death, dissipating all the energy which should be used for constructive and positive living.

Dr. Ann Faraday: Dream Power p.143 ff.

The Gestalt oriented way of integrating alienated parts in a dream

THE HOT CHAIR TECHNIQUE

NB: This technique is deceptively simple to learn, but very difficult to use in a fashion that brings real authenticity and transformation to the client. This can only be learned in hands-on training under supervision of qualified gestalt therapists.

The procedure:

Choose one or more aspects from your dream.
(choose something with charge)

Two chairs face each other.

The dreamer (you or somebody else) sits in one chair, imaging whoever or whatever from his/her dream that is going to work with in the opposite chair.

• The dreamer talks or expresses himself otherwise towards the imagined, projected person, symbol, etc. in the empty chair.

• The dialogue must be in HERE AND NOW terms; not talking about the other person, but directly to him or her.

• At appropriate times the dreamer is asked to reverse roles, to sit in the empty chair being this other person, reacting and talking as this projection.

• At appropriate times he is asked to move back to his own chair, being himself again. These role reversals can go on for some time.

• When an appropriate depth and insight is achieved, the dialogue is finalized.

The art lies in the word "appropriate"