Gestalt Therapy and the Challenge of Documentation: How Digital Tools Can Support Experiential Practices
Despite its deep clinical legacy, Gestalt therapy (GT) remains underrepresented in scientific research. As Rosalba Raffagnino’s 2019 systematic review highlights, the efficacy of GT, particularly in group settings and emotional/interpersonal work, is evident, yet the field still lacks a consistent, empirical foundation to match its rich theoretical and experiential base.
The very strengths of GT, such as its focus on the “here and now,” the centrality of the Self, and its phenomenological method — often make standardized outcome measurements difficult.
The Role of Documentation in Gestalt-Oriented Practice
One of the ongoing challenges in Gestalt therapy lies in how we document the therapeutic process. Unlike more symptom-focused approaches, GT is centered on presence, contact, and meaning — elements that unfold uniquely in every session.
Still, documentation plays several essential roles:
- It helps therapists track evolving therapeutic themes, such as polarities, fixed gestalts, and emergent needs
- It supports clinical reflection, supervision, and continuity of care
- It contributes to a growing evidence base for humanistic therapies, enabling future research and professional dialogue
Rather than reducing experience to data points, documentation in Gestalt therapy can serve as an extension of the awareness process itself — a moment of post-session reflection that honors the fluidity of the work while providing structure for the therapist.
Documenting Without Reducing: A New Approach
This raises an important question for the field: how can we support documentation practices that reflect the depth and nuance of experiential therapy?
Emerging digital tools — such as Evinotes — have begun to address this need. Rather than offering rigid templates, platforms like Evinotes explore ways of supporting clinical writing that respects complexity, fluidity, and meaning-making.
By providing adaptable formats for note-taking — including space to reflect on contact styles, polarities, field conditions, and figure/ground dynamics — such tools can help therapists stay grounded in process while meeting the practical needs of their profession.
Importantly, this is not about standardization for its own sake. It is about creating conditions where reflection, awareness, and research can coexist — and where documentation becomes not a burden, but a support for deep clinical work.
What This Means for the Field
As Gestalt therapy continues to evolve within increasingly evidence-oriented mental health systems, the need for meaningful, practice-informed documentation becomes more urgent. Not as a concession to bureaucracy, but as a way of articulating the value of experiential work, in a language that resonates both within and beyond the therapeutic encounter.
Creating space for thoughtful documentation also invites clinicians to engage more critically with their own methods:
How do we make visible what matters most in therapy, without reducing it?
How can we develop tools and practices that remain faithful to process, contact, and presence?
And how can we, as a community, contribute to a broader recognition of humanistic approaches within scientific framework?
This is not only a clinical or methodological task, but an ethical one: to protect the integrity of experiential approaches while making them accessible, researchable, and communicable.
By reflecting on how we document — and by developing tools that support that reflection — we participate in shaping the future of Gestalt therapy as both a practice and a profession.