Anxiety
Free
From “What If?” to “What Is”: A Gestalt-Informed Workshop for Anxiety
A Gestalt-informed workshop for understanding and processing anxiety and anxious thoughts through present-moment awareness, body cues, figure and ground, polarities, support, and experiential exercises. Includes an introduction to Gestalt therapy, its history and theoretical foundations, a structured 90-minute workshop sequence, examples, clinical boundaries, and research references.
Anxiety often pulls us into an imagined future: What if something goes wrong? What if I fail? What if they reject me?
This Gestalt-informed workshop shifts the focus from immediately challenging the thought to exploring what is happening right now as the anxious future is imagined.
Through psychoeducation and guided experiential exercises, participants explore present-moment awareness, body sensations, figure and ground, competing needs or polarities, support, and small behavioral experiments.
The resource also includes a brief history of Gestalt therapy, an explanation of its theoretical foundations, discussion of how Gestalt conceptualizes anxiety, examples of Gestalt-oriented reframing, current research, and responsible-use guidelines.
Designed for psychoeducation, guided reflection, or a low-intensity workshop.
For a printable version of the exercises, see the companion Gestalt Anxiety Processing Worksheet.