A systematic review of the impact of Gestalt therapy on mental health and quality of life

In recent years there has been a growing interest and need to give scientific rigour to the Gestalt Approach that has many scientifically-untested but commonly-used theoretical models in therapeutic settings. Testing Gestalt models can contribute to a wider understanding of psychology and human behaviour. Doric affirmed that Gestalt Therapy should be considered a form of art, that is, “intuitive, holistic, and dynamic”. Without empirical testing, Gestalt Therapy could stay as an “art” or applied philosophy that uses the practitioner's intuition rather than scientifically-tested measures. Effectiveness of Gestalt Therapy is slowly gaining recognition; as affirmed by Elliott, et al. “this body of research is continuing to grow rapidly”. Therefore, we will conduct a systematic review into the impact of Gestalt therapies on mental health and quality of life. Rayyan software will be used to enable two indepenent reviewers to select papers for inclusion with blinds, as well as Cochrane risk of bias (ROB2) by two independent reviewers with blinds, and data extraction via the PRISMA protocol. The anticipated outcome of this systematic review is to gather evidence from a wide range of theoretical and applied fields in Gestalt theory and counselling in order to assess the scope of empirical evidence of an impact of Gestalt therapy on mental health and quality of life.