TITLE:
What Contemporary Gestalt Therapy Research Can—And Cannot—Support: A Critical Evidence Map, 2019-2026
AUTHORS:
Sergio Hernán Blogna Tistuzza
KEYWORDS:
Gestalt Therapy, Psychotherapy Research, Evidence Map, Methodological Critique, Treatment Efficacy
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.14 No.8,
August
27,
2026
ABSTRACT: Research on Gestalt therapy has expanded since the systematic review published in this journal in 2019, but numerical growth does not by itself establish a stronger evidentiary base. This critical evidence map examines a core corpus of 81 publicly traceable empirical reports representing 77 identifiable projects published from January 2019 through July 2026, together with one adjacent-technique boundary case retained solely to clarify the limits of inclusion. The final search combined public academic and bibliographic sources with a dedicated multilingual sweep of identifiable Gestalt-therapy journals and association archives and broader multilingual searches of nonspecialist journals. The core corpus comprises 40 outcome or implementation reports, 23 process or experience reports, and 18 studies of measurement, fidelity, training, or supervision. The central finding is that the field is no longer evidence-free but remains inference-limited. Only 9 of the 40 core outcome reports clearly evaluated full Gestalt therapy; the remainder studied full/adapted, adapted, or composite interventions. Controlled studies were usually small and local, treatment fidelity, follow-up, clinical significance, and adverse-event assessment were inconsistently reported, and statistical improvement was often treated as equivalent to clinically meaningful or treatment-specific change. Process and qualitative studies provide valuable knowledge about contact, embodiment, agency, case formulation, therapist responsiveness, training, and the adaptation of Gestalt practice across settings, but they cannot be aggregated as evidence of efficacy. The strongest cumulative contribution since 2019 is the development of research infrastructure, including routine outcome monitoring, fidelity assessment, systematic case research, and theory-derived measures. The article argues for disciplined claims, explicit separation of evidence types, and methodological pluralism matched to the inference being made.