Global Perspectives on Research, Theory, and Practice : A Decade of Gestalt! [1 ed.] 9781443876636, 9781443870795

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Global Perspectives on Research, Theory, and Practice

Global Perspectives on Research, Theory, and Practice A Decade of Gestalt! Edited by

Brian J. Mistler and Philip Brownell

Global Perspectives on Research, Theory, and Practice: A Decade of Gestalt! Edited by Brian J. Mistler and Philip Brownell This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Brian J. Mistler, Philip Brownell and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7079-X ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7079-5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword ..................................................................................................... x Peter Philippson Gestalt Therapy in the World of Contemporary Media ............................. xii Charlie Bowman Acknowledgements ................................................................................... xv Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Words I Wish I Wrote: An Anthology of Practical Gestalt Theory Brian J. Mistler Chapter One ............................................................................................... 11 A Perspective on Online Process: The Origins and Original Vision of Gestalt!, the Online Journal Philip Brownell Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 16 Validating Gestalt: An Interview with Leslie Greenberg Leslie Greenberg and Philip Brownell Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 36 Ethics and Training Practices: A Call for Discussion Philip Brownell, Jay Levin and Brian O’Neill Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 44 Psychotherapy and Soul Care: Toward a Clinical Rapprochement Jay Uomoto Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 50 Clausewitz Here and Now: Military Obedience and Gestalt Theory Bruce Barrett

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Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 67 Ethical Considerations in Working with Religious Clients Dan Carpenter Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 77 Aroah or What Constitutes Healing in Psychotherapy Rudolf Jarosewitsch Chapter Eight ............................................................................................. 84 Renewing Our Roots in Neuropsychology: A Gestalt Perspective on the Work of Joseph LeDoux Philip Brownell. Chapter Nine.............................................................................................. 89 Dialogue and Paradox: In Training with Lynne Jacobs, the “Dialogue Maven” Lynne Jacobs Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 108 Stories About Knowing: A View from Family Therapy David Pocock with responses from Sylvia Crocker and Rodger Bufford Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 130 Adding Women’s Voices: Feminism and Gestalt Therapy M’Lou Caring, Cynthia Cook, Gail Feinstein, Iris Fodor, Zelda Friedman, Alice Gerstman, Susan Jurkowski, Maria Kirchner, and Ruth Wolfert Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 139 Gestalt Therapy Groups: Why? Serge and Anne Ginger of Ecole Parisienne de Gestalt (EPG, Paris France) with responses by Jon Frew and Bud Feder Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 161 Thoughts on Music: Why We Have It, Why We Do It, and Why We Like It John Wymore Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 168 Dialogue and Being Colin R. Purcell-Lee, Manchester University with responses by Lynne Jacobs and Gary Yontef

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Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 190 Prelude to Contemporary Gestalt Therapy Charles Bowman and Philip Brownell Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 197 The Spiritual Dimensions of Gestalt Therapy Ruth Wolfer Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 203 Gestalt Therapy Theory: An Overview Maria Kirchner Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 223 Clinical Supervision: A Gestalt-Humanistic Framework Yaro Starak Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 237 The Working Corner Victor Daniels. Chapter Twenty ....................................................................................... 240 Discussions at Gstalt-L: Check-In; Impasse; Field & Boundary Sylvia Crocker, Philip Brownell, Gerhard Stemberger, Steve (Vinay) Gunther, Bruno Just, Amit Sen and Ruth Wolfer Chapter Twenty-One ............................................................................... 268 Projection and Self Psychology Robert Feldhaus Chapter Twenty-Two............................................................................... 278 Spirituality, Dialogue, and the Phenomenological Method Sylvia Crocker Chapter Twenty-Three............................................................................. 283 Psychotherapy and Our Search for Meaning Brian O’Neill, with letters to the editor by Bud Feder and Philip Brownell Chapter Twenty-Four .............................................................................. 300 Letters to the Editor: Thoughts Inspired by Joseph Melnick’s Article on the Meanings of “Marginal” in Gestalt Review John Wymore

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Chapter Twenty-Five ............................................................................... 304 To Ground Zero and Back Again Charles Bowman Chapter Twenty-Six................................................................................. 318 Airline Crash Survivors, Vietnam Veterans, and 9-11 Carol H. Pollard, Carl Mitchell, and Victor Daniels Chapter Twenty-Seven ............................................................................ 330 Insight Dialogue Meditation with Anxiety Problems Jungkyu Kim and Gregory Kramer Chapter Twenty-Eight ............................................................................. 337 Gestalten John Wymore Chapter Twenty-Nine .............................................................................. 342 Contemporary Challenges in the Application of Perls’ Five-Layer Theory Peter Philippson Chapter Thirty ......................................................................................... 348 It’s Not Easy Being a Field Theorist: Commentary on “Cartesian and Post-Cartesian Trends in Relational Psychoanalysis (authors Robert Stolorow, Donna Orange and George Atwood) Lynne Jacobs Chapter Thirty-One ................................................................................. 361 The Impossible Toilet Claire Salisbury in conversation with Debbie Friedman Chapter Thirty-Two ................................................................................. 365 Love, Admiration, or Safety: A System of Gestalt Diagnosis of Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations that Focuses on what is Figure for the Client Elinor Greenberg Chapter Thirty-Three ............................................................................... 382 Perceiving You Perceiving Me: Self-Conscious Emotions and Gestalt Therapy Philip Brownell

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Chapter Thirty-Four................................................................................. 395 Schema Therapy: A Gestalt-Oriented Overview Scott H. Kellogg with responses by Dan Bloom, Philip Brownell, Iris Fodor and Scott Kellogg Chapter Thirty-Five ................................................................................. 454 In Transition: Gestalting Theory from Practice, Practice from Theory Seán Gaffney, with Brian Mistler, Sue Congram, and Philip Brownell Chapter Thirty-Six ................................................................................... 482 Structuring Background by Letting Go of Clinging and Avoidance Jungkyu Kim Chapter Thirty-Seven .............................................................................. 493 A Background to “The Field” Jean-Marie Robine Appendix I ............................................................................................... 504 Gstalt-L: A Virtual, Electronic Community Philip Brownell Appendix II.............................................................................................. 523 Email Haiku (from the AAGT mailing list 1995-1996) Contributors ............................................................................................. 525 Index ........................................................................................................ 536

FOREWORD PETER PHILIPPSON

This book is a tribute to Phil Brownell’s work in providing online resources (at Gestalt! and the Gstalt-L list) for Gestaltists from different countries and traditions to engage with each other, and with each other’s ideas - I think you will see from some of these chapters the ongoing relationships, friendships, competition and the general buzz of lively engagement behind the discussion of ideas. You will be able to get to know the individual voices: those like Lynne Jacobs who question and criticize the legacy of our founders, particularly Fritz Perls, and those like Maria Kirchner and myself who value it; those (Phil Brownell, Sylvia Crocker and the late Ruth Wolfert) who want to bring the ‘spiritual’ or religious into Gestalt thinking and those like John Wymore, with his integration of evolutionary psychology and Gestalt Therapy, and myself who take an atheistic viewpoint; those who write more about theory (Maria Kirchner and Scott Kellogg) and those who write more about practice (Victor Daniels and Elinor Greenberg); those who use the language of story and myth (Rudolf Jarosewitch), and those who use the language of science and research (Greenberg and Brownell). You will find reflections on culture and language (Jungkyu Kim and Rudolf Jarosewitch), a focus that is one of the major strengths of a writing and dialoguing community meeting on the internet. I think it is important to bear in mind that all of this writing is an expression of our interest and excitement. We were not looking to make a financial profit, but giving our time and energy to what we found important, both things to say and people to meet. These are labours of love! They are also labours of intellect. The rigid application of a denial of intellectual engagement as ‘elephant-shit’ both devalues the theoretical basis of Gestalt Therapy and, maybe more importantly, puts the trainee and the client in a one-down position of not being able to know and critique what the trainer or therapist is doing, or from what values and understandings they are coming.

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So I wish you much pleasure with these chapters, and I send a warm hello to my fellow scribes. And remember, if you have thoughts you want to share on any of what we write about, you can join in the ongoing conversation at the Gstalt-L list. Peter Philippson Manchester, UK 30th August 2014

GESTALT THERAPY IN THE WORLD OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA CHARLIE BOWMAN

For those of us who have practiced gestalt therapy for a while, reviewing the archives of Gestalt! is a relational walk down memory lane. From the first editorial by Morgan Goodlander to recollections of friends no longer with us in practice or in spirit, I am reminded of the rich tapestry interwoven by the gestalt community over the years. Nothing has served to weave this tapestry more than the Internet and electronic technology, although it has not been without a struggle. C. S. Lewis wrote, “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg.” Fulfilling the dual mission of advancing and associating required AAGT to take the leap into what was then considered non-traditional communication. In 1995, the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt therapy (AAGT) launched an ambitious campaign to subscribe members to an “Internet Mailbox.” The Spring, 1995 AAGT Newsletter offered complicated instructions for subscribing to [email protected] and coaxed subscriptions by identifying members who were communicating online “from as far away as Australia and Capetown, South Africa.” Brian O’Hara accepted the newly created position “Internet Coordinator” and he, Phil Brownell and I spent a lot of time back and forth trying to coax AAGT members to connect online. Growth was agonizingly slow (see Appendix II). Gestalt therapists have preferred face-to-face contact to electronic media since these early days of teleconferencing and electronic mailboxes. Early discussions about the nature of contact and electronic communication were at times heated, with the jury out on whether or not electronic communications, let alone electronic communities, were valid means of contacting. Such growing pains make little sense today (particularly for a therapy that holds novelty with such centrality). Nonetheless, AAGT and the gestalt community forged ahead in the tradition established in the 1960’s by Fritz Perls for using cutting-edge technology. His early recording equipment can still be found at the

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Humanistic Psychology Special Collections at the University of California - Santa Barbara. The growth of gestalt therapy through electronic media has been remarkable and well documented elsewhere. The lion’s share of responsibility for this growth belongs with Gestalt Global Corporation. The brainchild of Phil Brownell, this non-profit organization was dedicated to facilitating the growth and development of gestalt therapy by building a global community, publishing, and research. In 1997, Gestalt Global launched Gestalt!, the first electronic gestalt journal. Gestalt! experimented with different writing techniques and supported the expression and development of ideas much more than adherence to publication style. After publishing ten volumes of the journal, many of which were dedicated to AAGT conferences and member interests, Phil offered editorship to AAGT. At the 2010 membership meeting and conference AAGT members expressed their support and consensus for adopting the online journal as the official journal of AAGT. Phil, Dan Bloom and I offered to co-edit the journal and welcomed the opportunity for creative collaboration. AAGT embraced the journal, touting it as a publication interested in developing new writing in the field and offering support to less experienced writers in their projects – goals Phil had promoted from the start. AAGT’s stewardship of Gestalt! was short lived and the journal was put quietly to rest in 2012. Emerson said it neatly- “There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish; the thing is to do as much as you can in the time that you have.” While AAGT ultimately laid Gestalt! to rest as a result of never having enough time, Brian Mistler and Phil Brownell have done yeoman work bringing us Gestalt! in the time that they have made to preserve the best of the best. So here you are, holding decades of gestalt therapy in your hands, about to glimpse the evolution of gestalt therapy as it happened. Like Walter Cronkite’s very popular television show of the mid-1950’s, You Are There, the hot topics of the day spring into life. Fresh ideas about research, ethics, spirituality, or mindfulness are flanked by more stalwart topics concerning gestalt therapy and dialogue, paradox, classical theory or self-psychology. Relive the respondent’s wrestling with love, or music, or trauma – often sparked by current events and carried over from the live dialogue of the Gstalt-L discussion list.

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Being free from the shackles of traditional publishing meant the authors could focus more on contemporaneity and relevance. This allowed the on line gestalt community to live up to Einstein’s advice, “The important thing is not to stop questioning.” As you peruse the pages of this book, keep Einstein’s advice in mind. Read. Question. Dialogue. That’s what we did! Charlie Bowman August 2014 Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I offer first my biggest thanks to all of the wonderful writers whose work appears in this volume and to everyone who made Gestalt! possible. Simultaneously, I offer my apologies to both the authors and to you (each reader) for any errors introduced or misstatements I have made in summarizing the pieces or their composers – for any that interfere with the reader’s ability to understand the piece or inevitably fail to do justice to a group of writers I both admire and reassure, there is no excuse; I apologize. Personally, I want to thank my sister, both of my parents, my dear co-workers and friends in Florida, New York, and around the world for their love and support through many of my projects, this included. I am especially appreciative to series editor and volume co-editor Philip Brownell for his vision, faith, collaborative spirit, and tireless work ethic. And, my deepest gratitude to all of the mentors and teachers throughout my journey – especially, to Peter White for his early role in my path to psychotherapy, to Drs. Jeff VanLone and Tammy Walsh, wonderful supervisors and even better people, and to Dr. M. Pat Korb at the Gestalt Center of Gainesville who, in her 80s when I met her, taught me more about Gestalt Therapy – therapy period – in my six years of training with her than I imagined possible; I remain indebted beyond words. Brian J. Mistler August 2, 2014 Sarasota, Florida *** First, I express here as clearly and directly as I can, my appreciation for Brian Mistler. He has been part of the dialoguing community to which Peter Philippson referred in his foreword, but beyond that, when the vision for this book emerged, he was eager to contribute by volunteering to edit the anthology. And that he has done.1 I was preoccupied with other

1 As mentioned elsewhere in this volume, Brian and I decided to leave as much of the original listings and styles as possible so as to reflect the nature of the online

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obligations and Brian has done the clear majority of the work preparing this manuscript. I am deeply appreciative of his work, because I very much wanted to preserve as much of Gestalt! as possible. Second, I want to thank the people who contributed to Gestalt! over the years that it was published. It is obvious that without their willingness to write for the journal that it would not have existed. And exist it did, at one point being listed in the PsychInfo database of the American Psychological Association. In another sense, though, these people contributed to my professional understanding of gestalt therapy, to my appreciation for different cultures and worldviews, and they helped me to become a better psychotherapist. I also want to express my appreciation for the people at Cambridge Scholars Publishing who had the interest in establishing this series of books focused on the world of contemporary gestalt therapy. They provide a valuable resource to students and scholars of all kinds of subjects, but in this case certainly of gestalt psychotherapy, consulting, and coaching. Philip Brownell August 12, 2014 From Above Mizzentop Warwick, Bermuda

journal. Thus, you will find a variety in reference styles, for instance, and that is no reflection on Brian. It’s the way it came together in the online environment.

INTRODUCTION WORDS I WISH I WROTE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PRACTICAL GESTALT THEORY BRIAN J. MISTLER, PH.D.

What an incredible collection of interesting and accessible information you’re holding in your hands (or browsing on your screen). Kurt Lewin (1951) wrote, “There is nothing so practical as a good theory,” and by that measure, this is among the most practical books you’ll encounter. This book brings together both a fascinating record of the history of one of Gestalt Therapy’s most important journals, Gestalt!, and a diverse collection of writings on a representative – to the point of being quite comprehensive – scope of topics related to Gestalt therapy theory, research, and practice. One of my favorite non-Gestalt authors, Robert Fulghum (1999) edited a book with the headline title “Words I Wish I Wrote”. As I have poured over this material, I found that same thought returning to me again and again – how insightful, how succinctly put, how many times I have had such questions or begun to consider such conclusions and how I wish I had been able to articulate them as wonderfully as the authors do herein. And, even on a fourth or fifth reading of these chapters, I have found some new gift each author has given to deepen or expand our understanding of Gestalt Therapy. Fulghum’s edited book (lying open to the table of contents next to me on the end table as I type on my laptop) includes the works of great minds like Dylan Thomas, Rainer Maria Rilke, Kurt Vonnegut, Lao Tzu, Shel Silverstein, Albert Camus, and William Butler Yeats. Just as I imagine these authors are to Robert Fulghum, so many of the writers whose work appears in this volume have been influential to me in my development as a psychologist and in my understanding of Gestalt Therapy. It has been thus both a special honor to co-edit this volume as well as an educational delight to revisit these works in the process. The result of this process is a

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treasure for me and I hope too for you, the reader, of a vast and impressive collection of incredible thought bound together in a way that I am convinced will be useful for seasoned practitioners and researchers. If you are a student approaching Gestalt Therapy for the first time, you will find no better introduction to this phenomenological, existential, and behavioral-based approach to therapy which emphasizes wholes, therapist development, the therapist-client relationship, and being in the present moment (Mistler, 2009). Not just for experts wishing to go deeper, this volume is also a fantastic reference and anthology of Gestalt Therapy for students at all levels. To accomplish this scope, this book captures most of the first decade of the online journal Gestalt! (ISSN 1091–1766). No tradition survives without a way of passing information on from practitioner to practitioner, decade to decade, generation to generation. As a tradition grows, the means of transmission changes, and is simultaneously affected as technology affords new methods. Certainly the invention of the printing press revolutionized the transmission of a great deal of information to an expanse of people who previously could not have imagined access. The internet has offered a revolution of comparable or greater magnitude, and true to their cutting edge reputation, leading practitioners of Gestalt Therapy from around the world came together to create an important body of information about our field at a time that online access to materials was in its infancy. When the internet was young, Gestalt! became one of the first completely online, electronic journals for a professional audience. It featured full-text articles and interviews, reviews of books, and proceedings of various conferences for the global community of gestalt therapy practitioners. Some of the most prominent names in contemporary gestalt therapy appeared in the journal, and a review of the table of contents for this volume reads like a veritable Who’s Who of the contemporary Gestalt Therapy world. In both the story of the journal and the current volume, Phil Brownell, my co-editor, deserves great laudation, for his vision, leadership, and persistent effort in making two important visions a reality: the first, a free access peer-reviewed international journal Gestalt!, and now together, a way to ensure this important reservoir of insights and knowledge is accessible into the future. In Chapter One, Dr. Phil Brownell, the founder and Sr. Editor of Gestalt! describes how the journal came into being and what its original vision was in an original piece titled: A Perspective on Online Process–The Origins and Original Vision of Gestalt!, the online journal. In Chapter Two, Validating Gestalt: An Interview with Leslie Greenberg (first published in Gestalt! 1(1), 1997) Philip Brownell shares

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an interview with researcher, writer, and gestalt-trained psychotherapist Leslie Greenberg covering issues related to gestalt theory and practice as well as issues related to research validity and evidence-based practice. In Chapter Three, Ethics and Training Practices: A Call for Discussion (first published in Gestalt! 1(2), 1997) Philip Brownell, Jay Levin, and Brian O’Neill offer a call for a public discussion of two issues affecting the practice of Gestalt therapy. The first concern is that of ethical guidelines for practice and the second area is an exploration of the models utilized for training in Gestalt therapy. The authors make clear that at times these differences may even give rise to conflicting ideas of what "is" Gestalt therapy, or what is "good" or "bad" Gestalt therapy. The lack of clarity and criteria regarding professional practice, ethical guidelines, and values inherent in Gestalt therapy makes a coherent standard a seeming impossibility, however, the authors never-the-less offer a noble and engaging attempt to open a discussion and clarify the wider field of professional practice and training. The concept of the soul is not a stranger either to the field of psychology or the practice of psychotherapy, and its nature has been debated within philosophical circles for centuries. In Chapter Four: Psychotherapy and Soul Care: Toward a Clinical Rapprochement (first published in Gestalt! 1(2), 1997), Jay Uomoto explores how concern for the soul and its centrality to human suffering and functioning in this world seems to have touched numerous levels of society today including consumers of popular psychology and spirituality to those involved in medicine and biomedical ethics....Soul care has now come into vogue as a viable and vital means of healing emotional wounds, bringing a new perspective to human suffering, providing a context within which to understand suffering, and dissipating some of the meaninglessness that comes with human finitude. From a fascinating military and gestalt vantage, in Chapter Five: Clausewitz Here and Now: Military Obedience and Gestalt Theory (first published in Gestalt! 1(2), 1997), Bruce Barrett, draws on the Gestalt Theoretical Psychology, including Gestalt Therapy, to highlights of conceptual and practical insights into non-clinical life challenges and their solutions. From this framework he explores classical problems in the art of war and military history, practical problems in battlefield operations, and the identification and understanding of successful soldiering all can benefit from the holistic Gestalt theoretical perspective. In Chapter Six, Ethical Considerations in Working with Religious Clients, by Dan Carpenter (first published in Gestalt! 1(2), 1997), the author summarizes some of the dangers inherent in working with spirituality, while at the same time

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challenging the clinician to take advantage of religious issues in therapy. Gestalt therapists, he contents, are seen as particularly equipped for this type of work, being focused on a dialogical relationship as opposed to a rigid challenging of the client's religious beliefs. In Chapter Seven, titled Aroah or What Constitutes Healing in Psychotherapy (first published in Gestalt! 1(3), 1997), Rudolf Jarosewitsch explores what living in New Zealand is like, how the culture affected his work as a gestalt therapist, and according to native island culture what makes for healing in psychotherapy. In Chapter Eight, Renewing Our Roots in Neuropsychology: A Gestalt Perspective on the Work of Joseph LeDoux (first published in Gestalt! 2(1), 1998) Philip Brownell presents a review of The Emotional Brain, by Joseph LeDoux, with particular focus on how his work in neurology and neuropsychology relates to and is relevant for contemporary gestalt therapy, pointing back to the work of Kurt Goldstein. Chapter Nine, Dialogue and Paradox: In Training with Lynne Jacobs, the “Dialogue Maven” offers a transcript of a training lecture about dialogue and gestalt therapy given by Lynne Jacobs at the Portland Gestalt Training Institute, Portland, Oregon, USA and first published in Gestalt! 2(1), 1998. All psychotherapies have to consider the philosophical questions of how we think we know anything. If the gestalt of the patient can only be perceived with the gestalt of the therapist, then all that the therapist can say about the gestalt of the other is that which the therapist has created. In Chapter Ten, Stories About Knowing: A View from Family Therapy, David Pocock ask, “What is the relationship between this creation in the mind of the therapist and the real patient?”, with responses from Sylvia Crocker, and Rodger Bufford (first published in Gestalt! (2(1), 1998). Chapter Eleven, Adding Women’s Voices: Feminism and Gestalt Therapy, brings together a number of attendees at a special interest group event at the 1998 AAGT conference aiming to extending their voices beyond the workshop, and welcome the reader into their ongoing process. This piece is contributed to by M’Lou Caring, Cynthia Cook, Gail Feinstein, Iris Fodor, Zelda Friedman, Alice Gerstman, Susan Jurkowski, Maria Kirchner, and Ruth Wolfert and was first published in Gestalt!, 3(1), 1999. In Chapter Twelve, “Gestalt Therapy Groups: Why?” Serge and Anne Ginger of Ecole Parisienne de Gestalt (EPG, Paris France) highlight the richness of gestalt therapy groups versus traditional individual therapy with great responses by Jon Frew and Bud Feder (first published in Gestalt!, 4(1), 2000). John Wymore, Chapter Thirteen, writes on Thoughts on Music: Why We Have It, Why We Do It, and Why We

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Like It (first published in Gestalt! 4(1), 2000), exploring the neuropsychology behind music from an evolutionary psychology and gestalt therapy perspective. Dialogue and Being is title and topic of Chapter 14, by Colin R. Purcell-Lee with responses by Lynne Jacobs and Gary Yontef. First published in Gestalt! 4(2), 2000, it explores several central issues regarding the I-Thou relationship, including its non-verifiability and ontological versus epistemological nature. In Chapter Fifteen, Prelude to Contemporary Gestalt Therapy, Charles Bowman and Philip Brownell jointly present a summary (first published in Gestalt! 4(3), 2000, and still deeply relevant today), of the three periods that characterize the historical process leading to present gestalt therapy: the predecessors to gestalt psychology, the school of gestalt psychology itself, and the development of gestalt psychotherapy. In Chapter Sixteen, The Spiritual Dimensions of Gestalt Therapy, Ruth Wolfert presents her take on the spirituality resident in gestalt therapy, presenting gestalt therapy as a holistic therapy with a greater spiritual foundation than is utilized by most Gestalt therapists. Based, in part, on teachings from Buddhism and Taoism, this piece was first published in Gestalt! 4(3), 2000. In Chapter Seventeen Maria Kirchner offers an overview of Gestalt Therapy Theory, first published in Gestalt! 4(3), 2000, starting with a short introduction and highlighting gestalt therapy’s philosophical roots and the gestalt view of human nature, functioning and dysfunctioning, and a listing of major methods of gestalt therapy and multicultural considerations. Chapter Eighteen, Clinical Supervision: A GestaltHumanistic Framework, was originally written by Yaro Starak to serve as a focus for discussion with a group of supervisors-in-training at the University of Queensland, Australia, as an attempt to develop a professional supervision framework that could serve as a model for supervision of psychotherapists and counselors (first published in Gestalt! 5(1), 2001). Victor Daniels wrote a column in several issues of Gestalt!, each time discussing various aspects of clinical work and giving examples. Chapter Nineteen, presents examples of two of those columns. Chapter Twenty, titled “Discussions at Gstalt-L: Check-In; Impasse; Field & Boundary” captures the nature of the gestalt participants at the online community called Gstalt-L, and it includes portions of two of its various discussions: one on the impasse in therapy and the second on field dynamics in gestalt therapy. The particular discussion captured here includes Sylvia Crocker, Philip Brownell, Gerhard Stemberger, Steve (Vinay) Gunther, Bruno Just, Amit Sen, and Ruth Wolfert. When Gstalt-L began, in 1996, the big issue was what had occurred at the first AAGT

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conference when Richard Kitzler demonstrated his work and Jeffery Schaler watched. Actually, a great deal of energy was spent on debating various issues coming from a piece Schaler wrote about Kitzler's work, and published online, called "Bad Therapy." At Gstalt-L Dr. Schaler engaged Robert Feldhaus and others in a running debate on ethics and practice. One of the finest moments from those discussions, which took about three months, was this statement from Robert Feldhaus (edited to present Dr. Feldhaus's statements without his quoting of others on the list). It is given in Chapter Twenty-One and titled Projection and Self Psychology, by Robert Feldhaus, first published in Gestalt! 5(2), 2001. In Chapter Twenty-Two Sylvia Crocker explores that nature and relationship of dialogue and the phenomenological method, culminating in the mystery of interpersonal discovery (first published in Gestalt! 5(3), 2001). In Chapter Twenty-Three, Brian O’Neill describes the field of psychotherapy as impacted by various perspectives on spirituality, advocating for the integration of spiritual process in the otherwise holistic gestalt approach. In a letter, Bud Feder objects to spirituality being grafted into gestalt therapy, because he believes that it is not needed and Philip Brownell responds thoughtfully to both (first published in Gestalt! 5(3), 2001). In a letter to the editor first published in Gestalt! 5(3), 2001, John Wymore shares his concerns over Joe Melnick's lament on the marginalization of Gestalt therapy, as he expressed it in a recent issue of Gestalt Review, presented here in Chapter Twenty-Four. Shortly after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Charlie Bowman became heavily involved in the trauma debriefing work at ground zero. As he put in extensive hours talking with people, a passionate debate erupted at Gstalt-L on the antecedents, contributing influences, and the responsibilities for the attacks. Charlie’s simple stories, shared once in the middle of these discussions, changed the nature of them dramatically and, along with Charlie’s responses to questions by Gestalt! Sr. Editor, led to the creation of the “To Ground Zero and Back Again”, presented in Chapter Twenty-Five and previously published in Gestalt! 6(1), 2002. Chapter Twenty-Six, “Airline Crash Survivors, Vietnam Veterans, and 9-11 by Carol H. Pollard, Carl Mitchell, and Victor Daniels (first published in Gestalt! 6(1), 2002) presents another perspective on the 9-11 tragedy. This chapter offers results of a qualitative study of fifteen flight attendants involved in airline crashes or hijackings and what they found therapeutic. The results suggest psychoanalytic and other minimally directive approaches were generally viewed as frustrating and ineffective, while several more directive approaches were found to have value. Methods of applying gestalt therapy to problems and issues reported by

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the flight attendants are also discussed as well as a long-term history of group therapy and gestalt therapy with Vietnam veterans and how insights from both groups apply to 9-11 survivors. Chapter Twenty-Seven presents Insight Dialogue Meditation with Anxiety Problems, by Jungkyu Kim and Gregory Kramer (first published in Gestalt! 6(1), 2002) discussing research integrating aspects of cognitive and gestalt therapy into “mindfulness meditation” for the treatment of anxiety. Chapter Twenty-Eight: Gestalten, by John Wymore (first published in Gestalt! 6(2), 2002) describes in brief the concept of gestalt formation, a basic concept in gestalt therapy. And, in Chapter TwentyNine Peter Philippson explores Contemporary Challenges in the Application of Perls’ Five-Layer Theory (first published in Gestalt! 6(2), 2002), arguing that while Perls’ five-layer theory has fallen into disfavour and disuse, it can actually be understood as a restatement of central themes from Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1955) about the nature of neurosis and therapy with neurotic process. Chapter Thirty, “It’s Not Easy Being A Field Theorist: Commentary On “Cartesian and Post-Cartesian Trends In Relational Psychoanalysis,” is offered by Lynne Jacobs as part of an ongoing conversation between two closely allied schools of thought in contemporary psychoanalysis, intersubjectivity theory, and the American relational school, touching on themes important to gestalt therapy as well (first published in Gestalt! 6(2), 2002). In Chapter Thirty-One, The Impossible Toilet (first published in Gestalt! 6(2) 2002), two friends and psychotherapists, Claire Salisbury (now Claire Asherson Bartram) and Debbie Friedman, explore flight, toilets, and control in the Gestalt dream exploration in a humorous and insightful short piece. Love, Admiration, or Safety: A System of Gestalt Diagnosis of Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations That Focuses on What Is Figure for the Client, by Elinor Greenberg, first published in Gestalt! 6(3) 2002 and herein in Chapter Thirty-Two, re-conceptualizes Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid personality disorders as relatively inflexible organizations of the organism-environment field that are made and remade at each moment at the contact boundary through figure/ground formation. Chapter Thirty-Three, “Perceiving You Perceiving Me: SelfConscious Emotions and Gestalt Therapy” by Philip Brownell (first published in Gestalt! 8(1), 2004, discusses the existence of a class of emotions described as being “self-conscious” in nature. It summarizes the work of various authors, including the foundation of the cognitiveattributional-adaptive organizations of Richard Lazarus, and building on that with the cognitive-attributional structure offered by Michael Lewis.

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Relevancy to gestalt therapy is explored and the compatibility of this view of emotions with phenomenological, field theoretical, and relationally oriented psychotherapies is explored. Chapter Thirty-Four “Schema Therapy: A Gestalt-Oriented Overview,” by Scott H. Kellogg provides a comprehensive overview of the contemporary use of schema therapy (first published in Gestalt! 10(1), 2009) in both of its forms – schema-focused therapy and schema mode therapy. An integrative approach that draws from the cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, gestalt, and ego-state traditions in psychotherapy, there has been an increasing use of gestalt and experiential techniques as this therapy has developed. Originally created for patients with personality disorders and Axis I disorders that were nonresponsive to treatment, this treatment is now used for a wide array of problems. As an example, the model for treating borderline personality disorder is presented along with a case example using schema mode therapy. Potential areas of overlap and interaction between schema therapy and gestalt therapy are outlined, and dialogues between the two approaches are encouraged. Three authors offer responses that Kellogg in turn replies to. Brownell’s response focuses on the role of consilience in psychotherapy integration, offers three kinds of integration, and identifies the integration employed by Kellogg and Young in their adoption of gestalt therapy techniques. It closes with suggestions for possible future development of integrational bridges between these two clinical approaches. Dan Bloom offers a response providing an orienting view of foundational principles in gestalt therapy and points out a difference between a technique-driven approach to psychotherapy and one based on a coherent theory of the self. This response further contrasts an intrapsychic with a phenomenological understanding. Iris Fodor summarizes the Kellogg article broadly from the perspective of someone experienced at integrating cognitive-behavioral and gestalt therapy. In Chapter Thirty-Five, titled “In Transition: Gestalting Theory from Practice, Practice from Theory” Seán Gaffney charts his journey (first published in Gestalt! 11(1), 2011) from being a dedicated gestalt practitioner to becoming, first, a practitioner-author, then, a practitionerresearcher, then, a practitioner-theorizer, and then–in brief through illuminating flashes–a theorizer. Three gestalt practitioner colleagues, Brian Mistler, Sue Congram, and Philip Brownell, with special interest in research, make unedited in-text comments and final brief summaries at the author’s request. In Chapter Thirty-Six, “Structuring Background by Letting Go of Clinging and Avoidance,” Jungkyu Kim, helps us become more deeply interested in what it takes to translate an idea, a concept, or an experience into another language. What if people speaking the other

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language don’t have the same thought, experience, or background? Are we destined to be confined within the prisons of our own experiences and languages? This piece was first published in Gestalt! 11(1), 2011. In Chapter Thirty-Seven internationally renowned French psychologist and founder of the Institut Français de Gestalt-thérapie, Jean-Marie Robine, presents “A Background to ‘The Field.’” First published in Gestalt! 11(1), 2011, this piece explores Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman’s (1951) reference to “the field.” Robine makes the case they are clear that they are referring to the organism/environment field, and in doing so, they take for granted what is implied but not adequately spelled out in this expression. Robine writes with the goal of unpacking this for the reader, without attempting to elaborate it or develop it in new directions. In this, Robine brings an attitude perhaps similar to that of an ardent and advanced student-sage, who desires egoless understanding, and wishes simply to share this understanding in as pure a form as possible, with us. This is a wonderful attitude to have, and an important one to Gestalt. Indeed, Gestalt is broadly much more about attitude than any particular technique. Attitude is important and intentional to any venture, even when difficult to capture or measure. It affects where we direct our attention – our energy and excitement – and where we work to direct the intention/attention of others. Philip Brownell says it beautifully in his response piece in Chapter 34, “…our interest, what gestalt therapists call a figure, is illuminated with an attitude. What is this attitude? It is the filtered light that drops through the canopy of a rain forest. Without that, the ground would remain in shadow or even undetected, and certainly it would go unappreciated and lost to one's attention. However, in this attitude, a subject can attend to this figure or that, but each one will be lit up by the same light cast upon other figures, and all these figures would be understood as in some way fitting together in one attitude.” I shall end by saying something of our attitude in our work compiling this book and how it influenced what became figural in managing the various tensions of editing a volume such as this. The most notable challenges were resolving oppositions between uniformity and the individual spirits and indeed carrying needs of each chapter. In the end, we felt for example, some dialogues needed to be formatted in one way for readability, whereas other pieces needed more traditional formatting for the same purpose. Occasionally what may seem to some a peculiarity of speech normally edited out is intentionally left in, to give the best flavor for the author’s own, original voices. In compiling biographies, some authors are no longer living, or for other reasons unable to provide updates, and so much biographical information is retained from the

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original submissions as possible to capture the historical moment. In some cases of course, none or little was provided. So too there is inconsistency in author’s decisions to list their degrees or other credentials, and in many cases this inconsistency is preserved as an indication of the author’s intention about self-presentation. Most of the issues were of this nature, and I hope the focus on the deeper content of the pieces over and above these small compromises or missed typographical errors will be forgiven, and ideally even shared. Above all, it can be said then that our attitude has been one of preservation and honest translation, offering you an opportunity to read these pieces as written, with only the mildest of adulteration where absolutely unavoidable. William James (1907, p 54-55) once described the philosophy of pragmatism as, “the attitude of looking away from first things, principles, ‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts.” I hope you will find the fruit of this attitude applied to the archives of Gestalt! to be a collection of really good and practical gestalt theory of the nature that Lewin had in mind… really good theory, by really great authors… that’s exciting, right?….I find it very exciting! On to chapter one…!

References Fulghum, R. (1999). Words I wish I wrote: A Collection of Writing That Inspired My Ideas. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. James, W. (1907). Pragmatism. New York: Longmans, Green, and co. Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers (D. Cartwright, Ed.). New York, NY: Harper & Row. Mistler, B. J. (2009). Gestalt Therapy. In B. Erford (Ed.), American Counseling Association Encyclopedia of Counseling. Alexandria, VA: The American Counseling Association. Perls, Frederick S.; Hefferline, Ralph; Goodman, Paul. Gestalt Therapy, Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. Gestalt Journal Press (1951).

CHAPTER ONE A PERSPECTIVE ON ONLINE PROCESS: THE ORIGINS AND ORIGINAL VISION OF GESTALT!, THE ONLINE JOURNAL PHILIP BROWNELL

In 1993 I enrolled in my doctoral program at George Fox University (it was still a college back then). I bought a Mac desktop computer through the college, and I bought a modem, and I got myself hooked up to the Internet. I was pleased to be able to contact professors from other universities, people I’d read about in textbooks, like Phillip Shaver, who studied attachment at the University of California, Davis. I met Ian Pitchford, who was at Sheffield University at the time and who, in 1993, had created an early online resource called Interpsych. It was not long before I started exploring the world of text-based interaction. The first email discussion list I joined was a group originating from The Netherlands in which established international experts in creativity and creative problem solving–largely consultants to international businesses– talked about issues relevant to their profession. I was amazed to be talking with people in different parts of the world, and I was also astounded by the passion that colored the way people were speaking to one another. In fact, occasionally there was too much passion and not so much customary respect. In those days it was common to find oneself caught up in a “flame war.” Flaming is when people become enraged and aggressive toward one another, with very little inhibition, and they often swear at one another and threaten each other. Social scientists have estimated that the lack of personal, face-to-face contact gives people the sense of relative safety from consequences. Whatever the reason, it was dramatic and exciting to be in the midst of such things. I found myself spending hours online reading these people, and I noticed how the group seemed to rise to the occasion of interaction by interacting in kind. If the people did not respond

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to others right away, the list went quiet. I realized that in text-based environments interaction begets interaction. When I first started posting to the creativity list, it was terrifying. I would read something, have a thought, and wonder what might happen if I sent my thoughts to the list. On the day that I sent my first message, my heart was racing, and I waited to see what might happen. I imagined being maligned. I imagined being shown to be a fool. Instead, I was simply ignored, and that felt worse. I did not like being ignored; so, I wrote to the list and told them so. From that point on, I was hooked. For months I interacted with these consultants from around the world before I ever ventured onto a new list created by members of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT). In 1995 the AAGT held its first international conference in New Orleans, and I attended. On this new email list there ensued heated discussions of a demonstration of gestalt therapy conducted by Richard Kitzler of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy. Some people were aghast at what they saw him do, and other people defended him and called for a more reasoned evaluation of the whole “Masters” track of demonstrations in that conference. One day someone posted an article he had written titled “Bad Therapy,” in reference to Kitzler’s demonstration, using it as hammer to bash all of gestalt therapy, and before I new it I found myself engaged in heated debate defending gestalt practice. I had just started my formal training in gestalt therapy (even though I had been exposed to it several years previously); so, it was quite amazing to be talking about it with established gestalt therapists in different parts of the world, let alone with established writers. Before long I found my way to Dr. Bob Zenhausern at St. Johns University in New York. Both my early learning about online resources and the origins of the electronic journal, Gestalt!, can be traced to Zenhausern’s work. “Dr. Z,” as he was known, was an early participant in what emerged as the Internet. In the 1980s he began participating in online interaction. As his connections among others grew, Dr. Z began creating email lists that emerged as text-based environments and communities of people all connected around shared interests that in some way pointed to people-helping. These lists were created and archived at St. Johns University. By the time Zenhausern retired in 1998 the scope of the lists had increased until there were over 740 of them, serving over 203,000 subscribers and sending almost 1,000,000 messages per day. The major portion of these lists dealt with the Human Services including Education, Disability, Support, Wellness, and especially Psychology with approximately 200 Lists dealing with professional, support, and consumer

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issues. The large number and broad range of topics on these lists has led to a concentration of information and individuals… The information contained on these Lists may not have been subjected to the peer review system, but neither were they subjected to the typical 2-year publication lag. They provide a preview of the latest thinking in an area and an opportunity to become involved in that thinking. (Zenhausern, 1998, np)

That is the social and technological context for the origins of the online journal Gestalt!. The world of digital gestalt (Woldt & Brownell, 2005) started in the middle 90s and is described in Charlie Bowman’s foreword to this book. At the conference planning session for the 1997 AAGT conference, the planning committee met at the venue in 1996 and at that time, sitting around a table, I floated my vision for an online journal. I knew it could be done. However, the people at the table were struggling with simply handling email; so, they were not interested in trying to create and support a journal. Although disappointed, I sensed the opportune moment was at hand, and so returning to my home in Portland, Oregon, I began exploring the idea of an online journal with Bob Zenhausern. He offered me two lists to support the journal. The first was for people reading the journal, in order to discuss its contents, and the second was to be dedicated to the staff of the journal, who were all people beginning to explore the use of the internet. The vision was to create a community of gestalt people who would each become web publishers creating their own various projects, all of which would function at the hub we created at St. Johns University. One was Lars Berg, who became editor of the Nordic Gestalt Journal. Another was Gerhard Stemberger, editor of Gestalt Theory, a publication of the Society for Gestalt Theory and Its Applications. The first list I called Gstalt-L and the second I called Gstalt-J. In time people joined Gstalt-L, but it was not to discuss journal articles as much as it was to simply discuss gestalt therapy theory, practice, events in the gestalt community, and so forth. Gstalt-L flourished, and it took on a life of its own. While Gstalt-J never amounted to much, Gstalt-L became a virtual community. The people there shared their lives as well as their thoughts, and one example of that was written up in Brian O’Neill’s (2009) book, Community, Psychotherapy, and Life Focus: A Gestalt Anthology of the History, Theory, and Practice of Living in Community. It was the story of a clinical social worker who had stumbled into a continuing education workshop on gestalt therapy, been converted to gestalt therapy, joined Gstalt-L, and then who became terminally ill with cancer and died as a member of that community. People conducted a wake for her at one of the

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AAGT conferences, showing how virtual community flows into actual community and then back again (see Appendix I). So, over time Gstalt-L diverged from the journal, but on occasion the dialogues at Gstalt-L were captured and published in the journal. However loose the link between them eventually became, they came into the world at the same time and remained fertile ground for one another. Gestalt! was never conceived of as a competition for traditional, peerreviewed journals. It gave up the rigor of such things for the advantage of rapid deployment. It’s purpose fit with the lists at St. Johns University; it was a vehicle where new writers could gain experience, veteran writers could float their ideas, and where ideas in currency in the quick-paced communities of gestalt therapy around the world could be seen swiftly. Its vision was in keeping with the nature of the Internet in the early days of the Internet–a free sharing of ideas and information. Gestalt! featured issues dedicated to the gestalt communities in South America, Europe, the USA, and Australia and New Zealand. It featured poetry. It contained pieces devoted to theory and those devoted to practice. Outside of the featured articles, it was also a conveyer of news about conferences and training opportunities. It was gratifying to realize that some of the most noteworthy and respected thinkers in the gestalt world offered themselves to write for Gestalt!. It was a place where both novice and expert could be seen side by side. Gestalt! was a child of the Internet when the Internet itself was still very young. Today, individual websites contain many of the ingredients that Gestalt! attempted to provide. Writers and established institutes now have their own web sites where the reader can find interesting articles. Training opportunities are plentiful and well publicized in the virtual world. As I write this, the British Gestalt Journal will be creating an online version of itself in which news and featured articles will be made available to the general public. Indeed, it will then, in a real sense, pick up where Gestalt! left off, and that feels good. There is a continuation, of sorts, of the original vision. At its height, Gestalt! was reaching a readership that vastly exceeded the traditional journals. On the average about 6,000 individual people read at least one article each week (this is not the “hit” matrix that counts every single file type associated with a web site, but actual individuals downloading whole pages), and the tracking showed that during peak assignment time in colleges and universities, Gestalt! readership went significantly higher, leading to the conclusion that students used the journal for writing their papers.

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The journal does not exist in the online environment anymore. Its time came and went. However, looking through this collection of its content reminded me of what a privilege, what an extraordinary window of opportunity, opened up back when we got that journal going. All things considered, I think it was time well spent.

References Woldt, A. & Brownell, P. (2005) Appendix A–Digital gestalt: Online resources for the discipline of gestalt therapy, a comprehensive international listing. In A. Woldt & S. Toman (Eds) Gestalt therapy history, theory, and practice, pp. 347-370. Zenhausern, R. (1998) Preface to the memoirs I will never write. PsychNews International, 3(2), np. Downloaded August 8, 2014 from http://userpage.fuberlin.de/expert/psychnews/3_2/pn3_2_5.htm

CHAPTER TWO1 VALIDATING GESTALT: AN INTERVIEW WITH LESLIE GREENBERG2 LESLIE GREENBERG AND PHILIP BROWNELL

Phil: In talking with you I think it would be interesting to know you as a person, and then to get some idea of your view of what Gestalt therapy is - what it's about, and then this issue of integration. So those would be the three broad areas. What I'd like to start off with is what you are doing now. Leslie: Well, I teach at York University in Toronto, and I'm developing a sort of integrative, what I feel is an integrative package of Gestalt and Client-Centered therapy, and I see the two as merging more and more. I see a growing interest in empathy in Gestalt therapy, and in part of what's Client-Centered therapy there is an experiential therapy which I feel is quite similar to Gestalt, so I've trained in both approaches. I've always had some sort of view that they're quite compatible. I'm currently working on that - an attempt to empirically validate the experiential therapies so that they become legitimate again in academic circles. I've recently completed a study of Gestalt and Client-Centered combination on a depressed population, a clinically depressed population, and demonstrated that these processes are as effective as cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy. Phil: Do you find other people picking up this line of interest and also pursuing the empirical validation of the experiential approach?

1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 1(1), 1997. From an interview December of 1996 conducted in Toronto, Ontario and Portland, Oregon.

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Leslie: No, but I'm trying to generate a group of people doing it. I'm working with someone at the University of Toledo in Ohio, Robert Elliott, and he's doing this as well. Then I have a colleague who's an ex-student, Sandra Paivio, and prior to doing the depression study, I had done another study funded by the Canadian Social Science Council on the treatment of unfinished business. We actually advertised for treatment of unfinished business, and in it we got a number of people who had been abused, and Sandra Paivio now is carrying out an empirically-based treatment of what she calls "childhood maltreatment," and she's attempting to replicate our unfinished business study findings. The predominant emphasis is on unfinished business, empty-chair dialogue, within an empathic, relational context. Clearly, my form of Gestalt has emphasized the actual experimental, the use of Gestalt experimentation, and the standard, what I came to define as two-chair and empty-chair dialogues, because these are easily empirically studied. So, I've come to emphasize those although my own practice extends beyond that, but in terms of empirical work I've focused on these processes. Phil: What got you going in the study of psychology and psychotherapy? Leslie: Well, it's important to know that I'm an engineer first, and I have a master's degree in engineering. I'm also sort of a political refugee from South Africa. Phil: When? Leslie: I came in 1968 to Canada, and I came and did a master's degree in engineering, but I came to Canada as kind of an aside, because a professor of mine came to a Canadian university, and so I followed him, to come here for a year, and I intended to go to England or to the States, but I was very politically involved in South Africa in fighting against the government in student politics, which was anti-government politics. I was searching for a way out of engineering; I was much more involved in political things. Then I came here, and it was the middle of the sixties, and I was quite involved in that whole experience, and the sort of drug experience, and my wife was in psychology. She had an undergraduate psychology degree, and she was working as a psychometrist. Phil: Did you meet her in Canada? Leslie: No. We came married. I got married when I was twenty-two in South Africa. Both of us were sort of involved in political issues there, and then we came here. Basically, as an engineer I had read a lot of existential philosophies; I read Sartre, Camus and so on, and was very involved in those kinds of things. I had a number of friends who were all jazz

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musicians, and we were taking amphetamines at first and playing jazz; I didn't actually play an instrument, and we would tape record these sessions, and write poetry and paint and do all kinds of crazy things. But I was an engineer and these two things were not exactly highly compatible. Phil: (laughing) No. Leslie: But I came from a family which had a lot of external stresses. My father had a lot of financial problems, and so I identified as quite an outsider. My father went bankrupt, and the family went through a lot of crisis in that way. But internally my family was relatively functional, or supportive of me anyhow. I was the high-functioning child, but I was very rebellious as a child. Phil: How many kids in your family? Leslie: I had a sister three years older than me. So I was the baby, and I was a very spoiled child as well. And I had a Jewish mother - very food centered, and I've always been overweight. Food was medium of lots of things, but generally, emotional climate was relatively good. Phil: So, you came to Canada, and was it your wife's involvement in psychology? I mean, where was the switch? Leslie: It was really the loss of the political cause in South Africa. I was searching for something more relevant. We identified with the American situation as soon as we came here, and there were a lot of American draft dodgers, and we could sort of identify a lot more with the political strife going on in the States around Viet Nam - the countercultural revolution. The problem was that I did very well in school in engineering, in mathematics, and physics and so on, and so I was always being lead by my achievements, but those were in conflict with my interests. I'd had this crisis earlier in South Africa, in that I didn't really like engineering but I threw myself into politics and I was quite active in student leadership and working with people, so finally when I came here, having now left behind my family and the social context, I felt more free to just break out and do whatever I wanted. My wife was doing psychology and then I met a number of people who were students in psychology, and I just got to learn more about it. In South Africa becoming a psychologist, in my eyes anyhow, wasn't really a viable thing to do. It wasn't a profession or anything like that. When I came here, it looked more viable. And I hadn't ever wanted to be a medical doctor, but that was the thing. All the jazz musician friends of mine ended up as psychiatrists; they all got MD's, and they dropped out of medical school and they came back, and they ended up as psychiatrists. One is now in London and one is in Australia. But I never wanted to do medicine, so when I came here, psychology seemed viable; everyone was wanting to do

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psychology and so I made the shift there, sort of influenced by exposure to what my wife was doing, our friends... It's a very interesting story. I had decided to drop out and go to India for a year, and my wife, we were both going to go. That was sort of a done thing then, with the Beatles, I think. Phil: Right, right. Was that the connection, the reason to go to India? Leslie: Well, it was just sort of one of the things that people were doing at that time. It was sort of seeking the spiritual, I think; I don't know if the Beatles had gone yet, it wasn't a specific thing, but that was one of the things to do. So, it was in August and a friend of mine, a colleague of mine said he was coming up to York University in Toronto. I was outside of Toronto at another engineering university, and he was coming up to York to use the computer. I had heard that there was a woman here, whose name was Laura Rice, and that she was a student of Carl Rogers. And she believed that curiosity was important, and that people in therapy were motivated by curiosity to explore themselves. I don't know if you know this, but a lot of behaviorists had come from South Africa, people like Lazarus and Wolpe and a lot of behavioral therapists, and so the University of South Africa where my wife trained was highly behavioral, and I had read a fair bit on my own, and I thought behaviorism was silly, and... Phil: (laughing) Leslie: ...and psychoanalysis was sort of much too dark, and sort of pathological in its view, and it didn't appeal to me, the whole unconscious motivation perspective, and it seemed all so dark, so I was reading existentialism and I believed in choice and awareness, so I went to talk with this woman here at York University who all I knew about was that she thought curiosity was important. Now my going to India was based on the fact that also from an English educational system I thought I 'd have to start all over again - start a BA in year one. I was just completing my masters, and I said I would drop out and come back and re-enter and study psychology; I'd sort of gotten that far. I'd called up a university and they said I'd have to do X number of years and so on to get a psychology degree. So I came and I knocked on this woman's door, and it was about the 15th of August, and twenty days later I was enrolled in the graduate program at York University. Phil: What did she do? Leslie: Well, actually that was a bit of an exaggeration; I was enrolled in a make-up year for a graduate program and subject to my completing the make-up year I'd go straight into a Ph.D. cuzz I already had a master's.

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And it was really interesting, because it was a new school that had just started and it was very open and they had a number of professors who had come from Berkeley and a number from the University of Chicago, where Laura Rice had come from. There was a model from some other university, I think it was the University of Illinois, which was actually a very hard-nosed psychology department then; they took people in with masters' from the hard sciences. Somehow there was a combination of factors; the director of graduate studies had come from Illinois, and there were a number of these more radical professors, and they thought, "Oh well," and if I wanted to go into psychology, that would be acceptable. It was driven by the fact that I had very good grades and a very good academic record and so on. So, totally serendipitously, I mean by following the regular channels they had told me that I'd have to do a number of make-up years, and I'd decided that I'd drop out, and I just went and knocked on this woman's door. And somehow within ten days my life was changed. Phil: Well, two things intrigued me. One is that you must have gone through a really big decision-making process to conceive of having to start all over again, but to be willing to do that... Leslie: Yes... Phil: ...and then on the other hand this thing about choice and actually meeting and talking with Laura - I'm intrigued by what happened in that interaction with her; it seems rather magical. Leslie: Yes, yes. Well, she told me later she was trying to figure out if I was one of these flaky engineers that had been smoking a lot of dope... Both: (laughter) Leslie: ...or whether I was substantially intellectual. I had strong mathematical skills, and she was a psychotherapy process researcher. She had worked with Rogers, who had developed process research, and she had developed a vocal quality scale, where you could actually listen to people's voices, both client and therapist, and she was trying to track the moment-by-moment influence of people's vocal quality or particular kinds of therapist actions on client vocal quality, and a few other variables. What you need in there is to track something in a statistical manner, moment by moment, which was called stochastic processes. Sort of, what's the probability if I do this, that you will, in the next moment, do that? That kind of thing. I had a strong mathematical background, and she saw the possibility of me working on that. She had just come up to York University from the University of Chicago, and she was a new professor starting the counseling and development program, and I went in saying, "I really like working with people, and I think I'm good with people. I don't

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really know much about sick people, so I don't want to go into clinical...counseling sounds right." It was because I had a very strong academic record, and they decided that they would take me. You know, that was the interaction, the combination that I fit into a vision that she had of something that she wanted to do. Phil: So, it was the sense that you had an opportunity, that there was a place for you there, that there was an open door. Leslie: Right. And so I just grabbed it, ya know. And it was amazing, because one of the things I say in retrospect, if I'd gone to the majority of other schools in North America at the time, I would have probably not flourished or I'd have found it incompatible. You know, all I knew was that she thought curiosity was important. Many schools were still behavioral or analytic and I wouldn't have fit into either of those, but I found a place that was highly humanistically oriented, and she was highly humanistically oriented. Phil: I notice you're still there. Leslie: Yes; I left for twelve years, and I taught at UBC, in Vancouver. And then I came back, and in some ways I actually took her position after she retired. Phil: And would you characterize the program in which you teach now as continuing those humanistic, experiential lines? Leslie: I'm instrumental now in defining it as integrative. But that's because we believe it's important that students get an exposure to psychodynamic and cognitive. But the core of the program is still humanistic. It's not called that; it's difficult to survive in academia now as a humanist. Phil: Well, that brings up something. When I've run across your writing, your work, I keep encountering the term "experiential," and then sometimes you call it "experiential-process," and I've been curious at times, really trying to understand Gestalt, I've given myself with a passion to understanding that, and I come to your work and I say, "Hm. Is he just using another word for Gestalt, or how does he conceive of Gestalt. What is this?" Leslie: It might help me to understand if you can just tell me a little bit of your background in Gestalt, and then I'll be able to relate. Phil: Okay. Going way back, during the time you were moving into the Toronto area, I was in the San Francisco bay area, and I was in the Navy, working on the psych wards at Oakland Naval Hospital. I was exposed to Gestalt - they used Gestalt and transactional analysis on the units there - through some people who were doing training with Fritz Perls and Jim Simkin down at Esalen, who would bring back what they were

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learning and use it on the unit. I was young, and the impact was fairly significant. After the service, I went on to do other things; I was in the ministry but always had this experiential, existential flavor to everything that I did. Several years ago I got out of the ministry and enrolled in a Psy.D. program. I also started training in Gestalt with Maya Brand and Carol Swanson. Along with their training, they would bring in trainers from outside, mostly from Los Angeles, so I've been exposed to Todd Burley, Bob and Rita Resnick, Jan Ruckert, Lynn Jacobs, and in the process got involved with AAGT. I went to the conference in New Orleans, met Iris Fodor... Leslie: Did we meet? Phil: We met. We met at her workshop. As far as the theory goes, I have latched onto Bob Resnick's summary of it where he did that interview with Malcolm Parlett...The three main components are field, dialogue, and phenomenology. Leslie: So, you had asked me what is this experiential label. And let me give you a sort of anecdotal answer. I went recently to this Gestalt writers' conference, and basically I put the following question to them, "Given that both Client-Centered and Gestalt therapy (and the humanistic therapies in general) have died in academia - I'm trying to revive them under the global title of experiential - and given that psychodynamic has many different sub-schools within it, how would people at this conference feel about being one of the schools under a broader label of experiential?" We had a discussion of that. I had a chapter I'd written, and at the time it was called "Experiential Psychotherapy: The Essence of Client-Centered, Gestalt, and Existential Approaches." In the discussion, people influenced me to call it "Experience-Centered Therapies: Gestalt, Client-Centered, and Existential." Laura Rice introduced me to Gestalt psychotherapy theoretically. And I often joke that I'm one of the few people who probably learned about Gestalt therapy theoretically first. I read Perls, Hefferlne, and Goodman in a theories class, and I thought this was really interesting. I read Perls, and then I tried to seek out Gestalt trainers. So I really was introduced to it through books. Then I found out there was a person in town by the name of Harvey Freedman, who was a psychiatrist, and he was running Gestalt therapy groups. I joined with Harvey Freedman; he worked in the Toronto General Hospital, and he ran groups, and I went into these groups for two or three years.

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I was also in encounter groups at York University where people were coming up from Berkeley and doing things like that. I was training meanwhile as a counseling psychologist, seeing my own clients and so on. Then Harvey Freedman was picked by Perls to run the Gestalt Institute of Canada on Vancouver Island. Harvey was getting ready to uproot here and go out there, and then Fritz died. The fallout of that was that Harvey Freedman started the Gestalt Institute of Toronto. He stayed there, and then I was part of the first group, the first-year training group, and I trained here for three years in a formalized training program. Different people came in: Laura Perls was one of the people, and a variety of others. So, I was exposed to a West Coast style of Gestalt Therapy, and I got my training there, but I always felt that they lacked a theory of relationship or any kind of view of empathy and therapeutic relationship. Meanwhile, I was getting a lot of that at my university training from a Rogerian perspective, and I remember like a critical thing at one point saying to Harvey, "You know you don't take the relationship and group process into account," and he said, "Show me where the relationship or group is." It was sort of a radical, phenomenological view, which was very "I" centered, and not "We" centered in any way. And so I always had this sort of theoretical divergence; I mean I was still very young, and it was all mixed up in my still trying to be recognized, but I always had this view that somehow this was a weakness in the practice of Gestalt therapy, and although the "I-Thou" relationship was said to be one of the legs, it wasn't really used or practiced in very strong terms. So I always saw it as a strong theoretical problem. Then I went to Vancouver eventually, because I got an academic job, otherwise I would have stayed here with the Gestalt Institute of Toronto. I was always unhappy with the Perlsianism aspect of Gestalt therapy. Phil: Which is what to you? Leslie: Well, I saw it as pathological notions of radical independence. And I was always much more, although it wasn't articulated at that time, interested in a model of relational interdependence. Phil: A sort of systems thing? Leslie: Well, no. I guess it's a difference between self-sufficiency and self-support. I saw a lot of people in Gestalt as trying to be or believing in self-sufficiency. Phil: Sort of independent? Leslie: Right, the radical independence. Which is exemplified in the Gestalt prayer. And I believe that we need other people, and that that's actually an important part of being human, and that interdependence, as opposed to independence or dependence, is very important. My connections

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are a part of who I am and are important in understanding who I am; I can't understand myself without understanding my connections. And I believe that's very much what Buber was saying. Phil: Would this be compatible with the idea of a constantly forming self? Leslie: Yes, absolutely, but so could a radical independence view be a constantly forming self. Phil: Okay Leslie: That could be totally self-forming, self-organizing. And part of my view is that we need field support in order to constantly organize. And that what we are organizing is always a synthesis of inner and outer. The self that I'm organizing at the moment is a function of the field. So it's highly compatible with the modern interpretations of Goodman, with Wheeler's and subsequent sort of interpretation, or clarification of Goodman - that the self is forming at the boundary as a function of the field. Phil: You're talking about Gestalt Reconsidered? Leslie: Yes. And his subsequent pages on shame. These are some of the reasons why I was moving toward the label of experiential. Phil: Yes. It seems that you're saying there was a lot in Gestalt that was tied up in this radical independence, associated with the Perls' mystique, and also that didn't get at some of the things you were seeing in the Rogerian empathic attunement - the relationship. I find it interesting when you say that you didn't find the relationship in Gestalt as compared to Rogers, because for me, coming to Gestalt in the midst of a program which is highly cognitive, and also listening to Iris talk (it was the relationship which was the aspect of Gestalt which was attractive to her), I have found relational things in Gestalt through the dialogical. Leslie: Yes, but you see that dialogical has only formed in the last decade. So you see, that's my point, that now, in the last decade, Gestalt has really moved into its dialogical phase. Phil: Would you say that that's been because there's been such crossfertilization with Rogers? Leslie: No. I think it's been because of cross-fertilization with Kohut and Stolorow. Lynn Jacobs has been very important, and Gary Yontef. And then, the influence of Kohut. I mean, the Gestalt therapists started reading Kohut in the '80s, and started picking up the notion of...I mean empathy was a dirty word to Fritz, and when I talked about empathy in the 70's in Gestalt it was regarded as bullshit. And so the modern Gestalt therapy is dialogical, but the Gestalt therapy that I grew up in was not.

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Phil: Well, that's helpful for me to know, but you're saying that Kohut is the link? Leslie: Yes, and Stolorow also, because he's in L.A. I think Stolorow's had a strong influence on Lynn Jacobs. You see I met Lynn in the 80's and this was like a soul mate in Gestalt therapy, and I had read her dissertation. And with this I agreed, but this had not been put out as Gestalt therapy in the way that I had been trained in it, or learned it, or been exposed to it. I went out to Cooper Island after Fritz had died, and somebody was running that, and it was very sort of radical independence. We arrived by ferry on this island and stood around for an hour, and there was a truck off to the side and there was somebody sitting in the truck, and eventually, after an hour, we went up to this person and said, "Can you tell us the way to the Gestalt Institute?" And he was there to pick us up! Both: (laughter) Leslie: He'd been waiting for us to ask him. Now, that was radical independence. Phil: Well, that certainly gets the idea across. Leslie: Yes. So, process-experiential is an attempt to integrate these different approaches. Phil: Well, that clarifies the term "experiential," and you seemed to be talking at the Gestalt writer's conference about that, but what would you say is Gestalt? What is specifically Gestalt, today? Leslie: Firstly, I'm disconnected now from the institute circuit, and I've just been doing my thing in academia, but I would see that Gestalt's field theory is an important meta-theoretical principle that defines it. And I actually see active experimentation and dialogue as the two components that make it Gestalt therapy. Client-Centered is lacking the active experimentation, having only empathy. And I'm trying to integrate the two, so I see Gestalt as having now both a dialogical and an experimental component and that's what makes it unique. I think its view of people working at the boundary to solve problems and satisfy needs is a unique perspective on human functioning. Phil: I'm curious. I don't hear you bringing in the phenomenological, which to me is constructivist, a making meaning out of one's experience. Leslie: Yes, but that's because I see that as baseline. I see that as common to Client-Centered and to Gestalt. It's clearly a phenomenological therapy, but there are other phenomenological therapies. I think phenomenology is at its core. That's the experience, but what makes Gestalt different and unique from the other experiential therapies is the use of active experimentation, plus dialogue, and it's view of people at the boundary solving problems.

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Phil: Hm. We talked a little of this previously, but one of the criticisms I hear of Gestalt is that it doesn't have a developmental theory, a theory of self. Do you see that as a viable criticism? Leslie: I am not impressed with the criticism that it doesn't have a developmental theory. I mean, it doesn't, but I don't think psychotherapies really can adequately have developmental theories; I think they should be theories of functioning and theories of practice, not theories of development. I think that's a paper game. Phil: (laughter) Leslie: I think there's a whole discipline of developmental psychology, whose business it is to study development, and we can use that to inform psychotherapy, but because psychoanalysts happened to invent developmental things from listening to people I don't think that's a necessity. Clearly, that's a common criticism of Gestalt, but I don't think people sitting around doing psychotherapy can make developmental theories that are worth anything. Now, this issue of a self I think is different. I think having a more adequate self-theory is important. Phil: In what way? Leslie: Well, I think what Rogers did, that Perls never did, was Rogers' attempt to be a systematic theorizer, and that made the theory open to both testing and refutation. I think Gestalt never had a systematic theory, and that's one of its problems. I think trying to develop systematic theory leads to potential advances, even if only in the refutation of the theory. So I think having a more explicit theory, rather than an intuitive theory, is very important. Phil: Okay. I'm feeling interested in talking just of the subject of integration in itself. One of the reasons is that clearly this is one of your main focuses, something you staked out for yourself, actually. I was talking with someone about the idea of integration. I said that many Gestalt people look at Gestalt as a large enough theory to facilitate integration, bringing in strains from this and that place under the banner of these three pillars, mostly field, dialogue, and the phenomenological, and I guess you would add experimental, but he said that he didn't think there was a need for integration, that in fact that was a dangerous thing, because we needed to have diversity of therapeutic approach. How would you respond to that? Leslie: Well, the basic argument is that knowledge progresses in a dialectical fashion in which you need the synthesis and the antithesis in order for there to be tension, and that's why integration isn't good. Again, I think that these are all so very abstract things that people say, but they don't really deal with concrete notions, and I think there'll always be

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differences, be it under integration or under anything, so I think it's a sort of straw man, that argument. It's a way of people protecting territory. I think integration has a lot to do with social politics of psychotherapy. And then, I think the era of school wars is unproductive. Phil: You mean academic territory? Leslie: Yes, academic territory, but also even more pernicious is economic territory. I think that's where it's really at. People make their livings out of doing psychotherapy and what they call themselves. It would be much better for us to have an integrated profession of psychotherapy in which we all knew as much as we could about how to help people. The other one is more of a religious schools, as I see it. One could argue that that's what we need because they each are a different value system, and the people can then choose which religion is right for them, but my faith lies in that there is something real about psychotherapy; I hesitate to say it's a science, but there's something we could all learn and know about helping people and helping to facilitate them. There are basic principles, and they could be taught as a generic set of rules or set of principles and that that would make us, then, psychotherapists. Now, there were three basic ideas about integration in the first instance, and one was that you could have a grand theoretical integration. Another is that you could get a synthesis; you know, like systems and Gestalt, or Client-Centered and Gestalt. Add two things together, and I guess the third was a kind of technical eclecticism. You could just patch together different interventions from different schools. Phil: In thinking of integration, what is the difference between integration and eclecticism? Leslie: The big difference is that it's regarded as systematic eclecticism as opposed to seat-of-the-pants eclecticism. What makes it integrative is that you would know what you were doing, why, and you would do it similarly on different occasions for the same conditions. Systematic eclecticism is viewed as an empirically-based eclecticism. We learn that for panic attacks particular forms of exposure are the best way of treating them, and then we do that. Phil: That opens up another thing. In terms of these protocols, so to speak, the best procedure in treating a certain condition or disorder - do you see the formation of protocols, or this empirically informed eclecticism, as cutting off advances or limiting the expansion of knowledge or alternatives? I ask this question because people dealing with HMO's are worried about the limiting of their options in terms of providing service.

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Leslie: I think there is an enormous danger. You have an advanced notion of it, using the term "empirically informed" rather than "empirically validated." I think that's quite a big distinction in my mind. The idea of empirically validated treatment stinks, and it's a political attempt to control, ultimately. I think it has real dangers. I think empirically informed treatments are a good idea, because I think it's good to empirically study things, but, yes, I'm very worried about its usage. We don't have HMO's in Canada, but in academia it's the same thing. Now, you have to teach empirically informed treatments. Phil: And so that limits further exploration, which might reveal further empirically informed treatments. Leslie: Right, right; however, it's the political usage of this that's the problem. Empirically informed is good, but it shouldn't be used to limit. I do think more empirical study of psychoanalysis and of Gestalt would be a good thing, and I think encouraging that is good. The people who move the empirically validated movement, I think, are more closed-minded than open-minded, and that's the danger. Phil: Well, you offered these three approaches to integration... Leslie: Well, there's a fourth one that's come up that I prefer. That's called assimilative integration. The idea is that one has to make a distinction between integrative in theory versus integrative in practice. I don't really think you can have integrative theories, because often the theories have different tenets. Now you might at some stage be able to develop a grand, unified theory, and I think that would be good, but currently you can't integrate psychoanalysis and behaviorism or psychoanalysis and Gestalt, because they have different theoretical tenets. You can, working from within your own theory, assimilate things from other people's practice into your practice so that you end up with an expanded practice. Phil: Wouldn't that be detached from theory? Leslie: No. Because you assimilate it into your theory. So you see, I do systematic desensitization, but I assimilate it into a Gestalt theory. Phil: How do you do that? What's the connection there? Leslie: I just help people to be more aware. You know, Perls was doing systematic desensitization; he just wasn't calling it that. When you ask people to be aware, to be aware of their breathing, and to make contact with the feared stimulus, or object, or image, and to check what you're feeling, and regulate your breathing, and do it again, and feel your feet on the ground - I mean, anything like that; it's actually not dissimilar to systematic desensitization. It's the same basic exposure principle. Gestalt is an integration of a lot of things.

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Phil: Well, as you were describing that, I could relate to a process I go through where I will see something from another theory, another perspective or clinical orientation, and say to myself, "In Gestalt, that would be like this. That would be doing this kind of thing." In one way it's semantic - in that theory you call it this, but in Gestalt we call it... Leslie: Yes, yes, that's the translational phenomena. You can translate one thing from one theory into the language of another, and I agree, but I think there's also a way of expanding what you do, but still seeing it in your own theory terms. Phil: Allowing another theory to inform the basic Gestalt commitment. Leslie: Right, especially the Gestalt practice. I'll give you an example. You see, Gestalt is very integrative; this is the important thing, so it serves as a good basis for integration. Linking things to the past comes from psychoanalysis. In-session process comes from the phenomenological therapies, and there's extra-therapy tasks, or homework, which comes from behavior therapy. Now, if you're a Client-Centered therapist, you think only of responding empathically in the moment, but you never think of giving homework. There are ways of incorporating homework within your own theoretical framework, which involve, not that you are modifying people's behavior, but you're actually helping them to choose to do things that are in line with their own tendencies, and then practice is not necessarily incompatible, let's say, with an actualizing tendency. Phil: I want to clarify something for myself. I can understand the connection between the present and the past, if the past is present in the session so to speak, but I'm having a difficult time making the integrative link in Gestalt to doing homework. How do you see that? Leslie: I see that as awareness work outside of the session. Early on in Gestalt it used to be, "Be aware." And when you're outside, be aware of your critic, be aware of your top dog, be aware of when you drop your eyes - but somehow carrying it outside of the session. I think there's a lot of assertiveness training, actually, that was built into Gestalt therapy. Assertiveness training actually implies practicing, but in Gestalt it's done in terms of polarities - how do you bring your strength into enhancing your weakness, or how do you ask for what you want? And then, actually try this. We usually do trying it in the session, or in the group, but there's no incompatibility with trying it outside of the group. The implication is to try it outside. Phil: Another aspect of Gestalt is the paradoxical theory of change. Aren't we encroaching upon that hallowed ground? Leslie: That was one of the big dilemmas to me, because ClientCentered has also very much the equivalent of the paradoxical theory of

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change, but when I first came into Gestalt there were a number of things that I was being exposed to which seemed to me to be encouraging people to change. I think there's always been a tension in Gestalt between "isness" and doing, but I think that's actually a polarity within Gestalt - that there's both being and doing in Gestalt therapy, and it's important to make the distinction between is-ness being experience related - you know, "Accept your experience" - but that the experiment has, as a part of it, a doing component, you know, "Do this, to see what you experience." Not do this in order to change. Phil: And to me, the self, getting back to that, is defined at the point of contact in the doing. Leslie: Right, right. Where Gestalt sort of blew my mind, having just done one year of Client-Centered work, there was this sort of doing as a way of being. It opened new vistas. The basic experiment was sort of, "Look up, and then look down, and see what it's like." That would be a basic experiment. What you experience when you look up, what you experience when you look at me, what you experience when you look down. That's the self forming at the boundary. Phil: Which, it suddenly occurs to me, is very existential, isn't it, taking a leap out there and seeing what's going to happen? Leslie: Yes, yes. It's sort of a risk-taking, existential component. There were so many gestalts, you see, that was the problem. In the Gestalt in which I grew up there was a lot of that in the training. There was a risktaking component. Try something new; when you have the support for it. So, I always saw Gestalt as including a behavioral component, which was not articulated as such. There are, then, ways of assimilating into one's own Gestalt theory different kinds of interventions from other schools and expanding, actually, what you do. It actually expands your practice. Phil: Yes. I am really picking up on a difference between holding something in an academic sense, like you called it a paper game, and encountering, in a relational sense, in the therapy. It seems to me what you're saying is that a person can be integrative in the sense of being eclectic, appropriating this or that intervention, relating it to his or her Gestalt theory. Leslie: Right, but I'm calling it assimilative rather than eclectic, because you truly are assimilating it into your theory. You're not doing a little bit of behavioral therapy; you're actually doing something and viewing it through the eyes of how you understand. Phil: And so at some point, though, maybe a person would say, "I can't do this, because that won't assimilate." Leslie: Exactly.

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Phil: Not just because someone found some sort of outcomes that would support it. Leslie: Right, right. That could happen. Definitely, it would violate something in the way you understand people functioning, and then you wouldn't be able to assimilate it. Phil: Well, are you encouraged in your work for providing empirically supported research on integration? Leslie: I see myself as not doing research on integration, basically, but on humanistic, experiential psychotherapy, incorporating Gestalt and Client-Centered. They're broader and narrower arena's of integration, I guess. I'm not very highly encouraged by my research - I feel very lonely and isolated in my efforts to try to empirically validate the experiential therapies, and I find it hard in academic circles, because I constantly get beaten down by cognitive and dynamic competitors and their points of view. So, it's difficult, and I'm not highly encouraged. On the other hand, I'm not totally discouraged. About integration, which I see as a higher level kind of issue, I think there's some hope still for integration, but it's reached a kind of plateau. The Society of Psychotherapy Integration has been around for about 11 years now. I went to a conference to stimulate research on integration, and this was funded or support by NIMH, and I expected that we would come out with, "These are the studies that should be done." And the three recommendations that came out were all socialpolitic recommendations. They were promotion of desegregation - how do we get behaviorists, and analysts, and humanists to talk to each other and to attend the same conference. And that's what SEPI, the society for integration's conference is all about, trying to bring people together. The other was a recommendation of getting rid of x-rated language. That was the idea that we all see the jargon of other schools as dirty words, and just turn off. So, how do we try not to use x-rated language to turn other people off? You know words like "contact" in Gestalt, and even worse in the humanistic, "get in touch with your feelings." People just turn off when they hear these words. Or if you hear, "partial reinforcement schedule," or if somebody hears "counter-cathexis" or "projective identification" the behaviorist just turns off immediately. Some of the ideas on promoting integration were on somehow getting people to actually converse with each other from the different schools. I think some of that has taken place now, but it hasn't really succeeded, because there are still all the schools doing their own thing, and I think they're very socially and politically based. I mean, people make their living this way. Phil: It sounds like you're discouraged about that.

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Leslie: Yes. It's a big political issue. I think in academia there's been a softening of the boundaries, but in institute world there isn't. There can't really be, because they make their living out of being X's or Y's. I think this is very real. If you're cognitive-behaviorist now, you get a lot of goodies out of being cognitive-behaviorist. In Germany there's been a big fight trying to get Client-Centered and Gestalt people recognized to go on a register, and they currently only recognize cognitive-behavioral and dynamic. One of the current things is that they will not prohibit from practice the humanists, but they have to retrain or re-certify as either dynamic or cognitive. A similar thing happened in Holland where ClientCentered was recognized, and all the Gestalt therapists got certified as Client-Centered. Phil: What do they have to do to get certified? Do they have to go through a whole... Leslie: Well, you see one of the things I think that they're doing is that they're making it easy for the generation that's already trained to re-certify under another label. It's a terrible political corruption process, you know. You obliterate certain schools. There's a lot of politics involved. Phil: You bring up another issue for me through the geographical connection. I know people in Germany and different parts of Europe who are involved in a different kind of Gestalt that goes back to the Wertheimer and Kohler, perceptual line. Historically, they were estranged or in conflict with the Perls' development, but now they're not so interested in perpetuating that rift; now they're interested in dialogue and talking about the application of this "classic" Gestalt theory. Are you familiar with any of that? Leslie: No, no I'm not. It's interesting. Phil: It is interesting, because they take from the perceptual end of things, which seems to me at this point to be an emphasis on the phenomenological, but they make the same applications that we would make to psychotherapy, to organizational development - they're doing the same kinds of application of their theory. I think that's interesting that there might be a renewed dialogue between these two groups. Leslie: Somehow it seems that in psychology cognitive sciences have developed, and then cognitive therapy, which is like a poor cousin of cognitive science. Actually, cognitive science is a development from Gestalt psychology. Gestalt psychology was the original perceptual psychology, then out of this grew cognitive science. I've gotten into cognition and emotion, and I work a lot as well writing now theoretically about what is emotion and what's the relationship between emotion and cognition, and its application to psychotherapy. And I think that's all

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important in the notion of integration. I think Gestalt is primarily about emotion and cognition from a sophisticated perspective, not like a simple cognitive perspective, and this is where the whole constructivist thing comes in. I think integration is interested in basic cognition and emotion and meaning as a way of integrating all the therapies, and I think Gestalt has something important to say about that, but the language of Gestalt is not the same as the language of academic psychology, and somehow bringing those two together seems very important. Phil: Well, I think it is important. I see something of a constructivist thought, but think of it in terms of a Gestalt framework. Some of the things that you've said about the integration of emotion and cognition seem to fit. People are talking about these things; they may not understand, or they may not use the term "Gestalt," but they're doing Gestalt kinds of things. Leslie: Yes, I think so, and I think Gestalt therapists know a lot about working with meaning creation at the formation stage, at the boundary so to speak, so with that forming process they've actually been working with it for a long time, but the only language that used to be available was, "Follow the process." I can remember one of my co-trainees saying, "Yeah, but which fucking process?!" Both: (laughter) Leslie: She was also with me at school and training at the Gestalt institute, and we used to sit around and say, "Yeah, follow the process GREAT. But it's more complicated than that!" So, Gestalt has a lot to contribute, and it has something to learn by sophisticating and updating its theory and the language that it uses. Phil: Yes, and I think there is another process involved. You're involved in a process, at the academic level, of lending empirical support to Gestalt, or process-experiential kinds of things... Leslie: Yes, but I clearly see it as lending support to Gestalt kinds of things. Phil: The other thing that I think is happening is the marketing, or the public relations of Gestalt - specifically, the connection with the internet. In the last year and half or so I've watched Gestalt words, Gestalt entities come online at a tremendous rate. So, you get all these people around the world talking about it together, you get a bunch of people identifying themselves as Gestalt...Talk about something long enough and people will begin to take notice of it. Leslie: Yes, I know exactly; it's just how to get enough people talking about it and to each other.

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Selected Bibliograpy of Leslie Greenberg's Works Journal Articles Greenberg, L. and Foerster, F. (1996) "The process of resolving unfinished business." Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 64 (3), p. 439-446. Gaston, L., Goldfried, M., Greenberg, L., Horvath, A., et.al. (1995) "The therapeutic alliance in psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and experiential therapies." Journal of psychotherapy integration 5 (1), p.1-26. Paivio, S., Greenberg, L. (1995) "Resolving 'unfinished business': Efficacy of experiential therapy using empty-chair dialogue." Journal of consulting and clinical psychology 63 (3), p. 419-425. Greenberg, L., Korman, L. (1993) "Assimilating emotion into psychotherapy integration." Journal of psychotherapy integration 3 (3), p.249-265. Greenberg, L., Ford, C. Alden, L. Johnson, S. (1993) "In-session change in emotionally focused therapy. Special section: Couples and couple therapy" Journal of consulting and clinical psychology61 (1), p. 78-84. Greenberg, L. (1992) "Process diagnosis of levels of emotional processing." Journal of psychotherapy integration 2 (1), p. 19-24. Greenberg, L. (1991) "Research on the process of change. Annual meeting of the society of psychotherapy research presidential address (1990, Wintergreen, Virginia)." Psychotherapy research 1 (1), p. 3-16. Johnson, S., Greenberg, L. (1988) "Relating process to outcome in marital therapy." Journal of marital and family therapy. 14 (2), p. 175-183.

Books/Chapters in Books Watson, J., Greenberg, L. (1996) "Emotion and cognition in experiential therapy: a dialectical constructivist perspective." Constructing realities: meaning-making perspectives for psychotherapists. The Jossey-Bass social and behavioral science series. (Hugh Rosen, Kevin Kuehlwein, Eds.), p. 253-274. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Greenberg, L. (1996) "Allowing and accepting of emotional experience." Emotion: Interdisciplinary perspectives. (Robert Kavanaugh, Betty Zimmerberg, Steven Fein, Eds.), p.315-336. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Johnson, S., Greenberg, L. (1995) "The emotionally focused approach to problems in adult attachment." Clinical handbook of couple therapy

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(Neil Jacobson, Alan Gurman, Eds.) p. 121-141. New York: Guilford Press. Greenberg, L., Pascual-Leone, J. (1995) "A dialectical constructivist approach to experiential change." Constructivism in psychotherapy (Robert Neimeyer, Michael Mahoney, Eds.) p. 169-191. Washington: The American Psychological Association. Elliot, R., Greenberg, L. (1995) "Experiential therapy in practice: The process-experiential approach." Comprehensive textbook of psychotherapy: Theory and practice. Oxford textbooks in clinical psychology, vol. 1 (Bruce Bongar, Larry Beutler, Eds.), p. 123-139. New York: Oxford University Press. Johnson, S. and Greenberg, L. (1994) "Emotion in intimate relationships: Theory and implications for therapy. The heart of the matter: Perspectives on emotion in marital therapy (Susan Johnson, Leslie Greenberg, Eds.), p. 3-22. New York: Brunner/Mazel, Inc. Greenberg, L. (1994) "The explanation of change: Its measurement and explanation." Reassessing psychotherapy research. (Robert Russell, Ed.), p. 114-143. New York: Guilford Press. Horvath, A.(Ed.), Greenberg, L. (Ed.) (1994) The working alliance: Theory, research, and practice. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Greenberg, L., Rice, L., Elliott, R. (1993) Facilitating emotional change: The moment-by-moment process. New York: The Guilford Press. Greenberg, L. (1993) "Emotion and change processes in psychotherapy." Handbook of emotions. (Michael Lewis, Jeanette Haviland, Eds.), p. 499-508. New York: The Guilford Press. Safran, J. (Ed.), Greenberg, L. (Ed.) (1991) Emotion, psychotherapy, and change. New York: The Guilford Press.

CHAPTER THREE1 ETHICS AND TRAINING PRACTICES: A CALL FOR DISCUSSION2 PHILIP BROWNELL, JAY LEVIN AND BRIAN O’NEILL

Introduction This is an initial call for a public discussion of two issues affecting the practice of Gestalt therapy. The first concern is that of ethical guidelines for practice and the second area is an exploration of the models utilized for training in Gestalt therapy. It seems to us that Gestalt therapy practice is associated with a variety of different values, ethics, and professional practices which find their origins in various forms of training and supervision, which are themselves derived from a number of different "schools" of thought. These have been likened to clans existing in the historical-cultural field. At times these differences may even give rise to conflicting ideas of what "is" Gestalt therapy, or what is "good" or "bad" Gestalt therapy. The lack of clarity and criteria regarding professional practice, ethical guidelines, and values inherent in Gestalt therapy make a coherent standard a seeming impossibility. This, however, is an attempt to open a discussion and clarify the wider field of professional practice and training.

1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 1(2), 1997.

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Ethics, Values, and Professionalism Should Gestalt organizations, such as the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT) or the newly forming International Gestalt Therapy Association (IGTA), get into the business of defining ethical parameters for the practice of Gestalt therapy? If so, how should they proceed, for the process seems as crucial as the outcome? If Gestalt organizations choose not to define such guidelines, what might that say about the level of professionalism in Gestalt therapy and its relevance in today's larger field of psychotherapy? Other questions also arise from this. For example, are the values and ethics which are nominally associated with professionalism relevant or appropriate for the practice of Gestalt therapy? Another way of putting that question is to ask if professionalization is the route to follow for Gestalt therapy - if the values and ethical standards of professionalism are actually antagonistic to Gestalt practice? Some advocate that the AAGT, and other Gestalt therapy organizations, establish an ethical code of professional conduct. Others, more suspicious of the conventionality of mainstream psychotherapy, suspect that the thought police could not be far behind such a move. Reflected in these two reactions is a desire to join mainstream psychotherapy in the profession of Clinical Psychology, on the one hand, and to remain true to the values inherent in the history of Gestalt Therapy, on the other. Then there are those who maintain there is no such polarity between these two courses of action. This is a conflict of values. It's an issue that surfaces when one person notices that Gestalt therapy seems to be rising in popularity and another says that Gestalt therapy will be ruined by becoming conventional. Beyond these positions, furthermore, is the concern over the rightness for the AAGT, and other similarly constructed organizations, to adopt ethical guidelines at all, with the authority to make ethical judgments (if not sanctions) from time to time, when it is solely an association of likeminded people, created for the purpose of associating and not for the purpose of regulating the field of Gestalt therapy We do not believe that the popularity of Gestalt therapy means that it is a conventional therapy. If it should so happen that Gestalt therapy becomes more popular, possibly that is because of the perception that it has something worthwhile to offer. After all, the unconventionality of Gestalt therapy in the 60's was not necessarily the reason for its pervasive popularity at that time

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The AAGT, along with many other associations in the helping professions, gathers together its members in order to facilitate the growth and development of its theory and practice by nurturing the relationships among those interested in participating. Unlike such organizations, however, it has not adopted ethical guidelines, which are nothing more than standards and utilitarian principles serving to set benchmarks for good practice. Along with formalization of Gestalt professional community comes the responsibility to address such things as ethics, values, morality, community standards, and professionalism (Corey, Corey, and Calanan, p. 3). There is no acceptable reason for Gestalt organizations to avoid taking such positions. What, after all, would be detrimental to a clarification of values that points the field in the direction of what it already implicitly holds to be good and desirable, or of ethics in the sense of what we feel to be correct? Is this anything more than, or different from, awareness work? People do this with regard to theory all the time; why not in terms of practice? We are quick to apply Gestalt principles to evaluate the values of our culture in books on social justice, so why can we not utilize the field to evaluate our own professional behavior? Community standards vary, but we understand that these field characteristics comprise the criteria from which judgments about conduct can be made. Our commitment to professionalism speaks to a level of clinical ability without necessarily identifying intent or motivation. According to Corey, Corey, and Calanan (1993, p 9-10), such ethical decision making rests upon the concepts of autonomy, beneficence, nonmalficence, and justice or fairness. x Autonomy refers to the promotion of self-determination, or the freedom of clients to choose their own direction. x Beneficence refers to promoting good for others. x Nonmaleficence means avoiding doing harm, which includes refraining from actions that risk hurting clients. x Justice, or fairness, refers to providing equal treatment to all people. These are the values and the processes we already hold dear; we have assimilated them into our field, so why not utilize them in making our ethical identities more explicit? It may not be so simple. Gestalt practitioners may be in a bind with regard to this kind of decision-making. Many wish to update the base of

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theory undergirding Gestalt practice and join the rest of the contemporary field of psychotherapists. They would like to make membership in the larger field of psychotherapy as complete as possible, but they wish to do so with their Gestalt identities intact. Then there are those who have been in the diaspora since the sixties and have returned to Gestalt therapy having assimilated cognitive constructionist theories, attachment theory, object relations, and self-psychology. What is now in question by them is the sentiment of those who maintain that "The valid ethical stance in Gestalt therapy is based on the situation in which the interaction takes place. All persons are responsible for themselves in that interaction, and for the choices made in the existential moment" (Korb, Gorrel, and Van de Riet, p. 21). Does our commitment to phenomenology make purely relative our values and ethical responsibilities? This question points to the suspicion that there may be theoretical requisites that preclude taking a set position on ethical standards. Nevertheless, there is an unspoken sense of cognitive dissonance when Gestalt therapists put their other professional identities, and appropriated clinical theories and practices, alongside the Gestalt traditions they have been holding as well. There seems to be a contradiction when Gestalt therapists resist professionalism as a member of Gestalt associations but go along with it as members of other professional organizations (i.e. social workers, psychologists, group therapists, family therapists, etc.). How can we advocate Gestalt in the world as a viable and credible theory and practice, on the one hand, and still hold ourselves aloof from professional accountability, on the other? These things need to be addressed. Whether the work be done on an organizational basis by groups like the AAGT, or it find some alternative initiative at a grassroots level, it is a discussion that needs to come above ground and get green in the full daylight sun. Indeed, such may be occurring. In personal discussion on the AAGT email discussion list Jay Levin wrote: Most - if not all - of the values, ethics and rules of professional conduct are derived from the implicit political stance that the therapist adheres to. I think that this includes issues around the role and purpose of confidentiality, the business of advertising, problems with colleagues (including the collegiate/political nature of "professionalism" which pervades much of psychotherapy practice), etc. I believe that these are unavoidable and necessary issues which need to be explored and clarified. The therapeutic relationship includes examining the very idea of psychotherapy as a human project. What is it that we think we are doing when we are "doing psychotherapy"?

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Chapter Three These are important questions which, perhaps, have no definitive answer. Raising them is the issue. I see some parallel between the therapeutic relationship, in which a unique context of concern is explicated between therapist and another person (patient/client/customer/ consumer???), and the words of Marcel that "Life is a mystery to be lived, rather than a problem to be solved." —Jay Levin, personal conversation, May 25, 1997.

Training Practices All psychotherapies are influenced by a code of ethics and values; the same kind of thinking as that being advocated with regard to ethical guidelines needs to happen in the area of training and, by implication, supervision practices. What are the models of training that serve as heuristic metaphors that in turn determine an overall character of the training in question? Perhaps the discussion could best begin at that level. Writing first to the AAGT discussion list, and then posting to Behavior OnLine's forum on Gestalt therapy, Brian O'Neill identified the following training models, which effect individual training practices: ACADEMIC: This metaphor focuses on the development of curriculum to teach core competencies. It rests on standards of accreditation and at its most basic is reduced to measuring competence by the number of hours in training. THE GUILD: The guild model conjures up images of the Middle Ages in Europe and the pervasive monopoly of the guilds, where the Masters guarded the secrets of their trade (both for economic and quasi-religious reasons) and passed these secrets on to the appropriate apprentice. THE MASTERS: The other image related to masters is a golfing metaphor. Golfers who have reached the pinnacle of the sport and are somewhat older than most, become the masters. They train by using coaches who are not as talented but who nonetheless offer feedback to improve the skills of the masters. The "master" metaphor highlights the importance of who you trained with, the establishment of societies, guilds or guardians of the tradition, and encourages an old boy (or girl ) network which determines competence. FLIGHT TRAINING: A contrary image to the guild and masters metaphor, is that of flight training. Here the training involves specific measurable competencies and skills which are taught and evaluated. With this model of training, to maintain competence one must regularly practice and keep up flight hours. While experience is valued in this metaphor (flight hours) this model acknowledges historical progression, so that the kitty hawk pioneers are antiquated in comparison to the top guns of today. MARTIAL ARTS: Martial arts offers another metaphor. Here one progresses via training in micro skills until achieving a certain

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demonstrable competence and shifts from a neophyte to a black belt. This is akin to the academic model of a set training program with competencies and standards of achievement. This model also has the master metaphor of the guilds. THE ARTS: Training in the arts combines the academic model and the guild models yet also highlights genius - the potential for the student to quickly move beyond the trainer in competence. This is less emphasized in the other models. Hence, not just who one trained with, but who one is determines outcome in this metaphor. RELIGIOUS MYSTICISM: People who wish to learn and progress start from an ego perspective and realize they are part of a bigger field and ultimately this field is the Godhead/Tao/Buddhahood/Enlightenment. This is a process of unlearning (phenomenological method) as well as learning and has the field as the ultimate trainer, with the guru or master as assistants and temporary means of achieving a desired state of being. This model is represented in core Gestalt concepts such as the wisdom of the organism, yet is not well represented as yet in actual training opportunities.

Beyond this structure, however, one of the most fundamental influences on training has more to do with clans, for these models of training have emerged in the context of various traditions, and these traditions are associated with groups of people held together by various common histories. Writing to the AAGT discussion list, Ken Hutchinson noted: "It is interesting that when I think of "clans" I think of groups with an underlying connectedness, family. This is also how I think of the Gestalt community, many of you being my (for lack of better words) spiritual cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents etc. It doesn't require that we think alike, or even that we may have to like Uncle Melvin who we may wish was hidden in a closet somewhere. There is an acknowledgement of something deeply experienced that connects us (even with Uncle Melvin)."

Bruce Barrett introduced the metaphor of clans in thinking about the various traditions in Gestalt therapy, and it has a particular attractiveness and utility. One can see, for instance, how the mentor system of training in which Gestalt originated has a clannish character to it. The Celtic clan style of social organization is personal. As Barrett stated ,"Loyalty and authority are living interactions, and center on the care and support of one's followers. Leadership has a face, a voice, a touch, and a scent." In Gestalt community one cites with whom he or she has trained, and often these people are spoken of with veneration, reflecting the debt that students realize is owed to their mentors. Unfortunately, the disadvantage to the clan system is that disputes, too, can become personal.

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The presence in the field of historical conflict is evident in the observation made regarding an East/West split in North American Gestalt community. The very personal loyalties associated with the founding group of Gestalt trainers, in their various manifestations moving through time and space, from 50s through 60s and from East to West, gave rise to different traditions. Taken to another level, this idea of clans works when these personal differences foster divisions of theoretical commitment. Claudio Naranjo wrote: "There is still another topic I want to mention, for without it, this retrospective on the history of 'Gestalt after Fritz' would be incomplete. In addition to being a story of remarkable geographic and intracultural diffusion... this has been a story of division - a division that originally reflected the distinctiveness of an East Coast and a West Coast network, but now permeates the world as the presence of two contrasting orientations." (1993)

Perhaps contrasting would be too strong, suggesting some kind of true polarity; however, "distinctives" and "emphases" would be very appropriate to describe the different clans that exist in just the North American experience. Conflict persists among these groups. Some of it is tame, and some of it is malicious. In spite of this, there are people who desire to leave behind the fixed positions and old wounds of the past and to avoid blood feuds. They hope to hold the middle, where loyalty to others within one's own clan meets the desire to forge a larger community, one where the parochialism of local clans can be modified in the dialogue of an associating field - a global field made more aware of itself. Different metaphors attract different needs, stimulate different methods, and convene different kinds of people. It makes sense that there would be a variety in the ethical considerations appropriate to each one, and it makes sense that this variety would channel the creative wisdom that could give birth to a whole new set of training practices more in tune with today's field. Perhaps it would be good to utilize O'Neill's taxonomy, build upon it, and think out loud with one another regarding what is smart and not so smart in each setting. Perhaps it would also be wise to acknowledge, and begin to talk out loud, about the differences that exist between our various clans. As such, it may be that our differences might become our strengths. Let each clan leave behind the desire to canonize its particular version of history and concentrate on what has become its theoretical and practical expertise. Let each clan contribute these things whenever the clans meet in conference, or write to one another in journals.

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Let these distincives stimulate the development of a whole new, and fully contemporary practice of Gestalt Therapy.

Conclusion This has been an initial call for public discussion of the two issues of ethical guidelines for practice and the re-examination of our training methods. In the process, several observations have been made about the status of the field of Gestalt therapy. It would be possible to spin many different directions out of this call, but hopefully the Gestalt community will consider it an attractive offer to begin a dialogue and to see where that might lead. Certainly, on an organizational basis, there are many regional Gestalt associations that may already have begun such a dialogue. We challenge each to make known what, if anything, is being done. This would mean that people write on these subjects. Let people write with passion from their hearts and with reason from their heads, let them express the real differences present in their communities as well as the agreements, but let us not just neglect to deal with these things, nor let us fail to utilize the great resources available to conduct such dialogue in a way that appreciates more of the entire field of Gestalt therapy.

References Corey, G., Corey, M.S., and Callanan, P. (1993) Issues and ethics in the helping professions. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company. Korb, M.P., Gorrell, J., Van De Riet, V. (1989) Gestalt therapy Practice and Theory. New York: Pergamon Press. Naranjo, C. (1993) "Gestalt Therapy, The Attitude and Practice of an Atheoretical Experientialism" Part of an edited transcript of a talk given at the Fourth International Gestalt Conference, in Sienna, Italy, 1991. quoted on the AAGT discussion list by Anna Bernet, 30 Apr 1997.

CHAPTER FOUR1 PSYCHOTHERAPY AND SOUL CARE: TOWARD A CLINICAL RAPPROCHEMENT2 JAY M. UOMOTO, PH.D., ABMP

Introduction In recent times, there has been a renewed interest in the soul as more than a meaningful concept but as an organizing force in the lifeblood of the individual. The concept of the soul is not a stranger either to the field of psychology or the practice of psychotherapy, and its nature has been debated within philosophical circles for centuries. Yet, concern for the soul and its centrality to human suffering and functioning in this world seems to have touched numerous levels of society today including consumers of popular psychology and spirituality to those involved in medicine and biomedical ethics. It seems that the term "soul" is the new catchword for the 1990s. Soul care has now come into vogue as a viable and vital means of healing emotional wounds, bringing a new perspective to human suffering, providing a context within which to understand suffering, and dissipating some of the meaninglessness that comes with human finitude. Indeed, the ancients considered the soul as the center of being-ness of human life, as commented on by Plotinus (in Cousineau, 1994): For the soul is the beginning of all things. It is the soul that lends all things movement. The advent of soul care as a commonly known phrase can largely be attributable to writers such as M. Scott Peck whose book The Road Less 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 1(2), 1997.

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Traveled (1978) was the catalyst to a host of other titles that sought to find convergence between psychology and spirituality. This was the beginning of rapprochement between psychotherapy and soul care. Thomas Moore followed much later with his seminal work titled Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life (Moore, 1992). A lesser known be equally powerful treatise on the soul is by Alan Jones in his book titled The Soul's Journey: Exploring the Three Passages of the Spiritual Life with Dante as a Guide (1995). In this work, Jones well describes the journey that many must take, literally through their own hell, in order to reach a place of peace, healing and stillness. In essence, suffering is a necessary, even mandatory part of soul care. Jones describes this pain that can be an avenue to growth: I have, at long last, located an old pain inside me - a pain I seek to understand rather than suppress, a pain that I need, a pain that holds a secret, a pain about love and power, about love and fear. A friend of mine spoke of the pain we feel when we sense that we are growing...It is the pain of life demanding attention. Above all, it is the pain of choice. It is the pain of purgation. (Jones, 1995, p.109110).

Psychotherapy as Soul Care One solution to the tension defined above would be to somehow meld psychotherapy and soul care and treat them as one activity. Psychotherapy as a stirring of the soul, and the consequent insights and changes brought about by therapy, could be understood as caring for the soul. Jung was adept at recognizing the soul as something to be addressed and sought as a part of analysis and psychotherapy. He was facile in moving between conceptualizing the significance of dream analysis to contemplating upon the spiritual problems of man (Jung, 1933). In practice, the soul is accounted for within psychological interventions and one does not worry whether or not one has actually spoken a word about God, spirit, or soul. Yet, even Jung raises the tension between psychotherapy and soul care at the point of considering the relative roles of physician and clergyman on issues of the suffering soul: It is in reality the priest or the clergyman, rather than the doctor, who should be most concerned with the problem of spiritual suffering. But in most cases the sufferer consults the doctor in the first place, because he supposes himself to be physically ill, and because certain neurotic symptoms can be at least alleviated by drugs...We can hardly expect the doctor to have anything to say about the ultimate questions of the soul. It

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is the clergyman, not the doctor, that the sufferer should expect such help. (Jung, 1993, p. 227) Thus, there are limits to the degree to which the psychotherapist may approach and properly address larger or deeper issues of the soul. Psychotherapy is not seen as a substitute for soul care, but that it can enhance one's own wrestling with soul care issues. Jung might say, however, a boundary exists between the two at the juncture of such issues as good, evil, ultimate meaning, faith, and grace imparted by God. Should a person's psychological disturbance be rooted in spiritual path finding, that is the point that psychotherapy is distinguished from soul care.

Psychotherapy versus Soul Care One can view psychotherapy as always orthogonal to the work of soul care. They address two different domains or levels of human functioning. This would imply that human maladies can be categorized as being appropriate or inappropriate grist for the psychological mill. Maladaptation in interpersonal functioning, anxiety disorders or family disintegration may be seen as appropriate categories of concern for psychotherapy whereas spiritual ennui or complacency and stagnancy in faith development may simply be the purvey of a soul caregiver - be it a priest, clergyman, or shaman. Unfortunately, this does not provide resolve for how human suffering can be understood. One would be forced to label a particular episode of suffering or type of suffering as either psychological or spiritual in origin. This runs the risk of seeking to divide the world into those traditional categories of sacred and secular; that which is spiritual versus that which is, in essence, "just" psychological or psychic. Moreover, this type of conceptualization may only create deadlock when the client presents in the psychotherapist's office with the question of whether or not the malady should be relieved and psychologically remedied, or brought to greater acuity and clarity so as to better be able to apprehend the suffering and to mine its spiritual value.

Psychotherapy as a Road toward Soul Care/Soul Care as a Road Toward Effective Psychotherapy Another way to view the tension may be to place in temporal sequence the activities of psychotherapy and soul care. In the first scenario, psychotherapy may pave the way toward deepening one's engagement in caring for the soul. For example, removing a layer of anxiety may prove to be essential in order for a client to have the introspective stamina to engage

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in contemplating matters of the soul. Cognitive-behavior modification could function in this case as a varnish remover that uncovers the antique wood of the soul underneath layers of psychological stain. The reverse scenario of soul care preceding psychological relief entails the necessity of prolonging suffering, or at least not reflexively attempting to eliminate discomfort, in order to embrace the spiritual and soul caring qualities that suffering may bring. Yalom (1980) reviews Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Illyich to illustrate the legacy of suffering and dying as a way to acutely appreciate, and then apprehend, life in all of its nuances. In this story, Ivan Illyich suffers from a horrible stomach pain that eventually is diagnosed as a terminal condition. He realizes, according to Yalom, that "he is dying badly because he has lived his life badly" (Yalom, 1980, p.33). This deep insight allows him to live his remaining life with integrity. Without this suffering, Ivan Illyich may never have had the opportunity to experience that personal growth - such growth being conceptualized as soul cure by some. Illyich's pain never dissipated; yet, the reframing of his life proved sufficient for satisfying his soul that the physical pain was superfluous. Illyich's struggles to find meaning and purpose to his suffering constituted his form of spiritual sojourning. Much publicity has come to some of the newer psychotropic mood drugs. The much heralded selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have proven themselves quite effective in alleviating depressive symptomatology. Therapeutic benefit from this class of medications occurs more rapidly, with less sedating side effects and with less weight gain propensities. The various debates on Prozac, for example, underscore some of the tension that surrounds the success of this drug. Is it an artificial means of altering personality? Does one's essential personhood change as a result of Prozac? In connection with the present discussion, the question arises as follows: Because drugs such as Prozac are so effective, are we in danger of cutting off the process of soul care too soon by its use to relieve suffering? The patient who arrives in the office of a psychiatrist may request assistance for their psychologic suffering, but with a stroke of the pen on the prescription pad, and the snapping off of the paper that is traded in for a dose of relief, is that patient prevented from engaging in a struggle for soul care? It is not much of a stretch to consider the psychotherapy candidate that may present to the therapist in similar fashion upon an intake interview. Is it beneficial to the patient to have as the first goal of psychotherapy the relief of suffering? Is it harmful (nonmaleficence) to deny that patient access to a "dark night of the soul" experience, and hence a missed opportunity for a deepening of one's spirituality? At what clinical cutoff point is the so called "bottom line"

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beyond which one would not allow soul care to occur in favor of psychotherapeutic intervention in the context of an office visit?

Rapprochement There will likely always exist a tension between psychotherapy and soul care. Each represents a circle, and they overlap with any person that presents for a first session in the psychologist's or health care professional's office. Sometimes these circles or realms of inquiry, do not overlap and the content of each can remain orthogonal to each other. In that case, what one does in psychotherapy does not effect what happens at the level of the soul. There are likely to be occasions when the patient presents with concerns that are so intricately intertwined with spiritual and religious overtones, that what one does in the psychotherapy session will most naturally impact upon that patient's personal spiritual well-being. In other situations, the therapist may be required to prioritize, not only from the standpoint of good clinically savvy, but also on the grounds of clinical ethics, whether or not to address the emotional issues first, that is, before attempting to raise concerns about a suffering soul. There are obviously going to be no set rules. In practice, the tension between psychotherapy and soul care will necessitate that the psychotherapist be well informed and sensitive to matters of the soul. This is no different than needing to know how to consider multicultural issues in treatment, or understand developmental and aging issues while delivering treatment services. It may also require the psychotherapist to have on their own list of consultants such individuals as ministers, priests, chaplains, and other such individuals who tend to specialize in soul care and cure. Rapprochement may therefore involve an interdisciplinary approach and dialogue. Psychotherapists, psychiatrists, priests, pastors, rabbis, other clergyman and religious practitioners may need to open more extensive discussion to better understand the relative contributions of each of these traditions to the clinical situation.

References Jones, A. (1995). The soul's journey: Exploring the three passages of the spiritual life with Dante as a Guide. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco. Jung, C. G. (1933). Modern man in search of a soul. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

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Moore, T. (1992). Care of the soul: A guide for cultivating depth and sacredness in everyday life. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Peck, M.S. (1978). The road less traveled: A new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth. New York: Simon and Shuster. Plotinus. Cited in Cousineau, P. (ed.) (1994). Soul: An archaeology. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco. Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.

CHAPTER FIVE1 CLAUSEWITZ HERE AND NOW: MILITARY OBEDIENCE AND GESTALT THEORY2 BRUCE BARRETT, M.A.

Introduction Gestalt Theoretical Psychology, including Gestalt Therapy, offers a variety of conceptual and practical insights into non-clinical life challenges and their solutions. Like other systems of psychology and personality theory, many of the applications and insights in Gestalt Theory remain pathology oriented. Unlike other treatment systems, Gestalt Therapy (as presented by Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman, for example) was also intended as a blueprint for understanding and expanding health and freedom of action in any sphere, not merely mapping and ameliorating behavioral suffering or abuse. By exploring the individual's total functioning in context, the Gestalt perspective offers a system capable of transcending mere problem resolution and for achieving prowess and joy in the art of life, with all of its many manifestations. In keeping with this outlook, I will use the phrase "Gestalt Theory" in many places where "Gestalt Therapy" has been the traditional (and sharply limiting) construct. Gestalt Theory provides a fruitful reasoning framework for any field of human endeavor. This includes activities that are startling to the assumed values, ethical stance, and social philosophy of its practitioners. Classical problems in the art of war and military history, practical problems in battlefield operations, and the identification and understanding of 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 1(2), 1997.

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successful soldiering all can benefit from the holistic Gestalt theoretical perspective.

The Holistic Army: The War against Rigid Linear Thinking Military planners in the United States are actively engaged in designing the techniques, equipment, and organization of forces for operations in the early decades of the Twenty-First Century. Since the end of the Cold War, and indeed since the Gulf War, the very purpose of a military establishment has been dramatically reshaped. Peacekeeping, humanitarian, and multi-national interventions are now undertaken, on a scale unlike anything in the past. Soldiers also work under an umbrella of revolutionary increases in information and its access. At the same time, the current military establishment in America is troubled by dramatic and public difficulties inherent in dealing with urgent themes in American life -- ethnic diversity, gender equality, sexual harassment and abuse, and sexual preference. The personal attributes needed by modern warriors for success in battle, like the population from which those warriors are drawn, seem to have changed profoundly. Many of these dilemmas can be seen as manifestations of a broader, long-standing human dichotomy regarding military life: the tension between values of autonomous freedom of personal action versus the traditional stereotype of military regimentation and suspension of individual autonomy. This article will outline in general the applicability of Gestalt Theory to military problems, point out certain aspects of military thinking that already employ a Gestalt-style, holistic approach, and address the particular dichotomy of Obedience versus Autonomy. Ethical considerations will be included at certain points, though rigorous ethical review of militarism is not the purpose of the article. "Doctrine" is a term for the broad philosophical, organizational, training, and operational principles, policies, and plans that officially shape the functions of the military at all levels. The Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) publishes a pamphlet, "Force XXI Operations" (TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5, 1 August 1994). The Army already knows the applicability of Gestalt principles to military problems, though perhaps not in so many words. TRADOC 525-5 is rich with direct references to the expected need for holistic training and reasoning skills for soldiers, from the top levels all the way down to the "muddy boots." No longer able to focus only on skill in one aspect of

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combat, or even combat alone, tomorrow's soldier will need to shift smoothly from warfighting to humanitarian functions, often in the same operation, or in close sequence. In addition, the context for these operations has become varied, unpredictable, and more lethal than ever. Operations will involve both allies and adversaries from all possible types of culture, language, and technological development. The January-February, 1997, issue of FA Journal [Field Artillery] provides a vivid panorama of the paradoxical Gestalten of today's complex battlefield. Editor Patrecia Slayden Hollis interviewed Major General William L. Nash (Commanding General, 1st Armored Division and Task Force Eagle, Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Colonel Gregory Fontenot (Commander, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division and Task Force Eagle). Listen to the striking dichotomies in current military life. General Nash discusses the importance of personnel safety in combat: "Commanders must take care of the sons and daughters entrusted to them to accomplish the nation's military missions. Force protection multiplies combat power..." (p. 7) Safety multiplies combat power. Colonel Fontenot explains the crucial importance of military prowess in keeping peace: "In this type of mission, looks count. So we were calm, professional and deliberate without being provocative. We were toughminded without "swaggering" (challenging them to take us on) or without making them feel small." (p.10) And later, "If part of your peace enforcing mission is show-of-force with the goal of not having to fight, then you need to show overwhelming force." (p. 11) These quotes, and many more, reflect a facility with holistic, paradoxical communication and experience in military action fully compatible with the techniques and insights of Gestalt Theory. Indeed, they are inexplicable without a holistic viewpoint. Here's a sample of obvious facility in maneuvering with and among sharply defined figures in an emotionally charged, lethal human background. When chairing potentially confrontive meetings between representatives of the "former warring factions," Colonel Fontenot intervened thus: Occasionally, about 30 to 40 minutes into a meeting, loud jets would pass over. At that point, I would become annoyed and tell my JMC deputy (Joint Military Commission) -- who, by the way, was my FSCOORD [fire support coordinator] -- to get rid of those jets. Then, all of a sudden, the jets or other "annoying" show-of-force systems would disappear. The faction leaders respect the fact that the IFOR commander can summon or dismiss considerable force... (p. 10)

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Linear, stereotypic thinking would have suggested a direct track of telling the faction leaders what to do, followed by threats or attacks to make them do it. The result, of course, would be bloodshed. Holistic, paradoxical agility offered a successful alternative: secure the attention and respect of the combatants by the instant _dismissal_ of the overwhelming force. This type of radically creative thinking is not a lucky accident. It's official policy. Section 4-1 a.(1) of TRADOC 525-5 says, "Doctrine will continue to provide a holistic basis for the Army to incorporate new ideas, technologies, and organizational designs [to help leaders] become the adaptive, creative problem-solvers required for future military operations." In Section 4-1 c.(2), "[leaders] must have such intuitive skills as vision, innovation, adaptability, and creativity and the ability to simplify complexities and clarify ambiguities -- all while operating under stress." The Army must "train and develop leaders who are intuitive, agileminded, innovative, and disciplined." These are aspects of healthy human functioning and organizational interaction that sound startlingly like propositions from a Gestalt Theoretical viewpoint. Such a view contrasts sharply with the wide-spread stereotype of the military mind as one-tracked, uncreative, devoted to force and violence alone, rigid, intimidation oriented, and preoccupied with authority and obedience, both blind. Rigid military thinking is a real problem. Adam Yarmolinsky, in The Military Establishment , discusses the issue, quoting Morris Janowitz (The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait): "The 'military mind' has been charged with traditionalism and with a lack of inventiveness. The new doctrine stressed initiative and continuous innovation. The 'military mind' has been charged with an inclination toward ultranationalism and ethnocentrism. Military professionals are being taught to de-emphasize ethnocentric thinking, since ethnocentrism is counter to national military policy. The 'military mind' has been charged with being disciplinarian. The new doctrine seeks to deal with human factors in combat and large-scale organization in a manner conforming to contemporary thought on human relations." Note the dates. Yarmolinsky, writing while some of the bloodiest American fighting was underway in Southeast Asia, was quoting an author who wrote in 1960, well before American combat units (other than advisors) had deployed to Viet Nam. Clearly, the dichotomy between the need for human-oriented, versatile and agile thinking and the persistent figure of rigid, jingoistic authoritarianism is not new.

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Nor is it easily resolved. Yarmolinsky goes on to address the authoritarian pole of the dichotomy. He presents an alternative argument, by Samuel P. Huntington (The Soldier and the State, 1957), who suggests that a more "civilianized" military is a paradoxical risk to democracy, more likely to develop and follow its own agenda, and less responsive to civilian direction. A professional, authoritarian military, on the other hand, does what it is told by its civilian government. Thus, the dichotomy between the detrimental human aspects of authoritarianism, and the beneficial human aspects of democratic autonomy and selfdirection (initiative) in a military apparatus becomes less simple to evaluate. TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5 itself alludes to the general problem of inflexible thinking in the U.S. Army, relating "Sir Basil Liddell Hart's dictum -- that the real challenge is not to put a new idea into the military mind but to put the old one out..." (1-2 b.) This in itself is a well understood issue in Gestalt Theory. Problems in the organism's (or organization's) functioning routinely occur as a result of incomplete closure or "destruction" of an obsolete figure. But the particular dichotomy of interest here is that between initiative and obedience. Even when the initiative is expected to be "within the intent" of the Commander, as TRADOC 525-5 often describes it (e.g., Section 4-1 c.), the dichotomy continues in regard to the possible center of the reasoning. Is the subordinate a mere instrument of the commander's will -- the commander's eye, ear, hand, and weapon -- with the commander doing all the thinking and deciding? Or is the subordinate to function as an independent warfighting unit? Force XXI plans specify that the expected "Information Battlefield" of the first decades of the next century will require near-total access to information at all levels. The soldier in the mud will draw down the same battle information as the General in the field headquarters, able to shuttle as needed from the "Big Picture" down to the individual soldier's situation, and back. Authority to act on the basis of this information (and thus, to not-act) is expected to be far more widely delegated. General Nash discusses this in action in Bosnia-Herzegovina, saying "... our proficiency at decentralized operations is a strength of the American Army -- our junior leaders can take the commander's intent, plan the mission and execute at their levels." (FA Journal, p. 6) While TRADOC 525-5 presents this decentralized authority as a positive challenge to be met, it also argues strongly that the military in fact has no choice. The increasingly clever, lethal and chaotic battlefield of the

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present, and more so the future, demands the agility of a decentralized command structure.

Total War -- Total Relief Moreover, combat decisions will cover a broader field than battle alone. War is no longer (and never really was) a simple matter of fighting the opposition until they quit or die. Operations Other Than War (OOTW) are expected to comprise an increasing role in American and Allied military action, as was seen in the Gulf War. OOTW consist of relief work, civil assistance, peacekeeping and the like. A "mix of war and OOTW in the same theater" is expected (TRADOC 525-5: 3-3 a.(1)(c)). Thus, commanders in the field (and their troops) will be required to shift accurately and effectively from stark violence to commanding humanitarian intervention. They will be directing devastating firepower in one moment, and food distribution in the next. Often, in the same moment. Napoleon knew this polarity: "'Do you know,' he said early in those days [when he was a successful General, but years before his absolute power] 'what amazes me more than all else? The impotence of force to organize anything. There are only two powers in the world: the spirit and the sword. In the long run, the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.'" (Emile Ludwig, Napoleon, p. 155) General Nash echoes this theme when he says,"... we learned that when you use land combat power in the peacekeeping or peace building role, you can't achieve an end state of long-term peace -- of stability and prosperity in the area. In general, a military element can only bring about an absence of war ... there will be no peace unless the people and leaders of Bosnia-Herzegovina achieve it." (FA Journal, p. 6-7) So success in combat (or peacekeeping) is rendered meaningless without similar success -- prowess -- in relief work and similar OOTW. A Marshall Plan, following months or years after military victory, will no longer suffice. Today's localized, swift-tempo manifestations of human conflict require immediate, even overlapping dominant maneuver in both warfighting and peacemaking. Sequential thinking driven from above in a military hierarchy is unequal to the task. The emergence, interaction, and recession into the background of critically important human figures in war are so complex and intense that masterful exercise of holistic, sometimes paradoxical functioning will be required. Such flexibility demands skillful exercise of local, informed, creative autonomy in both combat and OOTW operations.

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Anything less would be too sluggish, too ignorant, and too immune to redirection. It seems intuitively obvious that a military unit blindly carrying out orders, driven from above, without the freedom to take decisive action with initiative, could not possibly carry out a modern, flexible war or OOTW. It is rather easier to imagine such an organization grinding along, accurately following orders that no longer apply to the situation, making a horrendous mess of the situation, and believing that it is succeeding because the orders are being successfully followed.

On the Other Hand ... But what about the other end of the obedience - initiative continuum? Is the soldier, or army, that follows orders regardless of risk obsolete? Today's battlefield is more lethal than ever. Will soldiers now be "choosing their battles," and choosing, perhaps, not to fight and die? How can smart ones be expected to do otherwise? Do discipline and obedience have a role in the exercise of initiative and delegated control in the new battlefield? The problem is rich enough for many evaluations, all within a Gestalt perspective. In exploring a complex dichotomous field, it's crucial that the continuum - the “opposites" involved - be well understood. Is obedience the opposite of initiative? Yes and no. The obvious polarity can be transformed -- merged -- as soon as the soldier is ordered to exercise informed initiative (which TRADOC 525-5, in essence, does). Ordered to operate independently. Obedience is the opposite of defiance. But then again, obedience to a counter-productive order can be a fully intentional act of defiance, just as over-obedience to the therapist can be used as an avoidance of therapeutic contact in psychotherapy. Defiance of an illegal or mistaken order, at the same time, can be an act of intense personal loyalty and effective functioning. Perhaps the issue is blind versus willing or informed obedience. The modern soldier can be trained and expected to be obedient as an act of informed will, and still be "centered" on the continuum far from the dehumanizing pole of blind obedience. One can even add ethical responsibility to the mix, and thus empower the soldier to remain obedient while refusing to knowingly commit war crimes. But how will this help in a combat situation where the dilemma is not one of practical effectiveness or moral behavior, but one of ordering soldiers to apparently certain injury, death, and failure? Can anything other than unhesitating obedience,

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regardless of the information or lack of it available to the soldier, suffice in such a situation? No.

Clausewitz No -- success in battle can never depend on a one-dimensional expression of individual liberty and initiative. The demands for instant response from troops, personal sacrifice for the sake of a broader objective, and the need for the uniquely human capacity to over-rule natural drives and responses are more compelling than ever in the fastpaced, chaotic modern battlefield, not less. But such actions have always been at the heart of victory in battle. In Gestalt terms, combat success regularly requires execution of action when the most attentive information-seeking individual can be nearly certain that the result will be failure; that the figure pressing for attention, in its current background, will not support self-regulation, but rather selfdestruction. Military thinkers from the heroic poets of the long past to the screen-writers of today's war films have always understood this, but I'll discuss just one. Carl von Clausewitz was a Prussian officer during the Age of Napoleon. He never commanded troops in battle, but his brilliance as a tactician and framer of military philosophy was well recognized, though he was often a controversial figure. His most famous dictum - that war is merely the extension of policy (or diplomacy) by other means - is routinely misunderstood. Clausewitz was a holistic thinker, and was expressing not a sardonic irony, but a direct assertion that war is neither justifiable nor winnable unless it is a fully integrated expression the national will, coherent international policy and alliance, and the society's multilevel intent and willingness to sacrifice, from the Crown to the peasant to the bleeding soldier. Success in anything as deadly and chaotic as war is impossible without such comprehensive effort. War is, above all, deadly. It is "an act of violence, pushed to its utmost bounds." (All references from Carl von Clausewitz, Principles of War.) Elsewhere he says "Victory is purchased by blood." (both quotes from Hans W. Gatzke's introduction, p.6). He rejected militarists who thought that war could be reduced to geometric principles, or planned in such a way that victory could be neatly and safely accomplished with a minimum of bloodshed. Victory is won only by the destruction of the opponent's forces in battle (p. 6). Not by position, nor control of one territory or another, nor any other important but secondary issue.

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How can soldiers expect to face this danger? What should a soldier consider in preparation for war? Should he or she not set all thoughts on Victory, and its practical steps in the given situation, allowing any other considerations to recede into the background? Given the inherent danger of combat, wouldn't any consideration of failure or defeat be paralyzing? Counterproductive? Defeatist? A stereotypic rendition of military thinking would suggest exactly that. In order to break though the natural resistance of the soldier (or anyone) to the obvious danger figures in the field, only a pure and powerful "gung ho" mind set would be effective. Blot out accurate figures of need for selfpreservation with introjected figures of obedience, superiority, and irresistible force. Gestalt Theory would suggest that such a plan would be dishonest, unhealthy, and ultimately weakening. Regardless of any proposed justification based on the demands of war, vigorous and healthy functioning would never result from unquestioning, unexamined introjection of externally prepared and false figures of experience. Even if some combat practicality justified such a plan, the act of artificially blinding the soldier to the accurate perception of deadly risk, and perhaps certain destruction, could never be seen as good for the soldier. At best, such forced introjection would be a calculated sacrifice pragmatically demanded from the soldier, justified by the requirements of war, where "victory [survival] is purchased by blood." But I have portrayed here a straw figure. Introjected, false figures of victory, safety, superiority, or irresistible force have nothing to do with effective military thinking, from the individual soldier, to the Pentagon, to the nation as a whole. In fact, they are important ingredients of defeat. Clausewitz said as much: “We should think very frequently of the most dangerous of these situations and familiarize ourselves with it. Only thus shall we reach heroic decisions based on reason, which no critic can shake... We should always try, in time of war, to have the probability of victory on our side. But this is not always possible. Often we must act against this probability, should there be nothing better to do. Were we to despair here, we should abandon the use of reason just when it becomes most necessary, when everything seems to be conspiring against us. Therefore, even when the likelihood of success is against us, we must not think of our undertaking as unreasonable or impossible; for it is always reasonable, if we do not know of anything better to do, and if we make the best use of the few means at our disposal. We must never lack the calmness and firmness, which are so hard to preserve in time of war. Without them the most brilliant qualities of mind are wasted. We must therefore familiarize ourselves with the

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thought of an honorable defeat. We must always nourish this thought within ourselves, and we must get completely used to it. Be convinced, Most Gracious Master [the Prussian Crown Prince] that without this firm resolution no great results can be achieved in the most successful war, let alone in the most unsuccessful." (p. 12 - 13)

Empty Chair, Empty Battlefield I So the figure that Clausewitz suggests as the contemplative antidote to fears of death, failure, and destruction on the battlefield is -- imagery of death, failure and destruction on the battlefield. Not blindness or introjection, but nourished thought ranging fully into the very issues most feared. There is a stunning parallel here to the Gestalt Theoretical approach of examining harsh or avoided aspects of one's situation by experimentally identifying with that issue -- the "Empty Chair" and similar techniques. The individual is asked to experimentally act out or speak for the very issue that is so disturbing. Indeed, Gestalt Theoretical writing asserts that it is the rigid refusal to admit such negative experience that has locked sufferers into a one-sided, artificial experiential posture that is no longer effective. By experimentally pretending to own, desire, and control the negative experience, the individual can build flexibility and prowess into living by embracing true aspects of themselves that had been denied, defusing the frightening power of the feared construct, and by re-establishing the capacity for willful movement along a whole experiential continuum. Clausewitz, Gestalt Theory, and TRADOC all agree that an active, versatile, and accurate mental (verbal or other) grasp of the challenges of combat are essential to success. The fabulously dangerous realities of combat, coupled with the increasingly confusing and complex modern battlefield described in TRADOC 525-5, suggest that the demands for durable, versatile mental figures to direct and interpret battlefield experience under extreme pressure will operate at every level of the organization. The individual soldier will be expected to exercise an unprecedented degree of initiative and knowledge, and integrate action into a comprehensive operation with others. Otherwise, he or she will be beaten by one who can. Here is where the "blind obedience" end of the continuum is not so easily dismissed. The problem of self-preservation has already been mentioned, but there is more. Clausewitz discusses this in his section on Applications (p. 60 - 69). (For the moment, I suggest imagining an individual, wholly autonomous warrior -- any action taken is utterly free, the only obedience is to himself.) According to Clausewitz, war will

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demand a sharp degree of blindness to impressions, a suspension of responsiveness to both real and imagined obstacles and dangers that were previously hidden. The soldier is assaulted in battle not only by the actual attacks of his adversary, but also by a thousand spurious and undecipherable snags of information and doubt that were hidden during the quiet eve of battle. Forearmed with the nurtured contemplation of these disastrous possibilities, the successful warrior will be able to apply the strength of will required to proceed with his best plan, knowing as he does that such an ability is essential to success in battle. But the most effective plan will be most susceptible to doubting. Earlier, Clausewitz says that given the "choice between the most audacious and the most careful solution ... it is the nature of war to advise the most audacious... Theory leaves it to the military leader, however, top act according to his own courage, according to his own spirit of enterprise, and his self-confidence. Make your choice, therefore, according to this inner force; but never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity." (p. 13 - 14) So following through on that plan will be intensely difficult. Everything in the field, and in the battle itself, will seem to conspire not only against the plan, but also against its wisdom. "To resist all this we must have faith in our own insight and convictions. At times this often has the appearance of stubbornness, but in reality it is that strength of mind and character which is called firmness." All this would be true even for my imaginary individual sovereign warrior. Now add to this the reality that I am in fact discussing a cooperative effort, in which the plan at hand must be overlaid upon and carried out by a variety of individuals. Even in a "flattened," less hierarchical organization, with widely distributed authority and universal access to combat information, a clash of natural wills is bound to occur. The modern battlefield is more deadly, not less. The challenge of motivating troops to fight despite this danger is greater than ever. It would seem that the apparent value of blind obedience as a training goal for soldiers, practiced and refined with as much depth as possible, and couched in rhetoric powerful enough to reinforce the learning is _more_ attractive now, not less. The information access expected for Force XXI warfighters multiplies the problem. Clausewitz was aware of the haunting, hampering effect of ready information regarding the difficulties and weaknesses of one's own forces, contrasted with the similarly haunting projections of success and mobility that, in the absence of direct information, one attributes to the enemy.

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"But while we do not see the condition of the enemy," he writes, "our own is right before our eyes. The latter, therefore, makes a greater impression on ordinary people than the first, since sensuous impressions are stronger for such people than the language of reason." (p. 66) Force XXI soldiers will have the added burden of theater-wide information accurate down to the individual foxhole (or not -- networked electronic systems propagate *error* with as much speed as fact). And bad news, Clausewitz asserts, is more readily believed than good (On War, p.117). How can soldiers, assaulted by information and true recognition of the danger of battle, be expected to fight nevertheless? Clausewitz' solution to the problem cuts to the heart of it. Viewed alone, it is sharply unacceptable: "A general, who with tyrannical authority demands of his troops the most extreme exertions and the greatest privations, and an army which in the course of long wars has become hardened to such sacrifices will have a tremendous advantage over their adversaries and will reach their aim much faster in spite of all obstacles." (p.67)

Tyrannical authority, and that not in the occasional emergency, but through intentional practice, honed "in the course of long wars." Having asserted that the enemy will face a similar internal challenge, Clausewitz claims that victory will then go to the side that succeeds in this gritty ground of emotion and obedience. "With equally good plans," he writes, "what a difference of result!" (p. 67) How can such tyranny be reconciled with healthy demands for personal autonomy, responsibility, and self-regulation described by the Gestalt viewpoint? How can such tyranny be reconciled with the demands of the modern battlefield, where draconian measures of authority may seem essential for motivating soldiers to stand or attack against brilliantly deadly opposition, but are so sluggish and unresponsive to rapidly sifting situations that make survival elusive and Victory a complex symphony?

Empty Chair, Empty Battlefield II TRADOC 525-5, Section 2-3 b. (2) adds one more difficulty, in which the solution rests. Tomorrow's warfighters will face an Empty Battlefield, oddly similar to the "Empty Chair" technique of Gestalt Theory. Modern combat methods and equipment enable (and thus require) an increasingly deep battlefield, with fewer combatants, more lethal (accurate and destructive) weapons, and improved opportunities, techniques, and equipment for concealment. The result, as described in the pamphlet's

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Glossary, is "the perception that a soldier is virtually alone on the battlefield." Given the increased lethality of modern combat, and the expected rapidity of combat events, soldiers of today and tomorrow will be more challenged, not less, than the bloodied musketeers of Clausewitz' time. Facing greater danger, they have far less perception of joint effort and support, authoritarian or otherwise. In small units, or even alone, they will stand or attack independently. As such, the resistances and mental obstacles described by Clausewitz will be dispersed as well. Not only the General will need to overcome "outward appearance of things," but each soldier. Ready awareness of personal vulnerability, and projection of the opponent's invulnerability, will be a greater problem than ever, as fully distributed to the individual soldier as any piece of combat information he can access from the battlefield information Net. At the same time, the rewards of courage, and Clausewitz's "audacity" will be distributed as well. In facing that Empty Battlefield, like the Empty Chair, success will depend on the degree to which the soldier has "nourished the thought" of disaster, incorporated its many possible details, and synthesized a course of action that expresses action "according to his own courage, according to his spirit of enterprise, and his self-confidence." (as above, from Clausewitz, p.13 -14) Here then, is a paradoxical solution to the dichotomy between heroic initiative and blind obedience in the life of the warfighter. The very dangers of combat that seem to require irresistible authority met by unquestioning obedience have evolved to the point that such an intrusion into the autonomy of the individual soldier has become obsolete. The blindly obedient automaton will be shredded in battle by the autonomous, decision-making warrior, who alone can act and respond with the speed, power, and knowledge that modern warfare will demand and reward. While this seems to contradict Clausewitz' comments regarding the practice of "tyrannical authority," a broader look at his work suggests he also understood the countervailing need to invest one's forces with a comprehensive program of emotional commitment, social and political support, and unified purpose strong enough to overcome both real and apparent obstacles. The correction to be made for modern American values is in the degree to which the traits of the successful general must now be distributed down through the ranks. Tyrannical authority remains the final solution to the insurmountable resistances encountered in war. "Tyrannical authority" can now be reframed, without loss of meaning, as "supreme self-control." Supreme self-control exercised, with autonomy and informed initiative, by the soldier herself,

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within himself, to assert victorious experience regardless of the cost, regardless of the danger. The apparent polarity of Obedience versus Autonomy can be embraced in a circle of meaning, without contradiction, that closes at supreme self-control. Or more poetically -- Valor. Clausewitz understood the importance of the warfighting characteristics of the individual soldier. Peter Paret's chapter on Clausewitz (Makers of Modern Strategy, from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age) states that his major work, On War, discusses at length the mental, emotional, and ethical ingredients necessary to the troops, as well as the officers who lead them, in a successful battle or war. Moral commitment, courage, and cheerful confidence are as important as bullets and field position, and frequently can turn the tide of battle against an otherwise superior force. Along with 18th century expectations of authority over the troops, Clausewitz also sees the priceless importance of inspiring the troops to valor, by personal example. Napoleon knew this as well. When he was made a gift of enemy colors from the battle at Arcola, in Italy, he passed it on to a "General Lannes, writing, 'At Arcola, there was a moment when the fortune of the day was so uncertain that nothing but the utmost bravery on the part of the leaders could have saved the situation. Thereupon, bleeding from three terrible wounds, you left the field hospital, resolved to conquer or die. Again and again I saw you in the foremost ranks of the brave. You were the first ... to cross the [river] Adda. Yours must be the honor of owning and guarding this glorious flag.'" (Emile Ludwig, Napoleon, p. 104 -105) Clausewitz and Napoleon knew full well that the degree of discipline required for victory in battle ultimately must come from within the soldier. Externally intruded demands and punishment for non-compliance may set the tone, at least for proscribing outright treason or cowardice under fire, but traits of courage and grit required for victory in war, like the traits required for vigor and joy in life (successful or not), ultimately must emerge from the individual, with power, clarity, zest, and richly explored understanding. External command tyranny can't replace the integrated, spontaneous expression of valor from informed, motivated troops. Clausewitz, Napoleon, and TRADOC would all agree on this. A Gestalt perspective might add one more point: neither can tyranny's value, in the reality of the full range of human experience, be artificially denied. It is included in a living continuum. When the situation truly demands -- when there are "sappers at the wire" -- the willingness to experience tyranny (and the sense to respond to it) can now be seen as a rational possibility for honest self-expression for the individual/warfighter.

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For such a function to be effective and successful, it must be practiced -- it must be well integrated into the actions and perceptions of the performers. As such, it cannot be an introjected, forced figure as the stereotypic view of military authority might think. Nor can such discipline be obtained through mere directive. It must be learned and incorporated in experience, if not through "the course of long wars," then through experientially rich and convincing training. The learned exercise of fully integrated, profound obedience to combat direction, supported by internally energized willful compliance from the soldier, can now be seen in its proper perspective: The capacity to exercise rapid ("instant") obedience under the most severe conditions of combat stress is not an anachronistic contradiction to an initiative-based, laterally empowered, information-driven military doctrine. It is an essential ingredient of that very development. Rather than being a suspension (or repression) of individual autonomy, it emerges as a vitally important and powerful ingredient of autonomy and prowess. The dichotomy remains obvious. Obedience versus autonomous control. But by contemplating the entire continuum as a holistic unit that is compatible with healthy, vigorous self-expression and regulation, the individual becomes free to solve the seeming contradiction by developing energy and skill in functioning at any point along the continuum, as needed according to the exercise of vigorous awareness of the present situation. From imposed obedience versus freedom, the soldier's question now becomes one of learning when and where to function at any point along the continuum. This is prowess, and healthy by any standard.

Closing The ingredients of the successful warrior, and the healthy, effective individual in the Gestalt Theoretical perspective, then, are merged: • • • •

accurate, informed expression of action in a social and physical context; lively, alert expression of a skillful hunger for sensory information from which vigorous and decisive action can be planned; intensive exploration, in imagination and experience, of the full range of possibilities of any experiential figure; unflagging embracing of personal responsibility for one's experience and actions, alone, or in concert with others.

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In addition, Gestalt oriented thinking has been shown to offer a viable resolution to the apparent ethical dilemma presented by military life, by embracing the entire polarity of Obedience versus Autonomy (Initiative), and showing that the two poles are in fact fully compatible in a healthy, vigorous life of a successful warfighter. They merge at Valor. There are implications for non-military living. In a healthy, vigorous military life, the inherent dangers of combat present a context that demands complete mobility along the entire continuum of autonomy and obedience. But this is merely places in high relief the same issues of ordinary life. True health and vigor are not achieved by artificially slicing off part of a continuum of experience. They can only be achieved by the development of liberty of action at any point along that continuum. In this case, true autonomy is not to be achieved by blanket ("blind") rejection of experiences of disciplined obedience, but by willful, informed, and vigorous development of prowess in obedience, initiative, and in Force XXI's holistic construct of initiative "within the intent of the commander." Gestalt Theory provides an elegant, articulate format for examining such issues. In this particular case, it offers facility in exploring and resolving complex and apparently contradictory issues without falling into unproductive elaboration of the details of the polarity, without "resolving" the dichotomy by fiat, and without abstracting the discussion into artificialities unconnected to the realities of experience. Indeed, Gestalt Theory enables vigorous, creative delight in the power of the dilemma at hand, and the creative merging of the constructs of military obedience and heroic initiative.

References Clausewitz, Carl von, On War, Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976. Principles of War, Translated and edited by Hans W. Gratzke, Harrisburg, PA: Military Publishing Company, 1942. Hollis, Patricia Slayden, "Task Force Eagle in Operation Joint Endeavor Lessons Learned in Peace Enforcing," and "Peace Enforcing: Never Let Them See You Sweat," FA Journal, Volume 2, No.1, JanuaryFebruary 1997. (U.S. Field Artillery Association, Fort Sill, Oklahoma) Ludwig, Emile, Napoleon, Liveright Publishing: New York?, 1926; Pocket Books: New York, 1961. Paret, Peter, "Clausewitz," in Makers of Modern Strategy, Peter Paret, editor, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.

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TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5, "Force XXI Operations," 1 August 1994, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, Force XXI Homepage, URL http://204.7.227.75:443/force21/tradoc525/5255toc.html>, reached via ArmyLink, URL Yarmolinsky, Adam, The Military Establishment, New York: Harper and Row, 1971. Not specifically cited in text: Latner, Joel, The Gestalt Therapy Book, New York: The Julian Press, 1973. Marx, Melvin H. and Hillix, William A, Systems and Theories in Psychology, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963. Perls, Frederick; Hefferline, Ralph; Goodman, Paul, Gestalt Therapy, New York: Dell Publishing, 1951. Perls, Fritz, The Gestalt Approach & Eye Witness to Therapy, Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books, 1973.

CHAPTER SIX1 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN WORKING WITH RELIGIOUS CLIENTS2 DAN CARPENTER, M.A., PSY.D.

Introduction It seems obvious that unique populations require unique mental health delivery systems or models. That psychotherapy is not a "one size fits all" proposition is seen in the broad range of models currently in place in order to address the idiosyncratic nature of humanity. For example, techniques, systems, and approaches can be seen to differ in groups such as dual diagnosis clients (Miller, Leukefeld & Jefferson, 1994), lesbian women and gay men (Brown, 1991), African-American clients (Cook, 1993), adult borderline clients (Nehls & Diamond, 1993), homeless teenagers (Ray & Roloff, 1993), and rural Americans (Murray & Keller, 1991). Religious clients, just as in these other populations, have unique needs for mental health care (King, 1978, p. 276, Carter & Narramore, 1979, p. 47, Worthington, 1986, p. 429), and they respond best to the sensitive support of their unique experience. The same ethical considerations necessary in other cross-cultural issues, should be present in work with such religious clients.

1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 1(2), 1997.

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Ethical Considerations Principle D, of the Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (APA Ethics Code, 1992) states: Where differences of age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, or socioeconomic status significantly affect psychologists' work concerning particular individuals or groups, psychologists obtain the training, experience, consultation, or supervision necessary to ensure the competence of their services, or they make appropriate referrals. (APA Ethics Code, 1992). The same Code (Principle B) states that "Psychologists strive to be aware of their own belief systems, values, needs, and limitations and the effect of these on their work" (APA Ethics code, 1992). Similarly, Pate and Bondi (1992) pointed out that the Ethical Standards of the American Counseling Association state that counselors are to "guard 'the individual rights and personal dignity of the client'" and to do so "must learn during their professional education to respect the importance of spirituality and religion in the lives of clients and how to incorporate that respect in their practice" (p. 108). In view of these clearly-stated ethical guidelines, it is a curious fact that many religious clients are uncomfortable with therapists who do not share their beliefs. In such cases it becomes crucial to help the client gain support. Indeed, the client's ability to support him or herself may need the initiative of the therapist, acting as catalyst. Genia (1994) wrote that "the tendency for secular psychotherapists to reject organized religious involvement points to a 'religiosity gap' between mental health providers and the religiously committed United States majority" (p. 395). That such an awkward relationship is correlated with resistance to therapy and high rates of premature termination was demonstrated by Worthington (1986), Lovinger (1979) and King (1978). In such instances it has been the client's inability to find such needed support that has resulted in a stillborn therapeutic relationship. In this regard Gestalt therapists, of all people, ought to display an adept sensitivity to the need for support in the contact cycle of their religious clients. In the culture at large perhaps one reason for the dissonance between therapist and client is that the cross-cultural distinctives of the religious client are not given the same "value" as those given to clients who are clearly racially different or speak in a language not understood by the therapist. We tend to recognize and respect diversity of skin color, language, sexual orientation and cultural background, but often the less overt trait of religiosity gets overlooked. For example, Lovinger (1984)

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wrote that scientific literature regarding religion and psychology has been relatively scarce, but that the "silence indicates the degree to which American psychology tacitly views a nonreligious position as normative and a belief position as worthy of study, if not pathological. Since the bulk of the American population is at least conventionally religious, this is indeed a curious stance" (p. 88). An illustration of this adverse phenomena is found in Brook's (1996) Presidential Address to the APA Convention in Toronto: Here I reach the heart of my message and the point at which I most sharply diverge from the objectives of the Religious Right and the Promise Keepers [as if the terms were synonymous]. Yes, we who support families wish to empower them and help them fulfill their most lofty promises. But this cannot be done by seeking return to an era when men were 'real men' and their wives were 'the little woman,' when father knew best and mother knew (or pretended) that he did, when boys were made of snakes and snails and puppy dogs tails; girls were made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Instead of trying to distort the reality of contemporary life, we family psychologists need to help families cope and develop their maximum potential. To do this, we cannot be agents of moralizing, suppression, or coercion of women and men into outmoded social roles. (Brooks, 1996, p. 5) Brooks' portrayal, an attack on what many Christians consider healthy or even Biblical roles, lends no credence to the possibility that a family with religiously traditional role definitions may indeed be very happy and highly functional. His use of language labeled such a functional family system as "outmoded," resulting in the tendency to "rescue" it, despite the fact that it may not have been calling for help! Note that "we cannot be agents of...suppression", apparently means "unless religious values differ from our own, and in that case we'll make an exception." The cultural ignorance and insensitivity displayed here by Brooks is exactly the problem that drives religious clients away from necessary services. In Gestalt therapy there may indeed be a place for differences of opinion in which the beliefs of both therapist and client can be mutually explored, but there is a critical difference between a therapist who makes a place for the different beliefs of his or her client, and the challenging therapist on a crusade to save his client from primitive fundamentalism. A phenomenological approach saves both client and therapist from a rigid standoff. The therapist is free to explore just how his or her client makes meaning from experience, offering support in the process, and the ultimate epistemology of either's belief system, while important, recedes to play a minor and manageable role in their relationship.

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Field Work with Religious Clients Regardless of the position of "historical psychology" toward religion, it seems clear that in order to remain true to the ethical guidelines of professional psychology the issue should at least be considered within the context of a cultural framework--that is, the field--lest religious clients be denied the same understanding afforded to those more overtly culturally distinct. As Ridley (1995) has appropriately stated "...all clients deserve equitable treatment, regardless of their background" (p. 6). Gestalt therapists must keep alert for the point at which the phenomenology of their clients intersects the religious field characteristics in which their clients reside. As Jim Simkin noticed, twenty years previously, "Rather than impose on their patients their own values or strictures on how to live, the Gestalt therapists are interested in having their patients/trainees discover for themselves what values fit their own way of looking at life." (1974, p. 22) With religious clients this will pertain to a distinct religious subculture, or position in the field. In the last two decades there has been a huge increase in sensitivity to culture in professional literature (Sue & Sue, 1990, p. 159). For example, compared to 1990, the word "culture" appeared in professional abstracts approximately 50% more in 1996 (PsychLIT). A similar survey of the ATLA Religious database shows that the phrase "cross-cultural" doubled in its use in abstracts from 1991 to 1993 (ATLA, 1996). Because this writer is most familiar with the religious tradition of Christianity, that religion has been used as an example. Readers more familiar with other faiths should find it a relatively small challenge to make application to the faith worldview of their choice. It should go without saying that the focus, practically speaking, is not on the therapist's religious worldview anyway, but on the worldview (religious or otherwise) brought to the session by the client. Gestalt therapists seem particularly adept at working in this fashion, and for many Gestalt therapists this article serves as a timely reminder of why they do therapy as they have chosen to do. Indeed, writing in 1971, John Enright noted, "All of life, not just the narrow and grim domain of problems and symptoms, is the field of application of the Gestalt way...I, personally, without any particular conscious intention, have moved far from my early dry and narrowly intellectual atheism as I absorbed the Gestalt style..."(p.11-12) Sue & Sue (1990) reported several factors which define culture. These included class values, language factors, unique experiences, communication style (p. 161) as well as outlook on individuality, verbal/emotional/behavioral

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expressiveness, self-disclosure, cause/effect orientation, structure/flexibility/ ambiguity (pp. 35-45). Their "shorthand" version for culture was "all those things that people have learned to do, believe, value, and enjoy in their history. It is the totality of ideals, beliefs, skills, tools, customs, and institutions into which each member of society is born" (Sue & Sue, 1990, p. 35). This is very reminiscent of Kurt Lewin's concept of field, which Dorwin Cartwright (1951) described in the foreward to Lewin's Field Theory in Social Science as anything having demonstrable effects (p. xii). Malcolm Parlett (1997), writing with a more contemporary world view, stated that Gestalt therapists remember again and again, "...it is the organism-in-environment, person-in-situation, family-in-society..." that one encounters (p. 21). Using the above terms to define culture, it is easy to see that Christianity and other world religions are indeed cultures of their own: individual-in-community of faith, church-in-denomination, faith-in-panoplay of religion. Within Christianity one may find specific cross-cultural values (e.g. negative attitudes toward sexual intercourse outside of marriage, cohabitation, or use of alcohol and drugs), language factors (implicit in phrases like "born again" and "filled with the Spirit", plus peer pressure for "correct speech" such as lack of cursing), unique experiences (e.g. conversion, Eucharist, baptism), communication style (intercessory prayer, speaking in tongues), outlook on individuality (focus on serving others, including those outside of the Christian community), verbal/emotional/ behavioral expressiveness (often demonstrated in worship expressions such as raising of hands, shouting or dancing), self-disclosure (seen both in verbal prayer requests and in repentant requests for forgiveness), cause/effect orientation (concept of omnipotent, omniscient God) , and structure/flexibility/ambiguity (as seen in liturgical form and doctrinal statements). Clearly, not only is Christianity a culture of its own, but it is also made up of many subcultures. Denominations are created by distinct differences of opinion (often reflected in doctrinal statements) while still remaining under the larger "Christian" cultural umbrella. Kitayama and Markus (1994, p. 347) pointed out the concept of "micro-cultures" when they wrote: In the United States, men and women, African-American or EuropeanAmerican, Jewish or Christian, may share similar culturally organized ways of thinking about self and others because they share a single, broadly defined cultural and sociopolitical reality. However, each person must also respond to a set of cultural requirements that are associated with being of a

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Christianity and Psychology--The Schism The culture of Christianity has been influenced by a history of dissatisfaction with psychology. Part of the responsibility for this turbulent past rests with therapists who condemned religiosity as pathological. Worthington (1986) wrote "Conservative Christians prefer like-minded counselors and distrust secular counselors" (p. 425). Citing research by Beutler, Pollack and Jobe (1978), Worthington added "When clients agreed with the initial values of their therapists, they were more attracted to their therapists and were more trusting of them than were clients who did not (p. 425). Contemporary insensitivity toward religious belief was preceded in the field by early comments on the part of several prominent members of the psychological community. Warnock captured the essence of the "antireligious" spectrum of psychology: Through the years, religion has been viewed by psychologists and those in related professions in many ways: by Freud as an illusion, an obsession and a fulfillment of infantile wishes; by Jung as an Archetype; by Fromm as human love; by Erikson as an epigenetic virtue; by James as an intensely personal experience, by Sargant as a matter of classical conditioning; by Skinner as a matter of operant conditioning; by Allport as a matter of personal becoming; [and] by Maslow as a quest for man's higher nature...(Warnock, 1989, p. 263) Fritz Perls viewed theology as projection, the attribution of characteristics to the universe, and he admired those ministers who shifted from belief in a personalized God to embrace "...the basic creative energy of the universe." (Walker, p. 188-89) Perhaps one of the most famous quotes capturing the anti-religion bias in psychology was made by Albert Ellis (1962) who said "...And because any deity-positing religion almost by necessity involves endowing those members who violate the laws of its gods with a distinct concept of blameworthiness or sinfulness, I am inclined to reverse Voltaire's famous dictum and to say that, from a mental health standpoint, if there were a God it would be necessary to uninvent Him" (p. 142) Reasons for an often-negative view of religion from psychologists vary from an unthinking acceptance of the "traditional" depreciating views espoused above, which portray religious belief as detrimental to mental health, to more personal issues such as past experience of the therapist.

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Why is it that "compared with the public at large, secular psychotherapists are less likely to affiliate or participate in organized religion and are more likely to express their spiritual interests in nontraditional ways"? (Genia, 1994, p. 395). Lovinger (1984) posited that training in the sciences (such as psychology, psychiatry and nursing) "is at odds with the religious orientation and background of many Americans" (p. 1). He also stated that the humanist orientation and liberal political outlook of training institutions tends to complement a worldview that is essentially nonreligious, if not anti-religious (p. 2). Additionally, he offered a taxonomy of three types of nonreligious therapists: x the nonaffiliated ("an explicit religious tone or orientation is essentially absent") x the anti-affiliated ("clear, antireligious orientation") x and the formerly affiliated (who typically changed to a nonaffiliated position following a painful religious experience) (p. 5) Tan (1994) points out several "pitfalls" regarding therapy with religious clients. Although his article is specifically targeted for religious psychotherapists, his comments are nonetheless applicable to all religious interaction with clients. A Summary of His Comments is Outlined Here: x Take care to not impose therapist's beliefs or values on the client. x Don't fail to provide adequate therapist worldview (e.g. Christian, atheist, agnostic, Islamic) data in the informed consent process. x Focusing mainly on religious goals rather than therapeutic goals (although there will clearly be overlap) is a violation of the therapeutic contract. x Therapist's competence in the area of conducting therapy with religious clients is important--if you're short on knowledge, then consult. x Don't become involved in arguing over doctrinal issues rather than clarifying them. x Be careful of avoiding religious issues by misusing the client's resources (e.g. prayer). x Be aware of blurring professional boundaries necessary for maintenance of the therapeutic relationship (e.g. becoming a surrogate spiritual guide instead of therapist). x Refer to appropriate clergy/shaman for ecclesiastical functions.

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x Don't become so focused on religious issues that when medication and/or other treatment may be necessary, it is ignored. Consultation with clergy of the client's faith (when authorized by the client, of course), or referral to a clinician with more experience and expertise in the clinician's weak area, may often be appropriate to the situation. Additionally, the clinician should be aware when a desire to avoid religious issues arises from either the client or therapist.

Conclusion In summarizing, I point again to the ethical codes cited at the outset of this article, and invite each therapist to take a personal inventory of his or her own patterns of dealing with religious clients, or even religious issues in clients who do not adhere to a traditional religious lifestyle. Indeed, such would be just a beginning, as much good could come from an open exchange between the community of Gestalt therapy and those of various faiths. The growing interest in spirituality among many in the field does not actually represent a departure; it is more of a reaffirmation. Gestalt therapists have for many years remained open to the exploration of a fullness in human experience that includes the spiritual and religious. Such is evident in Erv and Miriam Polster, for instance, who cited in their book their experiences of interacting with people in communities of faith, of working within the theological frameworks of these religious people. (Polster and Polster, p. 304-05) I am convinced that we all have a view of "God", even if that view is "He/She doesn't exist". We underserve our clients if we err too far on either direction--over-attention or inattention to the spiritual factors which they bring to us. Our ethical responsibility is to find the "Golden Mean". Put another way, it is to honor the true individuality of each person. It is to that end that this article is dedicated.

References APA ethics code. (1992). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. ATLA (1996). ATLA religious database. Evanston, IL: American Theological Library Association. Beutler, L., Pollack, S. & Jobe, A. (1978). "Acceptance", values and therapeutic change. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 46 (1), 198-199.

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Brooks, G. (1996, Fall) Gender equality in families: A promise worth keeping. The Family Psychologist 12 (4), 5-6. Brown, L. (1991). Commentary on the special issue of the counseling psychologist: Counseling with lesbians and gay men. Counseling Psychologist 19 (2), 235-238. Carter, J., & Narramore, B. (1979). The integration of psychology and theology: An introduction. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Corporation. Cartwright, D. (1951) in the foreword to Kurt Lewin's Field theory in the social sciences. Westport: Greenwood Press Publishers Cook, D. (1993). Research in African-American churches: A mental health counseling imperative. Journal of Mental Health Counseling 15 (3), 320-333. Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and emotion in psychotherapy. Secaucus, N.J.: The Citadel Press. Enright, J.P. (1971) in the foreword Body and soul, by J. Lyn Walker. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Genie, V. (1994). Secular psychotherapists and religious clients: Professional considerations and recommendations. Journal of Counseling & Development 72, 395-398. King, R. (1978). Evangelical Christians and professional counseling: A conflict of values? Journal of Psychology and Theology 6 (4), 276-281. Kitayama, S. and Markus, H. (1994). Emotion and culture. Washington, D.C.: APA Press. Lovinger, R. (1979) Therapeutic strategies with "Religious" resistances. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice 16 (4), 419-427. Lovinger, R. (1984) Working with religious issues in therapy. Northvale, NJ: Aronson Press. Miller, T., Leukefeld, C. & Jefferson, B. (1994). Dual diagnosis: clinical issues in substance abuse treatment. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy 24 (3), 169- 177. Murray, J. & Keller, P. (1991). Psychology and rural America: Current status and future directions. American Psychologist 46 (3), 220-231. Nehls, J. & Diamond, R. (1993). Developing a systems approach to caring for persons with borderline personality disorder. Community Mental Health Journal 29 (2), 161-171. Parlett, M. (1997) "The unified field in practice." Gestalt review, vol1, no.1, p. 16-33. Lawrence: The Analytic Press. Pate, R. & Bondi, A. (1992). Religious beliefs and practice: An integral aspect of multicultural awareness. Counselor Education and Supervision 32, 108-115 PsychLIT Database (1996) Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

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Polster, E. and Polster M. (1973) Gestalt therapy integrated New York: Vintage Books. Ray & Roloff, (1993). Church suppers, pony tails and mentors: Developing a program for street kids. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 10 (6), 497-508. Ridley, C. (1995). Overcoming unintentional racism in counseling and therapy: A practitioner's guide to intentional intervention. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Simkin, J. (1974) "Ethical considerations." Mini-lectures in Gestalt therapy. Albany: Wordpress. Sue, D. & Sue, D. (1990). Counseling the culturally different: Theory & practice, Second edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Tan, S. (1994). Ethical considerations in religious psychotherapy: Potential pitfalls and unique resources. Journal of Psychology and Theology 22 (4), 389-394. Walker, J. L. (1971). Body and soul: Gestalt therapy and religious experience Nashville: Abingdon Press. Warnock, S. (1989). Rational-emotive therapy and the Christian client. Journal of Rational Emotive and Cognitive Behavior Therapy 7 (4), 263-273. Worthington, E. (1986, March). Religious counseling: A review of published empirical research. Journal of Counseling and Development, 64, 421-430.

CHAPTER SEVEN1 AROAH OR WHAT CONSTITUTES HEALING IN PSYCHOTHERAPY2 RUDOLF JAROSEWITSCH

There is a certain acceptance in this country that I had not known before I came to live in New Zealand. The spaciousness of the sparsely populated land is reflected in the interpersonal space of individualism with a high degree of tolerance. To live and let live is a predominant attitude, complemented with a general caring for each other. Quite a difference to the highly competitive social structures in Germany, where I grew up. In this article I want to attend to the question: what makes New Zealand such a special place? Then I want to share how living and working here has effected my work as a Gestalt therapist and attempt to deduce some general ideas with regard to the question: what constitutes healing? Even though the majority of New Zealand's population is of European descent, the feeling in this country is remarkably different from being in Europe. The most obvious difference is the physical location in the South Pacific. New Zealand consists of two main islands and is surrounded by ocean; Australia, the closest neighbor, is more than 1500 km away. The indigenous people, Tangata Whenua, the people of this land, have a great impact on the overall energy. Their connectedness with the land and reverence of "Mother Earth" and "Father Sky" can be felt. Huge areas of undisturbed nature, from lush native bush, towering mountains, thermal

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In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 1(3), 1997.

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regions, deserts, to remote sea shores arranged in large areas of National Parks attract more and more visitors to walk the trails. I came here as a tourist, and New Zealand initially captivated me to extend my stay. Yet it took quite some time for me to feel comfortable here. For many years I was not clear why I was here. I had given up my country, friends and family, felt a stranger in a strange land, battling with English as a second language. What intrigued me was the Maori culture, and the reason to be here became more obvious to me when I walked the ancient trail of the Waitaha with Barry Brailsford. This has been a life changing experience for me. Barry, a historian and archaeologist, had been instructed in the old ways, as a preparation to writing down the verbally transmitted knowledge in "The Song of Waitaha", a book of sacred ancient knowledge of the people of peace who predate and are part of the Maori people of Aotearoa, New Zealand (Brailsford, 1994). I feel very fortunate that I was invited to walk with him, tracing the steps of the ancestors, in the spirit of the people of peace. Aroha is a Maori term that goes back to Waitaha times. It might be translated as "unconditional love", and it stands for the utmost respect for fellow human beings. You can feel Aroha, when you are invited to enter a Marae (formal meeting place). Rituals play an important part in Maori culture, as in the Powhiri, the welcome ceremony. This ceremony includes the challenge, exchange of speeches and Waiata (songs), the Hongi (touching of forehead and nose) which signifies the sharing of the same air, the life force, and is the traditional gesture that seals the generous inclusion into the tribe. A common ritual at gatherings is the use of the Tokutoku, or talking stick. Whoever holds the stick can speak whatever they want for however long they want. Holding the stick creates the space for everyone hearing each other. This is the prerequisite for peace. Everyone needs to have a say, and what everyone has to say needs to be validated, not necessarily be agreed with, but heard. In spaciousness there is place for everyone. There is no time pressure: "it takes as long as it takes." This is Aroha in action, and we are in the fortunate position in this country that this spirit of Aroha has been kept alive in an unbroken lineage, being passed on from generation to generation. New Zealand jade, called Pounamu, symbolizes Aroha. In the old days it was carried through the land for the purpose of healing. Healing of the land and of people. "Pounamu is the sacred stone of this land. It is the core to the spirit of this land. Within the great rainbow of the planet, the color of Aotearoa is

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green; the color of healing. The stone of this land is Pounamu, which is often called greenstone. The spirit of this land is Aroha, or love, and the stone embodies that spirit. It is a very special stone. In Waitaha understanding, it is of the stars, Mere Pounamu, the star of many colors. Pounamu is not only green, it can be white, black, blue, green, light green, dark green, or golden. It has many, many colors. No matter what color, its spirit is always the same. It is the stone of healing; it embodies the spirit of love. When we touch the stone, we touch into the stars, into the beginning of all. All that is, is of the stone, and the stone is all that is. The stone is of the beginning, it endures and is of the end. The stone is of the mountain that stands tall, that falls down into the river, is carried to the oceans, its boulders in the streams, to finish up at the beaches as sand, to sink deep within the ocean, to be bedded down and become rock again, to be raised again in the future as mountains. So the song of the stone is an enduring one, of all ages. The spirit of Pounamu is the spirit of creation, the lore of the universe. The lore that drives the universe is love. That is the spirit of the stone." (Brailsford, 1996)

I feel so inspired by this that I now carry Pounamu with me. I take my special stone to workshops, pass it around, give it to clients to hold, treat it with reverence. I have experienced a home coming of my soul, as I met people in the spirit of Waitaha. My connection with the land and its people is evolving. When I first arrived here, 14 years ago, a New Zealand friend made it very clear: "you are here to bring a special gift to this land." It was my experience and training in Gestalt Therapy that I had to offer. But when I first introduced it, at the meeting of a voluntary organization, I experienced immense resistance. It was a typical clash of two cultures. My confrontative style which worked so well in Germany was not welcomed here. Nobody told me directly, I needed to find this out by myself. This irritated me. No harsh words were used. I felt powerless, nothing to fight against, nobody to convince. At the School of Critical Psychology at Freie Universitaet Berlin I was used to criticize, to engage in aggressive discussions. None of this worked here. It was just not done. Over the years, assimilating living here and learning from participants at workshops, students and therapy clients, I developed a way of working much more gently. This represents more truly my inner core, giving me a taste of inner peace. In a fundamental way it is a home-coming. This process becomes obvious when I look at what I wrote last year: "The essence of Gestalt Therapy is Aroha, unconditional regard and love. We cannot force this, we can only allow this to happen and be there. We will never be able to make it a technique or measure it. The essence, the spirit of Gestalt, the 'Geist' can be experienced in the process of our

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Chapter Seven meeting. It is the space between us, the vastness of the presence, the timeless moment of our encounter. If I want to capture it, it gets lost. It is elusive and yet the most real experience there is." (Jarosewitsch, 1996, p.3)

Aroha emanates from this poem by New Zealand Gestalt therapist Anne Maclean. She writes about "The Heart of Gestalt" (1994, p.76): When I call all my sense home into my central core then I know a deep peace just simply being. Here is unconditional love and compassion Heart deepening and expanding to accept whatever I am or have been, or will become. Notugs of war between anything, and all of me simply here.

Recently I attended a seminar by Eng-Kong Tan, Psychiatrist and Self Psychologist from Sydney (Love and Hate, Christchurch, 20/6/97). He also stressed the importance of unconditional love for healing. Unless a therapist has a feeling of love and respect for his client, healing cannot occur. He then asked the question, 'How can the patient find the unconditional loving in a therapy setting?' They pay for their session, it's a business arrangement. In an informal research he explored the question: "What do you remember of your therapist, what touched you?" He discovered that it was neither any clever interpretations nor any skillfully applied techniques that clients remembered, but special moments when they felt cared for. Maybe these special moments constitute healing. A special moment of my own therapy that I remember is the tenderness I felt as my therapist wiped a tear off my cheek. He sat attentively beside me as I was lying down, exhausted from a deep piece of work. I can't remember the work, but I remember his gesture of genuine care. Until then, male tenderness had not been in my field. These special moments remind me of "I-Thou moments" (Jacobs, 1989; Hycner & Jacobs, 1995). An 'I-Thou attitude' is crucial for therapeutic healing. "It is not the therapist's theoretical orientation that is critical in the healing process as is the wholeness and availability of the self of the therapist." (Hycner, 1993, p. 15)

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This is a strength of Gestalt Therapy, to focus on the therapist-client relationship, to emphasize a dialogical approach. Yet, we cannot create dialogue, we even cannot intend it, since this would include an element of control. All we can do is be present in the moment, practice inclusion and be ready for dialogue. According to Buber, I-Thou moments happen by grace. Any deliberateness only gets in the way. Well known New Zealand counselor/therapist George Sweet attends to this paradox in therapy by emphasizing "the advantage of being useless" (Sweet,1989). Rather than trying to achieve something in therapy, he uses the following as a mantra: "I have no desire to change this person in any way." (Sweet, 1995) I can only work in a healing way with someone when I care for them, feel genuine love, unconditional love, Aroha. This means, to accept them the way they are. Acceptance creates the space for this person to unfold, for healing to occur. It is necessary to help heal any internalized fights. All I can do as a therapist is to nurture a loving attitude and allow space, without cluttering it with my own agenda. In Hakomi Therapy this spaciousness is referred to as non-violence. "Nonviolence is born of an attitude of acceptance and an active attention to the way events naturally unfold." (Kurtz, 1990, p. 29) The most basic disease I am faced with in my work as a psychotherapist is rejection. People are afraid of rejection and do anything, like pleasing others, working hard, trying again, forcing, fighting, attempting to mind read, agree, or join, attempting to prevent rejection. This might touch my own tendency to reject. "The core of problems which clients bring to a counselor/therapist is that they do not feel okay with who they are. It is the sense that they should be different. When, as a therapist, I have my own agenda of how my client and I should be I only add to their accumulated 'shoulds'. We then get involved in a game where I play the therapist and you play the client, each of us acting in a way that we think is expected of us in our respective roles." (Jarosewitsch, 1996, p.2)

We need to face and heal our own internalized rejection by acceptance. How can we do this, when it has not been our experience, when it is not part of our field? Again I am inspired by the peaceful spirit of Waitaha. Rose Pere, a Waitaha/Maori elder, works with the healing power of Aroha. People who otherwise would not go to see a therapist come to her for healing. She is not interested in their past, nor in the assessment of their psychological condition. She has no interest in judging them. Her requirement is that they are ready to look at themselves. Then they can stay with her on her Marae and work there. She is very mindful to not take

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away a person's Mana (personal standing that comes with birth), so nobody gets shamed. She honors the Wairua (spirit) and sees the person in a holistic way. A sense of belonging, and the grounding in acknowledging the line of ancestors, is an important aspect of healing in Maori tradition, easily overlooked in Western psychotherapies. At her keynote address of the NZAC Conference (New Zealand Association of Counsellors, Havelock North, July 1996), she challenged with the statement, "Every person is perfect, and every situation is perfect." Is there no need for change, when everything is perfect? Change happens all the time. As long as we are alive, we are in process, we change constantly. We cannot not change, all we can do is get in the way of change. "We cannot force change. Or if we do, it won't be integrated, it won't last. Any deliberate change is doomed to failure. Change has to come by itself through organismic self regulation" (Jarosewitsch, 1996, p. 44).

Any intention to change interferes with special moments that constitute healing. In telling you explicitly or implicitly that you need to change, I tell you also that you are not okay the way you are. Maybe it's space that we need more than anything to heal. Space, which can be easily cluttered by an overly keen therapist. On the other hand, the contact between therapist and client is diminished if s/he only sits back and waits. The t challenge is to do both, stay contactfull and allow the client all the space and time that is needed for the process. This cannot be done in a mechanical way. It is the therapist's loving attitude that matters and is expressed when there is no need to rush, and the current state of the client is valued. As a therapist, I need to attend to my own healing, so that I can stay in an accepting loving space of Aroha with my client. I need acceptance of myself. Rather than waiting with self acceptance until I have solved all my life's challenges, I might as well accept myself in process. In the same way as I experience it in this beautiful land, I develop a self caring attitude and allow space for myself and all the time in the world that it takes to grow. To allow space is an act of Aroha, space for the person to unfold their uniqueness. I believe as I face my fellow being with this attitude, it constitutes healing. The journey is the goal. Aroha is the healing.

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References Brailsford, B. (1994) Song of Waitaha, The Histories of a Nation. Ngatapuwae Trust. (1996) "The Journey Is To Be Nothing." Gestalt Dialogue 4, p. 10f. Hycner, R (1993) "Between person and person", Gestalt Journal Press, NY, p. 15 Hycner, R. & Jacobs, L. (1995) "The Healing Relationship in Gestalt Therapy", Gestalt Journal Press, NY. Jacobs L. (1989) "Dialogue in Gestalt Theory and Therapy", Gestalt Journal XII Jarosewitsch, R. (1996) "The Power of Gentleness in Gestalt Therapy" More Grounds for Gestalt, Foreground Press, p. 44. "The Essence of Gestalt Therapy", in Gestalt Dialogue 4, 1996, p.2) Kurtz, R. (1990) Body-centred Psychotherapy, Mendocino, CA , p. 29. Maclean, A. (1994) "The Heart of Gestalt" in: Grounds for Gestalt, Foreground Press. Perls, F., (1969) in Jarosewitsch, R. (1996) "The Power of Gentleness in Gestalt Therapy" More Grounds for Gestalt, Foreground Press, p. 44. Sweet, G. (1995) Opening Comments at NZAC Conference, Christchurch. The Advantage of Being Useless (1989). Dunmore Press, New Zealand.

CHAPTER EIGHT1 RENEWING OUR ROOTS IN NEUROPSYCHOLOGY: A GESTALT PERSPECTIVE ON THE WORK OF JOSEPH LEDOUX2 PHILIP BROWNELL

A review of: LeDoux, J. (1996) The emotional brain, the mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. (1996) N.Y, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster. 303 pages exclusive of extensive notes and bibliography. Kurt Goldstein regarded the brain correlates of mental patterns to be system-like and structured, functional wholes of dynamic character (Goldstein, p.294). He saw human beings as complete organisms functioning in systemic fashion, fields unto themselves which were in turn comprised of fields. When he wrote The Organism, he also believed that there was no way to prove that these brain processes actually had such a structure or that there were any such physical systems at all. He wrote in theoretical metaphor about the world of organisms and their relationships to their environments. Goldstein upheld a field theoretical approach to the treatment of brain injury, advocating the creative adjustments he saw whole people making in the face of traumatic neurological injury. His work, as most Gestalt therapists realize, significantly influenced the inspirational foundation for what became Gestalt therapy, as developed by Frederick Perls and others.

1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 2(1), 1998.

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Thus, there is precedent as well as historical lineage in checking back with neuroscience in order to understand how people experience. When that is done utilizing contemporary research, one discovers that Goldstein has been updated. Now, for instance, we do have physical evidence of neurological systems correlating to experience. People can trace routes in the brain by which phenomenological processes unfold. One person who has done this to a great extent is Joseph LeDoux, professor at the Center for Neural Science at New York University. LeDoux's research into the brain systems correlating to fear gave new insight into the ways in which anxieties come about and are perpetuated. His point of view on the ways in which field effects influence phenomenological process showed how influences in the field become one's experience. Since then, others have built on his initial discoveries. Greenberg, Rice, and Elliott (1991), for instance, utilized LeDoux's research to conclude that some affective signals need no interpretation of their own and automatically organize experience. Contemporary research of this nature has provided what Goldstein longed for – physical evidence for what was otherwise mere theoretical metaphor. The Emotional Brain is an easily read overview of Joseph LeDoux's research, and this book is important to Gestalt therapists because the insights of such neuroscience take us out of the realm of speculative philosophizing and ground us more firmly in substantive research. LeDoux summarized his book nicely in the preface when he admitted it was "...about how the brain detects and responds to emotionally arousing stimuli, how emotional learning occurs and emotional memories are formed, and how our conscious emotional feelings emerge from unconscious processes" (p. 9). He wrote nine balanced chapters that totaled just over three hundred pages, and he included extensive notes and bibliography. For most of the book he avoided the jargon that usually characterizes neuropsychological texts, but when it was necessary to be precise, he produced specific terminology. Consequently, this book is not a sophisticated grafting of the psychology of emotion onto brain function; it's a study of brain function that allows one to understand emotion as a neuropsychological process. The building blocks of emotions are neural systems that mediate behavioral interactions with the environment, particularly those responses that attend to basic matters of survival. In this regard Joseph LeDoux found himself in sympathy with the attribution theories of Richard Lazarus (1991). He also stated that all animals have some version of this survival system in their brains, but feelings occur only in those that also have the capacity for consciousness. (p. 125) He followed William James in holding

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that emotions begin with unconscious processing of environmental stimuli, accompanied by bodily response, and that one's consciousness notices, as it were, what is taking place in the body and organizes the experience into feelings. He provided substantial physiological research to support such theses. One of the nice by-products of this book is that it summarized the field of emotions theory, describing the various alternatives while citing both well known and lesser theorists. In reading The Emotional Brain Gestalt practitioners may well feel wooed, enticed to apply LeDoux's insights to Gestalt process. They may even feel challenged. For instance, when referring to his work with Michael Gazzaniga on split brain study, LeDoux stated: We concluded people normally do all sorts of things for reasons they are not consciously aware of (because the behavior is produced by brain systems that operate unconsciously) and that one of the main jobs of consciousness is to keep our life tied together into a coherent story, a selfconcept. It does this by generating explanations of the behavior on the basis of our self-image, memories of the past, expectations of the future, the present social situation, and the physical environment in which the behavior is produced. (LeDoux, p. 33)

This describes the forming of the self at the contact boundary, of the meaning making associated with raw experience, hence one's phenomenology, and it hints at the contact styles people formulate over time. Certainly, it alludes to the organism interacting in its field. LeDoux's concept of processes operating unconsciously that effect our experience was alluded to early in the book and provided a delicious forecast to what came later. In successive chapters he built a persuasive argument, with evidence from his physiological research, that such unconscious processes not only exist, but also substantially effect phenomenology. What this means is that people encounter what Perls called the objective world, and they have an experience of it. Whatever effects them from this objective world Lewin termed the boundary, and what LeDoux proposed in his book is that much of this effecting may often be unconscious. Thus, while these boundary effects would be part of a person's field, because they have effect, they would not be part of a person's awareness, what many Gestalt practitioners call their experience, or their phenomenology. LeDoux believes what he does for many reasons, but among them he stated the following (p. 69-70):

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Sometimes neurological damage results in the loss of the capacity to appraise the emotional significance of objects, even while maintaining the ability to perceive them. The emotional meaning of a stimulus can be appraised by the brain, initiating concomitant action, before the perceptual systems have fully organized what those stimuli are. The physical mechanisms for the registration, storage, and retrieval of memories of emotions are different from those involved with cognitive memories of the same stimuli. Emotional appraisals are directly connected with systems involved in the control of emotional responses; once an appraisal is made by the neurological systems that pertain, responses occur automatically. In contrast, systems involved in cognitive processing are not so tightly coupled with response control systems. That is why one experiences less control over one's feelings than over one's thoughts.

There are several places in The Emotional Brain where LeDoux became more precise, describing various connections between brain structures and their corresponding functions. One fascinating illustration is when he dealt with the Cannon-Bard theory of the emotional brain, stating, "And since the fibers descending to the bodily response systems and the fibers ascending to the cortex are activated simultaneously by the hypothalamus, emotional feelings and emotional responses occur in parallel, rather than in sequence." (p.84) Thus, the simple theory that what we think leads directly to what we feel is not supported by physiology; it's more complex than that, more dynamic and contextual. Further undermining the purely cognitive approach is the realization that the subcortical pathways, not capable of fine distinctions, produce learning that freely spreads to other stimuli; since the process is subcortical, conscious control over such subcortical processes is virtually impossible. This is a good reason for the application of more global, corrective experience, which holistic, Gestalt work provides. Finally, this book provides helpful insights into the processes that unfold in panic attacks, PTSD, and other anxiety disorders. Given that recent research has indicated Gestalt therapy is at least as helpful as systematic-desensitization in the treatment of phobia (Johnson and Smith, 1997), it would be productive for Gestalt therapists treating these disorders to read LeDoux's research and incorporate applications of his findings in their process work with clients. Particularly interesting are LeDoux's discussions of stress factors that affect people in even more varied ways. He showed how, for instance, that stress "shifts us into a mode of operation in which we react to danger rather than think about it." (p.247) There are many books on neural science and consciousness. People can find them under the cognitive science section of large bookstores; however, there are few books that provide holistic viewpoints that

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consider both the thinking and feeling, the conscious and the unconscious processes at work, and that honor the systemic nature of whole persons. Joseph LeDoux has done this, and therefore, he is in line with Kurt Goldstein, Kurt Lewin, and the early Gestalt theorists who began looking for ways in which people make creative, adaptive adjustments to their environments. That is why The Emotional Brain makes good reading to deepen one's understanding of, and appreciation for, phenomenological process taking place within the unified field.

References Goldstein, K. (1995) The organism. New York: Zone Books. Greenberg, L.S., Rice, L.N., Elliott, R. (1991) Facilitating Emotional Change. New York: The Guilford Press. Johnson, W.R., Smith, E.W.L. (1997) Gestalt empty-chair dialogue versus systematic desensitization in the treatment of phobia. Gestalt Review 1:2, p. 150-162. Lazarus, R.S. (1991) Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press. Le Doux, J. (1996) The emotional brain, the mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Simon & Schuster.

CHAPTER NINE1 DIALOGUE AND PARADOX: IN TRAINING WITH LYNNE JACOBS, THE “DIALOGUE MAVEN”2 LYNNE JACOBS

Maya Brand: ...Right! She's the Dialogue-Maven! I asked Lynne if she would do the lecture, and I'll sing harmony. Lynne: We have Maya to thank for these visual aids. For those who have never seen me lecture, let me say that if I start off too fast and you don't want me to talk so fast, just slow me down, and the other is feel free to come in with questions, comments, reactions, case material, disagreements. We can mix it up; I'm not going to lose my place. Laura Perls is the one who introduced the idea of working with Buber's I-Thou relationship in Gestalt therapy, because she studied some with Martin Buber. Almost anybody who came into contact with him - their work was changed through being effected by his ideas. Once you get infected, you don't let it go very easily. Lynne: I'll start by explaining some core notions about the I-Thou relationship in Gestalt therapy, and then I want to show how it's not just that relating with a dialogic attitude toward our patients is a moral goodyou know, a sweet altruistic value-it also matches other basic concepts in Gestalt therapy: contact in process, field theory, paradoxical theory of change, and our phenomenological approach, (that is) awareness and 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 2(1), 1998. This is a transcript of a training lecture given by Lynne Jacobs at the Portland Gestalt Training Institute, Portland, Oregon, USA.

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phenomenology. They're all of a piece, and the dialogical approach, dialogical therapeutic relationship, embodies all those things, so it is also a really good theoretical match with other concepts in Gestalt therapy. That's just one of the amazing things about Gestalt therapy as a theory - how the original thinkers in it created a new gestalt by pulling from what was in the zeitgeist of the day. They made this new gestalt called Gestalt therapy, and they were just elegant at feeling their way through what in current thinking (at the time) could be taken and modified to form the coherent whole that Gestalt therapy is. The meaningfulness to me, and to other Gestalt therapists, of Buber's philosophy of dialogue is that Buber places a specific form of contact at the center of human being. We're a humanistic therapy. For Buber, he was asking the question all the time, "What is it that makes a human being?" Which is sort of the question, the way we psychologists would dry it out and ask, "What is self? How does one's self develop?" But I like Buber's question better, " What is a human being?" What is it that is uniquely human in human beings? His answer is, human being-ness is found in relation. Now, this is no longer hot news! All good therapies are moving in the direction of acknowledging that the human psyche, if you will, is born and developed in relation. There is no "human" without relation. Buber didn't have the advantage of being part of that zeitgeist; he was drawing on Jewish tradition which had been fundamentally relational all along. I rode up on the plane last night and sitting next to me was a woman who started to have a conversation with the woman who was sitting next to her about the graduate class she was teaching. She was struggling in this class, because of the men (there were seven men and ten women in the class); she found herself engaging constantly with the men in the class because they were the ones who were actively engaging with her in what she was teaching. And the women were more passive, and the professor was trying to figure out how to change that class dynamic. So I couldn't resist asking what this was all about, and it turned out that this was a class on "Feminism and Theology." She teaches something called "process theology." One of the issues in process theology is a commentary, an approach to Christian theology which, among other things, tries to make God a non-represented god. If you represent God, you end up with a white male, and so one of the things that process theology tries to do, because of the subtle, but profound psychological consequences of having a white male god on women and minorities, is to make God a process rather than a representation. That's where this idea of Jewish tradition vs. Christian

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tradition came up. So she's my authority on the subject, and she agrees with what I'm about to say...(laughter) Maya: (laughing) That's a long way to pack yourself up, Lynne!! Lynne: So this thing is that Jewish thinking, Jewish religious thinking, has always involved engagement in dialogue. The Torah involves statements from God and commentary from (I think they're called) prophets (but I'm not sure). So when you study the Torah, you study multiple interpretations of what God might have meant. So that there is always dialogue...am I getting this wrong? Student: I think it's the Talmud. Lynne: I'm sorry, the Talmud. Right. You can tell how much I know about religions. (Laughter) And these commentaries occur at different points in history, so the commentaries are always historically based as well, which means that they are always a part of an evolving process, and they're always in dialogue. Maya: And they always reflect the zeitgeist of the time. Lynne: Right. Or an attempt to critique the zeitgeist, and you cannot do that without representing the zeitgeist, because you are in what you're critiquing. And that is the tradition that Buber comes from, the tradition of having a dialogue. Also in Jewish tradition, whenever you engage in dialogue with another human being, you are engaging in dialogue with God. Now, I'm saying this in a very simplistic way, but that's part of what Buber's ideas on dialogue are built on, and Buber was an Hasidic scholar. So, his Jewish roots are part of the context of understanding him. I think his ideas can be applied way beyond Judaism, which you can tell, because I'm not Jewish and love his ideas. So, he comes from this tradition where knowledge through discourse is, essentially, godly, is exalted, but it is also the pathway to realizing your human being-ness. So he puts dialogue at the ontological center of life, meaning that you cannot come into being except through dialogue. I'm really underscoring this, because I'm about to tell you about his two ways of conceiving dialogue, or his two ways of conceiving self in relation, and they're not nearly as important as this fundamental thing, which is that there is no self without other. Self comes into being with other. The mind is formed and developed in relation. This may be instinctive to you. My context is I also talk about this with psychoanalysts, and to psychoanalysts this is a harder concept to grasp. They're used to thinking of the mind has having formed and developed in response to biology alone and all of the interactions that an infant and a toddler and a young adult may have don't do much really to shape the

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mind. We've always had a much more interactional understanding of these things. So anyway, Buber has two notions about kinds of relatedness, and they're both about the process of relating, and that's one of the reasons it's so compatible with Gestalt therapy. One kind of relating he calls "I-It;" another kind of relating he calls "I-Thou." Is there anyone who's never heard those words before? In the process of I-It relating there is a subject/object split. Some of us remember Descartes from high school & college philosophy classes-a split between subject and object. We are also centered in time; we have an awareness of time. We use judgment. We use orientation. We think. We reflect upon. We can say what we're feeling. In other words, it's the means of relating, the means of interacting with the world that we live in 99 per cent of the time. And, without "It" one cannot live; that's a famous Buber saying. It's the mode that you're in right now, and it's the mode that I'm in right now. Then, there's this other mode called "I-Thou," where Buber would say, "but without Thou, without being able to say, `Thou' to another, one is not fully human." So, this is where he gets into what it is that makes a human being. And it's not our skills at It-realm relating, the process of relating with thought, and awareness of a separate subject and a separate object. It is the process of relating I-Thou, which is, among other things, one of the qualities that adheres in the I-Thou moment of relatedness and is something he calls confirmation. In confirmation, the heavenly bread of self being (as Buber might say) is passed from one to another. He talks about all of us longing for a "Yes!" coming from somebody else. The "Yes, you are recognizable and you exist." In the moment of I-Thou the confirmation of your existence as a unique subject occurs. It's a moment that is not necessarily a sweet moment; for that kind of confirmation can come in a heated argument. It's the recognition that is the confirmation - recognition, and it's a moment where you recognize the other, and in a mutual I-Thou moment are recognized by the other. Where your singular being is grasped, is recognized, accepted for what it is without for that moment any wish to change the other. So, it's quite a powerful moment, or can be quite powerful. What are the qualities that could give rise to this moment, this possibility of what we call an I-Thou moment? And by the way, these moments are self limited; you cannot live in I-Thou. Our self-reflective consciousness won't allow it. Which is also one of the things that is said about human beings, that they have the capacity for self-reflective consciousness, which is a capacity we use in the I-It mode. Buber sort of

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neglected that part, but in a moment of I-Thou, in the experience, these things (immediacy, directness, presence, and mutuality) come into view. This is so much the focus of our work in Gestalt therapy; in the immediacy it is so much in the here-and-now, and it's also the unmediatedness; there is in this moment no mediation by thought, by agenda - no aim. In the moment of an I-Thou meeting there is no aim. The meeting is complete in and of itself. Maya: One of the ways I think about that is of a surrender to the moment. Lynne: Yes. Maya: It's not confluence; it's surrendering to the moment, momentarily. Lynne: Yeah. It's surrender to the moment, because you have confidence in an ongoing process, an ongoing mutual and self-regulatory process, so that you don't have to think about where you're headed in the next moment. And that's part of what allows the surrender again. Student: Then, in a popular way of talking, a dialogical moment, or a dialogical relationship, wouldn't be an "intervention." Lynne: Absolutely not! I don't think you can aim at I-Thou moments. I'm going to differentiate in a few minutes between a momentary I-Thou, which is what Buber wrote about, and a process of being in a dialogical relationship where that issue will be clarified. Student: Would you say, then, why Buber says that moment can't last? You made mention of that; in reality that's obviously true, but why is it that it can't last? Lynne: It is because of self-reflective consciousness that it can't last. Student: You mean because that would just kick in? Lynne: Right. Right. That's what he would say (he wouldn't know what those words were, but yes)... Student: Does that suggest that one possibility is to try to suspend for longer so that you can try to remain in that moment? Lynne: No. Because once you're trying anything, you're already out of the moment. It's an existential occurrence, and it's cool when it happens, and it's over when it's over! Student: So the confidence exists in the moment so you don't have to worry about where you're going, per our discussion last night about support, so the support would be fostering the confidence in the moment. Lynne: Right, right. People who have poor self support for contacting, or for identifying with their own ongoing, moment by moment experience, will be estranged from the possibility of I-Thou. And that's one way to think about why people come for therapy - because their capacity for

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dialogue has been impaired. We all seek intimate relatedness, and that has been impaired, and we feel estranged from, or cut off from what Buber would call the latent I-Thou. If you all take a moment and just reflect on certain experiences you've had - with a tree, with a piece of art, with an animal, with another human being -where in that particular moment, when you reflect back on the moment you realize that it was a moment that was eternal, in the sense that it was timeless. There was no sense of time, and although paradoxically there was no sense of a separate self and a separate other, you also look back on that moment as a moment when you felt more fully YOU than the moment in which you're now reflecting back on it. And you, on reflecting back, realize that you weren't aiming at anything in this very brief moment that you're reflecting back on because it was so cool you wish you could go back and get it. You weren't aiming at anything. You weren't pretending anything. You weren't defending anything. You were lost to the moment, but more like surrendered to the moment, and your attention, paradoxically, although you felt yourself on reflection most fully you, was not on you. You were fully absorbed with that with which you were engaged. Maya: I'm thinking of a moment when my granddaughter came to visit, and walking into the house and running toward me, and my dropping to my knees, and our meeting. And my experience of that meeting, upon reflection, is that in that moment I knew God. It was just the joy of meeting. Lynne: One of the keys in this that I want to underline is that where you are absorbed is over there. You are, in a sense, at one with the object of your attention. It's sort of a tricky way of talking about it, but it just has to do with the fact that that's entirely where your attention is, without you being thoughtful about where your attention is. The moment may last a split second; it may last a little longer, but it's not going to last much longer than a split second. And if you aim at it, you can't get there. It happens by what Buber calls "grace," and what I prefer to think of as surrender to existential trust. Since one of the ways that the ground for an I-Thou moment is prepared is that you're willing to accept what you find in that which engages you, without judgment, without a need to change what you find, if you're aiming at IThou, you're trying to change what you're reaching for, so you can't aim and lay the ground for I-Thou at the same time. You can't do it, but you can do therapy with someone, never have an I-Thou moment, and consider it a dialogical therapy. It isn't the moment that matters, and I want to underscore this; don't go back to your training groups and ask, "Was this

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an I-Thou moment, was that an I-Thou moment?" Irrelevant! The question to ask is, "What in how I'm working would prevent the emergence of an IThou moment if it should be a potential?" What in how I'm doing gets in the way of genuine dialogue? Now, here's the thing: genuine dialogue is a rubric, and there are two subsets to the rubric, the I-Thou relating and the I-It relating. Genuine dialogue accomplishes both of those modes. What brings people into therapy is not that they don't have those small I-Thou moments, but that even their I-It relating doesn't have in it the possibility for I-Thou to ever emerge. Neurosis can be understood, from a dialogical perspective, as an estrangement between the realms of I-It and I-Thou. See, one of the ways to think about I-Thou is that it is a latent, or background possibility; it's really, I think, a latent process that occasionally emerges in this moment, but it's a latent possibility unless your I-It way of being has so much defensiveness, or self-protectiveness around it that the chance of nonjudgmental acceptance of yourself and others, and the chance of surrender to a moment where you can't predict the outcome, is so far removed that you feel increasingly deadened and inhuman (because you're cut off, then, from I-Thou as a possibility). Student: So, according to Buber, in what you just said, if you're cut off from the possibility of the I-Thou moment, then you are cut off from your humanity. Lynne: That's correct. Maya: There's another quality here that I would like to interject, which is that a dialogic psychotherapy includes meeting the client where they are, not asking them to move into "the moment." Rather, a dialogic psychotherapy can be about meeting in an I-It modality. Lynne: Right. In fact, a lot of your meeting will be (I-It), but here's the thing about the dialogical attitude: Buber was describing this thing as a two-person process; it's a mutuality. For him, he was most interested in this moment of full mutuality, meaning both parties to this are absorbed in each other, as I was describing before, but then he said teachers, therapists, other people who want to help in the development of the humanity of another do something he would call, "one sided." I'm going to describe some qualities of this in a minute that will help make sense to you, but in the one-sidedness of it one person in this relationship assumes the dialogic attitude, and for it to be dialogical in his (Buber's) sense, you have to not require it of the other person. And that's sort of a paradoxic therapy here one of the paradoxes in therapy: I meet my patient with a dialogical attitude, which by its nature lays the ground for the possibility of I-Thou without ever aiming at I-Thou. I'm aiming at meeting the patient when I'm

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in I-It mode of this dialogical relationship. There may be times when my aim is surrender, and it's at those times when the possibility of I-Thou can happen, but whether or not it happens is not so nearly as important as my relating in ways that honors the patient. That's my way of saying, "Thou," to the patient, whether or not there is ever an I-Thou moment. Student: I want to clarify. Are you saying that this is an I-Thou process or attitude that fosters a potential for an I-Thou moment? Lynne: I would say it a little differently, but you're very close. Student: Okay, I want to clarify also, how is this different from I-It? I hear you saying that we operate in an I-It mode, but if I am approaching my interaction with my client, it seems that there is also the possibility in which I can, in what I used to think of as I-It, that I can really operate in the sense of roles. I'm a therapist; you're a client; this is the thing that we do here today from this hour to that hour; I dispense so many interventions and it's supposed to result in these conclusions, you know. That seems to be very sterile... Lynne: And to me that's estranged I-It. You know this may get more clear when I talk about the qualities of a dialogic attitude, but it's true that most of our relating to each other is going to be in I-It mode, but there's a difference between I-It that stands on the ground of the dialogic attitude and I-It which is more technical. Like assessing somebody, deciding what interventions they need, then doing those interventions and watching the results is a very technical mode, and I would say that's a mode that's divorced from the dialogical attitude. I'm going to describe the dialogical attitude, and you're going to begin to see, I think, how you can have an I-It way of relating for the moment but that it's standing on the ground of the dialogic, or the I-Thou attitude, and it's that ground which does lay the possibility for I-Thou moments, if such a thing is going to happen (but that's not what's vitally important about it). What is vitally important is that the patient is being apprehended in their humanity, and that coming to their humanity will infuse their daily living with more of the dialogic attitude. If they take to this; if they like it, that's where they'll go with it and then that lack of estrangement in the dialogic attitude will enrich their life, whether or not they ever have one of those moments. But they're likely to have one of those moments, if not in therapy, then outside of therapy. Student: So, would a dialogical relationship, as you hear the term, would that be essentially one in which people are approaching each other with a dialogic attitude? Lynne: Yes.

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Maya: It would not be approaching each other. In other words again, and especially in psychotherapy, the therapist's position and attitude is dialogic; the client we don't know. Lynne: Well in the one-sided relationships that's right, but I think you were asking more generally - in general, when you...or were you asking about therapy, because if you were asking about therapy, Maya's point is very well taken? Student: I was trying to clarify what I have commonly heard to be the dialogical relationship, as one of the tenets of Gestalt therapy. What is that? Lynne: Okay. That's what I'm going to describe now, and then I think these pieces will come together. There are certain disciplines that I, as a therapist, bring to the dialogical relationship in psychotherapy. I bring a dialogical attitude, and I do that through these disciplines, (points to written down visual aids), these things, and I'm going to describe them. See this is the moment, and these are process qualities that you bring from moment to moment. This is the discipline that you bring, and it's what I call, then, the dialogical attitude (and, by the way, I made that up. You'll see that in our book as if it's a real thing, but we made it up). Student: How does anything get to be a real thing? (laughter) Another Student: And what does "real thing" mean? (more laughter) Lynne (bringing it back down to the ground): I don't think Buber wrote about it as dialogic attitude; he wrote about it as one-sided inclusion, but I changed it to dialogical attitude. You start with, what Buber would start with and so I'm going to start with it - is inclusion. What Buber calls inclusion most of us would call empathy. But it is as full-bodied an apprehension of what it's like to live life from the patient's perspective as I can get. Buber called it imagining the real. In the therapeutic relationship he says we need to stand at both poles of the relationship. Now he's describing an epistemological impossibility, but it's phenomenologically not so strange to us. To hold both poles simultaneously - the patient's pole, or what it's like to be in this relationship from the patient's perspective; our pole - what it's like to be in this relationship from our perspective, and that's the requirement on the therapist, not on the patient, and that's why he called it one-sided inclusion. So my job is to imagine the reality of the patient, to see if I could take the patient's eyes, glue them to my forehead, and look at life, and especially look at our relationship through these new eyeballs. Student: I have a question. In one of the articles I read, Buber talks about coming in and out of the boundary of the patient in relationship to this. Sometimes I find that is really scary.

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Lynne: Right, right. I think you can't do inclusion or empathy without being changed. And this is the point that Maya is making, and again is one of these points that you can't underline enough. If I stay the same, I am not in contact. So, in the littlest way, if I don't swallow the bread, if I don't allow myself to interact with the bread I was just eating, I'm not being changed, I'm not in contact with the food. Okay? And that happens psychologically too. When patients' experiences are vastly different from yours, for me that's when it's spookiest. And I finally get a sense of...I mean I remember struggling and struggling to grasp what the patient was saying about a particular way they see the world. I couldn't get it, and I couldn't get it, and couldn't get it, and then I GOT it, and I felt like my body changed shape, and I was kind of dizzy. And I felt changed forever, and if you had asked me that day what it was that changed I would have been able to articulate a way of seeing the world that I had never seen before, and now it's become so much a part of me, I can't even find which way it was. I will never find it that new again with the next patient, because it's now in my body shape, but I remember that day having to go through the shape shifting. Student: So, would it be fair to say that if you're working it over time, you're not noticing that your body is changing shape, or you may not be making headway? Lynne: Either it means you've seen all there is to see about the human condition, had a taste of every experience that's possible, or something is sort of deadened. And see, here's what I mean about how the I-Thou relationship is a logical fit with Gestalt therapy. We say the same thing about contact that I'm saying about inclusion. You are changed through inclusion; you are changed through contact. The I-Thou is a subset, or one kind of contact. It is perhaps the dialogical way of interpersonal contacting we do think of as having the most potential for self-development or human-development, but it's the same process as, in very abstract way, as my eating that bagel was. Student: So, in order to stay in relationship where you are experiencing inclusion, then you'd have to be able to, and willing to, tolerate the anxiety that that produces between us. Lynne: Among other things, yes, because for inclusion you have to be able to tolerate whatever you're meeting. It could be anxiety; it could be any number of things... Student: You mean whatever you're meeting in yourself or what you're meeting in the client?

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Lynne: Both, both. Whatever's around and in you, because really what you meet in the patient will arouse something in you, so in that sense it always comes back to what's being aroused in you. This is the key too: when I'm having trouble with a patient, I come back to (the fact that) there's been a breakdown in my capacity to practice inclusion. Where is the breakdown; what am I resisting confronting here? What kind of experience am I trying to avoid? I have found over and over again that if I can start with that assumption, when there's some trouble with me and the patient, I will find something I don't want to be touching, and then I can try to work with that. Okay, we've got this inclusion, which is empathy, which is imagining the reality of the patient, especially the patient's experience of being in a relationship with you, and that's another reason you get pretty anxious, because their experience of being in a relationship with you may be very different from what you intend, and very different from the way you think you ought to be being experienced. You're not practicing inclusion if you decide that their way of experiencing the relationship is wrong. Student: Well, you know like working with a paranoid client? That's tough! Lynne: And vitally necessary! Because they, above all others, need to have someone who's willing to struggle to make sense of some reality they have a grip of that nobody wants to see. Student: But, the first session is tough, and it's hard to keep them, because it's like a mine field. Lynne: Yeah. I've actually been working for some time now with an extremely paranoid patient, and it's very difficult and frustrating work; you have to sit on your hands a lot. Student: Yeah, given this talk on support last night, how do you know when there's any support there for the client? Lynne: See, if you're practicing inclusion, you have some kind of idea as to what kinds of support are there; you see, it's not a question of is there ANY support; there's always support for something. You look for where the contact possibilities are, and often with a paranoid the support is for honoring the legitimacy of a truth inside the story, and appreciating their capacity to see, and not giving up seeing something that nobody else wants to see. Student: Is that, i.e., their paranoia? Lynne: There is something that is disrupted in their dialogical relations with others that they're framing in ways we call paranoia. But there is a subjective truth about that that if they give it up, they're giving up their

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existence. I want to honor that and see if I can find a way, a shared language in which we can talk about that. Student: It seems that this is not just for paranoids. Lynne: Right. it's anybody, but you see it extremely with a paranoid. Maya: The way I think about this, and it doesn't matter about the diagnosis, is about creating a holding environment where the possibilities of the other are supported and held as I support and meet those possibilities. Lynne: And this environment is always negotiated, but the more rigid the patient's defensive structures the more you're the one who's going to have to do the accommodating. As the therapy relationship gets more and more robust, the negotiation will have more of a two-person flavor to it. But that's over time, and with more disturbed patients it's going to be over a long period of time. The moment of contact is touch touching something, where what belongs to whom is irrelevant in that moment, but in the contacting process you have not only the appreciation of differences, which is also talked about, but you also have to have some empathy for the other's position. Without that there is no means to bring the touch. There's not just differences, but there is empathy; it's empathy and the appreciation of differences. So, one side of inclusion is that I bring the attitude of endeavoring to try to understand what it's like for the patient in their life, and especially in their relationship with me, and I don't have to get it right. I want to underscore this; you don't have to get it right. You have to have that as your attitude, your discipline, your approach. What you bring is the intent to do that. Then, there are two other things that you bring. One is that you bring something called presence, the quality of presence. You are willing to be seen rather than aiming to be seen as you would like to be seen. You are willing to be seen as you appear, and you don't try to manipulate or manage how you're being seen. Now, we always manage how we're being seen to some extent, but a willingness to let go or be seen beyond that is what's important - a willingness to have presence predominate. That gives the patient the chance to meet an other, because remember there is no self without other. Part of what patients come into therapy with is experiences throughout their lives with people who are not willing to be an other for the patient - not willing to be a subject to the patient. Parents who were walled off, who were depressed, who were narcissistically self-involved, couldn't allow their children to FIND them. They needed to be seen in a certain way and couldn't allow their children to find them. So you become, perhaps, the first person in their lives who

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they can reach to, and find, and thereby find themselves through relating to an other - to a true subject, over there, who's willing to be a subject. That's the presence part. Well, the presence is willing to be used in that way, and then genuine and unreserved communication is that process happening. The inclusion happening, you being available as a present subject for the patient, and sort of a summary statement I make about genuine and unreserved dialogue is, this is where your authenticity comes in, which becomes, then, a sort of calibration between inclusion and presence: you can't always know what needs to be said to further the dialogue with a patient, but you can at least make a pretty good guess as to what, if you don't say it, will lead to you shutting down. Like, if you're feeling defensive with a patient, you may try to look inside, this is where I go to when I'm feeling threatened with humiliation, and I discover that if I say, "Well, now what am I missing in the patient that makes me come up against this feeling?" And what I find is that I have stopped the time line in looking at my patient. They're attacking me. I'm feeling humiliated and defensive, and I want to retaliate. What I hadn't realized, where my inclusion broke down, is that I had said something two moments earlier that was hurtful to them, and they reacted with their shame by attacking me. If I backtrack and try to understand what it's like to be in their shoes, then I get, "Oh, well that hurt them, and so of course they felt ashamed, and of course they want to attack when they don't expect me to listen to them, and then if I do attack back, they're right, I won't listen to them." So, that active inclusion helped me calm down my feeling threatened, feeling humiliated, some of the time. Sometimes it still doesn't work and I have to say, "I'm sorry about this; it's not your responsibility, it's my business, but we're stuck with me as who I am; I'm defensive again. I'm digging in my heels again. I'm in dread of being humiliated again; can we stop the process now and look at what's unfolding between us?" I have a patient where this is a chronic problem, and that really helps in our work. So, that's what I have to say, because if I don't say it, I'm either going to retaliate or I'm going to withdraw defensively. So I have to say it, even though it's not a pretty picture of me, because to me it means that I'm not living up to an ideal I have of myself as a therapist. Of course, it does serve another ideal I have, which is to say what I need to say to stay present. These three things, the inclusion, the presence, and the commitment to conversations, even when the conversations are difficult, are the qualities of a dialogic attitude that make the relationship...Oh, and there's another thing...My effort is to meet the patient where they are, without any attempt to change them. That's the confirmation part, to meet and engage with a

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patient with as full a grasp as I can of who I'm meeting with, without any attempt to change them, and inclusion, and the presence, and the commitment to dialogue - those are the qualities of a one-sided, dialogic relationship that make all the I-It realm work and still part of the dialogue. All the I-It work you're doing with the patient is standing on that ground. It's different to focus with a patient on a symptom, if you will, standing on the ground of that kind of dialogic attitude than it is focusing on the symptom standing on the ground of a technical attitude. Now, let me spend just a few minutes tying this into contact, awareness, phenomenology, paradoxical theory of change; it may be obvious by now. You see, what happens is that when we start talking about this, I get psyched about it, and partly for me it's a moral crusade. You can tell in the way I've been talking about it, and what I want to do now is to remove it from the morality and just look at it in the pragmatics of it. We have a theory that says that contact leads to growth, because contact, which is the process of living, is also the process of growing. There is no life without contact, and without contact there is no growth, and every moment of contact is growth or change. That's the is-ness of it. So, that being true, I hope you can see how this is just one form of contact. It's a special form of contact, but the same thing can be said here; if I am in contact with my patient, through being present and practicing inclusion (that's how the contact happens), I will be changed, and the patient is changed too, because they are engaged in contact with me also. It may not be a change that you're aiming for, but that's your business, not theirs. If you take that contact always leads to change, because contact IS change, then you can rest very comfortably on the paradoxical theory of change. The paradoxical theory of change being: If you immerse yourself in, or identify with your present existence, change happens automatically, because fighting against your present existence is what inhibits contact. Identifying with your present existence makes contact a possibility; contact equals change. You see how these things are tying together now? If I meet the patient, that, in and of itself, is the contact, and is the ground, then, of change, and it may not be the change that I thought beforehand was what I wanted, and that is irrelevant. The patient, now, will find his or her life through their contacting. In that moment with you they may titrate the contact very carefully; that's their option. From the dialogical attitude I would have to say, "That's their option." Now, what does awareness have to do with any of this? In order to have this attitude of inclusion being that I want to meet what is there, I want to find what is there to define in the other without any attempt to change the other... That's not easy to do, right, because I'm a therapist, and

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I care and I want the best for my patients, so I have ideas about how, if they were changed, their lives would be better? We all bring that into the room; we try to suspend it, be aware of it, work with it, whatever, but there are two supports for keeping your eye on that and not letting it get in the way too much, and one is the paradoxical theory of change. If I really do have faith in the paradoxical theory of change, it is easier to do what Buber called inclusion. The other thing is that the phenomenological method is part of what enables me, or is a support, for practicing inclusion and presence. Phenomenology says that you take what is given, you respond to what is given without prejudgment, without interpretation. Now, again, these are epistemological impossibilities, but they are ideals, if you will. The idea about the phenomenological method is that you be aware of, and try to bracket off judgments, or you be aware and hold very lightly judgments and interpretations. Don't believe in them too much, just recognize them. Sort of like a Zen thing, seeing a thought and letting it go by, seeing a thought and letting it go by. And that discipline you learn, through this program, I hope, of not believing so much in your judgments and not believing so much in your interpretations, but just allowing them to go right by, is a discipline that will help you with inclusion and presence, because you'll be less judgmental of yourself, so you'll be more free to know what's being aroused in you, which is crucial for presence, and you won't be judgmental of what you find in the patient. You'll be more accepting of what you find in the patient, which means that the patient is more likely to bring more of themselves into the meeting with you. If you are judgmental, and you think they need to change what you find, they're going to hide stuff that's important to them - as they should; it would be unwise to let you have access to it. So, that's how all these things are, to me, all of a piece; they come together. The I-Thou, the dialogical relation that Buber describes, is the embodiment of bringing together, contact, awareness, and the paradoxical theory of change; it's the embodiment in our lived-out relationship with the patient. Student: What about field theory? Lynne: Oh! Sorry about that. Two really important things about field theory that get played out in this is that (1) nothing can be defined separate from its context, so again it's a self-in-relation theory. Field theory and self-in-relations theory are compatible. Because there is no self without other, everything in field theory is relation. The next (2) is that in field theory there are multiple perspectives on any common event. A common event is going to be experienced differently based on the different points of observation (if the common event is between us) of that event and the nature of our relation to different aspects of the field as we look at that

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event. Reality is perspectival. Reality depends upon where you are standing in the field and what you are related to in the field at that moment in the field, and, therefore, my reality has no greater claim to truth than your reality, which helps you have the phenomenological method in your approach to patients. You're interested in their experience of their reality, and you don't have to make an assessment as to whether their reality is right or wrong based on your reality, because your reality is merely one perspective, and that puts us back into INCLUSION. I want to make one distinction here in that mutuality, when people say equality and parity, I want to say that parity is only a momentary experience. It's the moment when the boundedness of the relationship is irrelevant, when you reflect on it later, and you realize that the distinction between therapist and patient in that I-Thou moment was irrelevant. The overall dialogical relationship in therapy is mutual in that there is constant mutual, reciprocal influence going on, but it's asymmetrical. The parity is only in the moment. It's asymmetrical in the sense that the patient and I are both agreed that we are both there to serve the purpose of the patient's development. Student: We looked at the example of a paranoid person for a bit, and I'd like to switch to another kind of person, which would be a sociopathic, character disordered type of person, because to me it seems like there are some difficulties there. I sort of get an idea that if I'm genuine and trusting in the paradoxical theory of change, practicing dialogical attitude, and things like that that somehow, my faith in the Gestalt therapy tells me that the real need, the real crux of the matter will eventually shine through, but what I'm also struggling with is the tension that that person isn't being honest. That person is probably conning me, trying to run a game on me, and if I'm approaching them with this almost naive, wanting to be genuine and present and all that kind of thing, then... Lynne: Okay... Student: Do you sense the tension? Lynne: Yes, and I can address it in a couple of ways, and I'm going to address it in two very simple-minded ways that, I know, in the trenches feels very different, but I have to do it the simple-minded ways. One is the issue of presence. When I experience myself as being manipulated, I don't like how it feels to me. I feel degraded. I want to find a way to use that experience in a genuine dialogue with the patient from the discipline of my therapeutic perspective, which is inclusion, genuine dialogue, and presence. But I'm not going to ignore the effect on me; that's part of the presence. So that's one thing - and where presence comes in

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handy to think about how you are being effected by the patient, of course, and how you want to address that in a genuine dialogue with the patient. The other, the overarching question is, if you're really doing inclusion...you're presenting the sociopath as if the sociopath ought to change, and that's not dialogical. This is really a hard one to get your mind around. You may not like how the sociopath is, society may not like how the sociopath is, but if I really have a dialogical attitude toward the patient, then, at least in our conversations, I'm not out to change them. Student: Yes, but in that conversation what you're getting is accepting that they're not being genuine, accepting... Lynne: ...yes, and I'm going to try to find out what propels that. Student: Yeah, but I'm thrust into the dilemma of suspecting that I'm not being told the truth, and that's a projection. Lynne: What's a projection? Student: It's my organization of what they're giving me. Lynne: If that has meaning to you, you can bring it into the conversation if you want, if you want. But if you're trying to figure out how to cure the sociopath...See, what I hear is you want the sociopath cured. I don't; I want to meet the sociopath. If I organize my experience of this relationship with this sociopath as, "I'm being lied to," then that's in the way of my being able to meet that sociopath. That I may want to address. Student: Well, I'm not trying to cure the person; I'm thinking of a particular person, and so it's not just a purely hypothetical situation, and in our relationship I have been trying to practice a dialogical kind of relationship, and yet I come up with this dilemma that I'm not equal, that it's not a mutuality thing. The person is so disabled that they're not able to meet me... Lynne: It's not their job. I think you think you're not trying to change that patient, but you are. You are trying to get them to meet you instead of you meeting them. You may not be able to meet them. I mean, what can happen in an effort to have a genuine dialogue is that there is no dialogue. But that's also not their problem. That's your problem. Maya: One way to think about this is to think about this as extreme resistance, and if you can support the resistance, you have the possibility of meeting, as opposed to trying to transform the resistance. Lynne: M-hm. Yes. Student: This question is going to go from loftiness, to elegance, to whatever's at the other end. I'm inspired by something you were saying, in the last thing that you were saying, to ask, "Is it necessary to like your

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patient?" Because something makes me want to say, "Yes, if I've understood you." Lynne: I do think love cures, interestingly. Buber had a really good point; he said, "You can't legislate love, but you can legislate treating someone lovingly, or with great care." I have patients whom I do not love, and I have one patient whom I do not like, nor do I respect him, but we are talking about that because we both know that if that doesn't turn around, our therapy is sunk. I've got to at least find something I can respect with this guy, so we're at least having to address it. But I really do think that the patients that have transforming relationships with me are the ones that I love. Now, luckily I think that if you meet patients with this attitude, ... except, I mean sociopaths - it's a different ballgame; it's hard to love a sociopath. You can be charmed, but it's hard to love them, because it's hard to love someone who has no capacity for empathy. But if you work from this model, it's hard not to fall in love with your patients, so I'm not worried about it mostly. And even this guy whom I don't like and respect, I have that kind of devoted love that makes me want to struggle through this mess instead of refer him on, which would really be a rejection of him. Student: I have one question, no two. You said something about the IThou moment between the client and the therapist was irrelevant, and I don't know... Lynne: Oh, the designation of roles - in the moment, who's patient and who's therapist is not very relevant. It is immediately afterwards, and it is immediately before. Student: But it's not existent is the way I understood... Lynne: In the experience of the patient and therapist, it's not existent. Right. Student: The other thing is that at the beginning of this lecture you said that being in conversation with another human being, Buber says is like engaging with God. So, if you approach that with that kind of conversation with a patient, how can you help but find something that you like about them? Lynne: Well, because I may be serving God by adopting a dialogical attitude, but I find God in the genuine conversation, and that's two ways; it has to be two ways. I was working with a religious patient recently where this kind of came up. She knew I was an atheist, and she is quite religious, and we had quite a special moment between us, and she described it as, "I'm talking to the God in you, and you're talking to the God in me." And I REALLY knew what she meant; it was very moving, very moving. I knew what she meant. It was a moment of mutuality.

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Student: Oh, mine was just a tiny comment based on a previous statement that a colleague of mine was reading some new research to me over the phone some weeks ago. It was outcome research done across several different theories - between analysts, Gestalt therapists, and behaviorists, etc., - and the outcome measure among patients who described their therapy as successful was that they said their therapist loved them - not cured them of a behavior, not pointed them in the right direction - people who thought they had a great therapist said that their therapist loved them. Lynne: Wow. In analytic research one of the things they found is that what patients remember about their positive experiences in therapy, is that they don't remember the interpretations, which is what analysts think cures. They remember moments when the therapist broke the analytic frame (laughter), which is the way in classical analysis that you would know that your therapist actually has personal feelings for you, or a loving connection with you - when they can't do the discipline of interpretation one more minute. They have to have a spontaneous response.

CHAPTER TEN1 STORIES ABOUT KNOWING: A VIEW FROM FAMILY THERAPY2 DAVID POCOCK

(Responses to this article from Sylvia Crocker, Ph.D., Maya Brand, and Rodger Bufford, Ph.D follow the article). Two cars collide head on. No-one is killed but both drivers are stunned and confused by the impact. A passer-by, late on the scene, recognizes the driver of one of the cars as his brother. Although he has not witnessed the accident, he invents an account which he tells to the police officer who arrives soon afterwards. This account blames the other driver for speeding and exonerates his brother. How can we know what happened? Does "what happened" only exist in the accounts of the two men who were drivers? If the accounts are different, could one be more true? If we consider the accounts both to be stories, is there any difference between the stories of the drivers and the story of the brother? How might we define that difference? Has anything real happened beyond the stories of the protagonists? If so, how would we come to know that reality? Am I now telling a made up story or a story of something I experienced? How would you be able to know? I assume that all psychotherapies have to consider the philosophical questions of how we think we know anything. If the gestalt of the patient3

1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 2(1), 1998. The author expresses thanks to Padraig Quinn and Lois Shawver for their generous help with this article.

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can only be perceived within the gestalt of the therapist, then all that the therapist can say about the gestalt of the other is that which the therapist has created. What is the relationship between this creation in the mind of the therapist and the real patient? In this article I will sketch some of the shifts in the way that family therapy has struggled with these issues of knowing or, in the parlance of philosophy, questions of epistemology. I will suggest that our field has found it difficult to resist a tendency to split along a fault line offered by some apparent dichotomies: depth vs. surface, objectivity vs. subjectivity, and modernism vs. postmodernism. I will outline both an eclectic epistemology that attempts to occupy some middle ground and some considerations for practice that may be drawn from this. I hope these considerations may be of interest to Gestalt therapists, either by supporting existing Gestalt views - via an unfamiliar theoretical route - or by supplying some provoking differences to those views which may lead to further dialogue. (For an overview of family therapy see, for example, Goldenberg and Goldenberg, 1996.)

A history The first serious consideration of epistemology in family therapy began with Gregory Bateson. Bateson (1972) once began a speech to a conference of mental health professionals by asking all those in the audience who thought they could see him to raise their hands. After an understandably nervous start there was a reasonable showing of hands at which Bateson remarked "I guess insanity loves company". For Bateson, reality (including himself) was not there to be seen, touched or captured in any direct way; each member of the audience had created him as a picture image out of masses of pieces of information. The best the observer can do, according to this view, is to construct mental images or maps by drawing out distinctions from the real world - which Bateson refers to as "territory". For any observation of this territory there are, according to his theory of "constructivism" potentially endless characteristics that can be drawn forth as data to mentally assemble our maps4. In our search for 3

Since the terms "patient", "client" and "family" are all in different ways unsuitable, but hard to avoid in writing, I will use them interchangeably. 4 Bateson might have chosen a less ambiguous term than "map". As a metaphor it may cast a spell that he did not intend: namely, that our constructions can be assembled into an miniature but accurate replica of key features of the external world. Constructivism is written against this naive reflection-correspondence theory of knowledge.

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meaning we invent patterns and categories to structure our experience. Information from the external world enters these maps via the perception of difference: a chair is only a chair when it can be perceived as different from all that which is not-chair which surrounds it. Differences require the presence of an observer to make distinctions - when a human takes a dog for a walk, their respective maps of the experience will vary to the extent of their separate capacities to draw forth distinctions from their environment. (See Singer, 1995 for a longer summary.) The first popular models of family therapy to incorporate cybernetics Structural, Strategic and early Milan - only went part way with Bateson's constructivism. In retrospect (Flaskas, 1997), it is possible to see that, for these early models, although family members were considered to be living in a world of constructions, their therapists seemed to have implicitly retained for themselves a more objective vision. The latter - often charismatic men or, subsequently, powerful teams - somehow knew, without much assistance from the family members, which hierarchical arrangement needed to be re-ordered, which boundary needed to be clarified, which cross-generational coalition needed realignment and which paradoxical communications needed to be countered. Indeed some family therapists who claimed a Batesonian influence saw their families at least as clearly as Bateson's hand raisers. For many family therapists this period of our history is considered to be one of authoritarianism and these models of practice - at least in pure form - are almost extinct and little grieved for. In the 1980s several waves of critique fell upon this established paradigm. Feminism (e.g. Goldner, 1985) focused on the way patriarchy in families, not only went unchallenged in these models, but could be reinforced by the emphasis on the strong leadership and readiness for combat which they required. Those sensitive to cultural diversity (e.g. McGoldrick, 1988) pointed out the strong Eurocentric bias implicit in theoretical issues of differentiation, autonomy and hierarchy. Most influential of all was, perhaps, the work of Hoffman (1985) who popularized a new constructivism - one which took seriously that a constructivist epistemology was not just for families, but for therapists too. The system was no longer seen as a field that the therapist could conveniently step back from and zap with some therapeutic magic bullet. Instead the therapist was a participant-observer occupying no comfortable outside position. The system observed included the observer and a statement about the system was always, therefore, a creation of that observer. This paradigm shift was widely perceived as more ethical; processes of change took place not through the controlling interventions of

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the therapist but via co-evolution of new meanings between therapist and family. Therapists not only lost confidence that they knew what was best for families, they sometimes seemed not to be able to know anything at all, even tentatively. Since, in a family therapy session, an observation made by anyone present was nothing more or less than their construction, all meanings were equally valid. Not only had the confident belief in therapist leadership gone out of the window but therapist knowledge was now seriously problematic. Curiously, this phase proved to be short lived. Constructivist theory reached the point in which the individual seemed enclosed in some rigid casing (although individuals could be "structurally coupled" to others through language) shielded largely from an environment which only made its presence felt through its capacity to bump the individual (Maturana, Varela). By 1990 constructivism was being rapidly replaced by social constructionism (e.g. Gergen) which seemed to have greater aesthetic appeal to family therapists (e.g. Hoffman, 1990) who much preferred an image of individuals in conversation rather than withdrawn into the near solipsism of constructivism. Social constructionism sees reality as that which people construct together through language. Families invent that which they hold to be true in constant dialogue, both with each other, and with the wider cultural systems of meaning that our world offers us. The role of the therapist is then to co-construct with system members a new hopefully more helpful - version of reality. Some social constructionists accepted that therapists would inevitably have their own theories about what was going on in the system, but these were considered as unavoidable biases. Since reality was only that which was constructed in dialogue, there was no other basis for choosing between these biases than, perhaps, social acceptability. Bateson's territory and, indeed, any other notion of external reality seemed to be quietly dropped as a reference point. Social constructionism prepared the ground for the latest wave of critique; one which seems to have completed the paradigm shift away from any notion of the therapist holding an objective or outside view of the family system. The last seven years has seen the incorporation into family therapy of the postmodern philosophy of Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard or, at least some versions of their views. (For a sympathetic introduction to postmodern thinking in psychotherapy see Shawver, 1997 and this list of her brief notes on aspects of postmodern thinking.) Foucault, Lyotard and Derrida each, in a different way, call into question the legitimacy of our preoccupation - from the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment onwards - with developing rational, objective views of our

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world. Lyotard (1979) defines "postmodern" as a position of incredulity towards the big ideas - or metanarratives - of science, Marxism, humanism etc. (We need not take "incredulity" to mean dismissal - as some family therapists seem to do - but as skepticism to the claims of universality made by these major systems of thought.) In questioning our awestruck commitment towards these big ideas, Lyotard helps us to reconsider the legitimacy of small narratives in which the terms for discussion are locally defined. Derrida, in his work on the analysis of texts, challenges the notion of correct interpretations by discovering other legitimate readings cast into the shadows or - deferred - by the attention demanded by the "correct" reading. (Later we will see that we do not have to take Derrida to mean that all readings of a text - or clinical situation - are equally valid.) A major translator of postmodern thought into family therapy has been Michael White (e.g. 1991) - currently, perhaps, the most influential voice in our field. White's narrative therapy picks up Foucault's view that individuals internalize the social attitudes (discourses) that powerfully define who people are and how they should live their lives. In working with anorexia, for example, White would wish to notice with the client or client family the powerful discourse that requires people (especially women) to be thin in order to be acceptable. He helps clients to resist succumbing to these dominant stories and, instead, to regain authorship of their lives by developing their own preferred self-narratives. (However, in taking the power of culture seriously, we need not overlook - as some narrative and constructionist therapists seem to - that self-narratives are also generated in intense personal relationships and modified through testing against the constraints of external reality.) One further distinction worth drawing in contemporary family therapy is between those who assume that there may be deeper issues to be explored which underlie surface presentations of the presenting clinical problem (structuralism) and those who assume that what constitutes a problem is the system of those connected through language who agree to describe a particular situation as problematic ("post-structuralism" or postpositivism5). The "poststructuralist" group (solution focused therapy, narrative therapy, and collaborative language systems therapy) has, in practice, tended to be more schismatic than other groupings in family therapy, establishing separate journals, conferences and teaching institutions. It is by no means clear whether family therapy can avoid 5

I have placed inverted commas around "poststructuralism" to denote some doubt about whether contemporary family approaches which see no reality outside of language may be referred to as poststructural. See Derrida's comment on this below.

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splitting along this hairline fracture at some future point. Smaller groupings are not undesirable in any field of endeavour and the notion of local knowledge in family therapy is in line with the general drift of this article. My concern though, is that these changes are partly driven by an over-reaction to the apparent authoritarianism of the early models especially in their use of theories as blueprints for living. There is a new tendency to turn away from notions of any reality outside of our constructions, to abandon clinical theory (as hopelessly structuralist) and such a polarization of structural and post-structural positions that they become straw men. This seems to me no basis for a helpful division. The version of history I have provided concerns only the mainstream in family therapy. There are other lesser known epistemologies which borrowing from postmodernism - we may call subjugated narratives. My website includes a commented reading list of papers from authors who feel that questions of knowing in family therapy still require further debate. I identify with the concerns of this group and in a series of papers and articles (Pocock, 1995a, 1995b, 1996, 1997a) I have sought to articulate a position which explores a middle ground between knowing and notknowing, depth and surface, modernism and postmodernism; between the dangers of certainty of one hand and relativism on the other.

Towards a reconciling of epistemologies Having roughly sketched out both my view of the historical trends in family therapy and my position within it, I now wish to develop my ideas on what might constitute a more adequate epistemology. However before doing so, we need to pay more attention to the way the term "reality" is used in these debates. Many apparently unresolvable arguments become stuck because the protagonists use the same terms in quite different ways but without recognizing that difference. Wittgenstein helps us to notice that language does not just point to things and does not provide us with reliable, non-negotiable meanings. What we mean by "reality" depends on the local context of meaning (or language game) in which the term is being used. We must work harder to tie down these contexts before we can have some genuine dialogue. When "reality" is being spoken of we may not know whether the term is being used by an objective realist to denote the idea of a world beyond constructions that can come to be known independently of any knower; or by a naive realist who just looks at the world and sees (like the hand raisers in Bateson's audience); or by a critical realist who believes that we can come to know reality better, but only through elaborating a constructed position; or by a social

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constructionist who considers reality only to be our mutually constructed views; or by a Foulcaldian who might see a reference to reality as an attempt by one person to persuade another to accept their expert viewpoint. (For some wonderful illustrations of the kind of epistemological trench warfare that can develop when terms are not defined see Edward Friedlander's Why I Am Not a Postmodernist.) Let me try to tie down two definitions of reality: constructed reality and external reality. When we say we know something, or when we say that something is true we are always operating, I suggest, in the domain of constructed reality. Either on our own or with others we have created a view (or story) of our world. All knowledge - including scientific knowledge - is constructed. However, before you are tempted to reach for the standard counter-arguments of solipsism or relativism, let me quickly add the suggestion that external reality is ever present as context to this process of construction or story-making. How can this be? Consider a man who every night, after work, walks home through a dark forest. In his head he has a rough map of the path; each time his internal map (or construction - since he has had to make it, or borrow it from others through language) does not fit and he strays off the path, he walks into a tree. He experiences this external reality not objectively, but as context to his map; one that acts as a painful constraint. He will, no doubt, re-adjust this map on the basis of its failure at that point and, after several nights (and numerous bruises) he may eventually be able to get home without accident. However, the man will know nothing objectively about the trees (they are just painful points of failure on his map) let alone the forest. External reality is that which always lies beyond our constructed reality. Any statement about our world always falls short of this external reality because language has inherent limitations for capturing external reality. Let us flesh this out with another example. If you attempt to describe a chair, you will always end up with other kinds of description which you will never get beyond, no matter how hard you try. However, unless there is something externally real beyond the description "chair", you will fall to the ground if you try to sit on one. A convention of the best chair makers will never manufacture a chair that they tell anyone about without also constructing a reality, and a three day conference of eminent social constructionists will never create any meaning chairish enough to be reliably sat upon. All truth is in the domain of construction. But all that construction is attempting to describe is in the domain of external reality. External reality may be precisely defined as that which language and description attempts to reach but falls short of.

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The metaphor of "map" can draw our attention to the relationship between our constructed reality and external reality but it can also restrict our thinking by leaving out the power of constructions to define, not just our world (the trees and forest), but who we feel ourselves to be within that world. We should place alongside "map" another metaphor which is meeting widespread acceptance in psychotherapy - that of "story". "Story" encourages a view of a dynamically shifting sense of self in the world. We may hold many versions of ourselves negotiated, both in self-other relationships, and in the context of the big cultural stories (such as those which carry societal blueprints for gender). In this metaphor, some narratives of the self may become relatively unavailable for re-editing (which some call a core self) while other narratives will shift, depending on the context in which we do the telling. Constructed reality is frequently political since, by defining who we are, it can so readily shape the power relationships between individuals and groups. When we hear the word "nagging" used by either partner in a heterosexual couple relationship, we may begin to suspect that the legitimacy of the woman's voice has been restricted by the patriarchal colonizing of the bit of external reality that others might describe as "complaining" or "challenging". For many (pre-Zimbabwe) white Southern Rhodesians, their collective body of truth included the key premise that blacks had smaller brains than whites. External reality as context was, of course, present throughout the period of this discourse. Science, if consulted, might have constrained this prejudice but, naturally, external reality in this case would have had negative value to the white status quo so its use as constraint was implicitly proscribed. It may be argued that we should put ourselves in the hands in science since it seems to be the most reliable and just arbiter of competing constructions about external reality. Science does have some special methods of controlled walking into trees which can yield tremendous results when the forest is not too tangled. Research into attachment and expressed emotion has for example, been of great interest to many family therapists. But it should be remembered that the products of science are, like all knowledge, constructionist. As Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend point out, even with its brilliant controlled methods of stumbling in the dark, the choice of scientific knowledge still depends on social shifts of paradigm, on social acceptance of the newly constructed maps by a scientific community, and of a willingness to hold onto socially sanctioned theory even when criteria for falsification are available. And, when it comes to a dense tangled thicket such as the human mind, the price of scientific theory is, all too frequently, reductionism which inherently

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provides us with a misleading fit for psychological constructs. For therapists to depend on science alone, the cost of "validity" would be the loss of complexity. If we can avoid the naive belief in scientific objectivity then we may cautiously welcome careful science as an opportunity to test our clinical ideas against the constraints of external reality. But we also need to guard against theories becoming restricted to simple, sterile sketches of the human condition; ones that suit the political ends of the community which legitimizes them. What I am saying in this article is that an adequate epistemology should include both the notion that what we know is always a constructed or storied reality and the notion that external reality is always present as context and, in some circumstances can act as a constraint to our stories. Note how this eclectic combination refuses to split easily into the usual dichotomies of idealism vs. empiricism, narrative vs. science and modernism vs. postmodernism. Indeed, on closer inspection it is not so far from what some postmodernists are already talking about. Derrida, for example opposes the popular misconception (inside family therapy too) that deconstruction means that all interpretations of a text (or, indeed a clinical situation) are equally valid. Instead he explains that "one cannot refer to this real except in an interpretative experience" (Derrida, 1972) and that text may become more understandable within context which "does not exclude the world, reality history." (Derrida, 1972) He is also irritated by relativist readings of his work - "Every week I receive critical commentaries and studies on deconstruction which operate on the assumption that what they call 'post-structuralism' amounts to saying that there is nothing beyond language, that we are submerged in words - and other stupidities of that sort." (Kearney, 1984 p.123) And for Lyotard, postmodernism does not insist that reality exists only in language (as many family therapists believe) but as something unpresentable and beyond language. "Finally it must be clear that it is our business not to supply reality but invent allusions to the conceivable which cannot be presented." (Lyotard, 1979 p81)

A role for clinical theory? Let me illustrate the polarities inside family therapy in order to bring their difference into focus and, against which, the synthesis I am suggesting can stand out more clearly. A structuralist such as Salvador Minuchin can look at a family with an anorexic member and "see" the same family he has seen 100 times before. His "seeing" puts out of awareness issues other than enmeshment, cross-

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generational coalition, conflict avoidance and over-protection (Minuchin et al, 1978). His theory of deep structures embedded in the family system contains both the blueprint for therapy and its goal. His strong leadership of the family system would be required for the problem to be solved. "Post-structuralists" such as Anderson and Goolishian (1988) in meeting the same family would assume that "anorexia" was a problem of collective definition within the system of those "in language" about it. They would hold no theory of underlying causes (or, at least, attempt to avoid influencing the family with these theories) and instead, see their role as that of "master conversational artist", exploring and helping system members to expand on the narrative coherence of their constructions. Anorexia would not be solved but "anorexia" might be "dis-solved" as a construction that determined how the identified patient and the family should live their lives. Notice how in both these scenarios the use of clinical theory is linked to expert power. Minuchin unashamedly embraces this power since he has constructed his experience and research as informing him that this power will be clinically effective and therefore ethically justified. Anderson and Goolishian scrupulously avoid the power to impose their own expert definitions6. Since, in their model there is nothing beyond the surface play of language, an introduction of ideas from clinical theory - no matter how cautiously done - is merely an authoritarian attempt to get the system members to see things their way and is, therefore, unethical. In my own work, or at least in my thinking about my work, I have moved away from the notion of a scientist-practitioner who can come to know objectively, through exploration, the world of the client and act upon it from above. But I am not satisfied with the notion that meaning can be created only through processes of unconstrained mutual construction. "Coevolution" and "co-construction" seem insufficient as descriptions and I prefer the more user friendly terms of "understanding" and "feeling understood" (Pocock, 1997a). I now frame the process of therapy as a search in the area of the not-yet-known and the simultaneous construction of new meaning together with the client or family to make sense of this journey from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Elsewhere (Pocock, 1996, 1997a) I have suggested that clinical theory can be used consistently with what I am describing here as an adequate epistemology. The reality of any clinical situation is one of almost infinite complexity; there is insufficient paper in the world for even one case 6

Although it may be argued, that a therapist who brings an assumption to a clinical encounter that anorexia is a problem in language only is, from a postmodern point of view, acting very powerfully indeed.

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example. As the novelist Salman Rushdie says - "every story is an act of censorship" - each telling requires inclusion and exclusion (Rushdie, 1985 - quoted in Parry, 1991). The therapist, in "hearing" the stories of the patient draws out particular distinctions, is attentive at some places, tunes out at others, has her own thoughts at others, is intensely curious, moved or bored. These reactions depend on that which the therapist brings to the encounter with the other or others. Each way of picturing the encounter depends on the constructions, or - using Hoffman's (1990) metaphor - the set of lenses used by the therapist at each moment. (Note how this metaphor suggests that the external reality is not observed in an undistorted way as, for example, through a plain sheet of glass). We may also think of constructions as filters that allow in certain information, which we call "facts", and exclude others. All clinical theories are both lenses and filters but so too are all other experiences of the therapist, stored prior to that clinical moment7. We can only avoid the myth of the objective knower and take responsibility for our "seeing" and "hearing" by attempting to understand how what we see or hear at that moment depends on this particular arrangement of lenses and filters. The personal therapy required of many psychotherapies (but not yet family therapy) is helpful in creating this sense of self-reflexivity but so too is an attitude of uncertainty to all our knowing. For clinical theory to be used in a non-authoritarian way it needs to be held irreverently, reflexively and with a loose grip. Since each theory represents the best attempt (from its own particular standpoint) to make sense, in general terms, of an externally real but never certain world, then there are few grounds for excluding any theory other than the psychotherapeutic version of religious intolerance. This eclectic epistemology requires no effort to integrate theory. As each theory is both what can be "seen" and the position from which it "sees" then any grand metatheory which tries to create a unified position is doomed. Instead, lenses may be thought of as overlapping each other, creating richer ways of thinking. In my work, I regularly draw on the large loose collections of theories from both family therapy and psychoanalysis. But this epistemology places no restriction on theories from any source and allows visits to other therapy cultures. So far, I know little about Gestalt therapy

7

Notice how, in this article, when constructed reality becomes something we wish to describe, we can only allude to that, too, through metaphor and that each shift between metaphors - "maps", "constructions", "stories", "lenses" and "filters" brings forth some distinctions while simultaneously allowing others to be temporarily lost to our attention.

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but I suspect that many Gestalt ideas could be used in family therapy within this framework of knowing.

From big stories to local understandings On the path taken by this article: from the historical struggles in family therapy with questions of knowing; through the outlines of an adequate epistemology that attempts to reduce schismogenic pressures in our field; and through the pluralist use of clinical theory, we reach the point of needing to consider how clients can make use of the big theoretical stories (or metanarratives) rather than be crushed under their weight. We need to consider how theory can be made fluid enough to be of value within the small and specific contexts that make up the flux of therapeutic work. Postmodernism may give us some kind of assistance to the modernist project of helping others. The therapist and family may form a small temporary institution for dialogue; a language game in which the rules for understanding can be locally and subtlely defined. The therapist may use clinical theories but without credulity or reverence to offer up some new ideas into the work/play space of this therapeutic moment. This cautious and plastic use of theory may allow some ideas to find their way into a fresh collaborative mix; a new little narrative which may slowly emerge, coaxed on by its meaningfulness to the family members. But ever present to this making-sense-together is the context of that which is really going on- the nameless, unconstructed external reality. A nine year old boy living with his mother and stepfather and two elder sisters was referred following a period in which he had begun to fall behind in his school work, had become rather socially isolated, anxious about attending school and aggressive towards his mother when she insisted. The step-father was polite but seemed to have attended the session rather reluctantly. The mother's vivacity seemed to help keep things fairly light in the session and she and the other children openly teased her husband about his 4 marriages. He had three children from two of the marriages, with whom he had lost contact, since he felt it would be better for them if he made a clean break. There was much exploration of the child's social relationships and potential reasons for difficulties, such as the recent move of a friend to another school. The family acknowledged some special closeness between the boy and his mother but his relationship with his birth father seemed uneventful. Contact had become irregular, but this appeared to create no particular difficulties for the child. About half-way through the session I noticed that I had begun to feel depressed. Later I thought I could identify

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that this feeling had started when the boy and his mother had been discussing his father. There was, for that time, a stillness about the boy and some fading of his warm smile. His mother seemed extra bright - chivying him along during this part of their narrative and the step-father had remained quiet. Two months previously I had re-read an old paper by Skynner (1979). I was interested in how he used his sensitivity, in working as a group analyst, to allow himself to experience the feelings disowned by the family. Since that reading I had begun to monitor my feelings more in family therapy sessions and to think about their relevance to the issues under discussion. Later in the work with the boy and his family, I shared this emotional reaction with them by wondering aloud whether there were more difficult feelings about the boy's father than we currently knew. Over time it became possible, from collaboration with them, to tell a new clinical story about their difficulties: the boy had begun to feel that he was not important to his father who now had a new child; the mother partly sensed this, but hadn't wanted to acknowledge it openly with her son since she hated his father and was happy for him to fade out of their lives; the step-father was envious of the mother's close relationship with her son; the mother feared the son retaining longings for his natural father since, in allowing his memory to be openly acknowledged in the family, it might de-stabilize the relationship between her and her husband (he had, after all, left 3 other families); these fears of the mother had meant that, despite the closeness to her son, there was no emotional holding of his complex feelings about his father; the boy had defended against his anger with his father by a growing sense of his own unlovability which others picked up at school; and in the absence of a holding of his painful feelings he needed to stay close to his main attachment figure. This has all the hallmarks of a classic written-up case example - there was even a thank-you card sent some months afterwards to say that things were going well. But note that this account is a clinical story. It is honest (in the sense that it is not a deliberate lie) but it is full of post-hoc rationalizations and still speculative connections. I have left out enormous amounts of information and entirely failed to convey the messy stumbling uncertainty of therapy. (I was not even the therapist but a member of a Reflecting Team8 (Andersen, 1987) and a supervisor of the therapist.) I have included only a small portion of my constructions about this family 8

In this model of teamwork, the team members are brought into the family session in order to have a reflective conversation about what they have felt to be significant in the session to that point. The family listen to this conversation and are then invited to comment on the reflections.

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but cannot include either the enormous amount that remains unconstructed or the different ways in which it might be constructed. I might tell the story differently next time; the accounts of the other team members and of each family member would be likely to vary considerably from this one; and, as reader, you may have created your own version. Finally, I have no firm idea whether our work had any influence on the reported change only that the mother and son said that it did. I have written this at length to create a more complex context than usual for examining only that small sequence in which the big general story of Skynner created the possibility of receiving something new from the family which, through reverie, could be given back into the work/play space of the session for further consideration. In that moment the issue of the boy's feelings about his father could be temporarily rescued from the shadows of the dominant narrative that held that the relationship was unproblematic. Depending on our theoretical loyalties we may call this a bringing into consciousness or - to a more postmodern mind - a deconstruction of the dominant story. A more complex, painful but ultimately, perhaps, more enabling version lay partly obscured in the notconsidered-in-the-moment (or what Derrida calls différance.) The boy and his mother seemed to be able to invest that idea with some value and in that short period of locally determined understanding some new possibilities for change opened up. This is the description of the therapeutic process that I wish to reach the progression through time of a series of these small local understandings in which some neglected issues can be re-appraised or - as Shawver (1983) puts it - "transvalued" in the light of new premises. We may assume that there were causes for this child's behaviour - but ones of such staggering interwoven and dynamic complexity that the word "cause" itself needs to be treated with great caution, in case it seduces us back into the familiar modernist trap of blinding us to the partiality and incompleteness of our understanding - suggesting, instead, that we can truly come to know. The totality of that which is really going on in this family, as with all others, remains firmly out of reach to any of us. The best we can hope for is that these local understandings and transvaluations can allow family members some pragmatic negotiation of its constraints. In summary the thesis of an expert exploration of the objective reality of the client or family and the antithesis of an unconstrained process of mutual creation of reality are both rejected. Instead, I believe that something transforming may happen for the patient or family only through the synthesis of collaborative exploration and social creation of meaning within the never-fully-known context of the externally real.

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References Andersen, T. (1987) The reflecting team: dialogue and meta-dialogue in clinical work. Family Process, 26: 415-428. Anderson, H. and Goolishian, H. A. (1988) Human systems as linguistic systems: preliminary and evolving ideas about the implications for clinical theory. Family Process, 27:371-391. Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York, Balantine. Derrida, J. (1972) Limited, Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Flaskas, C. (1997) Reclaiming the idea of truth: some thoughts on theory in response to practice. Journal of Family Therapy, 19: 1-20. Goldenberg, I and Goldenberg, H. (1996) Family Therapy: An Overview. 4th Edition. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Goldner, V. (1985) Feminism and family therapy. Family Process, 24: 1347. Hoffman, L. (1985) Beyond power and control: toward a "second-order" family systems therapy. Family Systems Medicine, 3: 381-396. Hoffman, L. (1990) Constructing realities: an art of lenses. Family Process, 29: 1-12. Kearney, R. (1984) Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers: Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Herbert Marcuse, Stanislas Breton, Jacques Derrida. New Hampshire: Dover. Lyotard, J. (1979) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press. McGoldrick, M. (1988) Ethnicity and the family life cycle. In B. Carter and M. McGoldrick (eds) The Changing Family Life Cycle: A Framework for Family Therapy (2nd Ed.). New York: Gardner Press. Minuchin, S., Rosman, B. and Baker, L. (1978) Psychosomatic Families: Anorexia Nervosa in Context. Cambridge, MA: London. Parry, A. (1991) A universe of stories. Family Process, 30: 37-54. Pocock, D. (1995a) Searching for a better story: harnessing modern and postmodern positions in family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 17: 149-173. —. (1995b) Postmodern chic: postmodern critique. Context, 24: 4648. —. (1996) Comment: Reconciling the given and the made. Journal of Family Therapy, 17: 249-254. —. (1997a) Feeling understood in family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 19:279-298.

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—. (1997b) The "R" word, a reading list of contemporary subjugated positions on reality. Submitted for publication.

Rushdie, S. (1985) Shame, New York: Viking Press. Shawver, L. (1983) Harnessing the power of interpretive language. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 20: 3-11. Shawver, L. (1996). What postmodernism can do for psychoanalysis: a guide to the postmodern vision. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 56: 371-394. Singer, M. (1995) Qualitative research as seen from a Batesonian lens. The Qualitative Report, 2: (2) Skynner, R. (1979) Reflections on the family therapist as family scapegoat. In R. Skynner (1987) Explorations with Families: Group Analysis and Family Therapy. London: Routledge. White, M. (1991) Deconstruction and therapy. Dulwich Centre Newsletter, 3: 21-40.

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Response to Stories About Knowing: A View from Family Therapy, by David Pocock Sylvia Fleming Crocker, Ph.D. As a Gestalt therapist I found David Pocock's article interesting in a number of ways. Because of Gestalt therapy's grounding in phenomenology, Gestalt psychology, and Kantian philosophy, most Gestalt therapists operate within an epistemological framework which holds that all knowing is phenomenological construction, and therefore that all interpretations should be viewed with humility and held with a willingness to revise and correct them in the light of ongoing experience. Paul Goodman, Gestalt therapy's greatest theorist, said that Aristotle, Kant and phenomenology had the greatest influence on his thinking; this influence profoundly affected the subsequent development of Gestalt as a therapeutic approach. What is usually not realized by many contemporary thinkers is that all forms of constructivism are grounded in 18th century Kantian philosophy. Kant argued that we can know only the thoughts and percepts which we ourselves construct: while we live within the context of a reality which transcends our ability to know it as it is in itself, we can know directly ONLY those appearances of it which we construct. Even though we can never escape from our human ways of knowing, we feel compelled to hypothesize the existence of the "external world" for several important reasons: The world of our experience intrudes on us, often against our will; and it resists our attempts to bend it to our desires--"wishing will not make it so." Moreover, we need the hypothesis of the world which exists independently of our knowing in order to explain the fact that we share a world with other people, with whom we can communicate and with whom we can act cooperatively. We have discovered ways to compare our experiences linguistically and practically in ways that allow us to discriminate common or "public" facts from purely "private" ones. Included in these "public" facts are forms of orderliness upon which it is possible to find agreement through, for example, the scientific method. Because Gestalt therapy assumes the existence of a shared world or experience, and because it is a field-theoretical approach, Gestalt therapists believe it is important to explore the ground out of which any given symptom has emerged. Part of this ground is the beliefs that the members of the system have constructed. But another part of the ground is the dynamic patterns of interaction among the members of that system, of which the members are often relatively unaware, and which in some significant measure transcends language. Because the family therapist

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comes into the system without the same history, and armed with a set of theoretical lenses which guide his observations and interventions, the circularity of the system's dysfunctional patterns can be interrupted and processes of change can be introduced. The fact that a therapist is guided by theory hardly indicates a kind of authoritarianism, as I shall show presently. I was struck by Pocock's example of the constructivist family therapist who regarded the anorexia of a child as only a matter of linguistic constructs by the family; and by Pocock's comment in footnote # 4: "Although it may be argued, that a therapist who brings an assumption to a clinical encounter that anorexia is a problem in language only is, from a postmodern point of view, acting very powerfully indeed." It would be interesting to know what "acting very powerfully indeed" might mean in this context. It can hardly be denied that if a case of anorexia is untreated, the child may well die and thus disappear forever from the family's experience. That death and disappearance would surely transcend linguistic constructions, and no amount of linguistic gymnastics would bring the child back. Pocock's comment seems weak and overly diplomatic to me; I would think some expression of outraged incredulity would have been more appropriate to such a position. Anorexia should, in my opinion, be seen as having an enormously important relationship to the external world: children do not starve to death because of linguistic constructs. A therapist who regarded all family phenomena as merely matters of language and opinion would, I believe, be both ineffective and sometimes dangerously irresponsible. It cannot be denied that belief systems are important. Gestalt therapists typically take seriously the belief systems clients have constructed, and through the use of the phenomenological method encourage clients to reveal to the therapist how they see themselves and what the meanings are of the situations in which they live. This method has the therapist reconstructing in her own mind what the client reveals to her, and repeatedly checking out her perceptions and interpretations with the client in order to be as certain as possible that her constructs closely reflect the client's experience. It is part of the Gestalt approach to join the client by coming to as accurate a grasp as is possible of what the client's experience of his world is and the meaning he gives it. From the very beginning of this approach Gestalt therapists have not only been open to the client's revelations, they have also used themselves as instruments in order to come closer, through observation of the therapist's own response to the client, to understanding what is happening with the client. Through the use of empathic reception of the client's revelation and self-observation the

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Gestalt therapist is able to form working hypotheses about the client, and to devise appropriate experimental interventions. These may include reports by the therapist of her experience of the client as he tells his story. Pocock's report of revealing to the client family his personal feeling of depression at one point in the family's narrative, reminded me of this. And while it seemed unusual to Pocock, I thought about how familiar such experiences are to Gestalt therapists. On the other hand, the willingness to join the client in this way is held in tension with a set of theoretical understandings about what kinds of dynamic patterns of behavior and interaction are functional and which ones are dysfunctional. People who discuss theory often overlook the fact that knowing is always and invariably discriminating: it is the very nature of both observation and reflection that we pay more attention to some things than we do to others; this is because we see some facts as more important and significant, or as having greater weight than others in a given situation. Human knowing is radically different from indiscriminate and unorganized registering of any and all possible sensory stimuli or random thoughts; indeed, the two have nothing in common. I like to quote Socrates in this context, who asserted that "Unless we know where we are going, we will not know whether we are moving toward or away from the goal." ALL therapists operate with--at the very least--an implicit model of what is healthier and more desirable than other possibilities; otherwise they would have no reason to notice or to address one fact or combination of facts rather than others. It might be contended that the client family gives the therapist information about what, on the basis of their own story, they consider to be a problem. But this does not resolve the theoretical issue, since no responsible family therapist would work with a family to make a curious and intelligent child more docile, or to make a child more receptive to either physical or verbal attacks by the parents. It is simply not possible for anyone to do any practical thing without bringing to the task some ideas about what is to be done and what is to be avoided--even if we desperately desire to come to it without any preconceptions. The important thing, in my opinion, is to hold every theory with humility and a willingness to hold it up to frequent re- evaluation in the light of new experiences. The most effective way which has been found to deal with those problems of knowing which arise from the egocentric predicament is to apply pragmatic criteria to all theories and methods. In science, the questions put to any proposed model are "does it help us to make sense of all of the facts?", "is it internally consistent?", and "does it provide fruitful predictions and clues for proceeding further?" It is true that, since we can

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never compare our thoughts with an independent reality, we must construct models to help us understand the facts of experience; description without organizing models can never yield understanding. Yet it is also true that not all models of the world are equally valid when we apply these criteria to them. Criteria for evaluating clinical theories and methods are similar. These must help us to understand both human health and dysfunction, and they must shed some light on the range of conditions under which each is produced. Finally, the important question to ask of any therapeutic approach is, "Does it work? Do the people who seek your help feel helped by what you do with them?" Because we cannot NOT be guided in our endeavors by constructed models which are intended to help us understand what we are dealing with and to proceed fruitfully, it is foolish to dismiss as "authoritarian" any therapist who operates with a fully explicit understanding of problem areas in human systems, and what goals are to be aimed in therapy. The only person to whom the label "authoritarian" could be legitimately applied is someone who steadfastly insists that his theory is somehow immutably written in the ways of the universe, and that he is right no matter what his practical results might be. But to reject naive authoritarianism does not lend legitimacy to linguistic relativism--not all statements hold up in the light of shared experience. Language is not itself an independent reality--indeed, language gains its legitimacy only because it is somehow grounded in experience which can be shared with others.

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Response to Stories About Knowing: A View from Family Therapy, by David Pocock Roger Bufford, Ph.D. Pocock proposed that "an adequate epistemology should include both the notion that what we know is always a constructed or storied reality and the notion that external reality is always present as context, and in some circumstances can act as a constraint to our stories" (p. 5; italics orig.). His view is quite similar to what I have proposed in two important respects. First, it recognizes that human knowing is limited and contains an inherent subjective bias (lenses, assumptions). Second, it postulates an external reality which may operate as a constraint on human knowing in such a way that when knowing is too distorted, corrective influences may be exerted. One difference in our perspectives is that I am more optimistic about knowing than Pocock, and many other constructivists, seem to be. To paraphrase the language of object relations theorists, I believe that we can be "good enough " knowers. We have the capacity to know well enough that we can organize our lives around that knowing. We can send astronauts to the moon and back on the basis of such imperfect knowledge, even though Apollo 13 episodes are likely to continue as well, because we "see through a glass darkly." Pocock is also overly pessimistic about grand theories, I believe. Pocock concluded that any theory involves both what can be seen and the position from which it is seen. Thus "any grand metatheory which tries to create a united position is doomed" (p. 6). There is little chance that we can all agree on precisely how things are in every respect, to be sure. But it seems reasonable that one or more theories can be constructed which take into account much of what we know, or at least much of what is known in a given discipline. Thus it may be possible to construct a general theory of psychology such as that attempted by Gordon Dember (1996). Further, I believe it is possible for there to be widespread agreement that some theories are better, and others worse. Kuhn's notion of paradigm shifts may parallel this. The fact that we have--or at least had--metanarratives is consistent with this view. The predominant metanarrative of modernism is being replaced. But postmodernism itself is a metanarrative, I believe. It simply has different features, including the rejection of modernism and the embrace of multi-culturalism. One of my colleagues proposed that postmodernism is a "cultural shift." I concur, and submit that culture is a

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metanarrative, typically existing in tension with one or more micronarratives which accompany it. Another distinction from the view proposed here is that Pocock seems to believe that all knowing has these limitations. Certainly this seems true of all human knowing. Christians, however, generally hold the view that God's knowing is perfect. In applications to clinical practice, Pocock proposed (in my words) a cautious testing of possible revised constructions of reality--new stories-which take into account previously discounted or shadowy elements of experience so that the new construction is more faithful to "the context of what is really going on --the nameless, unconstructed external reality" (p. 7; italics orig). This process may variously be called bringing into consciousness, deconstruction of the dominant story, or cognitive restructuring--perhaps even behavior modification. What is distinctive about Pocock's postmodernist constructivist approach, and that only by way of emphasis, is that the therapist enters the process with an attitude of humility about her/his own knowing, theories, and approaches to intervention. Interestingly, this view parallels the Christian virtue of humility.

CHAPTER ELEVEN1 ADDING WOMEN’S VOICES: FEMINISM AND GESTALT THERAPY2 M’LOU CARING, CYNTHIA COOK, GAIL FEINSTEIN, IRIS FODOR, ZELDA FRIEDMAN, ALICE GERSTMAN, SUSAN JURKOWSKI, MARIA KIRCHNER AND RUTH WOLFERT

Background We are awed by Gestalt therapy's radical innovation: the recognition that we live in our bodies, that we live in the moment. But this approach was the creation of a particular group of mostly men in New York nearly 50 years ago, and it is important to look to the context for embedded background assumptions - something we have learned as feminists and as Gestalt therapists. The theory, particularly as expressed in the defining text, Gestalt Therapy by Perls, Hefferline & Goodman in 1951, emerged from a traditional Western European male-centered culture. Influences from other cultures, such as Taoism and Buddhism, were just beginning to be felt. Women's issues, however, were unrecognized, so when the book described the "basic neurotic dichotomies" that our society suffers from, gender was not on the list.

1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt!, 3(1), 1999.

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The New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy was founded in 1952 as a membership organization with large monthly meetings as well as smaller training groups. From the beginning these large meetings were dominated by male conflicts, particularly between the founding Fellows, who debated points of theory with acrimony. This style of gladiatorial combat continued for decades to the dismay of many of the women members some of whom left in disgust. In the 1980's, the entire structure of the Institute was called into question. As the Fellows became less dominant, a democratic organization was developed based on consensus. However, we women were still unhappy with the large meetings. Some of us experienced a lack of support to speak up, while others were uncomfortable with the intellectual style of argumentation required to make oneself heard. In 1991 we began to meet in a women's caucus as an experiment to discover what style of interaction would emerge when we were not in reaction to this dominant mode. We found that we were interested in balance. Gestalt therapy is supposed to be free of gender bias, yet we as women could see that aggression was valued in our training to the detriment of cooperation. We discovered we wanted to include other facets. We wanted to attend both to the needs of the individual and the group, to feelings as well as intellect, to relationship as well as individual assertion. Through our Women's Caucus meetings, we developed a ground of connection and support that carried over to the large meetings, gradually increasing our ability to speak up and address the quality of dialogue occurring there. Then we made two pivotal presentations at large meetings that highlighted how women's voices had not been included in Gestalt therapy. They had a profound impact and were instrumental in changing the entire culture of the New York Institute. The whole Institute started to embrace the values of balancing, of respecting feelings and relational statements as well as theoretical assertions. Now we all share a concern that everyone's voice be heard. Then as AAGT was being formed, the Caucus became the foundation for that organization's Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy interest group. We have continued to have local meetings in New York, and the group has expanded beyond its New York Institute beginnings. We have discovered a shared experience of tension between our contemporary self-awareness as feminists and our professional conversation as Gestalt therapists and theorists. On the one hand, Gestalt therapy has been in the vanguard of supporting women to be assertive and empowered, contrary to the prevailing culture. On the other, we have experienced resistance to valuing and learning from female experience. We address you here now in an

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attempt to contribute our voices to the development of Gestalt therapy by offering you a presentation based on one of the those that we originally gave at the New York Institute in 1993.

Creating the Atmosphere We believe that being in a group that embodies our values is different and extraordinary. As women, we speak from our ways of being, of knowing and of organizing - grounded in our bodies. How do we communicate an experience that is vivid and alive, based in our sensual wisdom? The process of finding the language to express this is difficult, for language can only approximate our experience. And it is vital that we do this - that we share, extend and expand out into the larger Gestalt community. We, the presenters, have been meeting for years and so come to the workshop with a sense of connection with one another. This history has helped establish the ground and sets the tone of the group. We sit interspersed throughout a large circle of empty chairs. As people enter the room, we welcome them warmly, feeling an excited anticipation about sharing this presentation with other Gestalt therapists from around the world. The workshop starts with a small group. We move at a slow pace, introducing ourselves. We begin our presentation by focusing awareness on our women's bodies. This organic grounding, long undermined by our socialization, is our natural birthright. So we sound a call into our bodies, inviting the sensory, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual connections this may bring. We listen openly, with respect. People continue to arrive throughout the workshop so we keep enlarging our circle, expanding to welcome the newcomers, including them in our process. We support everyone in speaking - honoring and validating each experience. This quality of attentive listening allows each of us the possibility of deeply sensing and authentically sharing our embodied experiencing. Everyone has an equal place and each expression adds to the creating/emerging whole. Through the texture of the our interactions, the flowing rhythms, our openness to one another - touching and being touched, we realize a sense of community and of belonging.

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Experiment and Response We have written the story of our experiment and responses in a way that will allow you also to hear and be touched by the voices of those who were present at the workshop. We invite you to participate with us as you read this by noticing your own feelings and reactions. Each woman in our group of presenters chose a quotation, from a Gestalt therapy text, that was personally evocative and in some way highlighted the gender bias. She then read her quote as a woman's voice from the shared silence, changing male pronouns to female. The following is a selection from our readings, including some of those which evoked the most powerful and encompassing responses: "Essentially, the poet's is the special case where the problem is to solve an 'inner conflict'...: the poet is concentrating on some unfinished subvocal speech and its subsequent thoughts; by freely playing with her present word she at last finishes an unfinished verbal scene, she in fact utters the complaint, the denunciation, the declaration of love, the self-reproach that she should have uttered; now at last she freely draws on the underlying organic needs and she finds the words. We must therefore notice accurately that the poet's I, Thou and It are in her present actuality ... Her 'I' is her style in its present use, it is not her biography." -Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/94, p.102). "Annihilating, destroying, initiative and anger are functions of good contact necessary for the livelihood, pleasure and protection of any organism in a difficult field." -Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/94, p. 124). "The opposite of the need for victory is 'creative disinterest.' We shall later attempt to describe this peculiar attitude of the spontaneous self. Accepting her concern and the object, and exercising her aggression, the creatively impartial woman is excited by the conflict and grows by means of it, win or lose; she is not attached to what might be lost, for she knows she is changing and already identifies with what she will become. With this attitude goes an emotion that is the opposite of the sense of security, namely faith: absorbed in the actual activity she does not protect the background but draws energy from it, she has faith that she will prove adequate." -Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/94, p.132). Changing male pronouns to female in these quotes prompted a number of women to express relief at not having to expend the energy they usually put into translating:

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"What I was really struck with...was how often I automatically translate, and I do it constantly. It was so wonderful to realize that I didn't have to do that..." "...(I)t made it easier for me to listen to, and be with, the experience (without having) to translate it (in order to apply it) to myself." As people shared their reactions to the readings, aggression in its various forms emerged as a major theme. Many women felt that their experiences in Gestalt therapy and training reflected a model which emphasizes a form of aggression encouraging satisfaction of one's own needs at the expense of the other, rather than a recognition that one's own needs include connection and cooperation with others: "I think one of the main things we can offer in a feminist voice is cooperation rather than the aggressive model. Now the aggressive model does not have to be alienating....though 'destroying' is used (in Perls, Hefferline and Goodman)....I, for many years, changed it to 'destructuring' because...you don't have to (let go of the old) in a violent way. But...no matter how we want to frame aggression, (Gestalt theory) still is lacking an emphasis on cooperation..." One woman offered the actual definition of aggression, from the Latin agredere, meaning going towards. Another spoke of the creative aspect of aggression as a field experience which includes conflict, cooperation, and transformation: "...(C)reating this...with all of you...is a field experience...we're transforming right now, every moment, the theory and ourselves....I want to thank you for bringing in the origin of aggression....I chose to leave aggression and conflict in...my readings because it's been so important for me...to keep that idea but create it and transform it, define it in our own ways..." Others also made the point that the aggressive model does not have to be alienating: "I'm feeling that there are two different kinds of aggression here...(one) which was (a) kind of violent...attacking aggression, and then your kind of aggression of just being able to have energy and liveliness and excitement." "...(A)ggression is really the liveliness and spontaneity, and reaching forward, getting what we need, expressing our interest, relating with other people and creating. That's what aggression really is about in Gestalt therapy theory." "I think that (aggression) is both going towards (meeting) our own needs...but...it also brings up the issue of cooperation and inclusion, that I also go towards, I need the other one..."

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It was observed that the spirit of cooperation and inclusion was expressed in the way we welcomed late-comers into the circle and passed the microphone to one another so that everyone's voice could be heard on the tape: "...(Y)ou were including the people who were going to buy the tape, who weren't in the room at all....that's relational thinking...to pass the microphone around. I feel very moved." Many women expressed feeling sad, realizing that they had lost touch with their own aggressiveness because it was unacceptable to others. As they learned to inhibit that part of themselves, they also inhibited their energy, liveliness, creativity, and spontaneity, as well as their ability to move toward - and reach for - meeting their own needs: "...I was a little girl who was quite aggressive...and my aliveness and brightness and aggressiveness was very much not all right. So, at five, when I was sent to a girls' Catholic boarding school, where I stayed until I was 13, all that liveliness and aggression went underground, and I feel so sad about that, and during the last 20 years I've been regaining that sense of my own vitality and aggression..." In learning to inhibit aggression, women have learned to inhibit their physical beings as well: 'Don't be too big, too loud, too active.' Even in Gestalt therapy and training contexts, women's natural ways of expressing themselves have often been criticized. For instance, when one woman's beautiful, graceful hand gestures were acknowledged, she replied, "You can't imagine how people have tried to wipe that out." Other women shared similar experiences: "They've tried to do that with my voice also. I can't tell you how many hours I spent with Gestalt therapists trying to change how I speak....I guess it (doesn't) sound authentic to some people." "And...also being big, and how I had to shrink in many ways, and need to fill in that process of recovery, rediscovering, reclaiming." Some of the most compelling responses were stimulated by this quotation that related to touch: "Taboos against expressive behavior begin early. Don't touch, don't fidget, don't cry, don't masturbate, don't pee; and so the boundaries are delineated. What began in childhood is continued as we grow up, only even more subtly than the original don'ts. We become more inclusive, even finding new situations where the early prohibitions can apply. The simple little childhood scenes which were involved in the boundary-setting no longer exist, but only the details change. For example, prohibition against masturbation - touching oneself lovingly - winds up as a boundary which excludes touching anyone lovingly. Consequently, when the child

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grows up, her lovemaking as a woman is conservative and limited. As a mother, she touches her children only when she has to and when a friend is crying she keeps her distance. In fact, even if she is the person crying, her resistance to touching may prevent her from getting the support that the closeness of another person could give her. As loving as she may be, touching is excluded for her as a means of expressing her affection." Polster and Polster (1973, p.121). One woman responded by speaking of the extent to which women have been alienated from their own bodies: "...(I)t was a reminder of...the way I have seen girls handled, and this thing about not touching themselves. It made me feel like referencing female genital mutilation, in that there wasn't a physical act...but every time I have seen parents with a baby brought into the clinic, and if the baby reaches down...they're grabbing her hand saying 'oh no, don't touch that', and they say the word 'that' as if it is an object, and as if it is somebody else's object, and...it's associated with every other time I've heard women's' bodies referred to as 'it' or 'that'...it removed the self from that part of the body...'it' could become a thing and the permission to touch the thing can only be given to somebody else....I've seen women treated like the doctor can touch it, your husband can touch it, everybody else can touch it but you, and if you touch it you are bizarre...there's something wrong with you. So I don't know how they ever get around to taking care of their bodies because they don't have 'it'...and they'll even tell me 'I had a baby, but I don't know where it came out of,' because they never saw the 'it', there was never a mirror... and 'it' belongs to somebody else and...it struck me when I heard the reading that the mutilation I referred to is not physical mutilation, but how much more can you mutilate a child than to inform her...that her body is divided into these things that are okay for her to touch, like her hair and her face, but if she touches other places, that these things belong to somebody else..." This response evoked deep sorrow that was expressed by one woman this way: "...(R)ight now I'm still very caught up with the image of a woman having a baby and not having a sense of where that baby came from, how powerful the alienation of that is, not only the alienation from her own body, but I imagine a sort of alienation from that infant. The infant must also become an 'it' or a 'that' in the absence of the connection to the woman's body and there's such a desolation for me in getting in touch with what that would be like...." One of the most powerful reactions came from the only man in the group:

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"I want to respond from my whole experience here and particularly so from the impact on my body as well as just solely my mind. I feel very privileged to be here....What the experience has offered me this morning....is that I am very touched and opened....When I started, my head was very cloudy and my heart felt a bit sore....I've been hurt by...feminists who have attacked me as a man...and I felt that was a potential here, but...now my heart doesn't feel sore anymore. And what helped here is about the parent because I clearly realized that's not true for me, I love my two boys, and I touched them as infants, and I helped them be born and I also held my little daughter who was born dead, but I still loved her....I really thank you for being here. I feel... comforted being here. I'm glad...(about) the tapes...A lot of women...talk about...'no feminism' in Gestalt therapy....I can bring back these tapes for the men and women (in training). I think they'll really treasure this.... I feel connected to you....I really learned something about how...(women) experience the world different than men do....I do body work, but ...not like this...this is different." This man's response movingly expresses our human need for touch and touching, and its intimate relation to love and connection. Many other responses confirm our longing for cooperation and inclusion. Our experience requires a reconfiguration of Gestalt therapy theory to honor these aspects of our humanity.

Conclusion "Adding Women's Voices: Feminism and Gestalt Therapy" is a work in progress, a collaborative effort towards integrating Gestalt therapy and feminism. Most of us have been involved in both the women's movement and Gestalt therapy since the 70's or 80's. The women's movement has validated and expanded our experience as women and formed our feminist consciousness. Gestalt therapy has confirmed and supported us in reclaiming our natural aggression, and in exploring the full range of our experience. Paradoxically, until recently women's experience and perspective have not received serious attention in Gestalt theory and practice. This presentation is part of our attempt to integrate these two meaningful strands of our lives. We have not done this work in isolation. Each of us has depended on contact with other women in our quest to fully develop ourselves, and we are all supported by one another's growth. When we come together in groups, we have the freedom to discover and define our own issues and struggles, as Gestalt therapists and as women. The quality of experience

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that emerges is often profound. Out of this, we are beginning to develop language for our concerns. We find that we value many different forms of aggression, and we value cooperation and yielding as well. Without cooperation, without the willingness to be open to hear and assist one another, we would not be here today. We encourage you to seek out settings with other women where you can try this experiment, and any others you devise, for yourselves. In enlarging this dialogue, we are all enriched, and Gestalt therapy becomes an even more powerful tool for human growth.

References Perls, F. S., Hefferline, R. & Goodman, P. (1951/1994) Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (Highland, NY: Gestalt Journal Press) Polster, E. & Polster, M. (1973) Gestalt Therapy Integrated (New York: Brunner/Mazel)

CHAPTER TWELVE1 GESTALT THERAPY GROUPS: WHY?2 SERGE GINGER AND ANNE GINGER

(Responses by responses by Jon Frew and Bud Feder follow).

Introduction Our 28 years of clinical practice (1971-1999), within the Ecole Parisienne de Gestalt (EPG; Paris School of Gestalt) inspired us to put the following thoughts to paper… We have led many hundreds of intensive 3 4 day groups, thematic workshops (sexuality, couples, dreams, etc.) and especially on-going therapy groups (2-3 intensive days each month, in several French cities, with constant group composition). Many of these groups are still running, uninterrupted, since 1978. We would like to highlight the richness, often underestimated, of Gestalt therapy groups, versus traditional individual therapy (one-to-one); we recommend a combination of these two formats wherever possible. Here, we will discuss individual therapy with follow-up within the group, as compared to groups, centered on process and group phenomena, where the group is considered as the client : as developed at the Cleveland Institute for example (Polster, 1973; Zinker, 1977; Clarkson, 1993) and in Brussels (Wollants, 1996). Neither shall we investigate in this article what we call "socio-Gestalt", or Gestalt of an organization considered as an

1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt!, 4(1), 2000.

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organism (Ginger, 1987); nor, generally speaking, Gestalt applications in organizations, institutions or businesses (Masquelier 1995). Our experience has shown that nearly all kinds of problems can be worked on in a group situation, whereas many cannot be efficiently treated in an individual therapy setting. Let us name, for example, problems of timidity or inhibition (either in a group, or with members of the opposite sex), or on the contrary, excessively self-centered people, who constantly invade other's boundaries… We shall return to such themes later on. It should be specified that in the framework of our group therapy, our style of Gestalt implies strong emotional involvement with bodywork, and is not restricted to verbal exchange (Ginger, 1987; 1995), as is more often the case with individual therapy.

The setting and the working conditions Our groups usually have about ten participants per therapist, i.e. twenty in groups co-led by a therapeutic couple (which is our preferred way of working). Our groups are "slowly open", i.e. new members may enter when a place becomes available when another leaves (Masquelier, 1998). There is thus a waiting list (which may last from weeks to months). This also implies that the person who is preparing to leave the group (after 12 - 18 months, on average) announces his intent at least one session in advance (usually, the month before). This way, each group member has time to get ready to say goodbye, and finish unachieved business. The departure may include ceremonies or rituals, which are the responsibility of the departing member: sharing memories with each participant, presents, songs, poems, etc. At the same time, the future new member receives notification one month in advance. Rather than weekly or fortnightly workshops of a few hours, we prefer intensive, longer workshops: 2 to 4 full days, often residential, in the country. This allows progressive warming-up, followed by deeper implication, in emotionally secure conditions. We usually work seated on the ground, on thick carpet, with mattresses and cushions. This lets each person change position easily, and find the right distance between themselves and the others: participants neither feel isolated nor "imprisoned" in a chair. From the first sessions, we emphasize confidentiality -- which is not a limitation, but rather a freedom: any subject can be discussed in the group, in complete safety. This includes forbidden desires (sexual or aggressive, for example), unusual experiences, shameful or violent traumatic events.

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All may be stated, even role-played – within the framework set by the therapist(s), but all may not be acted out! Sexual and aggressive acting out are not allowed – but tenderness, or controlled conflict is.

"Double locking" When participants are liable to meet outside the group, in other situations (especially in an advanced workshop for therapists, for example), we institute reinforced confidentiality, that we call "double locking." The first "turn of the key" concerns the outside: nothing must be said (in a way that would identify the person concerned) about what was said or done in the group. We must say that we are pleasantly surprised at how well this rule of privacy is respected, with very few exceptions. The second "turn of the key" concerns the inside: the client himself. It is agreed that whatever is said or revealed in the therapeutic session remains confidential and is never referred to outside therapy, even with the person concerned. For example, if Colette is working on conflict with her lover, or discusses the drug addiction of her teenage son, other group members will be careful not to ask questions if they meet her again, either in the group or elsewhere. This may seem artificial, or even somewhat inhuman (after all, it is natural to speak about concerns with friends), but it seems to us, with hindsight, particularly liberating: each participant may broach any topic, any problem, without fear of being "branded" for ever, of being "followed around" by his problem. Of course, the person concerned may refer to their own business as they wish, and may spontaneously inform the others; in this case, the other group members will not pretend to ignore the issues, but these issues must never be brought up by another. However, the question may be raised, if this is useful, in a later therapeutic session. This rule is obviously also excellent training in confidentiality for future therapists.

The "crystal ball" In our on-going groups, we have an entry ritual: the "crystal ball". The aim of this game is to help new members join an already-formed group. Instead of asking the new arrival to introduce himself or herself as usual, the group participants "introduce" him or her! Each one concentrates attentively on the new member and shares what he imagines: "I imagine that you live alone with two children" … "I imagine you are a school teacher, and very strict with the students" … "I think you might

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be a doctor with an interest in homeopathy, very sweet and patient with your patients" … "I see you when you were ten years old, living on a farm, with a big dog by your side" … "I think you read many books at once and leave them lying about, opened at the page you're up to, all over the furniture in your apartment" … etc. The aim of the game is to allow a certain amount of time for the new member: the whole group is centred on him for at least 10 minutes, and each tries to "sound his depths", to absorb his look, his clothes, his expression. Obviously, this game is done as soon as possible, before the person concerned has a chance to reveal himself. There are thus only nonverbal clues, mostly unconscious. The person being introduced does not react, whether what is said rings true or not; neither does he take notes, but simply listens to the effect he produces, the first impression he gives. At the end of the game, he says what he felt, what surprised him, what was true (often many things) and incorrect, and he rounds out the introduction by adding what he wishes. We thus have a lively, full portrait, including both personal and professional characteristics, and the new person generally feels understood and integrated. Many months later, when he leaves the group, each still remembers the initial picture and highlights the changes. Some even request a new "crystal ball" for their future, rather than for their past! Members of an on-going Gestalt group, who are trained in listening to their intuition and in limiting their projections, often paint a remarkably exact portrait. I will always remember a nun, Mother Superior in a convent, who came incognito, in very ordinary civilian clothing (having requested confidentiality, as she wished to deal with her sexual difficulties). The group immediately said "You remind me of an oldfashioned school teacher" … "Yes, a teacher in a religious school" … "I think you must be a nun!" … "Yes! You are the Mother Superior in a convent!" … etc. The group members thought they were joking… yet their intuition was remarkably accurate! Other examples are even more astounding: I cannot resist the pleasure to share two other specific occasions: "I see a tapestry on the wall in your home; you are embroidering a landscape, with a pond and some sheep, and a thread of white wool is hanging on the wall, with the ball of wool resting on the floor!" (The person concerned suspected a secret visit to investigate her home!) "You have a secret lover; no-one knows... It's the village potter; he lives in a small house away from the town and you visit him secretly at night…" Nobody did know, but the young woman thought she had entered a group of clairvoyants (thus the name of this game: "the crystal ball").

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The only explanation that I can offer to explain such (frequent) specific remarks, would be related to direct communication between the unconscious minds, some sort of thought transmission… But these phenomena remain unexplained by science – just as, witnessed in laboratory conditions, young babies dream not only at the same time as their mothers, but even the same sort of dreams (as seen with cerebral imaging techniques).

"Floating hot seat" Therapeutic sequences follow, at each person's request, in no particular order, depending on what emerges in the group. One person may work on something for 20 minutes, and after a general feedback, another follows and works on their own issues for 40 minutes; some express themselves with a phrase or two, about how they felt, others return to a major problem, already treated the previous month… Each is accompanied by the therapist(s); the other group members intervene mostly when asked, by either the client or the therapist. They express themselves freely after the therapeutic sequence, during the feedback. The client in the therapeutic sequence is not asked to sit in a particular place, for instance on a predetermined "hot seat": he begins where he is. This is called the "floating hot seat" (Polster, 1973). He may change places during the session, if necessary: finding the right distance, enacting a described situation, seeking a symbolic object, building a representative mini-sculpture (spectrogram), meeting with one or several of the group participants, etc. Of course, the therapist may also change places is this is appropriate: he may approach or move away from the client, or accompany him when he moves, etc. In practice, during most sessions, there are several changes of position and enactments. In our style of working at the EPG, it is rare that the whole session remains purely verbal and static, with each staying in his original seated position. Obviously, this style is better adapted to the group situation, and more difficult to apply in individual therapy.

"Limbic Opening" Thanks to neuropsychology research (Changeux, 1983; Vincent, 1986; Ginger, 1987; Damasio, 1994; Goleman, 1995; Ginger, 1995), we know now that physical movement solicits mainly the brain's right hemisphere.

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This right side is responsible for spatial orientation (while the left hemisphere manages temporal orientation). We also know that the right brain is more sensitive to emotions, and is in direct relation with the deep limbic zones – where emotional memories are stored (amygdala), and where memories and learning are treated (hippocampus). We also know that one of the basic emotions — joy, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, desire or surprise — is required for long-term memory storage. Thus, movement and emotion (from the Latin, "ex-movere" = to make a movement towards the exterior) participate in what I call "limbic opening" (Ginger, 1987), which allows the experience of the therapeutic session to be durably stored in the cerebral structures. Let us stress that verbalization is, in a way, the "subtitles" which favour subsequent access to the areas concerned, and continuation of the work already started. These recent neuroscientific discoveries explain and validate the usual sequence of events in Gestalt therapy: physical expression, emotions, verbalization of identification and sharing… as opposed to the traditional psychoanalytical order (verbal association, leading to a possible emotional feeling, with little physical involvement). Once again, we would like to underline how much easier and more natural it is to mobilize both body and emotion in a group situation, than in a dual interview setting.

The interpersonal approach Gestalt therapy groups add the interpersonal (interpsychic) aspect, fundamental in human relations, to the intrapersonal (intrapsychic) and transpersonal (spiritual) approaches : the importance of the former was emphasized by the British School of Object Relations (Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, etc.). In fact, many clients request psychotherapy not only to deal with internal uneasiness, but also (or mainly) because of relationship difficulties: marital or professional conflict, excessive shyness or difficulty with maintaining a clear position, poorly-contained irritability or aggressivity , etc. Group work facilitates experimentation (Clarkson, 1993) of such relational difficulties in situ, in the here-and-now of their natural or stimulated appearance; whereas individual therapy only allows for verbal references — reported after the fact, and altered, both consciously and unconsciously. We could, for example, observe or experiment with a young man's difficulty in approaching a woman; or the uneasiness, paralysis, suspicious

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aggression or excessive submission in a woman, when she is confronted with the slightest hint of male seduction. Such attitudes are often exacerbated by sexual traumatic events, sometimes explicit (rape, identified sexual abuse), sometimes less obvious, pre-conscious, repressed or even imagined. The therapist's work is not to establish accuracy of the events (which in any case is often in vain, and traumatic), but does necessitate in-depth exploration of the victim's subjective experience. This could include psychodramatic re-enactment (Ginger-Peyron, 1992), with simulated (and enacted) physical aggression, which awakens the invasive feelings of fear, panic, anger and often guilt. We usually suggest, with this sort of experience, a short sequence where the victim himself or herself enacts the attacker, so as to dissolve the deep neurological "imprints" of passive submission. The support of a familiar, close-knit, even "accomplice" group facilitates not only the enactment, but also a deep "plunge", within a secure environment — when there is well-integrated confidentiality. In addition, the percentage of sexually abused group members is generally higher than the victims imagine (25 – 40% in current French therapy groups) — which helps to dedramatise the event, and often diminishes shame and guilt. When one person evokes such abuse, it is not infrequent that many other participants touch on similar problems, which they may never have mentioned to anyone, for their whole life. The courage of a few, wins over the timidity or modesty of the others; our experience shows, contrary to what one might think, that sexual trauma is dealt with more easily in group therapy than in individual therapy — where the closeness and intimacy with the therapist may be paradoxically inhibiting. In general, the group situation facilitates controlled enactment, of not only aggressivity but also tenderness; both are at least difficult to handle, even forbidden in individual therapy, for obvious deontological reasons. Even if the therapist is very clear in his gestures and actions, it is impossible to exclude ambiguous or biased interpretation by the client. Many other relationship and social behaviour patterns require effective group presence, in order to be identified or experienced. For instance, the frequent tendency, which is quite unconscious — and so, neither worked on (nor lived through) in individual therapy — to "invade the territory" with constant remarks, in an overwhelming histrionic or narcissistic need. Similarly, some paranoid, masochistic or schizoid traits are more easily identified in a group setting than in individual work. A variety of collective techniques may be used: dance, sculpture, psychodrama, going round the group (where each says a phrase, or receives a personal message from the client) and, of course, a wide variety

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of personal development games and exercises. In practice we rarely use such techniques, except as short warm-up sequences. There are also exercises in duos or in small groups, such as the trust walk, making contact with the eyes closed, sensory awareness, games to stimulate awareness, exercises of choice, physical confrontation, territorial defence, carrying, rocking, jumping into emptiness, etc. These games are not programmed in advance, but are suggested to amplify or explore a new, emerging individual or group situation, and are adapted to each setting (Zinker, 1977). Finally, the group members can sometimes come out with what the therapist himself refrains from saying: "You are beginning to annoy me, with all your whining" … "Surely you're not going to carry on again, like you did last time" … "Oh shut up, give someone else a chance to speak!" … etc. The therapist can, if necessary, soften the overly-brutal truth… If the therapist is not alone, but co-leads with a colleague, each may take on a different role: one can provoke the client, whilst the other stays at his side; one can encourage him to act and the other, advocate waiting…

Cotherapy: confidence but not confluence It is clear that if two people co-lead a group — which is the norm, in on-going groups at the Ecole Parisienne de Gestalt — that it is not worthwhile if they always agree, and propose the same thing! We usually work with mixed therapeutic couples, a man and a woman. It is important that they understand each other well enough, and that there is sufficient trust, to cope with therapeutic discord — sometimes amplified — and let the client assume responsibility for his choices. One may be deliberately stimulating and provocative ("paternal"), and the other can show compassion and support ("maternal"). It is often interesting to swap roles, to avoid habituation and maintain the clients' freedom of choice. The two therapists can even "argue" publically in front of the client… This reminds him of his own daily life, both during his childhood and at present, and facilitates transferential projections (Petit, 1980). Lateral, fraternal-type transference also occurs, which is not unimportant. However our two co-therapists do not always work together: most of the time, the group is divided in two, each smaller group in a different room: some with the female therapist, the others with the male therapist, for the half-day (3-4 hours) session. After the morning, each participant chooses with whom he would like to work: he may either continue with the same therapist, or he may go with the other. He could even work through the same issue with a different therapist, for instance… We

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appreciate such richness and diversity of therapeutic vision and support, and we like the client to have freedom of choice (Ginger-Peyron, 1990). It goes without saying that in order to maintain therapeutic coherence, it is clearly stated that the two colleagues practice shared confidentiality, i.e. each informs the other of what he considers important. This obviously implies frequent discussion and coordination between the therapists, prior to each session and after each half-day. Such exchanges allow a coherent therapeutic strategy, as well as mutual, on-the-spot supervision.

So, what does individual therapy have to offer? Faced with the numerous advantages of individual Gestalt Therapy within the group setting, we may wonder what the individual therapy setting — which is more frequently practiced — has to offer. First of all, it is simpler to set up — for both therapist and client: appointment times and frequency are flexible, according to mutual availability, payment can be negotiated, the room does not need to be too large, etc. Above all, it is less intimidating for beginning clients: it is rare that they choose to expose their problems straight away to "strangers"; the initial demand is generally specifically individual, and confidential. Apart from such practical issues, are there specific indications for individual therapy? This choice may be made to protect the client, or protect the group: very shy people who would not dare speak in public, or those who have trouble expressing themselves: those with limited education, foreigners, stammerers, etc. Some professions are not well accepted in groups, due to negative a prioris, or on ideological grounds: psychiatrists, priests, nuns, politicians, police-men, prison guards, … The same applies to certain practices, especially pedophilia. In fact, it is difficult to treat sexual delinquents in an unprepared group. The group may also be contra-indicated for certain pathologies: aggressive paranoids can be hard to control in a group, as they try to control everything themselves, by criticizing every therapeutic proposition. Histrionics may attempt to use the group as witness to their difficulties, or deliberately dramatize to attract attention or sympathy. Major deppressives may be paralysed, overwhelmed by the effort required to take their place, and take time for their therapeutic sequence. Similarly, those suffering from social phobias, and those inhibited when they feel the eyes of another upon them.

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In general, care must be taken before offering group therapy to certain clients who are seriously disturbed… or who disturb the others! Nevertheless, with experienced therapists and adapted rhythm and methods, these are the clients who will gain the most benefit from the group setting — where they are confronted with social reality, and real relation-ships. Moreover, Gestalt in small groups is used in many psychiatric hospitals.

A potentiating cocktail Finally, our experience shows us that the richest format is a combination of individual and group therapy, with the advantages of both. We advise this, wherever possible, with the same therapist. For example: an intensive group workshop every month (16 hours or so), and a weekly 50-minute individual session. If the client lacks time or money, the individual sessions may be decreased to one session per month, between the groups, or even to occasional sessions (Perls, 1967). It is also possible to begin and end with a period of individual therapy, to prepare the client, and finish off. The basic idea is that group sessions can thus be brought up in detail, and explored more profoundly in individual therapy; at the same time, the therapist and the client can prepare together the following group session.

To illustrate "Next weekend, pay particular attention to your pre-contact with each person"; "Try to avoid waiting to the last minute before starting a therapeutic sequence"; "You could try to give more room to the others, and not always be the first to jump in"; "Be careful to stick to your own point of view, your own experience or feelings, rather than slipping into your usual confluence… and do not hesitate, if appropriate, to try this out with another participant".

It is obvious that although therapeutic sequences in the group are often discussed in individual sessions, the contrary is not the case, and these remain completely confidential and are never discussed by the therapist in the group, unless the client has previously agreed.

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Sometimes we welcome clients to the group who are in therapy elsewhere — even in another type of therapy — provided their therapist agrees. Some clients continue individual psychoanalysis, while they come to monthly Gestalt group workshops. However, we systematically refuse two simultaneous individual therapies (which would lead to transference dilution, and encourage deflection); we also refuse two parallel group therapies — which create loyalty issues which are more destructive than enriching. The combination of group therapy (including regular emotional and physical implication) and individual therapy (more verbal) with the same therapist allows, in practice, to significantly reduce the length of the therapy. We carried out a longitudinal study on 200 clients with common existential problems: difficulties in social, love or sexual relationships, post-traumatic disorders (following rape, attack, rejection, sudden abandon, etc.), marital conflict, chronic professional conflicts, unresolved bereavement, reactional depression following identifiable situations or events, etc. (Ginger, 1987). Significant, even spectacular improvement was seen, by the client's entourage, by the therapists and by the clients themselves, in two thirds of cases, within one year. This represents on average 100 hours of group therapy (6 weekends) and 40 hours of individual therapy (throughout the year, less holidays, illnesses and unpredictable events). These results are comparable to those we have seen after 2 or 3 years of individual therapy.

Conclusion The time has come to reinstate Gestalt therapy groups in their rightful place: having become fashionable in the 60s and 70s, they subsequently lost credibility because this therapeutic approach was sometimes poorly used, or over-used : problems included insufficiently-trained or unsupervised leaders, a lack of clear rules, poorly-managed groups, haphazardly constituted, with people of diverse motivation, sometimes a mini-society of fringe elements… We think that a coherent therapeutic strategy, with man-woman cotherapy and complementary individual sessions — frequent or otherwise — makes it possible to reduce the duration of, as well as enrich, therapy for a large majority of clients. Individual therapy within a group setting brings together traditional intrapsychic therapy, interpsychic therapy and relationship experimentation in the group's here-and-now. This combination can be used and modulated

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at will, with an integrative perspective including both Gestalt and the contemporary version of object-relation psychoanalysis (Delisle, 1998). Wider implication of the body and emotions — facilitated by the group setting — encourages group experiences to be durably imprinted in the deep neuronal circuits of the limbic brain (stimulation of production of neuromediators, and new synaptic liaison formation). This neurological hypothesis (Ginger, 1995) could explain these empirically observed results, which can be spectacular. Group therapy is thus doubly justified: It allows profound individual physiological imprinting It takes into consideration that man is above all a social being, inseparable from his cultural context (Perls, Hefferline, Goodman, 1951). The here-and-now of the present experience is influenced by the past, not only by personal and family history, but also and above all by History: the culturally-transmitted history of peoples and of humanity, which permeates myth and rite, and which makes sense of present experience, and imprints it within a permanent collective context (Cyrulnik, 1997).

References Cahiers de Gestalt-Therapie. No. 4. CGT, Paris, Oct. 1998. Le Groupe en Gestalt-Thérapie. (204 pages). Changeux J.P. (1983). L'homme neuronal. Fayard, Paris (420 p). Clarkson P. and Mackewn J. (1993). Fritz Perls. Sage, London, pp.131135; 165-167. Cyrulnik B. (1997). L'ensorcellement du monde. Odile Jacob; Paris. (310 p.) Damasio A. (1994). Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. Grosset/Putnam Books. French translation L'Erreur de Descartes. Odile Jacob, Paris, 1995. Delisle G. (1998). La relation d'objet en Gestalt thérapie. Le Reflet, Montréal. (390 p.) Fagan J. and Shepherdi L. (ed.) (1970). Gestalt Therapy now. Science and Behavior Books, New York. pp. 151-162, 299-311. Feder B. and Ronall R. (ed.) (1980). Beyond the Hot Seat: Gestalt Approaches to Group. Brunner & Mazel, New York. 260p. Ginger S. and A. (1987). La Gestalt, une thérapie du contact. Hommes et Groupes, Paris, 5th edition: 1994. 510 p. Ginger S. (1995). La Gestalt: l'art du contact. Marabout, Brussels. 3rd edition: 1997. 280 p.

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Ginger-Peyron A. (1990). La thérapie individuelle en groupe, In the journal Gestalt, No. 1, SFG, Paris, Autumn. pp.135-142. —. (1992). Pour un psychodrame gestaltiste, EPG documant No. 8, Paris. Golemen D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. French Translation L'Intelligence Emotionnelle. Laffont, Paris, 1997. (420 p.) Masquelier G. La Gestalt, in Guide des méthodes et pratiques en formation. Retz, Paris. pp. 146-157. —. (1998). L'appartenance tribale dans les groupes thérapeutiques lentement ouverts. In the Journal Gestalt No. 13-14, SFG, Paris, May 1998, pp. 131-144. —. (1999). Vouloir sa vie: la Gestalt-thérapie aujourd'hui. Retz, Paris. pp. 105-108. Perls F., Hefferline R, Goodman P. (1951). Gestalt Therapy. Julian Press, New York. Perls F. (1967). Group vs. Individual Therapy, in Gestalt is, ed. by John Stevens. Real People Press, 1975. pp. 9-15. Petit M. (1980). La Gestalt, thérapie de l'ici et maintenant. Retz, Paris. pp. 100-117. Polster E. and M. (1973). Gestalt Therapy integrated. Brunner & Mazel, New York. French Translation: La Gestalt: Nouvelles perspectives théoriques… Le Jour, Montréal (1983). pp. 293-315. Ranjard P. (1998). Gestalt et groupe. In the Journal Gestalt No. 13-14, SFG, Paris, May 1998. pp. 145-178. Vincent J. D. (1986). Biologie des Passions. Odile Jacob, Paris. (352 p.) Wollants G. (1996). Gestalt-thérapie DE groupe. In the journal Gestalt No. 10, SFG, Paris, Summer 1996, pp. 105-144. Zinker J. (1997). Creative process in Gestalt Therapy. Vintage Books. French Translation: Se créer par la Gestalt. Ed. de l'Homme, Montréal, 1981. pp. 226-267.

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Response to “Gestalt Therapy Groups: Why?” by Serge and Anne Ginger Jon Frew, Ph.D. In “Gestalt Therapy Groups: Why?” Serge and Anne Ginger describe and illustrate a style of practicing Gestalt therapy in a group setting that has been refined over 28 years of clinical practice. The authors make a powerful case for the combination of a group and individual approach to hasten and enrich the “treatment” of many clients. They also argue that “the time has come to reinstate Gestalt therapy groups in their rightful place,” having lost credibility since the 1960’s and the 1970’s. There are many facets of this article that impressed me. The authors establish their authority and credibility immediately when they detail how many groups they have led since the 1970’s. This is an impressive resume in an era when many Gestalt therapists report that they are doing fewer and fewer groups. I also appreciated the authors’ attention to confidentiality, integration of both the relational (or interpersonal) and the individual (or intrapersonal) levels of experience and development of coherent therapeutic strategy which involves male/female co-therapy in the group and complimentary individual sessions. There is an old saying here in the U.S. “there are many ways to skin a cat.” Having a cat (and a dog and a hamster), I don’t like the image it evokes; however, it leads me to say, “There are many ways to practice Gestalt therapy in a group setting.” Historically, the group has been the vessel in which the fundamentals of Gestalt therapy have been taught, developed, demonstrated and debated...from Manhattan to Cleveland, to Esalen, to Paris; from the hot seat to the beyond the hot seat, to the floating hot seat to no seats at all! The authors have certainly staked out an approach and a style of Gestalt which by their report has longitudinally proven impact and effectiveness. There is a question of exactly what to call their approach. Even the authors seem to have different terms. In their conclusion they use the phrases, “Gestalt therapy groups,” “individual therapy within a group setting,” and “group therapy.” This is reminiscent of the terminology debate which Fritz Perls eventually clarified when he stated (1966) that he was not doing group therapy when he used his workshop/demonstration model. The authors distinguish their model, which involves individual therapy within the group, as compared to groups, which is centered on process or group phenomena in which the group is considered client. From reading, Gingers’ approach is individually centered and the therapists

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carry the primary responsibility as agents of change, contact and awareness. Group members are limited in how and when they can be involved. Despite the individual focus, the authors cite examples of members expressing themselves freely after therapeutic sequences, participating in psychodramatic enactments and saying provocative things to the “client” that the therapist refrains from saying. These type of contacts inevitably create process issues, and it is unclear the degree to which the authors attend to interpersonal dynamics that are not related to a designated member who is at that moment engaged in individual therapy work. Finally, although the authors state that they do not focus on group phenomena, there are several references to the group as a secure environment which facilitates controlled enactment. My point is that group leaders often choose one dimension of phenomena that occur in groups, but the other dimensions are inevitably interwoven. Serge and Anne Ginger focus on individual therapy in their groups, but they have also found creative ways to take full advantage of some of the interpersonal and group level dynamics which occur in all groups. The purist in me would prefer they call their approach “Gestalt therapy in groups” or individual therapy within a group setting. The anarchist in me recognizes that they can call what they do whatever they want and clearly they have mastered a model or approach that is very powerful regardless of what it is called. A more significant concern I would raise in reviewing this article is the degree to which the authors’ approach adheres to the fundamentals of phenomenology and dialogue which are two of the cornerstones (the other being field theory) of our theory and method. There are several references to techniques, usual practices and games that leave me to believe the authors’ style pushes, aims or directs their clients. For example, having a sexual trauma victim enact the attacker to dissolve deep neurological imprints of passive resistance or moving beyond verbal exchange to movement and emotion to facilitate “limbic” opening, which allows the therapy experience to be durably stored in the cerebral structures. The authors go as far as to define the “usual sequence of events in Gestalt therapy” as physical expression, emotion, verbalization of identification and sharing. Co-therapists in groups will deliberately play out “good cop, bad cop” roles and then switch to “avoid habituation and maintain the client’s freedom of choice.” These examples are contrary to a Gestalt therapy in which attention to awareness and contacting supports a “next step” emerging which the therapist follows and explores rather than a next step being aimed at by the

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therapist. In a phenomenological approach new clients to the group would be able to describe their own experience rather than be projected upon by group members, as in the crystal ball game, before they can reveal themselves. In a phenomenological and dialogic approach the sequence of events in Gestalt therapy could vary widely, experiments would replace usual practices, and discovery would replace destination. I have not sat in these groups. I believe that very powerful therapy and personal development occurs and that is why their clients improve and why this group model has lasted and prospered for 28 years. Perhaps, the therapy which occurs in these group situations is more phenomenological and less hierarchical than the Gingers’ article would lead the reader to believe. A Supreme Court justice in the U.S. once said, “I don’t know how to define pornography, but I certainly know it when I see it.” I don’t know how to define Gestalt therapy, but I know it when I see it. With the Ginger model, I’m just not sure.

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Answer to Jon Frew, PhD Serge Ginger As I said before to Bud, we really don't know how to call our groups in English. It could be “Individual Gestalt therapy within a group setting” — but that's very long and not completely exact, because, of course, the group setting is also used. Before practicing Gestalt Therapy, we practiced classical Group Dynamics for about 15 years and we're used to an awareness of different kinds of group processes and interpersonal dynamics. We allow some spontaneous interventions of the participants, but we limit them; perhaps, our article did not give a clear view of these two interwoven aspects of our work. In our style, the therapist is active and interactive, but not "directive;" h/she follows the direction chosen by the client, but he does it with personal involvement — controlled during regular supervision meetings. Before practicing Gestalt Therapy, we were classical Freudian psychoanalysts; then, we discovered the Rogerian approach. So, we deeply understand the Perls’ provocative statement about “apathy, empathy and sympathy ." We don’t want to “push” our client, but we take the risk of supporting him or her in trying different experiments, in different new directions h/she is not accustomed to explore. We agree with the three “cornerstones” you point out : phenomenology, dialogue and field theory… and we invite you, with great pleasure, to participate in one of our annual summer intensive residential workshops for psychotherapists, in the South of France, to taste not “the” but “our” French Gestalt Therapy approach! Thanks again for your interest.

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A Response to "Gestalt Therapy Groups: Why?" by Serge and Anne Ginger Bud Feder, Ph.D. I grew up a liar and deceptive. I lied a lot to my parents for what I considered necessary self-protection [my 'creative adjustment to a difficult situation'...PHG]. I liked the results so much that I broadened my scope and exaggerated deceptively to one and all. No one seemed to notice [except me] and the benefits were numerous. Later I lied in my marriage...and the results were eventually catastrophic. When I finally embarked on self-awareness and self-improvement at around age 40, becoming "an honest person" became a major goal. Nowadays most people consider me to be one, though honestly I still lie and exaggerate at times. [I am comforted though by Hamlet, who says "To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand" -Act II, Scene 2]. No doubt you are wondering about this confessional opening; it is to warn you that I may be over-reacting to some deceptiveness in an otherwise interesting article by Serge and Anne Ginger. I will get my sulk out of the way immediately and then go on to further observations. To begin with, the title of the article is "Gestalt Therapy Groups: Why?". To me this suggests Gestalt Group Therapy as one (most, we) generally thinks of it. However this article is not at all about your typical course of group therapy [Gestalt or otherwise], which usually consists of a session once a week for one and one-half to two hours. I have informally surveyed a dozen or so therapists (mostly Gestalt) in my neighborhood and to a person that is what they all think of when they think of ongoing group therapy. Perhaps it is different in France or Europe. In any case, the group therapy that the Gingers refer to in their article is another horse: namely once every two months for two to four days. This is a very interesting and provocative model, and I think the title of the article should have unequivocally reflected that. Toward the end of the article, where they pursue the "Why?" part of their title, the authors state "The combination of group therapy (including regular emotional and physical implication) and individual therapy (more verbal) with the same therapist allows, in practice, to significantly reduce the length of the therapy" [italics theirs]. They go on to report a longitudinal study they made (Ginger, 1987) on 200 clients "with common existential problems" [italics theirs]. The study reports that "Significant, even spectacular improvement was seen" in two-thirds of the clients who participated in their program: six bimonthly group weekends per year

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combined with weekly individual therapy by one of the two group therapists (the groups are all co-led). They further compute that during this year each client had 100 hours of group therapy and 40 hours of individual, for a total of 140 hours. They then conclude, "These results are comparable to those we have seen after 2 or 3 years of individual therapy" [italics theirs, underlining mine]. Now I am not a sophisticated researcher, yet I see at least one, maybe two bright red flags here. If the average client is seen for forty hours per year in individual therapy, then two years equals 80 hours and three years, 120. In either case that's fewer hours than the 140 in their program above. So what's suggested here is not that the length of therapy is reduced, but that 120 hours of therapy gets the same results as 120 hours of therapy, however it is distributed. Perhaps three times a week of individual therapy for one year (120 hours) would get the same results as their program. We don't know that. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, the whole research lacks any meaningful control group. A more sophisticated research person is needed here, yet that's the way it looks to me. I am suspicious of the "we have seen" a few lines above. It appears that these outcome measures were purely subjective, and of course made by the interested parties. The best we can say is that their program has interesting possibilities. And I want to end this section of the review by making clear that I am not accusing the Gingers of lying; if there is deception, it includes self-deception, quite understandable considering the enormous amount of energy they must put into their weekend program. And as one who has led numerous marathons, I applaud them for that. All that said, here is a summary of their article: they describe their way of working, the setting, the conditions, some innovative techniques, their overall therapeutic style in the extended groups, a rationale for the use of Gestalt groups, a discussion of the cotherapist factor and finally make a case for their "cocktail" approach, that is the mix of extended bimonthly groups with ongoing individual therapy. I found the article a mix: mostly valid and interesting ideas and a few wacky ones. To begin with, they are in the tradition of Fritz Perls - with a variation. Whereas Fritz in his "Group v. Individual Therapy" (1967) made a case for dispensing with individual therapy altogether, their case is for a combination of the two with group therapy having a special place in the armamentarium because "all kinds of problems can be worked on in a group situation, whereas many cannot be efficiently treated in an individual therapy setting" [italics theirs]. They base this claim on the fact that the group setting allows for more bodywork and more of a social laboratory. Although this is true, I think it is probably also true that some problems are worked with more effectively in individual than group.

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Their setting for the frequent weekend workshops is away from the city ("in the country") and is residential. This of course is quite demanding on clients' time, money and energy and provides a tribute to the Gingers that they can inspire such dedication. The authors describe many of their approaches and rules for their groups. Some seem innovative and useful to me (such as the "crystal ball" they use when there are newcomers: old members guess about the be person. "She's a nun”; or "You own a dog"; or "You like tapestries" etc. According to the authors, these intuitions are astonishingly accurate; then they ruin it by attributing this to "direct communication between the unconscious minds".) I found some of their rules very rigid, and, certainly, they wouldn't fit me as a leader. For example, participants may not broach another person's work to her/him in the group or out lest the latter feel "branded for ever, followed around by his problem". I don't get that. The discussion of the work itself rang solid if familiar, and at times obvious to the point of banality; the same for the section on therapy and the one on the benefits of group (experimentation, opportunity for psychodrama, group support) and the one on the benefits of individual (simpler, safer, more controllable). The authors go pretty far out on a limbic limb by claiming their work promotes "physiological imprinting in the deep neuronal circuits of the limbic brain". Whether that is true or not, certainly their approach - their cocktail of frequent weekend extended groups combined with weekly individual therapy - is a powerful drink. SUMMARY: Serge and Anne Ginger have written an interesting article on their dedicated use of frequent extended group therapy. Their approach has some generalization to typical group therapy, although their conclusions about its exceptional effectiveness are based on shaky rationale. I think they could do a better service to the community by writing about their extended approach in a more focused manner. For instance, what is it like for a group member to dedicate two to four days every other month to an ongoing residential group with the same people away from home? What is the impact of this residential approach? What does this add to the "hours" tallied up, for I imagine a good deal of growth and experimentation takes place between sessions as well as during them? Perhaps they could inspire more people to try this approach, keeping in mind the tremendous commitment it requires of both therapists and group members.

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References Ginger, S. and A. (1987) La Gestalt une therape du contact. Hommes et Groupes, Paris, 5 edition: 1994 Perls, F. (1967) Group v. Individual Therapy. Etc. A Review of General Semantics, 24, 306-312.

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Answer to Bud Feder Serge Ginger In spite of the fact that my English is poor, I try to write a short answer to your comments about our article on “Gestalt Therapy groups”. I hope Phil and you will correct the main language mistakes and understand me nevertheless. Of course, we practice frequently classical ongoing group therapy (usually 3 hours during an evening, every two weeks), but here we emphasize another format which is very successful in France since 25 years, because of its deep effect, that is an intensive residential week end workshop (15 hours) every month, or a three days workshop (20 hours) every six weeks. You’re right, we don’t know how to call such format in English? In Paris School of Gestalt (EPG), our staff run 12 such ongoing monthly groups in different towns, since many years and they received some thousands participants since we began. Of course, the residential setting allows more involvement and the various shared life moments between the official sessions are also a part of the “ work ”. The therapists have frequent unformal individual and group contacts with clients during these “ free time ”. Unfortunately, we are not equipped for a scientific research with a control group and external neutral researchers from a university. The appreciation is clearly intersubjective : feelings of the client him or herself, of the two therapists and of the group. Quite often, we have also a feed back of friends, colleagues or partners, especially when they ask to participate in another such therapeutic group because they have been struck and impressed by the improvement of their friends or partner — which is not exceptional. In France, it’s difficult to practice physical contact within an individual session, because of ethical concerns, but it’s allowed within a group setting — where clients can experiment tenderness and aggression within their bodies and then express verbally their deep or repressed feelings around their needs. Different neuroscientific research have shown the impact of such emotional experiences on neurotransmitters and brain functioning (Laborit 1979, Changeux 1983, Vincent 1986, Jouvet 1992, but also Rossi 1987, Damasio 1993, 1999, etc.). We have been touched by your attentive reading of our hypothesis.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN1 THOUGHTS ON MUSIC: WHY WE HAVE IT, WHY WE DO IT, AND WHY WE LIKE IT2 JOHN WYMORE

I can't be sure of this, but it may be that my first experience of music, the first time I was fascinated by it, was sometime between the age of birth and 3, when my Dad was playing the accordion and singing. My actual memory starts about the age of three. I remember Ciribiribin (which he sang), Estudiantil, and Roll Out the Barrel. Then later at night, in the basement I might hear Grandpa, my mother's father, playing a concertina and singing Czech folk songs. Somewhere along that time, I learned my first song from the radio. It was Tumblin' Tumble Weed. That's right the original Sons of the Pioneers. Man, I still love that song. "I'll keep rollin' along, pledgin' my love to the ground, here on the range I belong, drifitn' along like a tumblin' tumble weed." The words evoke melancholy and a fatalistic contentment. The melody is surprisingly harmonized in a major key yet supports the sort of dark and lonely feel of the song. The first really emotional experience that had to do with music (other than hating to practice) was as a performer. This was a time when kids in the Midwest were usually in accordion bands. Not me; I played marimba. And by the age of eight I had a modest reputation and actually had become a fairly seasoned performer. So here I was playing a gig (a word not in my vocabulary at the time. It would have been scandalous) for a PTA meeting 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 4(1), 2000.

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at Edgewood Number 3 a small school in rural Iowa. I was doing my best encore number, Hungarian Dance No.5, which features emotionally contrasting sections going from the exuberant to the lugubrious. I was in the lugubrious part when a twelve year old girl in the front row turned to her friend and said "He's cute". Everyone in the auditorium heard it. I blushed; looked up from the keys and totally lost my place as well as my composure. I stopped playing. My accompanist, the only one in the auditorium who didn't know what had happened, looked up at me to see what was going on; but in her attempt to keep playing she lost it. It was disaster. We started over about where we had left off. My face was still burning, and I didn't dare lift my eyes from those rosewood keys and my bamboo mallets. The piece ends with a vivace section and I had been taught to finish with a flourish. The parents and teachers loved it - gave us a standing-O. I bowed and did not look at those two girls. Here are some other experiences: • I'm In the Mood For Love. It was high school and for Bonnie and me , that was OUR song. (Give me a break. It was 1950.) • In a weekend group somewhere, sometime, blindfolded, lying on the floor, listening to Pendorecki. Someone went into hysterics. • Salvatore Roquet and Stanasloff Graff discovered that you could use music, breathing and disgusting visuals to send people on bummers. You didn't need LSD. • Driving down La Cienega Boulevard a Brandenburg brings me to tears. • I can actually conduct Corialon and Egmont. What fun • The thrill of my voice in harmony with others singing Palestrina, Bach, or Cole Porter • Wagner makes me forget his racism • Bernedette Peters singing Sondheim. I, my wife, and a packed Covent Garden are in love with her. • Salsa sabrosa, rumberos (oye mi gua-gua co) , ritmo caliente What actually is happening in these examples? Certain modules of the brain are responding to inputs from the environment. What kind of inputs? Lyrlcs, certain notes (i.e.. pitches), intervals (pitch difference between successive notes), certain qualities of the note (timbre), rhythm, and complex aspects of performance. Lyrics obviously suggest activity in language mechanisms. But what about the contours and sequences of various pitches, setting lyrics aside. Psycholinguists like Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker have established convincingly that there is a Universal Grammar. Leonard Bernstein was the first to propose that there is a Universal Musical Grammar and it has

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since been supported by other theorists. It is logical to assume that all auditory systems in the animal kingdom evolved in accordance with the physics of harmony, specifically the overtone series. This would explain why there seems to be a degree of accessibility in all the worlds music cultures. The chromatic scale, and 7-tone scales of European music, is based on the overtone series and so is the pentatonic scale, which is the base for so much of the rest of the world's music. However, Pinker points out, "The metrical structure of strong and weak beats, the intonation contour of rising and falling pitch, and the hierarchical grouping of phrases within phrases all work in similar ways in language and in music." Music from various traditions has a conversational quality to it - making statements, revising them, making asides, listening to a response, and coming to a conclusion. Attempts to abandon this idea, that music carries a complex message, may be a way of understanding Avant grade or "free" jazz. The escape is from any constraints imposed by melodic or rhythm patterns, thus making music as UNLIKE language as possible. Here's an interesting thing: Part of the neural circuit that controls birdsong in the canary are two descending motor pathways to the voice box (syrinx). They mediate song production., as opposed to, say, song learning. The left descending pathway plays a more important role in singing than does the right, duplicating the left-hemisphere dominance in humans. A single pitch sounded alone is seldom evocative. Although it is said that people with perfect pitch are not necessarily blessed. They go around in a constant state of annoyance because musical notes are seldom really "true". The notes in the scales known in Indian music as ragas (the Random House Webster's refers to them as formulas which may be a better word than scale) have specific pitches but the improvisational technique both instrumentally and vocally can vary within a certain range in accordance with the esthetic judgment of the performer. Most cultures seem to like precise intonation but also like to experiment with it. Intervals between notes is what gives music its shape - in fact, its essential criteria. I used to have a friend who, when drunk, stoned, tripping (or all three), would loudly proclaim to whomever he imagined was listening, "The basis of all Western Music is the resolution of the tri-tone !" Try this: play F and B (or B and F, it doesn't matter). Notice that the two notes are exactly 3 full steps apart. For me it's a slightly weird sound. I think it's Night On Bald Mountain (maybe it's The Sorcerer's Apprentice) that opens up with the orchestra playing a two tri-tone figure each a tritone apart. It's what you hear if you play B-F followed by F-B below.

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Anyhow something needs to happen with that sound, it needs resolution, it demands that the other shoe drop. Play F and B or B and F together then play a G underneath it. Sound all three notes together. What you have there is a G7 chord. It is known as the dominant in the key of C. Let your fingers go to C on the bottom then E and G. You can add another C on top. Ahhh, home. Now. Play the tri-tone again but this time but D-flat (or Csharp) in the base. This is called a substitute dominate. Bring it home, CE-G-C. Same sensation. Isn't that cool? The reason is that the tri-tone remains the same in G7 as in D-flat7. Blues and jazz pianists will sometimes play tri-tones in the left hand , that is omitting a tonic (home) note in the base. This makes for a slightly, edgy, urbane sounding blues. Here's a pretty well-known interval. Select any two notes a half step apart in a low register. Play them alternately. If you've seen the movie, you'll know what that evokes. One of the best courses I've ever had was Ethnomusicology 101 at UCLA which had just established a full academic department in Ethnomusicology. The professor was the late Richard Waterman an anthropologist from Wayne State. He had just come back from field work in North Arnhemland Australia and by then could qualify as one of the few experts in the world on music of the aborigines. The people, he said, only recognized two pitches in the didjerido, but they had words for 12 different timbres. Any rendition was recognized and appreciated by that criteria. The human voice, however, has the ability to produce an incredible range of timbre as well as pitch. Male and female humans are obviously dimorphic in voice quality as well as other aspects of the body. I don't know how this gets played out in the animal kingdom. Is music ever without rhythm? It seems to me that it is not. But I may need some help here. Certain pieces of music both instrumental and vocal may carry the direction, ad lib or rubato, but all that means is that the performer is free to choose whatever patterns he or she wishes. I can't imagine myself being a-rhythmic. Music necessarily has a pulse like speech and the placement of accents tends to fall into repeated patterns. Free jazz and atonal, or serial music (without a feeling of home) have seldom awakened a sense of appreciation in me. Not only is rhythm often the most compelling part of music, but also quite often that's all there is. It would seem that rhythmic music taps directly into the system of motor control. Interestingly, tasks that are repetitive or that require coordinated movement have tended to inspire a song to accompany the rhythmic movement, for example , railroad workers (gandy dancers) and deck hands on sailing ships. It's not just

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athletes and musicians who know the pleasure of being "in a groove" or "in the flow". I believe that performance is an important part of any search for meaning in music. Music is something that is produced to be heard and responded to. A virtuoso performance can be seductive, intimidating, or applauded by a significant and influential portion of the community, thus giving the wood thrush mating opportunities, the redwing territorial control, or the pop star social status - which comes back around to mating opportunities, particularly opportunities with the potential of good genetic outcomes. So have we come to an ultimate - that is, evolutionary - explanation for music? Darwin felt that human music grew out of our ancestor's mating calls. That would suggest that music actually was an adaptation and therefor evolved qua music. Steven Pinker doesn't think so. "As far as biological cause and effect are concerned, music is useless," he asserts. He sees no Darwinian goals such as long life, grandchildren, or increased ability to predict or understand the world. What does my personal phenomenology reveal? Like children everywhere and forever I learned the meaning of my mother's volume changes and pitch modulations very early. I could interpret them, evoke them, and respond to them. Besides human speech other variable sequences of sounds that were common in my life were farm animals, wild birds, weather sounds (wind and rain). I learned to tell if the cow was mooing to be fed, milked, or bred. It was a matter, of pitch, timbre, and rhythm. The cluck of a hen with chicks, the hysterical cackle if the fox was on the town. The soft rise and fall of a turtle doves call. The constant chirping of the sparrows in the barn. Still in the barn: The buzzing of flies caught in spider webs. The summer storms with great crashes, howling winds, and the rain on the roof like a very tight snare drum. The sparrows grow silent just before the storm. Later in my life the tremolo of the loon, the triplets of the white throated sparrow, and the descending arpeggios of the wood thrush and the canyon wren. The incredible vocalizations of ravens, the chorusing of robins, the cry of the red-tail, there are owls that actually ask "who? who?" and others that bark like a dog. Wolves howl in concert. Whales may intentionally be composing what we call songs. Elephants, we have recently learned send deeply pitched rumblings long distances across the Savannah. Humans can't even hear them. In the Stone Age these phenomena were not mere curiosities or wonderments. Sight and sound gave us cues and clues to help determine which of the four f's a strange human or a possible predator might be

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intending: fighting, fleeing, feeding, or sex. In short the brain evolved to make complex distinctions in the quality and direction of sounds in the environment and eventually to manufacture its own set of sounds to send back. The evidence presently suggests that by 60,000 years ago Neanderthals had language3. An important piece of evidence is the hyoid bone which in Neanderthals is identical in shape and location to modern man. The hyoid bone serves as the anchor for throat muscles that, in humans, are important in speaking. But It also increases the risk of choking. Along with the descended hyoid appears an increase in brain size which also carries considerable cost, e.g., energy consumption and heat generation. What benefits might have compensated for these costs? Language, tool use, and social maneuvering. Was there music yet? No one knows. Which is fortunate, because we can speculate freely. It seems to me that the only really melodious signals among animals are produced by birds. (A bold statement; there are probably spectacular exceptions). This is inevitably associated with mating rituals and rich coloration especially but not exclusively in males. Such mimicry rituals are commonly witnessed today in ethnic dances. No one as far as I know has observed any animal making a tool for the purpose of producing sounds, in other words a musical instrument. One would look among primates, since it is now well known that they make tools. However mimicry is common among animals, and the purposes of deception vary. It may be for the purpose of protection, as the monarch butterfly, for the purpose of luring food, as in the angler fish, and for the purpose of mating as in sneaky fuckers (actually a technical term for male sticklebacks masquerading as females as well as similar behavior in other animals). I am discussing the sounds that animals make in terms of mimicry because my speculations lead me to a scenario where humans or humanoids developed a practical and eventually an esthetic appreciation of bird song. Can any animal other than humans whistle like the birds? Language or the ability to make different sounds with different pitches enabled humans to mimic mating calls, distress calls, and territorial signals all with the purpose to draw prey. They must have tried it out on themselves for Darwinian fun and profit. So here it is - music - so powerful, so evocative, so universal, so woven through with the thread of sexuality and courtship. How could this not be adaptive. How could this not in some way support Darwinian 3

The 60,000 year figure only marks an observation made of Neanderthal bones. (which is generally placed within homo sapiens). Language may have actually emerged in homo habilis 2 million years ago.

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fitness? Still Steven Pinker sees no Darwinian goals such as long life, grandchildren, or increased ability to predict or understand the world I'm not so sure. Long life? Well, I would venture to say that individuals who sing and dance are more healthy, and part of performance may be to signal good health (i.e., good genes). Female canaries know that; so male canaries devise and rehearse new songs during the off season to better impress the ladies in the coming spring. Virtuosity itself may be an adaptation. Mocking birds don't seem to attract robins, cardinals, and catbirds, just other mocking birds. Have they evolved an appreciation for repertory? Music can restructure the ground, shape the field, provide the context. Music makes the line drawn between organism-environment vibrate according to the laws of physics. Music is a manipulation at the contact boundary. If you're sending music or if you're receiving music total energy must be committed. Here is where the term "creative adjustment at the contact boundary" is preferred to "resistance" or "interruptions". You must not be distracted from the production of your tone or the intensity of your listening. So your selective deflection is relentless. Introjections about making an ass of your self or wasting time are overcome. Projections are used in service of the excitement not to curtail it. Retroflection with awareness is used to heighten tension then release Confluence with exquisite awareness and attention is the purpose. All this is true even if you're just singing in the shower.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN1 DIALOGUE AND BEING2 COLIN R. PURCELL-LEE, PH.D.

Introduction Clarkson (1990) identifies the nature and centrality of the client therapist relationship as a critical factor in successful therapy. She asserts that there are “five different kinds of psychotherapeutic relationship which may be potentially available for constructive use in psychotherapy; namely: the Working Alliance; the Transferential / Countertransferential Relationship; the Reparative/Developmentally Needed Relationship; the IYou Relationship; and the Transpersonal Relationship. According to Clarkson (ibid.) these five “modalities” can act as an integrative framework for different traditions (or approaches) of psychotherapy in spite of seemingly irreconcilable differences or popular stereotypes. Other writers (Marcel, 1949; Jung, 1964; Heron, 1992) have identified deep relationship and, despite some measure of disagreement relating to the characteristics of such a relationship, they are apparently describing a similar phenomenon. In this regard, Marcel contends (Schilpp and Friedman, 1967) that in the presence of human beings, there is created among them, let us not say even a field of forces, but a creative milieu in which each finds possibilities of renewal. Many commentators attempt to simplify or systematise the I-Thou relationship in therapy. Examples of this approach to the I-Thou relationship include Gestalt Therapy (Perls, 1950s), Client-Centered Therapy (Rogers, 1951; 1957; 1961; 1969; 1980 and 1983); Existential Psychotherapy (Boss, 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 4(2), 2000.

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1957, 1979; May, 1958, 1969, 1983; Binswanger, 1963; Macquarrie, 1972; Smail, 1978; Yalom, 1980; Deurzen-Smith, 1988); Transactional Analysis (Berne, 1973) and Robert Hobson”s Conversational Model of Psychotherapy (1985). These approaches to the I-Thou relationship have invariably led to Buber’s concepts being misunderstood and misinterpreted in the counselling and psychotherapy literature. It has to be asserted at the outset that the nature of the I-Thou relationship defies objective, empirical conceptualisation. Buber himself suggests a personal approach to the clarification of the I-Thou relationship that focuses on the lived experience of the person. This approach suggests more than simply reading I and Thou. The reader who wishes to traverse the unique terrain that Buber describes has to clarify the I-Thou relationship, and grapple with its message, in terms of his/her own lived experience.

The Educative Relationship: The “Will to Power” versus Eros? Historically, the process of education may be seen as oscillating between two opposing worldviews. On the one hand there is the traditional, authoritarian tendency that ideologically is predicated on the will to power while on the other hand there is the modern educational theory that is predicated on Eros (Buber, 1965). The former seems to be concerned with the transmission of traditional knowledge and assured values while the aim of the latter is “freedom”. The relationship between Eros and the Will to Power [power over], is noted by Jung (1966) when he says that “where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other.” Although these apparently disparate views regarding education are simplistic ones, they are perhaps of value in disclosing ideological positions and patterns of thought that are recognisable in education today. These apparently conflicting either-or’s seem to be enduring descriptions of a battle between objectivism and subjectivism. In education, the will to power stresses the importance of classical, scientific and technical knowledge, while Eros emphasises the validity of subjective knowledge, where education is held to be a process that seeks to liberate and develop the creative potential of students. Both the will to power and Eros would seem to have at least one thing in common: the dominance of the subject-object relationship. Knowledge derived exclusively from the subject-object relationship may be seen as fragmented I-It knowledge. From the perspective of the will to power, the student may either be perceived as a passive receiver or object of

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traditional knowledge to be poured in from above, while in Eros, he or she is assumed to have innate capacities that may be developed. Both of these theoretical positions appear historically in Buber to broadly approximate to those found in Confucius and Socrates (Cohen 1983). For Buber, the contrasting of “old” and “new” educational principles simply in terms of the will to power and Eros is problematic. He maintains that In fact the one is as little a principle of education as the other . . . Eros and the will to power are alike passions of the soul . . . Education . . . for them only an incidental realm . . . which sets limits to their elaboration; nor can this limit be infringed without the realm itself being destroyed (Buber 1965, p. 93).

Buber asserts, moreover, that when the magical validity of tradition disappears (as it does in postmodernism), the teacher may arrive at the moment where he is no longer an ambassador of traditionally assured knowledge and values, but faces his students as an individual; in the reality of his life he is thrown back on himself, cast on his own resources (ibid.). At this moment, neither the will to power nor Eros can solely be relied upon. Buber maintains (ibid.) moreover that the realm of education is too important a responsibility that is entrusted to us for our influence but not, however, our interference.

The Eros of Inclusion Both the will to power and Eros are not so separated that no bridge can be flung from them to it, what matters, according to Buber (ibid.) is the threshold and the transformation which takes place on it. The transformation that Buber refers to arises from what he calls Inclusion, i.e. the educator simultaneously experiencing his or her own and the other person’s side. This experience shatters the assurance of the erotic as well as the cratetic [i.e. cynical] man. The process does not eliminate the single instinct of Eros nor the will to power, rather it reverses its system of direction. The I-Thou relationship engages the whole person in experiencing an event from the side of the other person as well as from one’s own side: Buber (1947) calls this feature inclusion, or, making the other person truly present. For Buber, inclusion is where the real process of education begins and on which it is based. Buber (ibid.) apparently does not mean that the person who has had such an experience would have this two-sided sensation in every such meeting. Rather, that the one extreme experience makes the other person present to him/her for all time. It is an experience

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where a transfusion has taken place after which a mere elaboration of subjectivity is never again possible. According to Buber, in these circumstances Only an inclusive power is able to take the lead; only an inclusive Eros is love. Inclusiveness is the complete realization of the submissive person, the desired person, the “partner”, not by the fancy but by the actuality of the being (Buber 1965, p. 97).

Where inclusion is present in a relationship, Buber calls that relationship a dialogical one. Significantly, it is “the Eros of inclusion” that Buber calls love. An inclusive love is to be differentiated from feelings of love which reside within each partner. This is the love of a subject (myself) for an object (another self). However, an inclusive love (Buber, 1967), is one that witnesses to existence. It is a total acceptance. One accepts the other person as he or she is, wholly. Feelings of love, of which empathy might be an expression, are qualitatively different to a love that witnesses to existence. Kaufmann (1967) considers Buber’s description of love to be a love of human beings that predisposes one to sense their wants and to bear their grief. According to Friedman (1967) love in Buber’s sense is a supra-individual reality between the two [partners]. This “betweeness”, however, is to be understood primarily as the responsibility of an I for a Thou and not just to him. In the I-Thou relationship, therefore, it becomes clear that an inclusive love is at work. Kristiansen (1996) and the Danish philosopher and theologian, Knud E. Løgstrup, describe the ineffective and demeaning nature of dispensing I-It knowledge and that forms of genuine dialogue more appropriate for the classroom promote greater retention, higher student and teacher satisfaction. Stewart (ibid.) contextualises these themes in terms of an enhanced sense of ethical community. Both Kristiansen and Løgstrup describe a relational philosophical anthropology and a complementary ethics grounded in existential trust. Løgstrup’s concept of the “ethical” appears to be similar to that of Buber’s in terms of authentic being and valuing. Løgstrup reminds us of Buber’s exhortation to the teacher to trust, trust in the world, because this human being exists - that is the most inward achievement of relation in education. Because this human being exists, meaninglessness, however hard pressed you are by it, cannot be the real truth. Because this human being exists, in the darkness the light lies hidden, in fear salvation, and in the callousness of one’s fellow-men the great Love (Buber 1947, pp. 125-6).

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Buber saw the teacher’s work as that of bringing about a rebirth in the child. He maintains that the educator, who brings the precious ore in the soul of his pupil to light and frees it from dross, affords him a second birth, birth into a loftier life (Herberg 1956). This rebirth relies on trust. The educational implications of Buber’s I-Thou relationship, the educational spirit in Buber’s writings, concerns our ability to relate to the whole person, to the world and, as Buber believed, to God (Gordon, 1973). The educator informed by Buber’s philosophy of dialogue therefore is someone who wishes to transcend activities that have something for their object. He wishes to convey the spirit. One cannot do this if one does not relate to the whole person. This involves one’s whole self, as an educator and human being. The educator’s task is to realise this spirit in education. Gordon asserts that this implies more than suggesting a behavioral-humanistic model or seeking out other human beings as a holiday task. It means that the educator’s whole existence should be impregnated by the feeling that we can humanize the world by relating. It means living on an outpost of the I-It . . . being open to the first stuttering words of a child or a teenager’s need to confide. It means constantly seeking the humane answer to ethical situations confronting us and not the political-economical-It way out (Gordon 1973, p. 222). The challenges of Buber’s educational thought are unlikely to be disclosed by attempting to make them part of a model for teaching [or a model for psychotherapy either]. Objectifying and analysing the I-Thou relationship only succeeds in producing misinterpretation and distortion. Gordon notes that Buber’s legacy will be fulfilled only when teachers realise that their role is not and cannot be confined to working within a model. While true education demands much more than models can disclose, it is nevertheless, a veiled goal, never fully realised, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.

The I-Thou/I-It Distinction According to Buber (1958), there are two types of relationship: the “IIt” and the “I-Thou”. The I-It relationship occurs between the subject, the “I”, and whatever object it encounters in the world, which is the “It” (thus the subject-object relationship). The world has no active part in this relationship and allows itself to be experienced passively as an object or utilised as an instrument. In the I-It relationship, the objectified or instrumentalised It does not wholly engage the I (i.e. the ego or self).

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The world of “It” is the world of “things” among other “things;” the goal-directed world of “means” and “ends.” In the world of It, we employ a functional outlook and things are objects to be manipulated, dissected, analysed, measured, controlled or ignored. Essentially, therefore, the world of It is the world of disunity, of separation between subject and object; a world where mutual relationships are rendered impossible. Buber suggests however that THE LIFE of human beings . . . does not exist in virtue of activities alone which have something for their object. I perceive something. I am sensible of something. I imagine something. I will something. I feel something. I think something. The life of human beings does not consist of all this and the like alone. This and the like together establish the realm of It . . . (Buber 1958, p. 16).

The “I-Thou” relationship on the other hand, which may be entered into with another person, but does not necessarily preclude an I-Thou relationship between for instance, animals, trees or art and poetry, concerns the world of “Thou”. The realm of Thou . . . has a different basis. When Thou is spoken, the speaker has no thing for his object. For where there is a thing there is another thing. Every It is bounded by others; it exists only through being bounded by others. But when Thou is spoken, there is no thing. Thou has no bounds. When Thou is spoken, the speaker . . . takes his stand in relation (Buber 1958, pp. 1617).

The world of I-Thou is one of unity and its characteristic situation is that of genuine meeting. The reality of this meeting produces no reduction of either the I or the Thou. The world of I-Thou involves a recognition of the boundlessness of the other; a respect for the freedom of the Thou whose encounter requires complete openness; a surrender of becoming for being, of dissimulation for genuineness and a refusal to dominate. Involvement in the I-Thou relationship affirms each side in simultaneous existence, without which, the individual would be living in a fog where each existence is self-contained and isolated. There are three spheres in which the world of relation arises: first, our life with nature; second, our life with persons, and third, our life with “spiritual beings” or intellectual essences (for example art, poetry and knowledge). Love may occur in all three spheres of relation which means that everything is a potential channel of creativity, revelation and redemption. However, it is not simply a question of either-or, of relation versus irrelation, but rather a pattern of life in which relation necessarily

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alternates with irrelation, with the former taking precedence (ibid.). Neither is the call to be seen as an invitation towards a continuous stand of relation (Schilpp and Friedman, 1967), rather as an acceptance of what, in terms of a preferred pattern of I-Thou relationships is a discontinuity of essentiality and inessentiality to all being. Given the preeminence of the I-Thou relationship in Buber’s thought, one could ask if the encounter may be willed or deployed as a means to an end? Apparently it cannot. Buber asserts that the “Thou meets me through grace - it is not found by seeking. But my speaking of the primary word to it is an act of my being, is indeed the act of my being . . . The primary word I-Thou can be spoken only with the whole being . . .” (Buber 1958, pp. 24-5). Even though Buber’s language is somewhat convoluted, it is quite clear that for him the I-Thou relationship cannot be willed. Such a fusion (ibid.) into the whole being can never take place through my agency. For Buber, therefore, there are two primary word combinations that can be spoken by human beings: I-Thou and I-It. But “The primary word I-Thou can be spoken only with the whole being”. The words “Thou” and “It” cannot be used in isolation from the “I” of “I-Thou” nor the “I” of “I-It”: The former impels us into a stand of relation in and to the world, while the latter impels us into a stand of irrelation in and to the world. In saying either of these primary words, for example, by naming an object in the natural world, we bring the I-Thou or the I-It relation into existence, through the act of thought or speech itself. When he considers that thought or speech may bring the I-Thou or the I-It relationship into existence, Buber (1947) apparently does not necessarily mean that Thou-saying is dependent or related to mental processes or the spoken word. Rather he appears to point to something that he calls “real speech”. Real speech springs from one's capacity to be receptive, accepting and aware. He maintains that the I-Thou relationship is limited only by the limits to one’s awareness. Awareness in this sense is described by Buber (1954) as making present the person of the other. Buber is worth quoting at length for the insights he provides into the I-Thou relationship as a twin process of address and response that is independent of mental activity or oral speech. . . . in a receptive hour . . . a man meets me about whom there is something, which I cannot grasp in any objective way at all, that “says something” to me [i.e. addresses me] . That does not mean, says to me what manner of man this is, what is going on in him, and the like. But it means, says something to me, addresses something to me, speaks something that enters my own life. It can be something about this man, for

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instance that he needs me. But it can also be something about myself. The man himself in his relation to me has nothing to do with what is said. He has no relation to me, he has indeed not noticed me at all. It is not he who says it to me . . . but it says it . . . the saying I am referring to is real speech. In the house of speech there are many mansions, and this is one of the inner. The effect of having this said to me is completely different from that of looking on and observing. I cannot depict or denote or describe the man in whom, through whom, something has been said to me. Were I to attempt it, that would be the end of saying. This man is not my object; I have got to do with him. Perhaps I have to accomplish something about him; but perhaps I have only to learn something . . . it is only a matter of my “accepting”. It may be that I have to answer at once, to this very man before me; it may be that the saying has a long . . . transmission before it, and that I am to answer some other person at some other time and place, in who knows what kind of speech . . . in each instance a word demanding an answer has happened to me. We may term this way of perception becoming aware. It by no means needs to be a man of whom I become aware. It can be an animal, a plant, a stone. No kind of appearance or event is fundamentally excluded from the series of the things through which from time to time something is said to me. Nothing can refuse to be the vessel for the Word. The limits of the possibility of dialogue are the limits of awareness (Buber 1947, pp. 26-7). There appears to be a resonance here between awareness and the notion of “presence” in Marcel (1956). For Buber, any object: an animal, a plant or a stone can become a “Thou”: If it absorbs the whole of one’s attention. In this respect it follows that words are unnecessary to the IThou relationship. Buber (1947) considers that an I-Thou relationship may occur between human beings in silence: providing one is really there. Such an encounter, which implies “presence”, may come about during . . . one of the hours which succeed in bursting asunder the seven iron bands about our hearts - imperceptibly the spell [an inability to communicate oneself] is lifted . . . he releases in himself a reserve. . . . Unreservedly communication streams from him, and the silence bears it to his neighbour. For where unreserve has ruled, even wordlessly, between men, the word of dialogue has happened sacramentally (Buber 1947, p. 20).

What is clear from experience is that I-Thou relationships fleetingly ebb and flow, whereas I-It relationships have become, in Buber’s language, “gigantically swollen” and may dominate the relational horizon. Increasingly, both at home and at work, we are becoming further

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immersed in a world of “things” while glimpses of the I-Thou relationship appear less often. The more time is spent immersed and devoted to the world of things, the less we seem to have to do with people as people. People meet, albeit superficially at a social level, but this meeting rarely becomes one of genuine encounter. It is also possible for people to live most of their lives in a world of I-It relations without ever experiencing an I-Thou relationship. Buber suggests (Kaufmann 1970) that we cannot live without the world of I-It, however, he warns that whoever lives only with It, is not really living at all, is not human. He asserts that it is human life itself that comes into being through the lived experience of the I-Thou relationship. Human life and humanity come into being in genuine meetings . . . men need, and it is granted to them, to confirm one another in their individual being by means of genuine meetings [I-Thou relationships] (Glatzer 1966, p. 47).

Life lived exclusively in a world of I-It relations, therefore, has negative consequences not only for man’s development and sense of unique wholeness, but also for his individual “being” and humanness. Buber clearly regards the I-Thou relationship as the central focus and confirming act of human experience and being. The nature of this relationship is, however, difficult to specify but its significance appears to emerge from the lived experience of the I-Thou relationship itself. In this sense, definition of the I-Thou is elusive. If the I-Thou relationship transcends philosophy, psychology, linguistics and affectivity, then by extension the I-Thou relationship must also resist objective, empirical conceptualisation. Of the “truth” of the I-Thou relationship Buber argues that we are to ask not “what” but “how” (Glatzer, 1966). It is, not a question of concern for an objective definition of the content of the I-Thou relationship, therein lies distortion, rather we are to approach the I-Thou relationship through its lived experience between persons.

An Existential Approach to Clarifying the I-Thou Relationship According to Wingerter (1973) existential concerns and their writings transcend the level of objective thinking. He asserts that where writers choose to ignore transcendence in its fullest sense they loose the essence of thinking that is to be found in the writings of Buber, Marcel, Heidegger and Jaspers. Approaches to understanding and clarifying Buber’s I-Thou relationship, therefore, need to acknowledge the ontological realm that

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Buber refers to (ibid.). In terms of the I-Thou relationship, one cannot speak of application and implication without caricature. Abstract thought fails also to endorse the ontological need. Existence pure and simple is bound up with the narrow understanding of experience and beings with no affirmation of the Mystery that envelops these beings. What many commentators fail repeatedly to realise is that for Buber (Wingerter, 1973), there is a level of ontology and that only on this level does it become meaningful to talk of the I-Thou relationship in the sense that Buber uses the term (ibid.). One degrades what Buber talks of if one forgets or is unaware that the concepts of existential philosophy are such that I can not think them without being in them (Jaspers, 1955), and that these concepts are meant to produce in oneself and in communication something which is man himself and not something meant by him (ibid.). Genuine existential thought is indissolubly connected with the being of the thinker, and is not a content to be known like any other. Buber (1965) acknowledges two essentially different areas of human life (I-Thou and I-It). It was only after a long time that he came to realise that the sphere of the interhuman (I-Thou) is “a separate category of our existence, perhaps even a separate dimension. Any understanding of Buber needs to be based on the difference between the two realms. Marcel (1960) notes the “formidable confusion of these two spheres”. An objective stance or attitude is perfectly valid, but not when one is engaged in existential thinking. When our standpoint is this side of the ontological, objective thinking is fine. However, Buber’s standpoint is in the ontological, and it is to commit a category error to treat the ontological, that which belongs to Mystery, or to being, on a level of thinking that is below the level of the ontological. Systemization and objectivisation are inimical to that which is ontological. One cannot approach the I-Thou relationship as a spectator or objective thinker. Buber’s writings do not lend themselves to the kinds of clarification and objectivisation one meets in the literature. Wingerter observes There is a tendency on the part of all of us, in our part of the world especially, to transfer terms that are meaningful on an ontological level only to a level where we can more easily deal with them, but nevertheless to a level where ontological terms loose all of their essential and distinctive meaning (Wingerter 1973, pp. 245-6). Buber appears to be on the level of Being when he talks of the I-Thou relationship and “Being itself is the Transcendence which shows itself to no investigative experience, not even indirectly”. Clearly an objective approach to Being is undesirable if not well nigh impossible. Similarly,

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Marcel (1960) asserts that techniques are never able to gain access to the infrangible sphere of Being. The sphere that Buber points to is meaningful only if one admits that there is a realm that transcends that of objectivity pure and simple. The level of the ontological is beyond that of solutions to problems, applications and implications (Wingerter, 1973). To fail to recognise this is to attribute objectivity to that which is not objective and never can be. Buber’s writings are meaningful, therefore, only if an ontological perspective is brought to bear on them. One cannot choose between I-Thou or I-It. As Marcel observes (1956), in reflecting on a mystery we tend inevitably to degrade it to the level of a problem. Jaspers (1955) asserts that the truth of existential thought never lies in its content as such, but rather what happens to me in the thinking of it. Similarly, Wingerter (1973) remarks that that which is genuinely existential belongs to a level that transcends thinking about needs, problems, and feelings. A genuine existentialist’s attitude need have nothing to do with objective knowledge at all. His concern is with knowledge of Being, or at least ontological knowledge of some kind.

Difficulties with a Philosophical Approach to the I-Thou Relationship A philosophical approach to the I-Thou relationship seeks to make the I-Thou part of a metaphysical system or ontology. Gordon (ibid.) considers Wood (1969) to be a prime example of how not to approach the I-Thou relationship philosophically. Buber himself (Schilpp and Friedman, 1967) cautioned against just such an attempt when he asserts that the IThou relationship . . . was not suited to being developed into a comprehensive system . . . although it is the basic relationship in the life of each man with all existing being, it was barely paid attention to. It had to be pointed out; it had to be shown forth in the foundation of existence. A neglected, obscured, primal reality . . . No system [theological, philosophical, ontological or psychological] was suitable for what I had to say. Structure was suitable for it, a compact structure but not one that joined everything together (Schilpp and Friedman 1967, pp. 692-3).

Caution about attempting to clarify the I-Thou relationship through a philosophical approach is again reemphasised when Buber writes that he builds no towers, that he erects bridges; but that their columns are not sunk

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in “isms” and their arches are not fit together by means of “isms” (Gordon 1976, p. 73). Gordon considers that although I and Thou has philosophical implications, when Buber wrote the book he did not intend to lead us, as readers, to a philosophical analysis of the I-Thou relationship, which may confine the I-Thou to “the contemplative individual, one who might feel at home with philosophical jargon”. Rather, Gordon (ibid.) believes that Buber points to the I-Thou relationship that every human being can encounter. This is reflected, he maintains, in Buber’s poetic style. A poetic style may speak to every human being. The personal significance of the IThou relationship also rests in its being grounded in everyday human experience (ibid.), in occurrences that come our way in daily life: A point identified by Clarkson (1990) when she observes that the I-Thou relationship has most continuity with healing relationships that occur in ordinary life. Only then Gordon suggests . . . will the reader be able to interpret the I-Thou in terms relating to [his] own existence; only then will [he] be able to relate to the novel terrain which Buber explored (Gordon 1976, p. 75).

Paradoxically, however, Gordon considers that the failings of the philosophical approach may suggest to us how to read and relate to I and Thou. Martin Buber wrote for readers who intended to relate fully to what they read and not merely scan the print or underline the major points. And relating fully to I and Thou means viewing its tenets through the prism of our deepest personal experience (Gordon 1976, p. 75). Buber’s caution that the I-Thou relationship “was not suited to being developed into a comprehensive system” seems also to extend to the “ism” of existentialism, and existential writing too! What is needed perhaps is an openness to mystery. More than any of the I-Thou commentators referred to above, Buber himself drives home the point that the search for the meaning of the I-Thou relationship is . . . not to be won and possessed through any type of analytic or synthetic investigation or through any type of reflection upon the lived concrete. Meaning is to be experienced in living action and suffering itself, in the unreduced immediacy of the moment. Of course, he who aims at the experiencing of experience will necessarily miss the meaning, for he destroys the spontaneity of the mystery. Only he reaches the meaning who stands firm, without holding back or reservation, before the whole might of reality and answers it in a living way. He is ready to confirm with his life the meaning which he has attained (Buber in Glatzer 1966, p. 62).

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Gordon (1976) considers that the search for the meaning of the I-Thou relationship involves searching our personal experience for moments that would clarify this relationship. Living with this clarification and being open to new moments when one can speak the basic word Thou. The reader will then attain the meaning and personal significance of the I-Thou and will also have rejuvenated a dormant aspect of his own existence.

Love and the I-Thou Relationship Although the world is unable to be fully comprehended through a system of concepts, Buber (1957) suggests that it may yet bestow a wonderful secret that the humble and faithful beholding, grasping, knowing of any situation bestows. No, says Buber (ibid.), the world is not comprehensible; but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings. Similarly, Krishnamurti (1969) asserts “. . . love is not the product of systems, of habits, of following a method. Love cannot be cultivated by thought (Krishnamurti 1969, p. 116). When we seek to “know” the world through the embracing of one of its beings, Buber bids us remember that Each thing and being has a twofold nature: the passive, absorbable, usable, dissectible, comparable, combinable, rationalizable, and the other, the active, non-absorbable, unusable, undissectible, incomparable, noncombinable, nonrationalisable. This is the confronting, the shaping, the bestowing in things. He who truly experiences a thing so that it springs up to meet him and embraces him of itself has in that thing known the world (Buber 1957, p. 27).

Conclusion In Buber’s search for a philosophy of the whole person, the significance of the I-Thou relationship cannot be underestimated. For him the lived experience of the I-Thou relationship, is the defining act of our humanness and personhood. However, the I-Thou relationship cannot be contained by paradigms or models nor can it be willed. Such attempts describe the world of I-It. The I-Thou relationship, perhaps an “event” of existential communion, involves grace and a turning (Hbr. Teshuvah) towards the other person from the fullness of one's being. Other commentators seem to agree. Feltham (1995) writing about the unique impact Buber has had in our time on the potential for abuse, healing and even radical transformation within the interpersonal relationship asserts that the I-Thou encounter (which may parallel the encounter with God)

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. . . is associated with presence and grace rather than intention, prescription and non-egalitarian helping relationships. This kind of encounter has nothing to do with the therapeutic use of “immediacy” or the selfconscious development of genuineness. Buber refers to the importance of “the between” and “the primally simple fact of encounter”. None of this is predictable or exploitable, even for benevolent ends. When it is healing, it is so by grace rather than by design (Feltham 1995, p.32 ).

The most important thing to learn would appear to be that the search for wholeness in personal existence in the West cannot come about through a relationship to self, but only in a relationship to another self. As limited and conditioned as we may be, our being together provides glimpses of the unlimited and the unconditioned. The interpersonal realm, the sphere of between, that is, between persons, is assumed to be the dimension where humanness and personhood are constituted and confirmed. This person-defining locus is inclusive of all people. Although the I-Thou relationship has implications for education, philosophy, psychology, theology and sociology, Buber's formulation of the I-Thou relationship appears not specifically to be the exclusive preserve of the educationist, philosopher, psychologist, theologian, counsellor or psychotherapist. Rather, Buber seems to have been writing for the I-Thou relationship that every human being may encounter.

References Antaki, C. (ed.). Analysing Everyday Explanation. (London: Sage Publications). Barr, J. (1987). “Therapeutic relationship model”, in Transactional Analysis journal, 17, (4), p. 141. Berne, E. (1973). Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy: A Systematic Individual and Social Psychiatry. (New York: Ballantine Books). Binswanger, L. (1963). Being-in-the-World. transl. J. Needleman (New York: Basic Books). Boss, M. (1957). Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis. transl. J. B. Lefebre (New York: Basic Books). Boss, M. (1979). Existential Foundations of Medicine and Psychology. (New York: Jason Aronson). Brice, C. W. (1984). “Pathological modes of human relating and therapeutic mutuality: A dialogue between Buber’s existential relational theory and object-relations theory”. Psychiatry, Vol. 47, May 1984. pp. 109-123.

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Buber, M. “Replies to my critics”, in P. A. Schilpp and M. Friedman, eds. (1967) The Philosophy of Martin Buber (Open Court: USA), pp. 692-3. —. (1958). I and Thou. 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark), first published in 1923. —. 1947). Between Man and Man. (London: The Fontana Library Theology & Philosophy). —. (1957). Pointing the Way. (London: Humanities Press International). —. (1965). Between Man and Man. (New York: Macmillan Pub. Co.). —. (1965). The Knowledge of Man. (NJ: Humanities Press International, Inc.). —. (1966). The Way of Man According to the Teaching of Hasidism. (Carol Publishing Co.). —. (1967). A Believing Humanism: My Testament, 1902-1965. Ed. & trans. M. S. Friedman. (NJ: Humanities Press). —. (1970). I and Thou. (W. Kaufmann transl.). (NY: Scribner), originally published in 1923. —. (1973). Meetings: Martin Buber. (Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co.). (First published in 1960 as Bergegnung. Autobiographische Fragmente. Ed. P. A. Schilpp and M. Friedman. (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag). Buber, M. in N. N. Glatzer ed. (1966). The Way of Response. (Schocken Books: New York), p. 71. Clarkson, P. (1990). “A multiplicity of psychotherapeutic relationships”. British Journal of Psychotherapy. Vol. 7(2), pp. 148-63. Deurzen-Smith, E. van (1984). Existential therapy in W. Dryden (ed.) Individual Therapy in Britain, (Milton Keynes: Open University Press). Feltham, C. (1995). What is Counselling? (London: Sage Publications). Friedman, M. S. (1955). Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.). Friedman, M. (ed.) (1957). Pointing the Way: collected essays, Martin Buber. (New York: Humanities Press International). Friedman, M. (ed.) (1967). The Philosophy of Martin Buber. (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing). Friedman, M. (ed.) (1988). The Knowledge of Man: selected essays. (Humanities Press International: NJ). Glatzer, N. N. (1966). The Way of Response. (NY: Schocken Books Inc.). Gordon, H. “Would Martin Buber endorse the Buber model?”, in Educational Theory. (1973), Vol. 23, pt. 3, p. 215. —. (1976). “A method for clarifying Buber’s I-Thou relationship”, Journal of Jewish Studies. Vol. 27.

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Heidegger, M. (1959). The Question of Being. transl. W. Kluback & J. T. Wilde. (London). —. (1959). Introduction to Metaphysics. transl. R. Manheim. (Yale University Press). —. (1962). Being and Time. (NY: Harper & Row), originally published in 1927. Heron, J. (1992). Feelings and Personhood. (London: Sage Publications). Hobson, R. F. (1985). Forms of Feeling. (London: Routledge). Jaspers, K. (1955). Reason and Existenz, transl. W. Earle (New York: The Noonday Press). Jung, C. G. (1902). “On the psychology and pathology of so-called occult phenomena”, in Psychiatric Studies, Vol. 1 of the Collected Works. (Princeton and London), 2nd edn, 1970. —. (1935). Analytical Psychology: Its Theory and Practise. Ark Edition. 1986. (Reading: Cox and Wyman). —. (1936). Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. CW 9, Part 1. (Reading: Cox and Wyman). —. (1966). Collected Works: 7, 8, 9i, 12, 15, 16 & 17. (New York: Princeton). Kaufmann, W. (1970). I and Thou. 3rd ed. and new transl. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark). Krishnamurti, J. (1969). Freedom from the Known. (San Francisco: Harper). Løgstrup, K. E. (1996) cited in “The interhuman dimension of teaching”, A. Kristiansen. In Martin Buber and the Human Sciences. M. Friedman (State University of New York Press). Macquarrie, J. (1972). Existentialism. (London: Penguin Books). Marcel, G. “I and Thou” in Schilpp, P. A. and Friedman, M. eds. (1967) The Philosophy of Martin Buber (Open Court: USA), 1967, pp. 44-5. —. (1948). The Philosophy of Existence. (London: Harvill Press), pp. 256. —. (1949). Being and Having: An Existential Diary. (transl. K. Farrer). (New York: Harper & Brothers). —. (1950). The Mystery of Being: 1. Reflection and Mystery. (The Gifford Lectures.) (London: The Harvill Press Ltd.).). —. (1967) In P. A. Schilpp and M. Friedman The Philosophy of Martin Buber. (Illinois: Open Court Pub. Co. ), p. 41. May, R. (1969). Love and Will. (New York: Norton). —. (1983). The Discovery of Being. (New York: Norton). Perls, F. S. (1969). Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. (Lafayette, Calif: Real People Press).

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Prini, P. (1984). “A methodology of the unverifiable”. In The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel. PA. Schilpp and L. E. Hahn (eds.). The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XVII. (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court), pp. 205-39. Purcell-Lee, C. R., MEd dissertation (“An exploration of the meaning of postmodernism in education”). The University of Manchester, June 1994. —. PhD thesis. (“An investigation into the nature and centrality of the student-facilitator relationship in the educational provision for people described as having learning disabilities”). The University of Manchester, June 1997. Rogers, C. (1980). A Way of Being. (Houghton Mifflin Co.). Rogers, C. R. (1951). Client-Centered Therapy. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin). —. (1957). “The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change”, Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21(2): 95-103. —. (1959). “A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships as developed in the client-centered framework”, in S. Koch (ed.). Psychology: A Study of Science, Vol. III. Formulations of the Person and the Social Context. (New York: McGraw-Hill), pp. 184-256 cited in Thorne, B. (1992) Carl Rogers. (London: Sage), p. 30. —. (1961). On Becoming a Person. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin). —. (1969). Freedom to Learn: a View of What Education Might Become. (Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill). —. (1980). A Way of Being. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin). —. (1983). Freedom to Learn For the 80”s. New York: Merrill (Macmillan Publishing Company). Schilpp, P. A. and Friedman, M. S. (eds.). The Philosophy of Martin Buber. (The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XXII.). Illinois: Open Court Publishing, 1967. Smail, D. J. (1978). Psychotherapy: A Personal Approach. (London: Dent). Stewart, J. (1996). Intro. to “Two of Buber’s contributions to contemporary human science”, in Martin Buber and the Human Sciences, M. Friedman (Ed.) (State University of New York Press). Thorne, B. (1992). Carl Rogers. (ser. ed. Dryden, W.). (London: Sage Publications). Yalom, I. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. (New York: Basic Books). Vermes, P. (1988). Buber (Jewish Thinkers). (London: Peter Halban; New York: Grove Press). —. (1988). Buber. (London: Weidenfield & Nicolson).

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—. (1994). Buber on God and the Perfect Man. (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization: London). First published by Scholars Press in 1980 and released in 1981.

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Response to Colin Purcell-Lee’s “Dialogue and Being” Lynne Jacobs I found myself a bit uneasy as I read Purcell-Lee’s essay, even though I find nothing to argue with in much of what he says. I am in agreement that ordinary modes of understanding, such as categorical thinking, schemas and operational perspectives cannot get at the existential meanings in Martin Buber’s ontology. I too, do not want gestalt trainees to have a facile understanding of I-Thou. In fact, I caution gestalt therapists not to ask, when reflecting on their work, “was such-and-such an I-Thou moment?” I find such a question reductive to the point of meaninglessness. I suggest they ask of themselves instead, “in what way am I impeding the possibility of I-Thou?” The first question, aside from being reductive, is full of hubris, implying that the therapist made something happen. But such moments cannot be willed, or planned, as Purcell-Lee so eloquently writes. The second question encourages the therapist to be responsible only for his or her side of the dialogue, and to do only what can be done, which is to prepare the ground (which, by the way, is an on-going process). Although it sounds funny as I say it, what concerns me about PurcellLee’s article is his reverence for I-Thou. In his hands, I-Thou is reserved for only the most enlightened and courageous of souls. He champions the necessity for lived experience, he also seems to want to insist that only a rare person can attain such an experience. Buber, on the other hand, asserted vehemently that I-Thou was a necessary and attainable experience for all humans. It may not be impossible to fully describe and teach what it is, but the lived experience of it is accessible to us all if we are open to it, and we are graced. I-Thou moments, in themselves, are not much of a concern to me as a therapist. But I am very much concerned with how the I-Thou interpenetrates the I-It realm. And Buber had some ideas for educators and therapists about a discipline that could help us to meet the whole person of the patient. His idea was that patients were troubled because they had turned their backs on I-Thou, that their I-It worlds were too far alienated from the ground of a latent and possible I-Thou. And a therapist or an educator could, by attending to what he called the “elements of the interhuman” (inclusion, confirmation, presence, commitment to dialogue), help create a ground in which the possibility of I-Thou could then live. Unlike Purcell-Lee, I do believe that a practice, or discipline, can be part of the praxis of therapy, a particular discipline which, when not

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practiced, militates against the possibility of I-Thou, and which when practiced, enhances the possibility of I-Thou. Buber was preaching a practice, which is of course, an I-It experience. But that practice builds on itself continually, with greater and greater interpenetration by I-Thou. That is, if one would surrender, with full presence, to the dialogue, then I-Thou could be present as a possibility, even if a particular I-Thou moment did not occur. So the practice, for the therapist, is to attend to how one interferes with these elements of the interhuman. I cannot will I-Thou, I cannot even will my surrender to presence, to inclusion, to dialogue. But I certainly can use my awareness to attend to my inhibitions, interruptions, retreats, etc., and in so doing, prepare the ground, meet the patient (however imperfectly), and be open to the grace of the next-comingmoment.

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Dialogue, Psychotherapy, Will, and Cognition: A Response to Colin Purcell-Lee’s “Dialogue and Being” Gary Yontef In his article “Dialogue and Being” (1999), Colin Purcell-Lee discusses very clearly the difference between true I-Thou dialogue and merely talking about principles of dialogue. While I found his discussion a stimulating reaffirmation of Buber’s philosophy, from my vantage point as a gestalt therapist committed to a dialogic or relational theory and practice of psychotherapy there are some difficulties in his discussion. The article makes clear in a moving way that objectifying and analyzing existential philosophy is not sufficient to understand or live Buber’s philosophy. While I agree that no cognition about dialogue is sufficient to understand or live it, I believe that models, ideas, rational discussion, even typologies, technical understanding, are a necessary part of preparing therapists and patients for the possibility of dialogue. There is some irony in an abstract discussion of Buber’s philosophy not making a place for abstract discussion. Purcell-Lee makes clear that abstract thought, systematization, spectator perspective, or objective thinking does not represent the IThou, abstract thought does not illuminate the mysteries of ontological need, nor does technique open the door to the “intangible sphere of Being”. But he does not make clear whether he thinks there is any useful place at all for them in preparing for the IThou. In stating that “A genuine existentialist’s attitude need have nothing to do with objective knowledge at all,” he seems to be eliminating any role for knowledge, thought, experience, and so forth. Clearly these processes that are not “Thou” are not sufficient, but are they necessary? The IThou connection does not necessarily depend on cognition or spoken word, but my experience is that it can be supported by cognition and/or the spoken word and that the effective dialogic psychotherapist must operate at this level in a manner that paves the way for true IThou dialogue when it is possible. Buber was clear that dialogue in psychotherapy and education required the therapist to use professional methodology, tools and concepts. Of course, the dialogic therapist discards or transcends them when the relational situation of patient and therapist make it possible. In the Purcell-Lee article a therapy of “intention, prescription and nonegalitarian helping relationships” is contrasted with presence and grace. I would agree that a non-egalitarian therapy in which the therapist, or therapist and patient, prescribe an outcome is not dialogic. I prefer to say

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that in a relational or dialogic therapy the therapist neither aims for nor is attached to a particular outcome but rather is prepared to meet the person of the patient with his own personhood and trust whatever outcome emerges from that interaction. A real dialogue in therapy requires that the therapist give up control of the patient and the outcome, building support for real dialogue, and surrendering to what grace provides. Is there a role in a dialogic therapeutic encounter for the “therapeutic use of immediacy‚ or the self-conscious development of genuineness?” I believe that with awareness a therapist can commit to presence, move with will and determination into removing the barriers to immediacy and genuineness, and allow immediacy to organize his or her perception and response. This is not yet IThou, but it is a stance that may lead to I-Thou. With this commitment, true presence might happen. By combining genuine presence with the use of phenomenological methodology the therapist can make it possible for a true I-Thou connection to occur, for himself or herself and the patient to grow into being able to dialogue. Then a true IThou connection might happen in the psychotherapy situation. Purcell-Lee correctly states that the “IThou relationship cannot be willed” and that it cannot take place “through my agency.” True. But I can by will make a commitment to dialogue, attend to barriers to genuineness, and barriers to presence. Presence cannot be entirely willed, but a commitment to it can be willed. I can clear my mind to be receptive before the encounter begins, I can work in my own therapy on countertranferential interferences, and so forth. It may not be enough, but it is necessary to do no less if dialogue is to be likely, or even possible in psychotherapy.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN1 PRELUDE TO CONTEMPORARY GESTALT THERAPY2 CHARLES BOWMAN AND PHILIP BROWNELL

Three periods characterize the historical process leading to present Gestalt therapy: the predecessors to Gestalt psychology, the school of Gestalt psychology itself, and the development of Gestalt psychotherapy. The work of Franz Brentano, Carl Stumpf, and Edmund Husserl influenced both the school of gestalt psychology and the establishment of gestalt psychotherapy (Hergenhahn, 1992). This fork in the historical road is echoed even today in current debate over the major components of Gestalt practice: some talk of theory and others speak of method. The practice of Gestalt psychotherapy, however, cannot sustain itself apart from Gestalt theory, and without method, Gestalt theory evaporates like intellectual air. What follows is a historical sketch of some of the influences that went into the delelopment of Gestalt theory and practice. Franz Brentano (1838-1917) believed the study of what the brain does, its processes, is more important than what the brain has, its structure. His views became known as "act psychology." These mental processes were seen as performing a function, and some of the functions he identified were expecting, remembering, inferring, doubting, loving, hating, and hoping. Furthermore, Brentano distinguished between seeing a color and the actual color itself; the seeing is the mental act and the color is the 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 Previously published in Gestalt! 4(3), 2000 and at the first web site for the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT), under the title, "Simplified Summary of Gestalt Therapy - Historical Antecedents."

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content upon which that action becomes focused. Consequently, for him every mental process had an antecedent in the environment. Among Brentano's students was Sigmund Freud. Carl Stumpf (1848-1936) taught that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and for him the proper focus of psychology was on mental phenomena. His chair at the university of Berlin was passed on to Wolfgang Kohler. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) accepted Brentano's conclusion that mental acts are directed at something outside themselves and the means by which people make contact with the physical world. He studied with both Brentano and Stumpf. For Husserl, however, there were two types of introspection: one that focuses on intentionality and the other which focuses on whatever processes a person experiences subjectively. While the former investigates the object that hearing pursues, the latter pursues the experience of listening. Brentano, Stumpf, and Husserl all maintained that the proper subject matter for psychology was intact, meaningful psychological experiences. This same phenomenological approach was to appear later in both Gestalt and Existential psychology. Meanwhile, existential philosophy, which began with Kierkegaard and was influenced by Marcel and MerleauPonty, contemplated experience as individual human existence; this included issues related to the meaning of human existence, such as freedom, destiny and the existence of God.” (Wulf, R., 1996) Martin Heidegger, considered by many the bridge from existential philosophy to existential psychology, had been Husserl's assistant, and later became his junior colleague at Freiburg University. Like Husserl, he was a phenomenologist, but he took an original direction. For Husserl the most important fact in the universe was the existence of awareness in the human being - the wonder of wonders was pure consciousness and the subjectivity that formed its vehicle, but for Heidegger the wonder of wonders was being itself, and being in the presence of other beings. Heidegger’s own central concern, moreover, is the problem of the meaning of this Being. To ignore this question seems to him an indefensible omission, to subordinate it to the problem of consciousness an inversion of the proper order. Being is more fundamental than consciousness. Indeed, consciousness is itself a manifestation of Being since it is the act or state of being aware... For Heidegger man is not given an experience apart from the world; man's being (Sein) is only experienced as being-in-the-world (inder-weldsein). Man is not isolated in his own subjectivity; he is there (da) where

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things are, in the midst of (bei) the things that make up the world. His being is then a being there, Dasein...."(McCall, 1983, p. 61-62) Three of Carl Stumpf's students took research in a slightly different, yet influential direction. They were among those who developed the school of Gestalt psychology and believed that people do not experience life in isolated pieces. The German word for the perception of intact patterns is "gestalt;" accordingly, the study of these wholes became known as Gestalt psychology. It was fundamentally linked to phenomenology, because these early Gestalt psychologists preferred to study the mental experience as it naturally occurred to the observer, without further analysis or interpretation. Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler stand out as instrumental in the founding of Gestalt psychology (Hergenhahn, 1992). Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) held that perceptions are different from the sensations that comprise them. His research, "Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement" (1912) is regarded to be the formal beginning of Gestalt psychology. Kurt Koffka (1886-1941) studied with Wertheimer, assisted him in his research, and in 1922 wrote an article in the Psychological Bulletin called, "Perception: An Introduction to Gestalt-Theorie;" that article influenced U.S. psychologists into thinking Gestalt psychology was only about perception, when in fact, Gestaltists in Europe were also interested in philosophy, learning, and the process of thinking. Nevertheless, the Gestalt conceptualization of perception has persisted and is utilized today, providing some of the basic principles for the practice of contemporary graphic design. Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967) assisted Koffka and Wertheimer, succeeded Stumpf in Berlin, but immigrated to the United States in the face of the rise of Nazi influence in Germany. His writings helped bring Gestalt psychology to the attention of psychologists in the United States. He taught at several U.S. institutions, and while at Swarthmore published his William James lectures "The Place of Value in a World of Facts" (1938) and "Dynamics of Psychology" (1940), which was a discussion of the relationship between field theory in physics and Gestalt psychology. He became president of the American Psychological Association in 1959. Another associate of Wertheimer, Koffka, and Kohler, who also studied with Stumpf, was Kurt Lewin (1890-1947). He is most noted for extending Gestalt principles to motivation, personality, and group dynamics. However, Lewin's concept of "life space" has proven most significant. It is the field, consisting of all influences acting on a person at

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a given time. Those coming after Lewin have since developed the notion of life space into a full blown field theory. Gestalt psychotherapy is most associated with the work of Frederick (Fritz) and Laura Perls. Fritz became an analyst influenced by Karen Horney and Wilhelm Reich, but Gestalt offered him an organizing principle for many of his ideas. He became interested in the philosophy of Sigmund Friedlander, the holism of Jan Smuts, and the semantic disciplines of Alfred Korzybski. Laura, while studying at the University of Frankfurt, became acquainted with, and influenced by, the existentialists Martin Buber and Paul Tillich. A large portion of the phenomenological and existential influences in Gestalt therapy were because of her, even though she wrote under Fritz's name. In the 1920's Perls had several training analysts, his first being Karen Horney and his last being Wilhelm Reich. Reich's influence is obvious to one familiar with Gestalt Therapy and its attention to the physical body (in the 1960's Perls had close personal and professional contact with Ida Rolfe, also influencing the direction of Gestalt Therapy). Perls received supervision in his psychoanalytic training from Deutsch, Hitschman and Federn. The influence of Brentano and Rank is also sited by some as significant in Perls' early development as an analyst (in the early development of psychoanalysis, Rank organized his practice and theory around the importance of the current interaction between analyst and analysand). A number of experiences moved Perls away from mainstream psychoanalysis. He became intrigued by the theater and existential philosophy, both keen cultural interests in the Germany of the 1920's, both part of the Weltanschauung, or world view, of contemporary Europeans. The Bauhaus groups of the 1920's included Reinhart and Wigman (theatrical influences) as well as Friedlander and Buber (philosophical influences). Perls had contact with the psychologists Kohler and Koffka and closer contact with Lewin and Wertheimer after meeting Laura, a graduate student of Wertheimer's at the time. Interested in (among other things) pattern perception, the Gestalt psychologists studied how people organize perceptual experience. Fritz, Laura and Paul Goodman later chose the term "Gestalt" therapy as a replacement for the method then called "concentration therapy". Among this group of academics was Kurt Lewin, a "field theorist" in the social sciences most often remembered for the equation "behavior is a function of the person in the environment". Several years after they were wed in 1929, Fritz and Laura moved to South Africa, where they started a psychoanalytic training institute. Laura brought movement and interpersonal contact into the sessions while Fritz

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began incubating concentration therapy--moved by his analysis with Reich, J.C. Smuts' Holism and Evolution, and Korbyski's Science and Sanity and Daseinsanalysis. The Perls' had fled Nazi Germany, where Fritz lost most of his family members. His presentation to the 1936 Psychoanalytic Conference on "Oral Resistances" was shunned, as was Ego, Hunger and Aggression when it was published in 1942 (following a scathing review by Marie Bonepart). By 1944, he had been a soldier for both the English and the German armies, and they had moved from affluence to poverty and back. Clearly, these life experiences influenced Gestalt therapy theory, providing concepts such as “zero-point,” “homeostasis,” and “polarity,” among others. In South Africa the Perls experienced apartheid as intolerable. In 1946 Fritz moved to New York City, where he met Paul Goodman and Isadore From. Laura and the children followed him a year later. Laura started the first Gestalt group in 1950, held in Fritz and Laura Perls' apartment. Among those studying with the Perls were Paul Goodman, Isidore From, Elliot Shapiro, and James Simkin. During this period Gestalt therapy was also introduced to the American Psychological Association. The theory and practice of Gestalt therapy had become influenced by the socio-political and scientific Zeitgeist of the time. In medicine and physics research had been shifting to the study of systems and fields. Einstein had declared everything to be relative to everything else. Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality is the definitive statement of Gestalt Therapy Theory, but it was sketched against this historical-cultural landscape. Paul Goodman wrote the theoretical section of the book in 1947, and the psychotherapy that emerged from its pages reflects his social concerns, which were themselves situated in the bio-psycho-social cultural context. The Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman text became a best seller. In 1952 the Gestalt Therapy Institute of New York was founded. In 1954 the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland formed, with Paul Goodman, Paul Weisz, and Laura and Fritz Perls as the first trainers. Associated with the group in Cleveland were Erving and Miriam Polster, Elaine Kepner, Ed & Sonia Nevis, and Joseph Zinker. This model of training (post-graduate training institutes, free standing and unaffiliated with other institutions) continues to be very popular in Gestalt therapy today, although there are academic training centers and training institutions that are not solely dedicated to Gestalt practice.

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In 1959 Fritz went to California with Isadore From, where he met Wilson van Dusen. In the early 60s he, Walter Kempler, and James Simkin offered the first Gestalt training workshops at the Esalen Institute in California. These continued through the late 60s, when Fritz left Esalen; Irma Shepherd, Robert Resnick, and others continued to offer these workshops at Esalen through 1970. During this period another training institute in Los Angeles formed. During this early development, especially contrasted with the analytic traditions against which the Perls formulated their practice and teaching, Gestalt therapy introduced many concepts and techniques that have since become standard in psychotherapeutic practice: exciting, direct contact between therapist and client, the use of experimentation congruent with an inclination for direct experience, emphasis on "the here and now," the client's own responsibility for his or her growth, trust in the client's selfregulation, the ecological interdependence of person and environment, and the desire for awareness. Fritz continued his burning passion for theatrics and for spreading Gestalt Therapy. He was many things to many people, including a multimedia pioneer, leaving a legacy of audio and video tape. In his own words, he was a genius and a bum. Fritz Perls died in 1970 after a brief illness. He had started the Gestalt Institute of Canada at Lake Cowichan, Vancouver and had published In and Out of the Garbage Pail a year earlier. Fritz left Gestalt therapy both growing and in disarray. Laura and Isadore kept the theory, so elegantly promulgated in the Perls, Hefferline and Goodman text, alive in their teachings. Gestalt therapy has since embraced a range from theory to theatric while continuing a steady growth and development. Goodman, the Perls', and From have died. Gestalt therapy and Gestalt therapy theory continue to grow. 1978 saw the premiere issue of "The Gestalt Journal" in English. Other Gestalt journals in British, French, German, and Italian also exist. Over 600 training centers have developed world wide, and several Gestalt associations and organizations, including AAGT, EAGT, AND GANZ have emerged.

References Wulf, R. (1996) November, Gestalt Dialogue: Newsletter of the Integrative Gestalt Centre, 275 Fifield Terrace, Christchurch 8002, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Available on-line http://www.gestalt.org/wulf.htm

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Bowman, C.E. (1999). 100 Years of Gestalt Therapy: Yours, Mine and Ours. Workshop given at the Fourth International Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy, New York, May 27-30, 1999. Gains, J. (1979). Fritz Perls Here and Now. California: Celestial Arts. Hergenhahn, B.R. (1992) An introduction to the history of psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company McCall, R.J.(1983) Phenomenological psychology. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. Perls, F. S. (1969). In and Out of the Garbage Pail. New York: Bantam Books. Shepard, M. (1975). Fritz. New York: Bantam.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN1 THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSIONS OF GESTALT THERAPY2 RUTH WOLFERT

Theory Gestalt therapy is a holistic therapy with a greater spiritual foundation than is utilized by most Gestalt therapists. It is based, in part, on teachings from Buddhism and Taoism . The basic experiment of Gestalt therapy, attending to our awareness moment by moment, is rooted in Buddhist mindfulness (Nhat Hanh, 1976). In neither Gestalt therapy nor Buddhist meditation is awareness considered merely a mental activity; rather it is a complete creative experience in the present (PHG , p. 8; Rahula 1959/74, pp. 67-75). In fact, Gestalt therapy’s holistic emphasis, our focus on feeling the actual, coming to our senses, listening to our bodies and attending to our breathing, all have roots in Buddhism (PHG, pp. 180-81, 279-90, 302-320, 329-42; Hart, 1987, pp. 74-76; Beck, 1993, pp. 158-192). In much of our work, particularly with polarities and with suffering, we use “the great formula of the Tao” and “stand out of the way” (PHG, p. 138; Lao Tsu, 1983, p. 9 and passim). We allow our clients to disengage from their preconceptions and become present to the whole of their experience, supporting the destruction of fixed figures that do not permit the ground of what is flow into the figure of what is becoming (PHG, p. 9). As in Taoist teachings, people can thus enter the “fertile void,” the 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 4(3), 2000.

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creativity of the self in which all exists in a ceaseless motion of formless form. Then fresh new figures can arise. (Lao Tzu, 1983, p. 25; PHG pp. 138-39; 141; Perls, 1973, p. 99). Furthermore, Gestalt therapy has central elements of the “perennial philosophy,” Huxley’s term for the common ground of all spiritual philosophies (1945/90). Huxley noted that all spiritual traditions, no matter how disparate their external forms –– dogmas, creeds, rituals, etc. –– have a similar esoteric, inner form. All these traditions are based on transcendence and unity. At certain moments, the time-and-space of ordinary reality is transcended and the unity of the spiritual ground emerges. Gestalt therapy has these spiritual underpinnings in its organizing principle of the process of contact. The stages of contact can be considered as a description of transcending ordinary reality and entering into an experience of unity (Wolfert, 1989). In the contact continuum, we move in a series of shifting figures and grounds to final-contact (PHG, pp. 179207). From the deliberateness of the ego functions' identifications and alienations in contacting, we move with, "a sense of readiness...that perhaps the theologians call faith", to final-contact where there is a relaxation of conscious considering, the dissolving of boundaries, and a unity of figure and ground in which splits of mind, body and external world are healed; and in the aftermath, growth occurs (PHG, pp. 5, 17-18, 193-97). Final-contact often takes place in Gestalt therapy sessions. Then we, therapist and client, identify with the coming self and dwell together beyond our individual perspectives in a flow of spontaneous absorption for a short while. Perls called these moments of transcendence “mini satoris” (1973, p. 131), that is, mini spiritual awakenings. How can we allow these mini-satoris to flower into fuller awakenings and utilize the spiritual more fully in Gestalt therapy? Let us look at the figure-ground shifts in the stages of contact. If the progression is slowed down enough to become aware, then, in the moment between the deliberations of selecting (contacting) and the experience of being fully there (final-contact), it is usually possible to sense an instant of being in the air, of risking moving into the unknown. Actually, with enough awareness, it might be possible to sense each shift of figure and ground, each moment of difference in which there could be some uncertainty. Even an apparently smooth progression without any blocks, if slowed down enough, has moments of uncertainty, risk and confusion. One way of enabling a fuller spiritual experience is to empty the ground more completely as the work progresses. Rare is the work that

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cannot go deeper. We could stay with each uncertainty more fully, letting it blossom into a fertile void. The longer and more completely the client can stay with the void, the deeper the grounds we are opening and the more energy and excitement can pour into the emerging whole. This would correspond to mindfulness or insight meditation, where we follow our awareness and allow it to deepen (Beck, 1993; Goldstein & Kornfield, 1987). Another possibility would be analogous to concentration meditation, which entails staying with a focal point (Gifford-May & Thompson, 1994). In this case, the focal point would be the figure of concern. So we could stay with the final figure as the point of concentration and breathe with it, for example, allowing it to deepen more and more, connecting moment by moment, breath by breath, allowing the energy and excitement to link to a larger and larger field. After all, Blake could see the world in a grain of sand (1790/1993). In this case also it would be important to stay with any uncertainty that comes up in order to keep allowing the fertile void. Over the millennia, many portals for entering spiritual experience have been written about. In my limited encounters, however, they have always involved allowing expansion into the unknown — into the fertile void. It is important to note that some people can stay in the void without any difficulty, and in fact, even with excitement or joy. This is not frequent, however. Most find it very difficult to support the swirl of confusion that is the usual experience of the void. When we can stay with the turmoil, however, it can lead to deep spiritual experiences. It is through these means that consciousness and reality can be profoundly known, a new connection to the universe forged, and deep healing can occur. Spiritual healing is particularly important for clients whose final grounds of security have been shattered –– those with metaphysical wounds (PHG, p. 232). There are many such survivors of severe trauma or tragedy who could heal more completely if we would focus on their breached grounds of ultimate safety and thereby allow them to find new connections to the universe (Wolfert, 1996/98). A spiritual perspective is also useful for those with less profound difficulties. Everyone could benefit from dwelling more deeply in the fertile void. Although Gestalt therapy theory is written as if contact sequences were neatly separated (PHG, pp. 182-84), in practice this is not so. There is unfinished business on top of unfinished business, and all rest on a sea of unexamined basic premises. The longer we can dwell in the fertile void, then the deeper our contact is, the fuller our experience in the moment and the emptier of background the post-contact space.

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In the formless form of the fertile void, past habits can loosen and new possibilities arise. As we stretch out the time between contact sequences, we can empty the ground more and more, and then the ground of the ground, and even the ground of that ground, until we experience our basic premises. As we stay with the void, the past is gone, the future is not yet.— there is only the now. This is a time of profound newness when all things are possible. Then we can return to ordinary reality with renewed vigor and a larger perspective — and dwell more fully in the flow of life.

Practice at the EAGT Conference Panel, "The Spiritual Dimensions of Gestalt Therapy" There was a good deal of confusion and many false steps in the spirituality panel presentation. Our panel was not assigned a translator. We tried several different methods of handling this difficulty, and in fact, started our presentation several times. But each time, someone found the way we were proceeding intolerable and stopped what was happening. There was bickering, confusion and delay. At last a satisfactory solution was found, and we started in earnest. But by that time, we had only an hour left for 7 speakers and audience participation. Worse than that, everyone’s nerves were jangled from the false starts and animosity. I was to speak last, and so I took the opportunity to put spiritual theory into practice. While the other panelists were speaking, I silently reflected on the meaning of our difficulties. How strange, I thought, that we had such a breakdown in communication in a spirituality presentation. What could I make of it? Even stranger, no one was talking about our chaotic start and the undercurrent of residual agitation that was so palpable to me. There was an elephant in the room, and no one was speaking about it. I was in a state of confusion during the other panelists’ talks as I focused on the meaning of our obstacles, false steps and failures of contact. At last it was my turn to speak. I had the experience of holding all of the roiled energy of our turmoil, all of the swirling chaos of our false starts and friction, our breakdowns in communication, our agitation and fragmentation. I held it all in the fertile void. From my experience of the whirling void, I spoke of our spiritual challenge. I appealed to people to view the obstructions to our communication as a spiritual opportunity. I asked them to allow our difficulties to point us to finding a deeper way of relating, a spiritual ground of connection and communication. As I held all the jangled energy in the room, I extended the invitation to go deeper and dwell spiritually in the moment — to move beyond separateness and expand our spiritual

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connection. I sustained that possibility by dwelling in contact as deeply as I could, continuing to speak from the formless form. Throughout my talk, I kept creating deeper connection, both in my words and in my support of all the energy in the room — allowing each bit of residual anxiety and fragmentation to come to the surface and melt away. The agitation gradually drained from the room, and we became peaceful and quiet as we found the spiritual ground to be with one another. Since the energy was so roiled in this presentation, it seemed more important to me to practice spirituality on the panel than to discuss the theory of it — although as you can see from the first section of this article, I am interested in theory as well.

References Beck, C.J. (1993) Nothing Special: Living Zen (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco) Blake, W. (1790/1993) The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (New York: Granary) Gifford-May, D. & Thompson, N.L. (1994) “‘Deep States’ of Meditation: Phenomenological Reports of Experience” Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 26:117-138. Goldstein J. & Korngold J. (1987) Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation (Boston: Shambhala) Hart, W. (1987) The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S. N. Goenka (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco) Huxley, A. (1945/90) The Perennial Philosophy (New York: HarperCollins) Lao Tsu (1983) Tao Te Ching (New York: Concord Grove Press) Nhat Hanh, T. (1976) The Miracle of Mindfulness! A Manual on Meditation (Boston: Beacon Press) Perls, F.S. (1973) The Gestalt Approach & Eye Witness to Therapy (Ben Lomond, CA: Science and Behavior Books) Perls, F.S., Hefferline, R. & Goodman, P. (1951/1994) Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (Highland, NY: Gestalt Journal Press) Rahula, W. (1959/1974) What The Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press) Wolfert, R. (1989) “The ‘Perennial Philosophy’: Spiritual Aspects Of The Stages Of Contact” Presented at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy. Wolfert, R. (1996/98) “The Broken Doll: A Survivor’s Journey Into Life” in B. Feder & R. Ronall, eds., A Living Legacy of Fritz and Laura

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Perls: Contemporary Case Studies (New York); in The Gestalt Review 2:3:189-231. Wolfert, R. (1997) “Self in Experience, Gestalt Therapy, Science and Buddhism: An Evolving Synthesis” Presented at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN1 GESTALT THERAPY THEORY: AN OVERVIEW2 MARIA KIRCHNER

Introduction Kurt Lewin stated, "There is nothing as practical as a good theory." This being true for all therapeutic modalities, it applies to Gestalt therapy as well. Excitement, awareness, contact, and dialogue are all crucial elements that come to life in the therapeutic encounter. Being theoretically anchored and able to conceptualize the therapeutic change process is a prerequisite for contributing to the effectiveness of any therapeutic encounter and therefore growth. Defining and describing theoretical concepts, however, cannot capture the excitement and vitality that is the vehicle for good contact, deepening of awareness and the powerful choices one can access with all their multi-dimensional ramifications.

Defining the Field A Gestalt therapist addresses the person as a functional, organismic whole that strives towards higher levels of potentiality, actualization, and integration within and as part if its organism/environment field. Ultimately, this results in growthful change and mature self-expression. Gestalt therapy's theory is foremost a theory of growth and education with the focus on health and not on pathology (Latner, 1986). 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 4(3), 2000.

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The German word gestalt cannot be translated into an equivalent, single English term. It encompasses such a wide variety of concepts: a shape, a pattern, a whole form, and a configuration. Gestalt therapy draws on all of these meanings, with equal emphasis on the organized whole and on the notion of pattern. Gestalt therapy is a holistic, process-oriented, dialogical, phenomenological, existential, and field theoretical approach to human change with the centrality of contact, awareness, and personal responsiveness and responsibility. Primacy is given to the uniqueness of the individual. The person is never reduced to parts and structural entities but viewed as an integrated whole with innate potential of growth and mature selfexpression. Of crucial importance is the interplay between biological maturation, environmental influences, interaction of the individual and the environment, and creative adjustment (Yontef, 1933). Gestalt therapy is about the aliveness and excitement, the awareness of choice everyone has in creating their lives. The Gestalt that Fritz Perls created, as the official founder of Gestalt therapy (he preferred to be called the finder or re-finder), is predominantly a synthesis of many existing elements and concepts interrelated into a meaningful, new whole. He wove the new Gestalt out of different bodies of knowledge and disciplines, and was particularly influenced by existential philosophy, phenomenology, holism, humanism, Gestalt psychology, bio-energetics, orthodox and interpersonal psychoanalysis, and Eastern philosophies (Clarkson & Mackewn, 1993). The Zeitgeist, the historical and cultural situation that prevailed during his lifetime in combination with numerous political upheavals, and his exposure to different cultures, left clear marks on this revolutionary new theory.

Philosophical Roots Existential philosophy, which began with Kierkegaard and was further developed by Marcel and Merleau-Ponty, focuses on existence as individual existence. Issues of the existential meaning of freedom, destiny, and the existence of God are of major importance (Wulf, 1998). Other contributions came from Sartre and Heidegger with responsibility, freedom, and authenticity at their center. Phenomenology, which grew out of existentialism, is a philosophy that advocates “going to the things themselves,” conceived as a faithful and unbiased description of consciousness. The focus is on studying consciousness in its subjective meaningful structure and function. Edmund Husserl, the founder and principal exponent of phenomenology, whose

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ideas were embodied in the concepts of awareness and the here-and-now, had a particularly powerful impact on Perls. Holism, and the concept of the whole, were taken up by Jan Smuts (1926) in Holism and Evolution. Smuts considered the organism to be a self-regulating entity with metabolism and assimilation being fundamental functions of all organic wholes. The holistic notion became the epitome of GT with the basic idea that everything is inevitably interrelated and mutually dependent on each other. The whole is more than, and different from, the sum of the individual parts. Thus, any attempt to dissect its aspects is doomed to destroy its nature. One crucial principle of holism is its configuration of a coherent and unified aggregate consisting of lesser wholes. A holistic approach to the human organism embraces and affirms complexity, inclusion, diversity, and resists inexorably any form of reductionism (Wulf, 1998). Humanism, as a multifaceted approach to human experience and behavior, focuses on an individual’s self-actualization and uniqueness, with choice and integration ensuing. The overlap of existentialism and humanism is rich in potential for greater understanding of the human experience and for greater effectiveness in the effort to enrich that experience (Bugental, 1965). Wertheimer, Koffka, Koehler, the representatives of Gestalt psychology, demonstrated that an individual organizes his/her perceptions into meaningful sets. This principle of perception became a basic concept in GT that included the organism’s tendency to perceive wholes even where information is missing. Goldstein’s organismic theory stressed the organismic integrity of individual behavior and its drive to self-actualization. In this theory, combined with Gestalt Psychology, Perls found the ideas for his homeostasis, top-dog and under-dog, contact and withdrawal, and figureground formation. Lewin’s field theory was extremely significant and became one of the fundamental pillars upon which Gestalt therapy theory rests. The field concept believes that all organisms exist only in environmental contexts with reciprocal influences on each other. As a corollary, no individual can be understood independently of his/her surrounding field. Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, dialogic element in the form of the IThou relationship, was innovative for integrating the “between”. In Buber’s sense, all living is meeting of a human being with another human being, which equals existence. There is no “I” without an “It” or a “Thou”. In the full meaning of this philosophy, the I-Thou relation, or dialogue,

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can be understood as a special form of the contacting process (Jacobs, 1989). From Wilhelm Reich, GT borrowed the notion of character armor and body therapy (bio-energetic). It was conjectured that physical tensions are related to the psychological ones. The body is assumed to be the expresser and at the same time the repository of the problems and experiences of the individual. Perls integrated the manifestations of skeletal and muscular armor in chronic character disturbances as the end-result of unresolved emotional conflicts. Although Perls criticized Freud’s psychoanalysis and its variations, its influence on Gestalt therapy is undeniable. Drawing from his psychoanalytic training, Perls used Freud’s developmental sequence as ground for much of his clinical work. He replaced the sexual instinct with the hunger instinct and frequently drew analogies with mental metabolism. From interpersonal psychoanalysis, especially Karen Horney and Harry Stuck Sullivan, Perls adopted a less detached and more active therapeutic stance in addition to their environment-oriented view regarding psychopathology. All ‘forefathers’ and ‘foremothers’ of Gestalt therapy were familiar with eastern philosophies and mysticism, especially Taoism and Zen Buddhism. Living in the moment and transcendence pervade most of the above-mentioned currents that together form the roots of Gestalt therapy. The roughly 50-year-old Gestalt therapy has evolved and changed, built upon and reacted to the root contribution made by Fritz Perls, his wife Laura Perls, and Paul Goodman.

The Gestalt View of Human Nature Gestalt therapy's view of human nature is grounded in four major concepts: biological field theory, the entity of the organism, the need for contact and relationship, and the capacity for making wholes. Biological field theory The field concept believes that all organisms exist in environmental contexts with reciprocal influences on each other. No organism can be reduced to separate components but can only be understood in its organized, interactive, interconnected, and interdependent totality. Every field, be it experiential, social, cultural, etc. is part of a unitary dynamic process. No organism is powered only from within or impacted only from outside, but co-created.

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Theory of the organism An organism is an ordered whole, intrinsically self-regulating individual, seeking growth towards maturity and the fulfillment of its nature. Organismic behavior is purposive and goal-seeking, not random. External controls, whether or not internalized, interfere with the healthy working of the organism and its self regulating. Organismic functions include many dimensions: physical, cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, spiritual, interpersonal, social, and economical, each being of equal importance. Concept of contact Contact, as the “lifeblood of growth” (Polster & Polster, 1980, p.101), is paramount for survival and change. It is understood as the responsive meeting with the other (environmental and internal others, i.e., alienated aspects, blocked feelings, thoughts, and memories, whatever is not integrated and therefore experienced as other). It is also the forming of a figure against a ground and defined as “the creative adjustment of the organism and the environment” (Perls, et al. 1956), neither one existing without relating to and being informed by its counterpart. Consequently, relationships are indispensable with relatedness being an irreducible fact of existence (Buber, 1970). Whole-making capacity Human beings are whole-makers, synthesizers of a wide variety of bodily, perceptual, cognitive, behavioral, and existential gestalts (Crocker, 1999). Learning and change is the result of how an individual organizes his/her experiences and assimilates novelty. Human beings can neither refrain from meaning making nor from organizing and reorganizing themselves as they have new experiences. Our “wiring for meaning” (Wheeler, 1998) always emerges contextually and relationally.

Basic Principles of Gestalt Therapy Theory Gestalt therapy theory holds a non-materialistic and anti-reductionist position that disavows dualistic and linear thinking. Like all psychotherapies, Gestalt therapy is an approach to human change. Change, however, is not directly aimed at but viewed as an inescapable product of contact and awareness, considered together with their interruptions and/or various degrees of absence.

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Contact The essence of human life is contact, a meeting with various kinds of others. Every organism is capable of effective and fulfilling contact with others in their environment and pursues ways of having contact with others so that the organism can survive and grow to maturity. All contact is creative and dynamic and, as such, each experience unfolds as a creative adjustment of the organism in the environment (Perls, Hefferline & Goodman, 1951/1994). Contact is the forming of a figure of interest against a ground within the context of the organism-environment field (see figure/ground formation and destruction). It is also defined as “the awareness of, and the behavior toward, the assimilable; and the rejection of the unassimilable novelty” (Perls et al., 1951/1994, p.230). To have the opportunity for functional and existential contacts in the field, as well as the strength to repudiate and/or sustain unhealthy contacts, is the quintessence of growth and change. Processes of contact There are three major ways of conceptualizing the process of contacting, which is in general a sequence of grounds and figures: x The four stages of contact were originally described by Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman, 1951, as fore-contact, contacting, finalcontact, and post-contact. x This original theory was extended by the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland into the Cycle of Experience (COE) which reflects the following seven stages: sensation (1), awareness (2), mobilization of energy (3), action (4), contact (5), resolution and closure (6), and withdrawal (7). x A newly proposed model (Crocker, 1999) is referred to as the SelfFunction Analysis of Contact which includes the following six functions of the self: interested excitement; decision-making; choosing; past assimilation of experience, beliefs, attitudes, and ways of thinking; learned patterns (habitual) of response; and styles of contact (and withdrawal). A therapist’s interventions are guided by the place and the degree of difficulties and blockages a person experiences within those six areas.

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Interruptions of contact Since every contact takes place at the contact boundary, where the organism and the environment meet, every interruption or distortion of contact was/is also called a contact boundary disturbance (Perls et al.), or an interruption of self-regulations (Polsters). There are four major interruptions of contact, which all result in loss of ego-functions: confluence, introjection, projection, and retroflection. In addition, there are the concepts of egotism (Perls et al., 1951/1994), deflection (Polster & Polster, 1973), and proflection (Crocker, 1981). Every interruption reflects the client’s organization of his/her experience. Therefore, it is paramount to work towards change in the ground that supports the experience. x Confluence: the condition of no-contact. Instead of an ‘I’ and a ‘You’ there is a ‘we’ or a vague, unclear experience of him/herself. x Introjection: the individual experiences something as him/herself when in fact it belongs to the environment (false identification). x Projection: the individual experiences something in the environment when in fact it belongs to him/her (false alienation). x Retroflection: the individual holds back a response intended for the environment and substitutes it with a response for him/herself. Confluence, introjection, projection, and retroflection are often in the service of health and are only detrimental to healthy functioning without awareness (e.g. an artists projects into a picture; an employee chooses not to explode at her boss; the confluence of individuals during orgasm). Organismic self-regulation Self-regulation is a process in which the organism strives for the maintenance of an equilibrium that is continually disturbed by its needs and regained through their gratification and elimination. If functioning properly, it leads to integrating parts with each other and into a whole that encompasses the parts. As self-organizing systems, human beings have the natural capacity to constantly reorganize themselves as they adapt to changing circumstances, assimilate, accommodate, and/or reject influences of others with which/whom they interact. A disturbance of organismic self-regulation happens when contacts are interrupted. Most of the clinical work in Gestalt therapy centers on these interruptions, as they occur in the moment at the contact boundary.

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The paradoxical theory of change The paradoxical theory of change is one of the fundamental organizing principles in Gestalt therapy, with far-reaching implications. Only by being what and who one is can one become something or someone else. Effort, self-control, or avoidance focused exclusively on the future will not bring about change. We must become our truth (ourselves) first before we can move from it (change). Vice versa, if we try to be different without finding what is true for us, we are following someone else’s truth and will not bring about the long-term change to which we aspire. All the energy that can get locked up in the battle between trying to change and resisting change can become available for active participation in our life processes. External as well as internal controls interfere with the healthy working of an organism. Phenomenology Phenomenology in its broadest sense is a philosophical doctrine that advocates the scientific study of immediate experience as the basis (subject matter) of psychology. A phenomenological attitude is one of openness and humility in the presence of the other with genuine interest in, and profound respect for, the other’s way of creating meaning, seeing, experiencing, and organizing the world. Approaching another person phenomenologically implies focusing on the obvious revealed by the situation in the moment and avoiding interpretation and prescription. The main concern is the immediate grasp of being (what is) and the meeting of the other person within his/her organism/environment field, without preconceptions, presuppositions or speculations. It is not of great importance why clients are as they are; instead, the search for understanding and awareness of their process becomes foreground. Unconditioned acceptance and the bracketing of one's own experiences and preconceptions are the basis for any phenomenological approach. Awareness Awareness is the beating heart of Gestalt therapy. The fluidity of awareness is equivalent to the perceptual flow of figure/ground (Crocker, 1999). Awareness is always intentional and occurs in the organismenvironment field. Characterized by contact, sensing, excitement, and Gestalt formation it is a subjective experience, a being in touch with one’s

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own existence inclusive of all senses at a given moment. It is more than the pure thought of a problem but is integrative, implying wholeness, allowing for appropriate responses to a given situation in accordance with one's needs and the possibilities of the environment. Different awareness can come to the foreground at different times. It is the person’s awareness of his/her complexity within and inclusive of the field that manifests itself in uninterrupted organismic self-regulation, meaningful growth and longterm change. Consequently, awareness is integral to dialogical relations.

Dialogue The dialogical principle is based on the I-Thou philosophic anthropology of Martin Buber. It assumes that individuals are made fully into people through the meeting between them (Buber, 1970). Intrinsically interrelated with phenomenology and the here-and-now focus is the openness to and courage for the fluid experience of bringing oneself to share with another in therapy. This attitude of openness to truly meeting the other is the I-Thou stance taken as therapist, but it is not to be identified with the meeting itself. A Gestalt therapist who commits to an IThou stance engages in two phenomenologies, his/her own and the client’s (Resnick, 1995). Dialogue is centered in neither person but originates in both (Hycner, 1990) pointing to the genuine meeting between two people with the power of creating something new rather than adding up two states. Dialogue is a special form of contact that becomes the ground for deepened awareness and self-realization (Jacobs, 1989). Here-and-now focus The quintessence of all processes in Gestalt therapy is the here-andnow focus as it is implicit in the phenomenological foundation. Past and future get their bearings continuously from the present and have to be related to it for meaning to occur. Present-centeredness does not deny the importance of the past or the future; rather, it insists that those aspects of time exist in the present as nostalgia, regret, resentment, fantasy, legend, and history or as anticipation, planning, rehearsal, expectation, hope, dread and despair (Perls, 1976). Reality exists in the moment as a novel experience. If attended to, it can lead to personal growth. Predilection of past or future destroy present contact, and lack of contact with the present leads to flight into the past or the future.

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The concept of the self The self in GT is not a reified unit but a process, constantly changing according to needs and environmental stimuli. It is defined as “the system of contact at any moment” (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951/1994). It does not exist prior to and apart from relationships. Self-experience is constituted exclusively in and by relationships. There is no self independent of field or contact, it is rather “something given in contact” (Goodman, 1951/1994) that comes to life in the encounter with the world. As such it is the agent of growth, dynamic, and the product of relational experiences. Consistent with field theory, the purpose of the self is to unify the whole field, and the self in this process is the agent and/or process of that unification. The self simply comprises what constitutes the field (Parlett, 1991). According to Crocker (1999), the self, as the process that occurs at the boundary, can be separated into six functions: interested excitement; decision-making; choosing; whole-making; habit-formation; contact and withdrawal. Individuals organize their experiences as much as they are organized by their experiences and therefore an analysis of the self’s functions gives insight into how individuals use levels of awareness to solve problems of contact with the environmental field. Figure/ground formation and destruction The process of figure/ground formation and destruction is dynamic. What emerges in the foreground is the figure. It is contrasted against its background, or that which does not become the focus. Taken together, they comprise the gestalt. In a healthy, functioning organism there is a natural spontaneous flow between figure formation and destruction, and that is the basic, dynamic process in which contact occurs. An individual’s history is the background of his/her existence. Disturbances in the background need to become foreground in order to be attended to. In every figure-ground formation, new figures succeed one another with the person being an energetic participant. Loss of faith in the natural process of figure-ground formation prevents reacting to and engaging in novelty. Movement stops. Unfinished business It is assumed that it is an inherent drive of an organism to organize the field in a way that gestalts reach closure. Each incomplete (unclosed)

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gestalt represents an unfinished situation, which interferes with the formation of any novel and vital gestalt. Whenever closure has not been accomplished, interference with free functioning occurs. Instead of growth, one finds stagnation and regression (fixed gestalten, stuck points, or impasses). Ego functions Ego functions enable the individual to identify: 1. What is needed, desired, ‘felt’, wanted, sensed physically, inclusive of an accurate sensory perception of the environment (Id-function). 2. Who one is as a person, i.e. to accurately describe, know, identify the type of person one is and how one characteristically functions (Personality-function). Id and personality functions refer to processes of identification carried out with the ego functions.

Goal of Gestalt Therapy The ultimate aim of Gestalt therapy is to assist the client in restoring (or discovering) his/her own natural ability to self-regulate as an organism and have successful and fulfilling contact with others (environmental others), as well as with disowned aspects of oneself (internal others). That allows one to be able to cope creatively with the events of one’s life and to pursue those goals which seem good and desirable to oneself. Through awareness of and experimentation with bodily sensations, emotional responses, desires, and cognitive assumptions, the clients’ range of choices about how they live their lives, especially how they engage with others and themselves, will be enhanced. The question of foremost interest is HOW a person is creating his/her life in a certain way not WHY they came to be as they are. Accepting someone’s experiential validity is key rather than manipulating occurrences and outcome.

The Nature of Human Functioning In good human functioning the psychologically healthy human being is a person whose organismic self-regulation is working properly. New gestalts emerge with fluidity and are completed. Since all parts of the self are integrated and available, the individual responds adequately to wants and needs (Id functions), and to what happens in the environment. One is capable of realistically evaluating the situation and responsibly initiating

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actions in accordance to who one is (Personality functions) and what the situation requires. Sufficient self-support and behavior mirrors a freshness of response with a clear-sightedness and willingness to take on responsibility (pro-active instead of re-active). The person with psychological health lives in the present moment with awareness, cognizant of the past and filled with excitement of the future. To move with vigor and liveliness towards higher levels of growth is healthy functioning.

The Nature of Human Dysfunctioning Psychological dysfunction is never viewed as a mental disorder but as an organismic or growth disorder (no mind/body dichotomy). In dysfunction there is a loss of a clear internal awareness (needs, wants, and desires) and self-responsiveness (experiences and good contact). The free flowing and flexible contact is blocked and/or distorted, erroneous conclusions about the world, other people and him/herself are drawn and acted upon. All forms of human psychological dysfunction are attempts at simplifying experience, alleviating uncomfortable feelings, or managing difficult adjustments. Therefore, they are considered “creative adaptations to inhospitable situations in a person’s life” (Crocker, 1999, p.134). The Self becomes fixed and the person presents him/herself with inauthentic layers of existence (cliché, role, impasse). Authenticity is dimmed, and reified patterns occur. Self-support is limited, and excessive environmental support is sought through manipulation. In terms of an individual’s self-functions, psychological disorder exists when a client’s experience is, in part, created by a loss of Ego-functions, which result in disturbed contact due to disturbed Id- and/or Personalityfunctions. A client who has a diminished range of ego-functions is unable to identify with id- and/or personality-functions and therefore engages in unaware confluence, introjection, projection, and/or retroflection with one or more of these contact interruptions dominating and forming a pattern (style of contact).

Methods of Gestalt Therapy The central focus of the work of a Gestalt therapist is on contact. This includes the plethora of all complex internal responses and external patterns of behavior that are employed in the contact process. Contact is the defining characteristic of all of the methods Gestalt therapists use in order to bring about change. The methods of Gestalt therapy comprise

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basically five groups: therapeutic relationship, phenomenological method, experiment, work with cognition, and work with the wider field. The therapeutic relationship An authentic, nonjudgmental, dialogic relationship between client and Gestalt therapist is the crucible of change. In order to exchange phenomenologies, a Gestalt therapist must bring a willingness and capability to be present as a person in the therapeutic encounter, inclusive of his/her inner world, sense of experience, knowledge, skills, etc. and a genuine interest in understanding the client’s subjective experiences and needs from the environment (I-Thou stance). Both create the relationship and allow a figure to emerge from the dialogue. Verbal as well as nonverbal behavior is considered a valuable part of the encounter to discover together the quality of experiences, awareness, beliefs and typical patterns of contact. Phenomenological method With a phenomenological attitude the Gestalt therapist is open to and encourages the client to reveal who s/he really is and how she functions in the world. It is the client, not the therapist, who gives meaning to his/her individual ways of being. Applying a phenomenological method allows the Gestalt therapist to attach unique information of the client to theoretical constructs in relation to his/her individual experiences without imposing a particular direction upon the client. It is the actual surface behavior that takes precedence over any and all interpretations. The therapist brackets his/her own experience to describe the presentation of the client, which nurtures the development of awareness and contact. The experiment All experiments, carefully tailored to a client’s specific wants and needs at a given situation, serve the purpose of enhancing a client’s experience in the here and now. This results in greater self-awareness and preparation for action. Experiments give the client a chance to try out, in the safety of the therapeutic situation, variations of current behavior with new perspectives on new and past situations. This actual living through an event(s) is very different from simply talking about a situation. The emphasis is on what-is instead of what-could-be. The possibilities of experiments are truly limitless, and they include role-playing; amplification, exaggeration,

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and refraction; work with body, breath, voice tone, gestures; changed use of language and switching between mother tongue and adopted languages; use of metaphors and imagery; dream work; homework. Work with cognition Clients often hold beliefs about their lives that are erroneous, distorted and filled with contradictions. These have a direct impact on a person’s experience, contact patterns, belief systems and actions. Since words reveal what the client thinks and what his/her guiding assumptions and beliefs are, the Gestalt therapist focuses on the way language is used with the intent of cognitive restructuring when indicated. Work with the wider field A Gestalt therapist frequently works directly with those fields that include and reciprocally affect individuals, such as a significant other (couple’s therapy), families, groups, and/or organizations with the goal of bringing about changes to their internal dynamics as well as in their impact on others.

Research on the Gestalt Approach Unfortunately there has been a paucity of research on Gestalt therapy over the years. Some Gestalt therapists argue that the complexity of the Gestalt approach is the main reason why research has not been more thoroughly advanced. Another explanation refers to Gestalt therapy’s philosophical underpinnings, which are thought to be incompatible with an empirical research endeavor. Reducing the holistic and rich therapy process to a mere few techniques, trivializing its wholeness and complexity through oversimplification, or replacing subjectivity with generalizations risks loosing its essence. This may have discouraged potential researchers. Simkin (1978) reported that Gestalt therapy was not even recognized by the Psychological Abstracts as separate from Gestalt psychology until 1973, and Harman’s (1984) conclusion of a review of Gestalt therapy research literature confirmed the scarcity of quality research in the field. A growing, yet still small number of practicing Gestalt psychotherapists and theoreticians started to counteract this state of affair but the published research in support of the Gestalt approach remains far from being competitive.

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Gestalt Review (1997) reports that over 300 doctoral dissertations containing research on Gestalt therapy have been conducted, but only a handful were published in professional journals. Recent work by Paivio and Greenberg (1995), Greenberg, Rice and Elliot (1993), and Greenberg, Elliot, and Lietaer (1994) are moderate beginnings of outcome studies that show the effectiveness of Gestalt therapy. Additional findings reported Gestalt therapy bringing about significant positive changes in body image (Clance, Thompson, Simerly, & Weiss, 1994), the effectiveness of the empty-chair dialogue versus desensitization processes (Johnson & Smith, 1997), favorable Gestalt therapy outcome compared to psycho-education of unfinished business (Paivio & Greenberg, 1995), and the efficacy of Gestalt therapy with ‘hard-core’ criminals (Serok & Levi, 1993). A relatively conclusive meta-analysis of the effectiveness of Gestalt therapy was conducted in Germany and is published in German only (Schmitz, 1995). One of the oldest research studies goes back to 1927 when the Russian psychologist Blyuma Zeigarnik discovered experientially that people tend to return meaningfully to any unfinished activity striving for closure to obtain a sense of completion and fulfillment. This research is known as the Zeigarnik effect (Zeigarnik, 1972). It is, however, claimed that Gestalt fundamentals provide advantageous training for researchers of qualitative methodology in using themselves as their own instrument. Trained Gestalt therapists have much to offer in the areas of awareness, actuality, complexity, personal responsibility, and staying with the process. These are all desirable skills for the qualitative researcher (Brown, 1997). For the growing research in the realm of contact boundary issues, which is the essence of Gestalt therapy, inventories and questionnaires have been developed and have been modified and further developed (Gestalt contact styles questionnaire; Gestalt inventory of resistance loadings both coming out of the Kent State University). Very recently practitioners within the Gestalt Community created an organization, a Gestalt Research Consortium, to change the current underrepresentation of research in Gestalt therapy. The members of this group committed to devote a portion of their resources (time, energy, involvement, money, etc.) to a program of research. Judging from the lively discussion that has been going on and the many valuable contributions from well-known Gestalt practitioners from all over the world, decisive and rich results can be expected in the future.

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Limitations of Gestalt therapy Gestalt therapy is lacking a distinct, clearly defined and fully elaborated theory of human development. In the absence of this understanding, psychological sufferings that are developmental in origin are void of consistent theoretical explanations within a Gestalt theoretical framework. Knowledge of conditions that are necessary for healthy development could be expanded to how human development accounts for contact change over the entire life of the human organism. Not having those constructs available leaves the therapist theoretically unsupported of what is most effective in the therapeutic process with clients who are afflicted by certain kinds of developmental damage and/or deficiencies. There have been modest attempts undertaken by Gestalt therapists to change this, and they point towards promising future additions (Wheeler, 1998; McConville, 1995; Lobb & Salonia, 1993). Consistent with the above, some practitioners and theorists see Gestalt therapy as being limited in relation to more serious forms of psychological dysfunction, namely the psychoses and those disturbances which are described as “personality disorders” in the DSM-IV (Crocker, 1999; Latner, 1986; Yontef, 1993). Others, however, take an opposing stand and claim that Gestalt therapy is particularly helpful for treating personality disorders (Greenberg, 1995; Shub, 1999). Yontef (1993) reports through own experiences that Perls “demonstrated an extraordinary ability to establish contact with psychotic patients who had not been reached by others” (p.423). For acute cases where crisis intervention is indicated (e.g. suicidal or homicidal ideation), as well as for those people with severe impairments related to mood and/or mind altering substances, Gestalt therapy might have a reduced potential of effectiveness. Level of motivation can also be a negative determinant for outcome. A further and maybe the most important limitation is related to the fact that a Gestalt therapist uses his/her own person as a therapeutic medium for change. The willingness of a Gestalt therapist to be present during the therapeutic contact requires strong personal commitment to abide to the principles of Gestalt therapy and a high level of self-awareness. Yet, to the extent the therapist has unresolved personal issues, and is therefore unable to engage in real contact, the therapeutic effectiveness will be detrimentally impaired.

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Multicultural Considerations The field-theoretical and the phenomenological tenets as well as the principles of holism take, per definition, cultural differences into consideration. Implicit in its field-theoretical understanding is the fact that human beings are not islands but impacted by social influences as well as impactful on others. With respect to the existential field, each person shares a world with others in a variety of ways contributing to meaning and value. The belief in and the use of the phenomenological method in Gestalt therapy focuses on the client’s subjective experience and the meaning thereof for him/her, void of the question of right or wrong, true or false, accurate or inaccurate, and/or of any ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’. Since the Gestalt therapist is non-judgmental and limits interpretation and analysis, it is exclusively the client who is the ultimate judge of accuracy and validity of any construction placed upon his/her experience. If reports, thoughts, experiences, etc., run counter to the therapist’s own experience of similar situations, due to cultural or ethnic differences, this will be addressed as part of the therapeutic process. An open dialogue of emerging differences will facilitate more awareness of therapists’ and clients’ “objective truth,” and this sharing will contribute to a more authentic and honest therapeutic relationship. Any hypothesis a therapist has according to his/her theoretical understanding and personal experience needs to be checked out with the client and either confirmed, altered, or rejected throughout the interaction (are my cultural perceptions accurate? Non-verbal cues read correctly?). The client is considered the expert of his/her own cultural experience and knowing about it is less important than experiencing it during the therapeutic encounter. Instead of gathering cultural data about clients, the therapist uses him/herself as a person-of-culture and takes into consideration his/her impact on the client as a person-of-culture (Plummer, 1997). By fully understanding his/her own cultural influences (level of self-awareness) the therapist is more apt to provide culturally and ethnically competent therapy. Since the focus of the therapy is the clients’ experiences and contact functions, information about their cultural background becomes inherent and need not be addressed separately within the contact. Any client is uniquely constructed out of the phenomenological data, which get revealed in the dialogical engagement, and this uniqueness cannot be seen apart from the environmental context/field.

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Concluding Remarks Gestalt therapy is a well-developed and well-grounded theory with a myriad of tenets, principles, concepts, and methods, even though Gestalt therapy is often misrepresented in college textbooks and lumped together with psychodrama and other emotive and expressive therapies. Gestalt therapy is a sound science and a powerful means for facilitating and nurturing the full functioning of the human person with the potential of bringing about human healing, growth, and wholeness. In Perls, Hefferline & Goodman’s (1951/1994) terms the “Gestalt outlook is the original, undistorted, natural approach to life, to man’s [and woman’s, added by the author] thinking, acting, feeling” (p.xxiv) with the criteria of therapeutic progress being measured against “the patient’s own awareness of heightened vitality and more effective functioning” (Perls, et al., 1951/1994, p.15). At the end of therapy the client is not necessarily “cured” but able to access tools and equipment to deal with any kind of problems he/she will have to encounter. Gestalt therapy undoubtedly has the capacity to contribute to and vitalize effectively the field of psychotherapy and fits excellently into the contemporary realm of clinical psychology. With the power of creatively adjusting to psychology’s changing paradigm, Gestalt therapy has the basic prerequisites to be included in mainstream psychology.

References Brown, J. (1997). Researcher as instrument. Gestalt Review, 1(1), 71-84. Buber, M. (1970). I and Thou. New York: Scribner's Sons. Clance, P. R., Thompson, M. B., Simerly, D. E., & Weiss, A. (1994). The effects of the Gestalt approach on body image. Gestalt Journal, 17(1), 95-114. Clarkson, P., & Mackewn, J. (1993). Fritz Perls. London: Sage. Crocker, S. F. (1981). "Proflection". The Gestalt Journal, 4 (2), 35-42. —. (1999). A well-lived life: Essays in Gestalt therapy. Cleveland, OH: Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Press. Fagan, J., & Shepard, I. L. (Eds.). (1970). Gestalt therapy now. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books. Goldstein, K. (1939). The organism. New York: American Book Company. Goodman, P. (1951/1994). Gestalt therapy: Excitement and growth in the human personality. In F. Perls, R. Hefferline, & P. Goodman (Eds.) . Highland, NY: The Gestalt Journal Press.

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Greenberg, E. (1995). Healing the borderline. The Gestalt Journal, 12(2), 11-54. Greenberg, L. S., Elliott, R. K., & Lietaer, G. (1994). Research on experiential psychotherapies. In A. E. Bergin & S. L. Garfield (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy and behavior change . New York: Wiley. Greenberg, L. S., Rice, L. N., & Elliott, R. K. (1993). Facilitating emotional change: The moment to moment process. New York: Guilford. Harman, R. (1984). Gestalt therapy research. Gestalt Journal, 7(2), 61-69. Hycner, R. A. (1990). The I-Thou relationship and Gestalt therapy. The Gestalt Journal, 13(1), 41-54. Jacobs, L. (1989). Dialogue in Gestalt theory and therapy. The Gestalt Journal, 12(1), 25-67. Johnson, W. R., & Smith, E. W. L. (1997). Gestalt empty-chair dialogue versus desensitization in the treatment of phobia. Gestalt Review, 1(2), 150-162. Latner, J. (1986). The Gestalt therapy book. New York: The Gestalt Journal. Lobb, S., & Salonia, G. (1993). What is the future in Gestalt therapy? Studies in Gestalt Therapy, 2 (26-34). Melnick, J., & Nevis, S. M. (1997). Diagnosing in the here and now: The experience cycle and DSM-IV. British Gestalt Journal, 6(2), 97-106. McConville, M. (1995). Adolescence: Psychotherapy and the emerging self. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Paivio, S. C., & Greenberg, L. S. (1995). Resolving 'unfinished business': Efficacy of experiential therapy using empty-chair dialogue. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63(3), 419-425. Parlett, M. (1991). Reflections on field theory. British Gestalt Journal, 1(2), 69-81. Perls, F. (1948). Theory and technique of personality integration. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 2, 565-586. —. (1973). The Gestalt approach and eye witness to therapy. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books. Perls, F., Hefferline, R., & Goodman, P. (1951/1994). Gestalt therapy: Excitement and growth in the human personality. Highland, NY: The Gestalt Journal Press. Perls, F. S. (1969). Ego, hunger, and aggression. New York: Vintage Books. Perls, L. (1976). Aspects of Gestalt therapy. unpublished manuscript presented at the American Orthopsychiatric Association.

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Plummer, D. (1997). A Gestalt approach to culturally responsive mental health treatment. Gestalt Review, 1(3), 190-204. Polster, E., & Polster, M. (1973). Gestalt Therapy Integrated. New York: Brunner/ Mazel. Schmitz, B. (1995). Eine Meta-analyse der Wirksamkeit von Gestalttherapie. Zeitschrift für Klinische Psychologie, Psychopathologie und Psychotherapie, 123(2), 324-356. Serok, S., & Levi, N. (1993). Application of Gestalt therapy with longterm prison inmates in Israel. Gestalt Journal, 16(1), 105-127. Shepard, M. (1975). Fritz: An intimate portrait of Fritz Perls and Gestalt therapy. New York: Saturday Review Press. Shub, N. (1999). Character in the present: Why Gestalt therapy is particularly helpful for treating character-disordered clients. Gestalt Review, 3(1), 64-77. Simkin, J. (1978). Gestalt therapy and the Psychological Abstracts. American Psychologist, 33, 705-706. Smith, E. W. L. (Ed.). (1976). The growing edge of Gestalt therapy. Highland, NY: The Gestalt Journal Press. Smuts, J. C. (1926/1996). Holism and evolution. Highland, New York: Gestalt Journal Press. Stevens, J. O. (1971). Awareness: Exploring, experimenting, experiencing. Moab, UT: Real People Press. Swanson, C., & Lichtenberg, P. (1998). Diagnosis in Gestalt therapy: A modest beginning. The Gestalt Journal, 21(1), 5 - 17. Van De Riet, V., Korb, M. P., & Gorrell, J. J. (1988). Gestalt therapy: An introduction. New York: Pergamon Press. Wheeler, G. (1998). A Gestalt developmental model. British Gestalt Journal, 7(2), 115-125. Wulf, R. (1998). The historical roots of Gestalt therapy. The Gestalt Journal 21(1), pp.81-92. Yontef, G. M. (1993). Awareness, dialogue, and process: Essays on Gestalt therapy. Highland, NY: The Gestalt Journal Press. Zeigarnik, B. (1927). Das Behalten erledigter und unerledigter Handlungen. Psychologische Forschung, 9, 1-85. Zinker, J. (1991). Creative process in Gestalt therapy: The therapist as artist. The Gestalt Journal, 14(2), 71-88

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN1 CLINICAL SUPERVISION: A GESTALT-HUMANISTIC FRAMEWORK2 YARO STARAK

Introduction This paper was originally written to serve as a focus for discussion with a group of supervisors-in-training at The University of Queensland, Australia. It was a beginning attempt to develop a professional supervision framework that could serve as a model for supervision of psychotherapists and counsellors. The discussion developed several themes that concern supervision in its broader context. The themes evolved from the clinical perspective and moved into team work, group work, organisational development and the global perspective of supervision. Supervision is generally considered separate from the formal training of counsellors or therapists. Clinical supervision is offered only after the student has graduated and begins a professional career. In Gestalt therapy training, clinical supervision is included in the final year of training. In addition, to become a Gestalt therapy trainer and leader, the graduate must have considerable supervision time (up to 200 hours) and undergo additional training as educator and leader of training groups. In spite of the expertise and seniority of the trainers, the growing proliferation of Gestalt centres in Australia and overseas has highlighted a need to develop a more comprehensive framework for supervision. This article will discuss the Gestalt-Humanistic framework of supervision that 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 5(1), 2001

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has its basic origins in the work of R. Tannenbaum, H. Shepard and F. Perls. Some items presented here were also discussed in an article by S. Eisen who focused primarily on redesigning human and global systems. The author acknowledges the above in shaping his ideas for this article. This article is an attempt to begin a process of dialogue about supervision what is supervision in the new millennium? How do we define supervision for the future? Is the title or role itself open to a shift in name?

Let Us Discuss First a Definition of Supervision In the past, the name supervisor was given to someone who was a senior practitioner or worker who was elevated to the role of overseer of others less experienced staff or students. In most organisations, the role of supervisor that oversees the staff or workers shifted from overseer to middle manager responsible for ensuring that the workers achieved the established goals or tasks designed by the organisation. Little or no attention was given to the personís developmental needs in supervision. Today, both workers and organisations have changed dramatically. The supervisorís job requires an understanding of complex systems that are constantly in transition. Change is the only stable factor and therefore the role of the supervisor is also changing in keeping with these shifts. In Gestalt therapy, change and the awareness of the process of change is imbedded in the essence of Gestalt work with individuals, groups and organisations. Gestalt therapy theory was founded on the concept of shifting relations as the organism becomes in contact with the environment. The therapist then is required to clearly focus on the process of this interactive flow between people, cultures, life-cycles, creative indifference, flexibility, timing, disciplined self-awareness and so on. Supervision in Gestalt therapy practice is therefore broadly defined as facilitating the process of the therapistís response-ability in working with the client or the group. Gestalt therapy supervision then is a here-and-now process that explores the contact-boundary between the therapist and the client system for the purpose of enabling the therapist to become more creative and fully alive in the therapy session. This process also brings into awareness the contact-boundary between the supervisor and the supervisee. What is taking place in supervision has a parallel to what is taking place in the therapy session. Making both processes open to dialogue makes the supervisory relationship lively and more authentic as a learning experience for both parties.

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In order to prepare ourselves as supervisors for the future, we need to look at a basic framework and invite dialogue about it and discover what will emerge from this dialogue. Questions: * From the above statement, how do you see Supervision, different or similar? * How do you experience your own supervision? * Are you a supervisor? If so, what is your own definition of Supervision? * Would you change the name Supervisor?

A Perspective from Gestalt - the Background The Gestalt perspective of FIGURE and GROUND developed by Gestalt psychologists and later by Dr F. Perls and other Gestalt therapists has become an increasingly useful model for supervisors. FIGURE refers to whatever aspects of perception of reality or experience are currently in the foreground of attention. Figure is the explicit part of the process (e.g., when hungry we pay more attention to food than to speech). While GROUND (or background) refers to everything else around the figure, it is more implicit part of the process. In addition, the ground serves as the context for the figure and by its relationship to the figure gives it meaning ( take a look at a painting in an art gallery). Changes in the figure or ground result in a changed "Gestalt" or the way we perceive what is real and meaningful to us (having learned some Spanish, I feel more at ease to travel to South America). The Humanistic perspective assumes that in any human system, from the individual to society, there is a tendency for paying attention or to focus on pressures, needs or opportunities and to take for granted or even forget those aspects that are stable. Only under unusual stress, crisis or threat to our survival we stop and consider such deeper questions as "who am I?". "What is this group's function?", "what is our organisation's mission?", etc. At other times we simply coast along and maintain the status quo. The core characteristics of any human system, therefore, tend to be both aware and unaware. Living organisms are generally guided by patterns and set behaviours that are coded for survival in the environment. However, these basically unaware characteristics do not help the organism to survive if the environment changes (witness the destruction of the

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dinosaurs). Awareness, the second characteristic, is a way of attending to our experience with the world. This characteristic is crucial if the person will continue to grow and develop new adaptive mechanisms of survival. In other words, the first characteristic helps us to protect and maintain our values, beliefs and assumptions about the world. While the second characteristic helps us to change and grow. Finally, another Gestalt-Humanistic perspective is the view that change is a paradox. The more we protect and value our survival skills, the more rigid and useless they become over time. However, the more aware we become as to exactly how we protect ourselves without any fruitful outcomes, the more we are able to generate the energy for change and adopt new survival tools. This is precisely the place, (the fine line between managing our core survival values and changing them as the situation changes), is the most fertile ground for supervision work. Some call it the Existential Ground.

The Ground of Supervision - Dig and You Shall Find Anyone wishing to become a change agent, manager, supervisor or consultant, must be very aware of the existential ground. In dealing with complex and paradoxical issues, the supervisor requires the skills to work at several of the levels available there and be able to be more flexible and creative than the system he or she is working with. The flexibility required by the supervisor is much more fluid than the one required by the therapist. The supervisor not only has the proper credentials as a therapist, but also is professing or claiming certain wisdom beyond the therapeutic. The supervisorís vast experience is rich in special skills like consultation, teaching and facilitation. It also brings into play the roles (or parts) like process enabler, evaluator of good practice and so on. What is most important however, is the supervisorís ability to stand outside the boundaries of the task at hand and be able to examine the whole field from above (the astronautís perspective). Or from the minerís perspective, be able to see the minute details and focus on the obvious. Both perspectives offer the supervisor an opportunity to discover something new, something different, a fresh point of reference to the session. The supervisorís foreground is precisely this sense of the novel, the exciting, coming from the background of the mundane and difficult in the therapeutic work. The reward is the discovery that something new can emerge and give energy to both parties in the supervision process. The

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following example shows how one supervisor worked with a case of avoiding personal feelings. An example of avoidances: Supervisee: "I am upset about my last session with a client" Begins to tell the story about the session. Supervisor: " Wait a moment, you said you are upset and you begin to tell me the story - what are you feeling at this moment?" Supervisee: "You want me to say what I am feeling right now?" Supervisor: " Yes, please do" Supervisee: "I feel angry and upset about myself" Supervisor: " Perhaps you feel angry and upset about your client also?" Supervisee: " NO, I should do better than I did!" Supervisor: " You just mentioned two things that you do to punish yourself with. One is to become upset at yourself and the other that you should do better" Supervisee: " AH, I keep doing this every time I lose contact with my client and start thinking about my work ". Supervisor: "Yes, you have named the two avoidances to contact with client, Retroflection and Introjection, lets discuss this some more now"

The Method of Discovery - Aha! The basic principle used in this framework is DISCOVERING THAT SOMETHING NEW IS POSSIBLE. The way to approach this involves three specific concepts from gestalt theory: 1. THE AWARENESS OF PROCESS. This indicates that to practice awareness we need to be in the here and now moment. Or as F. Perls said, "I and Thou, in the Here and Now". We do not interpret, analyse, or give advice. We respect history and the complexity of the inner experience in the person, group or organisation and act as facilitators or enablers of the process that is opening opportunities for self-discovery. 2. FIELD THEORY. The concept of field was developed by Kurt Lewin (1951) who borrowed the term from high energy physics. In our terminology it is the ground or context, the unspoken environment that we take for granted and that serves as a resource to the foreground. In other words it is the process of the unknown, the taboos or the invisible factor in the relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee. 3. BEING IN CONTACT. This means that we encounter ourselves and the human system in an active, contactful and immediate

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relationship. The assumption here is that the supervisor is as much a learner of the process as the student, the group or the community. However, the supervisor acts as a guide and uses all of the above mentioned tools that focus on the core characteristics, working style, patterns of behaviour and disturbances that block contact and prevent change. Questions: * Have you had an experience of the AHA in supervision? If so, Describe it. * Can you think of times that you have experienced a downer in your work. A lack of energy? Describe it.

Using the Gestalt-Humanistic Framework in Practice In practical terms, all work with people concerns itself with the development and maintenance of a balanced state or equilibrium between the person and the environment. Both are in constant flux. When conditions in the environment change, then the adjustment to those changes require a shift. This shift may be as simple as seeking a new restaurant when the one we frequented suddenly closed, to a major shift in the way we deal with conflict when we are facing with the prospect of important life changes such as retirement or moving to a new country. Change always involves at least three levels of shifts. One is at the major target of change (e.g. retirement due to redundancy); the other two being at the level above the target (e.g. redundancy) and at the level below the target (e.g. our feelings about being redundant). In other words, rather than focus on the "symptom" or "problem" alone, this approach requires that we also pay attention to the field or context from which the "problem" has emerged, the target (person, group, organisation) that is in the foreground and the RELATIONSHIP between the two. In Gestalt we call it the dialogic contact. According to L. Jacobs (Jacobs 1995), there are two major emphases when describing the nature of the relationship in therapy. The role of the relationship and the characteristics of the relationship. (p.51). In supervision, the role of the relationship refers to the quality of the dialogic) contact between the supervisor and the supervisee and the characteristic of the relationship leading to the betterment of the therapeutic outcome for the client.

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In practice, this dialogic contact may be formulated and expressed in three types of supervisory interventions: A basic intervention that will lead to the exploration of the blocks emerging between the therapist and the client; a more complex intervention that may involve a more pro-active and on-going strategic planning such as personal work, further training, group supervision and so on and finally there may be necessary some fundamental interventions such as a paradigm shift that will have an impact on all levels of practice such as personal crises, changing life style or a career change. Altogether, working on many levels and changing field configurations, allows for a vast variation in ways of working with people. The work is always in the present or actual situation. The dialogue can never be the same, never a routine or reduced to mere technique. Out of the co-created explorations between the supervisor and the supervisee, can emerge a variety of possible solutions leading to new learning, growth and discovery.

The Supervisory Process - Going with the Flow The Gestalt-Humanistic framework as applied to supervision assumes that it is a progression to another level of the counselling and/or therapeutic relationship. As a member of the human system, the worker, therapist or counsellor, is experiencing difficulties or is stuck in some way. He decides to ask for help. The presenting issue or problem is the FIGURE. The supervisor, consultant, guide, takes that request in and then proceeds to establish a process where the parties concerned will develop an awareness of the GROUND from which the issue, concern or problem has arisen. Having done that, he or she facilitates new ways of discovering the solutions that lie in the relationship between the two. For example, if the supervision process moves too close to the personís life issues, it enters the area of psychotherapy, if it moves more towards the workplace, it enters the area of organizational development and if it moves more towards theory, it enters the area of continuing education. The field is enormous and much is at stake. However, the supervisory process aims to be flexible. In the GestaltHumanistic perspective we make no assumptions to the right or wrong way. That does not mean that anything will do. On the contrary, the supervisor has a vast reservoir of options to choose from. The choice depends on the person, the relationship, the context and the awareness continuum from which emerge the conditions for change. The supervisor also takes into account all the variables and conditions in the field that

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include the individual, the group, the organisation and the global influences in the environment such as economic and political shifts. Since the field encompasses all the visible and invisible factors, gestalt theory helps us in understanding this process by focusing our awareness on the emerging parts or figures. The following paragraphs will examine these parts in more detail.

The Person in Supervision Clinical supervision is an intrinsic part of being a psychotherapist. Embedded in the practice is the need for on-going examination of the process and content of our work. For example, we find that blocks and barriers in the practice emerge when the therapist exhausts the previously learned skills and techniques and finds himself losing the flexibility and creativity that was there early in the work. At the same time he tries hard to maintain the status quo of his work. The supervisor’s role here is to value at first the legitimacy of each person’s way of experiencing the world and recognize the patterns that are blocking creative work. Next, the supervisor explores the difficulties with an open and non-judgmental attitude and provides authentic feed-back. The supervisor also includes relevant feelings and thoughts of his own about the supervisory relationship and proceeds to explore with the supervisee the dissociated parts (those that want to change and those that want to maintain things as they are). Usually these parts need time for reintegration in the person to begin to work as inner allies and not as enemies. This inner work in supervision includes the relationship factors with the self (dreams and fantasies); the relationship with the client (projections and transferences); the small group (early family patterns); the organisation and the larger environmental field. Each aspect will be discussed below.

The Sub-Selves The person has many parts or sub-selves. The self is variable, fluid and is the point of contact with the environment. Yet, the self is also a pattern of organised behaviours that we call a personality. (This is who I am). If a person is split or dis-integrated, then the sub-selves do not function in harmony and the person finds it more difficult to be in touch with the outer world. In a supervisory session, the supervisor examines how the person's socalled "sub-selves" or parts of the persona interact with others in the

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environment. The presence of these inner sub-selves is well documented in the works of Eric Berne (adult, parent and child), Freud (ego, id and superego) and F. Perls (top-dog and under-dog) just to name a few. An awareness of these sub- selves can provide the supervisor with a rich perspective for understanding the many aspects of human experience, behaviour and interaction with others. This offers a powerful tool for the supervisor in working with his or her client(s) to understand the complex and reciprocal influence between the sub-self dynamics and among other system levels (F. Perls, 1973). Working with the sub-selves in dialogue is a common Gestalt practice. Example: Supervisor: You want to integrate and expand your work more, is that correct? Therapist in Supervision (Supervisee): Yes, I am currently working with a client that is new to Gestalt Therapy and I have difficulty in using some open seat techniques with her... Supervisor: What was the issue you were working on? Therapist: I wanted to work on a piece of a dream that she was presenting and she only wanted to talk about the dream and not play the parts in it Supervisor: So what did you do? Therapist: I showed her how to play different parts of the dream myself and she observed Supervisor: And what part in her dream are you playing? Therapist: (Seems thoughtful)I see, I played the good therapist Supervisor: And was that useful in exploring her dream? Therapist: Now that I am aware of my own part in this, I am not so sure…

Questions: * How would you highlight the sub-selves emerging in the example above? * What are the issues that are calling your attention as a supervisor? * What is your own need to be aware of the sub-self that is supervising?

The Self in Relationship This term refers to the systemic entity composed of two or more individuals in relationship. By studying these patterns of relationship, we may determine the characteristics, structures and patterns that define a relationship. Relationships that are coercive, competitive, distrustful block

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the ability to be adaptive, effective and be able to respond to the changes successfully. Gestalt-Humanistic supervision views relationships as dialogical, authentic and process oriented, walking on the edge and not taking for granted the security of any technique or strategy or theoretical assumption. The essence of this process is the focus on the rich and the varied, always shifting structure of the whole person. Buber (1958) named this process IThou. The terms I-Thou and I-It indicate the reciprocal nature of our orientation. They create a context for the attitude with which others approach us. A genuine openness to others tends to elicit a reciprocal response. If others feel objectified by us, it is likely they will approach us in an objectifying manner. The attitude with which I approach another is also the attitude with which I approach myself. If I value others, that reflects back on my valuing myself. If I objectify others, then I will objectify myself. (Hycner, 1988)

The Team - the Closer Relations When working within a team environment, the supervisorís focus may be on the primary relationships that exist within the teamís dynamics and the patterns of communication that enhance or hinder team work. One of the most interesting patterns that frequently emerge in team work is the individual members family of origin unfinished business. Teams are often called family groups, promotions and competition engenders sibling rivalry and authority figures may represent old family members that have had strong impact on the individuals in the team and now tend to be projected on the team leaders. Similarly the behaviour of the supervisor may be patterned after early experiences he or she may have had with parents or other members in the family of origin. Interactions in teams are therefore extremely potent. They serve as a basis for learning the social skills of survival for individuals within the group. These include information exchange, performance evaluation, modelling proper standards, shaping behaviours, problem solving and maintenance of the wellbeing of the participants. Supervising a team for achieving the identified organisational and individual goals is one of the most challenging ways of working and gaining experience in group dynamics.

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The Group - Many More There is a growing awareness among service agencies and corporations that it is people that make the difference between good service delivery and poor service delivery to clients or customers. There is a growing consensus that people perform better in small groups and the group is a medium of dealing with a multitude of needs that emerge and affects how the individual performs in the workplace. Self nourishment, friendships, partnerships on the one end of the social scale; to saving time, develop new skills and create more efficient service delivery on the other end. In agencies or institutions that do not have the time or funds for individual supervision, it is common to develop peer-supervision groups. In this group situation, the individuals are exposed to more resources and different creative options not available in individual supervision. Sharing their issues and experimenting with various solutions within the small group, members can open up to new perspectives and emerging gestalts. Often work in a small group promotes more energy and excitement in the participants and personal narratives can be challenged with alternative ways of working presented and experimented within the group. Interventions that require group support, demand feedback form colleagues or challenge old practice assumptions need the setting of a group. However, it is important to note that peer or group supervision is not for everyone. Here is a little role play you may wish to attempt in your own peersupervision group: If a member has a problem or is feeling stuck in what we may call an impasse, ask this member to play the role of the client while someone in the group volunteer to play the Supervisor. Group members may take turns playing the client, or the supervisor and attempt different interventions suggested by the group. The role-plays may be videotaped and discussed later in a reflection session. In addition to learning the skills of group maintenance and support, the supervisee will learn to assess the group dynamics and will be able to relate these to the client situation. Finally, the goal of group supervision is to develop a collective clinical wisdom that can be shared with the individuals and add more technical and strategic knowledge to the constantly changing field. Question: * Do you have a group supervision experiment to share with us?

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The Organisation - the Working Field From the study of the group there evolved the study and development of an awareness of the organisational field. While the early T-groups were developed to get the group "trained" to change the individual's behaviour in dramatic ways, these experiences led gestalt therapists and training consultants to begin implementing the gestalt approach in organisations. So, much of the learning for supervisors progressed from developing individuals to developing teams to developing the context of organisations themselves. Organisations have traditionally functioned as stable entities until recently. The globalization of many organisations and companies has created a demand for a more flexible, multi-skilled manager. People at all levels of organisations began to undergo re-training and development that led to more open and interdependent structures such as teams and cooperative ventures to achieve the desired goals. Managers have learned to be more pro-active and sensitive to the environmental contexts in which the organisation lives, works and produces the goods and/or services. Gestalt therapy principles are being adopted in organisations in many western countries and in the new countries that have risen after the fall of communism. Such principles as awareness, holistic thinking, paradoxical view of change, self-regulating systems and so on have been recently adopted by many authors writing books dealing with organisational change.(Nevis, 1995). Groups of professionals may come to supervision from different organisations that have joint ventures. Others may come from same fields of practice but from different organisations, such as doctors from different hospitals. Others may come from different fields but same organisation, like community services. Finally groups may come from same organisation and same field of practice, such as a marital counselling agency.

Global Society - the Undiscovered Self The notion of THINK GLOBALLY - ACT LOCALLY makes a lot of sense today. We are increasingly becoming aware of the larger global society as the ultimate context of everything we do. We can no longer ignore the activities and decisions that are made half a globe away. We can no longer tolerate the immense ecological damage done by the Eastern European countries to its land, water and air. Business groups in Australia can not ignore the intense competition of the third world countries for

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global markets and who often produce quality goods at a lower price. Communication technologies increasingly blur distances and make any location on earth accessible to business, any information available to research, any potential market becoming local. Internet is one example . The distinction of what is local and what is global is no longer meaningful. And so we are learning the implications of what we do in global terms and what is the effect of our local work on global events and on the whole of the world environment. Global awareness means having strong feelings and knowledge that we are part of the whole earth community and are responsible for and not standing apart from the planet Earth and all that it contains. One way to achieve our collective dreams and reality goals for the world is to begin to re-process our inner "pollution and garbage" - that is old, outdated paradigms. This sort of "recycling" on a global scale will bring about possibilities to solve the many problems and issues of the world. The world has become a GESTALT. The supervisor (perhaps the name itself is archaic) in the global context must be able to manage change in a very different way from those who preceded him or her only a few years ago. This person will be able to develop both people and organizations that can function as self-regulating and self-directed systems. Many more opportunities will be needed and created to enable people to satisfy not only their financial need but also to be able to grow, develop and achieve a greater degree of self-realization. The supervisor- facilitator- enabler will be asked to become a model for those seeking and demanding this greater ideal of global participant.

Conclusion In this article the focus was on the development of a broad framework for Gestalt-Humanistic supervision. In keeping with the gestalt-holistic philosophy of expanding awareness as a healing process, the framework itself was allowed to emerge as a FIGURE from a broad BACKGROUND of several perspectives and ideas that go beyond the narrow view of supervision. Supervision that is normally conducted with one person in an office environment. A. Williams in his book Visual and Active Supervision has a statement that is useful to conclude with. The development of clinical wisdom is approached, where possible, through supervisor roles, supervision focus and visual and active technique. These methods play out the therapy system so that all of it can be experienced simultaneously. Super-vision is a vision offered to trainees so that they may see; second time around, the

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process in which they are involved; it does not mean the vision of the supervisor being imposed on the trainee. (Introduction to the book) It is hoped that the reader will find the above gestalt bits on supervision useful items to chew on and develop some clinical wisdom to improve and enliven the therapeutic practice of staff and students in training. For those who supervise others, whether in the private office or in an organisation, this material is offered as a first step on a longer journey of discovery that something new is always possible in supervision.

References Buber M. (1958). I and Thou. ( R.G.Smith translator), N.Y. C. Scribner & Sons. Eisen, Saul Redesigning Human and Global Systems. Paper presented at the Academy of Joint Divisional Conference on Organisational Dimensions of Global Change, Cleveland, Ohio, May 3-6, 1995. Enright, John (1984) Change and Resistance, reprinted in The LeaderManager, Wilson Learning Co. Hycner, R. & Jacobs, L. (1995) The Healing Relationship in Gestalt Therapy. Gestalt Journal Press. Lewin, K. (1952) Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers, London. Mindell, A. (1995) Sitting in the Fire, Lao-Tse Press, Oregon, USA.Nevis, E. (1995) Organisational Consulting: A Gestalt Approach. G.I. of Cleveland Press. Perls, F.S., Hefferline, R.F., and Goodman, P. (1951) Gestalt Therapy, Julian Press, NY. Williams. A. (1995) Visual and Active Supervision. Norton Co. N.Y.

Other Recommended Readings Hycner, R. (1988) Between Person and Person, Gestalt Journal Pub. Mintz, E.E. (1983) Gestalt Approaches to Supervision in The Gestalt Journal, Vol.VI, No.1. Shepard, H. (1965) Changing Interpersonal and Intergroup Relations in Organisations, in J. March (ed) Handbook of Organisations, Chicago. Tannenbaum, R. et al. (1985) Human Systems Development, S. F. JosseyBass.

CHAPTER NINETEEN1 THE WORKING CORNER2 VICTOR DANIELS

A Word of Welcome and an Introduction This is the first installment of a new "column" devoted to sharing and discussing aspects of practice used in the Gestalt process. It will present innovations that readers send in, some of my own, and new twists on old approaches. I expect it to be brief, presenting only one or at most two items each time. Future exciting episodes will omit the following introductory remarks that are needed here. In the Gestalt journals (although not at conferences), theory receives much attention, and method or technique little. This may be a reaction to early criticisms of Gestalt Therapy as "anti-intellectual," which was a misunderstanding of Fritz Perls' admonition to "Lose your mind and come to your senses" (echoing the Stoic philosopher Epictetus who almost two thousand years ago said, "The basic question is this: Are you in your senses or are you not?") We can think of Gestalt practice as a kind of three-legged stool. The legs are attitude, theory, and method. Claudio Naranjo speaks of the "primacy of attitude." For most of us it goes without saying (and therefore receives little comment), that whether we are using a Gestalt approach, a Client-Centered approach, or any other, a nourishing attitude of genuinely endeavoring to help the client find his or her own directions, develop a sense of personal responsibility, and extend his or her awareness is 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 Previously published at various times in several issues of Gestalt!.

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essential. The best-trained counselor, therapist, or educator will be toxic if this attitude is lacking (such as in a look-how-skilled-and-clever-I-am stance). The second leg of the stool is usable theory that provides guidance about what's going on in the process and the client (and sometimes the practitioner), and what to do and not do. And the third leg is the methods or techniques that describe how to do what we do. Rogerian psychology has methods. Cognitive behavioral psychology has methods. And Gestalt therapy has a rich supply of them. Fritz and Laura were always experimenting, and they encouraged their students to do the same. We have many of Fritz' experiments immortalized in books and videos which have carried them around the world. We lack a similar forum whereby today's practitioners in Cleveland and California, Austria and Argentina can easily exchange small discoveries that they find effective in their work. This is meant to be such a forum, while always remembering that method must coexist with attitude and theory.

Behind the Chair: Doubling for Oneself "Doubling" is a psychodramatic technique in which, as an enactment occurs, a member of the larger group may walk over, stand behind one of the actors in the psychodrama, and say what he or she imagines that person is really feeling or thinking but not saying, because of either conscious censorship or lack of awareness. The actor then either recognizes the value of the comment and expands on it: "Yeah, that's right. And furthermore. . . . " or finds it not useful and ignores it. In a Gestalt dialogue, especially when the client is in the hot seat enacting an interaction with someone else in the empty chair, if she seems to have things to say but is blocking herself from articulating them, I may have her double for herself: "Please get up out of the chair and go around behind it." If it feels appropriate, I may ask her to kneel down behind the chair, to symbolize the hidden aspect of what she's about to say. "Now, from behind the chair you can say the things that you feel but that you would never actually tell your mother (father, partner, sibling, boss, or whoever is in the empty chair.) Oftener than not, from the "doubled" position behind the chair, a torrent of unsaid feelings pours fourth. The same thing can be done from behind the empty chair. The client is sitting in the empty chair portraying stoic, tongue-tied Dad who would never talk about . . .. "Okay, now go behind the chair and be that place in Dad where he feels all these things toward you that he's not saying, and let him speak."

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Four times out of five, it works. The key, of course, is in choosing the moments when it feels like it's likely to work, and that comes with experience. Obviously we're working in the realm of imagination and projection when the client is doubling for the person in the empty chair. Yet if the relationship is significant, important unsaid messages have been conveyed in many different ways and the client tends to have a good sense of what they are. After the doubling, we've moved from the inhibitions into the dialogue, and the work can progress in a straightforward manner.

CHAPTER TWENTY1 DISCUSSIONS AT GSTALT-L: CHECK-IN; IMPASSE; FIELD & BOUNDARY2 SYLVIA CROCKER, PHILIP BROWNELL, GERHARD STEMBERGER, STEVE (VINAY) GUNTHER, BRUNO JUST, AMIT SEN AND RUTH WOLFERT

During the fall of 1998, and then again in late winter of 2000, discussion of field dynamics took off on a prominent listserv for Gestalt Therapy related discussion. Some people found this discussion important enough that it was copied for reading in various training institutes. Steve: I want to introduce a topic. I'm interested in what you all think: There is Field theory, a fundamental of Gestalt. There are the principles of Field theory, as described by Parlett. Then there is working 'Field theoretically', i.e., applying those principles. Then there is systems theory. Much of systems theory seems exactly the same as field theory, and little wonder. Working systemically can just be another term for working field theoretically. But then some say, systems are contained within the field. So working systemically is different than working with the field. What do you think - is this true, and if so, exactly what are the differences? 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 5(2), 2001.

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Ruth: The terms "field" and "system" are used variously, hence the confusion. I like to reserve "system" for something that is closed and has basic elements that interact, while I use "field" as a holistic, processoriented concept. Chaos theory as well as quantum theory are field theories as defined above. When something is far from equilibrium, it loses its "system" elements and reorganizes itself in surprising ways. Phil: I would agree about the relatively smaller (so to speak) view of systems and the relatively larger view of field, but something in this has caught my attention. What is equilibrium? How can we speak of a field having such a thing? It seems to me that the field just is, with its demands and effects in process. I suppose we could say that if we introduce anything new into the field that that requires a change in every member of the field, and thus a restabalization to accommodate the new field entity, but it seemed odd to me to think of the idea of equilibrium in the field. Equilibrium seems more a truly systems concept, where a segment of the field becomes bounded and studied unto itself, and thus becomes a fiction because it's an artificial dynamic. This whole conceptualization of field begs the question of what we even mean when we say "field." If we speak of the unified field, as Parlett does, we are talking about the environment, the context of which a subject is a member. However, when we start talking about the phenomenology of that subject, then we are talking about what Lewin called the "lifespace," everything that has effect. The closest he got to talking about the environment (what PHG call the "objective world") was when he wrote about the boundary. I have sorted this for myself by talking of the boundary as the substantive layer of the field and the person's own phenomenological field as the experiential layer of the field, and then I maintain the integrity of the unified field, of which there seems to be only one, for me. Sylvia: The following quotation from Lewin, found on page 277 in PHG, might help the recent discussion: "It is particularly necessary that one who proposes to study wholephenomena should guard against the tendency to make the wholes as allembracing as possible. The real task is to investigate the structural properties of a given whole, ascertain the relations of subsidiary wholes, and determine the boundaries of the system with which one is dealing. It is no more true in psychology than in physics that 'everything depends on everything else.' " I have found that the most productive way to think of a field is to conceive of it as a "sphere of influence." Just as the physicist, the

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biologist, and the economist limit the domain of any given study or experiment they undertake, so we as therapists have to look at the relevant spheres of influence which impact the ongoing processes and the elements that exist within the field. So, for example, to understand certain behaviors/cognitions/feelings, etc. in a given client, it is often necessary to see that client within the context of, say, his nuclear family, or current family, or the situation at work, a regional economic situation, the field which includes the client and the therapist, and/or some combination of these influences. The rationale for family therapy is that difficulties which one or more members of a family are experiencing can be understood and treated most readily by dealing with the larger field of which each is an element. Neither "the whole of reality," nor the whole physical world, nor any other such all-encompassing field is manageable enough to be helpful. Moreover, the world as we experience it is actually "chunky" or "lumpy" the large field exists in, and encompasses, numerous smaller fields. "Field" is thus a relative term, depending upon what your interest is and where you want/need to focus. Generally speaking, fields comprise within themselves more tightly organized elements such as molecules, atoms, various sub-atomic particles within a field of forces of some kind, individual persons, couples, families, racial groups, school districts, schools, school classes, athletic conferences and member teams, towns, counties, states, regions, nations, etc. ad infinitum; all these exist within various relevant spheres of influence. These vary greatly as to the tightness/looseness of organization, stability. affectability/effectiveness. We can either look at the various relationships among these elements and thus take a systems view, or we can view each element as a systematic whole which permits the elements or parts to function in certain ways which are characteristic of the whole but not of the parts. A system can be primarily one in which the elements have relatively external relationships, or primarily one in which there is on-going and incessant reciprocity, so that over time the relationships are synergistic. Now the question arises as to whether we should conceive of a human being in field theoretical or systems terms. I think it's a false choice since it depends upon what your interest is. If we are interested in focusing on how the person's powers-to-function in a number of specific ways in order to carry on the processes of contact are functioning, it makes sense to focus on the several elements in the systemic life of the person, such as habits, decision-making processes, cognitive assumptions and beliefs, etc., bearing in mind that these can never exist apart from the whole organism

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and that there is constant reciprocal influence of all the elements on the whole. This approach is good for a kind of diagnostic assessment, in the sense that we can see where in particularly the blockages are and intervene with precision in specific and most effective ways. On the other hand, if we want to think about the actual living of the person through time, it can be helpful to think of the person as a complex field which constantly reorganizes itself as it has new experiences. Here the emphasis is on the fundamental dynamism of the organism, with the implication that all that has ever happened in the organism's life is present in how the organism is organized in the moment. The task of therapy is thus to find ways to make contact with the actual living of the person, and to do so in ways which help her to reorganize herself in healthier ways. In this way the effects of the past can actually be changed. In chaos theory, such as that of Prigogine, a system such as a thermodynamic system or an organism's metabolic system functions at or near equilibrium most of the time. However, under certain conditions minor variations can come to be amplified or something radical can happen to push the system far from equilibrium. Here is where the normal patterns break down, i.e. chaos begins to characterize the system. However, what usually happens is that the system reorganizes itself into a new organization. The value for this in both individual and family therapy is that if the therapy can help thru certain interventions to change the habitual patterns of behavior/interaction/response, the individual or family has an opportunity to reorganize itself in more functional, healthy ways. The field in the case of therapy is the therapeutic situation itself and the processes that occur within it over time. Bruno: I am glad that I have been stimulated by your e-mail into thinking and then writing a response to you and on the topic. All that you say about field and holism is understandable and I agree with much of it. I notice that in your examples of field components you limit yourself to "externals" and do not include ideas, values, beliefs and such. As I understand it, though, the systemic view is not the same as the relational one: the systemic looks at position and influence among a number of systems, the relational at relationships between two. To conceive of “spheres of influence” is a systemic view. To consider the therapist and the client systemically would be to position them both in a context and describe the observed influences. The relationship approach would be to be communicative with each other and to observe or take note of how their dyadic process is evolving. You ask whether one should look at a human being in other than field theoretical terms. Holistically speaking, the alternative would be in

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Cartesian terms, that is, dualistically and would exclude a systemic approach. I understand our predicament, however, which is that to look at anything discretely is to particularize and therefore to dichotomize, to sever the connection (in our Middle Zone only) of the part with the whole of which it is/we are an indivisible part. We can, probably, only experience the whole mindlessly and Zen-like or Taoist-like, from the other side of Enlightenment. Then, being One, we can do like the monk who laid down for the tiger to eat him so that she could feed her starving cubs – he knew the inseparability of them all. Sylvia: I do not distinguish between a systems and a relational view when I speak of a field as a sphere of influence. I did say that a system can involve either external or interpenetrating relationships among the elements in/comprising the field. Most of the fields we live in are very complex and, as I said, we have to focus upon what overlapping/ interpenetrating spheres we are interested in taking into account. The field which comes into being as the client and therapist meet is influenced by much of what each brings with him/her, including beliefs about many things, habits of interaction, the theoretical orientation of the therapist, the expectations and hopes of the client, perhaps race, cultural differences, age, etc. Also, let us say that one person becomes sexually attracted to the other, then the code of ethics of each becomes a relevant factor, as do certain laws. Obviously, the physical proximity of client and therapist, along with a variety of possible influences in the setting, such as the visual qualities of the decor, comfort factors, the conditions of health of each, time of day, and so on and so forth may or may not be relevant factors on any given occasion of meeting. The important question is, what is relevant to the present situation? Of course, gravity is omnipresent on planet earth, but most of the time it isn't a relevant factor which needs to be focused on. The reciprocal relations between therapist and client are always relevant factors, even though we sometimes focus upon the relating and at other times we focus on how the client related to others who are only psychologically, not physically, present. I think "field" is always relative to what is germane to what one is dealing with; thus it should always be taken as a relative term that becomes defined within a specific context. As I said before, we can't work with "the whole of reality" or "the physical universe" or even "planet earth." Those don't help us understand concrete and specific situations, which is what we are always dealing with in therapy. As for grasping the whole, I think it is important to BEGIN with holism. Then in doing any analysis we need to keep reminding ourselves that what we are choosing to focus on does not exist apart from the whole,

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that what we are doing involves "distinctions of reason" and not "real distinctions." Thinking of things apart from their context is a habit of thought which has certainly characterized most thinkers following Descartes. On the other hand, Plato and other Greeks started it. Aristotle's great contribution is to have begun with, and to have constantly recurred to, the whole. For example, we may study a part of an organism's body, say the heart, but we need to keep in mind that the heart cannot exist as a heart apart from its relation to the whole. Remove the heart and study it in a lab and it's no longer a heart in the primary sense (it's really a former heart), since it can no longer carry on the functions which are characteristic of a real heart. Or, a physician may specialize in cardiology but if he loses sight of the heart's relation to the whole organism his skill will be compromised. Similarly, when physicians prescribe a medication without taking into account other medications the patient is taking and certain other physical conditions the patient has, they practice "bad medicine." Pushing the discussion one more step, one of the human capacities we need to cultivate is our spirituality, since that is the capacity which allows us to appreciate the wholes of life, and to interact with those things which we cannot fully know, control, or predict. But that's a broader discussion. Phil: Bruno wrote, "I am glad that I have been stimulated by your email into thinking and then writing a response to you and on the topic. All that you say about field and holism is understandable and I agree with much of it. I notice that in your examples of field components you limit yourself to 'externals' and do not include ideas, values, beliefs and such." This is one of the reasons I find it confusing and not really helpful in training others to use the word "field" to speak of an external set of conditions, environment, etc., on the one hand AND an internal sense of one's experience (thus, to speak of one being "of the field" or to speak of one's field). To me, it is much more helpful to think of the external as just that, the external, objective world. That which is. Then there is the organism which is of the environment, in the environment, part of the environment, etc. And of course there is the boundary where the organism experiences self in the environment. I think the matter is complicated further by research that clearly indicates we organisms process our experience at many levels, and that a lot of it is carried out unconsciously, out of awareness. So, that is one reason that I conceive of the boundary as part of the field, but a part which incorporates unconscious process as the organism's record of encounter in the objective world. That which rises to the level of awareness becomes one's construction of meaning, and thus, what many call one's experiential field.

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Sylvia wrote, ...I think "field" is always relative to what is germane to what one is dealing with; thus it should always be taken as a relative term which becomes defined within a specific context. As I said before, we can't work with "the whole of reality" or "the physical universe" or even "planet earth." Those don't help us understand concrete and specific situations, which is what we are always dealing with in therapy. She brings up the practical limits we have in dealing with field in therapy. I agree that we cannot deal with the whole of reality, and that we cannot really understand how a butterfly flapping in Japan effects the breeze in Austria, etc., etc. There was a time when we couldn't really understand how and when a hurricane might sweep in over us and destroy the village, either, but currently we can say a lot more about that, and we have ways of tracking them as they form a long, long way away from the village. Whereas before one might say the villagers' field was about as far as any one villager could walk in a day, today we would say that the villagers' field is several hundred miles extended out into the Atlantic Ocean. I heard recently of a new super computer so fast and so large that they predict it will be able to analyze all the variables regarding the direction of any given hurricane so that prediction of exact landfall will become routine. When we get to a level of system such as that, what we are dealing with is understanding a very complex adaptive system (which is really systems within systems), and at that level we really are talking about what many used to just call "field." So, all this becomes relative, and to me it is much simpler to just accept Lewin's simple definition: everything that has effect. If, then, in therapy, you realize that something is having effect, you simultaneously realize it to be of the field. The question then becomes "how" is it present, and what is its effect - for the client and for the therapist? Is it something in the front of someone's head, obstructing the view, or at the bottom of someone's head, being processed emotionally and really somewhat removed from the conscious "thought" centers? Or, is it something central and of which the subject is fully aware? How does the person experience being of the field? People have surmised co-created fields, environmental fields, individual fields, community consciousness, ontological and experiential fields, etc., etc. To me, this gets so muddled that I long for a simple way to talk about these things, one that has heuristic value and that can be utilized in training. I don't think such a thing is impossible or unreasonable. Were there to coalesce a common agreement about the nature of field, boundary, organism, and objective world, etc. it would prove very helpful.

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Gerhard: Phil wrote, This is one of the reasons I find it confusing and not really helpful in training others to use the word "field" to speak of an external set of conditions, environment, etc., on the one hand AND an internal sense of one's experience (thus, to speak of one being of the field or to speak of one's field). This might be confusing (and I think it is indeed), but I find it interesting to ask: On which basis do people come to such a conception of "internal" and "external?" I think this has to do with the fact that everybody knows (1) that ALL of our perception and experience (also of everything OUTSIDE our physical body) is - in a physical sense - in last instance based on a process in our brain, INSIDE our physical body (2) but at the same time this is only what (nearly) everybody KNOWS, it is not what he/she EXPERIENCES. In his/her experience the things he/she perceives are perceived as OUTSIDE his/her body. I think this seemingly paradoxical situation is the basis for several conceptions for internal and external, for Bruno's position as well as for the position you are advocating. In fact it is the 'old pseudo-problem' Wolfgang Kohler is discussing (and solving in my opinion) in his article "An old pseudoproblem" (we have web-published this article in the GESTALT ARCHIVE). The solution Kohler proposes is as follows: One has to distinguish strictly between the experienced, phenomenal world at the one hand, and the physical, transphenomenal world on the other hand. (1) My experienced, phenomenal world comprises not only my perceived environment (including my perceived body) but also my perceived bodily I (or, as LEWIN says: my life space comprises person and environment, meaning exclusively the phenomenal person and its phenomenal environment, not the physical organism and its physical environment). And this phenomenal world is not "neutral," but full of affordances, attractions, repulsions - it is a phenomenal FIELD in the strict sense of the EINSTEIN definition of a field. The physical bases of this phenomenal world are brain processes, but these cannot be perceived; they belong to the (2) transphenomenal world, which comprises my physical body and its physical environment (including the physical bodies of other persons). There is NO field relation of any known quality (electric, magnetic, gravitational) between my physical body and my physical environment (though there is a physical field in the physical brain). The attraction, repulsion etc. which links me to the persons or distances me from them are not the outcome of any field between our physical bodies, but in first

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instance of the field relations in my (and their respective) phenomenal worlds between the experienced I and the experienced others. [Viewed from this perspective, 'organism', 'environment' and so on are very ambiguous terms: one would have to clarify in each case, whether one is speaking of the physical body or the experienced body, of the physical environment or the experienced environment. Also the term 'boundary' needs to be specified: is one talking about the boundary between the physical body and its physical environment - which would be the physical skin - or is one talking about the boundary between my perceived person and my perceived environment.] So it might be (I am not really sure for language reasons) that I advocate a point of view which is contrary to yours: What underlies our trans-Atlantic friendly relationship, for example, is a field relation within our respective phenomenal (or experiential) fields, resulting in experienced actions which have consequences in the transphenomenal world and via these consequences can enter the phenomenal world of the respective other. Ruth: Thank you for explicating the Gestalt Psychology underlying Goodman's view that mind, body and external world are one in contact, that in sensing, the organ and the object are the same. I have thought about this quite a bit from a physiological perspective as well as in other ways. I was glad to meet you in Palermo. Bruno: Dear Gerhard, I read your comments on Phil's e-mail and (obliquely) on mine. (1) It seems to me that Kohler is saying that the physical world cannot be known and only inferred by our phenomenology. (2) I think we're moving back to Descarte's position of mind and body being two different "things." Sylvia: I'm just now finding time to comment on your discussion of "boundary" earlier this month. I want to add more of a phenomenological perspective to what's been said. Speaking from that perspective, in a recent post I mentioned that awareness is intentional, i.e. is always awareness of something, is always of an object of awareness. In that context I didn't point out that "who" is aware is not an object but a subject, and never appears to itself as an object. That doesn't mean, of course, that we can't be aware of states and processes of thought, feeling, action, etc. But those are only "the tracks" of the self who is aware, feeling, thinking, acting, etc. - never the subject or self itself. In other words, each of us as subject can never quite catch ourselves in the act of being ourselves, since we are always a transcendent step "behind" all of our acts of awareness. That is what it means to be a subject rather than an object.

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So what does this have to do with "boundary," and in particular "boundary as a relative term?" The working definition for "contact" in Gestalt is "meeting the other," and the boundary is "where" this meeting occurs and the means, the "how," by which contact between the aware subject and the other occurs. It doesn't exist in the way that the skin or a membrane actually exists. "Boundary" is a strictly relational term, meaning only "where contact between subject and its object meet." Thus, when the subject is aware of, or interacting with, some things in the external, public world, the meeting occurs between the organism (the person) and elements in the environment. But when, for example, I am absorbed in thought or am dealing with any of the varieties of pain within, then the boundary is internal. In this case, I as the subject am aware of the internal phenomena, and they are the objects of my awareness, or when, for example, I retroflect, my action involves me, as subject, acting on myself as object in certain ways and for certain purposes. Many theoretical terms are relative in that way, and how they are to be understood is determined by the domain or context in which they are applied. Matter-form, cause-effect, figure-ground, part-whole are all relative terms. For example the materials making up a house are matter to the arrangement which is the form of the house, but the house itself is part of the matter of the larger and more encompassing form of the block, the neighborhood, city, etc.; when we focus on a figure the ground lacks clarity, but if we change our focus the ground can become the figure and the former figure becomes ground. An effect can become a subsequent cause. And so on. These are all helpful analytical tools, and it is because they are not riveted to a given context and completely definite in their meaning and application that are so useful. They all help us think and understand relationally. Phil: The only thing I would add to what Sylvia has written about the boundary being relative is that it belongs to the lifespace of the subject. It is not something that exists between one subject and another. The use of metaphor sometimes obscures, even in the effort to clarify, but often it is so useful as to venture the risk. Thus, Goldstein used a biological/structural metaphor of a single-celled organism and extrapolated from there. Perls picked it up and extended on it. Lewin, however, used a functional metaphor when he spoke of the boundary. In either case, the membrane, the boundary, the place where subject ends and environment begins, is the boundary. It may be relative to external or internalized others, but it still belongs to the subject and is part of the self. Indeed, many maintain that we only experience self AT the boundary. But you see what happens when we slip into that kind of language? It

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suddenly appears that subject and object are meeting at some third place, as if one were a bartender and the other a customer, and the bar, the boundary, both separates and unites them. Rather, it is the touching of themselves, the communion of their relative boundaries, that creates contact, especially that kind of contact called an I-Thou moment. Sylvia: I agree with the points Phil made. Boundary ought to be thought of in the context of the person's/organism's "life space," where and how it does business with others. One small quibble, I think it's more accurate to say that the boundary is where we meet the "other," but not necessarily the environment. Of course, we could define the object of awareness as the "environment," but it's better to leave that as simply the "object" of awareness. "Environment" has more of the sense of something external to the organism/person. The skin separates the organism from the environment and is part of its connection to the environment, but the boundary is not the same as the skin, even though' Goodman speaks of that way once in PHG. However, in that same passage he talks about how the boundary can be moved inside in the case of pain. So the main point is that the boundary is where contact is made with otherness, between me as subject and the other as object - even when that other is my own phenomenology. Thanks for pointing out the use by Lewin of a functional definition of "boundary." He also uses the functional metaphor of "walling off" to refer to those experiences which have not been fully assimilated. What we call "unfinished business" Lewin would say we have "walled off," the result being that these walled of "chunks," not only absorb some of the person's energies, but they also interrupt the ready flow of internal processes. It's important, as you point out, to think of these as metaphors, and are not to be taken as "free-standing realities"; they are maps, not the territory. Phil: Sylvia wrote, "I think it's more accurate to say that the boundary is where we meet the 'other,' but not necessarily the environment. Of course, we could define the object of awareness as the 'environment but it's better to leave that as simply the 'object' of awareness." I have been thinking of contact as a larger category than Buber's dialogic sub-categories of I-Thou and I-It. In fact, as our theory has developed, it seems to me that the emphasis on contact in the Polsters' work opened up more interest around interpersonal contact and stimulated more discussion of Buber, as seen in Hycner and Jacobs. Thus, contact occurs between organism and that which is not organism. It seems from what you've written above that you conceive of "other" as a personal category (perhaps I-Thou), but I would not see that as necessary. Thus, whatever a person contacts at the boundary is "other." In this way, a

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person with seasonal-affective disorder might contact an overcast day and organize the contact as a "gloomy," overcast day. Sylvia also wrote, "'Environment' has more of the sense of something external to the organism/person. The skin separates the organism from the environment and is part of its connection to the environment, but the boundary is not the same as the skin, even though' Goodman speaks of that way once in PHG. However, in that same passage he talks about how the boundary can be moved inside in the case of pain. So the main point is that the boundary is where contact is made with otherness, between me as subject and the other as object - even when that other is my own phenomenology." I see. I agree and see the difference. The only way an overcast day becomes a gloomy, overcast day is that it enters the person at the boundary. Thus, our boundaries are permeable (to follow a metaphor). This is also, it seems, where we have quibbled before over the terminology useful for discussing field. Whereas I see one, unified field, others are willing to talk of multiple fields, fields within fields, and both an ontological field (in the sense of external environment, the objective world, etc.) and a phenomenological field, or the person's individual experience of the ontological field - the relationship between these two conceptions of field being that contact is what organizes the phenomenological field. Thus, contact with the objective world helps form the boundary, which is the self, the experience of self. I prefer to keep to the notion of a unified field, and thus of only one such field - all things having effect. That was Lewin's definition of the lifespace. Since all things having effect includes both the environmental, or external influences and the internalized influences, I had to come up with some way to distinguish what I was talking about at any given reference to field (i.e., what kind of field?). So I conceived of layers (I actually think that Malcolm Parlett preceded me in this, when he discussed the field as "lamenated" or "layered"). To me, there is the substantive layer of the field, which corresponds to your ontological field, and there is the experiential layer of the field, which corresponds to your phenomenological field. Sylvia: First, I have said again and again that contact is "meeting with the other," and I don't see how you conclude that I think of this as a purely personal event: anything at all which claims our attention and/or mobilizes our energies is something we are in contact with. If I am a geologist I am often in contact with rocks, soils, etc., and also with the theoretical ideas and the data which relate to them. If I work with a colleague, we have contact; if we carry on research together we jointly have contact with the objects of our study and with each other. If I have a toothache I am in

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contact with the pain and my mouth and head, and I have to entertain ideas about getting to the dentist, taking the antibiotics, etc. etc. So I have never thought of contact as only interpersonal. I don't like the spatial metaphor as a way of understanding "field." I like Jay Levin's way of putting it: a field is a sphere of influence. Of course, the world I live in with others is the embracing field and has all sorts of effects on me, aware and unaware. If I study medicine I may be interested in certain ways in which this takes place; so I focus upon a certain domain of influence, a field, within that larger field. But how I address that domain is influenced by the influence of the ideas I hold about it, about the nature of scientific enquiry, political pressures within my institution, and so and so on. Some of those ideas I bring to the situation will probably be altered by my study. How these are organized by me within myself vastly influences how I deal with my research and how the outcomes turn out to be. So I and the domain of my investigations constitute a field in which contact is going on as I reciprocally interact with the elements in the environment. But that field is not isolated from the general environment or from the influences (the many other spheres of influence or fields) I bring with me. The results of my study may well influence governmental policy, which, in turn is likely to alter the domain I have studied. So within the domain of my contact with the elements within the range or domain of my study - of, let's say, the effects of lead in the atmosphere on children's growth patterns and intellectual development - I am operating within a vast nexus of spheres of influence. And the result has spreading effects throughout a number of intersecting fields. Overlapping fields doesn't capture the interpenetrating character of the mutually influencing fields. By opting for the "layered" metaphor you immediately have the problem of how these interact; whereas, if you begin with interpenetrating spheres of influence - which seems to mirror the world of our experience more accurately - you don't have the problem. Kind of like defining mind and body as totally different orders of being and then struggling to see how they could possible influence each other. Don't begin there, but with the holistic notion that an organism is a unified whole in which everything interacts with everything else, then you don't ever have to deal with the mind-body problem. Amit: Sylvia, you point out that "Matter-form, cause-effect, figureground, part-whole are all relative terms." I think this is important. I think also that it is important to understand that they are also dialectical terms. You can not have matter without form, cause without effect or figure without ground. Gestalt psychology tells us that subject and object are in a dialectical relationship, mutually effecting each other so that it is

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impossible to tell what is cause and what is effect. This is part of what we speak about as "the field." The major difficulty here is, I think, that we tend to see these dialectical concepts as separate parts and not as a whole. I think you have a point, Sylvia, when you chose to speak about "interpenetrating spheres of influence." I sense some leftovers from the conflict between atoms vs. holism. As if "I" was one unit and "Thou" was another unit and that they could have contact at a certain "boundary" (oops, there was the famous "third place"). I would like much more to think that consciousness is an effect of the field. The old gestalt prayer seems outdated in this context ("I am me and you are you...") You are right I think, Phil, when you state that ."..many maintain that we only experience self AT the boundary..." I do not think that this gets us into trouble, but we sure will if we fail to see the dialectical nature of the subject-object relationship. The boundary is not, and cannot be fixed anywhere and thus can not be a "place." There is no "I" without a "Thou." It is like trying to buy something with one side of a coin. And where do the two sides of the coin meet? In the middle? More to the tails side? Sylvia, you state "I am operating within a vast nexus of spheres of influence. And the result has spreading effects throughout a number of intersecting fields." I think this is a useful idea. It suggests interdependence. The trouble is that we do not have a concept that allows us to capture the dual nature of what we up till now have called either subject or object. If we have the idea of 'interpenetrating spheres of influence' and, I think, even nested spheres of influence, we could make use of a concept that in itself incorporated the subjects' dual nature - as a part in a relationship (IThou) and as a separate whole. This would help us understand that there is no certain point where contact occurs, where "Thou" ends and "I" begin. "Interesting," for example, is an interesting word. It has its roots in two words; 'inter' meaning 'in between' and 'esse' meaning 'to be' It is simply a choice of perspective. As in the example with the coin above, you need to choose - consciously or subconsciously - which side of the coin to show when you pay your bill, heads or tails, but they will both be there. We are always a part of something, in contact with something, and we are still always a whole. Contact constantly fluctuates like flames from a fire, transforming oxygen from the environment, adding to it new substances. I suggest we use the term "holon" to refer that which, being a whole in one context, is simultaneously a part in another. Phil: Sylvia wrote, "I don't like the spatial metaphor as a way of understanding "field." I like Jay Levin's way of putting it: a field is a sphere of influence."

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Okay. Sounds good to me too. This is essentially Lewin's position when he chose "everything having effect." (But, to be picky, what is a sphere, if not a spacial figure? Sphere - layer, these are both metaphors to describe some aspect of the field.) Still, where do you draw the lines in defining these spheres? How do you put a limit on the field? As soon as you do (so as to distinguish one sphere of influence as opposed to another), I would contend that you have bound off a portion of the field and made it into a system. To me, that is the definition of system and the distinction between system and field. A system is a bounded portion of the field. If you cannot place such a containment, then it makes no sense to speak of a sphere of influence that is not at the same time part of another sphere in such an essential way that the two are actually one larger sphere, and so on and so on. That is what I understand when Parlett uses such terms as the "unified" field. Yet, as soon as you contain a portion of the field, you have limited yourself to describing how that portion interacts within the confines of its limits, and that is a system. Furthermore, I never conceived of the substantive layer and the experiential layer as merely overlapping. To me, where the experiential layer interpenetrates the substantive layer, one has grounded awareness. (I have drawn a diagram in my article in Gestalt Review showing how these things operate.) To the degree, then, that they do interpenetrate, it is not just "experience-near" but also "nearly-true experience" that are occurring. It is aware contact, and while it is interpreted, it is near things as they are. That is the nature of adaptation. If adaptation were merely constructed, relative phenomenology, it could be anything we wanted and we could all live forever. However, that is not the real world. Some people get run over while crossing the street because their sense of distance is off and the truck is actually closer than they constructed it to be. That experience, up until the time of impact, is not-nearly-true experience. In that case, the person's experiential layer did not sync very closely to the substantive layer; that is, until the moment of reckoning! It seems en vogue and very "proper" for Gestaltists these days to say that because of the field, because of chaos, because of quantum mechanics, and because of postmodernism, there is no individual reality. There is no individual. To me, Newtonian physics wasn't proven totally wrong, just not enough. In our theory we have gotten away from something that I think is important, and which hangs around in very important ways. That is the effect of the object, which in gestalt psychology was conceived of as having properties in itself which could make for a good or a bad "gestalt." Of course, people realized the organization was occurring in the mind of

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the beholder, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a reciprocal loop between organizing observer and actual object, with unique properties that set one object off from another. We do in fact need both observing subject and observed object to complete the loop, but each has its own, essential properties. Sylvia: I think it's very important to note that Lewin did not hold the position that "everything is related to everything else," at least not from a practical point of view. The quotation of Lewin in PHG is very important to keep in mind. It is one which has primarily influenced how I understand fields, although I am also influenced by my understanding of scientific investigations. I'll quote it (PHG 4.3, 1951ed.) It is particularly necessary that one who proposes to study wholephenomena should guard against the tendency to make the wholes as allembracing as possible. The real task is to investigate the structural properties of a given whole, ascertain the relations of subsidiary wholes, and determine the boundaries of the system with which one is dealing. It is no more true in psychology than in physics that "everything depends on everything else." (p.277) It is the task of science to determine what kinds of things are related to other things and how they are related. In other words, scientific research involves trying to discover what are the conditions for certain phenomena and to develop models which help us understand the principles of their interactions. For example, years ago at a university in St. Louis it was discovered that it was decisively significant that strep throats preceded cases of rheumatic fever. Before this discovery it was thought to be coincidental, not causal. But the scientific investigations found that the body produces antibodies to fight the strep infection that in turn attack heart valves; it was also discovered that antibodies can also attack the kidneys, causing nephritis. The point is that science is largely concerned with discovering the range of interactions and influence among often disparate elements. Holistic medicine, as well as holistic psychotherapy, has the same concern. Indeed, most learning at every level has to do with discovering what goes with what, what influences what, and how that happens. This does not necessarily have anything to do with spatial relationships. Rather it is better understood in terms of action, reciprocal or mutual influence. In other words, as I said to Amit in another post, it is best to think of fields in dynamic terms, as having more in common with verbs than with nouns, algebra or calculus rather than geometry. The spatial metaphors such as "layers" necessarily set up the problem of how interactions can possibly take place, thus the mind-body problem whether you intend that or not. It's built into the metaphor.

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Which leads me to say that two of the abiding limitations of Western philosophical and scientific thought are the tendency to think in terms of space more than time, and of the underlying stuff such as matter instead of complex interactional events. It's an old bias which I believe is passing away because we've come up against the intrinsic limitations of that paradigm. I don't like the term "substantive layer," since it resonates too much with the prejudice that the material world is the "really real" world and the world of experience isn't. All of these are real, but they are not all equally share-able. Many of the ideas everyone has do not match up with anything in the shared world (nobody is error-free), but many other of our ideas have at least an analogical relationship with the shared world. I agree that if everything were "just in my mind" then all of my endeavors would meet with success, I would never be frustrated, nothing would resist me. But our lives are not that way - we meet with resistance on every hand. So we hypothesize that there is a world which we share with others, and that it is not a creature of my own mind and will. But, of course, we can never lay aside our peculiarly human ways of knowing to see it with nonhuman "eyes," and thus to see it as it actually is. Our human - common and idiosyncratic - ways of contact are an intrinsic limitation which we won't transcend in this life. I don't think "system" carries with it the necessary sense of being bounded. Indeed, there are very few closed systems. Rather, in trying to understand a certain set of phenomena, even if, for example we are doing consulting for a corporation which is dysfunctional in some ways, we have to try to discover what the influential factors are, and some of them are not found within the "system" of the corporation. Market factors, for example, have an impact on how a corporation functions, but so do the family situations of some of the executives, the philosophical views on leadership styles of those in managerial positions, etc. etc. In other words, part of the task in both understanding or intervening in order to bring about change is to trace out the dynamic "lines" of influence which contribute to the way the phenomena happen. Some influences will be obvious and strong, some will be less obvious and strong, some will appear to be strong but are really not crucial. So it's important to find out what influences what, but also to determine how and to what extent and with what power some element/s influence/s other elements. We rarely have an exhaustive knowledge of any domain or field of influence, or of the interactions in which numerous domains or fields intersect. Again, think dynamically rather than spatially, in terms of actions and interaction instead of overlap or contiguity.

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In my mind field and system, conceived dynamically, are equivalent terms. I think it's important to keep in mind that a complex field/system contains a number of less comprehensive fields/systems. I think when we come to discuss organisms it is fruitful to think of them as systems, since "system" does have the connotation of a greater degree of integration and a tighter organization than a field does. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with thinking of an organism as a highly complex field existing within multiple intersecting fields that affect it. I think each term can be used more fruitfully in some contexts than in others, but it depends on what you want to emphasize than in any mutually exclusive differences. The world is actually an extremely complex and ragged affair. Five people can be witnesses to an instance of child abuse in a restaurant (an example from my book), and each one perceives it differently, and each has different action/inaction responses. A social worker may feel alarmed and call the police, a couple discussing divorce will mostly ignore it in the intensity of their own interaction, a waitress who was abused as a child may run away, a family in which the parents routinely beat their kids may look on approvingly, the manager of the restaurant may try to get the family in which the abuse is occurring to leave the restaurant because he is afraid of bad publicity or that some customers will leave without paying. The perceptions and reactions of all of the individuals in the restaurant are a function of both the event and the complex influences each comes to the situation with. Indeed, there are many more spheres or domains of influence, i.e. fields, than there are people, since we all carry within the unique organization of our own experience vastly multiple influences. All of this is confusing, of course, but then one of the complex tasks of life is to understand what influences what and how, so that the world stops being a maelstrom of unintelligible phenomena and begins to be perceived as having some structure. The same is true in the work of the therapist: we have to trace out what in the client's ground - how he/she has organized the influences in his/her life - conditions his/her current responses to the situations he/she lives in. As we explore the person's situations which are of concern and their relations to the person's ground we intervene in ways which help the person reorganize that ground, and thus alter his/her present responses/behavior. We don't just work with the presenting figure, but also with what is the ground out of which these figures emerge. Ultimately, the figures will be changed if we succeed in helping the person change/restructure the ground. Phil: You claim that field and system are dynamic equivalents, and I disagree. I think systems operate within a person's unified field. I think that the field is everything having effect, which cannot be known in its

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entirety, and thus is practically, even though not theoretically, unbounded. A system is artificially bounded, in the sense that someone sets the limits on the field for practical purposes. The field is discovered, but a system is created and imposed upon the field. If the field is a priori, then our phenomenological method, including the way in which two phenomenologies meet in dialogue, is compatible, nesting in the midst of a field that is somewhat known and appreciated, but always available to be further discovered and only limited by the abilities of client and therapist to meet one another, to learn from one another. However, if a system is a priori, then one places an artificial structure of some kind as a lense through which to view the experience of people in the system, and one often intervenes in a goal-oriented fashion, changing parts of the system in order to cause an effect in the system overall. (Incidentally, that does not fit well with the paradoxical theory of change.) If there is any question about whether or not a system is limited, consider the way some people define evolving, complex adaptive systems (perhaps the closest thing to your description of interpenetrating spheres/systems/fields). According to Dr. Luc Steels at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Brussels, such systems are characterized by the following features: x "Self-maintenance: Self-maintenance means that the system is actively establishing itself. To avoid annihilation due to increased entropy, the system needs to constantly rebuild itself by drawing materials from the environment and establish a boundary between itself and the rest of the environment. x Adaptivity: The system is not only capable to maintain its own internal equilibrium for a constant environment, but also adapts when there are (small scale) changes to the environment in order to enhance its chances of further existence. x Information preservation: The information defining the system is capable to be preserved so that the system does not depend on the continued existence of its components to survive. It is the role of the components that keeps the whole system together and if the various roles and their interrelations are preserved the whole system is preserved. x Spontaneous increase in complexity: The most remarkable aspect is that the system is able to increase its own internal complexity. This could mean that there are increasingly more parts, more complex relations between parts, more complex behaviors of the parts, etc. Moreover often instances of the same system come together to

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form a larger whole that operates as a single system at a higher level." (http://arti.vub.ac.be/~steels/origin/subsection3_3_1.html) If you do a net search for "system" you'll run into millions of references to various systems. What they all have in common is some kind of qualifier to tell you what kind of system they are talking about. The qualifier sets that system off from another; thus, not only is it necessary to state the operating processes by which the system will be analyzed but it is fundamentally necessary to state what kind of system is being considered. In speaking of systems, then, it is insufficient to say "the system" as we might say "the field." A person has to say what kind of system. Sylvia stated, "The only kind of 'unified field' we should ever be concerned with is the total complex of influential factors which bear upon each of our individual clients." To which I say, "Bingo! The lifespace." This is what I have been saying. My statements are a course correction, not a contradiction. I agree that we interpret our experience of the world, but I maintain that we do so using a hermeneutic and that there are sound principles of interpreting daily experience just as there are sound principles for interpreting texts. One of them is that we are interpreting something actual and not merely dreaming. We have real lives, and what we do matters to ourselves and those with whom we relate. In this sense, we are accountable / responsible (-able) to ourselves and others for/with our own experience. I do not see what we've been discussing as a polarity - separated layers in space vs. interpenetrating spheres of influence in action - nouns vs. verbs. It is more of a "both-and" for me. In some ways parts of the substantive layer, all those ways in which I have experienced the external world, are out of awareness but still contribute to my field because they have effect. In some ways my fantasy is out of sync with those things I have actually experienced in the real world, and I create experiences for myself that do not fit well with others', but these are also part of my field because they have effect. In many other ways these two do, in fact, interpenetrate, and when that is so, I have more of a grounded awareness. My boundary is the experience of myself, of being me with regard to both. They are, then, united at/in the boundary. Sylvia: I'd like to get reoriented to where we started from and what at least I've been addressing in our recent discussions. I think we don't disagree on very much and sometimes appear to be talking about different parts of a larger whole.

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We began with "boundary is a relative term," construed as where contact happens. Contact is thought of in Gestalt therapy as the meeting between me and not-me, for example, between subject and an object of awareness. Now we could have talked about interactions between the human organism and others within the environmental surround, but instead I chose to stay with the analysis of the person/subject's phenomenology. I took "field" to refer to a sphere or domain of influence, and I distinguished between the "phenomenological field," which is that of which the subject is aware (whether clearly of vaguely) and the "ontological field," the latter construed as everything-that-is. This includes nature but is not reducible to it; it certainly includes all subjects and all objects and the events involving them as well as all organisms and their interactions with environmental others. But because of its importance for the practice of Gestalt therapy I chose to explore the phenomenological field more deeply so as to draw out some of the implications for our processes of therapy. In this context I also mentioned the "existential-phenomenological field," which I defined as the living organismic whole which is the dynamic organization or synthesis the person constantly makes, and constantly reorganizes, of all of the experiences he/she has had. This is the ground - dynamic and ever-changing since the organism constantly integrates new experiences and reorganizes the whole - of present responses, what Wheeler calls the "structured ground." I was focusing primarily on the aware aspect of a person's experience, but of course that's an abstraction, since our theory begins with the field conception of organism-environment. Not all experiences of the human organism are aware; most bodily functions go on without our awareness or volition. As the person lives through time and circumstances, he/she integrates into some kind of living whole everything that happens, whether in awareness or not. When we go to the doctor for a physical exam or take various tests we want to bring into awareness important data about our physical living which may affect our living as a whole. This is true also for trying to assess environmental hazards of any kind. So even if we focus on a partial aspect of the whole human being, that is if we abstract one aspect to examine in depth, we shouldn't forget that we are dealing with a whole organism, and that our focus is only a part. The whole is involved in actual fact. The phenomenological method, which Gestalt therapy employs, begins with the therapist and client exploring the client's phenomenology, the content and organization of present experience. Here we explore and experiment with what appears to the client as we meet together, often tracing out the interconnections and implications of the present with the

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ground of experience the client brings to the present moment. Then we work with past experience - what is unfinished or somehow impacting the present - and we do this work in the here and now, making the effective past present in the client's phenomenological field. So then the question arises, how to bring to the client's awareness in a therapeutically effective way factors of which the client is not aware. Let's take psychological tests such as the MMPI. There is nothing wrong with telling the client that the test shows that under stress he/she tends to become somewhat paranoid and hypochondrical. However, in Gestalt therapy we present this as only a "working hypothesis." We ask the client if he/she can identify with that assessment, is there anything he/she is or can be aware of which resonates with this. If the answer is "yes" we might explore some of the remembered experiences, and use this information as a "marker" which alerts us in the future to certain kinds of phenomena the client may present. But what if the client says "no?" The therapist then keeps the information from the test as a possibility to notice, should anything ever arise with this client that could be thought of as either paranoid and/or hypochondrical. If something emerges which can be thought of in either of those ways, the therapist might start looking for stresses in the client's present life. But we never insist that the client take in and believe as true anything we say. Unless it can be "owned" by the client, we let it recede as a mere possibility which might manifest itself at some point. The client's experience, not our thoughts and speculations, is supreme in Gestalt therapy. Phil: I think it is inconsistent or confusing to say that there are spheres of influence within spheres of influence, because in saying that one does not seem to be addressing the degree of influence the organism actually undergoes; it is to merely postulate various forces among which the organism exists. Thus, it seems, they actually are environmental fields. Such force fields in and of themselves are parts of the objective world (loosely defined to include the intangible, immaterial forces in a sphere of influence); only when you embrace Lewin's definition of field, everything having effect (for a given subject), do you understand that "field" is the influence an individual "senses" while in the midst of a sphere of influence, and then all these various spheres within spheres dissolve into the unified field. What makes them field by definition also constitutes a common denominator that unites them all into one. Thus, to speak of them in the way that you have exemplifies the very confusion I would like us to remedy by embracing a way of talking that makes the differences explicit is it a force field extending influence to the organism, or is it the influence one experiences in such a force field? The Gestalt therapy literature

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abounds with both ideas poorly differentiated, even while postulating a third, the notion of field as environmental "surround," and a fourth, the unified field of everything having effect. I also believe that boundary transcends the phenomenological and the ontological fields (or the experiential and substantive layers of the unified field). Boundary is what unites mind and brain; it is the interpenetration of the experiential and the substantive in the field. While the body carries the experience of the organism in the substantive, the mind interprets that, constructing self in the experiential. They are interactive. You cannot split them, for we are not disembodied mind any more than we are spiritless brain. (I know, you hate the mind/brain issue, and I know that I've stepped into it here, but it is an irreducible dualism only if there is no essential link between them, and I think there is - the boundary.) But to answer the question of how to deal with factors out of the awareness of the client, it depends upon what those factors are. If a client is being triggered in body memories of bygone abuse, it isn't a matter of bringing about a cognitive remapping, because the process is subcortical in nature. You have to intervene at an affective/bodily level, ground the person, and then let the mind catch up. Remapping does take place, but it is a secondary matter. On the other hand, if a client has seasonal affective disorder, then an experiment around lighting, coupled with psychoeducational data on the nature of the disorder, might be appropriate and entail a high degree of cognitive work. Sylvia: Let's begin with a discussion of "system" and the problem you have with "spheres of influence" within spheres of influence. I think it's important not to be seduced by the name game - just because something has a specific name or term does not mean that it is a self-contained or closed entity or system. All systems exist within larger and more encompassing systems, and those systems interact with each other in ways which cannot be clearly separated. For example, the immune system in the body is contained within the overall system of the body; the body embraces and is an organization of many subsystems, all of which influence each other in various ways over a span of time. We can, by a "distinction of reason," focus on one of these systems, but our work will be flawed if we do not see our area of focus within the larger whole. I prefer to use "system" to refer to an integrated whole with a higher degree of organization than a "field," which seems to connote a loose organization. The same can be said for a governmental area within a larger governmental area; or all bodies, each with their own organization and principles, operating within the wider natural world; or, let's say, one Episcopal diocese within the American Church within the worldwide

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Anglican Communion. In all of these instances there are dynamics which operate within the smaller units which are also influenced by the larger whole to which they belong, and which often affect the larger whole. To me, this is an accurate portrayal of the complexity of influences that bear upon our everyday lives and how we do business with the world. How I write, just as an example, is influenced not only by my native language, English, but by the things I have read, what I like and don't like in style, the purposes I pursue through my writing, and the values I embrace which guide my choice of premises. I can't separate these influences. If someone were to study, for example, my book, and were to try to track down all of the influences which went into its content and style, they would have to get into hundreds of spheres of influence or fields I have lived in and interacted with. I think it's negatively confusing to think about overlapping and intersecting spheres of influence only if one insists on clear and distinct categories and ideas. Which is contrary to the world and life as we experience it. Any explanation of that world much appreciate its raggedness and its complexity. I prefer the metaphor of "dimensions" to "layers" for a number of reasons. I do think it matters greatly which metaphor one chooses; some are obviously intrinsically counterproductive. If, for example, I wanted to describe something soft, it would be foolish to say "it's soft as a rock," or even "it's soft as a laser beam." Those metaphors don't work. I prefer "dimension" because it conveys the sense of a multiplicity of elements which are inseparable: length is separable from height only in thought, not in fact; depth is separable from either of them also only in thought. The metaphor of "layer," however, immediately conveys the sense of separation. It doesn't help at all to say that these layers interpenetrate because the idea of layers is dissonant with the notion of interpenetration. My ability to think and to write, and the content of what I write and how I put my thoughts together, is a true synthesis of my background in philosophy, religion, psychotherapy, visual arts and music, golf, growing up in South Carolina and living in Florida, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, New York, California, and Missouri, being a Christian with a background in Eastern religions, having exactly the parents I did have, being a sibling to a brother and a sister, being a woman, a mother of two girls, a friend to a number of different kinds of persons, being past 60 years old, living at the turn of the 21st century, and so on and on and on. These can be explored by abstracting from the whole of my life in order to look in detail at any one of them; but in reality they exist as a living synthesis in me as a living human organism.

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By insisting on "layers" and the "boundary between the mind and the brain" (for example) you've already begun with an unsolvable situation. If you begin with the separation you can never get to the whole. This has been one of the banes of Western thought. Here is another and more effective we to address the reality. We can begin with consciousness and thought as functions of a complex reality, which can be viewed in the dimension of physicality (the brain) or can be viewed in the dimension of conscious and thought occurring in several dimensions. If, in other words, we begin with the organized whole and analyze it, by turns, in its several dimensions (which are revealed by our experience of it), then we never have to figure out to put the pieces together - we never really separate them except through "distinctions of reason." So beginning with the complex and inseparable reality of the mind-brain we can look at the physical processes, the various mental processes that are carried on, and we can examine their interactions. And we can take a larger domain to investigate, for example how stress in the person's everyday life impacts conscious life as well as brain chemistry and brain functioning. We could look at how any number of factors in various systems in the body affect consciousness and brain functioning and behavior, and how any of these can affect all of the others. By thinking in terms of dimensions rather than layers we never leave the reality of the organized whole, and we examine certain aspects of the whole which interest us. Further, we can stay within a given dimension, say the physical or the spiritual, and we can carry on an investigation which is specifically physical or specifically spiritual, trying to understand how physical events affect other physical events, or we can look at how spiritual events and experiences and ideas affect other spiritual events. Or we can investigate situations of spiritual healing of physical ailments, or how spiritual malaise affects bodily functioning, trying to understand how these dimensions of human life interact. Again, if we assume the reality of the integrated whole, and choose a metaphor which resonates with that, then certain problems never arise as we try to understand various aspects or dimensions of the whole. But you will always have an unsolvable problem if you insist on the metaphor of the layers, since layers already tells us that these things are separated by a boundary. How do we cross the boundary if we begin with the separation? It's more fruitful to begin with interpenetration and the inseparability. Now as for what is aware and what is unaware in human life is concerned, I begin with the human-organism-in-its-concrete-situation. So from the outset I am dealing with some dimension of that organism which is aware and some that is not. Of what is unaware, some is never aware and some was initially. Everything that happens to the organism is

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integrated and synthesized into a living whole, some of which we can access through memory and some we can't. As an organism living in a physical environment with others, with many of whom I can have relationships, I can investigate how any organism interacts with its environment in order to survive and to grow to maturity. Or I can investigate how human organisms do it, or how certain groups of human beings interact with their environment in order to survive and/or to grow. That might take me into medical, agricultural etc. kinds of investigations; or I might want to know more about social and interpersonal interactions between human beings, so I would investigate all sorts of subjects such as family life, social, political, economic events, and so on. Or I might want to know about a person's involvement with any one of the arts, or about religious experience. Really, Phil, I don't see what the problem is that you've been wrestling with when you refer to "the substantive layer." Which brings me to your use of "substantive" and "force field." These both smack of materialism, since they are drawn from physics - again, I think a poor choice of terms because of the associations. The term "substance" has often been identified with matter in modern thought which has been influenced by science and scientism; in early modern thought, "substance" referred to different kinds of basic and separate realities mind and matter. For Aristotle it had more of a holistic sense of anything which has a relatively independent, or freestanding, existence and was involved in causal relationships. Thus, for example, a rock or a bird would be substances, whereas the shape or the color of either would not be, since each of these latter depends on that of which it is the color or the shape. But I don't think this last is how you are using the term. The problem you seem to be trying to address is solved by returning to the concept/reality of the organism-as-a-whole-in-the-environment. Whatever happens in the life of the organism is integrated into the ongoing life of that organism, and much of it can be investigated by using any of a number of investigative and/or experimental tools. Psychotherapy is such a tool, but so are medicine, sociology, ecology, and so on. It all depends upon what our interest is how we approach the problem of understanding any fact or complexity of facts. Phil: The field just is - organized, disorganized, chaotic, tight, loose, etc. It's all these things and none of them until contact stimulates organization. There is something else that can increase our sense of organization, and that is to bound a portion of the field so that we have limits within which to observe. It is the limits that facilitate the focus, which results in seeing system as a higher degree of organization. Your examples above illustrate this. In the very differentiating of one system

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from another, you utilize boundedness to distinguish them: ."..the immune system in the body is contained within the overall system of the body; the body embraces and is an organization of many subsystems, all of which influence each other in various ways over a span of time. We can, by a 'distinction of reason,' focus on one of these systems, but our work will be flawed if we do not see our area of focus within the larger whole." I agree that systems can function within systems, but do you see how dependent we are upon boundedness to the discussion of them, to defining them especially to the distinguishing of one from another? And that is the point about the difference between system and field. Field is the larger concept. Essential to understanding any given system is to understand the limits within which one will scrutinize behavior. Yes, everything is connected to something else, and so there is probably a relationship between contiguous "parts," but one thing that has always characterized scientific inquiry to me is the need to limit one's focus, to isolate variables, to reduce to a manageable scope what one is studying. What makes such a process Gestalt, to me, is the concomitant need to examine the kind of limit (rigid, permeable, etc.), including how it serves the system, and the immediate context in which the system functions. Thus, a family system, while it is the chief focus, functions within a neighborhood and is contiguous with perhaps a school system, a religious system, a forensic system, a political system, etc. It's boundaries are more or less permeable. Yet, the chief focus is the way in which family members interact with one another to keep their family "going." The limit is membership by birth in that immediate family, and physically, perhaps it extends to the property line where they live. Part of really understanding that system is to see what it includes and what it doesn't - again, boundedness. Sylvia has said, "I prefer the metaphor of 'dimensions' to 'layers' for a number of reasons." That would be fine with me. Layers/dimensions. It makes no difference whether we speak of the substantive layer or the substantive dimension. The important element is that we have a way to distinguish among the various ways in which field has been used and that we create language that can serve us better. With regard to a person's field, I would maintain that the physical and conscious record of contact is recorded there, in the boundary, which transcends both the substantive and experiential dimensions, and with one orientation carries neuropsychological engrams, the scars of bumping into the objective world, while with another orientation, that of consciousness, supports an aware experience of self.

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The construct "boundary" is nothing but a construct, a metaphor, that serves our desire for clarity, and like all others, it gives way in the face of more and more information, more facts that make the metaphor labor under its own weight. At this moment, however, it serves me pretty well and it's something to which Gestalt therapists can relate. I am sorry that my choice of a metaphor has resulted in where you start (with separation), as I do not start there. I see relationship in these dimensions, even though I would not choose dimensions to express what you described as "spiritual" or "physical," etc. (I would choose "domain" to distinguish these various centralities, but that is a different discussion!). Dimension, then, could indeed supplant layer, if we keep to the difference between substantive and experiential. I am far less interested in defending the metaphor of layers than I am committed to defending the need to distinguish between what they represent in a unified field.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE1 PROJECTION AND SELF PSYCHOLOGY2 ROBERT FELDHAUS

When Gstalt-L began, in 1996, the big issue was what had occurred at the first AAGT conference when Richard Kitzler demonstrated his work and Jeffery Schaler watched. Actually, a great deal of energy was spent on debating various issues coming from a piece Schaler wrote about Kitzler's work, and published online, called "Bad Therapy." At Gstalt-L Dr. Schaler engaged Robert Feldhaus and others in a running debate on ethics and practice. One of the finest moments from those discussions, which took about three months, was this statement from Robert Feldhaus (edited to present Dr. Feldhaus's statements without his quoting of others on the list). It's hard to argue with terms such as good character and emotional stability! Your definition given here is a good benchmark with which I wholly agree. To recognize the equality of others' worth, and their status as a non-thing, i.e. a person, a mysterious presence that is not to be exploited, is surely the essence of ethics, professional or otherwise. However, I think people are largely unconscious of the way they exploit others, and my understanding of this is based on psychodynamic models of childhood and psychological defense, as well as Gestalt principles. I think I know what you mean when you say people know what they are about. I think we do know, on one level, but we do definitely have the capacity to hide from ourselves when certain parts of ourselves are too uncomfortable to deal with. So, like you, I do not agree with the idea of a reifiable "unconscious mind," but see it more in terms of process, the act of hiding from oneself. Only when a person becomes aware of the things 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 5(2), 2001.

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they have been hiding from themselves can they realistically be asked to take responsibility for what they are doing. Until then, they will experience the effects of their disowned activities, but remain in an irresponsible attitude towards them. In my experience, only a nonjudgmental attitude on my part enables another person, if they so choose, to drop their defenses in my presence and acknowledge that they, indeed, do know what they are about. I think we human beings are often very afraid of being judged as bad by others, and I think this fear is one of the primary operating factors that hold self-hiding and dishonesty and human discord in place. Have you ever observed this? When you say the unconscious is a ruse necessary in an oppressive childhood, do you mean that children do indeed repress severe traumata? I'm not quite clear. I'd be interested in knowing even more of your thoughts about what good therapy is, and what non-exploitative human interaction is. What thinkers are your intellectual influences? What are your premises? Can you give fleshed-out examples of the phenomena you mention? I ask for those things because those are the kinds of things that nourish and stimulate me, and create a basis for me to understand another human being. It's what I'm offering you in these posts. In my opinion, an "unhealthy" person is one who, among other things, is locked into his/her projections. A lot of disowned qualities (good and bad) of that person's self are unrecognized by the person, and are seen by the person as existing outside of one, especially in other persons who are emotionally important to him/her, either positively or negatively. The projected qualities are perceived as literally, unambiguously outside of the perceiver, other than the perceiver, just as clearly as seeing a piece of furniture outside of one. In Jungian terms, a shadow projection. An example at the macro level (Republicans may have a hard time with this example): What did George Bush accuse Saddam Hussein of being? How did Bush perceive Hussein? As a power-hungry dictator, cruel and insensitive to the needs of his own people, motivated solely by greed and power. I wonder if anyone ever experienced George Bush in the same way? In my view, these are Bush's unconscious attributes, projected onto Saddam. Important!: the idea that Bush was projecting his own attributes does not exclude the possibility that Saddam also had those attributes! In this case, I believe we had a mutual shadow projection. It might be easier for Americans to see that Saddam's perception of Bush--a power-hungry, cruel, expansionist dictator--was Saddam's projection. Other examples, perhaps clearer: the rabidly anti-homosexual minister is most often a closet gay, having furtive, guilt-ridden homosexual encounters, or at least

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powerful "temptations" or same-sex fantasies; the bomb-throwing leftist, enraged at fascism, is often a dictator at home to his own wife and children. The sexually abusive father accuses (and really perceives) his pre-oedipal daughter of being seductive and hungry for sex (!), when obviously (to outsiders) it is he who is being seductive and hungry for sex. The paranoid person (the projector par excellence) sees others as hostile to him, never dreaming that it is really he who is hostile to others. He sees himself as an innocent little lamb. In other words, to the extent we project, we attempt to deal with what are really our own attributes, in substitute fashion, "out there" in other people. The principle seems to be that those attributes in other people that really grab us and gall us, are--mortifyingly enough--the very ones that we possess, but have disowned. Projections get in the way of peaceful, reality-based relations with other people, since we are seeing them through the lens of our projections, instead of having compassion for them as being just as much in the bittersweet human predicament as we are. Certain kinds of pathology are associated with splitting, i.e. others and the self are seen as being either all-good or allbad, and often projecting all the bad onto others. This is neat and simple, but not realistic. An adult with a view like this becomes alienated from others. (Incidentally, positive projection also operates: those qualities we are attracted to in other people are our own, undeveloped, unacknowledged positive qualities.) As a person becomes healthier, s/he learns to withdraw the projections. This takes moral effort, and the willingness to endure the embarrassment of realizing that what I have accused others of, is also in myself. When one acknowledges this, one is immediately put into a more reality-based (and conciliatory) relation with others; one also regains access to parts of oneself that were hitherto alienated, thus increasing the strength of the self. The professional victim, for example, learns to acknowledge that s/he is also abusive to others. The rigid anti-gay learns to accept his own homosexual component. The callous person, who projects all his sensitivity onto others whom he attempts to exploit, learns to acknowledge his own vulnerability. Rather than see evil happening only in the enemy's camp, he learns, perhaps with a certain sheepish grin, that he is as much of a rascal as anybody else. Do I tend to see others as opinionated? Then I should ask myself whether others may not also experience me as opinionated. Do I tend to see people of different religion than myself as evil, benighted, aggressive? Better take a look at my own shadow side, that is, the things others see about me that I cannot directly see. Example: Christians have a stereotype about Muslims as being violent and spreading their religion through war. But take the viewpoint of all the peoples whom

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Christianity has oppressed (e.g. Native Americans and Africans), and who is it now who spreads their religion through war? And vice-versa: Muslims tend to see their own religion as the pinnacle of monotheism, humane and refined. They tend to see Christians as boorish warmongers. Just as in the case of Bush and Saddam (who may be seen as modern epitomes of this Christian/Islamic conflict), there is a mutual shadow projection going on. I'm using macro examples, but the really crucial areas for therapy are in intimate relations, of course. Salvation from this kind of thing comes only when someone can see they are projecting, and begin to take responsibility for their projected qualities. This takes encouragement, some intellectual understanding of the nature of projection, a non-judgmental stance on the part of the helper, and the insight that withdrawing the projection will actually restore some sense of dignity, power, and freedom to the person doing the projecting. The key "motive" (only half-conscious) for projection is that it allows the projector to shed responsibility for the negative quality. It's not me that is hostile, it's that other guy, so I don't have to do the work of dealing with my anger, I can just sit back and accuse the other of being so gosh-darned hostile. When a projector (any of us) takes responsibility, and says, "Well, I guess it's true in some way that I am hostile (or whatever)," everybody around him can breathe a sigh of relief. Unconsciousness has now been replaced by a modicum of consciousness, and therefore, hopefully, responsibility. Imagine Saddam saying, "I realize that I am aggressive as much as Bush, and I take responsibility for that." Imagine an abusive male father and husband saying, "I recognize that, although I accuse the rest of you of being lazy and insensitive, I am also lazy and insensitive. And I can take responsibility for that, and for the hurt it has caused you." Now this doesn't have to be guilt-inducing. It's more in the spirit of, I'll join the human race, I'll acknowledge that I have faults just like the rest of you. I apologize for acting like I was above the human condition. The well-known Gestalt technique of the empty chair is, among other things, directly aimed at helping a person re-own projections. For example, a person who complains that his mother is too critical is asked to speak to his mother in the empty chair. Then--and this is the crucial moment, and the one clients "resist" the most--the client is asked to sit in the empty chair and be the critical mother, to act out the body language, the tone of voice, the words of the critical mother. The client often says at that point, "I can't do that! That's just what I don't want to be!" This is because the person doesn't want to acknowledge his or her own criticalness, that was probably originally formed by the critical mother, but is now an unconscious part of the client. If the person can perform the

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experiment and be critical as the mother, the therapist may then ask if any of this critical energy is recognizable as being in the client as well. The client is also guided to see that his own internal critical mother--part of his own energy--is within him, that he, in the present, criticizes himself just as harshly as his mother ever did. This critical mother part of him very likely is expressed towards other as well, especially under stress, and in his intimate relations. (All you have to do is ask the client's intimates whether they ever experience him as critical.) This helps the client to take responsibility for his own criticalness, both towards himself and towards others. To me, it is the hallmark of integrity, both personally and professionally, to own one's projections, and to be open in principle to owning all of them. This makes a person whole. Importantly for therapist/client relationships, it makes a therapist safer for a client to open up to. If I as a therapist have re-owned a lot of my projections, I will be less likely to project onto my clients (counter-transference) and make them bear the brunt of my own self-alienation. I will have compassion for the human condition, and acknowledge myself as a human being with strengths and weaknesses, just like my clients. I will be less likely to cast them as my own critical mother or abusive father or my weak child, since I will take conscious responsibility for these attributes of my own. My less socially acceptable side is conscious to me, and will not be unconsciously projected onto others. For example, the part of me that feels weak, sick, and helpless is conscious, and I will not project this onto clients, by inviting them to play the role of helpless patient while I get to glory in illusory feelings of godlike power and "health" at their expense. If everybody is equally "evil," then what right do I or society have to impose my opinions on others, via a police force, for example? This theory of projection doesn't really aim at abolishing the police force, but it certainly does aim at reforming it. There are many abuses in law enforcement that stem directly from the kind of projection I am talking about. An important principle is that disempowered groups tend to become scapegoats, and projection screens, for those in power. The white LA cop who agrees with the beating of Rodney King, and sees black people as dangerously violent, is not in touch with the fact that he is violent also. Very importantly in family relations, the father who sees his child as greedy or selfish, is actually being greedy or selfish himself. The less powerful class (blacks, children) receives the projection, because they don't have what Skinner called counter-controls to defend themselves. It applies to peer groups as well: the injury lawyer who burns with indignation at the physicians he sues for malpractice, doesn't see that he is

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also guilty of professional exploitation of his own clients. The same thing he sees in the physicians who play God, is true of him. Really this phenomenon is so universal, and so obvious after the fact, that it seems amazing that everybody doesn't see it. In practice, we do see it, but only in other people! It's easy to see that our opponents are projecting, but very difficult to see that we are also projecting onto them. But of course there is primary and secondary gain in not seeing our own projections. Seeing our projections is humbling, it involves taking responsibility for our own stuff and the ways we harm others, it involves work and effort, it involves a lancing of our inflated egos. But the payoff is in the increased ability to be close to others, the increased ability to express oneself freely, the sense of wholeness and being in touch with the 360 degree sphere of the self instead of a narrow sector, the increased peace of mind and selfacceptance, and the relief of not being such an unconscious source of pain to others. If the police, the government, and the licensing boards could all individually work on their projections, we would have a more just system. We, as a society, would recognize true crimes, those that actually abuse a human person, and feel no guilt about punishing them. It's just that we would tend less and less to punish our own crimes in the person of others, especially disempowered groups such as racial minorities, women, children, gay people, etc. This theory of projection is based especially on thinkers like Jung, Perls, and Alice Miller. In cognitive theory, I'm sure you must deal with this phenomenon, since it is such a central pattern in mental health and illness. Do you think of it as a cognitive error, a misattribution pure and simple, to be corrected by rational thought? I'm curious. It's important to use terms like "grandiosity" within a certain theoretical framework, and not to mistake technical meanings for common ones, or a term's meaning in one theory for its meaning in another. In self psychology and object relations theory. "grandiosity" refers to a sense of being very powerful, perfect, free, the center of attention, in a word, godlike. This is the way the infant feels when s/he is still "one with" the mother, can apparently control her behavior with his/her cries, and experiences the "oceanic feeling" of oneness with the universe (Freudian conceptions). Importantly, self-psychology sees the need for grandiosity as legitimate, just as it sees the need for mirroring as legitimate. According to Margaret Mahler, an extremely influential (though early) pioneer in early childhood (pre-oedipal) development, the moment when a child learns to walk is indeed an extremely heady experience, grandiose in the sense just given. One has only to try to imagine what it's like, after your whole

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existence of just being able to crawl and be close to the ground, when you can locomote in the upright position, and swiftly! Whole new worlds of exploration and autonomy are opened up. Walking at first is a feeling of being off-balance and yet balanced at the same time, as you learn to shift your weight from foot to foot. Relative to the crawling mode, the first time you walk feels like you're flying, and the child can be observed to want attention from the parents when first achieving this. Self-psychology says that it's crucial for the child's legitimate feelings of grandiosity to be mirrored by the parents. The child needs to feel that the parents see him emotionally, that they understand or acknowledge that he is indeed feeling so good and powerful, that they admire him, that their attention is on him. Kohutian theory would say that children who do not get enough of this mirroring, this admiration, this attention, are precisely the ones who are at risk for narcissistic personality later in life. That's because narcissism (a word that has a hard time shedding its negative connotations) is seen as a legitimate healthy need, and the parent's mirroring gets internalized along the way, so the older child can provide his own mirroring, his own sense of self-appreciation. A narcissist doesn't really like himself or appreciate himself for the human being s/he is, can't mirror him/herself, can't soothe him/herself, because such behaviors weren't modeled for her/him as a child. Lack of adequate mirroring leads to deficits in the ability of the child to mirror himself, and therefore to the fragile, brittle sense of selfesteem seen in narcissistic personalities, where the sense of self-esteem is based overmuch on achievement and not enough on one's own identity as a fully feeling, loveable person who sometimes fails, and the self-esteem is subject to sudden implosions when the narcissist feels slighted or not paid attention to. The key to the Kohutian viewpoint is the legitimacy of the narcissistic needs for mirroring, the absolute necessity that they be met in early childhood, and the internalization of the mirroring functions in a healthy development. In reference to what you said about the child needing to feel pride in his/her accomplishments: I believe an important component of healthy self-regard is knowing that you are competent, or as Bandura would say, self-efficacy. However, if the ability to accomplish or achieve is the core of self-regard, then the person is subject to harsh self-judgments and loss of self-esteem when s/he fails at a task. The basis of healthy self-esteem is that one's natural self, with all its emotions, with its successes and failures, is acceptable and loveable. If the child does not feel his parents love him for himself, apart from accomplishments, he will develop what object relations theorists call the "false self," the self that is fabricated in order to

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get the approval of his parents, based on the ability to achieve good grades, a good job, a good mate, etc. Thanks for eliciting all this from me. I would be interested to know how all this bounces off your own cognitive frameworks. Cognitive is a big ballpark. Are you more influenced by Beck, Bandura, Ellis, George Kelly, or...? Obviously, theories are theories, not facts, and no one theory, mine or yours, captures all of the truth of the human situation. Theories proceed from premises which are themselves not provable but only intuitively plausible. If you grant the premise (e.g. only behavior is observable and studiable) you are led to the conclusion (behaviorism as a body of thought). Even science's basic premise (only what is publicly observable and replicable is valid knowledge) doesn't meet its own criterion, since that premise is not itself a publicly observable and replicable piece of information! You have to grant the validity of that premise on some other grounds than that a scientific study proved it. I think in practice, the pragmatic criterion (it works) is the operative one, as well as intuitive plausibility, which is a subjective factor, and differs from person to person. I have internalized the standpoints adopted here because they fit with my experience of myself, my clients, and my intimates, because they are internally consistent, because they are based on the observations and reflections of clinicians I reason to respect, and other reasons. I am especially interested in unexpected common ground between otherwise divergent theories, because that common ground seems to me to have a sort of independent confirmation. For example, a Bandurian model, in most respects totally unlike the ones I have explore here, make much of modeling and the internalization of modeled behaviors and attitudes. This is somewhat like the Kohutian idea of a child experiencing good empathy from a parental figure and learning to do this for him/herself. Internalization is a construct found in most psychological theories, even the most diverse, and therefore is worth my attention. I suppose all psychological theories are based on the seed idea that a person's perception is individual, based on conditioning, and, to some extent, creative of the world s/he lives in. Therefore, a person's construal of the world can be changed if it is not working. I am open to all theories, since I suspect that there is truth in every one, even though every one also distorts or ignores other areas. You can't concentrate on one thing without ignoring others (uh-oh, a Gestalt premise!). The premises of cognitive theories are also plausible to me, although I experience them as being (surprise!) too mental a model of the human being, with too little respect for the spontaneity and natural self-

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balancing of the emotions. It's true that thoughts condition feelings, as cognitivists are quick to emphasize, but it's also true that feelings have their own wisdom that needs to be respected, and not overly shaped by the rational functions. To me, these are complementary truths, and I certainly use some cognitively-derived interventions (e.g. reframing) in my work. I believe the human organism as a whole, including the rational functions, the body, the emotions, and everything else, form a pre-existent unity, and _can be trusted_. In my opinion, that's the most important premise that differentiates humanistic thought from most other kinds of psychological theories. I do not trust the disembodied rational mind to direct the rest of the organism, as cognitivists seem to. This is perhaps one place where our premises diverge. I respect cognitive theories, for example Beck's work with depression, and even Ellis' "I refuse to be miserable ever again!" kind of approach. Ellis emphasizes that the interpretation of any event is always in my control, so I can always interpret what happens to me in a way that I don't have to feel sad. Maybe Ellis represents a kind of extreme of cognitivism. But taken to Ellis' extreme, I see some possible damage to the organism in trying to dominate my feeling nature to that extent. Can I not cry and, yes, be miserable if I experience a tragedy? Is it not healthy and good to go with the flow of the feelings at least a little more than Ellis would have us do? What happens to all the emotional energy dammed up behind re-interpretations of events? Cognitive theories try to be more empirically based than all this psychodynamic and humanistic flowery talk that I indulge in! This is a strength. And there's no doubt that "neurotics" need a healthy dose of understanding, as cognitivists would lead them to understand, that they don't need to wallow in depression or self-pity, and can take control over their feelings and perceptions more than they do. I simply prefer a model of the healthy human being that is fully embodied and fully emotional, fully honest and in contact with the deep, biological springs of human existence. Plato saw reason as the charioteer, with the emotions as unruly horses needing discipline and taming. Some truth in that? Undoubtedly. But I think the overall message of modern science is that our capacity for rationality spontaneously springs from our biology (e.g. brain structure and function) as much as our emotions do, and that whatever a human being is, s/he is a whole, a unity, and an inseparable part of the rest of nature. Therefore, I cannot fully espouse a theory that puts any one part of the human being in the governing position. It's the overall whole of a human being that can be trusted, not the compartmentalized intellect, or the blind passions taken by themselves. Gestalt has contributed a theory

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and a technique for recovering that experience of wholeness, and for that I value it very much indeed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO1 SPIRITUALITY, DIALOGUE, AND THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD2 SYLVIA CROCKER

Gestalt therapists employ many methods in working with clients methods which prompt bodily and emotional awareness, fantasied dialogues with significant others, exploration of important cognitive elements, and so on. These are specific interventions which we use at appropriate moments to facilitate the therapeutic process. However, there are two overarching methods which characterize the whole of the Gestalt process - therapeutic dialogue and the phenomenological method, and of these two the phenomenological method is more fundamental since it informs true dialogue. Dialogue involves two or more persons whose “words” (logia)—both verbal and nonverbal--“run through” (dia) each other, and thus the revealed words of both reciprocally influence the participants in the dialogue. Through this mutual giving and receiving of each other’s words, each enters the phenomenological field of the other, and thus each becomes an influence on what happens in the other’s present experience. In a therapeutic situation the therapist brings to the meeting with the client a ground of learning and experience, and this influences what she notices as important in the revelations of the client, suggests working hypotheses as to what is going on with the client, and gives rise to spontaneous dialogic responses by the therapist and/or decisions about how to intervene in a practical way. 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 5(3), 2001.

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Similarly, the therapist’s verbal and nonverbal responses to the client introduce novelty into the client’s phenomenology, yet these are also altered to some degree by the ground the client brings to the meeting. Therefore, each subsequent response by both therapist and client bears the marks both of what each reveals and the effect on these revelations of the ground which each participant brings. This mutual influencing by revelation as well as ground is why dialogue is a “speaking through” rather than mutual “speaking at” or “speaking to”. True dialogue is therefore an authentic form of interpersonal relationship, in contrast the more frequent kinds of relating which are primarily ways of being-alongside. What the client reveals can be taken in at different levels of reception. If a therapist primarily takes a practical stance toward the client she will listen for certain anticipated cues, cues which either suggest interventions or which enable the therapist to access theoretical structures which feed an interpretation of the client’s experience. In contrast, a Gestalt therapist who is committed to true dialogue operates within a paradoxical framework. On the one hand, the overarching agreement between therapist and client is that the client wants change and the therapist agrees to help him achieve it. On the other hand, the Gestalt therapist practicing this kind of dialogue operates primarily within a non-practical framework of caring curiosity, where the meeting of persons and the self-revelation of the client are primary. Indeed, caring curiosity is the informing motive for the phenomenological method. Here, within a context in which the therapist has shown that she cares about the client, the therapist increasing shows a welcoming openness and a genuine curiosity about what goes on in the client’s life and living. As the therapist takes in what the client reveals, she permits her curiosity to influence what is said as she asks questions about what happened, how the client felt/feels, then what? and so on. As the client becomes more and more convinced of the therapist’s caring and her genuine interest in him, he becomes increasingly willing to “pull back the veil” which hides how he actually lives his life and reveals how he lives at increasingly deeper and more truthful levels. This occurs as the therapy goes on over time. In his “Essay on Truth” Heidegger points out that the Greek meaning for “truth” is alethea, which literally means “unveiled”. What-is, as every Gestalt therapist knows, is most often hidden behind any of a variety of protective masks which no doubt have served a number of practical purposes during the person’s lifetime. Moreover, we also believe that healing can come only if we can first face what-actually-is—the wellknown paradoxical principle of change. This means that the processes of

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change require progressively radical truth-telling, an increasing willingness to pull back the veils which hide the truth of how a person actually does business with the world. Human beings will rarely show how they “really are” on command, or with cajoling, or through their own practical intention. Rather, we are usually unwilling to show ourselves most truthfully unless another person shows genuinely caring curiosity, a non-moralistic receptivity, and an unconditional openness to whatever and however we are able to reveal ourselves. And this is precisely the nature of the phenomenological method of psychotherapy. The phenomenological method is the direct methodological implication of the paradoxical principle of change, and it is equally paradoxical. When a Gestalt therapist practices this method, she is open to receiving whatever and however the client shows himself, both verbally and nonverbally. This receptivity results from the therapist’s caring for the client as a person and her genuine curiosity about how the client lives now and has previously lived through time and circumstances. On the other hand, the therapist is not a “blank sheet” upon which any and ever revelation makes an impression—that would be a rather sterile phenomenalism, that is, a descriptive account devoid of understanding. Rather, phenomenology involves a logos, an understanding of what reveals itself which draws on a theoretical framework. In contrast to essentially practical and interpretive approaches, the phenomenological method uses theory only to organize and to explore what is revealed, honoring the revelations themselves as primary and the therapist’s thoughts about them as secondary. A Gestalt therapist using this method constructs working hypotheses about what the client reveals, being willing to put aside any hypothetical construct which is not borne out by further revelations as the therapy goes on over time. The therapist’s theoretical ground is thus used in the service of making vague figures stand out in relief, uncovering and exploring the implications of what and how the client reveals himself, and working with significant figures and patterns. The therapist knows that she can never know more about the client’s experience than the client does, and thus the therapist employing this method remains open, humble, and respectful in the face of what the client shows of himself. The phenomenological method involves a dialectic relationship with the client, a movement between I-Thou and I-It as the therapeutic process goes on. While discovering what-is in the client’s living is the central aim of the process, yet the task of the therapist is to find ways to facilitate the client’s ability and willingness to let what-is be revealed. Therefore, as the

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client tells his story, verbally and nonverbally, the therapist notices certain aspects of the story and the client’s manner which pique her curiosity and which suggest interventions which can highlight and/or explore these aspects. To the extent that the therapist is thinking about the client and deciding to use one or another intervention to facilitate the client’s selfrevelation, the therapist is in an I-It mode. When she is receptively present and actively welcomes the client’s revelations, without an agenda or any fixed preconceptions about what-is with the client, she is in an I-Thou relational mode with the client. In Gestalt therapy, I-It always serves the IThou relationship. It is always and only for the sake of aiding and deepening the client’s revelation of how he lives and the ground which supports that living that the therapist resorts to any intervention or constructs any hypothesis about the client and the client’s behavior. The commitment to be-there as an actively caring and interested presence is the therapist’s central motivation throughout the therapeutic process; everything else is servant to this. At the deepest level of a dialogic meeting between client and therapist, where the relationship is most fully I-Thou, there are moments when there is an intimate meeting of persons, a meeting in which each is known as the mysterious Other that each person is. Not that any of us can ever catch ourselves or anyone else in the very act of being who we are—that reality never enters our experience as an object, as a phenomenon. But within the context of an I-Thou dialogue therapist and client can enter into the presence of each other, not primarily as objects of experience but as truly meeting subjects. Perhaps this is the real source of therapeutic healing and growth. Here is where the phenomenological method and the dialogue it informs become essentially spiritual. Human spirituality is a human capacity to have a certain kind of experience, just as physicality, emotionality, or rationality enable us to have specific kinds of experiences. What kind of experience do we have by virtue of having spirituality? As I view it, spirituality is our capacity to interact with a significant mystery, and to do so in ways which honor the intrinsic mystery that it is. A genuine mystery can be known only by its effects, the phenomena that result from its actions; it can never be known as it is in itself, nor can it ever be fully predicted or controlled. There are mysteries all around us, in nature, in personal and interpersonal life, in the arts, and in religious and spiritual life. They are not often responded to appropriately, but are mainly dealt with as if they can be reduced to the level of what can be known, controlled, and predicted. However, the appropriate response to an intrinsic mystery is to

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be open to its revelation, to welcome that revelation, and to honor it as it shows itself in its own way and on its own terms. To meet such a mystery we must be willing to live with ambiguity and to be able to interact with it improvisationally, leaving what is fully understood and comfortable behind. Is this not what we, as Gestalt therapists, do as we meet our clients by means of dialogue and the phenomenological method? Here we may draw on our theoretical ground and our experience of therapeutic methods in order to make the client’s revelations clearer, to draw out their implications, and to work with whatever emerges, but the therapist’s theoretical and experiential ground functions first and above all as servant to the client’s self-revelations, and to his subsequent self-understanding and his personal transformation. In my opinion, the phenomenological method, and with it true dialogue, cannot be practiced unless the therapist employs her spirituality. Spirituality permits the therapist to lay aside pre-set agendas, preconceptions, and strict diagnostic categories, to welcome and to encourage the client to show himself truthfully, to pull back the veil which hides him as he actually is, and thus “to show his face,” ultimately to the world in which he lives. The therapist is thus further committed to be present as the client discovers how he can become, and supports him as he learns how to standout in his world as a clear figure, and begins to engage with that world in truth-telling ways. This is not to forget that the overarching purpose of the therapy is the practical goal of therapeutic change. But, paradoxically, this goal can be achieved only by looking away from it, in order to let what-is show itself just-as-it-is—and then as-it-can-be. When this happens, the work of therapy is truly a spiritual work, and the defining character of the process itself is deeply spiritual

References Beisser, A. (1970). “The Paradoxical Principle of Change” in Gestalt Therapy Now, edited by Fagan, J. and Shepherd, E.L. . Palo Alto: Science and Behavior Books. Crocker, S. F. (1999). A Well-Lived Life: Essays in Gestalt Therapy. Cambridge: Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Press. Heidegger, M. (1949). “The Essence of Truth” in Existence and Being, edited by Brock, W.. New York: Henry Regnery.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE1 PSYCHOTHERAPY AND OUR SEARCH FOR MEANING2 BRIAN O’NEILL

(Response letters to the editor by Bud Feder and Philip Brownell follow the article). “For it is not that God is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth, rather it speaks to us as the Word of God… The Word happens to us; we suffer it; for we are victims of profound uncertainty: with God as a complexio oppositorum, all things are possible, in the fullest meaning of the phrase.” —Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Carl Jung, page 373 “All the troubles of the world, especially spiritual troubles such as impatience, hopelessness, and despair, derive from the failure to see the Grandeur of God clearly.” —The Essential Kabbalah, Daniel C. Matt

If you work (as I do) in fields of drug and alcohol abuse, mental health, or areas such as child abuse, domestic violence and suicide, then you would be well aware that there are many troubles in the world today. Troubles which are not going away. Troubles which bring untold misery and suffering. Troubles which call us out to see ourselves and our world in a new light. Troubles which can ultimately transform us and those we walk with and live with and care about. 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 5(3), 2001. Works cited full citations not available.

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If this simple statement from the Kabbalah is to be believed, then our lack of overall success with such social ills stems from looking in the wrong place for solutions. We need to in some way include the spiritual ground of our being in how we approach these issues - whatever that may mean for each individual. Troubles which can be understood psychologically and socially – and which stem from a “the failure to see the Grandeur of God clearly.”

The Split Between Spiritual and Psychological Realms Whether we believe in God or not, whatever our spiritual background, we are able to use our faculty of “splitting” and put spirituality and religion on one side, and the practical everyday reality on the other. In fact many spiritual and religious people who work in the helping professions see a clear ethical need to keep such domains separate. This is so as not to impose their attitudes on the client and put their own system of belief unto the other. Hence this can translate to a dual existence of phsychological reality at work and spiritual or religious practice at other times. For example in the mental health field, no matter how many practitioners believe they have a soul, this rarely translates to the literature and practice of mental healing. In working with people experiencing psychotic illness it is clear that for most people their experience, particularly of the “voices,” involves some type of spiritual reality. Yet this clearly is not to be talked about by mental health workers for fear of making things worst. The same often holds true in fields of physical healing such as medicine, nursing or physiotherapy. People and their families can undergo extreme physical and psychiatric disorders without in any way having attention paid to the underlying spiritual and religious experience - what this means to the person and their family. It would be too easy to simply portray this as two opposing camps – those who work with psychosocial (or mental) health and those who address spiritual health. There are many people who are interested in both psychological and spiritual realities, and the link between the two. However there is still a schism between the spiritual and physical which is manifest in our society.

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Repression of the Spiritual Richard Hycner in his book “Between Person and Person- Towards a Dialogical Psychotherapy” calls this tendency to separate psychological and spiritual realities, the “Repression of the Spiritual.” He argues that we have historically developed a view of ourselves as rational beings, separate and distinct from the ontological or spiritual ground of our existence. This self-concept has come at a cost, for while Western society has valued this unique, individual and rational self-identity, there has developed an over-emphasis on separateness to the extreme. This experience of being separate individuals without a connection to our spiritual ground has led to a sense of anxiety and emptiness, which is then filled with personal and financial success. In this ultimate of existential emptiness, “things” easily take the place of what is missing spiritually. As Hycner states, “Acquisition becomes religion.” This spiritual and psychological isolation creates a void which must be filled, and from Hycner’s perspective it is filled by things which don’t really fill it and create further longing – money, drugs, sex, even television. . We are, as a society, cut off from the spiritual well spring of our existence. If you accept Hycner’s perspective, then the current plagues of drug abuse, alcoholism, divorce, domestic violence, child abuse, mental illness, suicide and crime which our societies are struggling with are signs of not only psychosocial disorder but a spiritual disorder. If we are to find meaningful solutions to these troubles of the world, we must seek answers which include this deeper spiritual ground of our being. What is interesting is that this dilemma of current society, as described by Hycner, is also clearly apparent in the story of the life of the Buddha.

The Story of the Life of Buddha If we view the story of the life of the Buddha as a blueprint for both our individual and society’s spiritual development, then we see patterns in the story itself which can offer great wisdom in our search for answers to our personal and social troubles. Buddha was the son of a king, Shuddhodana Gautama whose queen was called Maya. For twenty years they had no children until one night in a dream the Queen envisioned her pregnancy.

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The Queen followed custom and returned to her parents home, and as she rested in the Lumbini Garden, and as she reached up to pick an Ashoka blossom, the prince was born. They named the child Siddhartha, which means “Every wish fufilled.” Shortly after, Queen Maya died and the baby prince was raised by her younger sister. A hermit named Asita then foretold that if the Prince remained in the castle he would become a great king and subjugate the whole world. However should he forsake this and embrace a spiritual life, he will become a Buddha and Savior of the world. The king preferred to keep his son and maintain the life of the palace (as many of us tend to want to perpetuate our physical and psychological self). He educated his son in matters of state and tried in ever way to distract him from things spiritual. However one day while out in the fields, the young Prince saw a bird carry of a small worm. He was deeply affected by such a simple but barbarous little death. He sat down in the shade of a tree and thought, “Alas! Do all living creatures kill each other?” So this little death effected him and this became a spiritual wound, particularly in light of the death of his mother. More and more he thought about human suffering and death. For ten years the King tried to cheer him up and distract him. He became immersed in the pleasures of the palace, but he could not block out his awareness of death. Finally he said: “The luxuries of the palace, this healthy body, this rejoicing youth! What do they mean to me? Some day we may be sick, we shall become aged; from death there is no escape. Pride of youth, pride of health, pride of existence – all thoughtful people should cast them aside. A man struggling for existence will naturally look for something of value. There are two ways of looking – a right way and a wrong way. If he looks in the wrong way he recognises that sickness, old age and death are unavoidable, but he seeks the opposite. If he looks in the right way he recognises the true nature of sickness, old age and death, and he searches for meaning in that which transcends all human suffering. In my life of pleasures I seem to be looking in the wrong way.” (The Teaching of Buddha, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai)

Looking in the Right Way If we see the story of Buddha as a parable then there are some striking parallels with the modern day writing of Hycner’s Dialogical psychotherapy.

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Like Buddha our spiritual nature is born into a situation where the outer physical reality dominates. The ruling part of our nature (the King or ego) is delighted with the advent of the spiritual (Buddha). But this creative power comes with a dilemma – this state of being can be used to subjugate the world as a great ruler (ego) or go beyond the physical world to become a spiritual being. Our ego state (the King) prefers to maintain the status quo and stay immersed in the world of physical reality. Yet the spiritual within us keeps being called out to something more… something bigger and beyond the ego state of being. This calling comes at first as a bitter pill – and awareness of death. Yet try as we may to distract ourselves from the true state of physical reality, from the bigger truths of spiritual life, there is that which keeps calling us…. Tapping us on the shoulder and saying “what about…” Eventually the Siddhartha stops from the years of continual distraction and empty living and sees there are two ways of viewing this situation – this struggle for existence. The first way, which he calls the wrong way, is to ignore these awarenesses of sickness, old age and death, ignore the bigger picture, and seek the opposite. This parallels Hycner’s notion of the spiritual isolation of modern life which creates a void which must be filled, and is filled by things which don’t really fill it and create further longing – money, drugs, sex, even television. We ignore the bigger spiritual picture and immerse ourselves, like Buddha, in the opposite – “In my life of pleasures I seem to be looking in the wrong way”. Or as the Kabbalah has said: “All the troubles of the world… derive from the failure to see the Grandeur of God clearly.” The second way, which he calls the right way, is to recognise the transitory nature of this ego state and physical reality, and search for meaning that transcends it. So drawing upon the Kabbalah, Buddhism, and Dialogical psychotherapy we can see striking parallels in how to look at and understand our struggle for existence. Such a perspective lends a revealing light to the current plagues of drug abuse, alcoholism, divorce, domestic violence, child abuse, mental illness, suicide and crime which our societies are struggling with. It seems clear that these are signs of not only psychosocial disorder but of a spiritual disorder –like the Buddha when he was Prince Siddhartha – we are a society without deeper meaning, a society which is looking in the wrong direction.

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If we are to find meaningful solutions to these troubles of the world, we must seek answers, seek meaning, which include this deeper spiritual ground of our being. Our theorising and practice of counselling and psychotherapy has created a psychosocial ethos of the nature of the self which is mostly devoid of the spiritual. I say mostly, as there are clearly those writers and theorists who have worked to re-connect counselling and psychotherapy with the spiritual, in one form or another. Yet even in such work, there is the potential of diminishing or misrepresenting the Holy. For example, some practitioners of therapies which are grounded in the spiritual, such as Dialogical psychotherapy (which draws on the mystical work of Martin Buber), at the same time profess their lack of belief in God. I find this contradictory yet it may simply be a question of language and the meaning given to the term God by each individual. Buber himself has both space and grace for this contradiction. He talks of the many names we have given to God as the eternal Thou - how all God’s names are hallowed. Yet some also reject the word “God” because it is so misused and so heavily laden. However it is because it is so heavily laden is exactly why, Buber states, it is the most imperishable and indispensable of names. Yet people need not use or believe the name to reach the Holy. As he states: “But when he too, who abhors the name, and believes himself to be godless, gives his whole being to addressing the Thou of his life, as a Thou that cannot be limited by another, he addresses God”. (I and Thou, Martin Buber page 75-76).

So whether Dialogical therapists believe in God or not, I guess the difference is that God believes in them.

Psychosynthesis and Roberto Assagioli Assagioli was a colleague of Freud and Jung who initially trained in psychoanalysis. Like Jung, he found psychoanalysis to be limited in certain areas, which for Assagioli was the higher reaches of human nature, what he came to call the superconscious. Assagioli is quite clear and explicit that his therapy is purely and simply a science and in no way crossing into subject matter which is religious. How this is accomplished is in the definition of his terms and the goal of his therapy.

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He believes psychotherapy includes areas of higher consciousness – of spiritual and religious experience - as real and important facts and direct experiences which cannot be ignored by scientists and psychologists. These higher urges of intuition imagination aspiration and genius are seen to be as real as conditioned reflexes and therefore subject to research and treatment. The neglect of this area by psychologists is noted as quite curious by Assagioli and would make an interesting piece of psychoanalysis and shed light on the psychology of psychologists. In defining the terms to separate religion from psychotherapy, Assagioli firstly notes two different stages of religion. The first is “existential religion” which is direct spiritual experience, often realised by founders of religions, mystics and in varying degrees by many people. Second is the religion of theological or metaphysical formulation of such experiences and the institutions methods and forms developed to communicate to the masses. Psychosynthesis affirms the reality of the first religion and works in this area but is neutral to the second, noting that this second form is necessary, but the purpose of psychosynthesis is to attain direct experience of the first (pages 194-195). It is offered as a support and help make better use of the methods and teaching of the second religion without interfering with doctrine or theology. He goes so far as to suggest a “psychosynthesis of religions” by which he means the development of a common ground and greater understanding between religions, as well as some fields of cooperation developed. In many ways Assagioli makes the distinction between psychology and religion on practical grounds, offering definitions of terms such as “self” and “spiritual” and “religion” as being practical realities which can be experienced and altered by psychological techniques. For example, in defining the term spiritual he does not attempt to define or discuss what it is in essence but offers the fact of spiritual experience, an experience of what he terms the superconscious. He then uses the metaphor of electricity wherein we do not need to know the underlying theory or ultimate nature of electricity to use electrical appliances. Likewise psychosynthesis accepts that spiritual experiences exist and therefore includes and studies them with the purpose of therapeutic and educational utilisation. The same pragmatic approach applies in defining the “self” to his patients. Initially the notion of a personal self and a higher Self is presented as a hypothesis that can be verified or disproved as the therapy proceeds. How this is explained also depends on the background of the person, so that a religious person is told the higher Self is a neutral

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psychological term used for the soul. For agnostics it is whatever term or metaphor or symbol fits for that person. Clearly the drive behind this is to put aside the normal barriers and difficulties people experience with theoretical or cognitive discriminations of the spiritual experiences and move to an experiential base. Similarly he sees his approach as Dialogical in the same sense as Martin Buber, and pays tribute to Buber’s eloquence in writing about dialogue both in the vertical sense with God and the dialogue between human beings. He disagrees with Buber on the primacy of the interpersonal dialogue and believes he overstates the case in saying this is the true and only reality and one cannot dissociate oneself or God from the relationship. He further views dialogue as also internal between the personal self and the higher Self, a process which may not be mystical in any way but mental, impersonal and objective (page 207). Writing in the early 1960’s, Assagioli defines psychosynthesis, by comparing it to what he terms the “new trends” in psychiatry and psychology of Existential psychotherapy. Existentialism as a philosophical movement has been accredited to Kierkegaard (1813-55) who was a very religious man and emphasised man’s relation to God in terms of subjective, personal truth and choice. He also writes about angst or dread, which is the result of a life given over to the world and pleasures of the senses (Hamlyn, 1987). Later existentialists are equally classified as belonging to the phenomenology movement (including Husserl, Jaspers, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Satre) and most left behind the original religious emphasis of Kierkegaard. Assagioli focuses on existential psychotherapy, which he admits is a loose grouping of divergent thinkers. To attempt to summarise the characteristics of this approach he builds on the work of Maslow (Remarks on Existentialism and Psychology) and offers nine aspects of existential psychotherapy: x They share a similar methodology of starting with the self of the individual, his presence x Each individual is in constant development and growth x There is a central importance to meaning each person gives to life x That values are important, particularly ethical, aesthetic, noetic and religious values x Each individual is constantly confronted by choice and the responsibility of their life x There is a need to understand the motivation for these choices

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x The depth and seriousness of human life and the anxiety and suffering which arises x The emphasis on the future and the present x The recognition of the uniqueness of each individual

Viktor Frankl, Logotherapy and Existential Psychotherapy It is to this school of psychology which Viktor Frankl is seen as a major contributor, and Assagioli is highly appreciative of his work and contribution to spiritual psychotherapy, classifying him and Rollo May as spiritual existentialists (page 113). Like Assagioli, Frankl was a student of Freud and developed an alternative psychotherapy which he came to call Logotherapy. A key theoretical construct of this approach was what Frankl termed a “will-tomeaning”. In a similar fashion to the notion of Kierkegaard’s angst, Frankl described what people complained of as an inner void, which he termed an existential vacuum. Having satisfied other more basic needs the human being then turns to higher spiritual needs, which for Frankl manifest as a need to find meaning in one’s life. Such meaning involves discovering what is valued in life, and when this meaning and values are not apparent the person’s existence becomes empty and meaningless. The role of the therapist is to help the person find meaning in their life, accept responsibility for their existence and find values to live by. This profoundly simple approach is based on the experiences of Frankl in a concentration camp in World War II. He was interned with his whole family, including his parents and wife and children, who all died. In the first half of his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl tells of the experience of shock, dehumanisation and later adaptation to this horrendously brutal world. He tells this in a way that is very simple and factual with in-depth self disclosure, yet without any hint of over emotionalism or exaggeration. In many ways his simple style of writing adds to the bare horror which he reports. At one instance he reports how dehumanised he had become. A friend had died and was dragged out of the hut. As he looked to the window he saw the person’s head thump on the steps as he was taken out – dead, lifeless eyes – and the only thing Frankl could think of was that he had the man’s bread. This is stark reality. I have often used the story of Frankl in teaching counselling and psychotherapy. Having described his situation, I go on to tell how people

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would kill themselves in the camp by walking into the electric fence, which was not stopped. These people were called the walkers. Once it was known Frankl was a psychiatrist, he would be called upon to come and talk to these people and dissuade them from suicide. I was ask student “What would you do if you were Frankl, how do you reach someone in this despair and what can you offer them that will help?” The secret Frankl discovered was that when he could help the person find a reason to live and some meaning to this horror, then they lived. If they didn’t they died. Each reason to live was unique as was the eventual meaning that the person found in this situation. Frankl himself had some extraordinary spiritual experiences of heightened awareness within this paradoxically hellish situation. While working almost naked and as a skeleton on road gang, Frankl saw his wife in a vision and knew she must be dead, and he was greatly moved by this loving visit. This approach of logotherapy has a profoundly touching aspect of humanism, personal meaning and spiritual application in a wider sense of the word.

The Spiritual Ground of Being To reconnect with the spiritual ground of our being is no easy task and one that we may be less prepared for than we realise. Robert Assagioli, the founder of Psychosynthesis, saw this as a tremendous undertaking, long and arduous, and one that not everyone was ready for. He describes the process as a journey from the low lands of ego to the highlands of selfrealisation : “But between the starting point in the low lands of ordinary consciousness and the shining peak of Self-realisation there are many intermediate phases, plateaus at various altitudes on which a man may rest or even make his abode, if his lack of strength precludes or his will does not choose a further ascent.” (Psychosynthesis, Robert Assagioli, page 24) If we are to make this journey from ordinary consciousness to the peak of self-realisation, it is apparent that a map would be useful, as would stories from people who have already travelled these roads. Such maps and myths are largely missing in Western society and this is apparent when one goes beyond the facade of materialism to find meaning. Bede Griffith points to how religion and spirituality in the West has become quite limited. “In India everything has a sacred character - it meets one on every side – they are living in a sacred world. Every meal is sacred, and the kitchen is a sacred place in the Hindu household that no outsider is allowed to enter.

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Food must be purified and offered in sacrifice. Work is sacred and even the account books are sacred where ever book has a little sandal wood mark to make it sacred.” (The Cosmic Revelation, Bede Griffith (p39)).

Griffith views that the Western world has become a profane world, where for the last three centuries we have tried to remove everything from the sphere of the sacred. Science has tried to eliminate the sacred, and while this approach has its value, we have developed a very unidimensional view of reality that is material. There is little to give maps and stories about the meaning to life – no sense of a measure of or a mathematics for that which is not within the realms of physical or psychological science. Arthur Deikman considers there is a need for psychotherapy to learn from mysticism. He argues that while psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy are geared towards clinical disorders and how to treat them, they are hard put to meet human beings’ need for meaning. (Deikman 1982) He gives an example of where a group of psychotherapists met, originally for peer supervision, but soon the group began to deal with they termed their mid-life crisis. “The mid-life crisis with which the psychotherapists grappled probably reflects the fact that at midlife one’s own death becomes less theoretical and more probable. Goals of money, security, fame, sex, or power might formerly have given purpose to life. With experience, the limited nature of such satisfaction becomes increasingly evident…. As life progresses the search for meaning becomes increasingly urgent.” (The Observing Self: Mysticism and Psychotherapy, Arthur Deikman, page 7). It is rather striking that these psychotherapists share the same challenges and crisis as the Indian Prince Siddhartha Gautama over two and a half millennia before. Yet unlike Prince Siddhartha, they seem to lack the ground to be aware of the Noble Quest. Deikman argues that this is because most Western psychotherapists lack the theoretical framework to provide meaning for patients and therapists alike. Western clinicians on the whole tend to look to disturbances in intrapsychic or interpersonal phenomena, behavioural mal-adaptations, and neurotic and psychotic distortions of reality. However when the entire reality of everyday consciousness is viewed as a distortion or illusion, a mal-adaptation, then a wider universe becomes available from which to seek meaning and to understand suffering. In essence, our notions of psychology, psychotherapy and psychiatry need to be better understood, challenged, and developed if they are to play roles in the person’s search for meaning. Better maps and myths are

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required to guide on this journey from the lowlands of ego consciousness to the mountains and peaks of greater meaning and self-realization. Many of these current forms of healing have lost their soul.

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Response to Psychotherapy and Our Search for Meaning by Brian O’Neill Bud Feder Greetings Brian: A while ago - while Jack was visiting you - I offered to write a dissenting piece concerning the recent emphasis on "spirituality" in Gestalt Therapy. As I recall, this was in connection with something you were putting together, perhaps for an online publication. I apologize for the delay although I don't have any better excuse or reason than that other matters needed my attention. If it's not too late, here it is, just as it emerges from me at this moment: The recent emphasis on, involvement in, and promotion of "spirituality" in Gestalt Therapy is unfortunate, inappropriate, and unnecessary. Unless defined in a very narrow sense, which I will get to, "spirituality" is a vague, amorphous, loose concept which adds nothing to our already rich theory and practice and seduces us into fuzziness. First, what is "spirituality?" As I recently wrote in a letter to the British Gestalt Journal [2001,Vol 10, #1, pp. 43-44], it is defined [at least in my dictionary, Funk & Wagnall, 1969] as either: 1) spirit as opposed to matter; 2) the immaterial nature or soul of man [and I suppose woman]; 3) pertaining to God; 4) sacred or religious; 5) characterized by highest moral or intellectual qualities. Only the last definition can be of any interest to a therapist who is concerned with the obvious, as I presume [and hope] most Gestalt therapists are. Incorporating "spirit," "soul," "God," sacredness or religion into Gestalt Therapy can only serve to blur our theory and inappropriately direct our practice [since our theory directs us to pay attention to what is, and not to myths, stories and wishy-washy concepts, which all of the above are]. I can manage to live with the notion of high intellectual or moral values provided we operationally define them and understand that even here there are "different strokes for different folks." For instance revenging one's-self through violence when a family member has been "insulted" may be viewed as admirable loyalty by my New Jersey neighbors, "The Sopranos," whereas I might view it as despicable narcissism or the result of rigid introjection. In any case, at least there is some possibility of defining what we are talking about in behavioral and theoretical terms. But to promote, suggest, introduce or influence clients to find their "spiritual selves" weakens and waters down our down-to-earth

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approach. For example [and again quoting from my letter to the BGJ], Ruth Wolfert, in a chapter in our recent book of case studies [Feder & Ronall, 1996], talks of telling a client who suffered severe early traumas that she “must focus on the ultimate questions about the nature of reality and herself in order to heal her breached grounds of safety and find new connections to the universe." Talk about introjects! Give me a break! None of the above means that I suggest getting into debates with clients who harbor "spiritual" notions. On the contrary, if present, I suggest working with those beliefs. I have a client, for instance, who was raised in a very constricted Catholic environment. Although she no longer practices that religion, she still has one residual belief, that "God" will punish her for certain aggressive and sexual thoughts [as a teenage girl she went through a year or two of very painful misery because she "unscrupulously" had sexual feelings, impulses and fantasies. I accept this is her belief and I work with it, such as asking her to dialogue with her "God", or examine her purpose[s] in turning away from those difficult feelings, or to notice what she feels bodily or emotionally when she is in "contact" with her "God," etc. In short, our profound theory gives us all the tools we need to help clients deal with the mysteries and ambiguities of life without resorting to vague ideas and concepts which do not harmonize with our own basic ones.

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Response to Bud Feder’s Letter regarding Psychotherapy and Our Search for Meaning by Brian O’Neill Philip Brownell I wish to take issue with a few things that Bud Feder has written, even though I am grateful for his contribution and perspective. I find myself agreeing with him and disagreeing with him all at the same time, and it's an odd sensation. For instance, he states that we don't need to add anything to our Gestalt theory in order to deal with the spiritual experience of our clients, but then he characterizes spiritual experience in general as less than credible, as something which falls outside the realm of the "obvious." Bud claims, "Incorporating 'spirit,' 'soul,' 'God,' sacredness or religion into Gestalt Therapy can only serve to blur our theory and inappropriately direct our practice (since our theory directs us to pay attention to what is, and not to myths, stories and wishy-washy concepts, which all of the above are)." In doing this, Bud places himself in a spectacular position. He seems to have an omniscient understanding of "what is." Contrast that with the perspective of a group of monastic believers, who have claimed, “The call to unceasing prayer is not an invitation to divided consciousness; it does not imply that we pay any less attention to daily realities or retreat from life's responsibilities. Rather: it is a call to learn to live always in the presence of God in a manner appropriate to changing circumstances, through these very circumstances, none of which are an end in themselves, but which lead us to God.” (The Monks of New Skete, In the Spirit of Happiness, p. 187). Thus, here are two perspectives, each claiming to live with awareness in the "what is" of daily, mundane life. One sees no god, and the other sees one God. Each of those perspectives reflects a word view, which is a belief system - a matter of individual faith. In fact, Bud is not omniscient; he evidently believes that there is nothing more to a given situation than what he can see as "the obvious." However, what is obvious to one person may be obscure to another. A person who has learned to discern God and to practice the presence of God can see God at work in the environment, can listen for the respectful, delicate voice of God within. A person who has trained himself to ignore such a possibility, cannot. And this brings me to the place where I both agree and disagree with Bud. He claims that our theory eliminates the need to consider spiritual issues. I believe our Gestalt theory demands that we consider them. It does

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not demand that we import something foreign into a given process or to burden others with our beliefs, but Gestalt therapy theory demands that we consider the meeting of individual experiences in a context, or co-created field. Whenever one person who knows God comes into contact with another person who does not know God, the second must sort the information in his or her field that speaks to the divine presence. If the "what is" means that something of God is in the environment, then a person must break contact with that in some way in order to support his or her "no-god" theory about the world. Unless they do that, they may encounter God and change their atheistic belief system. These contact functions with regard to relationship with a Thou are at the heart of Buber's original thinking. They are in the mix of Heidegger’s phenomenology. Spiritual experience is a common aspect of human existence. How can anyone neglect the consideration of spiritual issues who also holds to a holistic view of persons? Bud states, "...our profound theory gives us all the tools we need to help clients deal with the mysteries and ambiguities of life without resorting to vague ideas and concepts which do not harmonize with our own basic ones." Once again, I agree and disagree. If Bud means that in order to be a Gestalt therapist we need to leave behind a theistic worldview, I disagree. If Bud means that in order to be a Gestalt therapist we need to consider all aspects having effect for a person's field, then I agree, because that will require one to keep open to the possibility of God. The field is everything having effect. What person is there among us who knows that that does not include God? To eliminate God as a possible effect, is to operate a priori from one's own atheistic worldview and to have one's atheistic faith directly impact one's contact in the environment. Such a thing is a wonderful example of how faith is an essential principle of contact. Beyond the demands of field theory to remain open to the possible effect of God in the environment, Gestalt therapists must consider the individual experience of their clients. Here, Bud has rightly acknowledged that the client is the focus and sets the agenda for the work. If the client practices a cold, rigid form of religion - void of the actual knowledge of God - then that is the starting point for exploring how well such a perspective works for the client. If he or she practices a very hot form of personal encounter with God, then that is where one begins. Furthermore, if the client rejects the possibility of God in a rigidity running in the opposite direction, then that too is where the work may follow. If the client does not seem effected by his or her sensitivity to spiritual issues, or even

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to the existential issues of meaning and significance, then to press for them would be to ignore the client's figures of interest. Regarding the theoretical tenet of dialogue, the meeting of client and therapist must remain an authentic meeting of two real people. Therefore, the spirituality of the therapist must be acknowledged as well, for it is truly "in the room" in similar fashion to the spirituality of the client. Sometimes it is foreground. I have had clients who told me they were praying for someone like me to become available to them, and by that they meant someone who they thought might understand them as Christian people. Their experience of other therapists had been that those people so discounted and minimalized spirituality that the clients felt unsupported and lost in a foreign and hostile environment. So, what if the Gestalt therapist actually does not appreciate spiritual things? Are they to act as if they do? Are they to indulge the belief system of the client, trying to keep their own beliefs at bay in order not to offend? Is this what Gestalt therapy theory advocates? It is a clinical question with personal and ethical ramifications. How can one practice presence while concealing deep values and beliefs that are antithetical to those of the client? This is a question that transcends the issue of spirituality and simultaneously illustrates the impossibility of trying to eliminate spirituality from the field. The spiritual condition of both therapist and client, and the mix that ensues, must at least be considered. My inability to know any absolute absolutely does not prove such things do not exist, only that my limited knowledge of them is not grounds for certainty. It is equally unjustifiable to proclaim God unknowable. There is a vast difference between saying our knowledge of God is always partial, flawed, slanted by personal and cultural idiosyncrasies, and asserting there is nothing beyond ourselves even to know. (Daniel Taylor, The Myth of Certainty, p. 92).

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR1 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: THOUGHTS INSPIRED BY JOSEPH MELNICK’S ARTICLE ON THE MEANINGS OF “MARGINAL” IN GESTALT REVIEW2 JOHN WYMORE

The current issue of Gestalt Review (2001) begins with an editorial by the editor, Joseph Melnick, in which he writes about two meanings of the word "marginal." One meaning indicates that there is not clear membership with a larger entity and the other meaning suggests that something is of little impact and value. He then goes on to recall when Gestalt Therapy fit the former definition in the days when it was new, radical, and rebellious. He concludes that today's status fits the latter definition, citing the plaintive cry, "Why are we not more accepted in establishment circles?" Melnick seems to yearn for that type of marginality that characterized those founding years by saying, "our challenge is to hold onto our marginality in the future" The problem is exactly as he points out: The kind of marginality we have is the kind that makes us invisible not the kind that is reveling outside the box. He then introduces a series of articles presumably selected to offer some direction and excitement for the future. The first is an interview with an Israeli organizational consultant. She is very specific about the difficulty of teaching Gestalt to Arabic groups "the values of gestalt are very strange to them," she says. But they are very 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 5(3), 2001.

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strange to everybody. At least they were when we were marginal in the yearned-for sense. The reason, I suspect, that they may not seem so strange is that we have abandoned the values and principles (for example, the excitement of novelty) for post-modern relativism. CONSIDER THIS: The power of gestalt is not to support multiculturalism but to subvert it! From my first encounter with gestalt in the early seventies, I thought that its uniqueness and great potential lie in the fact that it could help one shed cumbersome cultural shackles. That alone would assure Gestalt of both notoriousness AND marginality. The next article is by the venerable Ed Nevis. "Choices for the Future," it is entitled. Nevis asks the right question: Is the Gestalt paradigm of 60 years ago appropriate for the next 60 years? He offers the observation that "our model may lack relevance for today's times." But, it is "not clear" to Doctor Nevis what would be more relevant. He proposes the growing interest in ground as perhaps a "revolutionary direction." Ground , he reminds us, includes developmental history, assimilated skills and knowledge, and the context of the moment. But unless one is still convinced that the human organism is born a tabula rasa, ground is far more than that. A psychology informed by evolutionary theory presents a strong case that neonates (humans and other species) come into the world with a lot of preparation. For humans, that preparation was set in the genome by the Stone Age and much of it considerably earlier. We have babies prepared to encounter the Pleistocene and only marginally (there's that word again) the 21st Century. It seems to me that an understanding of how and why that is would be important to therapist in the next 60 years because it will be a major source of angst, misunderstanding, bewilderment, and violence - just as it is today. This segues nicely into a discussion of the "educational consultant" role of future therapists. The essential requirement to be an "educational consultant" is to be well-educated. Here the emphasis called for seems to be in the arts and humanities. Also to be encouraged is an expansion of awareness and contact in political, community and ecological areas. He highlights the salient contribution of Sara and Lane Conn in the latter field. However it was John Swanson and Bill Cahalan who introduced ecopsychology into the Gestalt community. What is lacking in this vision of a broadly educated gestalt therapist is knowledge of biology: pharmaceuticals, neuroscience, new understandings of consciousness and Self, Evolutionary Psychology - just to list a few domains. In my opinion, it would not be possible to update "intrapsychic awareness training" without the revelations of modern brain science.

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Finally, Nevis calls for the enhancement of "multiple realities". It sounds depressingly like more Post modernism. Three articles on Phenomenology complete the main body of this issue of Gestalt Review. Two of these by Mark McConville and Kenneth Meyer, respectively, are critical responses to one by Vernon Van De Riet . They are all advocates of the traditional views of Phenomenology developed especially by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. McConville and Meyer offer some criticism of Van de Riet's choice of emphasis of Husserlian Phenomenology. My criticism of them all is that they seem untouched by the fact that we have entered an Age of Biology. Thus researchers such as Antonio Damasio, Gerald Edelman, and an increasing number of others are throwing a great deal of light on the concrete nature of consciousness. Combined with the so-called materialist philosophers such as Daniel Dennett and Patricia Churchland, the literature is compelling - but of course only to those who are reading it. Husserl had only an idea of consciousness. He had no idea of what neuroscience would reveal about consciousness and the kind of speculations that could be made in the 21st Century. For example, it is a dubious assumption that a person gains more relevant and pertinent knowledge of him or her self and others simply by allowing "experience to organize". To evaluate "observation" with "experience" is ignoring what intervenes in between: for one thing, hundreds of microseconds - ample time for the workings of motivation, deception, self-deception, belief systems, and inclusive fitness. I don't believe, any more, that a client is "expert" in understanding his own experience. The mechanisms of deception and self-deception, in the service of inclusive fitness, are too powerful. It certainly seems wise for a therapist to "set aside erroneous assumptions and interpretations" (an example of bracketing) particularly those that are a hundred years old. Here's one: that "relational" and "biological" are a contrasting pair. That is an egregiously outmoded notion. But why would one set aside (in an effort to bracket off interpretive impulses) what we know today about , for example, consciousness, perception, and motivation ? In the early days of Gestalt Therapy Fritz convinced us that Freud's interpret ions of human behavior were baseless and perhaps pure fantasy. It is the nature of experience, he said, that deserves the attention of psychology. But Fritz and even Paul Goodman thought that a new therapy and a new psychology should be grounded in Biology. We can do that, now. If Phenomenology means suspending judgments, that removes all value from the fundamental tool that all creatures must have. A huge

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percentage of human mentation is made up of judgments, second-bysecond: this I like, this I don't like. From the moment of your birth the environment is making judgments of you. Does he or she have five fingers and toes, Does he or she look healthy ? Does he or she resemble the putative father? At which point the family rushes in to reassure everyone that, indeed, the baby looks just like the dad. And the dad beams and the mother is relieved. If it is true that Husserl wanted to know "the process by which objects present themselves in awareness and how those objects are transformed into meaningful experience," then what should be emulated is not his speculations, but his curiosity. The human mind/brain, or any trait of any organism, could not have evolved except as a response to the real world. Organisms that didn't are not your ancestors. How to explain, then, this "subjectivity" that inspires so much speculation among humans - or some humans - is more than just an interesting question. It may hold the key to true understanding of human behavior.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE1 TO GROUND ZERO AND BACK AGAIN2 CHARLES BOWMAN

Shortly after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Charlie Bowman became heavily involved in the trauma debriefing work at ground zero. As he put in extensive hours talking with people, a passionate debate erupted at Gstalt-L on the antecedents, contributing influences, and the responsibilities for these attacks. Charlie's simple stories, shared once in the middle of these discussions, changed the nature of them dramatically and lead to the creation of this narrative. When he began to work on this article for Gestalt!, however, he sat in front of his computer screen unable to revisit what he'd been through. He was stuck. In the effort to help him gain momentum the Sr. Editor of Gestalt! offered several questions, to which Charlie began to respond, and these questions are included in the following narrative. What were you doing when the planes hit the towers? I was in the middle of a bustling morning. I had a 10:00 flight to La Guardia, an unusual schedule for me. I had recently moved further from the airport and the usual 15 minute drive is now an hour. I always take the 6:30 flight out, but decided to pamper myself and not leave the house until 8:30, instead of my usual 5:00 or so. I was cruising down the highway deciding where to go first once I got to New York City. When I’m there I spend a lot of time in Midtown but this day I was going to my EAP office downtown (immediately across the street from the World Trade Center). I was thinking about starting there and having lunch on the plaza of the 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 6(1), 2002.

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World Trade Center (as I had done on my most recent trip), then spending the rest of the day at my Midtown office. The car phone jolted me out of this fantasy, the ring of it literally reminding me I was driving on an Interstate! My Wife, Ann, was calling to tell me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I really had no picture of this in my mind and didn’t think to inquire about it. She was asking me to reconsider the trip. I said I was going to go ahead and go. I had an image of a small aircraft hitting the towers. My immediate response was frustration! Air traffic would back-up the already unpredictable schedules into La Guardia. I probably wouldn’t be able to get to the Downtown location and, basically, the entire day would probably be spent just trying to arrive in New York City. I was pulling into the airport in Indianapolis when a colleague in New York City called me. She was frantic and clear: “DON’T COME TO NEW YORK CITY!” By the time she called, Lower Manhattan was in a panic. Her office is at the Downtown location and she was trying to get there from Brooklyn. She never made it and was thoughtful enough to call me. She told me another plane had hit the World Trade Center and that we might be under an attack. I decided to turn around and asked her to call me when I returned to my office. I was listening to the radio on my return trip and discovering what had actually happened. Then the Pentagon was hit. And the plane went down in Pennsylvania. How did you get involved doing the trauma debriefing? Who called you? Before I reached my office (which is in my home) I received a call from the customer service center that took the mobile calls form the planes that had crashed. The Director told me that after the operators discerned that the calls they were on terminated because the planes crashed, they were very upset and pulling together to meet and discuss what was happening and what they should do. Before they were through with this, the FBI had secured the premises and the employees became totally panicked. My first call when I returned to my office was to get several therapists ready to go to this location. Next, I received a call from one of the operators and she was clearly stunned. Not making sense and asking me, “What happened?” I never did figure out what she was saying to me! I connected her with one of her co-workers to calm her down and also connected her with a clinician over the phone. You know, it’s odd that I still really didn’t “get it!” I was thinking on and off that this horrible tragedy wasn’t going to affect me personally that much, even though I could see that it obviously would for a very long time.

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I had a lot of difficulty staying away from the TV on 9-11. When I got home, I walked in and Ann was standing about 3 feet from the TV watching CNN. Silently, I stood beside her and watched for quite a while as the towers burned and reports of the other suicide crashes came in. Then she turned to me with tears in her eyes, repeating, “This is horrible!” That might have been my last moment of real connection with her for the next two months. For the rest of the day I watched CNN and made a number of telephone calls to New York City. It was very difficult to get through as the telephone service in New York City was very disrupted. I remember that it wasn’t as busy for me as I might have imagined. In fact, I was not that aware of my responsibilities at work as I was glued to the TV. All day and all night! The next morning was a completely different story. My office phone started ringing at 5:00 a.m. and didn’t stop. I would answer a call and get 3 more on my voice mail while on the phone - an absolute deluge of people looking for direction. These were people whose lives had been so violently torn apart, managers who wanted to help employees and connect them with the EAP, and Human Resource people coordinating the Crises Response. I thought I should probably be in New York and started discussing it with my team. This team consisted of the clinicians reporting directly to me and two groups of clinical and administrative staff from the large managed care organizations contracted for EAP services - a total of about 15 people. On 9-12 it was almost impossible to keep everybody connected on the call, planning being continually disrupted with disconnects or team members unable to connect to the bridge we were using. We were trying to identify where to set up operations in New York, what we were going to need at the Pentagon, and what the impact had been across the country. Some things we did find out on 9-12: that we had maybe 3,000 employees at ground zero, that we had a hundred or so employees in the towers, and that our clinical office for NY EAP services was totally destroyed along with all the records. From the TV we gathered that air travel wasn’t a possibility so we made a decision that I would coordinate the clinical team for emergency response from Indianapolis. I had the technological capability from my home office (high speed data, etc.) and there was much less chance of the communication lines being disrupted in Indianapolis than in New York City. One senior member of my team was stranded in Las Vegas and another in Chicago. That we were able to plan or coordinate anything at all was miraculous. September 12th and the

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following days are a blur. I was working non-stop from 5 a.m. until midnight every day. During that first week I spent my time locating clinicians for the New York Tri-state area, providing feedback on employee mental health and fitness for duty, taking emergency calls from employees and loved ones and trying to open emergency clinics in mid- and lower Manhattan. Regarding the latter, it proved impossible to open anything in Manhattan that week. I was working with one EAP vendor to open an emergency walk-in clinic in the Chrysler building, but we abandoned plans in sheer frustration as the building was repeatedly being emptied as a result of multiple, daily, bomb threats. We did manage to open a clinic the following week in a small elementary school, adjacent to ground-zero, in conjunction with the Red Cross. When my Downtown office had been evacuated, one administrator and one clinician had left the building. It was a few hours before we knew they had survived. (I started to write “before we knew they were okay, ” but I’m not sure if they will ever be “okay.”) One clinician left the building and left Manhattan and did not return. We couldn’t find her for a long time, then got word that she was in Brooklyn. After two weeks of no contact, I discovered that she had bought a condo in Brooklyn without her husband or children’s knowledge, that she was quitting her practice in Manhattan, and had invited her family to join her in Brooklyn. She was not open to discussing her actions as a possible PTSD response. I haven’t heard from her since. The administrative staff member I’ll call Doris. She might be the most wounded person I saw during this experience. She came into the job with enthusiasm and had only been working for a few months, with hopes of moving into progressively more important responsibilities (from a clerical/receptionist role into an office manager type of position). She was struggling with numerous personal problems. We had offered her help and were debating what to do next to keep the office functioning and growing. She knew this and she was trying, and improving! When she evacuated the office she was met with the flaming towers and people jumping from the windows. The crowds carried her away down the street and she carried with her an image of horror: people on fire and leaping to their deaths. I talked with her on the phone three or four times until I got to New York. She sounded like a zombie. Emotionless, unable to make a complete sentence, apologizing for not coming to work (even though I told her there wasn’t an office to come to). Like many others I spoke with over the next months, she demonstrated an eerie paucity of speech which was very much unlike her (Doris had a reputation of “talking your ear off”). She

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desperately wanted my help. For some reason she decided that I could heal her from this, and since she didn’t report to me directly I agreed to meet with her when I got to the city. In that first week I had a number of clinical contacts. I spoke to a man who had walked out of Tower One, across the Brooklyn Bridge, then as far as he could walk until he, rather aimlessly, happened upon a train. He took the train upstate and would not disclose where he was (I gathered he had shelter and a telephone, though he stated there was no one around him. I fantasized that he was at a friends retreat or something like that). When he first called I almost hung-up on him as he could not speak and I couldn’t tell if he had remained on the line. I finally realized that he was trying to speak but couldn’t find words. By reassuring him I would stay on the line with him and he didn’t have to talk until he wanted to or could, he told me the first story I heard of people melting and jumping. That took several calls and several hours. All he could say initially was that he couldn’t go back to Manhattan because of the air - something in the air (this was long before air quality even became a consideration). I began to think of this as metaphor, the something in the air being burning and melting bodies. After a week he agreed to let me connect him with people who knew him and would care for him. By Friday of the first week we had exhausted all of our resources for clinicians in New York and I was negotiating with several counseling firms for more therapists trained in critical incident debriefing. All toll, we provided 600 group debriefing sessions and 1500 individual debriefing sessions. 500 of the group sessions and all of the individual sessions were held in the New York City area. That’s why we needed more counselors! How did you get to New York and what was it like for you when you got there? I had been pushing my travel plans ahead a day at a time, until all aircraft were grounded. When air travel resumed, I caught a flight to New York. I have never been superstitious, and I have never been afraid to fly. It usually doesn’t enter my mind. But this time I was worried about it. Somebody had told me an off-color joke about Arab terrorists: that they would not commit a suicide bombing if they were in the presence of a pig and that I should carry a pet pig onto the plane, making sure to introduce it to everyone. I laughed at the joke, and ironically, found this little ceramic pig in my toiletry drawer while I was packing. I had not seen that ceramic pig for many years. We had picked it up while driving through the Ozarks on vacation. Well, the pig is still in my shaving kit and I take it with me every time I fly to this day! I think of it before I leave! I have decided that

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I will take it with me as long as I think of it before hand. I suppose, superstition aside, it does provide me with some kind of support. And, the flight was remarkably uneventful! I want to build a picture of what it was like at “ground-zero,, the epicenter of the destruction in New York. This is what I wrote shortly after my experience of it: “It is hard to imagine. The rubble is unbelievably bleak, 6 or 7 stories high, and interspersed with personal belongings. The belongings are the only things that are colorful. It’s like a music video shot in black and white, but the purse, or the shoe or the piece of cloth is bright red or green or blue. The television does not capture it. Everything is kept wet. The streets are continuously swept. Everything that goes inside the perimeter is hosed down upon exiting. I had to hose off my shoes when entering the Red Cross headquarters. This bustling capitol of commerce for the world is reduced to a military zone. This must be what Beirut was like. Nothing on the streets but trucks and hummers and soldiers and construction equipment. And, nobody smiles. I can sort out how long somebody has been inside the perimeter by the pallor of their skin, the sunken look of their eyes and the far away presence they exude. This is the smell of death. It is pungent but not grossly repugnant. It is fowl and pervasive. Indescribable. I am sure I will recognize it again whenever and wherever I come across it. I want to take the hose and hose my whole self down, not just my shoes. Maybe I am breathing in evil. Maybe that’s why the man said he couldn’t come back to Manhattan - “it’s the air.” The first group I did after setting up shop in midtown Manhattan was a group for those people working the phones and helping the EAP effort. Doris was in that group. She had talked with me privately before the group and had hopes of participating in a “debriefing” and feeling miraculously better as a result. She had called me at my hotel late at night on two occasions. Sleepless and rambling at 3 or 4 in the morning, unable to get the image of people flying through the air on fire out of her head. So she joined the group and was more interactive than most. I was stunned at how she and others could recall events and what they saw that day with such clarity. Even more stunning was the setting. We could not find a conference room in the building as Manhattan had no office space available anywhere. We had the use of the “executive” conference room on the 40th floor. Executive conference rooms have glass walls with panoramic views. I was looking at and listening to Doris tell her story against a backdrop of smoke, trucks and chaos which I could see clearly in lower Manhattan. That is an image I don’t think I will ever forget. Doris was lucid and spontaneous while recalling the story of escaping from ground zero. When she finished, she slumped back into her chair and

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assumed her “zombie-like” posture. The best descriptor is a term used in mental hospitals years ago to describe a particular frame and posture: “waxy catatonia.” This state of being did not change for Doris. I would see her in the foyer and outside the building in the smoking areas each day and she looked so broken! This waxy, eerie look. Like every minute muscle movement had to be considered, debated, checked for safety, and then executed very slowly. Her eyes so distant - gazing back in time to when she first exited the building into a landscape of horror. Doris tried working for the next month or so, then abruptly quit. She didn’t want any more help. She just wanted out. I offered to get her any psychiatric or psychotherapeutic help available, at no cost to her, and she simply stared straight ahead and mumbled that she didn’t need it. In 20 years , Doris might be the first person I have engaged in therapeutic work about whom I have clearly thought, “God will have to intervene to save her life or restore her to some meaningful existence.” That is a pretty remarkable thought for me and clearly out of my usual belief system. A middle-aged woman was working across the street when someone ran through the hall screaming for everyone to get out and run. She didn’t know what it was and assumed it was a fire drill. She started running out when she saw others fleeing in the panic. The exit faced the World Trade Center and she saw the flames and a few people jumping from the buildings. She told herself not to look at this and to run as hard as she could to get away. She ran about a block and then stopped herself dead in her tracks. Something inside of her told her she HAD to turn around for the sake of those jumping. She believed that they needed a witness. A devout Catholic, she dropped to her knees to say a “Hail, Mary” for each person that jumped. When I saw her, she was wracked with guilt, because people started jumping so fast - some hand in hand - that she had to shorten the “Hail, Mary” to a simple, “Jesus”. Several people, a man and a woman in particular, had come down the stairs before the towers collapsed and attempted to assist others in the escape. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful. They told heart-wrenching stories of the moment they made the decision to go on. Both were plagued with self-doubt. What if they would have persisted, pushed through the pain, and carried them out of the towers? Both felt they would never be the same, and they felt they had committed some sort of sin. They weren’t able to grasp that the decision was organismic (not a thought process but a “whole” person response) and relational (the injured insisted they be left behind). Both the man and woman were resigned to carrying this burden for the rest of their lives. The biggest burden being an awareness of a

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capability, a survival capability, that they never before knew they possessed. Neither were interested in the possibility that psychotherapy could ease their burden. How did all the talking with other people affect you? What have you done to take care of yourself since being in New York? Taking care of myself has never been my forte, but I realized I was really being impacted from day one. In the months since the disaster I have realized, too, that for those early days when I was still working in Indianapolis, Ann had been doing her best to support me. She respected my position and need to work so many hours. She brought meals to my office, reminded me to take breaks, served as a receptionist, and assumed total responsibility for our children and our household. More than anything she listened. When I took a break (which was when I was so full of emotion, or frustrated, or when the phones went down) I would pour out a stream of consciousness and emotion and she would listen. I really gave her no credit for all that she did. I wasn’t present and had left her. That is very unlike me. Like I said, that moment of crying in each others arms in front of the TV while the buildings crumbled to the ground was probably the last moment of real contact we had for months. By the time I could catch a flight to New York I realized I would need some help. My therapist lives in Manhattan, so I gave him a call thinking I would set several appointments for my own support and “debriefing.” After a cursory exchange and checking our schedules, I shared what I was experiencing in this work. He shared that for many years he started his day with a walk by the local fire station on his way into the office. I believe he said there were 13 firemen missing from that station. He broke down and sobbed, me right along with him. We are very close and this wouldn't normally strike me as unusual, but for some reason I cancelled the appointments. In retrospect that wasn't the best thing for me to do. At the time, I was feeling like this was another piece of pain I would need to bear, but I believe now that this was symptomatic of post traumatic stress and the alienation that I was already beginning to experience. The most relaxing and enjoyable thing I do in New York City is walk. I walk and walk and people-watch. My usual routine is to return to my hotel after work, rest a bit and put on my walking shoes, then leave around 6:00 pm and walk until around 8:00 pm. I find a restaurant for dinner, seldom relying upon recommendations and trusting my immediate experience of the place. Although this is usually wonderfully supportive, in the aftermath of 9-11 it only added to the disruption I was in the midst of experiencing. It is tempting to categorize New Yorkers as vastly

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different during those days immediately post-attack and I believe there is some merit in that. But what stood out for me was not so much the people but the "landmarks" that would catch my eye. There was a very large bronze statue around 40th and Broadway that had been donated to they city. It is a bronze of a firefighter kneeling and holding the hard-hat of a fallen colleague. I stood there and cried, unaware for a long time that others around me were also mesmerized by the piece and also crying. Heading towards lower Manhattan, the handbills that so bawdily announce what's playing (and add an ambiance almost unique to New York) were slowly replaced with missing person notices. Posters announcing theaters, galleries and concerts gave way to row upon row of pictures of people and text pleading for help in finding them or prayers for their safe return. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Thousands of them. I stopped walking downtown. Instead I walked uptown, and I did notice the difference. In the months following the attacks I have realized that the experience dissipates the further from the epicenter of the attacks you get. The exceptions seem to be people like me, who are still carrying a piece of the experience with them. Not yet assimilated or assimilable. One evening I walked uptown in my usual stance and settled on a Brazilian grill for dinner. I was aware of what seemed to me to be the difference in going away from the rubble and destruction. I was also aware of how much I was craving red meat, eating it almost every night. Across the street was a fire house. I was struck with how unaware I had been throughout my meal as I was sitting at a table by the front window looking towards the station for about an hour before I noticed that it was a fire station. Even then it took one of the fire trucks leaving in a blaze of commotion and noise to catch my attention. I walked across the intersection, already struck by the mass of flowers adorning the station. They were everywhere! Spilling out into the street, climbing the walls of the building and on makeshift tables. Amidst the flowers were hundreds of burning candles and other items arranged in such a way as to create a sort of out-door sanctuary. On the outside walls of the station were ten or fifteen pictures of fire fighters lost and missing. I deliberately looked at each picture and read all the letters surrounding them. So very sad. I still feel this experience as I write and tears are in my eyes. These fine young men, many of them with large Irish Catholic families, obviously perished yet surrounded with so many hopeful letters and mementos. I was standing in a line waiting to sign the "guest book" which was some hybrid of the book you would sign in a funeral parlor while paying your respects and a place for expressing gratitude and support of a job well done. My gaze fixed upon a note pinned to one of the

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pictures. Written by a young boy in crayon, it read "I'm holding on to my new football until you can come home and play with me Daddy." Sniffling and pushing back tears, my turn at the register had come. I felt hurried as there were a number of people in line, but I couldn't think of anything to write. There aren't many occasions in my life when I feel dumbstruck and speechless. I was feeling anxiety and pressure while at the same time aware that I could write nothing, step away, write something trite or canned - but I didn't. I looked up from the page directly into the eyes of a fire man about 10 feet away. Misty eyed, he was awe struck with the scene outside his door: the outpouring of support and the omnipresent reminder of such immense human tragedy. I felt a strong connection as our eyes met and expressed ourselves, as words cannot. That brief moment of contact left us both with tears streaming. I signed the book "You have my love and I will pray for you". That was very unusual for me and something that I have noticed a lot since 9-11. I say to people things like, "I'll say a prayer for you" and I sign notes and cards similarly. I never used to do that! As I push through these stories and my experiences I am noticing that I keep going back over the paragraphs and changing the phrase “I was struck”, or “what struck me.” In the last few paragraphs I wrote that eight times. My experience of this tragedy is like being struck. By a fist. Maybe a fist of awareness. Or of pain and suffering. Perhaps a wake-up call that this kind of suffering and trauma is present in the world all the time. Maybe an awareness of how much I hurt. A man I very much respect and admire also happens to be my boss. We have worked together for a year and have grown close, more collegial and respectful of each other than a hierarchical relationship. His goal and dream is to be in the ministry and I think his influence has had an impact on my newfound spirituality. On a number of occasions post 9-11 we would walk together or grab a bite to eat together. Although never pushing his brand of spirituality, I would notice the sense he could make of this tragedy by acknowledging his belief in a higher power. I suspect that my admiration and fondness for him enabled me to assimilate some of my own spiritual beliefs into a system that I can use to support myself in integrating such a senseless tragedy. Of course, the companionship, a long walk, and a good cigar also contributed to what sense of well being and support I could muster during such terrible times as well!

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Did you talk to anyone who'd had a pretty blessed life at the towers? A senior executive opened a meeting of his New York team with the comment, "Two of the biggest decisions I have ever made in my career were to evacuate the building [1 World Trade] and then not to return to it." He had to force his people to leave the building because they had no conception of what was happening. Most people were aware there was a fire somewhere, and they were in no hurry to leave. Finishing important phone calls, e-mails and conversations took precedent over evacuating the building until the boss demanded it. The scene they encountered in the lobby defies reality in retrospect! Many people were gathered around the elevators waiting to go back up into the building. The Port Authority was announcing that it was safe to return. This man made his "second most important decision" at that time: to reconvene his group several blocks away and not return to the trade center offices. There were tears in his eyes as he shared this with about 70 of his reports in a large conference room. Reciprocally, there were few dry eyes in the crowd. Needless to say, this direct display of emotion is seldom witnessed in the business world but was very welcome on this day. This man went on to describe what I heard from a number of people at the site of the towers. There was a beautiful golden snowfall. More brilliant than anything that has ever fallen from the sky. Glittering, shiny, and everywhere. And there were also "big black things" falling out of the sky. Another man and woman also reported there were big objects falling that were on fire. At least five people reported these similar perceptions. Several things struck me about these reports in addition to their similarity. One was the clarity of the perception of the golden snow. This was obviously the pulverized glass falling after the explosion had scattered it through the atmosphere on a very clear, beautifully sunny day. The other was the very unclear perceptions of the bodies falling - the big black things and the objects on fire. I believe this highlights the protective function of repression! As one woman got clearer by sharing her story in a group session the "fiery objects falling out of the sky" became people with faces, arms and legs. One man was almost relieved to understand how the flaming body parts ended up on the mezzanine. This very intelligent man had not considered that the bodies fell from the sky and flew apart upon impact. Two managers whom I interviewed were both blessed and heroic. They had elected to leave the bee hive of activity that was inhibiting them from completing a project and go have coffee across the street where they could think and talk without interruption. They witnessed the first plane hit the

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tower. After initial panic they decided to go in and get their people out of the building. They were successful, dazed and quite unaware that their efforts were “heroic.” How did you know what to say to these people? Did it come from your gut spontaneously, did you fall back on your Gestalt training, did you use some special critical incidents training you'd gotten (if so, when and where did you get that training and what did it tell you to do?) I have provided critical incident debriefing for the thirteen years that I have been an EAP. I have been trained in the "right" way to conduct a debriefing and I am familiar with the cautions and limitations of the approach. For the most part I think all of that is bullshit. Yes, the work comes from my gut spontaneously, and, yes, I fall back on my Gestalt training. After all, these are inseparable, right? Many years ago I discovered what was, for me, the most advantageous structure for conducting critical incidents. Reminiscent of Fritz's statements in Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, all I really need is a group, some privacy, and lots of Kleenex. I usually say that we will make the rounds and I expect everyone to say something, even if it is merely "pass." That's the only expectation I have. I generally start with some sort of overview of the tragedy or a eulogy of some sort to "prime the pump." I may make a mini-intervention as we go around the room or make a suggestion as to how or where an individual can find support as they comment. Usually the group is marvelous at supporting each other and allowing someone to sort through intense thoughts and feelings. What is different in a debriefing situation is the value of helping people identify where to get more help and how to know if they need it. While the APA cautioned about suggestibility post 9-11, when debriefing received unprecedented lay press, I have found that people don't introject this sort of information if you don't present it in an easily introjectable fashion (such as presenting yourself as the end-all expert on the topic or making claims that you know this-or-that is bound to happen). Letting people know that there are limits to how much repetitive insomnia one can suffer or that there is help available for night terrors and depression is providing a valuable service. I have a good understanding of why debriefing groups work. I received feedback on roughly 600 critical incident debriefing groups and I debriefed perhaps 30 clinicians myself. Additionally, I have participated in data collection for a survey developed at the University of Maryland and held daily conversations with Clinical Managers at the largest behavioral

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healthcare organizations in the nation during the 9-11 recovery. Without a doubt there are three things that participants repeatedly cite as helpful: x First, people feel significant relief from spending time sharing stories with others with similar feelings and experiences. x Second, people relish the opportunity to rest and reflect. x Finally, people value getting information that normalizes their personal responses to the trauma (e.g., sleeplessness, nightmares, anxiety, phobias). I was in need of significant debriefing myself when the dust finally settled post-9-11. It was Thanksgiving before I returned "home." Not that I was physically gone the entire time. I would spend a week in New York and a week in Indianapolis, then travel to other cities to present the debriefing process and results to the vendor companies on the debriefing team. We had developed an impressive system of tracking debriefing activity and had begun tracking outcome as well. So, even though the grueling work of the immediate trauma subsided, there was a lot of busy work. And as is the case in the business world, there was much fanfare and hoopla over the courageous and wonderful job we had done. Some of it was nice, some of it I supported as a reward for my team, and some of it was sheer politics (a necessary evil in this segment of the field). I did have several opportunities to participate in debriefing groups. They didn't help much and left me cynical and wanting. I never did contact my therapist but I did participate in several therapeutic groups, affording me some relief. Relief from what is a viable question! I was aware of some of the classical symptoms of PTSD. Exaggerated startle response. Nightmares about people dying. A vague sense of anhedonia, although I was prone to bouts of crying and temper tantrums. My sleep patterns were all over the place and I have had extreme difficulty concentrating on major tasks and seeing them to completion. I didn't want to talk to anybody and I needed lots of alone time. I was aware of isolating myself, and true to the process of becoming a "trauma-junkie, nothing much excited me or seemed worthy of attention. All I wanted was my family around me and to know that they were okay. When Ann and my children are with me (all five of them, two of their spouses and my granddaughter) I feel very content and "cocooned." This wasn't as supportive an experience as I typically feel. My world is different now. I walked back into a new relationship with Ann (she had changed in many ways and I had not even been aware of it). She came alive after 9-11. She didn't need me as much. She was discovering art and music and dancing - without me. My kids seemed so

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grown up. No little ones to coddle (my youngest is 12 years old). My first experiences with my closest friends left me feeling empty, like nobody understood me anymore. It seemed to me like everyone had his or her own mini-satori or mini-crises going. Very different than what I was used to experiencing. I went back to ground-zero in February. At first I was disgusted with people visiting the site like tourists and I just walked away. The next morning I went up on the platform (I’ve got clearance to go inside the site, but I wanted to see it from the public viewing stage). I wasn’t stunned. I cried but I didn’t feel debilitated, and I stayed present. All good stuff. Not that the trauma of it all has left me, but I can feel I’m healing and my life’s coming back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX1 AIRLINE CRASH SURVIVORS, VIETNAM VETERANS, AND 9-112 CAROL H. POLLARD, CARL MITCHELL AND VICTOR DANIELS

In this special issue, we examine insights potentially relevant to working with 9/11 survivors in previous work with two other populations that have experienced traumatic events: Vietnam veterans and air-crew survivors of airliner crashes and hijackings. It is written as a collaborative venture among Gestalt Therapist Carl Mitchell, who for many years ran Veteran's Administration funded therapy groups for the former group, Carol H. Pollard, who recently completed a doctoral dissertation entitled Impact: A Study of Flight Attendant Survivors of Air Disasters (2001), and Victor Daniels, the usual author of "The Working Corner." Impact... is a phenomenological, qualitative study based on lengthy (in most cases 2 hours or more) interviews with air disaster survivors. Carol Pollard is herself a flight attendant, and Carl Mitchell is a non-combat veteran. Due to space limitations, this article does not explicitly address the existing post-traumatic stress disorder literature. Its intent is simply to use these two particular kinds of traumatic experiences to shed such light as they may on working with survivors of the September 11th events. Some of the principles articulated here are also likely to be relevant to therapeutic work with Afghani refugees and other victims of war and

1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 6(1), 2002.

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repression in that unfortunate country, as well as other regions where similar events have occurred.

The Air Disaster Survivors Flight attendants' memories of events during the crashes and just prior to them are poignant, powerful, recurrent, and sometimes overwhelming. Mary, a 25-year old attendant who had been flying for three years, saw the passengers "put driver's licenses and notes into their inner garments, so that their bodies could be identified later: 'I saw some women that took out their licenses and put them in their bras. . . . This whole row was holding hands and someone was leading them in prayer. I just thought, Oh, my God." After the crash, she "saw people missing their arms and their feet. I thought, I am all intact, sure I have cuts, some blood. I think I had guts on my shirt. I think I had a lot of blood from passengers too..."(2001, pp. 1378) In general, flight attendants reported that their emergency preparedness training as safety professionals served them well, so that they were able to focus on carrying out tasks that contributed to the safety of passengers and their fellow crew members rather than being overwhelmed by fear and shock. After the crash or hijacking was over and they found that they had survived, however, they felt a strong need to process the thoughts and feelings that occurred both during and after the event. Many were not ready to jump into formal therapy immediately. They needed to wait for some time to pass before they were prepared to do so. One kind of event that was consistently reported as therapeutic by almost every respondent was spending time together with other members of the flight crew who were involved in the crash, comforting each other, talking about what had happened, and sharing their feelings about it. This was something that many could do and wanted to do right away. Some flight crews had a chance to do so immediately following the event, when they spent time together in the same hotel just after the crash. Others made a point of seeking each other out. Some, however, were immediately separated from other flight crew members, and subsequent events prevented them from getting together and having the benefits of any deep and moving sharing of their thoughts and feelings. Here the parallel to the experience of the veterans is obvious: Many of the veterans would open up and move into significant psychological work only in the presence of others who had been through experiences like their own. Impact declares "Southfield (1993, p. 249) found group therapy with peers to be the optimal treatment modality for war veterans . . .. Flight

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attendants work together as a unit, much like soldiers in combat, and it seems reasonable that both informal and formal discussion groups could benefit the survivors of air disasters." A number of the flight attendants were referred to psychotherapeutic practitioners who used either a psychoanalytic, free-association technique or another minimally directive approach. Most flight crew members who saw such practitioners voiced frustration about their experience and said they needed more active guidance. For example, "She did not feel that the abstinent, psychoanalytic style of this mental health professional was helpful. She felt uncomfortable with his silence and did not know what to say."(2001, p. 146) Another "had sessions with three mental health professionals, and found their professional styles were quite different. She found her needs incompatible with the more abstinent, psychoanalytic style of her first therapist. She noted that the cognitive behavioral treatment helped her, in a more superficial way, be strong enough to return to work [but did not seem to] help her in terms of the deeper emotional issues that continued to trouble her." It is no surprise that in general, those who received therapy from professionals who had specific training in working with trauma victims reported better therapeutic experiences than those who did not. One respondent also found value "in hypnotherapy and in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing during a walk-through of a 747 aircraft, where they recreated the incident frame by frame, conducting the EMDR procedures."(p. 163) From this report, it sounds as if systematic desensitization using an alternation between frames of the disaster and a comforting, safe environment, could also prove useful. In the Gestalt context, one of the authors of this article has used regression and dialogues in treating survivors of motor vehicle accidents, such as the case of a young woman who at the age of ten was in the back seat of a car when her parents were killed in a collision with a Greyhound bus. In a very real sense, every Gestalt therapist who is experienced in "finishing unfinished business" by working through painful old memories such as physical and sexual abuse has at least some experience in working with trauma. There were dramatic differences in airlines' behavior toward surviving personnel. Some made every effort to provide support and comfort, while others were primarily concerned with minimizing any publicity about the crash and protecting their company image. The latter essentially said, "Keep your mouth shut and stay out of sight." Julia was still terrified and shaking as she thought of the dead passengers and how they had died and of one of her injured crew members half-buried under debris when "the

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crew was taken to a room in the airport and held until the next morning. Their airline's management representatives handed them a stack of blank forms and told them all to write down everything thathappened. Julia felt that they were more concerned about the prospects of litigation than about their welfare; they were not initially offered emotional support, assistance in phoning family members, or given food or drink. . . . They answered questions for the remainder of the night and were finally released the next morning by the FBI. They were not provided transportation to their homes [even though] they were without purses, keys, or suitcases. They took taxis home" (p.163). Even more poignant were flight attendants' remarks about their guilt in following standard procedures that they themselves felt were wrong and dangerous rather than relying on their own judgment. For instance, "I knew when I was telling the passengers to put children on the floor [in accord with the Federal Aviation Administration's recommended emergency procedures regarding infants] thinking to myself, I can't believe I'm actually uttering such nonsense.' (p. 145) Reading the reports of intense anger toward their airlines reported by those who had been treated badly, it seemed obvious that Gestalt dialogues that placed the airline officials in the empty chair and provided the flight attendants a chance to directly voice their anger and frustration would be immensely useful. The same thing holds in regard to FAA guidelines that attendants reported led to avoidable deaths of infants and very young children, and to reporters and photographers who were perceived as insensitive and intrusive. Similarly, empty-chair dialogues with colleagues and passengers who died or suffered would help in working-through and bringing closure to raw, open, unfinished feelings of survivor guilt. Such dialogues with other flight-crew members whom they had not seen since the accident would also be quite useful, such as in expressing gratitude to a pilot who managed to crash-land successfully with minimal damage and injuries in a situation which might easily have been much worse. In addition, topdog-underdog dialogues would be useful in cases where attendants engaged themselves in pejorative, repetitive, "If only I had. . . " self-talk about events where they had done the best they could but were browbeating themselves about not having done more. These are a few obvious examples of ways in which a Gestalt approach would immediately give the flight-crew members a range of options for expressing and working through both conscious and repressed thoughts and feelings. Other widely-used Gestalt techniques appear prima facie appropriate to other related problems. An attendant who essentially

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anesthetized herself and went into a robot-like, substance-abusing existence for several years after her crash reported ongoing nightmares that would lend themselves well to Gestalt dreamwork as a way of moving through her defenses into processing her feelings. Others also reported value in working with their dreams. The events of 9/11, of course, affected not only those directly involved but also family, friends, and colleagues of those who died and those who survived. In that regard it was like an air disaster writ large. Impact states, "An air disaster . . .casts an effect on all involved in the incident. Survivors, families of survivors and victims, emergency workers, airline personnel, community members and those who watch the news at home on television all feel the effects of disasters of this magnitude (Butcher & Hatcher, 1988). Frederick (1981) pointed out that the families of the victims undergo a long and traumatizing process related to the identification of the loved one and the claiming procedures for return of the remains. Expressions of anger and hostility are not uncommon when families are frustrated at this process."(2001, p. 109) One intriguing finding is that many of the flight attendants found the near-death experience to have a positive transformative dimension. One "felt that being in the crash made her strong enough to change her life." Another "reported that she launched a new career in both political and social activism and in public service." Another says that her disaster experience "threw me into life because before I wasn't living life at all, I was living everybody else's life." Her near-death experience "was an initiation to a powerful spiritual journey of self-discovery" (2001, p.140, 147, 170). Their experiences remind us of the principle of responsibility that runs through both existential philosophy and Gestalt therapy. Within situational limits, which the existentialists call the "thrown" condition of our lives, the value and meaning of an experience is what we make of it. There are both parallels and differences between the flight attendants and the war veterans. One attendant recalls, "I remember being carried over to the triage area. . . . That was like, I think, one of the final scenes in "Platoon" where you just see bodies everywhere and that whole scene is constantly played back in slow motion. Some of the people you can't tell whether they were luggage or whether they were —if it was a person." (p. 152) One obvious difference between the flight attendants and the war veterans is that while the former were involved in a single highly traumatic incident that lasted for a relatively brief time, the latter were in a war zone where their lives were potentially constantly threatened for as much as a full year or more. They therefore developed a hyper-vigilant arousal

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response in which they react to commonplace disturbances as potentially life-threatening, sending them into fight-or-flight reactions that often result in inappropriate physical aggression. In addition, they had no postwar civilian experience that was similar enough to their war experience to allow desensitization of their fears and hyper-vigilance in a similar but non-threatening environment. Most fight attendants, by contrast, sooner or later returned to the same job with the same airline, and thus had repeated opportunities to fly safely in a situation much like the emergency situation, providing an opportunity for their fears to greatly diminish through gradual extinction.

The Vietnam Veterans The warrior who has been to the gates of hell and returned sees a different reality than the average person. I would have to say that the experience is "viscerated" or "somaticized," so that when the veteran reexperiences a combat memory, it's not only a memory, but also a body experience, complete with adrenalized reactions and insulin reactions, which are part of a frequent and repetitive up-and-down of being prepared for intense overwhelming experience and reactions. For the Vietnam vet in particular, isolation is a strong part of his experience. He would spend 12 or 13 months in combat and then his time would be up and he would be lifted right out of the battlefield with no debriefing and no preparation for re-entry into civilian society. In one story, a vet and his group were pinned down by a machinegun and somebody had to make a move. His buddy moved. The machinegunner hit his buddy and then they got the machinegunner. Thirty-six hours later he was in full dress at home, his mother had just made his favorite meal and was saying, "Go wash your hands, honey, dinner's ready." He looked down at his fingernails and saw Vietnam mud and the images, and sounds of his buddy getting killed 36 hours previously started flashing through his mind. To go, with no transition, from a life-and-death situation in an overwhelming combat scene, to being back home has been incredibly difficult. This man had, although he didn't know it at the time, PostTraumatic Stress Disorder, or as they called it in World War II, Shell Shock. During World War II, most men had a chance to be on a troop ship returning to the United States, talking it through over and over again with their buddies. Consequently they were able to debrief themselves to a considerable extent. But when an isolated individual is pulled out of his

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unit and goes abruptly home, there is no transition, and when he tries to go back into normal civilian life, the world has changed forever for him. He couldn't take the life his mind and body knew in Vietnam back into, for example, Santa Rosa, California. One vet had been in a situation where his unit and the enemy were dug in on opposite sides of a field. The enemy strapped explosives onto the backs of children and made the children run toward his unit. He and his buddies had two choices: shoot the children or get blown up. After returning home, experiences like this expressed themselves as nightmares and intense flashbacks. An incident that occurred in the course of daily life might trigger 5 or 7 days of nightmares and intrusive thoughts, and a somatic state of being hyper-alert, and not able to sleep. He went back into "combat sleep--2 or at most 4 hours at a time--and these mental pictures were close at hand in the back of his mind. In some sense, the horror of those experiences has something in common with the horror of the 9/11 experience. For a policeman or a fireman, for example, memories of members of one's unit and other people dying, and of the heat and the sounds, and of the smells of burning flesh, must surely trigger a complete mind-body reaction that has something in common with those of the combat vet. The ideal way for treating a group of such vets is that, in memory and conversation, the whole group moves from civilian life through recruitment and training and into combat, and discusses the situations and fears that they dealt with. That would be the strongest way of moving therapeutically. Although that doesn't usually happen, the territories of their experience do get covered and re-covered time and time again. In working with survivors of 9/11 and other disasters, a similar strategy would have great therapeutic power. Another element in Vietnam was rejection by, in many cases, the Veteran's Administration and the veterans' service organizations. These organizations rejected many of the Vietnam vets because the United States lost the war. The VA had no comprehension of PTSD back in 1972. They would prescribe medication and say "These are problems that they had in adolescence that just surfaced in the war," and the men went untreated. When the veterans went to college and there were political discussions in their classes about the wrongness of being in Vietnam, what they learned to do was shut up. No one wanted to hear their experience. Other veterans were the only people with whom they could feel understood. In therapy they have been told, "Do not expect other people to understand how you feel and how you see life." As they themselves have said, "Nobody's going to know what it was like.." Unless they've been there, they don't, and won't, understand.

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There may be elements of that reality in 9/11 as well. People need to express their feelings and talk about their existential reality in the war or disaster situation to work it through. If there's not psychological space for that to happen in their daily lives, then it can occur in therapy through understanding and caring, as someone, or some group, hears and accepts their expression of their experience and thereby validates it. Gestalt dialogues can be very useful in this respect. One vet was raised to believe that he should never ever attack a woman. One of his nightmares was the woman he killed in Vietnam. In his Gestalt work, when he had the sniper on the pillow and was changing places in a Gestalt dialogue, he realized that she was the enemy, that she had picked up a weapon and chosen to put him in her sights, and that he had to get her before she got him. When he could transfer, "I could never attack a woman" to "I defended myself against a warrior," the intensity of the nightmare decreased markedly. At times he would still have the nightmare, but would stress himself less about it, because the meaning had changed, and he had come to view the memory on more acceptable terms. In Gestalt groups, when a group member goes into an experience, almost everybody in the room feels it along with him. It's an experience that goes through the body, so that the group as a unit goes through the situation with the combat veteran. When he comes out of it and reintegrates it, people realize that something has changed. Ever since the original events took place he has always been alone with his experience of them, this time, in the group, he has not been alone. People have been with him. Therefore he has experienced feeling accepted, understood, and supported, which changes the isolated way in which he carries that experience into the future. A difficult thing for the combat veteran is that reactions to stress like that experienced in combat are hardwired. The VA has done some work to check that out and has found, "Yes, there are chemical changes that happen to combat veterans." It's also the case that in children and adults who have been physically or sexually assaulted, there are chemical changes that take place. After experiences of physical or sexual violence, victims' body chemistry is slightly different. According to the VA, what has happened is that the reflex to stay alive skipped through the brain, did not go to higher cortical centers, and went directly to the amygdala pons on the old brain stem. This is the most primitive area in the brain, the area of the fight/flight reaction. Usually we have higher mediating processes in the cortical lobes where we weigh and sift through the data and then make our decision to act or not to act. A person who has been in severe stress may not have that opportunity. Input can skip directly into the old brain

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and into reaction. Consequently, taken by surprise, it is sometimes nearly impossible to control. Daniel Goleman describes all this in detail in Emotional Intelligence (1997). What a veteran does is learn to recognize when he's having a good day and when he's having a bad day, when he can stand crowds and when he can't, when he needs to isolate and when he can be with his family. He develops an early-warning system about his state of being, and then calibrates his response based on what he knows about his present state of being. For example, he may be feeling the loss of a friend around an anniversary, and if he goes to his job at the post office and someone slights him, he'll immediately drop into a rage. In that state of mind/body, he may not be able to be at the post office for fear that he will attack someone, because he can hardly control his reaction when he feels violated. Part of what's hardwired in such situations is being taken by surprise. The postal worker who is a vet may be casing his mail when another worker drops a big box of mail behind him. He jumps. What his body heard was the explosions of a mortar round landing nearby. That reflexes his body into adrenalization, and he wants to strangle the guy who did it, and after that he's going to be pumped up all day. He won't be able to settle down for a long time. And we can predict that he's going to have five to seven nights of nightmares and flashbacks as a result of just that one event. These veterans may even die of somatic tension and physical diseases, because they cannot sufficiently de-stress from the combat. They're hypertense. Sudden anxiety attacks are also common The first wave of breaking down comes from somatic tension of the organs. For some vets it's extremely useful to guide them through a relaxation technique and teach them how to calm their minds and relax their bodies. Control is another issue that may or may not apply to survivors of a given disaster situation. It's likely to be an issue if higher authorities had some role in triggering the disaster that occurred, or in causing avoidable injury or loss of life by those involved in it. Most veterans from Vietnam absolutely will not be pushed or controlled. They want to be in charge of themselves and their own lives. They develop trust only if the facilitator does not push and lets them move totally at their own pace. Consequently, when periodically they do a piece of gestalt work, their resistance tends to be very high and the intensity of their feelings is also very high. They don't want to go back into those feelings. Nonetheless, when group members were asked "When has significant change taken place for you?" each person who raised his hand said, "Change took place when I did Gestalt work." That's critically important, because the client is allowed to re-

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experience a particular situation that happened in combat, but with support and guidance that helps him find a more effective way to handle it. The resistance to being controlled by anyone else, and consequent difficulties with authority, occurred because officers were characteristically in combat for only six months, and therefore in order to make their show and get their medals, some were willing to press the men in dire situations to achieve a victory or make a gain so their personal record would look good. As a result, the men felt like targets or cannon-fodder. The tank was more important than the tank-driver. The tank-driver was easier to replace. That makes it very difficult for the combat veteran to accept authority because he learned that there was a good chance that authority was going to get him killed. One therapeutic approach is to ask vets to draw a situation, like a particular ambush in which a captain and a squad leader and a radio man got killed. Although for the most part these are stick figure drawings and rough mapping on paper, the other veterans can smell the jungle, and picture what the shrubbery and trees look like. They look at that black and white sketch on paper and fill in the rest with their experience. They sense how much danger and how much protection there is in that situation. They share a knowing that they each understand. So in therapy as in daily life, you want to be absolutely careful never to take control from them and never to slight them. One man in the group had been a sergeant in but he almost always "walked point" at the head of his column, because he didn't trust anyone else to do it. One day he saw a wire across the path and shadows moving in the brush and he signaled his men, "Down!" The captain said, "How come you're not going down the road?" He replied, "Well sir, anybody who goes down that road today is going to get killed." The captain said, "Move your squad down the road." He said, "No sir, I'm not doing that." The captain said, "Fine, I'll take care of you later, you'll be courtmartialed." Then the captain called his buddy, the leader of the second squad, up. The sergeant looked at his buddy and shook his head "No," signaling "Don't go there." His buddy understood what he was saying but was caught between that and the captain's order. And the captain and his buddy and the radio man all moved out on point down the road. As members of the second squad went past this guy, he grabbed them and pulled them down to the ground, saying, "Get down." Then fire erupted on the point and the captain and the radio man and his buddy were all killed. His reading of danger had been accurate. It was

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illogical for the captain, who was green and did not have combat savvy, to go blindly into an ambush like that. When they got back to camp, the top sergeant said, "You did the right thing and the captain did the wrong thing and you're not going to be court-martialed." However, he cannot forgive himself for his buddy's death. The vets have difficulty accepting men in the group who do not share the same knowing. One grunt who became an officer left the group because he had been an officer, and the distrust for authority was so strong in the men that they could not work when he was present in the group. Two other men were helicopter door gunners, and one day one of them made the statement, "In a free-fire zone at so many hundred feet, everybody looks like a target, and we just opened up on anything that moved." As it happened, one of the men in the group had been wounded seven times in a firefight, and he and one other man were the only two left in the squad, and they decided to try to make a run for it. The gunner in a chopper killed the other man and put a 50-calibre machinegun round through this individual. For that reason the group expelled the two door gunners, because they had made a light statement about "friendly fire," which could be absolutely deadly for combatants on the ground. In the group the men had a chance to talk about such events, and to get some very specific help by means of Gestalt work-throughs. Every time a person did Gestalt work, he came closer to resolving a conflict. It seems to be a law of nature of Gestalt that contradiction cannot remain as long as both sides of a polarity are kept in proximity. When the antagonists and protagonists are brought together, such as the veteran and the sniper, and are held in containment, as in the two chairs dialoguing with each other, then as long as the veteran stays with his feelings and the present action of that experience, his mind-body organism will seek resolution, trying to find a way to resolve the conflict. Some people have patterns. For example, one individual will come upon a psycho-emotional event that's touching him. He'll touch it, open it up, and then be gone for five or six weeks, out of the group, as he avoids it and tries to get away from it because of the feelings involved. He's a circler. That's the way he approaches his therapy. He keeps returning, because he can make some advancement in group. But allowance has to be made for him to have control. It's equivalent to life or death for him.

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Back to New York City Obviously, the experiences and feelings of those involved in 9/11 will not be the same as those of either the flight disaster survivors or the veterans. Our colleague Mary Fitzpatrick, who lives in lower Manhattan and has spent most of her career in psychological work with special-needs children, reports that "Since 9/11, I've been working nonstop every day with young children who were in school near the Trade Center. Some saw people jumping out of windows and falling to their deaths" (2002). Every person who watched the television coverage recognizes that the event was unique. Indeed, the differences between the two groups described here help remind us to be sensitive to the special elements of this particular situation, and also to how it differs for each person involved. At the same time, we hope that there is something useful in our descriptions of how Gestalt therapy and related approaches have been used and can be used with these two populations. In no way do we wish to suggest that there is any quick and simple formula for working with survivors of the disaster, or those who were close to the victims. We merely suggest that a combination of training in Gestalt therapy and in the post-traumatic stress methodologies and literature may be a very valuable combination.

References Butcher, J. & Hatcher, C. (1988). The neglected entity in air disaster planning. American Psychologist, 43:9, 724-729. Fitzpatrick, M. (2001) Personal communication. Frederick, C., Ed. (1981) Aircraft accidents: Emergency mental health problems. Rockville, MD: National Institutes of Mental Health. Goleman, D. (1997) Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than I.Q. Pollard, C.H. Impact: A Study of Flight Attendant Survivors of Air Disasters. A dissertation presented to the faculty of California Institute of Integral Studies. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Dissertation Services, 2001.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN1 INSIGHT DIALOGUE MEDITATION WITH ANXIETY PROBLEMS2 JUNGKYU KIM AND GREGORY KRAMER

I. The nature of anxiety Anxiety is an emotion that we experience in reaction to scary thoughts. If we do not have any scary thoughts, we do not feel any anxiety. Scary thoughts multiply themselves when we go inside them, when they become our whole world. This makes us feel anxious or panicky. If we see that these thoughts just come and go by themselves, that is, when we do not identify with them, they fade away very quickly. Most thoughts will not last more than 2 or 3 seconds if we don’t feed them with fear or desire. But what happens with us most of the time is that we think about these thoughts more. We feed our anxiety as we continue to think. We try to fight or avoid thoughts or we pursue them, which makes them stronger. Most of us engage in these frightening thoughts out of habit. Often the mind gets caught up in following a thought, like, “What would happen if?” Then we are caught up in thinking about the “if.” Also, we often fight or avoid thoughts because we believe we can get rid of them by doing so. But by fighting we invite these unpleasant thoughts to visit us again and again, because we cannot fight or avoid something without thinking of it. Thinking about scary thoughts like this makes them come alive. Thus, it is our task in mindfulness meditation not to react to these scary thoughts in any way. When a thought comes up we just notice it and let it 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 6(1), 2002.

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go. It fades away by itself. Mindfulness meditation provides us with a useful tool with which we can successfully deal with these fearful thoughts.

II. The nature of thoughts Thoughts are always arising by themselves. We don't really know where they come from or even what they are. Thoughts and thinking are mysterious. Probably we will never be able to fully understand what they really are. But we can nevertheless discover some interesting things about thoughts. It is useful to consider two aspects of thought: content and process. Content refers to the meaning, or what the thought is about. Process refers to thought just as an unfolding thing, regardless of the details of what is unfolding. Both aspects are important and need our attention. The content aspect becomes useful when we plan a business or drive a car to a new place. We need to think about these things to succeed in what we are doing. But the content aspect of thinking can cause problems when thinking continues out of control. For example, a person is concerned about a car accident or a personal relationship with her friend and might worry about it continuously. In this case, thinking aggravates the anxiety. Thinking cannot solve the problem because we cannot know the answer (content) by thinking about it. For example, we cannot come to an answer about a possible car accident; it is just a thought we have made up. Rather, the very act of thinking, which is in this case anticipating various harmful results, is producing more anxiety. This anxiety leads to even more thinking which in turn brings more anxiety etc. Thinking like this is involved in most anxiety problems. The process aspect of thought refers to the occurrence of thinking itself. Thinking is a phenomenon, or something that just exists, like any other phenomenon. For example, blood, muscle, a flower, a bird, or a cloud are phenomena; they just exist. Sunsets and wind are also phenomena. All of these things are energy flows that can be sensed. We can objectively find them, be aware of them, observe them as they arise and fade. In meditation we treat thinking just as we would treat a bird or a sunset - as something that can be observed as it rises and falls. That is, we are concerned with thinking as a process and we are not concerned with the content of thought. We don't think whether these thoughts are right or wrong, good or bad. Those judgments have to do with content. We don't

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judge thoughts and we don't fight or avoid them. We simply acknowledge that they have arisen and observe them as they come and go. Everybody has worries and fearful thoughts. But most people don't get wrapped up in them; instead, they move on from these thoughts to whatever else they are doing. People with anxiety problems tend become so engaged in the content of fearful thoughts that this interferes with their happiness and productivity. The difference between the former and the latter is not qualitative but quantitative, meaning that both engage with the content of worried thoughts but the anxious people do so more intensively. They grasp onto or try to fight these thoughts. It is difficult for them to keep distance from their scary thoughts.

III. Mindfulness meditation Mindfulness meditation is a method by which we can calm down our disturbed mind. In mindfulness meditation we simply observe our thoughts as they come and go. We don't engage in them, we just let them arise and fade. We treat our thoughts as a process, not as content. At the beginning it is difficult for most of us simply observe the thinking process. We are so accustomed to thinking all the time and most of us have no idea what it is to observe our thoughts without going inside them, or becoming them. It is like being in a room with a noisy refrigerator or driving a car on coarse asphalt: we only notice the sound when it stops. As it is possible for us to be aware of the sound of refrigerator, it is also possible for us to become aware of a thought and observe it as it starts to form. This is what mindfulness meditation is about. We make some space between our thinking and knowing about thinking so that we can observe thoughts as they come and go without being involved in them. This is simple, but at the beginning it is not so easy to do. However, when we succeed, the payoff is big! We are less influenced by anxious thoughts; we become more independent of them and more emotionally stabile. Our happiness will no longer be at the disposal of our unbridled thoughts.

1. How can we find our thoughts? It is sometimes difficult for the beginner to find their thoughts. Some practice is necessary. Fortunately, scary thoughts are easier to find than neutral thoughts because they have a bigger impact on our body. We feel the fear in our belly or the worry in our solar plexus. So we can pay attention to our sensations and whenever we find discomforts in the body, we know these are caused by scary thoughts. So bodily tension or/and

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uncomfortable feelings are like a flag; we can trace back the triggering thoughts that evoked these feelings. With practice it becomes possible to detect the scary thoughts at the very moment they arise.

2. What do we do with these thoughts? When we have detected these scary thoughts we need to just to observe them as they arise and pass away. We do not get involved with them; we do not try to fight or avoid them. This becomes easier when we don't judge our thoughts but instead observe them with an accepting attitude. It helps to imagine each thought as if it were a flower or a bird. It is not good or bad and it is not “me" There are no more good/bad or right/ wrong thoughts than there are good or bad flowers, clouds or sunsets. Thoughts are just more things we experience; they come and go. We can sustain this attitude if we treat our thought as a process. Our judgmental attitude comes back to bite us. As soon as we judge our thoughts we get locked into fighting with and avoiding them. This gets very complicated and soon we are wrapped up in anxiety and worry. So it is crucial in mindfulness that we don't either fight or avoid our thoughts but we just observe them as they come and go. The good news is that as we observe like this the thoughts lose their power very quickly. They fade away. We can make this procedure even easier if we relax our body when we do this.

3. Practical guide to dealing with scary thoughts: Pause-Relax-Open One helpful approach to mindfulness meditation is Pause-Relax-Open. It is easy to remember as PRO. PRO - formula (PAUSE - RELAX - OPEN) a.) As soon as you are aware of a scary thought, PAUSE. Just for a moment, when you remember to do it, step out of these thoughts and see they are not “me “You simply observe them with acceptance. You observe them with kind and loving attitude rather than judging. Don't pursue them; don't engage yourself in them. This initial pause could last between 1 to 3 seconds or even longer depending on your mindstate. It is not helpful to try to stay in the pause a very long time without specifically relaxing or without something to pay attention to. If you try to just dwell in the pause you might unknowingly grab onto some arising thought and get tied up in it.

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If you can't find any thought when you pause, then just be aware of sensations in your body. What you are not supposed to do is keep thinking or pursuing the thoughts. If you have found your thoughts but can't observe them even for a moment without getting wrapped up in them, then move quickly to the next step, which is RELAX. b.) RELAX your body and be aware of the change of body sensations as the body relaxes. Give yourself some time for this, perhaps 2 to 5 seconds. It may be helpful to breathe deeply as you relax your body. While you are relaxing, you might notice how the body reacts to thoughts that come up. Tensions arise when worrisome thoughts come up and right at that moment you can notice this and intentionally relax. When you are comfortable relaxing in this way, you may be able to be aware of thoughts even as you relax. This is O.K. only if you don’t follow and feed those thoughts. If this happens, as it may when the thoughts and emotions are highly charged, just go back to simple relaxation. When there is more worry, spend more time relaxing. 5-10 seconds may be necessary. There is no rush; take the time you need to relax. Progressive relaxation can also be helpful. This is done by relaxing one area of the body at a time. Try beginning with the head and face, then relax the neck, shoulders, arms, hands, back, chest, belly, hips, legs and feet. It is also helpful to do some body exercise like Yoga practice or simple stretching exercise before mindfulness meditation. PAUSE and RELAX can be done over and over again. It is natural that thoughts will come up and this is O.K. If we have scary thoughts or notice body tensions in the middle of meditation, just start again right in that moment. Take the first step, which is PAUSE, and repeat the process. c.) Now we OPEN our mind to the outside events like sights, sounds, smells, tastes or to the dialogue with people. We expand our awareness to the outer world and carry forward the mindfulness we developed in the previous two steps. We can now meet the outer world with an open mind. Now we can see clearer, listen deeper, and understand better. For the moment we are more relaxed and free from disturbing thoughts. Because we are relaxed, we meet our environment with more acceptance and presence. These three steps of pause-relax-open are part of Insight Dialogue meditation. The advantage of Insight Dialogue meditation is that it is a way we can expand our meditation practice from inner silence out to everyday life. We can meditate with PRO as we eat, walk, talk or even work. Of course we can also use this PRO formula as we do silent sitting meditation. The Pause and Relax are the same, but the Open means we expand our attention out to the whole body sitting. That is, we can just be

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aware of our body form or the body sensations or breathing and so forth as we sit relaxed. Whenever our minds are clouded with scary thoughts or uncomfortable feelings, we need just to repeat the whole process from the beginning again and again. As the practice of PRO matures, we find the Pause-Relax-Open stages intermingle. There are no distinct boundaries between Pause, Relax and Open. As our mindfulness progresses we can notice that the pause takes on an inherent quality of relaxation and acceptance. When we face things just as they are, there is already acceptance, not the usual reaction of tension. Tension is associated with denial, fear, repression, and the effort to control our thoughts. Acceptance is inherently relaxing, since this tension is not generated. The “Openî phase is an extension of this acceptance from accepting what is inside us to accepting everything around us. We meet the world in a relaxed way. Do not expect all tension to disappear, however. Even the most mundane thought and its attendant emotion have some element of tension. This is just part of life, and when we do not resist tension, it is not so bad.

4. The attitude of trusting emergence The most important and valuable philosophy of mindfulness meditation is the attitude of trusting emergence. We cannot really predict what will happen in our lives at any moment. This is part of the beauty of life. What kind of value would life have if everything was predictable? It would be just mechanical; there would be no Life! But when we are anxious we want to make our life predictable and controllable. However the truth is, the more we strive to control our future, the more anxious we get. This is really paradoxical. You might ask, Why is it so? It is very simple. The very act of trying to control things makes us tense, which makes us anxious, which makes us try to control more, which make us more tense, and so on. The vicious circle goes on and on. Trusting emergence helps us end this unhappy cycle. To trust emergence is to take an open minded stance toward whatever comes. This makes us receptive and consequently we feel connected with life. We feel supported and grounded, which makes us more open to the reality of how things are, which makes us more comfortable, which makes us more accepting. The benevolent circle goes on and on. Life lived in this way is interesting and full of energy. The attitude of trusting emergence applies to many of our behaviors. For example, we trust our body processes like breathing or heart palpitations, and we relax and trust what is happening as we speak with

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someone that we don't know at a party. We trust that things will work out if we ask someone for help or sing a song in front of group. Whatever actions we have not trusted ourselves to do until now can be good experiments in trusting emergence. Anxiety is an inhibition of our trust in emergence. We could reestablish this trust by practice. PRO meditation is a method to practice this trusting emergence. PAUSE is an act of trusting a new path after departing an old track where we have been stuck. It is like shedding an old tight jacket and trying on a new suit. RELAXING is another act of trusting the emergence: We let go our body tension and trust what emerges in our body process in the course of relaxation. By relaxing our body we release our anxiety and accept the new reality without resistance. OPEN is expanding our act of trusting emergence to the outer world. We are open to whatever comes into being in our interaction with the environment. With PRO meditation we can build our power to trust emergence, which will help us feel free and self-confident in our relationship with our self and our environment.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT1 GESTALTEN2 JOHN WYMORE

Gestalt is a German word that does not translate easily. It means a complete pattern or configuration. The catch is the word "complete." There are three parts to a definition of gestalt: a thing, its context or environment, and the relationship between them. Take the shed snake skins that I have hung on a large philodendron in the foyer. There are about ten of them. As the plant grows, I occasionally rearrange the way the skins drape among the leaves. This is not a highly charged activity. I can be pretty casual, almost absent minded, about it. But I picked each one of those skins out of tall grass and rocks very near a hole where I know the snakes like to hang out. Out there, when I reach for the skin and carefully free it from the thorny grass and sticky rocks, I am not absent minded. The

1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 6(2), 2002. The information about the universal reponse to snakes is from E.O. Wilson's Concilience, The Unity of Knowledge, published by Knopf. Wilson goes further and makes a distinction between snake and its natural history on the one hand and the mythology of Serpent on the other. Wilson proposes that it is Biology that unites the two by examing both the snakes behavior and physiology and the evolved human mind/brain that creates Serpent. Human response to landscapes was taken from two chapters in The Adapted Mind, Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, edited by Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby and published by The Oxford Press. The chapters are entitled "Evolved Responses to Landscapes," by Orians and Heerwagen and "Environmental Preferences in Knowledge-Seeking, Knowledge-Using Organisms," by Stephen Kaplan.

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snake that left it may be within a few feet, and I know what kind it is. It is not poisonous, but it is aggressive and will strike. Get it? The context is really different, although the object, the dry skin, is the same. But in Gestalt Therapy we say that the skin is NOT the same, because the context is a part of the definition of the object. The experienced whole (the gestalt) includes the thing itself (the figural snake skin) and its meaning. Meaning is derived from its relationship to the context (the ground i.e., philodendron or the hibernaculum). We call that object-in-field or object-in-situation. Therefore, the gestalt of the skin on the philodendron is different from the gestalt of the skin on the ground where the snake left it. The same thing applies when we are talking about ourselves or another person. We can only define ourselves in terms of relationships - that is, in terms of our interaction with the immediate environment or present context. Who defines that? Only the "experiencer." This is also the definition of Phenomenology. Personal experience is understood in terms of figure and ground relationships. The immediate situation is constructed from the individual's awareness of self, awareness of the environment, and awareness of the relationship between the two. The awareness of relationship involved in a particular situation constitutes a gestalt, a meaningful pattern or configuration. But note this: Gestalts have the property of "wanting" completion. Experiences that have been successfully resolved fade into the background. Those that have not continue to absorb energy and attention, even when they are out of awareness. We sometimes call that "unfinished business," and it can distort our present experience as well as our anticipation of the future. It therefore follows that the relationship between environment and ourselves is crucial. We effect the environmental context through our interaction with it. Health, therefore, must be defined in terms of the integrity of both sides, plus the fluidity of the interaction between the two. This standard of health can also be applied to organizations - from families to communities - as well as individuals. For groups of people to function efficiently, they must do the hard work of building consensus around significant figures. They may then move to action and make contact with the environment. If the move is with awareness and patience, then both organismic and environmental integrity can be maintained. If there is movement to action before establishing strong, joint figures, the contact with the environment is fragmented and oppositional, instead of focused and supported. This dilemma is exemplified by the current struggle in many places of the world to build healthy, sustainable communities.

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The idea that healthy functioning is the quality of interaction between organism and environment implies awareness of life processes. Up until now, Gestalt therapists have considered "environment" to be other people or human institutions. It is imperative, however, that an individual or group direct his or her (or their) attention beyond human institutions, to the interrelationship among all things in the world. This implies a compelling curiosity which can lead to the excitement of discovery which is one of the most important goals of Gestalt Therapy. Here's where my curiosity has gone. There may be something like innately unfinished gestalts, i.e. unfinished by evolutionary design. For example, the figure SNAKE can take on a Gestalt, let's call it "Snakeskinin-the-philodendron," which is energized by an ad hoc mind/brain circuit called "John's-idiosyncratic-notion-of-household-decor." Awareness is an essential part of this. It involves short-term and long-term memory, values, personal history, learning, and education. It's pretty complicated; yet it's easy to watch the process, and it's fairly methodical. However, the Gestalt "Snakeskin-in-the- grass" is really different. It's energized by primordial neuropathways of snake aversion that say one thing: DANGER. Even though I might claim that I knew immediately that it was a shed skin of a harmless snake ( and nothing to be frightened of, right?), if you had me hooked up to bells and whistles they would all go off. There is a different kind of ground here, a different kind of context. And it's ancient, built-in and universal. Not idiosyncratic. And it has a value that says , we can't wait for this awareness stuff. We're outta here. Throughout human history certain kinds of snakes have been a major cause of sickness and death. And those creatures that possessed a quick and otherwise competent response to those kinds of snakes had more kids than those who didn't -thus an evolved aversion to snakes that is breathtakingly fast (awareness arises from memory after the fact). If this is an evolved response, in the Darwinian sense, the result of real neuronal connections, then we should expect to see something similar in those who came before. Chimpanzees, with whom we share a common ancestry (98 % some say - a relationship which is 5 million years old) are particularly apprehensive in the presence of snakes - even if they have never seen one before. This aversion seems to grow stronger as the chimp gets older. The same increase in fear response is demonstrated in humans. Recall that I admitted that I had to be mindful and a bit courageous just to free that skin from the grass. I was much bolder as a child in the swamps of southern Florida. The point here is that very powerful Gestalten can be formed totally out of awareness, and they are designed to never be annihilated. For that

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we should be grateful. When we discover such powerful fears in us, we have the opportunity to make the choice to push through. And when we do, it's a great feeling - if we survive. We likely have many ancient gestalts for the simple reason that those that did not have them were not our ancestors. And many of them have to do with landscapes - probably what most people imagine when they hear the word "environment." I suppose that's because it is within landscapes that we choose habitat. Studies, much of them done at the University of Washington, indicate that there is a general preference for savanna-like environments - something we would find in East Africa (that should be no surprise). So does that mean the dreams of the Inuit in a seemingly featureless landscape are filled with puzzling images of high grass, acacia trees, and crouching lions? Maybe, but what is also true is that experience and familiarity influence preference. In other words the ground and the figure have changed, and this is in awareness. So the Inuit is likely to respond to someone's telling him that deep-down he would really like to live in a place he's never even heard of, by saying ,"Bugger off. I like it here. This is my home." In a sample population from the eastern United States, 8 to11 year olds expressed a substantial preference for the savanna environment; but they couldn't tell you why. The judgments were made very fast, emotionally, and inaccessible to introspection. By the age of 15, however, a preference for the indigenous hardwood forest environment overtook the savanna preference. And they could tell you why. You might think of these as hard wired Gestalten that lie dormant in the mind/brain until certain cues energize them. Then they pass rapidly through something like a Cycle of Experience going from sensation to withdrawal and never needing to rise into awareness. It's not that they can't. A little bit of education and a concerted act of will and one can occasionally get a glimpse of the human animal in action. One of my favorite examples is our response to twilight and eventual nightfall. The color of the sky and lengthening of shadows are very powerful clues that the change from day to night (or vice versa) is imminent. Evidence that night is approaching causes us to prepare for impending darkness. We move to shelter, light fires or lamps, and huddle together. You don't need to think about this for it to happen. But it's not difficult to attend to once you're coached. That's why post prandial evening sessions are so productive when doing groups. As humans we bring a sense of aesthetic appreciation to sunrise and sunset, but underneath these are cues of life and death importance. No wonder that we have evolved to not have to think about them. Furthermore, they are as old

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as the solar system itself. The ground out of which Gestalten can be formed is ancient, indeed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE1 CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES IN THE APPLICATION OF PERLS’ FIVE-LAYER THEORY2 PETER PHILIPPSON

‘The mounting excitement is throttled, there is anxiety. Nevertheless, the self persists in the original task and allays the anxiety by further blotting out the background with reaction-formations and proceeding with less and less of its powers. In the therapy, on the contrary, it is just the point of the interruption that is now made the interesting problem, the object of concentration: the questions are: 'What hinders? What does it look like? How do I feel it muscularly? Where is it in the environment? etc.' The mounting anxiety is allayed by continuing the excitement in this new problem; what is felt is some quite different emotion, of grief, anger, disgust, fear, longing." (Perls et al, 1994/1951, p. 245, hereinafter called ‘PHG’).

Perls’ ‘5-layer’ theory (Perls, 1969) has fallen into disfavour and disuse, and is generally seen as having little bearing on the theory and practice of modern Gestalt Therapy. The theme I want to take up in this article is that the reverse is the case: the theory is a restatement of central themes from PHG about the nature of neurosis and the therapy with neurotic processes. It forms a very close fit with my experiences working with clients, and with the existentialism inherent in the Gestalt approach. However, it does lead to some challenging (but I believe ac-curate) statements about the nature of Gestalt Therapy, which I shall elaborate. 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 6(2), 2002.

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The 5-layer model To recapitulate how I understand the theory, in working through a specific neurotic fixation, the following layers need to be worked with: x Cliché layer: social chat, avoiding what is significant. The therapist needs to avoid joining in this level. x Role-playing layer: the client plays a habitual and polarised role, and requires the therapist to play the complementary role, e.g. nurturer/nurtured. Any solution to the client’s dilemmas will be seen in relation to maintaining this limited role. The therapist needs to avoid just taking up the role that is offered to him/her. Experiments can be useful here to explore the boundaries of the role, and what lies beyond the confines of the role that is important for the client. x Impasse/phobic layer: The client is no longer engaged in deflective chat, nor wishes to stay within a fixed role, but what now? Remember, this is a theory of neurosis, not of contact. The client has adopted the fixed role not as an assistance in contacting, but as a defensive maneuver to avoid risking precisely this point. Therefore the client becomes phobic, usually tries to sidestep into something more known. The task of the therapist is to encourage the client to stay with the unknown, to acknowledge that this is a ‘safe emergency’ rather than an intolerable one as it may have been when the client first withdrew into the role. x Implosion: Themes of paralysis and death arise, but this is not Freud’s ‘death instinct’ but the existentialist’s ‘vertigo of possibility’. The client is called on to choose a way forward that is his/her own, something s/he has avoided doing. There are no signposts, and it is important here that the therapist is not pulled into providing them to make it easier (Goodman called this ‘premature pacification’). Notice that this is not a retroflection of an action, but the tension of being caught between many possible actions. x Explosion: Not strictly a ‘layer’, but the release of energy in action and emotion as the client makes his/her own authentic choice of path. The task of the therapist is to witness, acknowledge-edge and engage with this choosing.

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Goodman’s model I now want to compare Perls’ 5-layer model with the way Goodman (based, he says, on an original draft by Perls) describes the Gestalt therapeutic process (p. 64 in PHG, my own re-statement). I want to note in describing this how unfamiliar this way of describing the process is to many Gestaltists in my experience. 1. The client concentrates on the actual situation: what s/he is feeling, thinking, doing and saying, what attracts his/her attention. 2. The therapist gets a sense of where the ‘resistance’ is: where the client is avoiding going, and encourages the client towards noticing this area. 3. The client becomes more aware of the self-imposed barrier as this is focused on. 4. Therapist and client ‘play’ with this point, using imagination and exaggeration or reversal of the client’s fixed attitude, both in relation to the therapist and in visualising behaviour in the client’s ordinary life. 5. As the client focuses more closely on the situation and the resistance, s/he experiences anxiety, but also knows that there is no actual danger in the present context: this is the ‘safe emergency’. 6. In the safe emergency, the ‘underlying (repressed) intention action, attitude, present-day object, memory - will become dominant and re-form the figure’. 7. The client takes ownership of this new figure. For me, this is very close to the 5-layer model, with 1 and 2 being in the role-playing layer, 3 and 4 being the use of experiment to show the limits of the role, 5 being the impasse, 6 and 7 being the explosion. The extra for me in the 5-layer model is the implosion, the con-traction in facing the freedom of possibilities. However, they are clearly the same model. But what is it that makes both the 5-layer model and this discussion of therapeutic methodology unpopular in Gestalt circles? I would like to suggest two aspects of this.

Medical model There is something in the way of describing the methodology that inherently says that the therapist is working with a specific pathological situation, according to a specific therapeutic theory, in order to produce

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change. The description of the psychotherapeutic process in PHG does not avoid this, saying ‘The context [for focusing attention] may be chosen by the therapist ... according to his scientific conception of where the resistance is’. (p. 64). This sits uneasily with the current dislike of the ‘medical model’, with an expert asking a patient to put him/herself into his/her hands. How does it fit with the paradoxical theory of change (Beisser, 1970)? I would say that Gestalt Therapy operates a significantly modified medical model. There is a theory of health and a theory of neurosis, together with a methodology for working with the neurosis. The modification is that neither the theory of health nor the theory of neurosis is based on a particular way of behaving, which the therapist can see and interpret as healthy or unhealthy. Compare medicine, where a raised temperature shows illness, or classical psycho-analysis, where homosexuality is linked to the regressive anal phase, and therefore neurotic for adults. Rather, the question for everything is: how does the person get to do what s/he does? Is the action choiceful, based on good contact with the environment, and sensory con-section to the person’s own body experience and emotions; or, conversely, is it based on ha-ritually restricted contact and awareness, which avoids facing the possibilities of the actual situation? If the latter, the theory says that the point of restriction, the ‘resistance’, is ob.-servable: the immediacy of contact is lost, there is diminished awareness, the lively energy is dulled (the ‘autonomous criterion’: ‘autonomous’ because it is a usable criterion, but not based on a picture of what healthy people do). This alerts the therapist, who stays focused on the area of resistance, and encourages the client to do the same. This is not to say that re-distance is wrong, but that the habitual resistance points to the area of loss of ego function. The ‘paradoxical theory’ is precisely that therapist and client stay at the point of resistance, rather than seeing it as somewhere to get beyond and ‘fix’. Once again, the paradox of the paradox is that, if the impasse of the paradox does not lead to the explosion of the newly choiceful behaviour, I would be taking people’s money under false pretences, foisting an ideology or a metaphysics onto them rather than working with them in a way that has proven results. I am happy to base my therapy on this theory, since it fits well with my philosophy, and, equally importantly, it is observably clinically effective in a way which therapy based on, say, ‘discharging emotion’ does not (in my experience).

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Flow and singularity A second way in which this form of Gestalt Therapy is countercultural is that there is a strong emphasis these days on continuing therapy, with slow accretion of change, surrender-in of old habits and building up of new and more contactful behaviours. The dominant pic-true is of a smooth cycle (whether drawn as a circle or a wave). It is easy to see how this picture arose in reaction to the episodic therapy Fritz Perls conducted at Esalen. However, something is missing both theoretically and clinically. If the image of change in Gestalt Therapy, the ‘a-ha’, is the gestalt shift, a realigning of figure and ground, then it cannot be smooth. Remember the vase and the faces: the shift from one to the other is instantaneous. (There are many parallels in this between the ‘punctuated evolution’ theories of the late Stephen Jay Gould, and the ‘continuous evolution’ theories of Richard Dawkins.) So, does this mean a return to short-term Gestalt Therapy? In some cases, the answer must be ‘yes’: quite a lot of clients can achieve satisfying results in a very brief period, do not want to engage in longerterm exploration, and it would be unethical to try to pull them into something expensive, unwanted, and unnecessary. Erv Polster, among others, has written and pre-scented about Gestalt Therapy as a form of brief therapy, and the British Gestalt Journal, 8, 1 (1999) has a series of articles on the theme, including one by myself. Yet, long-term ongoing therapy is important as well. There are some clients, and some kinds of work, which do not work within a brief therapy timescale. For example, work with clients with borderline, narcissistic or schizoid process will not be able to move away from this process in brief therapy. However, reflecting on my work with such clients, the model I am using is still one of punctuated evolution. What the therapeutic approach of PHG and the ‘five layers’ provides me with here is a more clearly defined understanding of what takes the time. Firstly, ‘the patient [is] an active partner in the experiment’: building such a relation-ship proceeds very slowly with clients who have learned not to trust others, or to wait for others to tell them what to do. Secondly, ‘It is something of lively interest to himself, so he need not deliberately attend to it, but it attracts his attention.’ This cannot happen when the client habitually avoids the ‘lively interest’ of the novel. Similarly, ‘the patient is encouraged to follow his bent, to imagine and exaggerate freely, for it is safe play’. Building up the sense safety in the play is slow with many clients, who do not play (schizoid), or do not play safely (borderline), or do not play as partners (narcissistic). Finally, ‘the emergency is safe and

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controllable and known to be so by both partners’. This also takes time where trust is absent, or perception is heavily distorted by projection. The changes in client experience, in their self-reported being in the world, and in my experience of being with clients are not continuous however. The words which, for me, best encapsulate the experience are ‘I found myself (for example) telling someone what I want from him - I don’t do that!’

Existentialism and behaviourism The final difficulty with the five layers theory, and the similar therapeutic approach outlined in PHG, is that it faces therapist, as well as client, with the existential uncertainty of the impasse, a place where there is no right answer, no expertise. This is often a difficult place for professionals to face, and it is much easier to act in a more linear fashion to produce a behavioural response: and it must be faced that attunement to increase the client’s sense of safety and reduce the feelings of shame is a behavioural activity aiming to produce a particular result (and simultaneously helps the therapist feel stronger and more certain in relation to the client). Frank-M. Staemmler has written beautifully about ‘cultivating uncertainty’ as a therapeutic tool (Staemmler, 1997).

References Beisser, A. (1970). The Paradoxical Theory of Change. In Gestalt Therapy Now, ed. J. Fagan & I.L. Shepherd, Harper & Row, New York. Perls, F.S. (1969) Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. Real People Press, Moab. Perls, F., Hefferline, R., Goodman, P. (1994/1951) Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. Gestalt Journal Press, New York. Philippson, P.A. (1999). Process, Not Solutions. British Gestalt Journal, 8, 1. Staemmler, F.-M. (1997). Cultivating Uncertainty: An Attitude for Gestalt Therapists. British Gestalt Journal, 6, 1. Peter Philippson, 25th May, 2002.

CHAPTER THIRTY1 IT’S NOT EASY BEING A FIELD THEORIST: COMMENTARY ON “CARTESIAN AND POSTCARTESIAN TRENDS IN RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS (AUTHORS ROBERT STOLOROW, DONNA ORANGE AND GEORGE ATWOOD)2 LYNNE JACOBS

There have been two great sea changes in my development as a therapist and a theorist. The first was my exposure to gestalt therapy; the second was my exposure to intersubjectivity theory and to two of the authors of this article, Stolorow and Orange. Probably no psychoanalytic theorist has influenced me more profoundly than has Robert Stolorow. He has influenced not only my own theory development, but my clinical practice as well, through direct supervision. And Donna Orange has helped me learn how to think more clearly and more rigorously, as well as being a friend (I have no personal acquaintance with George, other than having been quickly introduced to him by Bob once, on escalators going in opposite directions. A very quick introduction indeed!). What a joy to have been asked to write a commentary on an article written by theorists who have influenced me profoundly. Their article is written as part of an on-going “conversation” between two closely allied schools of thought in contemporary psychoanalysis, 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 6(2), 2002.

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intersubjectivity theory and the American relational school (most prominently represented by Stephen Mitchell and Lew Aron). Many of the issues raised in this article touch on themes that are important in gestalt theory as well, so my commentary is an attempt to join in the conversational thread. As one who has long been interested in integrating insights and clinical wisdom between gestalt therapy and contemporary psychoanalysis, I am delighted at the extent to which the two approaches have become compatible. While I identify both as an intersubjective psychoanalyst and as a gestalt therapist, I am writing primarily from the vantage point of gestalt therapy. Gestalt therapy developed in part as a reaction against the perceived limitations of classical psychoanalysis. It objected to the reductionism and determinism of classic psychoanalysis, and the psychoanalytic tendency to minimize patients' own perspectives on their life struggles, as well as the psychological effects of their life experience. Gestalt therapy theory placed an emphasis on the whole person (and sense of self), rather than on mechanisms such as Id, Ego and Superego; on experience, the process of experiencing and affect; on an appreciation of the impact of life events on personality development (e.g. childhood sexual abuse); on a belief that people are motivated toward growth and development rather than regression; on a belief that infants are born with a basic motivation towards, and capacity for, personal interaction and attachment; on a belief that there is no organism without environment, no "self" without an "other;" and on a belief that the structure and contents of the mind are shaped by interactions with others, rather than by instinctual urges. For the gestalt therapist, it is meaningless to speak of a person in isolation from the person-in-relation. Although there have always been alternative voices within psychoanalysis, over the past two decades, a new perspective has cohered. A loose confederation of theoretical schools has developed new ideas to the point where a distinct picture of a “relationally-oriented,” as opposed to classical psychoanalytic approach, now exists. Contemporary analysts from such realms as object-relations, self-psychology, intersubjectivity theory, the interpersonalists and the American relational school are advocating many of the tenets I listed above in their own languages. For example, Kohut's self psychology places "self" and "self-experience" at the center of psychoanalytic inquiry, and through his concept of selfobject transferences has affirmed the inseparability of self and other for one's development and functioning. For another example, American relational analyst Stephen Mitchell writes:

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The schools represented in the article—intersubjectivity theory and American relational psychoanalysis--seem to me to have a closer affinity to gestalt therapy than they have to early, “classical” psychoanalysis. The intersubjectivity theorists have even been campaigning to develop a phenomenological psychoanalysis, one that they in fact describe as “a phenomenological field theory or dynamic systems theory” (pg. 6)! That is a campaign that might warm the heart of Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, who championed phenomenological field theory in their 1951 opus, Gestalt Therapy. Notice how closely the following paragraph aligns with statements in PHG: “It is our view that the persisting dichotomies between the intrapsychic and the interpersonal, between one- and two-person psychologies, are obsolete, reified, absolutized relics of the Cartesian bifurcation. The very phrase two-person psychology continues to embody an atomistic, isolatedmind philosophy in that two separated mental entities, two thinking things, are seen to bump into each other. We should speak instead of a contextual psychology in which experiential worlds and intersubjective fields are seen to mutually constitute one another. Unlike Cartesian isolated minds, experiential worlds–as they form and evolve within a nexus of living, relational systems–are recognized as being exquisitely context-sensitive and context-dependent. In this conception, the Cartesian subject-object split is mended, and inner and outer are seen to interweave seamlessly. We inhabit our experiential worlds even as they inhabit us. Mind is pictured here as an emergent property of the person-environment system, not as a Cartesian entity localized inside the cranium.” (p. 9) (Italics added)

A phenomenological field theory is easier said than done, however, and gestalt theorists continue to this day to try to work out the implications of such a concept, both in theory and in practice (see, for example, among articles in English, Spagnuolo-Lobb 2001, Parlett, 1991, 1997, Roberts, 1999, Robine 1997, 2001, Wheeler, 2000, Yontef, 1993). As with all creative theory, the original PHG writings were “ahead of themselves,” and we struggle mightily to understand still such simple questions as, what do we mean by ‘field,’ anyway? This question was taken up—and no

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consensus achieved—at the first Gtin conference, in 2001, titled “Contact and Relationship in a Field Perspective”(Robine, 2001). Robine described the problem of developing gestalt theory: My assumption is that Gestalt Therapy, the book, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, leans on “old” paradigms (which are called “moderns”) while crystallizing new ones, opens new paths (called “postmoderns”) without leaving some old ones, sits on the fence and,…either we get stuck in a fixed gestalt of where we can meet in Gestalt Therapy, or we can go on…supported by our contemporary thinkers, clinicians, epistemologists or philosophers. (1997, p. 10).

Although I do not necessarily subscribe to the categories of “modern” and “post-modern” as the crucial distinctions (I prefer, as the intersubjective authors do, “Cartesian” and “post-Cartesian”), certainly something that the American relational school, the intersubjective school, and gestalt therapy all have in common, is an increased interest in articulating a contextualized view of human development and the psychotherapeutic process, including more specifically, a relational view of development and the therapeutic process. One way we attempt to do this is by exploring the implications of phenomenological field theory. Another means for furthering this project is to deconstruct as fully as possible the philosophical and epistemological underpinnings of our theory and practice in order to recognize whatever Cartesian perspectives might be inhibiting our movement in a more fully phenomenological, field direction. After all, phenomenology arose as a reaction against the limitations of such Cartesian epistemologies as objectivism and atomistic empiricism. Stolorow, Orange and Atwood take that path in their article: “The fundamental assumptions of traditional psychoanalysis have been pervaded by the Cartesian doctrine of the isolated mind. This doctrine bifurcates the subjective world into outer and inner regions, reifies the resulting separation between the two, and pictures the mind as an objective entity that takes its place among other objects, a "thinking thing" that has an inside with contents and looks out on an external world from which it is radically estranged. Cartesian philosophy, with its "myth of the isolated mind" (Stolorow & Atwood, 1992, p.7), has in Western culture been transformed by history into common sense, and it has until recently maintained a stranglehold on psychoanalytic thought (Sucharov, 1999 ).”

In the course of their “conversation” with the American relational school, they raise some issues about remnants of Cartesian epistemology in psychoanalytic theory that are worth our attention as well.

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The Here and Now The intersubjective authors have weighed in on the elusive concept of what they refer to as “present-moment thinking,” what we refer to as a focus on the here-and-now. They caution against a tendency of some American relational analysts to isolate the present moment from its developmental context. They argue that a “freeze-frame’” or snapshot moment, often valorized by relational analysts, is an arbitrary distinction and a remnant of Cartesian atomism and atemporality (p. 4). They assert, rather, that: “… historical-developmental and cross-sectional contexts or dimensions cannot be neatly separated and that serious attention must be accorded to their interpenetration. Ontologically, we regard the past and the future as inevitably implicated in all present moments” ( Bergson, 1910/1960 ). Epistemologically, we find it impossible to know an isolated moment. Clinically, we find ourselves, our patients, and our psychoanalytic work always embedded in constitutive process. Process means temporality and history. To work contextually is to work developmentally. To work developmentally is to maintain a continuing sensibility to past, present, and future experience. Developmental thinking refuses the snapshot view-what Derrida (1978) and Culler (1982) called the "metaphysics of presence," or restriction to decontextualized moments or interactions--and affirms the emotional life of persons who have come from somewhere and are going somewhere.”

The value of here and now Gestalt therapists also tend to valorize the present moment, but I believe that we often do so in a way that does not at all remove the moment from the on-goingness of moment-to-moment experiencing, nor do I think we ignore the fact that any particular moment is embedded in a context with a past, leaning into a future. Generally, I think that most of us are aware that when we ask a patient to focus on a particular moment, as in, “what are you aware of now,” we are actually engaging the patient in a look at experiences that are always at least one step behind the moment we are in-and-going-forward-from. As Michael Miller has so eloquently described: … how much complexity goes into the notion of the present moment. It is interesting to think about this, because gestalt therapy bases its work on the present moment. Yet there are complicated questions about whether the present exists other than as a linguistic construction. William James, an American philosopher who influenced Paul Goodman wrote, “The literally

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present moment is a purely verbal supposition, not a position. The only present even realized concretely being the passing moment in which the dying rearward of time and its dawning future forever mix their lights.” (p.112)

I value that gestalt therapists have a great clinical appreciation for, and inclination to work with, how the present moment embodies the past and future. I think the intersubjectivists may possibly benefit from our interest in working with present-moments in a way that does not de-contextualize present-centered experiencing. A present-centered focus tends to be enlivening, and often allows patients and therapists to obtain a vivid grasp of the relationship of one’s context—including one’s developmental history—to one’s current experience. After all, field theory holds that all factors capable of influencing experiencing are present in the field. There is no influence at a distance. Yontef, 1993). For instance, a field theory epistemology holds that the way one’s history affects one’s present is contingent—among other things—with how one relates to one’s past. A past does not determine a specific future, but shapes a range of possible sensitivities, interests and proclivities for experience and action (the intersubjectivists might describe this as a particular organization of experiencing). So a present-centered exploration may involve exploring together the “how;” of how the current relationship between the therapist and patient influences how the patient’s past (and the therapist’s past) is lived with now in this particular smaller context. The here-now moment is considered as a figure that is emergent against a ground, and one is not meaningful without the other. As Polster asserts, “gestalt therapists … were often misunderstood to disregard experiences of the past and future. However, gestalt therapy holds that every event exists in the ground within which it happens. Both outcomes and precedents are indispensably included!” (1998, p. 258). Also, while the range, intensity and patterns of one’s emotional life are shaped in an on-going relational developmental history, field theory epistemology holds that affectivity is always present-centered, in the sense that one experiences emotions in a present context. There are several clinical advantages to attending to emotional experience as a presentcentered phenomenon. I point to two in particular. Both of the examples use a present-centered focus to explore how one’s experiential world is both “given and made,” as Orange (1995) has described in earlier writings, or “made and found,” as Roberts (1999) points out was Goodman’s position. This exploration, a combination of respectful attention to the present-centeredness of emotional process as the figure, while tracing the “givenness” of the ground, facilitates the development of a sense of

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agency while at the same time it helps to reduce whatever shame the patients may carry about their embeddedness in their history. One, that I alluded to above, is that if patients can experience their emotional process vividly, they can more directly explore the world of meanings that shape the immediate experience; they can explore how these meanings shape their experiencing,, and the exploration has a greater chance of being mutative because of the heightened emotional intensity. As with most therapeutic conversations, the explorations have meanings on at least two dimensions: there is the exploration of meanings and process, but also a more relational-process dimension, as a living-through of a different kind of relationship. In this different relationship, patients engage with someone—the therapist—who does not shy away from the emotional life of either party to the dialogue. This engagement provides a support for patients to contact the widest possible range of emotional experience and meaningfulness, thereby enacting our paradoxical theory of change by living fully. Another advantage is the chance to explore with immediacy the impact of the therapist upon the patient. Therapists who are alert to moment-tomoment emotional experiencing are more likely, I believe, to be able to “catch” their influence on their patients. Again, these influences can then become explored along at least two dimensions. Along one pathway, it can open the door to the patients’ worlds of meanings, especially as regards their relational world. Along the other, more process-oriented pathway, patients have a chance to “live-through” with the therapist, an emotionallybased engagement in which their experiences are taken seriously, in the most minute detail, and are seen to influence the therapist’s world of meanings as well. In sum, I think gestalt therapists often have a very fluid appreciation of the present moment as an arbitrary slice, a momentary figure we wish to use as a point of leverage, but one that cannot be fruitfully used if removed from the ground from which it emerged, and the forward-in-time thrust it embodies.

The problem with here and now: interruptions to contact On the other hand, all that said, I do appreciate the reminder from the intersubjectivists about the dangers of becoming “figure-bound,” or seduced by a vivid figure in such a way that one might forget that that very figure is emergent from a context, and only is possible as a momentary configuration of a wider field. One aspect of gestalt theory that I believe is prone to such forgetfulness is our theory of “interruptions to contact,” and

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of contact episodes. Both have a tendency to be described and conceived in objectivist and atomistic terms. I think we need to take great care to contextualize our observations about such processes when we are using that perspective in our work. We need to remember that we may be witnessing an “interruption” in a particular meaningful context, but we also need to remember that such an observation is an interpretation of a sequence, and is being made from a relatively more scientistic, objectivist perspective rather than a dialogical perspective. Usually gestalt therapists tell me they are merely noticing the contacting process when they look at the so-called “interruptions to contact,” and are therefore engaged in a phenomenological exploration. I disagree. One must step outside the conversational sphere to “assess” that the other is introjecting or projecting, and the assessment is more atomistic than say, noticing your own discomfort about not having a sense of the patients’ own words for their experience. I am not inveighing against the use of the observational perspective regarding interruptions to contact (except for the concept of projection—see below). I understand that some patients can gain a tool for observing themselves in interaction. I am, however, asking for further thoughtfulness about it and its place in our phenomenological field theory. Let me use as an example, quoted from Isadore From’s teachings presented in an article by Mueller3: “What you have to keep in mind is that projection, introjection, etc., are not forms of behavior. They are specific ways in which a person experiences himself in his environment. You might experience that something is inside which belongs outside. This is introjection. Or, you might experience something which is outside and it belongs to your organism. This is projection.” (1995, p. 123) Inevitably, given his time (and still ours) he was occasionally tangled up in some epistemological inconsistencies that affected the further development of his thinking and ours. First we see here the reification of “inside” and “outside.” This reification is a fundamental Cartesian bifurcation that both field theory and phenomenology meant to deconstruct. Once you accept that there is such a “thing” as an inside, and such a “thing” as an outside, then of course, it is a small step to the notion of projection, the transposition of inside and outside. Second, From refers to experiences that “belong outside.” By whose assessment? Who is deciding what belongs where in the organization of someone’s experience? 3

We owe Mueller thanks for giving us this record of From. I find myself hungry for more.

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I believe that the epistemology of a phenomenological field theory is inconsistent with the act of assessing that someone is projecting. That assessment makes a judgment about the match between the patient’s apprehension of reality and the therapist’s (or someone else’s), with the judgment that a projection is not as near to reality as a non-projection is. Such a stance towards reality is an example of the “correspondence theory of truth.” The correspondence theory of truth is a logical correlate of objectivism. In objectivism, real truth exists and can be found by removing subjectivity--subjectivity necessarily “distorts”--so as to apprehend more clearly the “objective” truth (Hersch, p. 173).4 Therefore, what it seems we have here is a judgment that the patient’s reality is not as near to truth as the therapist’s reality (the therapist is assumed, of course, to not be projecting, or at least not projecting unawares). Field theory assumes that there are multiple perspectives of reality, and that one cannot be closer or further from the objective truth. “Closer” and “further” are Cartesian remnants. From a phenomenological field theory perspective, the most that one might say is that there may be a disagreement between how the therapist and patient each organize “what belongs where,” but more likely, in such a perspective one is simply more likely to follow From’s oft stated direction; focus the patients on what they are experiencing. (Mueller, p. 123). I would add, facilitate the creation of field conditions that enhance the safety to risk exploration. The rest will evolve from the ever-expanding awareness that evolves from attending to experience moment-to-moment. To elaborate on this, I shall take another statement from Miller’s lecture in the GTin series. He states, “It’s not that projections are automatically false, it’s that the paranoid feels and lives as though they are always true. He not only makes something of his perceptions, he makes too much of them.” (p. 117). This sentence is interesting for me in how it demonstrates both embeddedness in Cartesian thinking, and also a pathway beyond it. Miller’s first point, that projections are not automatically false, would not need to be said unless we have a tendency to think of them as false. That tendency is one of my strongest objections to the retention of that most Cartesian conception that experiences reside within the person, and then are transposed onto the environment. And again, it reflects an adherence to the correspondence theory of truth, as opposed to the more field-theoretical perspectival notion of multiple truths. These notions are so non-field oriented, I am surprised at the hold 4 For an excellent introduction to the study of philosophical propositions, coherence and inconsistencies regarding theory development, see Hersch, 2001.

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projection has on the imagination of gestalt therapists, including our founders. Alternatively, the second idea in Miller’s statement is very much in keeping with a field epistemology. It is the notion that one’s experiential world may be so narrow as to allow only one possible explanation for a given phenomenon. One might say that the patient suffers from inhabiting a very narrow perspective, so narrow that the chance for new opportunities for creative adjustment in new contact have all but disappeared. That diminution of imaginative capacities is endemic in fields crowded with fixed, highly emotionally charged gestalts, and is also ubiquitous but varies in extent and intensity across people and contexts. Our task as therapists becomes one of establishing a climate for the expansion of the realm of possible emotionally meaningful experiences and explanations, rather than to show the patient that his or her first theory about reality is wrong. .

Unidirectional Assessment Perhaps a more difficult problem with making observational assessments is the risk of making unidirectional assessments. Although I find the interruptions to contact to be problematic on this score, I find the vogue among gestalt therapists for the notion of projective identification to be especially troublesome. (However, for a brilliant argument in favor of the use of projective identification, see Staemmler, 1993). Stolorow, Orange and Atwood make a well-reasoned case that projective identification carries all the baggage of Cartesian thinking, especially in that projective identification seems to point to the patient as generator (not merely influencer, but generator) of the therapist’s state of mind, whereas the therapist is not seen as doing the same thing to the patient. The notion of reciprocal, mutual emotional influence, so intrinsic to field theory and dialogue, is lost. So-called projective identification is never described as an attempt on the patient’s part to self-regulate in the face of the therapist’s projective identification!

The Complexity of Contacting: Mutual Recognition These authors, by describing their writing and the writings of various theorists allied with the relational school, have emphasized how subtle and complex any therapeutic relationship tends to be. In so doing, they underscore for me that our ideas about contacting as a process lack sophistication. In our emphasis on lifting out process, we sometimes

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simplify to the point of ignoring “meaningfulness,” and we lose sight of the relational context that shapes—and is shaped by—the contact. We often work with a patient as if a kind of purified, context-free contacting process is attainable and desirable, and the patient is avoiding something if their contacting process does not have all the aesthetic properties signifying full contact (this is the “freeze-frame” that the authors object to). When we think in this way, we have lost sight of how the current contacting processes, being lived-through together, are creative adjustments by both parties, and they are the most elegant solution possible in this situation at this particular time, given the supports of the field (obviously, these supports include the relational history, emotional skills and fixed gestalts of both therapist and patient). In other words, we run the same risk mentioned earlier, of decontextualizing the moment and in fact not even noticing the relationship between therapist and patient that influences the shape of contact that is possible. I have an argument with Stolorow, Orange and Atwood regarding their view on the place of mutual recognition in the therapy process. They assert that relational psychoanalytic theories of mutual recognition seem to require that patients recognize the subjectivity of the analyst as necessary for their development, and that becomes a form of moralizing toward the patient. They describe: “The Hegelian mutual-recognition model …has led to a clinical emphasis on bringing the patient to a recognition of the subjectivity of the analyst, as if this goal defined the psychoanalytic process and could serve as a criterion of its success. Benjamin (1995), for example, contended that "a theory in which the individual subject no longer reigns absolute must confront the difficulty each subject has in recognizing the other as an equivalent center of experience" (p. 28). Her mutual-recognition theory "postulates that the other must be recognized as another subject in order for the self to fully experience his or her subjectivity in the other's presence" (p. 30). To our ears, Benjamin's subjects, whether "the self" or "the other," sound very much like monadic Cartesian mind entities, with the exception that their objectification and separateness are not pregiven but achieved through an interactional process of mutual recognition.” (p.5) I think their argument is with some relational therapists’ tendencies toward confronting a patient, or aiming at a particular outcome for a patient, in the name of a different kind of “intersubjectivity” than that proposed by Stolorow, Orange and Atwood. Gestalt therapists, who work from the paradoxical theory of change (change occurs not by aiming at change but by identifying with one’s on-going experience) would have to agree with the authors. And yet, intersubjectivists and gestalt therapists

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(with our I-Thou attitude) both tend to dedicate ourselves to a sustained and respectful endeavor to helping the patient experience his or her subjectivity, and we both believe that the attainment of subjectivity is only available in a relational context where interaffective sharing and meeting take place. Given our shared commitment to creating relational conditions that are conducive to the elaboration of our patients’ experiential worlds, one realm of experience that would serve our patients well is if they could establish a confident capacity that they can “find” an “other,” and therefore themselves, through meeting the otherness of others. So while we may not want to force such an effort on our patients—I believe an interest in otherness emerges as a natural outgrowth of being well met by an other anyway—we may well wish such an experience for our patients, and it does behoove us to be available for such meetings. I suspect intersubjective analysts might be disappointed if their patients ended an analysis without any interest in the otherness of others, because that would betoken a severely restricted future for the experiential world of their patient.

Conclusion In fact, regarding “otherness,” I find that contact with the thinking of others—non-gestalt therapists—provides exciting and stimulating engagement with novelty. It calls on me to understand myself and my theorizing more deeply as I try to understand the other theories. I do not go away unchanged (obviously, as I became so engaged with the analysts I became one!). In fact, I come back to the world of gestalt theory with renewed enthusiasm for our theory development. I wish the same for you, my colleagues, as you engage with this article, my response, and perhaps some of our own Cartesian embeddedness.

References Hersch, E. (2001). Making our philosophical unconscious more conscious: a method of exploring the philosophical basis of psychological theory. Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis. 9(2): 165-186, 2001 Miller, M. (2001). What lies beyond the field? In Robine, JM., Ed. (2001). Contact and Relationship in a Field Perspective. L'Exprimerie Mitchell, S. (1988). Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press

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Mueller, B. (1995). On Isadore From’s contribution to gestalt therapy. British Gestalt Journal. 4(2)2: 121-128. Orange, D. (1995). Emotional Understanding: Studies in Psychoanalytic Epistemology. NY: Guilford Press. Parlett, M. (1991). Reflections of field theory. British Gestalt Journal. 1(1):69-81, 1991. —. (1997). The unified field in perspective. Gestalt Review. 1(1): 16-33, 1997. Perls, F., Hefferline, R., Goodman, P. (1951, 1994). Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in Human Personality. Gestalt Journal Press. Polster, E., "Translating theory into practice: Martin Heidegger and gestalt therapy," Gestalt Review 2(3): 253-268. Roberts, A. (1999). The field talks back. British Gestalt Journal. 8(1): 3546. Robine, JM., Ed. (2001). Contact and Relationship in a Field Perspective. L’Exprimerie Robine, JM., (1997). Is there a common ground on which we can build? Gestalt Journal, 20 (2): 7-22, 1997. Spagnuolo-Lobb (2001). From the epistemology of self to clinical specificity in gestalt therapy. In Robine, JM., Ed. (2001). Contact and Relationship in a Field Perspective. L’Exprimerie Staemmler, F-M. (1993). Projective identification in gestalt therapy with severely impaired clients. British Gestalt Journal. 2(2): 104-110. Wheeler, G. (2000). Beyond Individualism. GIC Press. Yontef, G. (1993). Introduction to Field Theory. In Yontef, G., (1993) Awareness, Dialogue and Process. Gestalt Journal Press. 285-325.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE1 THE IMPOSSIBLE TOILET2 CLAIRE SALISBURY3 IN CONVERSATION WITH DEBBIE FRIEDMAN

The impossible toilet unfolds as a creative train of thought. It is the conversation between myself and D, whom I have known since we were teenagers at school together. We are similar and different, both Jewish, her father a psychoanalyst, mine a medical scientist. We both grew up in London, she in Hampstead, I in the West End; we both are psychotherapists. However, I am Gestalt trained and she is not. In our lives we have followed each other to and from Cornwall, and when I was 20, I lived in a flat with her and her boyfriend, where we meditated at 6.30 every morning. I have loved her since I first met her. We have always talked well together and meet to enjoy our friendship, finding ourselves able to support each other professionally as well as emotionally. On this day, we were sitting in the Autumn sun at Hampstead Heath enjoying a roving conversation about therapy, Masterson's theories of self, ourselves and the symbolic language of dreams. I had recently been excited by something I discovered in my own dreaming and relayed it to D. "I was in a room. The room was like a meeting room in a prison. A sort of uncared-for institutional room, with greasy grey walls, a table with a cracked grey formica surface and dirty wooden chairs. We were sitting round the table (Myself and another woman). There was a man like a 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 6(2) 2002. 3 Now Claire Asherson Bartram

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prison guard in a uniform with a peaked cap. He was being mean. When I asked him if I could go to the toilet, which was through a door behind him, he refused to let me. I was angry with him and felt punished. I woke up to find that I really did need the toilet. The man who had seemed punitive had been looking after me, not allowing me to do what I wanted in order to protect me from wetting the bed." D said, "Quite often something similar happens to me, and I dream about toilets. The dreams are frequent and varied in location. In my dream I go to the toilet and when I get there I am unable to use the toilet for a variety or reasons. I've been to every imaginable toilet scenario from Philippe Starke modernism (i.e. where's the toilet door?) to the plushest most gothic rococo environments with huge swathes of red velvet curtain in my search for a functioning toilet. The toilet is impossible to use as it may be too dirty or smelly, already full, leaking dangerously, too tall, or too deep. Last time I went in my dream, the toilet was full and overflowing. I tried to go because I needed it and I just couldn't manage it, it was too disgusting. After these dreams I also wake up finding that I need to go to the toilet and have been holding on so as not to wet the bed. I have stopped myself by creating something impossible." We felt amazed at the language of our unconscious minds. Stopping ourselves from going to the toilet when asleep is a learnt, physical task. Each had symbolized this part of us differently by, in my case, a bullying guard and, in D’s case, an impossible-to-use toilet. How clever our minds are (we said), creating images to represent such a function. Taking it a step further, it was interesting to wonder what it was about D that led her unconscious to symbolize bladder control as impossibility, and what it was about me that I created control through an authority figure. We surmised that beyond toilet functions, we controlled our impulses in regard to other aspects of our lives in equivalent ways. D said that she could see how authority figures were important in my life. She remembered me as a teenager and said that my father was definitely one. It seemed clear why self regulation became a prison guard for me. She asked "how does my dreaming of these toilets translate into my life?" I said that Gestalt theory takes each aspect of the dream as being a part of the self. "You could talk about yourself as a toilet." "Oh, I don't know about that, some of those toilets are revolting, some of them are too disgusting to use." "You can start with that: 'I am too disgusting to use.'"

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"I am too disgusting to use – you can't pee here. I am impossible….. and I do try to use them. Last time I tried but the toilet really was too high. Another time, it was so messy, with shit slopping everywhere, I just gave up." "Try starting with "I am an impossible toilet." (We both laughed). "I am an impossible toilet. I am impossible, so that you don't do something that isn't safe. I stop you from getting into situations you wouldn't want (like wetting your bed). I exist to protect you." "You know, I think that does apply. I am like that, surrounded by impossible situations that stop me. It's alright for some things where I need to stop myself; however, there are times when I can't take risks because of that. Things just look impossible to me, so I don't try." I said, "I can see that I have surrounded myself with authority figures that stop me and keep me in order. I project my control outside of me and then I resent the controlling figure, just like in the dream. This is also about responsibility and how we manage that." The conversation then went further. We both started to talk about the development of the authentic self. We both, and maybe most of us, face a void, which is the empty space of life, full of potential. This can only be filled through our own self-support, our creative and aggressive selves. Sometimes, rather than being active and responsible I find myself depressed, unmotivated and blaming; wanting someone else (once my mother) to come and get me moving. I behave in such a way as well so that another person will control me, give me a boundary or spur and inspire me to action. It was someone else in my dream who would not let me pee, and I resented them for it, felt that I was being punished, yet what they did was necessary. It was useful to me. D. said that she created impossible situations which save her from being impulsive and thereby making painful mistakes. Her way of sidestepping the issue of self responsibility is to be stopped by impossibility and apparently impossible situations beyond her control outside of herself. I thought that neither of us decided by ourselves in our dreams, that it was not a good idea to go to the toilet then and there. D. created the impossible situation and I created punitive authority. We both put the responsibility for self control outside of ourselves in different forms. I said, "Just think, you are so creative and imaginative, if you took this ability back and harnessed it in a different unimaginable way, how wonderful that could be; it could open things up for you."

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D said, "And if you were to become your own authority, provide your own self-discipline and restraint, according to the needs of your own self, you would own that authority. It would transform your life." The thought of re-identifying these qualities was stimulating. "So then," we said to each other, "what is the significance of bladder control and toilet training? At this time in our lives we learn how to be responsible for our own excretions, we learn where and when our mothers want us to do it, and our dreams show how we have interpreted that. Eventually we have self-regulation so that we can piss and shit when and where we want to." We wondered how each of us had been taught or learnt to do this. I, for example, had internalized a tyrant. Was I smacked or shouted at (probably)? Was D told that she could not, so that she faced the dilemma of wanting to pee and displeasing someone important, something she dared not risk as a child? Is this a crucial developmental stage in terms of responsibility or one of many factors? There is so much in the dreams we told each other. For example, who is the other woman in my dream? What do the different environments in D's dream illustrate? Where and what is the door? It would be interesting to know about others' toilet dreams. We said that we could write about this. The idea seems exciting. The layers of personality that can be deduced and uncovered from the simple act of toilet control were endless. We then lay back and looked at the blue, Autumn sky. It was peaceful on Hampstead Heath. People were murmuring in the background. Little dogs were playing. Children were splashing in the mud. Kenwood house looked like icing sugar, and two beautiful swans swam on the lake. All was fine in the world and we were in Utopia. Later, over a cup of tea, D said, "I could never fly at the moment, now that America is planning invasive action on Afghanistan. Its not safe, the sky is full of missiles and objects flying all over the place; they may bump into each other." I said "That"s not true, the sky is a huge place. Planes aren't going to bump into each other, things aren't just hurtling around like that, it's a big bit of space up there. That's an unreal image you've got." "Yes, and that's how I imagine it. I won't fly now." I said "I think you've just created an impossible-toilet situation." We laughed and drank our tea.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO1 LOVE, ADMIRATION, OR SAFETY: A SYSTEM OF GESTALT DIAGNOSIS OF BORDERLINE, NARCISSISTIC, AND SCHIZOID ADAPTATIONS THAT FOCUSES ON WHAT IS FIGURE FOR THE CLIENT2 ELINOR GREENBERG

If you were asked to quickly choose which is more important to you in your relationships—having others’ love, their admiration, or feeling safe with them —you might find that you are instinctively drawn to one of these three over the others. Or you might find this a strange question because none of these three are particularly figure for you in your relationships, or all three seem equally necessary. But I find that my clients with disorders of the self, specifically those who are commonly described as Borderline, Narcissistic, or Schizoid, have no difficulty choosing. The Borderline client almost always chooses love over admiration or safety; the Narcissistic client prefers admiration to almost anything else; and the Schizoid client must feel safe at all costs or he or she cannot stay emotionally present to reap the benefits of either love or admiration.

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In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 6(3) 2002.

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The Interpersonal Gestalt My point is that we can quickly and easily learn quite a lot about our clients by simply observing what is habitually figure for them during their interactions with others. I think of this habitual figure as the client’s “Interpersonal Gestalt.” In its most general sense, the Interpersonal Gestalt is the way we are organizing our interpersonal field at any moment: what becomes figure for us out of the many interpersonal possibilities, and what becomes ground. It involves such things as what role we want to play in the interaction, how we want to be seen and treated by the other, how we expect to feel during the interaction, and what we secretly long for or fear from the other person. The Interpersonal Gestalt (IG) follows the same rules as other gestalt formations. Our interests, needs, expectations, physiology, culture, history and temperament all affect what becomes figure for us. We tend to notice those things that we want, need or fear. Thus, we are likely to be especially responsive to interpersonal cues that seem to promise either the fulfillment of our most longed for desires and unmet needs or those that arouse our deepest interpersonal fears. Those of us who have experienced interpersonal traumas in the past, such as abandonment, physical abuse or humiliation, tend to be very sensitive to interpersonal cues that arouse the fear that we may be retraumatized in the same way again. Thus, someone who associates loud voices with being hit, will tend to organize their Interpersonal Gestalt so that loud voices readily become figure. This concept of an Interpersonal Gestalt has some areas of overlap with the object relations theorists’ concept of an internal object relations unit consisting of a view of the self and a view of the object (the other person) connected by a characteristic affect. It is this unit that is activated in the client therapist interaction that leads the client to see himself and the therapist in a distorted way. This distortion is commonly called “Transference” in the case of neurotics; or in the case of disorders of the self, “Transference Acting-Out.” (Masterson, 1981). In Gestalt therapy terms, transference is “made” by the client’s unaware response to those details of the interpersonal situation, which relate most to his or her current emotional need or preoccupation. That is, transference is about figure/ground formation. The Interpersonal Gestalt is also consistent with Daniel Stern’s concept of the “RIG” (repeated interactions that are generalized over time): the idea that infants create a brain-based internal summary about interactions out of their repeated early experiences with their mother or other primary

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care-giver, which then serves as a basis for their later expectations about relationships (Stern, 1985). However, unlike the object relations theorists or the developmental theorists like Stern, as Gestalt therapists we are mainly interested in the process of how the individual creates his or her reality by picking and choosing among all the information available; and we are mainly concerned with the interpersonal aspects of the individual’s experience which are observable at the contact boundary (the boundary between the organism and the environment.) That is to say, we are more interested in how the individual creates his or her reality in the present on a moment to moment basis, and are generally less interested in theorizing about unobservable hypothetical constructs such as object relations units or RIGs. I think that the concept of an Interpersonal Gestalt that is observable in session has the possibility of being a useful link between Gestalt therapy and the developmental and object relations theorists. The developmentalists hypothesize about how relationships become encoded in the brain on the physiological level during childhood; the object relations theorists deal with how each individual organizes and uses these psycho-physiological representations in their adult life; while Gestalt therapy, with its emphasis on how to observe and experience what is going on in the present moment, offers a way to observe how these internal maps are enacted interpersonally on a moment-by-moment basis---how the RIG becomes the IG.

The Interpersonal Gestalt Is a Process The concept of an Interpersonal Gestalt is really a description of an ongoing process which is made and remade at each moment at the contact boundary through the mechanism of figure/ground formation. That is, as we sit and look and listen to another person, certain aspects of what we see, hear, smell and otherwise perceive through our senses become figure for us and others recede into the background depending on our needs and interests of the moment. All of this is filtered through our internal set of learned expectations about intimate relationships that has been encoded in our brain (Stern’s RIG). This leads us to be more alert to cues in the organism/environment field that are in accord with our assumptions. Thus, theoretically, someone who generally expects interpersonal encounters to be satisfying and fulfilling is also more likely to notice interpersonal cues related to mutual good feeling than someone who expects to be rejected. Using our Gestalt therapy criteria for “healthy” gestalt formation as a basis, we can say that an interpersonal gestalt is healthy to the degree that

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it is not based on a disturbance at the contact boundary, such as confluence, projection, introjection and retroflection; and that the interplay of figure/ground formation is characterized by attention, concentration, interest, concern, excitement and grace (Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, 1994). This is a long winded way of saying that our Interpersonal Gestalt is healthy to the degree that we are actually able to be fully present with the other person and alive to the possibilities of the moment. Fixed versus Flexible Gestalts The Interpersonal Gestalt in the case of clients with disorders of the self is “fixed” rather than “flexible.” That is, they persist in organizing all or most of their relationships in the same way, instead of allowing the unique characteristics of each relationship and the moment by moment flow of the interaction determine what is figure and what is ground for them. Presumably this is because they have great unmet interpersonal needs from the past which are pressing for fulfillment and, hence, they are continually organizing the interpersonal field in terms of what seems to offer them the best chance to complete the unfinished situation. This is in accord with the basic Gestalt psychology principle that what is unfinished in the past, presses for fulfillment in the present. (Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman, 1994). Moreover, the pressing nature of their need interferes with their ability to be fully present with others and to assess who they are accurately. Instead, they tend to project onto others one of the roles in their old, incomplete, interpersonal drama; and then they frequently misinterpret the other’s response, because they are only seeing it only from the point of view of their own unmet needs and fears. The greater their need, the more likely they are to form a gestalt based on inadequate information.

The Borderline Interpersonal Gestalt Individuals with a Borderline disorder usually have suffered from some form of early emotional abandonment or abuse. The abandonment does not need to have been malicious or intentional for it to have made a negative impact. For example, a two year old may have a sick, hospitalized mother who is unavailable for parenting and whose sudden and prolonged loss is traumatic. Lacking the emotional supplies necessary to become separate, mature individuals and fearful of abandonment; Borderline clients are left with many unfulfilled emotional needs and difficulties in living. No matter what their real age, they tend to feel child-like and inadequate to deal with structuring their life to meet their own needs. Like a small child, they are

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usually very impulsive and emotional. They tend to be drawn to people who they imagine will love and take care of them. They then enact separation and individuation dramas marked by clinging and distancing behavior and a focus on intense one-to-one relationships (Greenberg, 1989). As a result, Borderline clients tend to only notice those details in the interpersonal field that are in accord with their desire for love and nurturing; or, alternately, those which involve their fear of engulfment or abandonment. They ignore and are unaware of other details that would give them a more accurate perception of the other, because only those details that relate to their unmet needs for love and nurturing are emotionally relevant. These details become figure for them and lead them to project the role of loving parent or devoted lover onto the other person more often than is warranted by the realities of the situation. Then, they are hurt and angry when others do not act in accord with their projections. This rejection does not lead to them seeing the other person more realistically. Instead, they only reverse the projection and notice only those details that confirm their view of the other as a bad parent or rejecting lover. Although Borderline individuals may be intellectually aware that others can have a wider existence than is encompassed by their projections, and that what they are looking for from the situation is somehow inappropriate; they use the defenses of “Splitting” (the alternation of two fixed Interpersonal Gestalts which keep contradictory affective states apart) and “Denial” (refusing to see what is obvious because it would cause them emotional pain to do so) to help them justify their behavior and keep its inappropriateness out of awareness. It is as if their life is a two-person script. If they are Juliet, then of course any man they are attracted to must be Romeo. Or if they are the child, then of course you must be the parent. You can only be the good Romeo or the bad Romeo, the good parent or the bad parent. Other possibilities do not feel emotionally real to them and are of little interest.

The Narcissistic Interpersonal Gestalt Highly narcissistic individuals are unable to regulate their self-esteem by themselves. They need the validation of others in order not to fall into self-hating depressions characterized by abject shame over what they see as their irreparable defects. This leads them to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on trying to impress others. This need for external validation of their self-worth, leads many Narcissists to over-depend on

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status symbols as signals of their worth and to over-value being close to others who have high status in their culture (Greenberg, 1996). This persistent internal preoccupation with status and validation, coupled with their inability to reassure themselves of their own worth without the constant admiration of others; leads them to be acutely sensitive to those aspects of the organism/environment field that have to do with status, admiration and acknowledgement; or conversely, those that relate to criticism, humiliation and shame. Thus, they often act as if everyone they meet is there to either admire or shame them, as if these were the only possible and appropriate responses the other could make. Out of all the rich possibilities of the interpersonal ground, only those involving admiration, validation or humiliation easily become figure for the Narcissist. You are either their admiring audience or their critical audience. It does not usually occur to Narcissists that others have an independent existence and life of their own that has nothing to do with them and their need for validation, because those details of the situation rarely become figure for them.

The Schizoid Interpersonal Gestalt Schizoid individuals continually evaluate others in terms of whether the other is potentially dangerous to their fragile sense of self. Behaviors of others that they see as psychologically overwhelming (such as when the other talks loudly and assertively, stands too close, and orders them around without acknowledging them as a person) feel so dangerous and annihilating to their sense of self that these behaviors are the figures around which Schizoid individuals usually organize their interpersonal field. Every interpersonal event is organized with safety considerations in the foreground and other less threatening features of the interaction become background. This does not mean that individuals with a Schizoid adaptation do not also deeply yearn for love or validation; just that in their hierarchy of needs, interpersonal safety comes first.

A Real Life Example of the Borderline Interpersonal Gestalt in Action The late Princess Diana of Great Britain is a good example of the Borderline woman who organizes her interpersonal world around the figure of love. Although I did not know her personally, the outline of her story is so similar to that of many of my Borderline clients that I am comfortable using her to illustrate them. A more narcissistic woman might

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have chosen to overlook Prince Charles’s infidelity in order to be Queen of England someday, and a schizoid woman would not have found the chilliness of the royal family so devastating. Diana wanted warmth and love and was willing to risk almost everything to get even their semblance because, without it, she did not find life worth living. When Charles ignored her, she self-mutilated and attempted suicide; or had disastrous affairs with unsuitable men. When she said to the people of Great Britain that she wanted to be their “Queen of Hearts,” she was affirming again that the most important thing to her was to be loved and to love. According to the schema I am offering, Diana’s Interpersonal Gestalt was organized around love, not admiration or safety. By titling herself the “Queen of Hearts,” she was clearly stating how she saw herself and how she wanted others to see her. She was capable of great warmth and compassion for the suffering of others and continually sought opportunities to give and receive love. People and situations which seemed to offer these opportunities were figural for her and stood out clearly against a background of other possible ways of organizing reality.

Diagnosis The concept of an Interpersonal Gestalt that is observable at the contact boundary gives both the experienced and novice therapist a simple way of quickly diagnosing the client with a “disorder of the self” and differentiating among Borderline, Narcissistic and Schizoid adaptations. In addition, it also helps orient the therapist to what I think of as the “larger gestalt:” the subtext of emotionally unmet needs that underlie much of the day-to-day problems that the client usually brings to session. By making these unmet needs figure, the therapist can think on multiple levels and ask him or herself such questions as: How does what I see in session today fit into the larger picture of how this client behaves at work, at home, and with his or her friends? What is my client trying to achieve with this behavior? What led my client to make this particular need primary in his or her life? I am aware that not every client will fall neatly into one or the other of these categories (Borderline, Narcissistic, or Schizoid adaptations); and that even those clients who do, have other concerns in therapy besides the interpersonal. However, I have found that the concept of the Interpersonal Gestalt is a useful way to orient myself in session to what is going on between me and the client; and that it is most useful with those clients whose past unmet interpersonal needs are the greatest. These are the clients who are most likely to enact their interpersonal drama with you,

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their therapist, in a strong and compelling way; pressure you to fulfill the role that they have assigned you; and be disappointed and angry when you do not automatically resonate with their projections. Having said the above, let me give you an example of how one might notice the Interpersonal Gestalt at work in a session. Scenario: A new female client walks into your office. She takes a seat near you and curls up in the chair. She calls you by your title and last name, but asks you to call her by her first name because she says she would feel more comfortable that way, even though you and she are about the same age. Without much hesitation, she begins to tell you in emotional terms how she feels about her life now and why she has come to you. She speaks freely and begins to cry. She looks around for tissues and not seeing any, she looks at you pathetically until you feel obliged to offer her one from your personal pack. We may not yet have a clear sense of what is figural for her yet in this interaction, but we do already know from this small sample of behavior what does not seem to be in the foreground for her. It is unlikely that this client will turn out to be suffering from severe schizoid difficulties. Most Schizoid individuals use distancing and detachment defenses and, therefore, tend to be much more guarded and secretive in the beginning of therapy than this client appears to be. Schizoid clients, because interpersonal safety is figural for them, usually choose a seat far away from the therapist when there is a choice of seating, are somewhat more likely to prefer the greater formality of last names, and rarely are willing to make themselves vulnerable in front of the therapist by crying in the first session and showing their real feelings. They tend to be secretive or at the very least cautious about revealing themselves, and are unlikely to be as openly expressive as this woman was. There are other clues as to what is foreground for the above client. She prefers being called by her first name, while she calls the therapist by his or her title and last name. Therefore it is unlikely that this client wants her therapy to be a relationship between adult equals. This, coupled with the client’s silent appeal for a tissue, usually indicates a preference for a relationship in which the therapist is the mature, nurturing authority while the client takes the role of the unhappy young person in need of nurturing and guidance. Another possibility is that the client is narcissistic and feels comfortable crying because she assumes that the therapist is an admiring audience who will automatically validate her point of view. In this light, her preference for using the therapist’s title and last name might be to

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emphasize that the person she expects to validate her is an important authority. However, when you ask yourself how you feel about this client, you notice that you like her and want to take care of her. Something about her makes you feel very protective. You don’t feel like an admiring or critical audience, you feel concern. As the therapy unfolds in future sessions, it will become more and more obvious which aspects of the therapeutic situation habitually become foreground for this client, and which remains part of the unseen background. However, this first session suggests that the interpersonal dance the two of you are doing is organized around the figure of love and nurturing, not admiration or safety. How to Tell What Is Foreground for Your Client Different therapists will find ways of identifying what seems to be foreground for their clients that suit their own unique ways of organizing their own organism / environment fields. The ways to do this are as varied as the ways to do therapy. Everything that the client says or does has the potential for giving you this information. Having said that, I am going to list a few things that I have found useful to notice in terms of formulating what is figure for my client, as a way of starting you off thinking about what might work for you. The following is not intended to be an exhaustive list of what I do or think about in session: A. The Presenting Problem I am always interested in finding out what motivated the person to make an appointment for their first session. I have found that typically clients who turn out to have Borderline difficulties tend to come to therapy for different reasons than clients who have Narcissistic or Schizoid difficulties. The Borderline client usually comes because (1) someone they were clinging to has left, or (2) because they have found themselves in a situation that requires them to actively structure their own life and behave autonomously. For example, it is very common to see young women who have dropped out of college at the end of their first year because they were unable to organize themselves sufficiently to get to classes, do their homework, eat appropriately, and clean themselves and their dorm room. As the year progresses, they gain twenty pounds, fall further and further behind in their schoolwork, and become depressed. Usually their friends and family become worried and suggest counseling.

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Frequently they make their first therapy appointment because a family member has suggested it, or has even called to make it for them. The Narcissistic client usually comes because (1) they have lost some source of validating support; (2) they are in a situation which they fear will lead them to being publicly exposed as less than perfect; or (3) they are suffering from a narcissistic injury such as aging, or the loss of their money, power or beauty. In the absence of their usual source of narcissistic supplies, having no sense of their own real inner worth to sustain them, they have fallen into a self-hating depression and feel humiliated and desperate. The Schizoid client frequently comes because (1) they have become so isolated that they fear becoming totally disconnected from the human race; (2) they are young and are first realizing that their issues around closeness and trust are getting in the way of their marrying or forming intimate friendships; or (3) they are having severe symptoms which prevent them from having a normal life. As an example of the latter, one of my clients had such severe social fears that he could not speak in class or ask for anything for himself from others because he was not yet sure that he had a right to want anything for himself. Another felt as if an invisible wall separated her from other people. B. What the Client Notices About My Office and Me Individuals with Narcissistic adaptations usually pay particular attention to those aspects of my office and me that they see as potential indicators of my status: such as how many diplomas I have, the desirability of the neighborhood my office is in, the relative luxuriousness of my office furnishings or my dress, how many books I have on my shelves. In addition, they are acutely sensitive to my minute nonverbal responses to them; such as whether I hold their gaze or glance away, remain still or shift in my seat. They usually interpret these responses as signs of my interest or disinterest in what they are saying, or signals of my disapproval or validation. When they do not openly comment on my movement and what they take it to mean, they signal their awareness by suddenly changing the topic, or suddenly becoming self critical, or by their abrupt angry withdrawal. Narcissistic clients also tend to fixate on those aspects of therapy that feel inconvenient to them: such as the time of their appointment with me, how far they have to travel, what I charge them, or my billing practices.

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Some Examples of the Above: One extremely narcissistic man said that he was not sure that he could be my client because he thought my New York City accent was too low class, and therefore potentially embarrassing to him; even though he believed that I was an excellent therapist. Another client felt superior to me because she found the literary quality of the magazines in my waiting room beneath her. One woman stared at my face throughout her session and changed topics every time I looked away from her gaze. Another became offended because I looked at the clock because she assumed it meant that I was bored with her. Many narcissistic clients of mine begin each session with a litany of complaints about how hard it was for them to get to their session with me: the bus or subway was late, the cab driver was rude, it cost so much to get here, and so on. This initially puzzled me because in actuality, my office is conveniently located near multiple bus and subway lines, there is plenty of parking nearby, and most people find it rather easy to get to. However, experience has taught me that these clients do this in part because they get so rattled by everyday things and do not know how to restore their equanimity by themselves, and feel much too vulnerable to admit their difficulty openly. Or they complain because they prefer not to focus on how much they need therapy because this punctures their defensive grandiosity. Instead, they unconsciously twist things around in their mind so that they act as if by coming to me, they are somehow doing me a favor and therefore I ought to acknowledge them for sacrificing so much to get here for our sessions together. They have externalized the blame so as not to have to face their own difficulties squarely. In terms of figure/ground formation, they feel bad coming to me, therefore, those aspects of our interpersonal field that relate to my value as a potential scapegoat or soother become foreground immediately. In contrast to the above, Borderline clients rarely focus on status issues or small details of my behavior. When they complain about how difficult it is getting to my office or how much trouble they are having paying for their therapy, their focus is on how helpless and ill equipped they feel to make their way in the world as adults; not on blaming me so as to feel less inadequate themselves. Usually their complaints are thinly disguised attempts to get me to take care of them. One man went so far as to suggest that I move to a cheaper neighborhood so that I could charge him a lower fee because I would then

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be paying less rent. This seemed more reasonable to him than him finding a better paying job or working harder and getting promoted. After all, he told me, I was supposed to take care of him, not vice versa. In general, Borderline clients tend to notice the things about my office and myself that seem to promise that they will be taken care of here, or conversely, those details that seem to hint that they are in danger of what they fear most: engulfment or abandonment. Thus, they are likely to pay more attention to the cozy feel of the room, than the cost of the furnishings. Usually the ones who fixate first on the details that relate to nurturing are more hopeful and less emotionally damaged than those who first notice the details that relate to potential loss. For example, a female client of mine who had experienced repeated heart-wrenching early abandonment by her mother rarely noticed anything to do with status or existential safety. What repeatedly became figure for her was the clock in my office. She would glance at it often during her session and she always stopped talking and got up to leave before I could tell her that her time was up. She later told me that it would have been too emotionally painful for her to hear me say that she had to leave. Schizoid clients are usually acutely aware of those features of the client/therapist relationship that relate to their safety and independence from the therapist. This makes how close or how far we are sitting from each other figure for them, or even how I look at them. One client with profound Schizoid issues complained that I had violated his space by gazing at him too directly. When I inquired what I should have done, he suggested that I not look past the center point of the distance between us. Anything else felt too intrusive and threatening. This is not the kind of thing that usually becomes figure for Borderline or Narcissistic clients. Another client would only tell me about events that had happened at least two weeks prior to our session. She said that by doing this, she felt that she maintained control over her life because I could not say anything that would affect what she chose to do. Unlike Borderline clients who are usually quite happy to give up the responsibility of taking care of themselves, Schizoid clients jealously guard their independence because they do not feel safe relying on anyone but themselves. And unlike Narcissistic clients, they rarely argue about what they are charged or when they are asked to come because (1) they do not want to ask for favors because this might compromise their feeling of independence; and (2) they often believe that they must accept whatever conditions are set by the other person because they are not entitled to have feelings of their own (Klein, 1995). When they comment on status issues,

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it is usually for the purpose of keeping me at a safe emotional distance from them; not because they are using status to bolster their shaky selfesteem. C. What I Feel Towards the Client I can often get a good sense of a client’s Interpersonal Gestalt by noticing how I feel when I am around the client (what is commonly called countertransference.) By paying close attention to what becomes emotionally figure for me out of all the rich possibilities of the interpersonal field, I can usually identify key features of the role the client is assigning me. The following are some of the more common ways Borderline, Narcissistic and Schizoid Interpersonal Gestalts tend to make me feel. Borderline: I find myself wanting to take care of them, or alternatively I find myself annoyed or frustrated by their helplessness. This usually means that the client is projecting the role of caregiver onto me; either the nurturing caregiver (hence my wanting to take care of the client) or the reluctant and angry caregiver (hence my feelings of frustration and annoyance). Narcissist: I feel afraid to voice opinions that differ from my client’s or I have the feeling that I am “walking on eggs” during the session. I hesitate to hold them to the normal rules that I expect of other clients (such as ending their session promptly or giving me adequate notice before canceling a session). Or issues of inferiority or superiority become figure for me. Some Narcissistic individuals portray their life in such idealized terms that as I listen to them, I find myself envying what they have. I know that when I start asking myself why my friends aren’t as loyal as theirs, my mate as desirable, my children as well-behaved, and so on; I am working with a Narcissistic client and resonating with my client’s expectations that I be a totally uncritical, admiring audience. Schizoid: I find myself concerned with making my client feel safe. I become hyperaware of every move I make that could potentially be considered threatening. Before I get up to open a window near the client, I find myself warning him or her that that is what I am going to do. Or I suddenly find myself worrying that somehow I will betray my client’s trust and harm him or her. I have learned from experience that when such things become figure for me in a session, I am usually picking up on subtle cues from my client that relate to his or her characteristic interpersonal fears.

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D. Why Did I Give the Client the Quarter? James Masterson, the well-known writer on disorders of the self, sometimes laughingly describes how he quickly diagnoses the client through his own countertransference. He says that when he finds himself doing something extremely uncharacteristic of him, like give the client a quarter to make a phone call, he asks himself: “Why did I give him the quarter?” If he gave him the quarter because he felt sorry for him, then the client is Borderline. If he gave him the quarter because he was afraid of making him angry by saying “no”, then the client is a Narcissist. If he felt charmed out of his quarter, the client is a Psychopath. And I like to add, if the client needed the quarter, but did not ask; then the client is Schizoid.

Experiential Exercises Projective tests, dreams, fantasies, and Gestalt experiments all involve figure/ground phenomena and have the potential for revealing what is interpersonally important for the client. You may already know and use some that could work for you in this manner. If not, feel free to make up your own, or borrow the two I describe below. I learned them during my early Gestalt therapy training in the 1970’s. Exercise 1: “Find an object that interests you.” I sometimes use the following experiential exercise in the first session as a way of getting to know a new client. I ask my new client to look around my office and notice something that catches his or her eye repeatedly. It can be something that he or she likes or something that he or she dislikes. When the client indicates that he or she has made a choice, I ask the client to take a good look at the object and then describe it in the first person as if he or she were the object. After they do this, I then ask if anything that they said about the object also fits their real life situation as well. If they say nothing fits, I ask how are they different from this object. For example, one client chose my diplomas on the wall. He then said, “I am the diplomas. I show how smart and successful this therapist is. I make other people envy her and admire her.” Upon being asked by me how his description of the diplomas on the wall could relate to him, he said: “I have come to you because I want you to teach me your secret, how to be as successful as you are. I envy you because you have what I want.” As is clear from this example, and it became even clearer in later sessions,

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this client was preoccupied with issues of status, envy, and admiration; typically Narcissistic concerns. Another client noticed the hand-knitted afghan throw on the back of my couch where she was sitting and said: “I am the throw. I am soft and warm. I am there for people when they need me to comfort them.” These words turned out to be both a description of the role my client habitually took in interactions and the way she herself yearned to be treated. Exercise 2: “I see, I imagine.” This exercise reveals what becomes foreground for the client and also helps teach the difference between reality and projection. It can be done one-to-one in individual therapy as a pair exercise, or in a group with each member taking turns. I ask the client to look at me and notice what they actually see, then notice what they imagine about me based on what they see. Whatever the client answers is extremely informative. For example, one woman said that she saw that I had kind eyes. “No,” I said, “that is what you imagine. What do you actually see that leads you to think that?” She was puzzled by the distinction I was making and obviously unaware till now that she tended to attribute all sorts of nurturing qualities to people based on very little evidence. I modeled the distinction for her by looking at her and saying, I see that you are wearing neatly applied eye makeup and lipstick. I imagine that you care a great deal about how you look to me. She then said, “I see you have brown eyes like my mother had. I imagine you will be kind to me the way my mother was.” Some clients have a great deal of difficulty doing either of the above exercises. I do not insist, but simply ask them what concerns them about doing the exercise. Their answers are just as informative as the exercise. Narcissistic clients often fear appearing foolish in front of another person, or are angry that I interrupted what they wanted to tell me. This is another way of indicating to me both the role in their interpersonal drama that they have assigned me (the audience) and the fears that are foreground for them about themselves (looking less than perfect). Schizoid clients will sometimes says that they are not good at doing spontaneous things like this; that they never have any good ideas; or will do the exercise in a mechanical or over-intellectualized way. These are all different ways of dealing with their fears about losing control, or spontaneously revealing themselves in front of another person. Or the exercise may stimulate primitive existential fears about going out of existence and becoming something else.

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Borderline clients can usually summon enough spontaneity to do and enjoy these exercises unless they are particularly regressed or are angry with me.

Summary Unmet interpersonal needs from the past lead individuals with Borderline, Narcissistic, or Schizoid adaptations to be especially responsive to those interpersonal cues that seem to promise fulfillment of their unmet needs; arouse fears of being retraumatized; or allow them to reenact their favorite ways of defending against feeling their pain. Because these Interpersonal Gestalts are fixed and repetitive, they are fairly easy to observe in session by attending to what habitually becomes figure for the client out of the myriad possibilities of the interpersonal organism/ environment field. Typically, Borderline clients are particularly attuned to those cues that seem to relate to the giving and receiving of love and nurturing; or conversely, anything that stimulates their engulfment or abandonment fears. Narcissistic clients typically notice opportunities for admiration or humiliation, status symbols, and aspects of the interaction which either confirm or interfere with their sense that the therapist is totally focused on them and in perfect agreement with what they are saying. In contrast, Schizoid clients organize their Interpersonal Gestalts with safety considerations in the foreground and, therefore, such issues as trust, predictability, and physical and emotional distance from others become the focus of their attention. The concept of the Interpersonal Gestalt allows the therapist to fairly quickly identify clients’ major issues, predict how they will react to interventions, and understand how they characteristically approach life. It translates developmental and object relations’ theoretical constructs into something immediately useful to Gestalt therapists. It also has the potential to help bridge the gap that has unfortunately arisen between Gestalt therapy and other modern psychological theories by giving us a way to understand how the various theories may fit together and support each other’s insights.

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References Greenberg, E. (1989) “Healing the Borderline” in The Gestalt Journal, Vol. XII, No. 2, Fall. —. (1996) “When Insight Hurts: Gestalt Therapy and the Narcissistically Vulnerable Client.” The British Gestalt Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2. —. (1998) “The Many Faces of Narcissism.” Paper given at the New Jersey Psychological Association’s April 25, 1998. Klein, R. (1985) “The Self in Exile: A Developmental, Self and Object Relations Approach to the Schizoid Disorder of the Self,” in Disorders of the Self: New Therapeutic Horizons—The Masterson Approach, (eds.) Masterson and Klein. NY: Bruner/Mazel. Masterson, J. (1981). The Narcissistic and Borderline Disorders: An Integrated Developmental Approach. NY: Bruner/Mazel. Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1994). Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. NY: The Gestalt Journal Press.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE1 PERCEIVING YOU PERCEIVING ME: SELF-CONSCIOUS EMOTIONS AND GESTALT THERAPY2 PHILIP BROWNELL

Introduction For several recent years Gestalt therapy practitioners have contemplated shame and its effects (Lee & Wheeler, 1996; Wheeler, 1997; Resnick, 1997; Greenberg and Paivio, 1997, Fuhr and Fuhr, 1997; Gillie, 2000). Journals have devoted whole issues to the subject, with some writers seeing shame as a central organizing construct but others regarding attempts to make it so to be unnecessary. In spending this effort to parse a particular, they have missed the larger picture. Shame is but one of the class of emotions known as "self-conscious emotions." In missing this larger perspective, more interesting applications of the dynamics of selfconscious emotions have been lost as well. This article is an attempt to reclaim significant ground for understanding shame, to see it in its proper context as one of an associated group of emotions, and to stimulate discussion of that larger gestalt. Any given week at a local dual-diagnosis hospital therapists can be seen talking with clients about relapse. Routinely they speak about what they call “The Relapse Cycle.” It’s a way of describing a familiar chain of events that surrounds the stumbling out of sobriety into intoxication. At 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 8(1), 2004

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the top of the relapse cycle a person is working his/her program, and at the bottom, he or she has relapsed; in between ensues a series of intense feelings and thinking errors. The emotional experiences are often associated with a self-appraisal of loathing, self justification, or a choice to escape. Variants of this same cycle have been observed among sex offenders, and, while most treatment approaches seek to intervene at the point where thinking errors open the gate to self-medication or reoffending, it would seem more fruitful to pay attention to the engine driving this process: self-conscious emotions. Self-conscious emotions is a construct and an affective set. As an affective set, it forms a logical grouping of emotions. As a construct, it offers a way of bringing together related phenomena and a handle on emotional experience that can facilitate case conceptualization and therapeutic process. To comprehend how shame is just one aspect of a larger construct and to begin utilizing that construct in clincical practice, it is necessary to understand what self-conscious emotions are, how they influence relationship, and how they relate to creative adjustment in one's interpersonal field.

Definitions and Context There are multiple theories and approaches to the study of emotions; for the purposes of this discussion, the conceptualization of Richard Lazarus has been accepted as providing a generalized background for an explanation of self-conscious emotions. Even though Lazarus and Robert Zajonc disagreed over the issue of cognitive attribution in the generation of emotional experience, with Zajonc advocating the independence of affect (Zajonc, 2000), it is evident that some kind of attribution is involved in emotional experience (Blascovich & Mendes, 2000), which likely includes emotional memory (LeDoux, 1996). Whether a cognitive or affective appraisal, both assess the environment with regard to oneself and likely include both episodic and semantic memory (Markowitsch, 2003). The dual processing of these influences is most likely, but with regard to self-conscious emotions the heuristic value in Lazarus is helpful. He suggested five points, as outlined below: x The theory is systemic. Emotional process involves an organized configuration of many variables; no single variable is sufficient to explain the emotional outcome, and all variables are interdependent.

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x Emotions express two interdependent principles: one, the process principle, referring to flux or change; the other, the structure principle, referring to the idea that there are stable personenvironment relationships that result in recurrent emotional patterns in the same individual. x The biological and social variables that influence the emotions develop and change from birth, especially in the early years of life but perhaps also in later life. This is called the developmental principle; it also implies that the emotion process is not the same at all stages of life. x The emotion process is distinctive for each individual emotion. x The key substantive theme of the theory is the relational meaning principle. This principle states that each emotion is defined by a unique and specifiable relational meaning. This meaning is expressed in a core relational theme for each individual emotion, which summarizes the personal harms and benefits residing in each person-environment relationship. The emotional meaning of these person-environment relationships is constructed by the process of appraisal, which is the central construct of the theory. The appraisal process involves a set of decision-making components, as it were, which create evaluative patterns that differentiate among each of the emotions; three primary appraisals, which concern the motivational stakes in an adaptational encounter; and three secondary appraisals, which have to do with the options for coping and expectations. The primary appraisal components are goal relevance, goal congruency or incongruency, and type of egoinvolvement. The secondary appraisal components are blame or credit, coping potential, and future expectations. (Lazarus, 1991, p. 39) Lazarus's first point about systems corresponds to a Gestalt therapist's concepts of holism and field dynamics. His second point relates to the process of figure formation, a series of figures forming against backgrounds, and especially the residue of experience and familiar gestalts in one's ground. His third point relates to the developmental field and to the relationship between person and environment, including action at the boundary of contact. Lazarus' fifth point relates to adaptation, or the Gestalt therapy construct of creative adjustment in the face of an interpretation of experience. Although he proposes a fixed taxonomy, as opposed to a fluid process of meaning-making distinct to each personenvironment situation, the main point is worth keeping, and that has to do

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with the interpretation, or appraisal of experience, which forms in the person. It is decisively phenomenological. In phenomenology a person is conscious of both concrete specifics and the various meanings to which they belong. For example, they may see a variety of apricots but understand the meaning of "apricotness," or even a larger category of meaning such as "fruit." A person's experience is also about something, and that something can be real (as another person in one's environmental context), imaginary (as in a dream, a projection, or an interpretation), or conceptual (as in an intellectual construct utilized in one's life - such as "justice"). Consciousness can also be directed toward itself, as when one becomes cognizant of one's own emotions, thoughts, desires, and other forms of aware experience. (Hein & Austin, 2001) Building on these phenomenological characteristics, Barret states that in self-conscious experience appraisal "... is not about the world or the self; it captures the personal significance of the environment for the self.” (1995, p.36). This can be understood as a reference to the "between," something familiar to Gestalt therapists as the functioning of the boundary. Providing an illustration of how self-conscious emotions function, the following table (building on Barrett's work) summarizes principles in the development of shame and guilt, two examples of self-conscious emotions: Table One: Shame & Guilt Compared and Contrasted Principle 1: SelfShame and guilt are (a) socially constructed, (b) conscious emotions are invariably connected with (real or imagined) social in nature. social interaction, (c) endowed with significance by social communication and/or relevance to desired ends and (d) associated with appraisals regarding others as well as the self. Principle 2: SelfShame organizes different transactions between conscious emotions individuals and the environment than guilt. For serve intrapersonalexample, shame functions to distance the interpersonal and individual from the social environment, while behavior-regulatory guilt functions to motivate reparative action. functions for the individual. Principle 3: Appraisals They interpret the nature of the relationship are intimately between self and other. connected to the functions self-conscious emotions serve.

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Principle 4: Selfconscious emotions are associated with action tendencies.

Principle 5: Selfconscious emotions contribute to the development of self.

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Action tendencies make sense given the appraisals and functions associated with these emotions. Shame is associated with withdrawal from social contact; guilt is associated with outward movement, aimed at reparation for a wrongdoing. They do this by highlighting the kind of behaviors a person can (or cannot) and does (or does not) do in any given social setting, whether actual or imagined. Such experiences signify how a person imagines others view his or her behavior, which contributes to how one evaluates him or herself.

Other writers have taken a slightly different direction in their exploration of self-conscious emotions. Building on his investigations into emotional development and cognition in children, Michael Lewis states, “A unique aspect of some self systems is objective self-awareness. By objective self-awareness I mean the capacity of a self to know it knows or to remember it remembers.” (1991, p. 232) What Lewis means is a shift from experiencing oneself subjectively to experiencing oneself objectively, as being part of what can be observed. This is movement from direct and immediate raw experience, which is centered in the first person perspective, purposeful, and identified with its figure, to experience which is observant of oneself - in which recognition is coupled with raw experience and allows one to witness the subjective center in which such experience is made meaningful. Helen Block Lewis says that shame and guilt, for example, are affective-cognitive signals to the person that its attachment system is threatened (its relationship to others in the context), and that both these emotions push the individual toward repairing and restoring its relational bonds. (Lewis, H., 1989). It is at the base of Wertheimer’s question if the functioning of the self might be governed by its relationship to the field in which it operates. (ibid). Indeed, this seems to be at the core of Philippson's (2001) assertion that the self emerges from all the various contacts at the boundary. This idea of an emergent self is corroborated by neurological research, establishing multiple streams of consciousness (O'Brien & Opie, 2003), all processed and organized in the right, pre-frontal cortex (Gallup, Jr., Anderson, Platek). With information radiating from various motor, proprioceptive, memory, and limbic regions, "self" emerges at this executive center of the brain (Goldberg, 2001), coordinating the subjective sense conveyed in the first personal pronoun,

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"I," and identifying the sense of personal agency as the one responsible for one's experience. Some people think of the self as the essence or content of a mental state; others are more concerned with how people see themselves, and so they tend to see the self in terms of roles people play in society. In cognitive science, the self is set in terms of how the mind works and is often investigated using computer simulations. Neuroscience correlates mental phenomena with brain states and structures using technology to track activity in the brain. In clinical work people are concerned with the psychopathology of the self. However, in a very basic way, a person knows they are the same over time, the author of their thoughts and actions, and they are distinct from the environment. The "self" is "the immediate, pervasive, automatic feeling of being a whole person, different from others, constant over time, with a physical boundary, the centre of all our experience." (Kircher and David, 2003, p. 2) Although denying the use of the term "objective" in the fashion of Michael Lewis, Sylvia Crocker identifies a Gestalt therapy understanding of social self consciousness when she states, "The 'I' which is the subject of all of the human being's experiences is also the organizer of these into a meaningful whole which provides the person, whose 'I' it is, with a working understanding of the world and that person's place in it." (Crocker, 1999, p. 175) Given this, then, one’s self does come under appraisal, as in Barret, Lazarus, and Michael Lewis above. People evaluate the significance of the environmental other, and they also evaluate the functioning of the environmental self, that is oneself as an aspect of the environment. Indeed, while Barret takes exception to Helen Lewis’s etiology of selfconscious emotions in her discussion of the development of shame and guilt, it would seem that these two writers have captured a “both-and “rather than an “either -or;” that is, self-conscious emotions are generated through the appraisal of the self in social context, in relationship to others. Writing with an analytical, object relations viewpoint, De Rivera sees the synthesis this way: ...the person is conceived as an individual, whereas others are conceptualized as parts of the individual’s environment, that is, as objects apart from the person...However, if we reflect upon this statement we may become aware of its fundamental egotism. It sees other persons as in our environment and neglects that we are in each of theirs. The moment we become aware of each person as an agent in his or her own right, the conceptualization shatters into as many environments as persons, with each person fundamentally alone, and ourselves forced into the position of a third-person observer. (De Rivera, 1989, p.23)

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While De Rivera misses the field connectivity that Gestalt and intersubjective psychodynamic therapists recognize (so that no one is actually "alone"), his language is poetic and descriptive of the ironic selfconscious shift that can suddenly occur when people become aware of themselves as part of a social context. This is the recognition inherent in attribution. Given this relationship, it proves helpful to understand the developmental process by which self-conscious emotions emerge, including the way they differ from other emotions. Michael Lewis states... ... emotions can be classified in relation to the role of the self. The elicitation of fear, joy, disgust, surprise, anger, sadness and interest does not require introspection or self-reference. Therefore, let us consider these emotions as one set. The elicitation of jealousy, envy, empathy, embarrassment, shame, pride, and guilt does require introspection or selfreference. These emotions constitute another set...Thus, I propose that the difference between primary and secondary emotions is that the secondary emotions involve self-reference. Secondary emotions will be referred to as self-conscious emotions...(Lewis, 1992, p. 19-20)

In various publications for an extended period of time Lewis has developed the following schema for understanding the development of self-conscious emotions and their relationship to other emotional entities:

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Figure One: Primary and Secondary Emotions

Lewis claims that by the first year of life all primary emotions have emerged. “Even so, it is not until the middle of the second year that the secondary emotions are observed. More elaborate cognitive abilities either are necessary for, or occur prior to, the emergence of this new class of emotions — abilities that appear between the end of the first year and the middle of the second year of life.” (Lewis, 1989, p.146) Most children below eighteen months, for instance, cannot recognize themselves in a mirror, an ability that signals self-identification and a cognitivedevelopmental capacity allowing a person to think of him or herself independent from an immediate environmental context (Keenan, Wheeler, Ewers, 2003). This ability is the basis for self-conscious emotions, and it can be traced to development of capacity, growth in the right, pre-frontal cortex, which is increasingly seen as the executive, the artist integrating life experience. Lewis's model is based on a phenomenological and cognitiveattributional view of emotional processing. In this, he considers the self-

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conscious emotions of the same status as the cognitive-attributional processes themselves. “The cognitions associated with these emotions may serve simply as elicitors of specific emotions in the same way as do other stimuli, such as the social behavior of others, loud noises, or sudden and uncontrolled events...I mean to give emotions the same status as cognitions. Just as cognitions can lead to emotions, emotions can lead to cognitions.” (Lewis, 1993, p. 566)

Relevance to Gestalt Therapy Difficulties in processing self-conscious emotions have been associated with personality disorders, addictive dynamics, and interruptions to contact. Gestalt therapists have related these to figures of survival and interpersonal success by which individuals "selectively attend to those aspects of the interpersonal field that relate to their deepest interpersonal wishes and fears." (Greenberg, 2002) Indeed, the ability to even sustain being in therapy can be traced to one's ability to support the sense of a social audience which is intrinsic to self-conscious experience. From the perspective of one seasoned Gestalt therapist, such experience "is part of life and everyone has to learn to deal with it in some way or other. I've just found, both in myself as a client and with clients of mine, that communications that result in shame are liable to stop and even reverse the growth process in therapy. Frequently, it even results in the client leaving therapy, when the shame is... 'insupportible.'" (Tobin, 2003) A similar statement could be offered about the impact of pathological pride in narcissism, the destructive jealousy in marital relationships, or the embarrassment of social phobia. Self-Conscious emotions provides Gestalt therapists with a broader and more comprehensive theory of shame; as a construct, it connects concepts of affect and self with such Gestalt phenomena as field dynamics, interpretation of experience, meaning-making, dialogue, and contactboundary processes. Self-conscious emotions, as developed in this article, allows for a richer understanding of emotions in general and, specifically, the range of experience encompassing not only shame but also guilt, embarrassment, pride, and jealousy (among others). This way of conceptualizing these emotions helps relate an individual's affective experience to their field. It explains one possible way in which the intepretation of experience bears on one's self support and contact as it speaks to the connection perceived between self and other. Thus, selfconscious emotions provides a useful heuristic facilitating case

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conceptualization and diagnosis, pertaining directly to issues involving dual diagnosis, intergenerational dysfunction, attribution, and attachment. Understanding self-conscious emotions enables a Gestalt therapist to expand his or her assimilations in psychotherapy, because the subject spans both affective and cognitive categories - two major, and frequently polarized clinical considerations. Indeed, self-conscious emotions provide a window on how a client sees him or herself in relation to the social system in which they function and to the set of values and goals to which they have committed themselves. Thus, the heuristic provided in selfconscious emotions relates to fixed gestalts encountered among both client and therapist. This article has been an effort to recommend a larger construct and affective set under which to consider the experience of shame. Perhaps exploring this conceptual ground would give new energy for understanding a range of secondary, but powerful emotional experiences, such as shame, but to extend the discussion into the realms of pride, guilt, and embarrassment. It is hoped that those familiar with established Gestalt therapy theory can make the necessary connections with what is provided in this article to extend the assimilation, considering the way selfconscious emotions relate to the constructs of organism-boundary, self, id, ego, or personality function. Seen in the company of pride, embarrassment, jealousy, and guilt, shame could be discussed in a new fashion and perhaps understood as related to the emergent experience of self.

References Abi-Hashem, N. (2000) Psychology, time, and culture. American Psychologist, 55(3), p. 342-343 Barrett, K.C. (1995) “A functionalist approach to shame and guilt”, in Self - conscious emotions, the psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride, (1995), ed. June Price Tangney and Kurt W. Fischer. New York: The Guildford Press. Blascovich, J., Mendes, W. (2000) Challenge and threat appraisals: The role of affective cues, in Feeling and Thinking: The Role of Affect in Social Cognition, ed., Joseph Forgas. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Crocker, S. (1999) A well-live life: Essays in Gestalt therapy. Cambridge, MA: GIC Press. De Rivera, J. (1989) “Choice of emotion and ideal development”, in Emotions in ideal human development, Leanoard Cirillo, Bernard

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Kaplan, Seymour Wapner, eds. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Erskine, R. (1995) A Gestalt therapy approach to shame and selfrighteousness: Theory and methods. The British Gestalt Journal, 4(2) Fuhr, R., Fuhr, M-G. (1995) Shame In teaching/learning settings: A Gestalt approach. The British Gestalt Journal, 4(2). Fuhr, R., Fuhr, M-G. (1995) Shame as a normal and sometimes dysfunctional experience: A response to the articles by Leslie S. Greenberg/Sandra C. Paivio and Gordon Wheeler on shame. Gestalt Review, 1(3). Gallup Jr., G., Anderson, J., Platek, S. (2003) Self-awareness, social intelligence, and schizophrenia, in The Self in Neuroscience and Psychiatry, ed. Tilo Kircher and Anthony David. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Gillie, M. (2000) Shame and bulimia - A sickness of the soul. The British Gestalt Journal, 9(2). Goldberg, E. (2001) The executive brain: Frontal lobes and the civilized mind. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Greenberg, E. (2002) Love, admiration, or safety: A system of Gestalt diagnosis of borderline, narcissistic, and schizoid adaptations that focuses on what Is figure for the client. Gestalt!, 6(3). Available online http://www.g-gej.org/6-3/diagnosis.html Greenberg, L., Paivio, S. (1997) Varieties of shame experience in psychotherapy. Gestalt Review, 1(3). Greenberg, L., Paivio, S. (1997) Integrating "being" and "doing" in working with shame. Gestalt Review, 1(3). Hein, S., Austin. W. (2001) Empirical and hermeneutic approaches to phenomenological research in psychology - a comparison. Psychological Methods. 6(1), p.3-17 Jacobs, L. (1995) Shame in therapeutic dialogue. The British Gestalt Journal, 4(2). Kaufman, G. (1992) Shame, the power of caring. Rochester: Schenkman Books, Inc. Kearns, A., Daintry, P. (2000) Shame in the supervisory relationship: Living with the enemy. The British Gestalt Journal, 9(1). Keenan, J., Wheeler, M., Ewers, M. (2003) The neural correlates of selfawareness and self-recognition, in The Self in Neuroscience and Psychiatry, ed. Tilo Kircher and Anthony David. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Kircher, T., David, A. (2003) Introduction: The self and neuroscience, in The Self in Neuroscience and Psychiatry, ed. Tilo Kircher and Anthony David. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lazarus, R.S. (1991) Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press. Lazarus, R.S. & Lazarus, B.N. (1994) Passion & reason, making sense of our emotions. New York: Oxford University Press. Lazarus, R.S., Kanner, A.D., Folkman, S. (1980) “Emotions: A cognitivephenomenological analysis,” in Emotion, theory, research, and experience. vol 1, ed. Robert Plutchik and Henry Kellerman. New York: Academic Press. LeDoux, J. (1996) The emotional brain, the mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. N.Y, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster. Lewis, H.B., (1989) “Some thoughts on the moral emotions of shame and guilt,” in Emotions in ideal human development, Leanoard Cirillo, Bernard Kaplan, Seymour Wapner, eds. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers Lewis, M. (1993) “The emergence of emotions,” Handbook of emotions, ed. Michael Lewis and Jeanette M. Haviland. New York: The Guilford Press —. (1993) “Self-conscious emotions: embarrassment, pride, shame, and guilt,” Handbook of emotions, ed. Michael Lewis and Jeanette M. Haviland. New York: The Guilford Press. —. (1992) Shame, the exposed self. New York: The Free Press. —. (1991) “Ways of knowing: Objective self-awareness or consciousness,” Developmental review, 11, p. 231-243. Lewis, M., Sullivan, M.W., Stanger, C. and Weiss, M. (1989) “Self development and self-conscious emotions”, Child development, 60, p.145-160. Lewis, M. (1989) “What do we mean when we say emotional development?”, in Emotions in ideal human development, Leanoard Cirillo, Bernard Kaplan, Seymour Wapner, eds. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Markowitsch, H. (2003) Autonoetic consciousness. in The Self in Neuroscience and Psychiatry, ed. Tilo Kircher and Anthony David. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. O'Brien, G., Opie, J. (2003) The multiplicity of consciousness and the emergence of the self, in The Self in Neuroscience and Psychiatry, ed. Tilo Kircher and Anthony David. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Philippson, P. (2001) Self in relation. Highland, HJ: The Gestalt Journal Press, Inc. Resnick, R. (1997) The "recursive loop" of shame: An alternate Gestalt therapy viewpoint. Gestalt Review, 1(3). Tangney, J.P. & Fischer, K. (1995) Self - conscious emotions, the psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride. New York, NY: The Guildford Press. Tobin, S. (2003) Personal communication on Gstalt-L, June 21, 2003, @ 3:30 pm. Lee, R.G. & Wheeler, G. (Eds.) (1997) Voice of shame: Silence and connection in psychotherapy. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Wheeler, G. (1997) Self and shame: A Gestalt approach. Gestalt Review, 1(3). Zajonc, R. (2000) Feeling and thinking: Closing the debate over the independence of affect, in Feeling and Thinking: The Role of Affect in Social Cognition, Joseph Forgas (ed). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR1 SCHEMA THERAPY: A GESTALT-ORIENTED OVERVIEW2 SCOTT H. KELLOGG

(Postscript by the author along with responses by Dan Bloom, Philip Brownell, Iris Fodor follow the main article, and reply by Scott Kellogg follows them).

Introduction The goal of this paper is to provide an introduction to an overview of schema therapy (Young, 1990; Young, Beck, & Weinberger, 1993; Young & Klosko, 1993; Young, Klosko, & Weishaar, 2003) within the context of a journal dedicated to gestalt therapy. Schema therapy is an integrative psychotherapy that draws very deeply from the gestalt and experiential traditions. The areas to be covered include the history of the approach, an overview of the schema model, an introduction to both schema-focused and schema mode therapies, a case example of mode therapy, and points of connection between schema therapy and gestalt therapy.

History Schema therapy has been a developing therapeutic form for over 20 years. This approach began as an outgrowth of cognitive-behavioral therapy, 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 Previously published in Gestalt! 10(1), 2009. The author would like to thank Arnoud Arntz for his assistance.

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and it is currently evolving into a free-standing, integrative psychotherapy. Dr. Jeffrey Young, the creator, first trained with Dr. Aaron Beck in Philadelphia in the ‘70’s. During his years there, Young became interested in, and focused his attention on, those patients who did not respond well to cognitive-behavioral therapy. Either they were nonresponsive to treatment or they relapsed repeatedly. On closer examination, these patients frequently had very rigid cognitive structures, had histories of severe trauma, and/or had clearly defined Axis II disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder. It was in the effort to find ways to treat these “difficult” cases that schema therapy was developed. This work would involve moving from the “here-and-now” focus of CBT to an exploration of childhood. Early on, the power of experiential techniques was recognized and these approaches were incorporated. An analysis and exploration of the problematic themes that these patients presented with began to move the model toward objectrelations (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983) and attachment-theory-oriented (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991) conceptualizations. The interpersonal difficulties that were so frequently an issue with these patients also connected the model to psychodynamic conceptualizations of relationship, transference, and countertransference.

Current Developments Schema therapy has gone through two major developments. The first was called schema-focused therapy. This was an integrative approach that, while using gestalt techniques as a central component, still had clear links to cognitive-behavioral perspectives. The patients for whom this approach was ideally suited were those who had rigid schema structures that could either touch all or some areas of an individual’s life in a destructive or counterproductive manner. For example, an Emotional Deprivation schema (i.e., “I have not had someone who really listens to me, understands me, or is tuned into my true needs and feelings” [Young, 2005]) could play havoc in the interpersonal realm, while the Failure schema (i.e., “Most other people are more capable than I am in areas of work and achievement” [Young, 2005]) could be very problematic in the work realm. Rigidity of style in many situations is one of the defining characteristics of a personality disorder, and this model is appropriate for many patients. It was popularized in the book, Reinventing Your Life (Young & Klosko, 1993). This is a self-help guide to schema therapy that is routinely recommended to patients in treatment. This book outlines

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many of the schemas and provides guidelines for change that parallel those that take place in the therapy process. Efforts to treat Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and to a lesser degree, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, led to a major revision of the model. In contrast to other personality disorders that are marked by rigidity, BPD is more frequently categorized by fluidity of self. It is the rapid change of mood that can be so problematic. While there may be a temperamental component to the disorder, borderline patients frequently present with histories of trauma and abuse. This has led to the development of schema mode therapy, an approach that is, if anything, more rooted in the use of gestalt and experiential techniques. As will be discussed below, this model emphasizes multiplicity and multivocality (Elliott & Greenberg, 1997; Stiles, 1999), and it bears some conceptual resemblance to aspects of Ego State Therapy (Berne, 1957; Watkins & Watkins, 1981). The third phase of development involved a reworking of the schemafocused model to be one that is more mode oriented. This means that the therapy has moved closer to the gestalt world and further away from the cognitive-behavioral one.

The Schema Model Schemas, like working models (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991) are interpretive structures that provide the individual with an understanding of the nature of the world and the nature of the self. While schemas may develop about different aspects of living, for the purposes of psychotherapy, there is primary interest in what are known as Early Maladaptive Schemas (Young et al., 2003). These are schemas that have “developed primarily as a result of toxic childhood experiences” (p. 7). The current definition of a maladaptive scheme includes the following characteristics: x A broad, pervasive theme or pattern x Composed of memories, emotions, cognitions, and bodily sensations x Regarding oneself and one’s relationships with others x Developed during childhood or adolescence x Elaborated throughout one’s lifetime x Dysfunctional to a significant degree (Young et al., 2003, p. 7)

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The actual schemas or themes chosen were first developed through clinical observation of the problematic themes that patients were presenting in therapy. Since then, there have been extensive research efforts to test and validate the schema model. At present, there are 18 schemas in the model. A brief synopsis of the schemas are presented in Table 1. A complete list of definitions can be accessed at http://www.schematherapy.com/ id73.htm For many patients, these are more readily experienced as feelings, images, or memories. The schema structure and conceptualizations provide a helpful language for therapists, patients, and researchers. This does not, however, mean that they are primarily experienced by patients in a cognitive manner. Early maladaptive schemas develop when the basic needs of the child are not met. Young has outlined five core emotional needs that the developing child has. To the degree that these are not met, there is an increased possibility of a maladaptive schema being developed. These five needs are: 1. Secure attachments to others (includes safety, stability, nurturance, and acceptance) 2. Autonomy, competence, and sense of identity 3. Freedom to express valid needs and emotions 4. Spontaneity and play 5. Realistic limits and self-control Both clinical work and research investigations have brought us to a point in which there are now 18 schemas that can be grouped under 5 domains. As can be seen in Table 1, the five domains are the negative polarity of the needs. They are: (1) Disconnection and Rejection; (2) Impaired Autonomy and Performance; (3) Impaired Limits; (4) Other Directedness; and (5) Overvigilance and Inhibition (Young et al., 2003, p. 14-16). For example, Mistrust/Abuse and Emotional Deprivation are found in Disconnection and Rejection, Dependence/Incompetence and Failure are listed under Impaired Autonomy and Performance, Entitlement/Grandiosity and Insufficient Self-Control/Self-Discipline are in Impaired Limits, SelfSacrifice and Subjugation are part of Other Directedness, and Emotional Inhibition and Unrelenting Standards/Hypercriticalness are examples of Overvigilance and Inhibition. Patients may have a few schemas or many, and schema patterns may cross domains and some schemas may co-occur in a logical way. Ratto and Capitano (1999) give an example of how a

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Defectiveness schema, a sense that one is fundamentally flawed, can underlie Emotional Deprivation, a belief that one’s emotional needs will not be met, and Incompetence, a sense that one cannot function in a responsible manner. Given this framework, there are four mechanisms through which schemas can develop. The first, which is known as a “toxic frustration of needs” (Young et al., 2003, p. 10), consists of a general and repeated pattern of failing to meet the needs of the child. The second is through experiences of trauma and abuse. In this case, patients may be able to recount clearly disturbing events, while in the first the stories may be more about absence or lack, rather than specific, dramatic experiences. The third is the opposite. Here, it is a case of “too much of a good thing” (p. 10). This dynamic may be involved in Dependence/Incompetence or Entitlement/Grandiosity. Here, the parents failed to address the needs for autonomy or were unwilling or unable to set necessary limits. The final mechanism is through “the selective internalization or identification with significant others” (p. 11). In an extreme form, a patient who has grown up with an abusive parent, internalizes that parent and behaves in a similar manner. The schemas develop in difficult situations and are often survival strategies that are functional within that setting. The problem is that they are maladaptive in other situations or at later stages of development. Subjugation, or the feeling that we must give our personal power to authority figures, may be adaptive when living with a tyrannical parent figure. It may be less appropriate in work situations, especially if one is using a passive-aggressive coping strategy.

Schema Coping Modes The manifestation of the schema may take varying forms. In what is probably one of the more difficult concepts in schema therapy to fully grasp, patients will manifest their schemas through the use of what were originally called coping styles (Young & Klosko, 1993) and are now called coping modes. These broadly correspond to the strategies of surrender, avoidance, and overcompensation. A person with a given schema may use a different coping mode depending on the situation, but a dominant coping pattern is likely to occur. In many respects, it is the coping modes that are problematic for the patient. Either the modes do not ultimately lead to the desired outcome on a consistent and predictable basis and/or they lead to strong negative reactions from others. In the expanded schema mode vision, there has been

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an expansion of the coping repertoires. Representing the surrender strategy, the Compliant Surrenderer is the dominant mode in people who take a subservient role. They are “dependent, submissive, clinging”, and they are conflict avoidant. They also do not try to get their needs met (Young, 2002). The avoidant modes include the Detached Protector Mode, who seeks to remain emotionally uninvolved and may engage in selfsoothing activities such as substance abuse, excessive internet surfing, or other addictive behaviors to avoid or block feelings. The Isolated/Avoidant Protector takes a more interpersonal strategy in that these patients will be more actively wary of interpersonal engagement and keep a wall around them. The overcompensating modes include the Approval- or AttentionSeeker, the Controlling or Manipulating Mode, the Entitled or Special Mode, and, more commonly found in forensic settings, the Aggressive Mode (Young, 2004). Each of these last are attempts to get others to meet their needs. As these modes emerge in the therapy, patients are encouraged to name them in ways that are personally meaningful.

Schema Assessment In cases that are more appropriate to a schema-focused approach, an assessment process usually takes place at the onset of psychotherapy. It is important to keep in mind that all schema and mode work must ultimately connect to the presenting problems of the individual. Schemas are assessed in a variety of ways. This is a particularly important issue because the coping modes may obscure the underlying schemas. While patients may present with a similar style, be it anger or disengagement, the underlying schema structure can be different. In addition, patients who have been through similar experiences may, nonetheless, have different schema structures, or if they have the similar schema structures they may use different coping modes. Ultimately, the healing process takes place in the connection to and work with the schema, not the coping style. Reflecting its cognitive-behavioral background, patients are given the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ) (Young, 2001). This is a clinical inventory that has questions covering all 18 schemas. This is a straightforward assessment of schemas that asks patients about their experiences and their expectations. The questions corresponding to each schema are rated on a scale of 1 to 6, and clusters of high scores are indications of a possible schema. After the questionnaire is filled out, the patient and therapist will review the answers to better understand the meaning and situations connected to the response.

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A second questionnaire that is quite useful is the Young Parenting Inventory (YPI) (Young, 2003). This questionnaire asks about parenting style and parenting behavior that is thought to be related to the development of a schema. There are several statements for each schema. For example, each parent would get rated on how true the following statements were for each of them: “Lied to me, deceived me, or betrayed me” (Mistrust/Abuse), “Controlled my life so that I had little freedom of choice” (Subjugation), “Didn’t teach me that I had responsibilities to other people” (Entitlement”, or “Would call me names (like “stupid” or “idiot”) when I made mistakes” (Punitive) (Young, 2003). Each descriptor is rated 1 to 6. Even one rating of 5 or 6 is considered to be particularly pathognomonic. Sometimes a patient will endorse few if any of the items on the YSQ in a significant way. This may be due to an avoidant coping style. However, the YPI may provide information that contrasts with the YSQ and which may be more revealing of the schema. Moving to the gestalt and experiential traditions, imagery is a core technique in both assessment and treatment. Assessment imagery involves first creating an imagined “safe space” with the patient. After this is established, the patient is asked to bring up a problematic or difficult memory with their mother, their father, other significant caregiver, and peers, as appropriate. Early memories are most desired, but some patients can only provide ones from later parts of their life–a fact that may be significant in itself. The image is conjured up, the circumstances are described, and a dialogue is encouraged between the child and the parent or other significant person in the situation. The goal is to get the child to express his or her needs and desires to the parent. Hearing the parent’s response is significant as well. In a very moving training tape, Dr. Young, while working with a very grandiose and narcissistic man, asks him to bring up an image of his mother. In the image that emerges, he is a little boy who tells his mother that he loves her and that he wants her to love him. She, however, is a statue and is preoccupied with her own issues and is unavailable to him. In this vignette on can see the power of imagery as a way to uncover a schema. For this particular patient, the pain of the emotional deprivation at the core of his narcissism was made clear. In another taped interview that is also featured in the schema therapy text (Young et al., 2003), a patient is operating in a mode that is called Tough Annette. Her presenting problems include depression, alcohol abuse, and problematic relationships in professional and personal settings. Her “tough” coping style, a manifestation of the Detached Protector, may be one of the factors that keeps others at bay. After extensive negotiations,

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she agrees to do imagery work. The story that appears is one of a little girl huddling with her mother as they both live in fear that her enraged father will kill the mother. Tough Annette is an overcompensating mode for dealing with the underlying Mistrust/Abuse and Subjugation schemas that are operating at her core. The fourth way that schemas can be assessed is by listening to the patient discuss their lives and the difficulties that they have encountered. This can be augmented through the use of such life history instruments as the Multimodal Life History Inventory (Lazarus & Lazarus, 1991). The final way that schemas are usually determined is through the therapeutic relationship. This approach is connected to the psychodynamic roots of the therapy. For example, one patient told Dr. Young that he seemed tired, and that to help him feel better, she was willing to forgo her session; she would, however, pay him in any case. This looked to be a manifestation of a Self-Sacrifice schema. For the assessment to be complete, it is important that both patient and therapist are clear not only about the schema, but also about the coping style and the possible role of temperament. With a clear and shared diagnostic perspective, the therapy can move forward.

Schema-Focused Therapy In the classic schema-focused therapy approach, there are a series of cognitive, behavioral, and gestalt/experiential interventions that can be used to help change the schema. Specific strategies for 18 schemas have been presented in detail in Schema Therapy (Young et al., 2003; see also Young & Klosko, 1993). This discussion will review basic techniques and look at a few examples. In the original model, there were a series of steps that could be seen as a guideline. The first was to identify and label the schemas. This brought them more clearly into awareness and provided a conceptual framework for the therapy. The next step is to tap into the childhood experience that led to their creation. The third phase involved making a rational case against the schema. When was it true and when was it not true? Did it appear to be a helpful or unhelpful model for operating in the world? As a form of gestalt cognitive restructuring, chair dialogues can be created between the schema side and the healthy side. Since schemas are resistant to change, this can be done in gradual steps. At first, the patient can do the schema voice and the therapist can do the healthy one. Next, the two of them can switch roles with the patient taking the healthy view. Lastly, the

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patient can alternate chairs and do both sides. From a gestalt perspective, the patient would be seen as “owning” the schema voices. The fourth step involves writing letters to those who played a role in the development of the schemas. These letters are read out loud. The purpose is to break through the prohibition against speaking out. “We want to give your inner child a voice – to allow your inner child to express his or her pain” (Young & Klosko, 1993, p. 48). These letters are not sent as the goal is not the transformation of the other person, but the healing of the patient. After this internal work has been done, the next step is to change the behavioral patterns that accompanied it. For patients who avoid certain situations, these would be gradually approached; for those who were too demanding, strategies to implement behavior based on reciprocity will be developed, and for those who allowed others to take advantage of them, assertiveness will be practiced and tested in social situations. The last step involves the forgiveness of others. It is important that patients not rush into forgiveness. For schemas to heal, there needs to be a time of anger and grief. Many patients naturally start to forgive their parents or the persons who were responsible for the creation of their schemas; they see then as suffering from and acting on their own schemas. As Dr. Vera Paster used to say, “Everyone is a victim.” This kind of letting go helps the patients move on with their lives. Within this framework, imagery work can play a central role. Some schemas are about absence and loss while others are about the paininflicting activities of others (i.e., Mistrust/Abuse), and different imagery strategies may be appropriate during this phase. In situations in which there has been violence or mistreatment, the goal is to empower the patient. The basic structure of the intervention is to elicit an image of the child in the difficult situation. In this image, the therapist, after asking for permission from the patient and the inner child, can enter the image and comfort and protect the child. The patient than follows suit. The patient can defend the child by using whatever he or she feels is necessary – sticks, guns, explosives – whatever they need to feel strong and in control. This is also an opportunity for them to express their rage and anger about what was done to them. It is therapeutic for them to express as much anger as possible. As Young et al. (2003) have written: “The schema represents a world gone wrong, and anger sets the world right again” (p. 123). There are two caveats involved here. Patients may have experienced greater or lesser amounts of trauma, and their capacities to engage in this kind of confrontational work may vary. Some will need to do this in a more gradual fashion in which small amounts of exposure are followed by a period of processing and working through. The second caveat is that

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patients with actual histories of serious violence should not be doing this kind of work (Young et al., 2003) For other patients, the dominant schemas may be more about loss or rejection (i.e., Abandonment, Emotional Deprivation, Social Isolation). Here the issue may be one of creating an imaginal dialogue in which the patient expresses the anger and grief that they have about not be not being loved, valued, cherished, and accepted by the other. They can also clarify what they internalized from this experience, as in Redecision Therapy (Goulding & Goulding, 1997), and then make a decision to reject the schema. They can offer examples from their life that conflict with the message from the abandoning object and they can state their intent to replace the maladaptive schema with a healthier one. Clearly, this kind of work can be done both in imagery and using chairwork (Greenberg, 1979; Greenberg, Rice, & Elliott, 1993; Kellogg, 2004; Perls, 1969, 1973, 1975). With patients who suffer from Insufficient Self-Control, a different approach is taken. The patient will bring up in imagery situations in which they behaved impulsively. The therapist will enter the scene as a Healthy Adult and help the patient develop self-control. The patient will then do the same. Significant others who did not set limits or who encouraged this kind of behavior can be confronted in imagery as well. Again, the goal is for the patient to develop an internalized Healthy Adult. Integrating mode work here involves seeing the schemas and the pathogenic personalities that were instrumental in creating them as external voices or as a part of the self. By doing this, patients can begin to get some distance from these experiences and they do not have to be overwhelmed by them. It allows for dialogues and a greater degree of self control. This will be elaborated more in the discussion about BPD, but it is a central part of this work as well. The “voice” of the schema that insults and demoralizes the patient can be transformed into a mode and then labeled and confronted. As noted above, patients are encouraged to label modes in ways that are meaningful to them. The child that was the recipient of the mistreatment can also be transformed into a mode and then labeled and confronted. Often, this part is named “Little Sam” or “Little Madeline.” Dialogues can then be done using imagery or chairwork. As noted above, the behavioral aspect of this kind of schema therapy typically involves assertiveness and some kind of hierarchical system of exposure to difficult situations or the gradual implementation of new behaviors. Assertiveness training fits in well with the development of an internalized Healthy Adult. For those whose schemas did not allow for the expression of needs (i.e., Subjugation, Self-Sacrifice, and Emotional

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Inhibition) or for those who did not feel that the world would provide them with what they need (i.e., Emotional Deprivation), assertiveness training can help them develop a “voice” that will better enable them to get their needs met. For those whose schemas (i.e., Entitlement/Grandiosity) or whose overcompensating coping styles lead them to expect or demand things from others, assertiveness may be a more successful way to get one’s needs met within a framework of reciprocity (Young et al., 2003). Constructing a hierarchy of feared or difficult situations is a helpful way to re-engage patients in the world in a more successful manner. The healing of such schemas as Social Isolation/Alienation and Dependence/ Incompetence will of necessity involve the patients putting themselves in situations that will elicit some anxiety. By creating a hierarchy of activities based on their difficulty and anxiety-arousing potential, patients will be able to titrate their discomfort.

Schemas and Relationships Certainly one pattern that therapists of all persuasions encounter is that of patients choosing partners who seem to re-enact the traumas and difficulties that they had previously experienced. Freud (1914/1953) referred to this as the repetition compulsion. A core aspect of this idea is that people who have been through traumas seek to recreate them in an attempt to master them. People who activate our schemas can, paradoxically, be quite exciting. This is known as schema chemistry (Young & Klosko, 1993). Patients with Emotional Deprivation get involved with cold and aloof partners, patients with Enmeshment issues connect to smothering caregivers, and patients with Mistrust/Abuse spend their time with disrespectful individuals. As patients begin to get better and start rebuilding their lives, the issues of relationships and intimate connections are likely to come up. One way to assess this is to ask patients to rate the attractiveness of potential partners on a scale of 1-10. Unfortunately, potential partners who will invoke the schema that they are trying to heal will often receive a 9 or 10. Healthier and more appropriate partners may be seen as “boring” and receive low ratings. Therapists will work with patients to help them find partners who do not re-enact the schemas yet do provide some kind of compatibility and excitement. The goal here would be to find partners in the 6-8 range. With partners who fall below this, there is not sufficient energy for a romantic relationship. While the moderately high group does not provide the extreme intoxication of the 9-10 group, over the long term, they are much more likely to bring happiness and fulfillment.

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Therapist Stance In both the schema-focused and schema-mode approaches, the fundamental therapist stance is one of empathic confrontation or empathic reality testing (Young et al., 2003). This means a sense of understanding that patients have typically been through difficult struggles and that there are reasons why they feel and behave the way that they do. However, the therapist is still intent on working with them to help them change. This stance seeks to intertwine the empathy that comes from the relational and psychodynamic therapies with the therapist-as-change-agent tradition of the cognitive and behavioral therapies, as well as the Perlsian tradition of gestalt therapy (Kellogg, 2004). As noted elsewhere, the therapy relationship is both a means of assessment and a vehicle for healing. With some patients, the schema will be clearly enacted in the relationship. In one of the more controversial aspects of schema therapy, there is an emphasis on limited reparenting. This is especially true in the treatment of BPD, but it can be a factor in schema-focused work as well. In the imagery work, the therapist takes on the role of protector and nurturer. In the relationship, the therapist, using the schema as a guide, attempts to provide the patient with that which the parent or caregiver did not. For example, when a patient with Emotional Deprivation asks for advice, the therapist will try to provide something. This is because not only do the patients suffer from deprivations in nurturing, but also they do not believe that their attempts to find this in the world will be successful. On the other hand, when patients with Dependence/Incompetence as for advice, which they frequently do, it is better that the therapist not provide it. This is not done out of cruelty; rather, it is done in the understanding that many of these patients were not encouraged or allowed to develop competence or strength through taking action, making decisions, and living through their mistakes. Here, the therapist is empathic about the anxiety that they are feeling while affirming that is only by making decisions and building on their consequences that they will develop a sense of autonomy.

Schema Mode Therapy As has been alluded to throughout this paper, schema mode therapy developed in response to the different needs of patients with borderline features. The model that evolved was more gestalt and experiential in

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nature. To properly convey this, an expanded discussion of modes is necessary.

Modes The modes can be distinguished from the schemas in that they are manifestations of the mood or state that an individual is in at any give time, as opposed to a schema, which is more of a trait or an enduring aspect of the person. A mode has been defined as “those schemas or schema operations–adaptive or maladaptive–that are currently active for an individual” (Young et al., 2003, p. 37). Mode therapy involves listening to patients speak about their lives and experiences and watching their emotions, energy, language, and position shift. This is probably closely related to the gestalt approach of listening for what is figure for a patient. In the schema model, the shifts will be given names. Modes that are particularly problematic may be accompanied by high levels of emotion and rigidity. They may involve unintegrated aspects of the self (Perls, 1973). Also, with higher levels of disturbance there is likely to be greater schema or mode “flipping”; that is, rapid and abrupt shifts in mood. Modes can be divided into three groups – child, parent, and coping. The child modes include the Vulnerable Child, the Contented Child, the Angry Child, the Impulsive, Undisciplined Child, and the PleasureSeeking, Spontaneous Child. The child modes relate to Freud’s concept of the id, Jungian archetypes of the child (Abrams, 1990), Transactional Analysis’ vision of the child (Harris, 1969), the gestalt idea of the “Underdog” (Perls, 1973) and recovery movement literature (Whitfield, 1987). The Contented Child and the Pleasure-Seeking, Spontaneous Child represent those aspects of ourselves when we feel safe and affirmed, and we are able to take pleasure in life. In therapy, there will greater concern about the Vulnerable, Angry, and Impulsive Child modes. The schemas and the pain that goes with them reside in the Child modes. The Parent Modes represent internalized aspects of parents and other authority figures. These modes connect to psychodynamic conceptualizations of the Superego, and what some writers have termed the “Inner Critic” (Elliott & Elliott, 2000; Firestone, Firestone, & Catlett, 2002). They also relate to the gestalt idea of the “Top Dog” (Perls, 1973). These modes include the Punitive, Critical Parent, the Inhibited Parent, the Demanding or Rigid Parent, the Indulgent, Permissive Parent, and the Self-Sacrificing, Caregiving Parent. From the names alone, one can see the schema themes at work. The modes are sometimes directed at the behavior of the self, the

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behavior of others, or both. In general, the Punitive Parent or Inner Critic will be a major factor in the therapeutic situation. One of the goals here is to create a Parent Mode based on the Healthy Adult. The third group of modes is made up of the coping modes. These were reviewed earlier in relationship to manifestations of schema activation. The Detached Protector mode, in particular, will be explored further in the treatment of borderline patients. Perl’s (1973) work with “Top Dog–Bottom Dog” can be seen as a kind of overarching rubric for mode conflicts in many neurotic patients. Greenberg’s (Greenberg, 1979; Greenberg et al., 1993) further refinement of the chairwork model as a way to integrate the personality and to end what would be called “mode flipping” is very helpful here as well. With less troubled patients, conflicts among the different parts of the self can be resolved through dialogues. At their most basic, these conflicts take the form of “want” versus “should” or the form of “want” versus “should” and “fear”. In this context, integration may be possible. In fact, when the mode model is applied to patients who would be appropriate for schema-focused therapy, the mode model is relatively simple–typically consisting of a Child, Parent, and Coping mode. With more troubled patients, the number of modes may increase and the interactions among them become more complex. In addition, with more disturbed and traumatized patients, the Punitive Parent or Inner Critic is frequently a pathogenic voice that needs to be battled, not integrated. Others have written on the extremely damaging impact of this voice in addiction (Tatarsky, 2002), depression, and other disorders (Elliott & Elliott, 2000; Firestone et al., 2002).

Borderline Personality Disorder: A Mode Conceptualization In schema therapy, borderline phenomena is seen as sharing common attributes with Dissociative Identity Disorder (Young et al., 2003). The borderline patient is seen as being motivated by four or five modes that make up an inner theatre that is filled with pain and conflict (Kellogg & Young, 2006). The five basic modes are: (1) the Abused/Abandoned Child (a variant of the Vulnerable Child); (2) the Angry/Impulsive Child; (3) the Detached Protector; (4) the Punitive Parent; and (5) the Healthy Adult. Typically the Healthy Adult is only marginally represented at first. One of the main goals of therapy is that the patient will internalize this from his or her work with the therapist. The Abandoned/Abused Child is the core of the patient. This is a child who lives in fear and terror and who has no allies in the world. Patients in

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this mode may look quite frightened and troubled. Young (Young et al., 2003) repeatedly stresses that psychologically and emotionally, borderline patients are little children around the age of 4 or 5. In times of difficulty, it can be helpful for therapists to try to see them as children instead of adults. Connection, for the Abandoned/Abused Child, is a matter of survival, and this drives much of the intensity that is found in the relationships of these patients. The Punitive Parent is the internalization of all of all of the cruel, abusive, and critical forces in the person’s life. This hurtful voice affirms the “badness” of the patient and seeks to punish him or her. Some of the destructive behavior of these patients–from cutting themselves to masochistic sexual experiences–is driven by this inner critical voice. Tragically, not only did these patients live through what they did, but the torment goes on within. (It should be noted that there are some patients who have this same kind of inner dynamic who do not appear to have been through abuse experiences. Perhaps the concept of the Inner Critic is preferable to Punitive Parent in that case. Nonetheless, the Inner Critic is a great source of suffering and pathology and needs to be confronted in much the same way as the Punitive Parent.) One of the ways in which they survive is through the utilization of the Detached Protector mode. Despite a general impression of borderline patients as people characterized by high levels of emotional expression and dramatic gestures, Young describes this mode in the following way: In the Detached Protector Mode, patients may feel numb or empty. "They may adopt a cynical or aloof stance to avoid investing emotionally in people or activities. Behavioral examples include social withdrawal, excessive self-soothing, fantasizing, compulsive distractions, and stimulation-seeking..." (Young et al., 2003, p. 275) While a survival mechanism, the mode will be problematic in therapy. The mode protects the Abandoned/Abused Child; however, healing can only take place when the psychotherapist is able to make contact with the wounded part of the patient. In most abusive situations, children are not allowed to speak about the pain that is being delivered to them. The Angry Child represents that part of the personality that is in touch with the pain that they have endured, with the needs that have been unfulfilled, and with the fury that they experienced what they did. The Angry Child may be kept at bay at times by the Detached Protector and by the Punitive Parent. However, this mode does emerge at times; frequently with an intensity and destructiveness that can be frightening and self-defeating. This is the part of the borderline syndrome that most family members, friends, and professionals find to be

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so difficult to cope with. The paradox here is that while the patients are justified in being angry about what has happened to them, the anger can threaten to destroy the therapy. Lastly, the Healthy Adult mode is a underdeveloped aspect of the personality. Again, this is the part that is embodied in the therapist and it is a voice that will, hopefully, be internalized by the patient. The therapy typically covers three phases. The first phase of treatment is one in which the goal is the development of an affirming relationship with the patient. During this period, discussions and explorations about current difficulties and experiences is a good place to start; the past can be tackled next. The YPI is a good instrument to use as a catalyst for further exploration. Open-ended questions are favored. The aim is to be able to create experiences in which the Abandoned/Abused Child and the psychotherapist are in contact. This kind of contact is beneficial in and of itself. This is not a problem-solving phase. The development of a bond is important because it will help both parties to withstand the stresses that are likely to come. Another goal during this phase is to keep the patient out of the Angry Child mode, as no work can get done when this is activated. When the patient is in a more vulnerable state, the limited reparenting activities of the therapist can be implemented. This is also a time in which self-destructive behavior can be explored and strategies for managing it can be instituted. This would include understanding the needs and feelings that precipitate such acts as suicidality, substance abuse, cutting, and self-mutilation. Intertwined through all of this is the delineation and characterization of the voices (Elliott & Greenberg, 1997) and needs that are at play. Imagery work in connection to this exploration of the self can help clarify their identity and purpose. The second phase of treatment is that of schema mode change. One critical aim is to maintain contact with the Abused/Abandoned Child. In contrast to the Punitive Parent, the therapist praises and affirms the child. While this may trigger the Punitive Parent to strike out, the child part will, nonetheless, hear the message. As noted above, the Detached Protector is a coping and survival mode. The dilemma is that this mode prevents the therapist from gaining access to the child mode, which, in turn, impedes therapeutic process. There are a number of ways that this issue can be addressed. The first is to label this defense as a mode when it emerges in the interaction. The therapist and the patient can then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of allowing this mode to dominate. Since the therapist is consistently working to protect

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and affirm the Abused/Abandoned Child, the Detached Protector may feel more confident about relaxing his or her grip. The Detached Protector mode can also be turned into an image and the therapist can dialogue directly with the mode (as opposed to discussing it with the patient). If the therapist can get the patient to bring up an image of the child directly, the Protector can be circumnavigated. Once this mode has receded, it is important to protect the Child mode. There is a reservoir of pain and unexpressed emotions within these patients. If it all comes flooding out, the patient may feel overwhelmed and the Detached Protector will take over again. Instead, the therapist needs to closely regulate the amount of pain that is being processed in each session, session, perhaps taking small steps. Ultimately, to protect and heal the Abused/Abandoned Child, the therapist will need to engage the Punitive Parent or Inner Critic. This is done in several ways. To start, the voice is turned into a mode and is give a name that is meaningful by the patient. Turning it into a mode creates some space between the patient and this aspect of themselves. The therapist, in imagery or in the dialogue, will ask the patient to verbalize what the oppressive voice is saying and will then attack it. In many respects, the therapist will be the voice for the Angry Child. The needs that were not met and the right to have them met will be affirmed. This dialogue will be done repeatedly. Next, using imagery and chair dialogues, the patient will do the same. This can involve confronting the mode and delineating all of the damage that it has done to the patient (Greenberg et al., 1993). The patient can also set limits on its behavior in the future, i.e., “I won’t let you talk to me like that” (Young et al., 2003, p. 345). In this process, a Healthy Adult mode is developed and strengthened. This part affirms the needs of the child. Again, letters can be written to the abuser stating what that person had done to them, what their emotional reaction had been, and how they were going to end the abusers negative impact on their life. As discussed above, in cases where there was actual abuse, imagery work can be done to replay and work through the abuse. This needs to be titrated so as to not overwhelm the patient. The therapist will protect the Abandoned/Abused Child against the abuser and will then help the patient do the same.

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The Angry Child As noted above, the Angry Child mode has the potential to derail the therapy and is often experienced as the most unpleasant part of the therapy experience. There are three places where this mode can be activated–in the therapeutic relationship, in the recounting of the traumatic experiences, and in interpersonal relationships outside the room. For anger in the therapeutic context, the therapist wants to stress two points: “The first is that the therapist wants to hear the patient’s anger; the second is that the patient needs to express the anger within appropriate limits” (Young et al., 2003, p. 349). There are four steps involved here: 1. Ventilate. The therapist wants to allow the patient to release their anger. The stance here is more neutral than empathic. The reason for this is that empathy tends to dampen the anger, and the purpose is to uncover the wound that underlies the anger. It is through listening to the anger that the underlying schema will be revealed. 2. Empathize. Once the wound is clear, the therapist empathizes with the suffering. Once the pain is made clear, the therapist can bypass the Angry Child and connect with the Abandoned/Abused Child. This can then open the door to painful experiences from the past. 3. Reality testing. When the anger is directed toward the therapist, it is better to avoid being defensive. Instead, the approach is to acknowledge that there is some truth to the patient’s concern (i.e., the therapist was a bit irritated); however, there is also a schemadriven aspect to the reaction. A critical message is that the therapist, despite his or her imperfections, does fundamentally care. 4. Rehearsal of appropriate assertiveness. Borderline and other patients who are given to anger need to find more effective ways to communicate. After the anger-inducing experience has been processed, the situation can then be re-played with the patient expressing the feelings and needs assertively. Again, this is part of developing a healthy “voice” within the patient. The exception to this is in imagery work, especially with those who hurt them. “In imagery work, patients are encouraged to express their anger fully. They can yell and can hit the couch, use a bataka, or create other safe ways of expressing their feelings” (Kellogg & Young, 2006). Role-playing and letter-writing can be used to release anger as well. As noted above, those with histories of violence should

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not do violent imagery or hit things in session. Verbalizing their feelings is a better vehicle for them.

Autonomy Autonomy is the third stage in the treatment process. Here, the focus moves from the inner world to the external, interpersonal world. The two main areas of work are interpersonal relationships and identity development. Interpersonal relationships are examined to see which modes are in operation. The goal is for there to be balance and reciprocity. Situations in where the patient is receiving excessive amounts of disrespect or is rageful and demanding are problematic and will need to be addressed. Developing an assertive, strong, but respectful voice will be best. A lack of a sense of identity is one of the diagnostic criteria for BPD. The model here involves helping the inner child with the process of growing up. Maturation involves developing a set of values, a set of likes and dislikes. Therapist will work with patients to help them explore the world and develop preferences. Young worked with a woman who, at the age of 27, discovered what her favorite color was. This discovery helped to strengthen her sense of self (Young et al., 2003).

Philosophy and Case Management Issues concerning the balance between the needs of the patient and the needs of the therapist, countertransference, anger, and managing suicidal crises have been explored at length in Young et al. (2003) and will not be pursued here. There is, however, one key point that is worth mentioning. In the schema therapy model, borderline patients are seen as “needy, not greedy” (Young et al., 2003, p. 322). Psychologically and emotionally they are little children who have been abandoned. This leads to the emotional intensity that they often express. Schema therapy believes that compassion and nurturing are the answer, not limit setting and viewing the patients as spoiled and demanding.

A Case Example In what may be the first published case study of schema mode therapy, Bamber (2004) used the approach in the treatment of “Jimmy”, a 47-yearold man who reported a 30-year history of debilitating agoraphobia. This wonderful case history is well worth reading in full. Some of the highlights will be focused on here.

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Prior to entering schema mode therapy, Jimmy had undergone multiple therapeutic experiences, including pharmacotherapy, psychodynamic therapy, hypnosis, and standard CBT, all of which had proven to be unsuccessful. In terms of his personal history, his father was an emotionally and physically abusive man and his mother tended to protect him from the outside world and helped him avoid challenges. He made some attempts to engage the world and was even married briefly, but bouts of anxiety began to play an increasingly paralyzing role in his life. Jimmy and Bamber worked out the modes in the following way. The Detached Protector was called the “Black Knight”. He was “a mercenary who had a job to do, and that was stop any hurt or pain getting through” (p. 432). The Vulnerable Child was “Defenceless Jimmy”, who was seen internally as a newborn child. “He got easily overwhelmed and could not cope with very much at all and was unable to take any risks” (p. 432). The Punitive Parent was known as “The Multi-Headed Hydra.” It was described “as an aggressive bully…[and] as critical, controlling, withholding and frightening to Defenceless Jimmy” (p. 432). This figure was seen as a combination of his father and his brother. The Healthy Adult first took the form of Charles Darwin, who was chosen for his knowledge and wisdom. He was later replaced with Sean Connery, the actor. Sean Connery, in his off-screen life, is very actively involved in charity work for the benefit of children and it was this aspect of the man (not James Bond) that appealed to the patient and was chosen to represent the Healthy Adult. The paper gives an overview of 19 sessions that were primarily focused on mode work. At the beginning of the process, the hydra is strong, the child is weak, and the Black Knight steps in and tries to shut down the therapy. This mode is bypassed and Charles Darwin, who was ineffectual in his attempts to fight the hydra, is replaced with Sean Connery. He goes to battle with the hydra. In the imagery work, “flying harpies” are brought in to assist in the battle and Sean Connery attacks the logic of the hydra. After this, things begin to change. Defenseless Jimmy begins to fight the hydra as well. He defends himself and challenges the hydra. As he does this, he experiences himself as “strong” and “brave”. Behaviorally, he starts leaving the house more. He makes contact with old classmates, contacts a woman that he knew in the past, and he has his first sexual experience in 13 years. The hydra tries to attack this progress through criticism and ridicule. Jimmy finds that the Black Knight is too weak to help him, so he relies instead on Sean Connery and the harpies. He begins to feel that the

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Punitive Parent is weakening. He also gets bolder in his attacks on the hydra. He now feels that he has reached the age of 10. In a re-parenting stage, he imagines going places and doing things with Sean Connery. Sean Connery models how he would behave in the different situations and Jimmy tries this out in real-life. CBT techniques are also used to help him with his phobias. As this continues, he describes himself as “coming out of a frozen wasteland after three decades” (p.435). He is taking much better care of his appearance, driving, working a little, seeing friends, and pursuing his romantic interests. He reports that the Black Knight is dead and there is a concomitant return of his affective life; he cries for the first time in years. He feels that the inner child has now reached puberty and, by the end of this period of work, he reports that he is engaged to be married. Pre-and Post-therapy YSQ assessments show dramatic reductions in schema scores. Clearly, this is a creative and effective use of the mode model. As a result of Bamber’s efforts, this man’s life was saved.

Empirical Data There has been a major study of schema mode therapy in the treatment of BPD. Dr. Arnoud Arntz and his research team did a three-year treatment study of borderline personality disorder in the Netherlands. Schema therapy was compared with Kernberg’s (2004) transferencefocused therapy. Preliminary findings presented on a conference suggest that schema therapy had a significantly better retention rate and, using an intention to treat sample, significantly more patients were “recovered” or “clinically improved” with schema therapy (Arntz, Giesen-Bloo, van Dyck, Spinhoven & van Tilburg, 2005). It is our hope that the publication of this study will help further the spread of schema therapy, especially among those who emphasize the importance of evidence-based treatments.

Schema Therapy and Gestalt Therapy Hopefully, the extensive use of gestalt and experiential techniques by schema therapists has been made clear. The ones discussed here have been imagery, chairwork, and letter-writing. Awareness interventions were not discussed, but they are used to a lesser degree. Of central importance, however, is the understanding that the use of gestalt techniques is not random or intuitive; they are used within the context of a strong conceptual base. This distinguishes schema therapy from other therapies

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that use these interventions in a less or non-systematic way (Melnick & Nevis, 2005; Yontef, 2005). An exploration of the gestalt therapy literature seems to point to the presence of two polarities within that tradition. The first polarity is based in the 1951 publication of Gestalt Therapy by Perls, Goodman, and Hefferline (“The 1951 polarity”). This book has connections to psychoanalysis and is centered on awareness as the key therapeutic healing vehicle. This would later be described in a famous paper by Beisser (1970) as the “paradoxical theory of change.” This work is also connected to Eastern philosophical and religious traditions and to the work of the phenomenologists. The other polarity is centered in the later work of Fritz Perls. This would include his activities during the sixties at Esalen and would include his chairwork interventions and his dreamwork technique (“The 1969 polarity”). These efforts have been captured in The Gestalt Approach/ Eyewitness to Therapy (Perls, 1973), Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (Perls, 1969), and Legacy from Fritz (Perls, 1975). This work appears to be more connected to the psychodramatic tradition. Recent discussions (Bowman, 2005; Melnick & Nevis, 2005; Yontef, 2005) on the current status of gestalt therapy appear to reflect a therapy that is much more centered on the "1951 polarity" than on the "1969 polarity." However, therapists who have sought to integrate gestalt techniques and perspectives into other ways of working have typically found the 1969 polarity to be a better source of material. Despite his emphasis on awareness, Kellogg (2004), perhaps looking backward with a more contemporary lens, felt that Perls, during this period, was a modifying therapist, to use Greenberg’s (Greenberg, Safran, & Rice, 1989) facilitating versus modifying dichotomy. His emphasis on polarities and integration can be re-envisioned as a kind of cognitive-behavioral therapy. There are two examples that capture this. In Linda’s dream in gestalt Therapy Verbatim she is first focused on images of a lake that is drying up and a license plate that has expired. There is a feeling that things are at an end and a sense of impotence in her images and in her language. She does, however, make a shift when she discovers: “When I soak into the earth, I become a part of the earth–so maybe I water the surrounding area, so…even in the lake, even in my bed, flowers can grow (sights)…New life can grow…from me (cries)…” (Perls, 1969, p. 82; see also Edwards, 1989). In another case example, Perls uses the image of a beached whale that emerged in a dream of an obese and depressed woman. This image brings up stories of isolation and loneliness. He then switched polarities. “When Perls told her, as her tears dried, to become the sea in her dream,

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her huge shape seemed for a moment not just the visible burden of her self-hatred but an indication that she could be teeming with life” (Miller, 1992, p. 2-3). In both cases, Perls has moved them from death images to life images. This work is purposeful and directed. In these and other instances, Perls has switched into the role of the caring, heroic father therapist, a role for which he was much loved (i.e., Baumgardner, 1975). It was this direct and confrontational work that lent itself to adoption by other therapeutic traditions. Probably the most successful of the early attempts was Redecision Therapy (Goulding & Goulding, 1997). The Gouldings integrated gestalt therapy with transactional analysis and were very successful in the use of chairwork and imagery and in re-working traumatic situations that their patients had been through. Conceptually, there are a number of places of meeting between schema therapy and gestalt therapy. Fodor (1987, 1996a, 1996b, 1998), in a series of papers, has sought to make a connection between gestalt therapy and the constructivist aspects of cognitive therapy. A central aspect of this work is the argument that gestalts are schemas. This is an important bridge concept for integrationist efforts. It also opens the door to reconceptualizing gestalt interventions in ways that are more easily assimilated by schema and constructivist therapies. On the other side, gestalt therapy, both in its research and in its case conceptualizations, could use the language of the schemas to good purpose. The fact that there are empirically supported measures allows for greater cognitive conceptualizations by both therapists and patients. Young and Klosko (1993) report a case of a patient who left a gestalt practitioner for schema therapy. The central complaint was that the hereand-now experiential work was not providing him with a coherent understanding of his problem. Fodor (1996a) has addressed this issue in her emphasis on the crucial interplay between experience and its interpretation. Traditionally, gestalt therapy has emphasized experience and awareness, while the cognitive therapies have emphasized beliefs and interpretations. It is our perception that schema therapy is, in fact, bridging the two. Turning to the interventions, Edwards (1989) makes the significant point that gestalt chairwork and imagery exercises are forms of cognitive restructuring. This clearly provides a rationale for the use of these techniques within a cognitive-behavioral framework (see Goldfried, 1988, 2003). Zinker (1977), coming from the other side of the equation, sees gestalt work as a kind of in-session form of behavior modification. He sees the experiments (chairwork and imagery) as a systematic way to do this.

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Greenberg’s (Greenberg, 1979; Greenberg et al., 1993) extensive work on the chair paradigms easily lends itself to a cognitive-behavioral and schema therapy work. Another area of contact is that of multiplicity. Perls (1969, 1973, 1975) would have different aspects of the person, including body parts, dialogue with each other. Simkin (Simkin, Simkin, Brien, & Sheldon, 1986) wrote: “We are all different people, at different times, in varying polarities. …gestalt therapy gives attention to the observation and awareness of our different parts” (217). Elliott and Greenberg (1997) spoke about a model of multivocality in their emotion-focused therapy, and, as has been seen, the mode model is based on multiplicity (Stiles, 1999). Kellogg (2004) felt that the metaphor of multiple voices may be the vehicle for integrating these two approaches. One historic difference is that the cognitivebehavioral (i.e., Bishop, 2001) and schema therapy practitioners are willing to create new voices, while the gestalt practitioners tend to favor working with what is there. Schema therapy, in addition to assessment instruments and a language of pathology, offers gestalt therapists a way to make bridges to other therapeutic traditions. To use a gestalt dictum, they can go from an either/or stance to an and/both one. Lastly, while Dr. Young and the present author have studied with gestalt practitioners, ongoing dialogues and interactions with gestalt therapists, who are experts in the use of experiential techniques, would only serve to improve the power and effectiveness of schema therapy.

Conclusion This paper sought to give an overview of the contemporary application of schema therapy. This included a look at both the schema-focused and the schema-mode models. The model for the treatment of borderline personality disorder was presented and case example outlining its use was provided. Finally, points of contact between the two approaches and the possible benefits of schema therapy-gestalt therapy dialogues were detailed.

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Table 1: Early Maladaptive Schemas: Brief Definitions (from Bricker & Young, 2004) Disconnection & Rejection Abandonment – “ the expectation that one will soon lose anyone with whom an emotional attachment is formed.” Mistrust/Abuse – “the expectation that others will intentionally take advantage in some way. People with this schema expect others to hurt, cheat, or put them down.” Emotional Deprivation – “the belief that one’s primary emotional needs will never by met by others.” Defectiveness/Shame – “the belief that one is internally flawed, and that, if others get close, they will realize this and withdraw from the relationship.” Social Isolation/Alienation – “the belief that one is isolated from the world, different from other people, and/or not part of any community.” Impaired Autonomy & Performance Dependence/Incompetence – “the belief that one is not capable of handling day-to-day responsibilities competently and independently.” Vulnerability to Harm and Illness – “the belief that one is always on the verge of experiencing a major catastrophe (financial, natural, medical, criminal, etc.).” Enmeshment/Undeveloped Self – “a pattern in which you experience too much emotional involvement with others – usually parents or romantic partners. It may also include the feeling that one has too little individual identity or inner direction.…” Failure – “the belief that one is incapable of performing as well as one’s peers in areas such as career, school or sports.” Impaired Limits Entitlement/Grandiosity – “the belief that you should be able to do, say, or have whatever you want immediately regardless or whether that hurts others or seems reasonable to them.” Insufficient Self-Control/Self-Discipline – “the inability to tolerate any frustration in reaching one’s goals, as well as an inability to restrain expression of one’s impulses or feelings.” Other Directedness Subjugation – “the belief that one must submit to the control of others in order to avoid negative consequences.” Self-Sacrifice – “the excessive sacrifice of one’s own needs in order

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to help others.” Approval Seeking/Recognition Seeking – “the placing of too much emphasis on gaining the approval and recognition of others at the expense of one’s genuine needs and sense of self.” Overvigilance & Inhibition Negativity/Pessimism – “a pervasive pattern of focusing on the negative aspects of life while minimizing the positive aspects.” Emotional Inhibition – “the belief that you must suppress spontaneous emotions and impulses, especially anger…” Unrelenting Standards/Hypercriticalness – “the belief that whatever you do is not good enough, that you must always strive harder.” Punitiveness – “the belief that people deserve to be harshly punished for making mistakes. People with this schema are critical and unforgiving of both themselves and others” (Bricker & Young, 2004).

References Abrams, J. (1990). Reclaiming the inner child. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher. Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bowlby, J. (1991). An ethological approach to personality development. American Psychologist, 46, 331-341. Arntz, A., Giesen-Bloo, J., van Dyck, R., Spinhoven, Ph. & van Tilburg, W. (2005). Schema-focused vs. Transeference-focused Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: Results of a multicenter trial. Paper presented at the XXXV EABCT conference. Thessaloniki, Greece, September 21st-24th, 2005. Bamber, M. (2004). ‘The good, the bad and defenceless Jimmy’ – A single case study of schema mode therapy. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 11, 425-438. Baumgardner, P. (1975). Gifts from Lake Cowichan. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books. Beisser, A. R. (1970). The paradoxical theory of change. In J. Fagen & I. L. Shepherd (Eds). Gestalt therapy now (pp. 77-80). New York: Harper Colophon. Berne, E. (1957). Ego states in psychotherapy. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 11, 293-305. Bishop, F. M. (2001). Managing addictions: Cognitive, emotive, and behavioral techniques. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc.

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Bowman, C. E. (2005). The history and development of Gestalt therapy. In A. L. Woldt & S. M. Toman (Eds.). Gestalt therapy: History, theory, and practice (pp. 3-20). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bricker, D. C., & Young, J. E. (2004). A client’s guide to schema therapy. New York: Schema Therapy Institute. Edwards, D. J. A. (1989). Cognitive restructuring through guided imagery. In A. Freeman, K. M. Simon, L. E. Beutler, H. Arkowitz (Eds.) Comprehensive handbook of cognitive therapy (pp. 283-297). New York: Plenum Press. Elliott, J., & Elliott, K. (2000). Disarming your inner critic. Lafayette, LA: Anthetics Institute Press. Elliott, R. E., & Greenberg, L. S. (1997). Multiple voices in processexperiential therapy: Dialogues between aspects of the self. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 7,225-239. Firestone, R. W., Firestone, L., & Catlett, J. (2002). Conquer your critical inner voice. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger. Fodor, I. G. (1987). Moving beyond cognitive-behavior therapy: Integrating Gestalt therapy to facilitate personal and interpersonal awareness. In N. S. Jacobson (Ed.) Psychotherapists in clinical practice: Cognitive and behavioral perspectives (pp. 190-231). New York: The Guilford Press. —. (1996a). A cognitive perspective for Gestalt therapy. British Gestalt Journal, 5, 31-42. —. (1996b). A woman and her body: The cycles of pride and shame. In G. Wheeler & R. Lee (Eds.). The voice of shame (pp. 229-265). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. —. (1998). Awareness and meaning-making: The dance of experience. Gestalt Review, 2, 50-71. Freud, S. (1914/1953). Further recommendations in the technique of psycho-analysis. In S. Freud. Collected papers: Volume 2 (pp. 366376). London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Goldfried, M. R. (1988). Application of rational restructuring to anxiety disorders. The Counseling Psychologist, 16, 50-68. —. (2003). Cognitive-behavior therapy: Reflections on the evolution of a therapeutic orientation. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27, 53-69. Goulding, M. M., & Goulding, R. (1997). Changing lives through Redecision Therapy. New York: Grove Press. Greenberg, J.R., & Mitchell, S. A. (1983). Objects relations in psychoanalytic theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Greenberg, L. S. (1979). Resolving splits: Use of the two chair technique. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice 16, 316-324.

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Greenberg, L. S., Rice, L. N., & Elliott, R. (1993). Facilitating emotional change: The moment-by-moment process. New York: The Guildford Press. Greenberg, L. S., Saran, J., & Rice, L. (1989). Experiential therapy: Its relation to cognitive therapy. In A. Freeman, K. M. Simon, L. E. Beutler, H. Arkowitz (Eds.) Comprehensive handbook of cognitive therapy (pp. 169-187). New York: Plenum Press. Harris. T. A. (1969). I’m ok – you’re ok: A practical guide to Transactional Analysis. New York: Galahad Books. Kellogg, S. H. (2004). Dialogical encounters: Contemporary perspectives on “chairwork” in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 41, 310-320. Kellogg, S. H., & Young, J. E. (2006). Schema Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62, 445-458. Kernberg, O. (2004). Borderline personality disorder and borderline personality organization: Psychopathology and psychotherapy. In J. J. Maganavita (Ed.) Handbook of personality disorders (pp. 92-119). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Lazarus, A., Lazarus, C. (1991). Multimodal Life History Inventory. Champaign, IL: Research Press. Melnick, J., & Nevis, S. M. (2005). Gestalt therapy methodology. In A. L. Woldt & S.M. Toman (Eds.). Gestalt therapy: History, theory, and practice (pp. 101-115). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Miller, M. V. (1992). Introduction. In F. S. Perls, Gestalt therapy verbatim (pp. 1–20). Highland, NY: Gestalt Journal Press. Perls, F. S. (1969). Gestalt therapy verbatim. Lafayette, California: Real People Press. —. (1973). The Gestalt approach & eye witness to therapy. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books. —. (1975). Legacy from Fritz. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books. Ratto, C. L., & Capitano, D. L. (1999). New Directions for cognitive therapy: A schema-focused approach. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 6, 68-73. Simkin, J. S., Simkin, A. N., Brien, L., & Sheldon, C. (1986). Gestalt therapy. In I. L. Kutash & A. Wolf (Ed.). Psychotherapist’s casebook (pp. 209-221). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Stiles, W. B. (1999). Signs and voices in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy Research, 9, 1-21. Tatarsky, A. (2002). Harm reduction psychotherapy. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

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Watkins, J. G. & Watkins, H. H. (1991). Hypnosis and ego state therapy. In P. A. Keller & S. R. Heyman (Eds.), Innovations in clinical practice: A source book (Vol. 10,pp. 23-37). Sarasota, FL: Professional Resources Exchange. Watkins, J. G., & Watkins, H. H. (1981). Ego-state therapy. In R. Corsini (Ed.). Handbook of innovative psychotherapies (pp. 252-270). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Whitfield, C. L. (1987). Healing the child within. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications. Yontef, G. M. (2005). Gestalt therapy theory of change. In A. L. Woldt & S. M. Toman (Eds.). Gestalt therapy: History, theory, and practice (pp. 81-100). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Young, J. E. (1990). Cognitive therapy for personality disorders: A schema-focused approach. Sarasota, FL: Practitioner’s Resources Series. —. (2001). Young Schema Questionnaire: Special Edition. New York: Schema Therapy Institute. —. (2002). Maladaptive schema coping styles. New York: Schema Therapy Institute. —. (2003). Young Parenting Inventory. New York: Cognitive Therapy Center. —. (2004). Schema mode listing, October 2004 revision, third draft. New York: Schema Therapy Institute. —. (2005). Young Schema Questionnaire-3[Short form]. New York: Schema Therapy Institute. Young, J. E., Beck, A. T., & Weinberger, A. (1993). Depression. In D. H. Barlow (Ed.) Clinical handbook of psychological disorders (2nd ed.), (pp. 240-277). New York: The Guilford Press. Young, J. E., & Klosko, J. S. (1993). Reinventing your life. New York: Dutton Young, J. E., Klosko, J. S., Weishaar, M. E. (2003). Schema Therapy: A practitioner’s guide. New York: The Guilford Press. Zinker, J. (1977). Creative process in Gestalt therapy. New York: Vintage Books.

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Postscript: Schema Therapy 2009 Scott Kellogg, PhD This article was originally written in 2005 and schema therapy has progressed greatly since then. At that time, the Dutch study on the effectiveness of schema therapy in the treatment of borderline personality disorder could not be fully discussed as the official study had not yet been published. As intimated in the main section, this study was a watershed event. When compared with the 42 patients who were randomized to treatment with Transference-Focused Therapy, the 44 patients receiving schema therapy were: 1. Significantly more likely to have a full recovery (46%:24%) 2. Significantly more likely to show clinical improvement (66%:43%) The schema therapy patients also reported better quality of life and lower levels of psychopathology (Giesen-Bloo et al., 2006). These findings have been of great interest to those who are concerned about borderline personality disorder and schema therapists alike. Since then, exciting work is emerging on ways of working with narcissistic personality disorder (Behary, 2008) and antisocial personality disorder (Bernstein, Arntz, & de Vos, 2007). The American Psychological Association (2007) released a DVD on schema therapy that featured Jeffrey Young working with a borderlinespectrum patient. Of relevance to this discussion, there are some extremely powerful moments in which he uses imagery and empty-chair techniques to help the patient, Pam, confront her history of mistreatment and abuse. On the organizational front, there have been efforts to form a central organization that seeks to promote the advancement of schema therapy. After meetings in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Portugal, the International Society for Schema Therapy was formally created in 2008. It currently has its headquarters in Germany, and it includes members from all over the world. In terms of web-based resources that are useful for those interested in schema therapy, relevant sites include: 1. Schema therapy homepage: this website contains a great deal of information about schema therapy theory and practice; in addition,

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there is information about the International Certificate Program in Schema Therapy. www.schematherapy.com 2. The International Society of Schema Therapy is the home of the new international organization. The goal is for it to become a central resource for schema therapists. www.isst-online.com 3. The New Jersey Institute of Schema Therapy is the training site of Wendy Behary, the therapist who has done centrally-important work on using schema therapy to treat narcissistic disorders. http://www.disarmingthenarcissist.com/institute.php 4. Transformational Chairwork Training. This is a training program that empowers psychotherapists to use the chairwork technique while drawing on the insights of gestalt therapy, schema therapy, and a wide range of integrative psychotherapists. This training has been popular with schema therapists. www.transformationalchairwork.com Hopefully, this brief update has given a sense of the vibrant energy that is now moving through the schema therapy world.

References American Psychological Association (Producer). (2007). Schema therapy with Jeffrey E. Young, PhD [Motion picture]. (Available from the American Psychological Association, 750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 2002-4242). Behary, W. T. (2008). Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and thriving with the self- absorbed. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger. Bernstein, D., Arntz, A., & de Vos, M. (2007). Schema focused therapy in forensic settings: Theoretical model and recommendations for best clinical practice. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 6, 169-183. Giesen-Bloo, J., van Dyck, R., Spinhoven, P., van Tilburn, W., Dirksen, C., van Asselt, T., et al. (2006). Outpatient psychotherapy for borderline personality disorder: Randomized trial of Schema-Focused Therapy vs Transference-Focused Psychotherapy. Archives of General Psychiatry, 63, 649-658.

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A Responsive Commentary on "Schema Therapy: A Gestalt-Oriented Overview" Philip Brownell Scott Kellogg clearly stated the purpose of his paper and its contents: “The goal of this paper is to provide an introduction to and overview of schema therapy … within the context of a journal dedicated to gestalt therapy. Schema therapy is an integrative psychotherapy that draws very deeply from the gestalt and experiential traditions. The areas to be covered include the history of the approach, an overview of the schema model, an introduction to both schema-focused and schema mode therapies, a case example of mode therapy, and points of connection between schema therapy and gestalt therapy”

Both Dan Bloom and Iris Fodor have responded to various points, indicating, among other things, that gestalt therapy is not a technique driven therapy, even though many other modalities utilize gestalt experiments that have become formalized. This is something Kellogg and Young actually point out as well, and I appreciated reading that in their article. However, I agree with both Dan and Iris that the version of gestalt therapy Kellogg and Young seem most conversant with reflects a more primitive phase in the development of gestalt therapy theory. What shall I say in response to this article by Scott Kellogg and Jeffrey Young? First, I think the article is well written, and it certainly provides gestalt therapists a view into this other modality. That said, however, I wonder if there actually exist points of consilience between the two approaches. I can see how Kellogg and Young offer a pragmatic consideration: Schema therapy adapts gestalt therapy, and in return gestalt therapy benefits from the research on schema therapy. Second, reading the section on schema therapy, I was reminded of recovery literature focused on co-dependency. Whereas the recoveryoriented therapist might explain that as a child the client had to set aside being a child to take care of the needs of the parent(s), and that the child developed a "coping strategy" to survive the chaos of a dysfunctional family, the schema therapist might go a step further to identify components of that coping style and provide a diagnostic label that becomes almost like a hologram that stands in the place of the client's life. I find no consilience there, because the gestalt therapist attempts to remain experience near while the schema therapist leaves the ongoing experience

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of the client to relate to the client through the grid of the schemas he or she has assigned. The person seems to become the diagnosed schema(s), but in gestalt therapy the person remains the person who is now doing this or that, has more or less a sense of the past in the present, and is more or less aware of what he or she is doing at any given moment. In an important paragraph, Kellogg and Young stated: “Schemas are assessed in a variety of ways. This is a particularly important issue because the coping modes may obscure the underlying schemas. While patients may present with a similar style, be it anger or disengagement, the underlying schema structure can be different. In addition, patients who have been through similar experiences may, nonetheless, have different schema structures, or if they have the similar schema structures they may use different coping modes. Ultimately, the healing process takes place in the connection to and work with the schema, not the coping style.”

This is also a departure from gestalt therapy because in gestalt therapy the focus is on the what and the how of a client's experience–what one does and how one does that. If I understand Kellogg and Young correctly, they claim that healing takes place in connection to the what, at which point they leave behind the how of the coping style or mode. This is a significant loss of consilience because gestalt therapy is largely a therapy of process, and it is the process of how the given person embodies his or her being, as dasein (being there in the midst of other beings), which is a matter of contacting. The contacting can be, in a sense, "in touch" with oneself, knowing and being aware of oneself as situated, and it can be knowing and being aware (or being unaware as the case may be) of other (i.e., other persons or other things in one's physical-social-ecological and environmental situation). Actually, these two types of contact are aspects of the same thing. In gestalt therapy this is the main focus: how a person is losing or interrupting contact on the one hand and how that person is establishing and/or maintaining contact on the other (with all the relationship ramifications concomitant to these considerations). Kellogg and Young asserted that the first step in schema therapy is to identify and label the schemas. That brings them more clearly into awareness and provides a conceptual framework for the therapy. However, this too is out of step with gestalt therapy, for such a thing shifts the focus away from the client and onto a theoretical system whereas gestalt therapy utilizes a phenomenological method that remains focused on what the client presents and brackets (as much as possible), the therapist's theories about why the client does any particular thing. The gestalt therapist strives

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to explore contact with the client rather than to focus on theories about the client. This is not to say that a gestalt therapist never conceptualizes the case or arrives at diagnostic conclusions, but these things are not the first step. They are not even the second step. The first step in gestalt therapy is to establish the client-therapist dyad (or field) and that requires that the gestalt therapist be present, make room for the client, and accept however the client chooses to enter into the crucible of contact; gestalt therapists call this a dialogical attitude, and the use of the term "attitude" is not haphazard. Attitude is very important in gestalt therapy. It is an aspect of intentionality that is at the core of gestalt therapy: “…our interest, what gestalt therapists call a figure, is illuminated with an attitude. What is this attitude? It is the filtered light that drops through the canopy of a rain forest. Without that, the ground would remain in shadow or even undetected, and certainly it would go unappreciated and lost to one's attention. However, in this attitude, a subject can attend to this figure or that, but each one will be lit up by the same light cast upon other figures, and all these figures would be understood as in some way fitting together in one attitude.”

Gestalt therapists understand the background of a person's life to be the ground of current experience. Thus, when a person is in a particular attitude, it is that attitude that lights up various aspects of the person's ground. This is not a plodding sequence of logical determination; this is more the automatic sparkle that catches a person's attention prereflectively. Portions of a person's overall ground are lit up selectively, but instantaneously, by the situated attitude in which a person moves at any given moment. (Brownell, in press) Thus, if I walk through a shopping mall in a baker's attitude, then I am smelling the aroma of cinnamon buns in one corner, cookies being sold in another, and pies on display in another, and I might drift to thinking about specific versions I've made of those things on occasion. However, if I walk through the same mall in a shopper's attitude, then my eye is caught by signs indicating a store is having a sale, and I might be thinking of going all the way to the end of the mall to compare prices on some particular item. In the second case, the shoppers' attitude precludes the same sensory perceptions detected in the baker's attitude; it's not that those stimuli are not available (as if they stopped baking cinnamon buns, cookies, and pies on the second day); it's that the light shining down on the ground does not illuminate them. Thus, for a gestalt therapist to adopt a dialogical attitude, the therapist is keyed into what makes for dialogue, and the therapist is keen to work in

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a dialogical fashion. At that moment, the emphasis of work is dialogical instead of phenomenological, even though phenomenological tracking may also be going on, and even though there would be many factors affecting the overall situation. Thus, gestalt therapy is complex, even while comprising a unified praxis, and it is artificial to extract "techniques" from its unity. At any given moment the therapist might be in a dialogical attitude, a phenomenological attitude, a field-theoretical attitude, or an experimental attitude, but all the while all these elements in the unified praxis would still be going on. You cannot extract bits and pieces of gestalt therapy and truthfully be said to be practicing gestalt therapy. Kellogg and Young come close to gestalt therapy when they shift to discussing schema mode therapy: “Mode therapy involves listening to patients speak about their lives and experiences and watching their emotions, energy, language, and position shift. This is probably closely related to the gestalt approach of listening for what is figure for a patient. In the schema model, the shifts will be given names.”

From a gestalt perspective I would respond by saying, "This is close." However, gestalt therapy is not just listening and watching the client's emotions and such. It is not just about the figures that clients have. Gestalt therapy is more about observing and describing the way of the client, in which "observing" is more than watching. It is being with. It is paradoxical in this respect: the therapist is not attempting to be the change agent; the therapist is attempting to remain as close to the experience of the client as possible with a view to describing what he or she observes while contacting the client. What the client does with that is entirely unpredictable, but whatever that is, the therapist remains descriptively observant. This approach is based on faith. The therapist trusts that (l) people are inherently oriented toward self actualization/health, (2) the field will provide what is necessary for growth and change, (3) the client will become what he or she is not by being what she or he is in the current moment. This faith approach is at odds with a medical model of linear causeand-effect. Schema therapy seems to have been built around that medical model, and so here again is a loss of consilience. In a section of their article aimed at showing the integration of gestalt therapy and schema therapy, Kellogg and Young state: “Hopefully, the extensive use of gestalt and experiential techniques by schema therapists has been made clear. The ones discussed here have been

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This is the crux of the issue upon which I would like to elaborate and comment further. Kellogg and Young have made "use" of techniques associated with gestalt therapy and they believe they have done so, not in a randomly eclectic fashion, but in accord with a "strong conceptual base." I believe they have done just that, but is that what integration is? In an interview with Leslie Greenberg (Greenberg and Brownell, 1997), in the first issue of Gestalt!, three forms of integration were identified: (1) a grand theoretical integration, (2) a synthesis by adding two things together, and (3) a technical eclecticism gained by patching together different interventions from different schools. Regardless of whether one is seeking a theoretical fusion, a synthesis of the praxis, or the use of one school's interventions by another, there must be points of convergence, overlaps, or pragmatic opportunity that guide the actual integration. I have come to understand these points as matters of consilience. Consilience is said to exist when a good theory unifies empirical data and laws from different domains; "…the paradigm case of such 'consilience' was the successful unification of Kepler's laws and Galileo's laws by means of Newton's theory." (Niiniluoto, 2007) Stated in another way, "… by finding a cause shared by phenomena in different sub-kinds, we are able to colligate all the facts about these kinds into a more general causal law. Whewell claimed that 'when the theory, by the concurrences of two indications…has included a new range of phenomena, we have, in fact, a new induction of a more general kind, to which the inductions formerly obtained are subordinate, as particular cases to a general population…'"(Snyder, 2006) Thus, I find consilience between CBT's use of mindfulness and gestalt therapy's mindful attention to awareness, acceptance, and the present moment due to their common source in Buddhist thought. I find consilience among Martin Buber's interpersonal philosophy, relational psychodynamic psychotherapy's intersubjective methodology, and gestalt therapy's theory of dialogue because of the commonalities they exhibit in respect to alterity and two-person field dynamics. Where is the consilience between the gestalt methods of "imagery," etc., and schema therapy's use of such methods? I see no fusion in common theory. I do see consilience among schema therapy, transactional

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analysis, Jungian therapy (archetypes), recovery-oriented intergenerational family dynamics, and attachment theory. So, what form of integration exists between schema therapy and gestalt therapy? To me, it is the third type identified by Leslie Greenberg: a technical eclecticism gained by patching together different interventions from different schools. To be sure, there is a reason why Kellogg and Young have adopted gestalt techniques, and they do adopt and make use of some rudimentary gestalt therapy ideas, such as polarities, but what does this imply? Is there a theoretical convergence behind such adoption? Is there a point of consilience not yet explicated? There may be, and if so, that would be worth uncovering. What would I like to see developed in the future between these two forms of therapy? I would like to see schema therapy display a more updated knowledge of gestalt therapy. The bi-polar split between east and west coast gestalt is dead. Gestalt therapy theory and practice has advanced significantly in the last couple of decades. Gestalt therapists have developed and elucidated what was rough in the seminal texts; gestalt therapy is now much more about dialogue, alterity, emergent but nonreductive self, field, and community. So, I believe that it may indeed be possible for one modality to scratch the other's back, and vice-versa, but perhaps it might run in this direction: schema therapy to adopt gestalt theory of contact, self in relation, and creative experiment, while gestalt therapists engage in research comparing the two approaches and exploring the potential consilience between fixed gestalts and schemas.

Resources Brownell, P. (in press) Intentional spirituality, in J. Harold Ellens (ed.) The Healing Power of Spirituality: How Religion Helps. Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood Greenberg, L. and Brownell, P. (1997) Validating gestalt: An interview with researcher, writer, and psychotherapist, Leslie Greenberg. Gestalt!, 1(1), downloaded March 29, 2009 from http://www.ggej.org/1-1/greenberg.htm. Niinuluoto, I. (2007) Scientific progress, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta, (ed). Downloaded March 29, 2009 from http://plato.standford.edu/entries/scientific-progress Snyder, L. (2006) William Whewell, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta, (ed.). Downloaded March 29, 2009 from http://plato.standford.edu/entries/whewell

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A Responsive Commentary on "Schema Therapy: A Gestalt-Oriented Overview" Dan Bloom Introduction “And what kind of therapist are you?” I was asked in a breezily curious way at a cocktail party that had its fair share of psychotherapists gnawing canapés. I answered, “Gestalt therapist,” smiling and expecting, “What is gestalt therapy?” (the usual, and impossible, follow-up). Instead, the questioner turned to the person next to me, also a psychotherapist, a buddy: “And you?” “I,” answered my friend in a overfull tone for which he is known, “I am eclectic. [Pause] I do whatever works.” “Oh!” The smile faded from my face with this implication that I might be an ideologue, more interested in the purity of my approach than the results of my work. This anecdote hovers as background when I consider schema therapy from the standpoint of my gestalt therapy perspective and risk, once again, appearing to be more dogmatic than practical. I am nevertheless glad to offer my response to Scott Kellogg’s interesting paper, “Schema Therapy: A Gestalt-Oriented Overview.” Their essay covers a good deal of practical ground, shows their creative synthesis of contemporary psychotherapeutic approaches, and attempts to integrate gestalt therapy itself into their work. My response will examine this attempt. “Traditionally,” writes Kellogg, “Gestalt therapy has emphasized experience and awareness, while cognitive therapies have emphasized belief and interpretations. It is our perception that schema therapy is in fact, bridging the two.” They do a yeoman job at making a strong case for the effectiveness of schema therapy. Their effort to offer it as a bridge from gestalt therapy to cognitive therapies is a laudable task. Gestalt therapy is a field phenomenological and intersubjective psychotherapy of process; cognitive therapy is psychodynamic and intrapsychic. Gestalt therapy proceeds through experiment, invention, and discovery; schema therapy proceeds through interpretation, introjection, and technique. To envision a bridge between these two modalities stretches my imagination. For such a construction project to succeed would require amputating body parts from gestalt therapy--or at least from the body of gestalt therapy that I understand. What would remain of such a body would not be recognizable as gestalt therapy by me.

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When the author proposes that Kellogg (2004) was impressed by the 1969 Fritz Perls as a “modifying therapist” whose style of “direct and confrontational work” and attention to “polarities and integration” was a “kind of cognitive-behavioral therapy..." he is conflating personal style and technique with therapeutic modality. His hoped-for bridge is more of a bridge to this technique-centered approach than to what Dr. Kellogg correctly observe to be the predominant contemporary model, what I call the Foundational Model, with its roots in works of Fritz Perls, Laura Perls, and Paul Goodman. In this review, I will propose that the meta-theory of the Foundational Model offers a satisfying phenomenological description of their psychodynamic schema therapy. Rather than bridging our modalities, I will suggest that parallel yet different perspectives are reflected in foundational gestalt therapy and schema therapy. Hopefully, Dr. Kellogg will find the theoretical richness of this version of gestalt therapy complementary to the schema therapy approach. In developing this, I will first describe my version of the Foundational Model. I offer this dense overview of a complex theory as the frame for my discussion of schema therapy. I will then discuss some aspects of schema therapy from this perspective. My understanding of the Foundational Model owes much to many contemporary writers. My simplification of it for this review necessarily neglects the many differences we colleagues continue to address. My brevity will fail to do justice to the model’s complexities. I fear this is inevitable. However, I hope it will be sufficiently inviting to encourage readers to study more deeply those ideas briefly mentioned.

Foundational Gestalt Therapy’s Meta-Theory The foundational gestalt therapy model was first articulated through the writings and practices of Fritz Perls, Laura Perls, and Paul Goodman some 60 years ago. It established its own stream of development through the further teachings of Paul Weisz, Isadore From, Richard Kitzler, and their many students who internationally continue to refine this model, providing a meta-theory of gestalt therapy that informs its continuing practice. This Foundational Model, however, is rarely drawn upon by practitioners of other modalities when they claim to integrate gestalt therapy into their work by using so-called expressive gestalt techniques. For decades, serious attention to this model languished while the so-called 1969 Perls model became increasingly popular. The familiar hallmarks of gestalt therapy, imagery, chair work, and role playing (the heritage from

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Fritz Perls’ background with Max Reinhardt’s theatre company and Jacob Moreno’s psycho-drama ),were often absorbed by other modalities searching for expressive techniques.

Contact sequence and process Central to foundational gestalt therapy is the notion that experience advances through a sequence of figures and grounds in the organism/environment field. Self emerges from this meeting of organism and environment in a system of contacts as the agent of growth. The meeting of organism and environment is called the contact-boundary. This sequence of figures and grounds is referred to as the contact sequence. If there is any single concept that holds this model together, it is contact itself as a phenomenon co-created at this contact-boundary. Contacting is the basic unit of experience. Contact is an indivisible whole, uniting the traditional categories of body, mind, and external world, into wholes of sensation, perception, feeling, cognition, and action. In short, contacting is the entire process of human experiencing. The contact process is sometimes described as a loose temporal sequence including fore-contacting, contacting, final contact, and post contact, each bearing experienceable attributes. There is rarely, if ever, a single contact process. This may be impossible. Most typically, many such processes are simultaneously at play in our moment-to-moment experience. Further, the so-called “stages” of this sequence are merely descriptions of our experience of this process, not abstractions; and they are not discrete steps in a normative linear direction. Contacting is a process that integrates organism and environment. It emerges from the social field. Here gestalt therapy shows its indebtedness to many sources, from the radical empiricism and pragmatism of William James and George Herbert Mead, to the gestalt psychology of Wolfgang Koehler, Max Wertheimer, and Kurt Lewin; to the organismic neurology of Kurt Goldstein; and to the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and most especially to Maurice Merleau-Ponty whose incarnate self is the crux of phenomenal experience. This crucial relationship between individual and social dimensions of experience is the relationship of the individual as a figure against the social as ground. Just as “figure” is inseparable from "figure/ground,” “individual” is inseparable from “individual/social.” In contemporary parlance, then, gestalt therapy is not a single person psychology, but a two person, absolutely intersubjective, epistemology–if indeed “intersubjective” makes sense in this field-emergent model of experience. Recent

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neurological discoveries of mirror neurons, which apparently stamp empathy onto our neurology, support the fact that humans are biologically determined to be of a social field. “Intrapsychic” has no application in field phenomenology, since self is a social event, inclusive of individual and social elements.

Creative-adjusting, being-in-contact, contact-making Contacting is also understood to be how the human organism creatively adjusts in the phenomenal world: to find, invent, and create meaning in the face of existential certainties. Contact usefully is understood to include “contacting making,” an out-going deliberateness of experience, and “being in contact,” the aware support or background from which contacting may emerge. Support, then, is a necessary, implicit dimension of experience; it is both the somatic ground for experience, and the social fiber of what some call the intersubjective matrix.

Self as structure and function There are further aspects of the foundational model relevant to my discussion of schema therapy. Self emerges as an on-going process and function of the organism/environment field. It is a process, and like each and every noun used in gestalt therapy terminology, “self” does not refer to a “thing” but to aspects of process. Self function emerges by field circumstances or contingencies. This self process in the contact sequence is understood by many of us to include dimensions referred to as id functioning, ego functioning, and personality functioning. Very briefly, id functioning is the embodied felt sense of the situation– needs, urges, appetites, sensation–which organize as motivations for a person’s knowing, choosing, acting: the ego functioning. Personality functioning is that self function that provides continuity of personal history–memory of previous contactings. To the extent that past experiences continue to contribute to present functioning, and of course this is central to most etiologies of psychopathology, they are the domain of personality functioning. What other modalities describe as “character” may be described using these experiential self functions. These, then, are three aspects of the indivisible experience of contacting and are useful ways of describing the phenomena of moment to moment experiencing. These functions are not independent structural entities, but are interpenetrating dimensions of experience. They bear direct relevance to schema therapy, as I hope to describe below.

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Process psychopathology In foundational gestalt therapy, psychopathology is identified by inflexibility or rigidity of contacting. The method of gestalt therapy treatment is akin to that of phenomenological psychotherapy with the use of epoché, description, and horizontalization. (Spinelli). But the Foundation Model adds to this method its idea that the fluid and harmonious contact process is experienced as static, lifeless, and deadened when previous creative adjustments remain as incomplete tensions in the background which restrict the ability of new figures to emerge satisfactorily. These are not unconscious processes, as in psychoanalytic theory, but non-conscious background events, potentially available for direct experience in a successful gestalt therapy. When these non-conscious processes influence contacting, they are referred to in the gestalt therapy literature as contact interruptions or contact disturbances, directly experienceable and observable phenomena. Contact is evaluated in such a manner through use of the aesthetic criterion of contacting–the sensed attributes of the emerging figure. For example, unfinished historical traumas persist in the non-conscious background of individual experience and are reflected in rigid personality functioning, id function disturbance, and impact on ego functioning as a sense of diminished possibilities, distorted perceptions, and maladaptive decisions. These losses of ego functioning are referred to as confluence, introjection, retroflection, deflection, and egotism. They are sensed qualities of the figure forming with such disturbances. More thorough description of these phenomena is outside the scope of this review. The gestalt therapist works by attending to the emerging figure of contact and directly noticing contact interruptions or disturbances as opportunities for psychotherapeutic interventions. The achievement of fluid gestalts is the goal of gestalt therapy. The techniques of the 1969 model are relevant to the method only insofar as they serve to facilitate contacting. I will now turn directly to my consideration of schema therapy from the perspective sketched above.

Foundational Gestalt Therapy and Schema Therapy Schemas and gestalts Dr. Kellogg remarks that my colleague, Iris Fodor “has sought to make a connection between Gestalt therapy and the constructivist aspects of cognitive therapy. A central aspect of this work is the argument that

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gestalts are schemas. This is an important bridge concept...” Yet, I am not so sure. “Gestalt” originally was used in gestalt psychology to identify forms of perception. A “gestalt” is the German word for “form.” “Schemas,” writes Kellogg, “are interpretive structures that provide the individual with an understanding of the nature of the world and the nature of the self." There are immediate difficulties with transposing schemas from their cognitive epistemology into the phenomenological epistemology of gestalt therapy. While experience may be understood in terms of schemas and modes, a gestalt is what is experienced: it is the form of experience, as independent of interpretation as is phenomenologically possible. “Schemas,” according to Kellogg, are ideas, or cognitive structures that become fixed patterns which impact the affective life of the person. They are “interpretive structures that provide the individual with an understanding of the nature of the world and the nature of the self.” This reads very much like personality functioning in the foundational gestalt therapy model. Kellogg claims that schemas may lead to rigid functioning for which the authors prescribe schema focused therapies; or schemas may lead to the labile affectivity characteristic of borderline or other so-called primitive character structures, for which the authors prescribe schema mode therapy. Schemas are implicated in the whole functioning of the patient, yet are described as independent interpretive structures. “Modes” the authors continue, “can be distinguished from the schemas in that they are manifestations of the mood or state that an individual is in any given time.” Modes are fluid, schemas more stable. “Modes that are particularly problematic may be accompanied by high levels of emotion and rigidity." While the author writes persuasively about the role of schemas and modes in a variety of pathologies, they write of them as things or entities. Yet, nothing within the universe of gestalt therapy’s phenomenology can be considered in such a way. Gestalt therapy is a psychotherapy of process. A “gestalt” is a transient form within the stream of experience. A schema may be an interpretive structure, but a gestalt is a whole of experience. A schema may be an organization of fixed ideas or cognitions, a mode may be mood or affect state, but a gestalt is a unity of sensing, perceiving, feeling, thinking, and acting. Even a fixed gestalt is experienced this way, with the most fixed gestalt being experienced with the most diminished sense of this wholeness. A gestalt is a larger, more embracing, form of experience than either schema or mode. These differences make the transposition of “schema” or “mode” to “gestalt” impossible.

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If schemas, then, are limited to interpretive structures of cognition, of course the authors must seek a method for mobilizing those aspects of the person outside the schema box, as it were. The expressive techniques of the so-called 1969 gestalt model are tailor made for that task, and the authors show a mastery of them. To look at the radical restructuring of psychotherapy across all its modalities from the 1950’s through the 1980’s, is to find many a frustrated clinician turning away from a conversational model and to include some techniques of expressivist dialog. But that does not mean that gestalt therapy was integrated into any of these modalities.

The question of introjection An important aspect of the schema therapy model is its use of specific interpretive labels in the therapy process itself. It is unclear whether the author is simply using metaphors with these labels or if he is identifying and naming actual mental structures. His labels are colorful. In their conceptualization of Borderline Personality Disorder, for example, he identifies five basic modes, from the Abused/Abandoned Child to the Healthy Adult. These labels are used in the work. Patients are encouraged to use these labels. Schema therapy is therefore inherently an introjective process wherein the patient adopts the clinical scheme and language of the therapist. These interpretive schemes become the therapy narrative. To some extent, introjection is inevitable in all psychotherapy; it is an aspect of learning. However, gestalt therapy, foundational gestalt therapy, recognizes introjection as a temporary phase of the therapy. Gestalt therapy’s therapeutic stance attempts to prevent or minimize introjections. The therapy includes challenging these introjections, which is referred to as “de-structuring.” Nothing in Scott Kellogg’s work, though, suggests that this is of concern to him. So long as the therapist’s scheme is offered to be introjected by the patient as the core of the work, and not seen as something which must be dissolved as the therapy proceeds, schema therapy violates one of the essential aspects of gestalt therapy. This is not a trifle. The 1969 gestalt therapy style that has received so much contemporary criticism as being introjective, as artificially stressing an exaggerated individualism, has been replaced by relational or dialogic gestalt therapy. The latter, which I believe is intrinsic to foundational gestalt therapy theory, stresses the IThou dimensions of contacting. The power imbalance in which the patient is taught the therapist’s scheme–and some of Kellogg’s approach suggests this method–is inimical to gestalt therapy.

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Schema therapy and foundational gestalt therapy Here is Kellogg: “Mode therapy involves listening to patients speak about their lives and experiences and watching their emotions, energy, language, and position shift. This is probably closely related to the Gestalt approach of listening for what is figure for a patient. In the schema model, the shifts” are given names. This sounds like the gestalt approach, to a point. But in Gestalt therapy, names would not necessarily be given to the emerging figure; that might interrupt the process. Rather, the therapy would support focused attending to the figure, staying with what emerges in sensation, motion, and perception: by posture, attitude, word choice and rhythm, that is, the panoply of experience. This means that the therapist is not merely listening and watching the patient, but likewise attends to his/her own experience as listener-observer and is able to use this experience as it informs about the developing therapist/patient field. This is essential: the therapy is not something done to the patient by the therapist, but is a function of the therapist/patient field. The therapist is the expert. But the work emerges out of the therapist/patient field. Moments during which the flow seems to shift, whether, for example, by a tonally flat language or through a felt somatic impulse, are noticed as opportunities for further attention. These instances might be disturbances of contact; times when self functioning directly reflects fixed gestalts. And these provide directly experienced or observed phenomenal facts on which the psychotherapeutic interventions may be grounded. Gestalt therapy is, then, a dialogic encounter; whenever psychotherapeutic interventions are deployed, they are deployed in this context where presence, genuineness, and inclusion guide the meeting. And these interventions themselves emerge from the qualities of the emerging figure, and, in gestalt therapy’s best practice, not from the theory-based presuppositions of the therapist.

Schemas as intrapsychic and psychodynamic constructs In gestalt therapy self functioning, we might refer to what Kellogg calls schemas in a more expansive way, as fixities within self functioning– rigid personality functioning, disturbances of id functioning, and losses of ego functioning. The figures of such self functioning would have the characteristics Kellogg describes as maladaptive schemas–an excessively rigid maladaptation with a likelihood of unstable moods. As personality functioning, schemas might be the story one tells to oneself about oneself, including the memory of traumatic events; seen from the perspective of id

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functioning, schemas might be directly experienced as the felt sense of oneself, urges, needs, appetites. And these schemas might appear as ego functioning in the kind of choices a person makes, the manner of identification and action in the world. In the meta-theory of self, a disturbance in any of its functions would affect the other functions. Schemas, as described by the authors, are wholly within the person’s psyche, internal, intrapsychic psychodynamic mechanisms. Self functioning in gestalt therapy is a field event, a product of organism/environment meeting and as such, at the contact-boundary, and not “within” a psychodynamic mechanism. My description of what might be called “schema equivalents” in foundational gestalt therapy is, I believe, a more complete description of experience than the description of schemas in Kellogg’s model. I suggest that it widens the idea of schema by referring it to all the experienceable aspects of human functioning, and includes the social field. It takes a psychodynamic notion and translates it into a phenomenological-experiential description. It makes it directly experienceable within the therapist/patient field.

Three phases of schema mode therapy Kellogg proposes that the work in schema mode therapy proceeds in three stages, and I will focus on this to suggest how this aspect of his work may also be described using foundational gestalt therapy. To recast their entire model in the meta-theory of Foundational Model is a task too large for this venture. First Phase “The first phase of treatment is one in which the goal is the development of an affirming relationship with the patient.” This, of course, is the necessary initial step in any psychotherapy process. From a foundational gestalt therapy perspective, this could be called establishing the therapist/patient relationship as one in which the relationship provides sufficient contact as support for making contact in the progression of the work. The emphasis on support within the contact process comes from the teaching of Laura Perls, who took great pains to distinguish her attention to the therapy relationship from the style of her husband, Fritz, who often made brilliant interventions yet neglected to sustain them within a developing relationship. Here is how Kellogg describes this first phase: “The aim is to be able to create experiences in which the [patient] and the psychotherapist are in

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contact.” Further, “the development of a bond is important because it will help both parties to withstand the stresses that are likely to come.” Or, from my perspective: the therapist/patient relationship is the support for the risk-taking, contact-making, that lies ahead in the progressing self of the therapy. Note that when restated in a foundational gestalt therapy manner, therapist and patient are expressed as two aspects of a whole developing social field: contacting is of the field. Second Phase “The second phase of treatment is that of schema mode change” in which “[o]ne critical aim is to maintain contact with the Abused/Abandoned Child.” In this phase, various schemas emerge and the challenge is for the therapy to remain contactful. Again, Kellogg gives names to the successively emerging gestalts: Angry Child, Detached Protector, Punitive Parent, and Inner Critic. Each one of these is part of a fixed gestalt. Each one of these is part of the emerging self function. To the extent each has a fixed sensed and felt affectivity, each may be seen as id function disturbance. Where each contains remembered history or fixed narrative about the person, each reflects rigid personality functioning. And to the extent that each of these fixed gestalts contain maladaptive behaviors, each reflects losses of ego functioning. Overall, these reflect disruptions in the person’s field, of course from the past, but significantly in the present moment as experienced and observed by the person and the therapist. It is in this phase that Kellogg turns most fully to expressive “techniques.” For example, “The therapist will ask the patient to verbalize what the oppressive voice [for example, Inner Critic] is saying and will then attack it.” This technique is grounded in the foundational idea that the fixed gestalt in question represents a frozen social structure, out of consciousness, yet persisting and which is experienced through harsh selfjudgment. This can be understood with reference to the experienced dimensions of self functioning. This rigid personality functioning is likely the maladaptive narrative involving an introjected parental authority continuing, repeating, the original events from which the “Inner Critic” was formed. Under such a narrative, the person’s relationship to urges, appetite, and sensations are disturbed; this is disturbance of id functioning. And this all leads to ego functioning interruptions, such as projecting such critical judgment on others, or clamping down on the person’s free initiative through retroflecting.

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This is all directly experienced by the person. The self functions are experiential functions and have no independent existence. The language of foundational gestalt therapy is descriptive of actual process, and is useful to facilitate contacting. The technique to verbalize the oppressive voice in the context of a contactful therapy relationship, is the means to mobilize this person’s initiative, and to clarify the complex social world that inhabits a self so disturbed by fixed gestalts. This technique mobilizes contacting: what has been non-conscious emerges in the spontaneous sequence of contacting. Childhood memories may become directly experienced as inhibitions relax. The maladaptive fixed-gestalt that was a creative-adjusting to traumatic situations dissolves in this contacting as the person experiences the “old” pain that now can be integrated in the emerging self. Here is how Kellogg describes his dialog technique: “To start, the voice [Punitive Parent or Inner Critic] is turned into a mode and is given a name that is meaningful by the patient... The therapist will then ask the patient to verbalize what the oppressive voice is saying and will then attack it. In many respects, the therapist will be the voice for the Angry Child. The needs that were not met and the tight to have them met will be affirmed.” This dialogic technique is founded on self as containing the social world of the person. The fixed gestalt is named because it already has someone’s name, the name of one of the participants in the social world of the patient who may not perhaps fully be in the immediate awareness of the patient. By naming the punitive voice, the patient has begun contacting this fixed gestalt. When Kellogg suggests that the therapist join the experiment by attacking the named voice, I become cautious. Unless there is a basis for this within the session itself, this intervention could interrupt whatever is emerging in contact. It could be a disconnected or irrelevant intervention by therapist-as-authority who is following the imperatives of his/her modality, and not then received as support for further contacting by the patient; it would be just another version of introjective authority, though presumably helpful. But if this intervention is grounded in the therapist’s felt sense of what is emerging; if the therapist has an experienced sense that he/she is temporarily voicing that which is actually emerging from the patient, then the therapist will be grounded in the intersubjective dimension of contacting; and such an intervention would be experienced as support for the patient’s further contacting. Dialog and chair work, the most basic of expressive techniques, can be understood as ways in which the dimensions of self may be contacted. Since personality functioning is the self dimension that reflects the social

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history of the person, for good or ill, by explicitly personifying some of these memories through dialog is a way further to explore them, and to push the limits of what is consciously available memory into the areas that may be non-conscious yet still background to experience. When a person visualizes “someone” in an empty chair, the “someone” who is now in the empty chair had already been an aspect of the person’s self function. In this expressive technique, the person is directly stating the social field and is seeking to more sharply contact it. Any psychotherapy can use this technique. But when its use is based on a meta-theory of field emergent self and contacting, it is gestalt therapy. When Kellogg uses this technique, he does not relate it to such a theory. Third Phase The third, final stage of schema mode therapy is called “autonomy…. [where] the focus moves from the inner world to the external, interpersonal world.” Roughly this echoes the 1969 gestalt therapy model’s definition of health as the movement from environmental support to self support. But from the point of view of the foundational model, this phase, autonomy, is yet another dimension of self functioning–always “interpersonal” since self is a social field event. Kellogg indicates that in this phase, the work is principally concerned with interpersonal relationships and identity development. “The goal is for there to be balance and reciprocity” in interpersonal relationships. “Situations where the patient is receiving excessive amounts of disrespect or is rageful and demanding are problematic and will need to be addressed. Developing an assertive, strong, but respectful voice will be best.” It is not at all clear how and by whom this ideal of interpersonal behavior will be assessed. If the therapist alone is the arbiter, such authority exercise would be impossible in gestalt therapy. It would violate the dialogic and field emergent values of self. The therapeutic goals of this third stage may be stated in a gestalt manner: self functioning now proceeds through contact sequences where needs, appetites, and urges emerge and develop into figures of interest which motivate a person to contact what is novel and necessary for the continuing flow of living. Vivid, bright, clear figures emerge; the person moves on. Self functioning is dialogic; a person’s interests include the interests of other persons as the social field continues to unfold. The final paragraph of the 1951 founding text, Gestalt Therapy, states this admirably: “In its trials and conflicts the self is coming to be in a way that did not exist before. In contactful experience the ‘I’, alienating its safe

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structures, risks this leap and identifies with the growing self, gives it its services and knowledge, and at the moment of achievement stands out of the way.”

Technique or Experiment? I have been referring to these interventions as “techniques” in the same manner as Kellogg. He uses no other way to describe these interventions that he believes create a bridge to Gestalt therapy. I have discussed these “techniques” from the standpoint of foundational gestalt therapy and have alluded to a point I will now make more emphatically. For interventions to be called “techniques” is to make them part of a model with a prescribed recipe to follow which achieves generally expected results. The schema mode treatment method seems sometimes to be a psychotherapy recipe, with the ingredients pre-labeled, the steps more or less laid out, the techniques deployed toward a fixed strategy. I suspect the approach will appear in well thought-out manuals and workbooks. At one point in his discussion, Kellogg indicates “so far there are 18 identified schemas." They sound like naturalists reporting on new species. Yet what may be called “techniques” may better be called “experiments.” An experiment does not predict an outcome, but seeks to discover. This is the gestalt therapy method. An experiment arises out of felt and observed data from the therapist/patient relationship. This is the gestalt therapy method. Based on this direct experiment, the therapist may propose that the patient put “someone” in an empty chair and enter a dialog. Every gestalt intervention comes from an assumption of self functioning and some direct observation of self inhibition, or disturbance. A dialog is powerful because in disturbed self functioning the person disowns self-parts without awareness. “Chair work” is powerful because an inhibited self with limitations in contact-making often is perpetuating unfinished non-conscious social trauma and the chair experiment seeks to discover if the parties to this old story are alive in the present. The experimental method is a commitment to discovering and inventing attributes of ego functioning, and that is what is intrinsic to the process of contacting. Contacting is not a step on the way to a therapeutic outcome, but itself is the “curative” moment. Speaking in 1977 before the European Association for Transactional Analysis, Laura Perls said, “[The] workshop approach has become widely accepted as the essence of gestalt therapy…Thus, gestalt therapy is reduced to a purely technical modality which, because of its obvious limitations, then is combined with any other technical modality that

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happens to be available in the psychotherapeutic armamentarium. So we get sensitivity training and gestalt therapy, body awareness and gestalt therapy….ad infinitum. All these combinations show that the basic concepts of Gestalt therapy are either misunderstood or simply not known. Gestalt therapy is neither a particular technique nor a collection of specific techniques . . . Gestalt therapy is an existential-phenomenological approach and as such it is experiential and experimental.[emphasis added)”

Conclusion I hope I have been amply clear how much I appreciate Scott Kellogg’s interesting work, and how I welcome him as a fellow clinician addressing complicated issues of treatment and practice. Yet, however effective schema therapy may be, by neglecting to cast his work within a satisfactory meta-theory, he does not offer a way to understand his work more deeply. He leaves us to imagine his work is effective in much the same way any psychodynamic work is effective. And he makes his powerful work appear to be a well-considered technique-driven recipe for psychotherapy. It is easy to see it effectively deployed in many different clinical settings. That he wishes to build a bridge from his intrapsychic psychodynamic method to gestalt therapy’s experiential, field, and phenomenological model is a welcome construction project. The ideas he suggests from his effective treatment can easily be implemented within a gestalt therapy. We gestalt therapists can certainly add his suggestions to our treatment method. Yet, for Scott Kellogg to be able truly to forge a link to the gestalt therapy world, he needs to re-examine the meta-theoretical assumptions of schema therapy. One does not become a citizen of France by speaking French. The use of gestalt “techniques” does not a gestalt therapist make. Perhaps some of the ideas of foundational gestalt therapy briefly indicated here might be sufficiently inviting to him to make this process possible.

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A Responsive Commentary on "Schema Therapy: A Gestalt-Oriented Overview" Iris Fodor Cognitive behavior therapy is now the major psychotherapeutic modality worldwide. Drawing on scientific psychology and developing research strategies, CBT has demonstrated the efficacy of its treatments to a variety of clinical problems and is in the forefront of the development of empirically validated psychotherapy procedures. While, CBT has developed few new innovations in the past twenty years, more and more CBT practitioners, writers and researchers are culling the experiential therapies for ideas and techniques to integrate with CBT theory and practice. In particular, many cognitive behavior therapists have looked toward gestalt and other experiential therapies for areas to integrate. For example, what’s new in CBT is mindfulness training (focused awareness and meditative practice) for a variety of disorders such as depression, borderline personality, substance abuse, etc.(Linehan 1993, Segel and Teasdale, 2001, Marlott, 2004). These treatments feature in addition to the standard CBT, focused awareness training, attending to process and meditation. While CBT has espoused change as central, leading behavior and cognitive behavior therapists are now espousing acceptance therapy, and developing research strategies to support this view (Hayes, Follette and Linehan, 2004). Many CBT practitioners in work on self-control from a CBT framework have also utilized the two-chair technique. This author, a gestalt and cognitive therapist, has additionally proposed integrating some of the relational interpersonal facets of gestalt to CBT and incorporates cognitive features into gestalt (Fodor, 1987,1996a,b, 1998). Following this integrative trend in CBT, Kellogg and Young present in this paper a comprehensive overview of schema-based cognitive therapy and their newer adaptation schema mode therapy. Young has been a pioneer in adapting aspects of Beck’s cognitive therapy into a schema model, which is relational and developmental and is considered cutting edge CT. With Kellogg, who has trained in gestalt, they propose that the newer adaptation of schema therapy, which they call schema mode therapy, is an integration of CBT and GT and moves closer to the gestalt world. In describing their integrative therapeutic work within the newer model, Kellogg and Young stress the need to assess the core maladaptive schemas, the developmental issues and coping strategies through the use of imaginal imagery and two-chair dialogue. Their integrative therapy is

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designed to assess and to work on change in the internal schema, using imagery and/or two-chair work. Keeping within the tradition of cognitive therapy, in their description of their therapy, there is much emphasis on the identification of self-talk and inner dialogue. Through the imagery and two-chair work, the client experiences the voices of the different parts of the schema, which facilitates integration for the client. However, while Kellogg and Young propose their work as an integration of gestalt and cognitive therapy, their integration in many respects is not yet fully in the spirit of gestalt therapy. I have written elsewhere of the problems of trying to integrate cognitive and gestalt therapy (Fodor, 1966a). Cognitive therapy with its focus on change, learning new behaviors and a directive stance by the therapist, is in contrast to the process oriented, dialogical experiential gestalt approach. Any combination undermines the basic underpinnings of the therapy. Kellogg and Young, mindful of this problem, talk of the therapeutic relation as one of “empathic confrontation or empathic reality testing." “This means a sense of understanding that patients have typically been through difficult struggles and there are reasons why they feel and behave the way they do." However, The therapist is still working with them to help them change. Also they speak of “limited reparenting." The therapist takes on the role of protector and nurturer. In the relationship, “the therapist, using the schema as a guide attempts to provide the patient with that which the parent or caregiver did not.” In the mode therapy, the focus is on those modes that are currently active for an individual.” using the analogy of attending to figure. In mode therapy, the modes divided into three groups, child, and parent, coping. (This seems to incorporate TA). Thus, the therapist is still the director of the therapy and adheres to the role of change agent. The major strength of the Kellogg and Young paper is their comprehensive presentation for a gestalt audience of schema theory and the approach developed by Young for a schema based cognitive therapy for personality disorders. They also review the relevant research literature. Schema theory is now in the mainstream of CBT and there is a growing research literature on its efficacy for the treatment of personality and other disorders. However, Kellogg and Young have a way to go in working out a seamless integration of CT and GT. Marsha Linehan’s application of CBT for borderline personality disorders, which does incorporate many features of both schema theory and GT in her work with borderline personality disorder is a model of the seamless integration of an experiential, process oriented CBT. The current comprehensive review in this issue is a good

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first attempt at presenting the theory and the possibilities for developing a comprehensive integration, not only of CT and GT, but also of TA, narrative therapy, bringing in a developmental perspective, as well as the use of metaphors, that have a Jungian flavor. The case illustration by Bamber of schema mode therapy is interesting and appears to combine schema mode therapy, a form of narrative therapy, with the client using imagery and metaphoric names for aspects of his struggles, but, it is not clear how that case discussion contributes to a GT/CT integration. This paper in general, is a map, laying out possibilities for further exploration, but not yet a framework for a fuller theoretical integration. In arguing for the integration of CBT and GT, Kellogg and Young highlight meaning making. However, reading this from a gestalt perspective, their presentation is still too heady. In their second phase of treatment, schema mode change, they appear to be using cognitive templates or preformed categories as the basis for treatment. Too often their descriptions look more like an interpretative as opposed to a process therapy. Furthermore, Kellogg and Young in their discussion of GT appear to be using an older model of GT. They speak of Pearls, top dog, underdog concepts, but do not bring in the newer process oriented (Resnick, 1995) or relational GT writings of Jacobs (1996) or Wheeler (2001). There are some questions to ask: In applying an integrative gestalt model one needs to slow down, to see freshly the schemas from the client’s perspective? How does the imagery and two-chair work facilitate awareness? Where is the dialogue between the therapist and client that facilitates the clients awareness of what is happening and how does that relationship affect the process. In general, the work is still more CT than GT. In summary, this is a very packed paper that covers a lot of ground. For a gestalt audience, exposure to schema theory and the newer schema mode therapy is one of the strong points of the paper. However, the therapy is still too cognitive, despite the addition of the experiential component. There is still too much explaining and not enough focus on process and on the contact between the therapist and client that facilities the awareness process.

References Fodor, I. G. (1987). Moving beyond cognitive-behavior therapy: Integrating Gestalt therapy to facilitate personal and interpersonal awareness. In N. S. Jacobson (Ed.)Psychotherapists in clinical practice: Cognitive and behavioral perspectives (pp. 190-231). New York: The Guilford Press.

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—. (1996a). A cognitive perspective for Gestalt therapy. British Gestalt Journal, 5, 31-42. —. (1996b). A woman and her body: The cycles of pride and shame. In G. Wheeler & R. Lee (Eds). The voice of shame (pp. 229-265). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. —. (1998). Awareness and meaning-making: The dance of experience. Gestalt Review, 2, 50-71. Hayes, S., Follette, V., Linehan, M (Eds.) (2004) Mindfulness and acceptance: Expanding the cognitive-behavioral tradition. New York: Guildford, Press. Jacobs, L. & Hycner, R. (1996) The healing relationship in Gestalt therapy: A dialogic/self psychology approach. Highland, New York: The Gestalt Journal Press. Linehan, M (1993) .Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. New York: Guilford Press. Marlatt, A. et al (2004) Vipassana meditation as a treatment for Alcohol and drug use disorders in Hayes, S., Follette, V., Linehan, M (2004) Mindfulness and acceptance: Expanding the cognitive-behavioral tradition. New York: Guilford, Press. Resnick, R. (1995). Gestalt therapy: Principles prisms and perspectives, British Gestalt Journal,4(1) Segal, Z., Williams, J.Teasdale, J. (2001) Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression. New York: Guilford Press. Wheeler, G. (2000). Beyond individualism: Toward a new understanding of self, relationship and experience. GIC Press distributed by Analytic Press

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Response to Comments "Schema Therapy: A Gestalt-Oriented Overview" Scott Kellog To start, I would like to thank Dr. Philip Brownell for inviting me to submit an article on schema therapy and its connection to gestalt therapy for Gestalt! I would also like to thank Dr. Iris Fodor, Mr. Dan Bloom, and Dr. Brownell for taking the time to comment on my article. After reading the comments of my colleagues, I felt perplexed and dismayed as I sensed that, after all this work, we had missed an opportunity to do something useful. Many issues were raised in the three commentaries, and I will address several that I feel are most germane to my original intent. The core area of disagreement or misconnection centers on the two versions of gestalt therapy that were discussed in the paper – the 1951 model and the 1969 model. Wheeler (1991) has named the 1951 version as the Goodman/Perls model. This perspective was the first full version of gestalt therapy and, following Perls’ death, there was an eventual return to this model. Many contemporary developments in gestalt therapy have grown or developed from it. As has been noted by a number of observers, Perls was unhappy with the 1951 book (Gaines, 1979; Naranjo, 1993), and would eventually develop his therapy in new and unique ways. What has not been fully acknowledged is that the 1969 model is actually a psychodramatic therapy that embodies Perls’ extremely creative re-working of Moreno’s therapeutic approach. While the details of the story are not completely clear, it appears that Perls began to work with Moreno in New York City around the time of the publication of the Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman (1965) text, and that he attended Moreno’s Psychodrama Institute in New York City until his departure for California in the early ‘60’s (Leveton, 2001; Zerka Moreno, Personal Communication). Given this, his central emphasis on chairwork (a technique that he adapted from psychodrama), imagery, and dreamwork (also adapted from psychodrama) helps make the case that the 1969 model is fundamentally an integration of psychodrama and gestalt therapy. Following Wheeler’s example, it could well be called the Moreno/Perls model – a model that integrates awareness and enactment. This approach is so different from the 1951 version, that it is probably fair to say that Perls had actually created a second therapy. The work of Perls during the Esalen years, the apogee of this second gestalt therapy, is certainly a story of light and shadow (Gaines, 1979).

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However, the extraordinary psychotherapeutic creativity that he demonstrated, especially in his actions, would eventually inspire practitioners all over the world. As Naranjo (1993) has said, “many of us believe that Fritz’s California years were his ripest” (xix). This, then, is the model that has spoken to integrative psychotherapists from a range of traditions – not the 1951 model with its emphasis on the contact boundary. This 1969 model is also the one that has most influenced schema therapy. Given this history, it seems ironic that, despite their repeated emphasis on contact and relationship, Bloom, Fodor, and Brownell each anchor their comments from the perspective of a contemporary gestalt therapy that is a further development of the Perls/Goodman model, but which has little in common with the 1969 work. I had expected that they would have seen the psychodramatic techniques as the point of encounter, as the place of meeting from which to begin our conversation. Instead, they focused their attention on awareness and contact and miss an opportunity for a true dialogue, a dialogue that could help advance the clinical treatment of those suffering from various forms of pathology. Moving onto a second point, I sense that they, along with other gestalt therapists, do not fully appreciate the nature of psychotherapeutic technique – especially as a manifestation of the creative process. Awareness, imagery, and chairwork each have the potential to be powerful healing interventions when used with skill and creativity. To call them “techniques” (and I have done this myself) is to fail to respect their power to transform. I think that it would be much better to see them as psychotherapeutic art forms – forms that deserve intense study and practice in order to be able to use them wisely and proficiently. Many gestalt therapists, including both Fritz and Laura Perls (Perls, 1969; Rosenfeld, n.d.) have emphasized the role of spontaneity in the use of these and other therapy forms, as if a deep grounding in theory alone would enable one to use them in effective ways. This emphasis on spontaneity and theory reflects only one side of the polarity. Using music as a parallel, there are rock, new age, and jazz musicians who improvise throughout many of their performances. It is important to understand that these musicians each “practice” their improvisations; that is, they spend hours developing ideas and perfecting their ability to perform them. In concert, there is an interaction between these efforts and the spontaneous mystery of the moment that lead to results that are sometimes good and, occasionally, magical. Looking at awareness, imagery, and chairwork as serious art forms invites us to come together to celebrate their beauty and

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to engage in mutual explorations to discover more effective ways of using them. Surprisingly, Bloom seems to have a very limited view of the utility of these methods. He writes, “The techniques of the 1969 model are relevant to the method only insofar as they serve to facilitate contacting.” However, the clinical utility of these techniques is much broader than this. For example, they can be used for exposure work, cognitive restructuring, polarity integration, the rescripting of traumas and nightmares, the elucidation of multiple aspects of self, existential choice, working through grief, confrontations with the inner critic, making decisions, and assertiveness training. Clearly, these are all central tasks in our work with depression, anxiety, trauma, addictions, and personality disorders, One of the reasons for writing a paper on schema therapy in a gestalt journal was to invite gestalt therapists to consider integrating the model or parts of the model into their own work. Given that schema therapy incorporates so much of the 1969 model, it would seem to be a naturallyattractive option for gestalt therapists. As noted in the main article, the evidence is beginning to demonstrate that schema therapy is an effective treatment for borderline personality disorder. This is an extraordinary accomplishment and one that should draw the interest of psychotherapists everywhere; curiously, this was not even mentioned by Bloom, Fodor, or Brownell in their commentaries. It is also my belief that the language of schemas and modes is an enormously helpful tool for gaining perspective on and control over various forms of clinical disturbance. While the map is not the territory and there is always a possibility of reification, a good map can help you go to wonderful places; in my experiences, the schemas and (even more so) the modes can make our work far more effective. In an example from the Young and Klosko (1993) book, they spoke about a patient who had been in Gestalt therapy and who had been unhappy that he did not have a better cognitive conceptualization of what was going on. This echoes the observations of Robert Goulding, a colleague and friend of Fritz Perls, who wrote, “I believe…that both the Gestalt experience and the cognitive material are important and that the individual will do better with both than with either (Goulding, 1983, p. 618). Lastly, Brownell writes, “The bi-polar split between east and west coast gestalt is dead”. I think that this is simply not true; in fact, I believe it is at work in the commentaries and this discussion. For example, this split can be see in Woldt and Toman’s (2005) recently published Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory, and Practice. This is a seminal volume with

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contributions from leading gestalt therapists from the United States and Europe. The 1969 model, however, is barely mentioned at all. As he affirmed in Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, Fritz Perls (1969) felt that dreamwork was the most important vehicle for personal healing; however, in a 392-page text, it only merited one page of discussion. Similarly, chairwork is just mentioned twice. In turn, Moreno’s name only appears in a table and “psychodrama” is not even listed in the Subject Index. Perls’ work in the 1960’s, despite its many flaws and shortcomings, has inspired psychotherapists from a wide range of traditions – including schema therapists. In particular, it was his psychodramatic work that so many have found to be compelling ways of alleviating suffering and promoting growth. It is with these, and not contemporary gestalt theory and therapy, that our dialogue and encounter should have begun.

References Gaines, J. (1979). Fritz Perls: Here and now. Millbrae, CA: Celestial Arts. Goulding, R.L. (1983). Gestalt therapy and Transactional Analysis. In C. Hatcher and P. Himelstein (Eds.) The handbook of Gestalt therapy (pp. 615-634). New York: Jason Aronson. Leveton, E. (2001). A clinician’s guide to psychodrama (3rd ed.). New York: Springer Publishing Company. Naranjo, C. (1993). Gestalt therapy: The attitude and practice of an atheoretical experientialism. Gateways City, NV: Gateways/IDHHB. Perls, F. S. (1969). Gestalt therapy verbatim. Lafayette, California: Real People Press. Perls, F., Hefferline, R. F., & Goodman, P. (1965). Gestalt therapy: Excitement and growth in the human personality. New York: Dell Publishing. Rosenfeld, E. (nod). An oral history of Gestalt therapy: Part one: A conversation with Laura Perls. Downloaded on July 14, 2009 from http://www.gestalt.org/perlsint.htm Wheeler, G. (1991). Gestalt reconsidered. New York: The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Press. Woldt, A. L., & Toman, S. M. (2005). Gestalt therapy: History, theory, and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Young, J. E., & Klosko, J. S. (1993). Reinventing

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE1 IN TRANSITION: GESTALTING THEORY FROM PRACTICE, PRACTICE FROM THEORY2 SEÁN GAFFNEY WITH BRIAN MISTLER, SUE CONGRAM AND PHILIP BROWNELL

Abstract This article charts my journey from being a dedicated Gestalt practitioner to becoming, first, a practitioner-author, then a practitionerresearcher, then a practitioner-theorizer and then – in brief though illuminating flashes – a theorizer. 3 Brian Mistler: Would you be willing to say “theorizer-practitioner” here at the end… or something like “practitioner-theorizer-practitioner?” In most domains, and Gestalt especially (which I believe aims to transcend the therapist-client context), I am doubtful that anyone can really give up the practitioner piece, or what it would mean if they did. I know this is deeply related to the whole of this piece, so I am imagining you have given 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 11(1), 2011. 3 Three Gestalt practitioner colleagues, with a special interest in research, have agreed to make in-text comments and final brief summaries. Part of my agreement with them is that I will not edit their comments in any way. These colleagues are Sue Congram, almost at the end of her own doctoral journey, Brian Mistler, Ph.D and Philip Brownell, MDiv, PsyD. Their comments are in italics below, beginning with Dr. Brian Mistler’s on this paragraph.

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thought to this and, to end, on have chosen “theorizer” out of the field for a reason. I’m only a sentence in, and I’m having a reaction – I want to know more about your choice in this opening line. Practical and theoretical exemplifications of my journey are included. My hope is that this is a journey more of my Gestalt colleagues could consider making, not only for their own personal and professional development, but also in support of our chosen modality and its respectful acceptance and further validation.

Introduction This paper is a much revised and re-written version of parts of my Critical Appraisal, a document of 5,000 words to accompany my Ph.D submission at the University of Derby (UoD), England. Since both examiners at my viva voce were in agreement that my submission clearly satisfied the requirements of a contribution at doctoral level to a field of study (in this case, Gestalt practice across diverse socio-cultural settings), then the Critical Appraisal became the main focus of our discussion. I experienced my examination as supportive and energizing and a source of many connections and extrapolations, which I hope to explore in this paper, “with a little help from my friends”.

Background The transitional journey described here is one on which the generally implicit “embodied theory” of the Gestalt practitioner became more explicitly presented, in both teaching and writing, as theory-informed embodied practice. This has not been a smooth or particularly easy journey in a modality – Gestalt – which has so many of its roots in the following contemporary statement: “Gestalt therapy has a conflict within its soul. It privileges action and expression and distrusts thinking and mere talking…(it) attracted a fair share of anti-intellectuals who helped establish a rebellious culture that challenged the bloodless cerebrations of classical psychoanalysis” (Bloom, 2009, p.29).

Brian: Yes, I feel that conflict within me still. As one of those who came to Gestalt from a rational management training and university lecturer background with which I was becoming increasingly frustrated and dissatisfied, part of the attraction was a focus on embodied practice, on doing rather than talking/writing about it. As is my habit (Gaffney,

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2008A), I went from student to trainer within a year…so clearly to talking about it. And the journey had only started: an example of where this transitional journey has taken me can be gleaned from the following: “For many years, I much preferred working with groups from a gestalt perspective rather than writing about it. My foray into publishing was an exciting challenge and a rewarding experience. I discovered that I “knew” more than I thought (though not always where it came from) and also had a contribution to make to theoretical thinking on the subject. I also found how much my practice was being influenced by my writing. New perspectives and insights occurred regularly and became embodied in my practice. I had moved from doing it to writing about it, back to doing it – and here and now writing about doing it!” (Gaffney, 2008, p. 32).

This appeared in an article written and published in a period of particular importance to me and the theme of this article – so allow me here to retrace my steps to 2003. At that time, the Gestalt Academy of Scandinavia (GA) had two established academic training programmes in collaboration with the University of Derby (UoD), England – a Masters in Gestalt Psychotherapy and one in Gestalt in Organisations. I had been involved in the evolution of these programmes, and had been on the training faculty and internal Examination Committee for both. Two faculty colleagues and friends became interested in exploring what possibilities the GA/UoD collaboration could offer for their possible doctoral studies. Their initial contacts opened a door for such a journey, and they asked me to join them, along with another colleague and friend. Sue Congram: I hear echoes of my own life in some of the things that you say here. Seeing my own transitional journey from student to trainer, then to my own surprise, from trainer to researcher. I wonder if it is easier to see transitions as we look back on our lives, than to see possible transitions in front of us. With some reluctance, I agreed to join them. My reluctance was grounded in a mixture of reactions. To begin with, I was unsure about my ability to work at a doctoral level. My opinion had long been that my competence was at being in the moment of my work, a focus fully on my embodied practice and a theoretical base so well understood and integrated that it was available as a resource whenever I needed it – on a Gestalt training programme for example or as a spontaneous didactic in an organizational setting. Philip Brownell: I want to insert myself at this point, mostly just to get myself into “the room” so to speak. I notice that my experience in training has been different. I was very interested in theory from the beginning, because I had experienced gestalt therapy early on, with someone training

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with Fritz at Esalen, but I had had no theory to go along with it. When I got to my formal gestalt training I craved the explanation and discussion of “the map.” I was also unsure about my ability to write a thesis. At the time, I had, after much persuasion and cajoling as well as a false start, one submitted article which seemed to have survived peer reviews and was under revision (Gaffney, 2004). At the same time, I had been the founding editor of - and a major contributor to - the Nordic Gestalt Journal, published in Swedish from 1994 – 2000, as well as writing a chapter for an influential collection of papers by Gestalt practitioners in Swedish (Mannerstråhle, 1995). And yet, and yet…I began to acknowledge my deep-seated inferiority complex around never having had a formal academic education. I had gone straight from school to a Cistercian monastery (Gaffney 2008A; Harris, 2009) and straight from there to Irish Rail followed by the Irish Postal Service and then emigration to England and training as a psychiatric nurse. My very working-class family could never have afforded a university education for me in the Ireland of the 1960s. Brian: Reading this, I want to at once express my empathy for the pain of experiences you did not have, and my envy for those you did. Phil: I can relate. My working class family couldn’t afford it either. My exposure to psychiatric nursing was in the US Navy during the Viet Nam war; I was a hospital corpsman who received extensive training to be become a neuropsychiatric technician. We were taught Transactional Analysis by Joseph Concannon, who used to work with Eric Berne as he was developing it and is acknowledged by Berne in the preface to Games People Play. Later, before going to seminary, I worked in residential treatment of children and adolescents. On arriving in Sweden in 1975, I was recommended by my Swedish language teachers – impressed at my ability to learn Swedish and my understanding of the mechanics of the language - to apply to their adult education organization as an English language teacher, which I did. This eventually led to a dispensation to take a post-graduate certificate course in TOEFL (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language), which I succeeded in gaining. During this period, I became first a language teacher in the English Department at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), and then, in 1987, Head of the Language and Professional Communication Department, which automatically conferred lecturer status upon me - and also at the same time and incidentally, formally a lecturer in cross-cultural communication at The Institute for International Business at SSE. So I had become a back-door academic, haunted by “The Achilles Syndrome” (Clarkson, 1994). When would I be found out as a counterfeit,

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a fraud? Enrolling on a doctoral programme seemed like tempting fate even for such an accomplished autodidact as myself, with successful parallel careers as university lecturer, management trainer and Gestalt practitioner… Phil: An interesting parallel–I did enroll in formal academic and postgraduate programs, first in pastoral theology (Master of Divinity program), and then in clinical psychology (Masters and Doctoral degrees in clinical psychology); however, my experience of these programs is that they were so fast paced and demanding, and I am such a slow reader, that I could only skim at best, and what I learned the most was how to refine the “game of school.” In the game of school you learn how to get the grade, not necessarily how to assimilate and digest the knowledge; consequently, I also began to feel like a fraud. When would “they” discover that I didn’t know what I was talking about? I do know now, but that realization came after I had graduated and began to understand I had assimilated more than I thought and as I came back to study on my own the subjects I found most interesting, engaging colleagues in protracted discussion at Gstalt-L and writing for publication. My first face-to-face contact at UoD was with a professor with an Irish family name, Chris Brannigan…I spoke freely of my doubts…he responded by saying “You sound like my father…he was also from Dublin, and always regretted his lack of formal education. Then I became a professor, and he started living again”. For some reason this impressed me, I was hooked. So I joined the doctoral programme despite my qualms… Sue: I am reminded of the work of Robert Romanyshyn, a Jungian analyst and researcher who wrote a book called The Wounded Researcher (2007). Romanyshyn describes how he believes the topic for research 'chooses the researcher as much as, and perhaps even more than, he or she chooses it' (p4). That the re-search is about searching again for something that we have already known, but have forgotten (perhaps we once knew it in a different way). The struggle to recover what has been lost ‘is the struggle in the gap between what is said and what wants and needs to be spoken.’ (p4) On this basis, the ‘work wants something from the researcher [unfinished business] as much as the researcher wants something from the work’. (p105). What Romanyshyn suggests is that the researcher seeks to transform a wound in the work. The wounding is a way of being present and the research is a calling to open to that wound, so that the work it addresses can be completed. I raise this here because you mention a couple of times in your text a struggle with your Achilles heel. Yet, I wonder if this

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struggle is not only your personal struggle, but a painful calling that originates more deeply in our society and culture. In the spring of 2004, I went along with the idea of a Scandinavian/Irish doctoral group in a distance study programme. My application was accepted by the Research Degrees Committee, and in September, 2004, I formally entered the distance doctoral programme at UoD, with a proposed completion date of September, 2009. With this official entrance into the rigorous checks and balances of such a formal programme, the first crack appeared in my dogged determination to be and remain a practitioner, always in the moment, whose work is always a work in progress. That is, whose practice was and is always a work in progress, and which now would be examined over time…and written about…and then evaluated by criteria other than how appreciated or otherwise my practice may be, both by “clients” (individual, group, organizational), my colleagues and myself. The new criteria included a research-based contribution to knowledge, the ability to write intelligently and intelligibly about it, and to represent it orally at a viva voce. These now also became my work, my parallel practice – finding and implementing a suitable research focus and methodology and producing a written description of it for assessment and examination at a doctoral level. Unknown to me at the time, I had also embarked on another career – that of author. At the time of my formal enrollment, I had one article published in English and two drafts under peer review, subsequently published (see REFERENCES for a full list of publications). I had also been asked to submit a chapter for a collection to be published by The National Training Laboraories (NTL) in the U.S.A. And my Academic Superviser, Professor Paul Weller, UoD, was already encouraging me to draft an introduction to my thesis… On reflection, I realize how I had moved in a steady flow from doing the work of a Gestalt practitioner, to writing about doing it, to preparing to research about doing it and writing about doing that. In addition, my writing itself soon became a core aspect of my collaborative inquiry through the various dialogical processes involved, and thus an intrinsic part of the research-based “whole” of the final submission. Sue: I find this intriguing when Gestalt practice has traditionally avoided ‘talking about’, a real taboo. Yet, we need the intellectualizing, talking about Gestalt is critical to its standpoint in the world, critical to research. Perhaps this has been a contributing factor on the issue of marketing Gestalt as a practice, and the way, it seems, that Gestalt practitioners hold back from putting themselves and Gestalt out there in

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the world. To start ‘talking about Gestalt’, might call for, or generate, a different language of Gestalt. In September, 2006, I successfully led a seminar at UoD with an external examiner on my work so far, and the proposed schedule towards completion. The title, which had metamorphosed numerous times in the previous two years, had now come to its final form: “On Borders and Boundaries – Gestalt at Work in the World”. By this time, I now had five papers published or in press, four under peer review, and two rough drafts with my First Reader, my friend and colleague Anne McLean in New Zealand. My move to practitioner-author was established and growing – a second paper had been commissioned by now, outside the Gestalt or OD context (Gaffney, 2008C). Not to forget the various drafts of an introduction to my thesis, as well as my draft literature review on Gestalt with groups and organizations – writing had now clearly become one of my practices. My supervisor, Professor Paul Weller, hinted often and gently that my writing seemed to be at the expense of any thoughts about an empirical study at the heart of my thesis. As I look back now and reflect on where I was in my process at that time, I can see two perspectives which may explain my hesitation around an empirical study. Emotionally, my overriding experience was the growing and darkening shadow of my Achilles Syndrome – now I was really in trouble! Me? An empirical study? Brian: I made a conscious decision to make my first round of comments as I was reading. At this point, I’m feeling some inadequacy myself – what can I add to this wonderful story. Is there something else I should be doing? I feel admiration for your process, persistence, and reflections. Wonderful. More cognitively, I was wrestling with the tension emerging from my preferred focus – that of practitioner – and the assumption by academics at UoD that my study was “about groups”. I knew that my study was about group facilitators, in other words - the practitioners, more specifically, Gestalt group facilitators. The more I thought about this, the more obvious it became to me that only a major and international study could do justice to the claims I was making – by confirming, questioning or demolishing them. I honestly did not feel myself capable of doing justice to such a study, and was mindful of the damage that an inadequate or less-thanperfect study would do to my work. I was increasingly aware of the importance here of methodology, and of finding one to which I could do justice, and which would provide a methodological framework for my submission.

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Of significance here also is that as 2006 became 2007, I could now add a further six papers in press/under peer review (all but one of which were published – see below for the exception). The Scandinavian/Irish Doctoral group was now down to three members – a Dane, a Swede and me. Along with UoD and local supervisers, we had three-day meetings twice a year in my house in Sweden, as well as regular individual and group meetings at UoD, and each of us with our local supervisor. In February, 2007, much of my time at our residential doctoral meeting was spent agonizing over my next step. During the previous autumn, while attending an individual academic supervision session in UoD, an interesting choice had presented itself. As a member of faculty with a collaborating institute - the Gestalt Academy of Scandinavia on their two Masters’ programmes with UoD - I could choose to avail of the “Ph.D by publication route”. Brian: I am always struck by the common roots of ‘author’ and ‘authority’. For me, writing in general has often been related to a desire for the same kind of legitimacy – adulthood even, in the sense of authority on my own experience – that degrees conferred. This route was intended as an exact parallel to the thesis route, meaning that a body of peer-reviewed published work matched the traditional monograph in terms of academic quality and contribution to knowledge, subjected to the same assessment and examination requirements. Sue: You raise a big question here about writing, particularly academic writing and the confidence to step into that particular transitional space. Clearly your profuse writing period served you well and I’d be interested to hear more about that and what inspired you to write so much during that short period of time? Writing is an ongoing puzzle for me. As a Gestalt practitioner doing research in a Gestalt way, my question is continuously how to meet the needs of academic demands with the fullness of writing authentically - and keeping my writing alive. The “Irish” member of my informal supervision group, Professor Chris Brannigan, offered a persuasive thought: since focused papers were clearly my medium of choice, would I consider writing up a pilot project: a miniempirical study. I immediately thought of two opportunities: I was on the faculty of an international MBA at SSE, and also had access to Gestalt training groups in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Chris was of the opinion that such a paper would be a useful if not, in fact, necessary contribution to my submission.

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Then, of course, I had my inner debate with Achilles and his vulnerable heel…would I be choosing a back-door option by going the publication route? Would I be avoiding my demons, rather than facing them? Would I be going for second-best for fear of failure at “best”, a sudden arrow in my heel? Was I paying too much respect to traditional formalities, I who had always ended up doing my own thing anyway? Was I missing an opportunity through submission to values that were not mine? My two colleagues, Sanne and Tina were a great support during this period, as was Paul, my supervisor, who had always been clear and encouraging about my ability to produce a monograph. Chris was pragmatic (as becomes a senior CBT practitioner!): “You’ve already published more than most of us, you can talk your way out a plastic bag, so a viva is an opportunity for you, not a problem…so go for it!” During 2007, my writing continued, covering all the aspects of “Gestalt at work in the World” that were relevant to me. As the February, 2008 doctoral group meeting approached, I had some twenty papers published, in press or under review. It was clear to me that I had a body of work which could be considered a significant contribution to the theory, methodology and practice of Gestalt in a range of applications – therapeutic, group, educational, organizational, social, and in a variety of socio-cultural settings. Where my choice of routes was concerned, this was when push came to shove. I absolutely had the material for a cut-and-paste-and-gluetogether theoretical monograph, with a tacked-on pilot project for the sake of something empirical. I did not find this an attractive or worthy alternative. So I began exploring how I could best select a collection of papers which comprised an integrated body of work and which contained the theory, methodology and exemplifications necessary to support a contribution to knowledge. This contribution was primarily aimed at my Gestalt colleagues, though I had increasingly, with time, offered theory and methodologies to other than Gestalt practitioners. And this is also where I re-acquainted myself with my demons, Achilles’ heel drumming on my forehead. What finally supported me in my decision was the protocol for the publication route. Any submission would be provisionally assessed by an external academic, preferably a professor and absolutely an expert in the field of study. In other words, someone could shoot the arrow before it was too late…so I began to accept that the publication route was mine to follow. With regard to my possible pilot-projects mentioned earlier, SSE internal politics removed the first option. The MBA Programme was to be radically re-structured, and I became one of the original faculty to

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disappear. And then the internal tensions of the Gestalt Academy of Scandinavia made it impossible for me to run a pilot project from August 2008 into 2009. So, at the February 2009 doctoral meeting, I had to make my choice. Go the publication route, and, if unsuccessful, wait another year with a new submission. I was already a pensioner. By the summer of 2009, I would be 67. Quite simply, time was running out, and if I was going to do this, well if not now, when? So I went with my alter ego, Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story 2…(and 3))…”to infinity and beyond”…and went for the publication route. Paul, my Academic Supervisor, announced his resignation as Academic Supervisor on the spot – and immediately applied for the job of Academic Advisor, which is what I was entitled to on the publications route. I accepted him as such immediately and with pleasure. We had developed a good personal and professional working relationship, both of which I valued…and then began the bureaucratic nightmare that is moving from one academic path to another…I will spare the reader the intricacies of such a move. Brian: What a shame that such bureaucratic nightmares, so pedantic and unnecessary to the core developmental plot, should demand so much of a person’s time and energy in these pursuits. By the early spring of 2009, I had selected seventeen of some twenty four published/in press papers as my Ph.D by publication submission, which were sent for external assessment by an American professor with a Gestalt training background. After a nervous six weeks, I was informed in mid May that my submission was approved as suitable for progression to the formal process of a viva voce examination… During a visit to Paul at UoD in June, 2009, I was faced with the formal declaration to submit within three months…and did so, on June 10. This meant a deadline of September 10 for three bound copies of my submission, now to include a Critical Appraisal of my own work, an essential and core document on the publication route. This was separate paper, usually of 5 000 words, or 8 000 if necessary, after a formal approval by the Research Degrees Committee. The purpose of this document was to critically assess my own work and its contribution to knowledge. Drafting, revising and preparing this – as well as the seventeen papers and necessary documentation - to be printed and “bound in soft covers” dominated my summer of 2009. (As stated earlier, this paper you are reading is an extended and much revised version of relevant portions of that Critical Appraisal.) My viva took place on November 11, 2009. This was an exciting, challenging, supportive experience which opened up areas of my knowledge

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and experience that clearly were mine, though had not found their way into the submission. I am still amazed at how much I learned in what was actually an examination, and still feel gratitude to Dr. Christine Stevens and Dr. Kate Maguire for the manner in which they elicited so much of value to me, and for the brief appendix they requested based on our discussions. At the end of November, 2009, I received formal notice of having satisfied all requirements for the award of a Ph.D. On January 23, 2010, I walked across the stage in bonnet and gown at the UoD Awards Ceremony in Derby City Hall. Brian: I am trying to imagine being there at that moment, or having tea on January 24th and hearing about your process. My transition to becoming an official academic was now established as an ongoing process, of which this paper is a part. Sue: “What the knower comes to know changes who the knower is” (Romanyshyn 2007, p117)

The Submission: A Summary In order to establish some context at this stage, here are some extracts from the original Critical Appraisal: This submission represents the development of what is it is argued can be a theory and methodology for Gestalt-based group facilitation by practitioners of any cultural background in homogenous or heterogeneous cultural settings. Such cultural border-crossings are supported by a focus on contact boundary dynamics, introduced here to combine such established Gestalt constructs as contact and awareness within a field approach. This selection of 17 journal articles and book chapters peer reviewed and/or edited, published, in press or accepted for publication between Spring, 2004 and Spring, 2010, examines the extent to which traditional Gestalt theory, methodology and practice initially intended to treat the psychopathology of individuals, has also, from the beginning provided a solid ground for Gestalt practitioners in socially complex settings, such as groups, organizations and societies. Extrapolations of the original thinking are offered throughout to support this claim. Particular attention is paid to the multi-cultural context of a more physically and virtually accessible world such as that in which we currently live, and in which these groups and organizations function as increasingly diverse collectives in culturally diverse societies. This naturally includes the socio-cultural background of the practitioner, as well as that of the world-wide training institutes.

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Core to my writing is the intention to stay firmly within the parameters of Gestalt theory, methodology and practice to ensure that any experienced Gestalt practitioner or recent graduate will at least find a base of known theoretical constructs which they will recognize and with which they will be acquainted – whether or not they agree with the variations and applications I am presenting. A non-Gestalt version is included for group practitioners of other modalities. A focus on groups acknowledges the author’s contention that organizations and societies are composed of inter-dependent and interacting sub-groups, each a group in its own right. Groups and their sub-groups can thus be parts through which it is possible to approach larger wholes, such as organizations and societies, in order to explore possible extrapolations and distinctions in the interplay between the whole and its parts. Such an approach is congruent with the holistic field perspective of Gestalt theory as originally published, as well as the field theory and social-psychological focus of Kurt Lewin (Lewin 1952), an original, then forgotten and now revived influence on Gestalt theory. A synthesis of these two theoretical foundations, called “A Field Perspective” has recently been proposed and appears in the submission (O’Neill & Gaffney, 2008, page 229). This will in my future publications be named “A Gestalt Field Perspective”. The submission includes: 1 interview, to establish some personal background; 1 paper on individual Gestalt therapy; 6 papers on Gestalt group facilitation 1 with 8 commentaries and a response; 1 with 6 commentaries; 1 with 2 in-text commentaries and a separate group commentary; 1 paper on Gestalt group supervision with 3 in-text commentaries; 4 papers on Gestalt OD consulting; 1 with an introduction, 2 commentaries and a response; 2 papers with a social focus; 2 papers with a theoretical focus. 1 with 2 commentaries and a response. The principal themes of a contribution to knowledge, across the above papers: Neo-Lewinian Field Theory Contact Boundary Dynamics Borders and Boundaries Cross-cultural Group Facilitation and Consultancy. Existentialism as ground for living and interacting.

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Reflections of a Reflective Practitioner Donald Schön’s “Educating the Reflective Practitioner” (Schön, 1987) has as its sub-title “Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions”. This book was a strong influence on me when I first read it in 1990, and, as a teacher, trainer and OD consultant I have regularly dipped into over the years. Clearly, since my papers are emergent from my practice as Gestalt therapist, group facilitator, OD consultant and trainer – a professional with professionals – then reflective practice was at the core of my work. Phil: I come in here, anticipating (maybe wrongly) where you’re going, to say that this project seems like a qualitative approach to research. I may be stating the obvious. I want to put a placemarker for the use of qualitative research in the practice of organizational consulting. I have begun deliberately using qualitative research in my organizational assessments, which is an extension of the gestalt approach of “joining” the organization so as to experience it as a first move to having an influence. As such, I believe gestalt OD practitioners and coaches can benefit from rigorous study of qualitative research designs and strategies. As it is, I use the qualitative assessment to set up a second-stage proposal with companies, and that fine tunes the objectives and the contracting involved in what is essentially a business transaction. The new context of my reflective practice in preparing a doctoral submission offered new opportunities and perspectives. Allow me here to summarise some of the principal learnings I have taken with me from my transitional journey: 1. Theorising in such a practice-focused environment as Gestalt is has its challenges, especially since the theorizer in this case (me) has a decided bias towards action and practice. There were papers where I deliberately focused on the theoretical, only to be told by peer reviewers that I must use more examples of practice – and give such examples pride of place, in other words to open with them. One reviewer was very critical of my theory, and warmly enthusiastic over my examples – though the examples exemplified the theory! A total break-down in communication occurred when one of my favourite drafts, in which I used aural and visual metaphors to sensorily illustrate theoretical positions was met with bafflement by journal reviewers whom I had apparently totally “lost in translation”. What I had optimistically seen as a potential example of experiential reading had apparently become both unreadable and untranslatable. Particular challenges have occurred when fellow practitioners became so focused on

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defending established constructs that new extrapolations/proposals never really seemed to get beyond an instant re-iteration of the traditional versions (Bloom, ibid ). At the same time, it is precisely such challenges to adequately communicating my thinking which became grist for the mill of my reflexive process as I explored what to take in as relevant corrections, and what to maintain as a considered position. To coin a phrase, I seemed to have occasionally gone “a bridge too far”. Such experiences gave rise to reflections around the ever-invisible boundaries of current understanding, which only become visible – as borders - when I crossed them. At the same time, crossing these borders with the courage of our convictions is also a responsibility in our contribution to knowledge and theory-informed practice. Phil: There is a difference between the boundary of understanding that is experienced because words do not work equally well for writer and reader in calling forth a revelation of life, and the boundary that comes because an advancement of theory is actually taking place which requires that people set aside their ways of knowing and let the revelation of life reach them as given. Such instances as those briefly exemplified have had their consequences in my doctoral work. I initially became wary of making theoretical statements which might be “a bridge too far” for some Gestalt colleagues, and so became implicitly/explicitly mindful of qualifying my statements, or reframing them in less assertive terms. For example, “group self” became “at least analagous to self-of-group”, after a series of e-mail exchanges. On the other hand – and equally important for me as practitionerresearcher theorizer – some of my thinking became re-enforced into a clearer theoretical stance. The best examples of this can be found throughout my papers dealing with my extrapolations on Lewinian field theory. Brian: Seems to me you have done a very good job in the preceding few paragraphs of capturing the theory/themes, while tying them to some great examples. 2. Gestalt in all of its many applications as a theory and methodology is an embodied practice. By this I mean that as a Gestalt practitioner I have so integrated its cognitive elements into who I am, that my use of self in my practice means that I am not theory-less but rather informed by integrated theory in my embodied practice. This has also led to a curious short-sightedness, partly maintained by my attempt to intentionally stay sufficiently within the theory and methodology of anyway mainstream Gestalt training. The opportunity to write the Critical Appraisal and

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participate in such a creative viva voce has opened up doors to earlier knowledge which had apparently become so integrated into my practice as a teacher and trainer that I had forgotten its sources. Particularly relevant here is the work of John Heron, Peter Reason and John Rowan on such directly related subjects as group facilitation, collaborative inquiry and humanistic research methods (Heron 1989; 1996; Reason 1988; Rowan 1988). Phil: Oh my. You bring back an experience of mine when I discovered Heron and Reason. I was in my doctoral program and in my gestalt training group, and no one seemed particularly interested in what these guys (Heron and Reason) were saying, but I was. I’m with you, Seán; it feels like we’ve had at some points a similar journey of discovery; at least this is what I imagine and feel reading you here. I know this also from our mutual appreciation for the book Advances in Field Theory by Wheelan, Pepitone, and Abt. As a teacher and management trainer even in my pre-Gestalt days, I have read and enjoyed the work of these authors. Indeed, I once held a presentation of Heron’s work to language teachers as part of a Learning Centred development programme for teachers! I can now see that such sources can easily become unacknowledged in the delimited practionertheoriser focus I had chosen, and were thus almost lost as a support to my research methodology. I say “almost” here, since such thinking as theirs emerged anyway as tacit knowledge and therefore a supportive contribution to methodology. I have learned here the value of reflectively exploring the sources of my practice as embodied knowledge so that both my practice and my writing can more accurately resonate with and acknowledge these influences. Brian: I can definitely see the value in this. Since you’re doing such a nice job of arguing for the importance of writing-about, I feel freedom to express the other half of my “own conflict within my soul” on the subject. I sometimes have the experience of coming to believe something – discovering it, almost – and then wanting to find someone else to acknowledge – not as much to credit where I got it from, since it is difficult to tell, but more to inoculate against the belief (in myself or others) that I am claiming to say something new, and, in so doing to also legitimize my thoughts in some way. “I wonder if that’s just me…?”, says that same internal process in a self-conscious way. 3. The importance of dialogue as a methodology has two aspects: the first is embedded in action research methodologies which are intrinsically dialogical.

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Research then needs to be written and presented. What became important to me was to continue dialogical processes into the actual writing. This has taken a number of forms: a) private commentaries from colleagues on various drafts; b) published commentaries elicited by journal editors along with my opportunity to respond; c) unedited in-text commentaries, elicited by me, and published as part of the paper (as in this one!). Brian: Reading your self-reflexive parenthetical, I feel a sense of the dialogue right now. I cannot imagine a more clear demonstration of dialog in writing – and of the act of perspective ownership which I am fond of – than this elicited process capturing pre-synthesis thesis and response in vivo. I am particularly interested in the journal readers who contacted me to express how much they enjoyed “taking sides” in these latter papers, with me or the commentator – or finding their own voices on the issues concerned, and always as they read the paper. I can now see how these dialogical reader responses can be a future source of research material. For example, as a practitioner-researcher, I can gather my papers, the “formal” commentaries and response as published AND, with permission, of course, the “informal” responses of readers to the whole of the preceding. This would in effect be an extension of the process used in an in-press paper (Gaffney, 2010A), and would broaden the research sample. In the paper concerned, two colleagues contributed unedited in-text comments, and the resulting paper, including comments, was reviewed by three fourth-year Gestalt therapy trainees in London. 4. I became increasingly aware of the richness of perspectives embraced by Gestalt theory, methodology and practice and the complexities involved in both synthesizing as well as distinguishing them. To put it another way: gestalting Gestalt offers opportunities as well as pitfalls. Let me begin with a summary of my understanding of this issue. It may help to see each perspective as a “Russian doll” of increasing size, each from the second one onwards containing its predecessor/predecessors: Brian: I take issue with the metaphor, which feels too linear and hierarchical to me. (I feel the same way at times about some of the onion examples for “layers of resistance” in Gestalt). I’m not sure what a more field-oriented three-dimensional metaphor would be… I think perhaps some Escher drawings do a good job, especially on the dimension of working subordinate paradox into a congruent higher-order whole.

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Perspectives and Sources PERSPECTIVES

PRIMARY SOURCES

Ecological

Jan Smuts

Biological

Kurt Goldstein

Psychological

Sigmund Freud Max Wertheimer Wolfgang Köhler Kurt Koffka Kurt Lewin Daniel Stern

Field

Kurt Goldstein Jan Smuts Max Wertheimer Wolfgang Köhler Kurt Koffka Kurt Lewin

Philosophical

Sören Kierkegaard Martin Buber Emmanuel Levinas Maurice Merleau-Ponty Edmund Husserl Martin Heidegger Edith Stein Jean-Paul Sartre

Theological/Spiritual

Sören Kierkegaard Martin Buber Emmanuel Levinas Edith Stein

Phil: I would add the Hermeneutical to perspective and list the following people there: Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. And also add the following people to the theological/spiritual perspective: Friedrich Schleiermacher, Rudolph Otto, Karol Wojtyla, Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Michel Henry, for example. And thank you, Seán, for previously introducing me to Edith Stein–I am eager to read her soon.

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I do not suggest that this list of names is either exhaustive or absolutely accurate in any sense. It certainly contains names that were not necessarily considered relevant in the original text (PHG, 1951), like Kierkegaard, Buber, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Levinas, even Lewin, and certainly Stern and Stein. It is also so that such sources as these have achieved increasing importance in contemporary developments of Gestalt theory and methodology (see, for example: Woldt & Toman, 2005; Spagnuolo Lobb & Amendt-Lyon, 2003; Brownell, 2010). My principal point is to illustrate the domains or categories that need to be recognized as belonging to a consideration of Gestalt theory, methodology and practice, and to show something of the complexity of their connections to each other. Phil: People could make many lists of influences (roots) of gestalt therapy; likewise lists of contemporary agreements with people in collateral fields. Let me suggest that just as gestalt therapy (and many others) have discovered a new “darling” in Emmanuel Levinas, it cannot stop with him. He is a slippery slope into the even more contemporary phenomenological thinkers who have assimilated Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas and gone on to tackle a phenomenology of religion/spirituality. Just as a theological worldview influenced Buber and then influenced gestalt therapy, the thinking of people like Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Michel Henry and Paul Ricoeur will likely affect gestalt therapy in the near future. A particular example from my submission is a co-authored paper (O’Neill & Gaffney, 2008) in which we examine the distinctions and commonalities between Smuts, Goldstein, Lewin and the proposals around “field” contained in the primary text (PHG, ibid) and propose a synthesis, which we named “A Field Perspective”. I have since proposed the construct “A Gestalt Field Perspective” in order to more accurately reflect the synthesis of the approaches referenced above. A Gestalt field perspective supports the practitioner-researcher in approaching “field” as ontology, as phenomenology and as epistemology and making relevant choices in the context of their inquiry. Brian: I believe there was early talk of calling Gestalt therapy something like phenomenological behaviorism. I might have called it existential cybernetic pragmatism. I can’t imagine either would have “sold” like Gestalt. In any case, and they don’t fit neatly within categories, I might add people like Ludwig Wittgenstein, William James, B.F. Skinner, and Alfred Korzybski. Of course you’re right it’s next to impossible to be exhaustive, however I would definitely argue that any list that doesn’t include Sigmund Freud, Karen Horney, and Wilhelm Reich –

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on something like a psycho-therapeutic dimension if we stick with your schema aim – is really incomplete. Phil: Seán, I appreciated your distinction of the “field perspective” in 2008, and so understand and still appreciate the “gestalt field perspective” in 2010. A number of people have been discussing these two “sides” to a field perspective, and I can recall a discussion at Gstalt-L (that was published online at Gestalt!–http://www.g-gej.org/52/1998field.html) in which a number of people expressed what you say above, but not with the apparent coherency that you are putting out. At that time these two perspectives seemed separate from one another for some people, but now you are integrating them, and I like that. Another example is in the various papers dealing with Gestalt with groups (see references). A core construct here is what I call “The Existential Dilemma” of moving between a social stance continuum of being “apart from” and “a part of” other group members. This moves between the ecological, biological, psychological, philosophical and maybe also spiritual perspectives (the latter with Buber and Levinas, for example). I hope to develop this schema further in coming papers, and welcome comments and suggestions.

An Emergent Research Methodology Of some relevance here is the felicitous phrase used by my adviser about the distinctive methodology of some of the submissions: “knowledge enhancement through a dialogical process” (Weller, personal communication). This refers to the process by which various papers were offered by journal editors to expert peer commentators, beginning with “Gestalt at Work”(Gaffney 2004) - an introduction, two commentaries and a response, then “Gestalt with Groups – a Cross-cultural Perspective” (Gaffney, 2006A) - eight commentaries and a response, and finally “The Cycle Re-cycled” (Gaffney, 2009) - two commentaries and a response. I became so interested in this process that I elicited commentaries on one article – (Gaffney, 2006B, commentaries now added in my submission) – and then moved to unedited in-text comments (Gaffney 2008; 2010A). Brian: I have at times felt frustrated as editors “destroy” my expressions, and respond not simply with clarifications, but with re-writes designed to make me sound more like them – “use this more appropriate term” or “you forgot to cite my favorite author”… yet, as I read the word “unedited” over and over again your paper, I am aware of a sense of

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anxiety. Will readers see what I write as-is? Will they read this sentence? Will they see ME – no editor to shield my naked phenomenology in contemporary academic prose. Oh dear, and, hello – a timid openness, and greater sense of responsibility. These latter articles allowed voices to be heard in-text which might or might not be in agreement with my thinking, and thus created a dialogical process in which the reader could be engaged as yet another voice, including again frequent e-mail exchanges. The dialogical process, whether as editorially elicited and published commentaries, informal commentaries and unedited in-text comments provides a continuous and informed comment/response process of value in informing and refining my work as a Gestalt practitioner and thus my writing. A representative example here is Fairfield’s comment on the absence of “any overt reference to field theory” in a paper which to me was intrinsically of a field perspective (Fairfield, 2006, p. 225). This alerted me to the danger of taking for granted that even an informed reader did not need a more explicated theoretical ground. This led to more “overt” references in immediately following papers, and to papers with a dedicated field perspective. In addition, two points emerged in the drafting of this appraisal with respect to methodology, and are presented here as retrospective understandings and learning rather than intentional methods. Phil: Before I read these, Seán, I want to observe that the discipline of writing for a professional audience is rigorous and is a learning process. I now propose writing projects with the clear understanding that I don’t already know what I’m going to know after the project is over. My experience, furthermore, after having written, is that when I go back and read what I have written, it seems as if someone else wrote those things, and I “listen” to myself and learn all over again. The dialogical process you are describing adds another dimension to such writing. First, my interest in the thinking of Kurt Lewin includes an acquaintance with “Action Research”. In its current applications, this can take the form of a contracted cooperative research project which produces a contribution to the knowledge and practice of the client (subject) as well as to the knowledge and theory-building of the nominal researcher (Reason & Bradbury, 2001). See also Heron, Reason and Rowan, cited and referenced above. Further reading and reflection has clarified for me that the submission, its various settings and the fact that my personal and professional background (Harris, 2009 p. 51) in becoming and remaining first and foremost a teacher is most appropriately viewed in the context of action research within education, with a focus on mutual learning and

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professional development (McNiff, 1992; McNiff, Whitehead & Lomax, 2003; McNiff & Whitehead, 2009). In the context of the work being presented here, I can see how first my practice as a Gestalt therapist, group facilitator, teacher/trainer, and OD consultant and then my writing became the focus of an action research project, the content of which was the evolution and development of a synthesis of my practice and thinking over time, including my personal and professional development as a Gestalt practitioner. Along with the participants of the countless groups internationally that I have facilitated and trained, the voices and inputs of 24 commentators of 11 defined ethnicities became part of an international feedback loop about my work, to my work. I truly became a “Reflective Practitioner” (Schön, ibid.), and can note now in how many papers I include my own reflections not only on the content of the writing, but also on the process of the writing itself. The second point here also evokes Lewin. Martin Gold (Gold, 1990) persuasively argues that Lewin actually contributed with two field theories – a “meta-theory” which is an approach to theory-building, and a “specific field theory” that can generate hypotheses. (Brian: I like that).This prompts me to consider the extent to which these aspects of Lewin’s contribution to method have been present throughout my work, informing it as fully integrated and therefore tacit knowledge. This is most obvious in the papers in which I deconstruct “field” and life-space”, and use the conclusions reached to generate hypotheses about individual therapy (O’Neill & Gaffney, 2008), and groups and group facilitation (see titles In REFERENCES). Sue: It seems to me that very early on, field theory became infused into a range of methodologies such as action research, systems theory, force field analysis. Furthermore, although Lewin’s ideas on field theory are embedded in the work of the Tavistock Institute, field theory has failed to become distinctive in its own right, ontologically and epistemologically. What is now needed of field theory is to be distinctive, and standing on its own. These retrospective reflections are summarized in a model I developed while reading the literature referenced above and writing the Critical Appraisal, (Figure 1). Embedded as it is in the peer-commentary process outlined above, this model describes my reflective practice and writing, the connection between them, and thus the process and content of the submission and, indeed, the Critical Appraisal. It also combines field theory, Action Research and Gestalt practice.

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Figure 1

With regard to the model, it is possible to start at any point in the circle, and I have thus left the “Planning” phase of all Action Research models as a function of the starting-point, rather than a separate first or recursive phase. The very thought of a next step at any point in the circle implies planning. For example, in my practice as a Gestalt group facilitator, I often find myself making notes and writing questions during breaks. These are preparatory to matching my experience in the moment in and of the group with the theory and methodology of my work, and thus become the basis for planning further reading and refinements. These, in turn, influence the deductive process as I plan for their implementation. The emergence of the model while I was drafting my Critical Appraisal is itself an example of the process it describes.

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What follows is a more detailed explication of Figure 1, though hopefully open enough to allow the reader room for personal extrapolations and applications. The “Field of the Work” naturally comprises the work itself, all environmental factors which impact on it, and the reciprocal influencing that occurs as this field dynamically organizes. This will include such influences as the research guidelines of the academic institution involved including both the explicit ethical considerations required by such an institute as well as the specific ethical requirements of the chosen research methodology and also research sample, children for example. A change in environmental settings will influence the work. A change in research focus will influence the sample as environment. For example, an organizational study can be impacted by such events as downsizing, an impending merger, a takeover or an internal re-organisation. This would radically change the direction and focus of the study, or even make it redundant or impossible to complete. From an action research perspective, it could also enrich the work by providing an alternative focus and a fascinating challenge to the researcher. In the case of this submission, the influences were fully reciprocal. Some three years into the doctoral programme, I made the decision to move from a thesis route to a publication route. By that stage, I actually realized that I had a considerable body of published/in press papers, and that journal writing was more my preferred channel of written communication than a monograph. This decision, and its approval, changedmy focus from creating a whole which gave meaning to its parts, to forging a coherent whole through specific parts inter-connected by the shared and delimited theory and methodology of a Gestalt approach as the explicit whole. Environmental events which influenced the work include a change of journal editor in mid-revision; such intrusive editing of my content in one case as to almost occasion withdrawal of the paper concerned; a three-year gap between review, revision and final acceptance of a book chapter and its final publication; and re-organisations at two academic institutes which removed two planned pilot-project research samples from the work. Phil: Seán, you speak as if the work is an isolated “thing” that can be tinkered with, interrupted, intruded upon, etc. In a field methodology your work, your writing, is a group project always (isn’t it?), even though the group members change from time to time. Here is something I have learned about writing: the role I play may be author, but there are always other players in the process, and they not only affect the final “product,”

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but also influence my own thinking, as well as the theory that evolves (if what one is writing about is a praxis). With regard to the work itself, embedded as it is in a wider field, some brief examples may support understanding the model in action: PRACTICE: as a practitioner researcher (Phil: I will add a longer note on this; the construct of a practitioner-researcher is one used with increasing frequency, and just how a gestalt practitioner might approach the concept is not a given in every situation), this includes my professional Gestalt practice as therapist, group facilitator, teacher and OD consultant. Since these aspects of my practice are covered in the papers which make up my submission, I will confine myself here to the two specifics of practice relevant to the Critical Appraisal: Figure 2

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Examples of the above in action can be found throughout the varied applications of a gestalt approach in the papers of the submission. The importance of the function and contribution of a field-emergent methodology reinforces the seminal impact of Kurt Lewin in particular and Gestalt psychology in general on this submission, and provides a practical example of the “emergent creation” construct (O’Neill & Gaffney, 2008; p. 250). I also want to acknowledge the similarities between the above model and the Experiential Learning Cycle (Kolb, 1984), in itself largely based on Lewin’s action research model. As a longtime teacher and trainer, the Experiential Learning Cycle has long been a guide to my practice. These similarities are yet another example of tacit knowledge gestalting itself in embodied practice. Sue: I appreciate your definition of ‘field-emergent methodology’. In my own research I have used ‘free flowing narrative inquiry’ as an interview method. I would say that is also a ‘field-emergent methodology’ because of the way that I have carried out the interviews, and how tacit knowledge about leadership has come to light.

Summary and Conclusions The robustness of Gestalt theory and methodology is attested to by the wide range of applications covered by the submission and the consistency with which the same sets of constructs can be successfully used in such a variety of settings and levels of complexity. This confirms the claim, made in the introduction, that Gestalt practice has always held the potential for such a richness of professional use, with the important addition here of a multi-cultural context. An obvious next step would be an empirical research project into the viability of the proposed group facilitation model as a specific methodology, informed by both theory and practice, and its applicability to more complex collectives such as organizations and societies. At the same time, arising from the cross-cultural context of the submission, a more thorough and culturally diverse project will be needed to fully explore the feasibility of my proposals, probably with a focus on Gestalt group facilitation and Gestalt OD consulting. I am happy to leave this task to others and to offer my work as a possible foundation for them to further develop. Brian: I feel a sense of disappointment reading this – perhaps a related demand from inside – “Gaffney should do the research -- "I" want to see it. It’s also a rejection of responsibility -- "I" don’t want to have to do it – perhaps somehow related to (I project) part of the distaste for pure

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theory. I recall Maslow struggling with these reactions from others quite a bit, when he would say similar things about leaving implementation and further validation to others. And, now, I feel a sense of freedom thinking of you and he both saying this, since this is often at times what I myself would like to say. Finally, I am pleased to say that I am still engaged in a work in progress, and to acknowledge that I have come about as far as I can for the moment – so both a resting-place for the time being, AND a starting-point for a next step. I am still an active Gestalt practitioner with opportunities for further reflective practice and writing. My Ph.D submission therefore represents a coherent current statement of my contribution to the theory and methodology of a cross-cultural Gestalt group facilitation practice, including OD and community/society applications. Brian: Coming to the end I feel quite self-conscious of the degree of self-conscious process revealed in my preceding comments. I feel an urge to redact parts, to add in citations and larger words demonstrating my academic prowess and substantiating my having value for participation in dialogue beyond my sharing genuine reactions from my personal perspective. If you (the reader) are seeing this, you will gather I have decided to sit with that urge, rather than acting on it. I imagine a variety of reactions to that decision. Interesting. Phil: Now, let me talk about this concept of a practitioner-researcher. Paul Barber wrote a book called Becoming a Practitioner Researcher: A Gestalt Approach to Holistic Inquiry (2006, Middlesex University Press). Another one that is similar in some ways is Relational-centred Research for Psychotherapist: Exploring Meanings and Experience, edited by Linda Finlay and Ken Evans (2009, John Wiley & Sons). It’s not a novel construct; people outside of gestalt therapy are using it to depict work being done in a variety of professions. Both of these mentioned books, and Seán’s work here, advocate what I called “practice-based research” in the Handbook for Theory, Research, and Practice in Gestalt Therapy (2008, Cambridge Scholars Publishing). It is a corrective to the quantitative research that has found difficulty in being applied at the level of clinical practice. Research findings that have relevance to clinical situations and for the clinicians who inhabit them must be produced at the level of the clinic by clinicians. What I appreciate in Seán’s writing is the realization that practitioner researchers such as this can engage in diverse and multiple methods of research. Qualitative designs are useful for some things, but not for others; just so quantitative methods. It is possible to conduct empirically rigorous quantitative research at the level of the clinic, by practitioner researchers. I believe one contribution that

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gestalt practitioner researchers might make to the discipline of experimental psychology is more of an appreciation of the field of the research project. Actually, what we hope to put together is a research tradition for gestalt therapy and its applications in such domains as organizational development, coaching, public activism, and teaching that includes a philosophy of science in keeping with our existing gestalt theory, multiple methods, and evidence that contributes to a consilient web of justification, based not just on evidence but certainly including it as a means of establishing warrant. I believe that it is coincidental that the two needs (that of experimental psychology to bridge from the university research lab to the clinic, and that of gestalt therapy to establish a research tradition that can contribute to its evidence base) both rely on the work of practitioner researchers. In the case of gestalt therapy, if gestalt practitioner researchers do not generate this resarch, it will just not happen. I have found commenting on your work, Seán, to be interesting and informative. Thank you for the privilege.

References Bloom, D. (2009). Commentary 1. Gestalt Review 13.1. Cape Cod, MA. GISC Press. Clarkson, P. (1994). The Achilles Syndrome – Overcoming the secret fear of failure. Shaftesbury, Dorset. Element Publications. Gaffney, S. (2004). Gestalt at Work – A Gestalt Organization and Systems Dynamics Case Study. Gestalt Review 8.3. Cape Cod, MA. GISC Press. —. (2006A). On Borders and Boundaries – International Consulting. The NTL Handbook of Organizational Development and Change. Brazzel & Jones, Eds. New York, Jossey Bass. —. (2006B). Gestalt with Groups – A Cross-cultural Perspective. Gestalt Review. Vol.10.3 —. (2006 C). Gestalt with Groups – A Developmental Perspective. Gestalt Journal Australia and New Zealand. Sydney. GANZ Press. —. (2006D). On Being Absurd – Kierkegaard and Gestalt. British Gestalt Journal, Vol. 15/1, pages 7 - 15. Bristol, England. —. (2006E) Gestalt with Groups – A Developmental Perspective. Gestalt Journal Australia & New Zealand, Vol 2/2. Christchurch, New Zealand.

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—. (2008). On Finding My Way. InnerSense – A Journal of Spirituality. Wollongong NSW. Ravenwood Press. —. (2007). Preface. Gestalt Therapy Now. Fagan & Shepherd, Eds. New York, Gestalt Journal Press. —. (2009A). Gestalt in the North of Ireland. Mending the World., Melnick J. & Nevis E., Eds. GISC Press, Cape Cod, Maine, USA. —. (2008A). Gestalt Group Supervision in a Divided Society. British Gestalt Journal. Vol. 17.2 —. (2008B). Besides the Hot Seat. Beyond the Hot Seat Revisited. Feder, B. & Frew J. Eds. Meitairie, LA, Gestalt Institute Press. —. (2008C). Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Classroom. The International Teacher Programme Handbook. London, Gower Press. —. (2009B). The Cycle Re-cycled. Gestalt Review. Vol.XXXX —. (2008D). Respondent in Lead Article. Studies in Gestalt Therapy. Vol. 2.1 —. (2009C). Steps towards a Practice of Gestalt with Groups. Gestalt Journal, Australia and New Zealand. Vol. 2:2. Sydney. GANZ Press. Gaffney, S & Jensen, I. (2009D). Triple Vision – The Complex Lenses of Gestalt OSD. Under review, Gestalt Review, Cape Cod, Maine, USA. Gaffney, S. (in press). A Neo-Lewinian Approach to Working with Groups. Advances in Gestalt Therapy Theory. Routledge, London, England. Gaffney, S. (in press). A Proposal for a Gestalt Group Model. International Gestalt Journal. Gestalt Journal Press, New York NY Harris, B. (2008). Interviewing Seán Gaffney. British Gestalt Journal 17.2. Cardiff. Gestalt publications limited. Mannerstråhle, I. (Ed.) (1995). Gestaltterapi på svenska. Stockholm. W & W Förlag. Schön, D. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass Publishers.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX1 STRUCTURING BACKGROUND BY LETTING GO OF CLINGING AND AVOIDANCE2 JUNGKYU KIM

I always have been much interested to know how it works to translate an idea, a concept, or an experience into another language. What if people speaking the other language don't have the same thought, experience or background? Are we destined to be confined within the prisons of our own experiences and languages? The problem exists not only between people using different languages, but also among the people who speak the same language, because even siblings within a family cannot always have the same experiences as background. I remember very vividly the moment the scales went off my eyes when I attended a course on the language philosophy of F. Nietzsche, offered by professor Simon in the Summer semester 1993 at the University of Bonn Germany. According to Nietzsche, Simon said, learning a new vocabulary always is built on the words we know already. This becomes very apparent as we look up a new word in a dictionary, where new words are explained by words we already know. The same principle is at work when we come to learn a new idea, knowledge, or a religion. It is evident that we would not be able to learn a "new" idea, if we were not equipped with "old" ideas or experiences that are in some way connected to the so called "new" one. Thus, we can learn or teach an idea from or to another person, because everyone has already some "old" ideas or experiences which are related to the "new" one. 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 11(1), 2011.

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But the question I raised is still not quite answered, because the "old" ideas or experiences that one person has could be different from those other people might have. Actually according to Nietzsche there is no such thing as "absolute" truth or reality, because every person's will and way of understanding the world is different from an other. This does not mean that we cannot understand "new" ideas or another person's experience. This only means that we cannot claim that we understood another person's idea or another person per se absolutely. We can understand an idea or another person's experience by utilizing our own knowledge or past experiences that are related to them. Even though this understanding cannot be perfect, it opens a door to new ideas or to another person's experiences. This view of Nietzsche was later picked up by his student E. Husserl and further developed into phenomenology, which served as background of gestalt therapy. There is another important aspect that must be taken into account, i.e. the needs and interest of a person, if we want to investigate what happens when a person tries to understand a new idea or another person's experience, because people will differently reconstruct an idea or an other person's experience depending on what needs or interests they have in such a situation. Furthermore, the original idea or other person's experience can also be affected by the response of this person in the process of interaction, which means understanding is always a co-creation of the understander and the "understandee" resulting in a new reality. Understanding of an idea or an experience can never be fixed for sure, as it always varies and changes over time; there can be innumerous people involved in this process and the needs and interests of these people may result in different understandings. Indeed, they influence the idea or the experience itself. Consequently, we can say that the understander and the understandee stay in inseparable relation, which corresponds to field theory that plays a crucial role in gestalt therapy. So, my understanding of Buddhism and gestalt therapy must be different from someone in a different culture and the same with my strategy to make use of Buddhism in understanding better, and if possible stretching further the boundary of gestalt therapy theory and practice. Before I go further and expose my ideas about understanding gestalt therapy from Buddhistic perspectives, I want to introduce shortly my personal background in terms of encountering Buddhism so that you can better understand my figure. I was born in a traditional Confucian family in Korea and was raised up according to a Confucian value system, where humanity, morality, propriety, wisdom and fidelity were highly regarded. I was like many

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other Koreans exposed from early childhood to Buddhism, because my mother was a Buddhist and used to visit Buddhist temple to worship Buddha so that He might give our family happiness and prosperity. Some people might be surprised hearing this, because their experience with Buddhism, including Mindfulness meditation, doesn't include worshiping Buddha. My mother also practiced Confucianism, because she respected and kept all the Confucian rituals very sincerely, which applies to most Korean Buddhists. I think this was possible not only because both Confucianism and Buddhism are very tolerant, but also because of the fact I explained above. Namely, we cannot but learn or receive a new idea or a new religion on the basis of the existing one. This actually happened in China around 200 B.C. when it first encountered Buddhism and tried to understand it on the basis of Taoism and Confucianism, which was repeated in Korea later as well. Buddhism was transformed and took various new forms as it came from India to China and Korea, one of which is Zen-Buddhism, which is quite different from Mindfulness meditation. Chinese and Koreans developed different forms of Buddhism respectively on the basis of their different social and cultural backgrounds and political interests, about which I can't go more deeply here, because it will go beyond the scope of this paper. My first temple stay took place when I was 13 years old as I decided to study there for 2 months during a winter vacation. The temple was located half way up a mountain surrounded by woods and rocks. There were three people living there besides me–a monk and a married couple helping the monk to take care of things necessary to keep the temple in order. The monk, an old woman, paid homage to and worshiped Buddha every morning and evening by burning incense and singing Buddhistic chanting. I would take part in the ceremony and observed what she did. I didn't like the smell of incense very much and paintings of various Bodhisattva either, because they looked somehow strange to me. But I did like the woman's chanting voice and the pious atmosphere around it. What I liked most was walking alone the way up the hill to the temple, because it felt as if I was cultivating a sense of morale in the pursuit of truth (tao) in terms of Buddhism as well as of Confucianism. My mother would visit me carrying a rice sack on her head (which was meant as the expense for my temple stay) all the way up the mountain. She would then say to me with a caring smile on her face, "Find the way (tao)!" I felt touched by hearing her words, because I felt her love toward me in them. I pledged myself to find the tao for the sake of my mother who loved me so much. The Buddhism, Confucianism and parent's love was inseparable to me as was the case for many of the Koreans at that time.

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Buddhism is for me no more only being mindful of breathing than gestalt therapy is mere an awareness training. Buddhism is for me rather a world view in which various philosophical and religious ideas are melt such as those from Confucianism, Taoism and Korean folk belief, through which I see and meet new ideas and experiences. Although Buddhism can color them on one hand, it can help me on the other hand to direct my attention to certain areas that are valuable in the "new" ideas or experiences. This is how I approach gestalt therapy to understand it from a Buddhistic perspective. Namely, I try to understand gestalt therapy from the framework of Buddhism, where I set forth to find those elements in gestalt therapy that I know of and I value in Buddhism. The most pregnant teaching of Buddhism for me that also applies to gestalt therapy theory and practice is No-thingness (?) or Emptiness (?). There is nothing in the world, according to Buddhism, we can hold onto, because everything is empty. But we all have an innate concept of "thingness" and cling to it. So we want to possess money, house, car, friends, lover, husband and wife, sons and daughters, positions, knowledge, fame, and even relationships, while on the other hand we try to avoid or get rid of fear, anxiety, anger, shame, hatred, and bad memories. We try to hold onto things that we believe will give us pleasure and satisfaction. But we are all doomed to fail and be frustrated in that attempt, thus never being satisfied, because there is nothing in the world that persists forever. The moment we believe we have it, it slips off our hands and disappears. We feel discouraged and sad, which drives us more to strive for possessions, because we are thirsty. The more we try to possess the things, the more frustrated and thirsty we become. There is nothing in the world that we could call a real substance. Everything is in its true nature empty. Emptiness is, however, not the same as nil or naught. On the contrary, emptiness means being or existence. It is emptiness that allows everything to be, to exist, to be alive, finally to live. In other words, without being empty nothing can really exist or live. Emptiness is actually the foundation that enables every existence to come into being, which reminds us of the concept "fertile void" that Fritz Perls mentioned (Perls, 1969; Rubenfeld, 2000). Perls distinguished the fertile void from the sterile void, which is characteristic for neurosis. Fertile void can be met when we stop anticipating, engaging in memories, fantasizing, and doing "fitting games" in order to face the now. Then we can experience a reality in now as it emerges from the fertile void or emptiness (Naranjo, 1993. p.52).

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The idea of fertile void that originated from Wilson Van Dusen and then was adopted by Fritz Perls (Rubenfeld, 2000), is quite compatible with the Buddhistic idea of emptiness. Emptiness itself is not a thing, therefore it is no-thing. So we can say emptiness is no-thingness. Since emptiness is no-thing it can become everything. It transforms itself every moment to become another existence. It can no more be separated from the existence that evolves from it than the background from the figure that emerges out of it. Emptiness is the mother of all creatures, because it enables everything to arise out of it. Emptiness is the earth which embraces everything to come back into its bosom to be recreated into a new life. The same relationship is found in the gestalt concept of figure and ground. Ground is the mother, the earth that brings forth new figure into figure-ground constellation and receives the figure back into its heart that has completed its cycle and is ready to be reborn with new energy by returning to its womb. According to Buddhism it is our clinging that causes us pains and sufferings. Clinging is an attitude that denies the empty nature of all things and holding onto thingness of the world. We want to have unchangeable substance that lasts forever. We want to secure our body, people, and environment in safety, for which we need science and knowledge. We want to eliminate any uncertainty in predicting our future to the extent that even the realm of our inner mind is not exceptional in this regard. So many psychological symptoms such as anxiety, fear, obsession and depression are only fully understood when the motivation behind our attempts to succeed in defending any possible misfortune in our fantasized future events is seen through. We want to "understand", predict, and then control the world as we wish it to be. It is interesting to know that the German word for understanding is "Begreifen", which means holding or grasping, and the noun form of which is "Begriff", which is equivalent to English word "concept". We can see here that we use language, in other words concepts, to secure, to grasp, to hold onto the world as we wish it to be. We want to have things and try to achieve that by using concepts in science, religion, in philosophy, and in everyday life as well. Every thought, every act, every intention of us is geared to having or securing the thing, which Nietzsche(1922) called "the will to power(Der Wille zur Macht)." We use concepts to achieve power, in other words to have control over the things, which we believe are utmost valuable. Buddhism is very radical at this point declaring that there is no salvation possible in our pursuit of clinging onto things. It says clearly we have to let it go to really become free and be alive. We have to let go our

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clinging at every level. That is, in thinking, feeling, acting, breathing as well as in relationship. We have to let go both our clinging to the past and future, and then come into being and live in the present. What does gestalt therapy say about this? I find the same attitude in gestalt therapy. Clinging is equivalent to the gestalt therapy concept of interruption or contact boundary disturbances. It is interruption that impedes organismic flow of energy during awareness-contact cycles. It is interruption of the process of figure-ground alternations that causes psychological disturbances. New figures cannot emerge from the background, when we either cling to unfinished businesses or to figures that are too attractive to let go. The unfinished businesses that we hold onto because we can't face and dissolve them become fixed gestalten and cannot recede into the background. The figures that we hold onto because they are too attractive also arrest our focal attention and impede the alternation of figure-ground constellation causing psychological disturbances. This happens, because we think the figure is so valuable and want to have it forever. We don't want to lose it, again holding onto things. We always try either to hold onto unfinished businesses or to a figure that was attractive, say our past, or to avoid the void, say our future, by our effort to predict and thereby to control them, which is made possible by making them things. We reify our past and future by using our concepts, which are being invented for that purpose, and fail to meet the presence and live in the present. The implication and indication in terms of healing the pains and sufferings both for clients and therapists derived from gestalt therapy as well as Buddhism is to lose your mind and come to your senses (Perls, 1951), to which I want to supplement a phrase "in the context of I and Thou relationship." What does this mean in the practice of psychotherapy? It means for clients that they discard the bad habit of trying to understand themselves through thinking, analyzing, and conceptualizing, and then use their senses, pay attention to what is happening right now in or around themselves, stay open to what is there in here and now so that they can make better contact with themselves as well as others and the environment. Their vision and experiences have been blurred and blocked by their holding onto past and future, which was supported by the use of conceptual thinking. How can they achieve this new methodology of discarding an "analyzing mind" and adopting "coming to senses in the context of I and Thou relationship?" Of course they can't do that easily without the help of a therapist. Gestalt therapists guide and support this hard task by becoming

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aware of what is happening in the client, what the client is doing, what the client is not doing (avoiding) and letting the client be aware of them. How can therapists do that? They have to be trained or helped to be aware of their processes before they embark on the task of helping clients. This must be clear to anyone who is introduced to gestalt therapy to some extent. However, psychotherapeutic practice requires far more detailed knowledge and understanding of what happens than just the dictum: Be aware of the here and now, and open to the experiences. The most important thing here for us, the gestalt therapists, to know is the distinction between content and process. Content refers to the meaning of what is being said, whereas process to the act or phenomenon that takes place as it is being said. Content is thus always abstraction that is based on conceptual thinking, which is helpful in understanding and grasping an unknown thing but is not real as such. Process is what is really happening. Process is not fixed. It is always changing into another state. It arises, comes into being, and goes away. We can give a name to various processes, but they are different from conceptual understanding in that the person giving names to such processes knows that they are only names and insufficient. More important is the fact that he/she knows the processes are changing from moment to moment and the names he/she gave are valid only for that moment. The names can be likened to fingers pointing at the moon as is often told in Buddhism. Like I described earlier, our clients resort to an analyzing mind when they feel insecure, express a content-oriented approach for the purpose of fixing, controlling, and securing the things, which causes contact boundary disturbances. The more unsafe they feel, the harder they try to hold onto things and the stronger they become content oriented. They try to fix the things by analyzing, predicting, and securing. This tendency is both for client and therapist very strong, because it belongs to the human nature according to Buddhism, and it is really easy in a therapy to get entangled in the blind game of grappling with contents and going astray, from which there is no way out as long as one is stuck in contents. Gestalt therapists are cautioned not to fight against the contents clients are incessantly bringing in rather than to find the processes going on and give feedback to them either in form of acceptance, empathy, reflection, exploration or even interpretation, because a process is something real that both the therapist and client can see and experience. If a therapist tries to fight and change the content, it cannot be successful because of its very nature. That is, the content of clients' statements consists of various concepts that are put together to establish

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certain "logical" thesis. But any attempt of a therapist to prove or disapprove the truth of such a statement is doomed to fail, because according to I. Kant (1968) our reason knows to find an opposite thesis to the thesis. On top of that the nature of concept is geared to fixing things, as elaborated in detail in the above, and thus resists changing. For example, a client says that "I am a worthless person!" or "My boss is such an ass!" If a therapist would try to disapprove either of the above statement with no matter how many evidences possible against the thesis, the client will be wise enough to come up with another opposite evidence for her thesis. We cannot simply declare that she committed a thinking error as cognitive behavior therapists would say. I am not saying here that CBT misses the target nor their argument is wrong. What I am saying is the fact that it is not possible to verify or falsify the content of the client's thinking. Then, what is the process going on within the client or between the therapist and the client when she says the above? We cannot know it prior to exploring and seeing what is going on within the client or between the two in the context of I-Thou relationship of therapist and client. The therapist might have to ask the client what it means when she talks about "worthless." In what sense is she evaluating herself as worthless? Can she give an example of it, possibly embedded in a storytelling so that the background of the figure statement becomes known? A closer exploration might reveal the conflict structure between the top dog and the underdog. Namely, this client might be found to have introjected an extremely high standard from his family that only those who win the first prize deserve a recognition. It is her top dog that says to herself that she is worthless and criticizes her boss as "such an ass" as well. This being said, then the task of the therapist is to let the client be aware of this process of hers. That is, the therapist helps her to discover she is identifying herself with the top dog when she says the above statements. The client then might be able to realize that she feels depressed not because she is worthless (content), but because she chooses to take sides with the top dog (process). As a client learns to distinguish between a content and a process, she also understands that she can choose a response to whatever situation she finds herself in. So, she is not any more a passive victim of her fate, which she imagined in the past as something negative (content). Nothing is fixed (content) any more to her, and she is being aware of what is going on or what she is doing with her mind, perception, behavior or interaction with the therapist. She feels empowered to take responsibility in her decision, action, and interaction knowing that nothing persists forever or everything is empty.

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She doesn't have so strong need to hold onto a thing or a concept, because she now knows that she is an initiator, not a victim of her fate. To help a client discover and understand the fact described above a therapist himself must be clear enough about the distinction between a concept and a process and be able to see his own processes so that they don't impede in finding out those of the client. If he hits upon his own unfinished businesses or preconceptions during an interaction with the client, he must be able to put them aside (bracketing) for a moment so that he can clearly see the client's processes that arise out of interactions between him and the client. The client's understanding and experiencing of the process, the nature of all being, enables her to let go her clinging to things. Letting go (???) means here seeing and experiencing the present in the I-Thou relationship, which is in the flux of changing and can be defined phenomenologically and field theoretically (Yontef, 1993). Letting go means discarding defenses, preconceptions, and distortions of all kind which are called in Gestalt therapy "contact boundary disturbances" on both sides of the therapist and the client to plunge into the stream of reality, the process. Both the therapist and the client then are aware of the processes taking place between them and within themselves, which of course intertwine and interact with each other. They are both aware of all the forces that are present in the field, of which they themselves are an important part. They can now open to and stay with sadness, anger, fear, shame, guilt, loneliness as well as joy and pleasure to accept them as they know that they are all empty and will not last forever. They acquire the capability to see and accept the process. Most psychological problems are based on fear, and the fear comes from a false belief that there are things that never change and pains that would last forever. We suffer, because we strive for things that are not changing and would give us pleasure forever on one hand, and try to avoid pains that are reified and regarded as unchanging substance either on the other hand. Letting go means letting go of both the holding onto the things and avoidance of the pains, both of which are considered to be unchangeable, which is possible by understanding and experiencing the processes. Process orientation is an attitude that demystifies the concept of substance which originates from philosophical idealism, which both Buddhism and Gestalt therapy radically oppose. Process orientation is acceptance and awareness of rather than clinging to or avoidance from what is in the here and now between I-Thou relationship which is embedded in organism/environment field, which is in the constant flux of changing in its totality.

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Conclusion The major hindrances to restructuring one’s ground are clinging and avoidance, both of which are based on the belief that there are things that are eternal and never changing. Therefore, it is prerequisite to such a job that one understands the no-thingness or emptiness of the nature of all things or all phenomena, for which the distinction between content and process is crucial. The concept of content represents the naive philosophical idealism, upon which most of our everyday life is based, whereas that of process is a stance that both Buddhism and gestalt therapy take up. We need contents to secure and make our future predictable, but they paradoxically threaten and jeopardize the fundament of our existence, which is not predictable in its nature. By surrendering to and trusting the process–unknown becoming–we can secure and guarantee the nature of our being to develop and flourish. We can support such process by being aware of and accepting the processes that unfold incessantly in front of and within us, and between us meaning people, animal, nature, and objects, which all are integral parts of the whole. Buddhism can help us gestalt therapists to see clearly the no-thingness or emptiness of all the phenomena, and furthermore it provides us with a concrete methodology with which we can train ourselves to get off the clinging and avoiding. Gestalt therapy with its well equipped theory and practice can fill in those gaps that are found in Buddhism. For example, phenomenology, dialogic relationship, field theoretical perspective, and experiment can help clients explore more deeply into the processes in work within, between, and as a whole. I have attempted to explore the possibility of dialogue between Buddhism and gestalt therapy from my perspective, which has been influenced both by my cultural background and western culture in which I trained through my study opportunity in Germany and the United States.

References Kant, I. (1968). Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Hrsg. V. W. Weischedel), Frankfurt, TB, Suhrkamp. Nietzsche, F. W. (1922). Also sprach Zarathustra. Leipzig : Alfred Kroner. Rubenfeld, I. (2000). Gestalt Therapy and the Bodymind: An Overview of the Rubenfeld Synergy Method. In: Nevis. E. C. Gestalt Therapy. Perspectives and Applications. Cambridge, MA: Gestalt Press.

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Naranjo, C. (1993). Gestalt Therapy. The Attitude And Practice Of An Atheoretical Experientialism. Nevada CA: Gateways / IDHHB Publishing. Perls, F. S. (1969). Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. Moab, UT: Real People Press. —. (1976). The Gestalt Approach & Eyewitness to Therapy. New York: Bantam Books. Van Dusen, W. (1972). The natural depth in man. New York: Harper and Row. Yontef, G. M. (1993). Awareness, Dialogue and Process: Essays on Gestalt Therapy. New York: Gestalt Journal Press

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN1 A BACKGROUND TO “THE FIELD”2 JEAN-MARIE ROBINE

(Translated from the French by Karen Vincent Jones) When Perls and Goodman refer to ‘the field’ they make it clear that they are referring to the organism/environment field. In doing so, they take for granted what is implied but not adequately spelled out in this expression. What I intend to do here is to unpack it, without attempting to elaborate it or develop it in new directions. Every field is the “field of...” Here, of a given organism and its environment. “THE field”, as such, is merely an operational concept because the field has to be defined in relation to somebody or something. The field always has an organising principle: the visual field of the eye, the field of consciousness of a mind, the psychological field, a domain organised by the discipline of psychology, the battlefield of a particular war, and so on. The use of the term “organism” rather than “person” or “subject” implies that this field is defined by the body within it. No environment has meaning except through the body, in the flesh, via continual contact. The “organism/environment field” is not the same as the “self/world field”, that is, this expression does not imply exclusive reference to the self. Hence it is possible to speak of the field of a particular person or client (organism) and his or her environment. Here we are faced an apparent paradox which is, in fact, merely one aspect of the complexity of the Human Sciences: as Edgar Morin (Morin, 1986) put it, we are part of 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published in Gestalt! 11(1), 2011.

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but not part of. As he pointed out, in order to be able to see ourselves as part of nature, we have to “withdraw from it” (p, 194). We have to be actor AND observer. I may be able to conceive of the other as an organism with an environment, but I experience him or her only as environment, part of my own environment. The constructivist approach has to be linked to the objectivist approach in a dialectical to-and-fro tension, rather than merged together in some impossible synthesis. Using the term “organism/environment field” emphasises that there is a link between the organism and its environment, expressed by the diagonal slash. The location of this experience between the two poles of the field is called the “contact boundary” since it is the site of the movements of differentiation and integration that animate the field, and simultaneously unify it as a totality and limit it by delineating its borders. It is these operations that Gestalt therapy refers to as “contact”, which is a concept fundamental to the Gestalt approach.

Field or field of… We have Gestalt psychologists such as Köhler, Koffka and Wertheimer to thank for introducing the concept of field into the Human Sciences in general, and psychology in particular. They borrowed it from physics in order to emphasise that percepts (perceptual entities) can only be understood with reference to a larger perceptual field. Each percept is meaningless except in relation to others, and the perceptual field has to be seen as a whole. It later fell to Lewin (Marrow, 1977), a colleague of theirs at the Institute of Psychology, to expand this concept in the area of social psychology. He defined the field as “a totality of coexisting facts seen as mutually dependent” (Lewin, 1951, p. 206). One of the consequences he drew from this, the source of much debate at the time, was his assertion that behaviour can be defined as a function of both the personality and the environment, and even that the environment is a function of the personality and the personality is a function of the environment. These assertions are almost axiomatic for the modern Gestalt therapist. Lewin describes the field in terms of a number of principles. Malcolm Parlett (1991) has elaborated five of the essential principles that I should like reader to review with some care. I shall therefore only outline some additional considerations here. For Lewin, the concept of field means a “life space” as lived phenomenologically by a given subject. He sees this life space, with all the ambiguities associated with the idea of space, as an affective space; hence,

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anything occurring within this life space is immediately perceived as desirable or not. The field is constructed by the valences of beings and objects: valence is a force which attracts or repels. But Lewin located valence “inside the head” (Lewin, 1951) of the particular subject rather than within the environment as such or in the interaction between organism and environment. Hence it would not be a particular person who was desirable or who had a certain valence, but the desire, sexual for example, of a subject for that person. Here we can see once again the opposition between the “id” conceptualised in Freudian terms as a drive, and Goodman’s concept which relocates it as the “id of the situation”. This is why I draw on the work of Gibson (1977), who built on Lewin’s ideas, in developing the concept of the “id of the situation” (Robine, 2004). Gibson refined the concept of valence by adding the notion of affordance, that is, the desirability, accessibility, availability, and usability of elements of the environment (Gibson, 1977, pp. 67-82). For Lewin, the human or animal organism enjoys freedom of movement within its field. Here we see again the ambiguity mentioned above which leads inexorably to the conflation and confusion of two types of space, phenomenological life space and physical space. But, as a number of commentators have pointed out, it is life itself, and not Lewin, which frequently superimposes our experience of space on our experience of the field. As the field is composed of an organism (in perpetual movement) and an environment (also perceived dynamically), it is animated in a constantly changing process. This change owes as much to the movements imprinted on it by the organism as to variations within the environment and the changing nature of situations. Thus behaviour should be seen similarly not as a direct result of the past but as the outcome of the totality of the current situation (the principle of contemporaneity; i.e., simultaneous occurrence). The field is made up of everything which is relevant to a subject at a specific time. That is, what is relevant in the field is that which has consequences (Lewin, 1935). But since Lewin was well aware that subjects do not always have knowledge of all possible factors which might be relevant and affect their experience, he was forced to acknowledge that the field (which he believed to be subjective and “in the head” of the particular subject) might involve elements completely outside of the person’s psyche. I can illustrate this by taking the example of asbestos whose effects within the “life space” of numerous people were completely unknown and imperceptible for a long time. Nevertheless, asbestos formed part of their field. Some argue that the same holds true of the radio waves

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and microwaves which constantly pass through us due to the proliferation of emitters and receivers around us. Is a particular subject’s field limited to his or her field of awareness or can it be extended to the experiential field, if we posit that, like the Moebius strip which has only one side and one boundary component, there is no separation between conscious and nonconscious experience? What I have gleaned from this brief survey of Lewin’s approach to the field is that the field is always the field of someone or something. But saying that the field is someone’s field is not to claim that a person’s field means the field of consciousness. Just as a specialist may detect asbestos in the life space of someone who is not aware of it, an “educated arbitrator” may note elements or factors in a given person’s field which may affect their behaviour even though they are unaware of them. I also note that some of Lewin’s formulations (field = space, for example) may encourage readers to think of the field as an entity capable of existing independently of the individual. Here my reading of Lewin differs slightly from that suggested by Frank Staemmler in “A Babylonian Confusion?” (Staemmler, 2006), and rather more from that of Gilles Delisle who writes about “introjected micro-fields” and thus transforms the field into a consumable object (Delisle, 1998, p. 99). The field has to be thought of as an experience. One cannot introject an experience since introjection itself is a form of experience. Finally, if the field always has to be seen as “the field of” someone, it becomes unthinkable to maintain that one person may have a field in common with someone else. There may be common elements, for example in the visual field or the field of consciousness, but if we accept the definition of the field proposed by Gestalt psychologists cited above (that percepts have meaning only in relation to others and the perceptual field should be seen as a whole) or by Lewin or Gestalt therapists, these socalled common elements extracted from a unified and unifying whole are not enough to constitute a bi-personal field unless we move from a psychological to a sociological definition of the field.

Organism The use of the term ‘organism’ may seem slightly disconcerting. However, we should remember that it was dear to Goldstein (Goldstein, 1999/1939; Hall and Lindsey, 1957), who was heavily influenced by Gestalt psychology well before Lewin, and to whom Perls acted as assistant for some time. We might be tempted to replace it by other, more familiar, concepts such as subject, person, agent, or individual. However, I

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can see how Goldstein’s use of this concept is linked to his desire to break with a purely mentalist conception of the field (Lewin’s “in the head” perhaps) and adopt an embodied position. Lewin, as we have seen, was already speaking of affect. Is it possible to think of affect without the body? He also wrote of the space within which the human or animal moves about. How can we conceive of motor functions without a body? The structuring of the field, also called the construction of the figure/ground relation, always has an element of movement, even if only directing one’s gaze or lending one’s ear. We find the same concern in Merleau-Ponty who, through his concept of “flesh” (Merleau-Ponty, 1968, p. 54), stresses the body’s relationship with the world, particularly through perception and motor functions, which is what produces meaning. The body is at the centre of all experience, it is the alpha and the omega, the irreducible dimension and essential component of the field which it forms with the environment. Replacing the concept of body with the broader concept of subject or person restricts the meaning of the expression. Similarly, replacing the concept of ‘environment’ by the narrower one of ‘the other’, even if the other is the most interesting figure in our lived environment, introduces a bias which gets in the way of a true understanding of the principle. An idea which Gestalt therapists have begun to use ever since the concept of the “id of the situation” (Perls, Hefferline & Goodman, 1994/1951, p. 182) saw daylight, and which in my view rests on a misunderstanding, is that the id of the situation is a joint or common id not attributable to either party. It is true that there is a lack of differentiation in the id of the situation, but a lack of differentiation is not at all the same as communality since there is no such thing as a common field. The concept of the “id of the situation” as I understand it – although it marks such a rupture with our cultural paradigms that it is easy to see how misapprehensions arise – sees the origin of meanings, drives, appetites and meanings within the situation here-and-now and not in “the deepest recesses of the human being” where Groddeck and Freud located it with their hypothesis of a “reservoir of drives” (Groddeck, 1979/1923; Freud, 1960/1923). This delocalisation goes hand in hand with the principle of contemporaneity discussed above. But these desires, drives and appetites can only exist – etymologically, ex-sistere, be outside- to the extent that they are felt within the body in the form of sensations which will become orientations of meaning. Another equally common error is to confuse the body, or even emotion, with the id. The body, and more particularly the desiring body, is

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certainly the foundation of all experience in any gestalt construction. But, adopting the expression Freud used when speaking of dreams, the “royal road” to the unconscious, I would say that the body is the “royal road” to the id. The road which leads to Rome is not Rome itself, the road leading to the id is not the id itself, and in any case the id will always escape because it can only ever be found in one of the forms constructed for it, particularly the personality-function of the self, and in contact with the environment. Although this may seem paradoxical, locating our therapeutic practice within a field perspective makes us pay closer attention to the body, particularly to sensations (proprioceptions), perceptions and motor activities. Here again, taking into account the somatic (bodily) dimensions of experience goes hand in hand with the principle of contemporaneity, that is, seeing bodily experience as both shaped by and shaping the situation. In this respect, we can better understand Gestalt therapists’ attention to what is felt from moment to moment. Bodily sensation is in fact the starting point for lived experience (even if it originates within the situation) and it takes form within and through contact, that is, emotion, sentiment, thought, image, gesture, action, representation, fantasy, creation and so forth. I should like to adopt Malraux’s (1949) term “coherent deformation” which, as taken up by Merleau-Ponty (1964), becomes: “There is signification when we submit the data of the world to a ‘coherent deformation’” (p. 54). If we accept Lewin’s hypothesis that the field is a constantly changing process then whatever is felt must be constantly changing too. However, fixations, systems of habits, and the fixed representations the subject may have of him or herself will considerably reduce the possible meanings that can be given to sensation. That is why focusing on what is felt, stripped of the form and meaning imposed on it by the personality function (insofar far as this is possible), reopens the field of what is possible and the possibility of encountering the novelty that transforms. This transformation is also what Perls and Goodman called the transition from the physiological to the psychological. When certain Gestalt therapists describe what they sometimes refer to as the “contact cycle” – and which I prefer to call the sequence of gestalt constructiondestruction – they frequently use the example of hunger, the feeling of hunger which triggers contacting. That is, the operations needed for satisfying this hunger, leading to final contact and resulting in the organism’s survival. But this brings us close to the behaviourists’ simple description of the reflex arc. What is omitted here is a crucial stage:

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transformation of hunger into appetite, that is, the move from physiological ground to psychological figure. The notion of appetite brings in the psychological dimension of the organism and enables it to become a totality once more. Hence we are no longer limited to what Goodman refers to as ‘abstractions’ such as the body, the psyche, or the environment, abstracted from their context and which can only exist in the organism-environment totality from which they have been extracted in order to examine them. The same argument could be advanced in relation to the transition from sight to gaze, as Maldiney (1994) has shown.

A self/world field? Speaking of the “organism/environment field” is not to speak of a “self/world field” but to recognise that no organism can be separated from its context. Henceforth it is crucial to take into account that each and every patient exists in their own life context, a field composed of the patient and their environment. I cannot of course witness this experience, but during our therapeutic encounter I can observe some of the ways in which this experience takes on structure, and I may eventually make inferences about how it is structured outside this situation, through the patient’s accounts and through positing the unified transfer of process. Our primary interest lies in superimposing the accounts produced by the patient during the session with the immediate experience that emerges in the session. Certainly the patient’s account can be seen as content, but like all content it is organised by a process that the therapist can implicitly treat as a figure (and treating the content as such as background) even if this content will remain the figure as far as the patient is concerned. The analysis of the processes set in motion in gestalt construction is thus a constant to-and-fro: the analysis of sequences in the here-and-now may throw light on sequences in the there and/or before, just as processes in the past or elsewhere may enable us to understand certain processes cocreated by the patient and the therapist during the session. I am tempted here to use the photographic term “depth of field” which refers to the area within which different figures need to be placed in order for the eye to accept it as a clear image. One’s history and aspirations, past and future are enfolded within the thickness of the present moment. And, as we shall see later, while the greater part of the transformational work of therapy definitely takes place within the here-and-now, it still seems to me particularly clumsy when certain therapists try at all costs to ensure that the patient gives voice almost exclusively to what is lived in the present of the relationship with the therapist. This misunderstanding of

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a so-called therapeutic approach based on a field perspective also suggests that there is a confusion between work focusing on contact, which is specific to Gestalt therapy and work on the relationship, which does not form the backbone of our approach (unless the two concepts are confused!).

Organism/environment contact Of course the diagonal slash which links organism and environment is only in rare cases a material entity. Perls and Goodman suggest the skin as an illustration of such an entity, but in most cases this “place” is not physical: we call it the contact boundary. It is a no-man’s-land, and as such, belongs to neither one nor the other, but is part of both at once, the organism and the environment, without either being able to claim proprietal rights. To talk about “my” contact boundary is nonsense because the boundary belongs to nobody. It is possible to talk about “my experience at the contact boundary,” but I fear that the expression is superfluous since all experience is experience at the contact boundary. Husserl taught us that “consciousness” as such does not exist, only the consciousness “of…” Being conscious of something means bringing both that something and my consciousness into existence. Being conscious of my fingers on the keyboard makes the keyboard exist, and at the same time reveals the existence of my fingers, and, furthermore, of my consciousness. By the same token, when we use the term “contact”, we should systematically add “with” and even “how” we establish this contact. There are many modalities of contact which differ as to what they can create: seeing, hearing, touching, feeling, tasting, remembering, thinking, imagining, writing, speaking, anticipating, and dreaming are all modes of contact, as are planning, introjecting, retroflecting and so on. I like to remind myself regularly of the following observation from the general introduction to Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality: “The individual who looks at a work of modern art may think he is in contact with the painting whereas in fact he is in contact with the art critic of his favourite newspaper” (Perls, F., Hefferline, R.. and Goodman, P., 1994/1951 , p. xxv). This simple formulation contains several of the essential components of the concept of contact: (i) contact as a concept is quite distinct from that of “relationship”, (ii) it emphasises the need to know what is being contacted, and therefore (iii) the modalities will be different. The “contact” with the art critic mentioned here is mediated through thought, or even by a non-conscious reference (hence a

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non-conscious contact?), whereas “immediate” (unmediated) contact with the painting may be visual and conscious. Experience might be seen as exclusively intra-psychic or internal, whereas Gestalt therapy delocalises it and places it at the contact boundary. This has important consequences for psychotherapeutic practice. The patient describes her lived experience in terms of guilt, shame, anger, hate, abandonment, rejection, conflict and so on, lived experiences which enable her to characterise her psyche, whereas it is possible to address them directly as contact experiences. The psyche is none other than the sedimented result of previous contacts and the particular form that this sedimentation has given to past contacts. Psychotherapy does not have the direct access to the psyche which might enable it to modify the psyche; it is only the patient who, on the basis of experience lived in contact, is able to assimilate its elements and thereby transform the content and organisation of her psyche. The epistemology of the field which characterizes our approach is of crucial importance since it the human being in context within an environment, unlike most theories of knowledge which focus on the human being in isolation.

The field of consciousness and the organism/environment field So can we superimpose these two concepts of field on each other? Our clinical experience has shown that a large part of our therapeutic work lies in enlarging our client’s field of consciousness so as to encompass material which might be implicit, unformulated, hidden, potential, added or created. Let us imagine that in my particular “organism/ environment field” there is no room for the influence of the astrological position of the planets on my daily life, but that my therapist believes in this, and succeeds in convincing me that they do have an impact on experience. As far as I am concerned, the position of the planets was not originally “in my field” but now it is. As far as my therapist is concerned, it did form part of my field – though I was not aware of it – and in fact exercised a considerable influence on my “life space”, as Lewin called it. We could say the same of the electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phones, radioactivity and other phenomena which are not in my consciousness but which may have an impact on my experience. In order to dispel this ambiguity, I am tempted to draw on a definition of “phenomenon” which may be derived from the work of Husserl and Heidegger: a phenomenon is something which is often hidden but which

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can be brought to light through certain operations; more rarely, it is already present (Tatossian, 1979). I would then say that a person’s organism /environment field may be partially concealed, partly undeveloped and so on, and that it may be enriched or enlarged by various means. One of these ways is through therapeutic work. And the other is the occasion of such work.

Conclusions for therapeutic practice: What does it mean to practice within a field paradigm? The consequences for therapeutic practice of locating Gestalt therapy within a field paradigm are far-reaching and are largely beyond the scope of this article. If the field is not a fixed entity, it is because it exists only in an ever-changing now, that is, a situation. Gestalt therapy’s rootedness in the now - which differs from the “present moment” espoused by Daniel Stern (Stern, 2004) - means that the practitioner focuses on the situation, on modalities of contacting, on the processes at work, and on the affects mobilised by both parties. This focus also enables us to glimpse the “id of the situation”, that is, the way in which desire emerges within the situation rather than being seen as emanating from some hidden source in the depths of the subject’s being. The Gestalt therapist also makes use of fiction (the representations addressed to her by the patient) as a way of understanding the present contacting, and uses the contacting in the here-and-now in order to understand the representations the subject constructs of his own history. The personality-function of the self provides ontological security by ensuring that one contact is linked to the next in a coherent process which rapidly becomes structure. Psychotherapy thus provides the opportunity to deconstruct this safety in favour of opening up to the unknown of the now, that is, by taking into account parameters of the now which are “perceived but not known”.

References Delisle G. (1998), La relation d’objet en Gestalt-thérapie, Les Editions du Reflet, Montréal, p. 99 Freud, S. (1960/1923) “The Ego and the Id,” in J. Strachey (ed.) The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, London: W. W. Norton.

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Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Goldstein, K. (1995/1939) The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from Pathological Data in Man, New York: Zone Books. Groddeck, G. (1979/1923) The Book of the It, London: Vision Press. Hall, C. S. & Lindzey, G. (1957) Theories of Personality, John Wiley & sons, New York. Lewin, K. (1935), A Dynamic Theory of Personality, New York, McGraw-Hill Lewin, K. (1951) Field Theory in Social Science, London: Tavistock. Maldiney, H. (1994) Regard, Parole, Espace, Lausanne, L’âge d’homme. Malraux, A. (1949) The Psychology of Art. New York: Pantheon Books. Marrow, A. (1977) The Practical Theorist: The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin, New York: Teachers College Press. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964) Signs, Evanston, Illinois: North Western University Press. Morin E. (1986), La méthode, 3-La connaissance de la connaissance, Paris: Seuil. Perls, F. S., Hefferline, R. & Goodman P. (1994/1951), Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, New York: Gestalt Journal Press. Parlett, M. (1991) “Reflections on field theory,” British Gestalt Journal, 1, 2, pp. 69- 81. Robine, J.-M. (2008/2001), “From Field to Situation” in Robine, J.-M. (Ed.), Contact and Relationship in a Field Perspective, International Gestalt Journal, 31, 1. —. (2002), “Intentionality in flesh and blood,” paper presented in S’apparaître à l’occasion d’un autre, Bordeaux, France. Serre, Jean-Pierre (1977) Linear Representations of Finite Groups, Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Staemmler, F. (2006) “A Babylonian confusion: On the uses and meanings of the term ‘field’,” British Gestalt Journal 15, 2: 64-83. Stern, D. (2004) The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life, New York: Norton. Tatossian A. (1979), Phénoménologie des psychoses, Masson, Paris

APPENDIX I1 GSTALT-L: A VIRTUAL, ELECTRONIC COMMUNITY2 PHILIP BROWNELL, M.DIV., PSY.D

This chapter provides a description and an example. It describes one particular life focus community, the eCommunity known as Gstalt-L, and it also provides excerpts of dialogue among community members so that the reader can peer into the life of that community through one particular episode in its history.

Background to the Dialogues Three intertwining rings of context provide background for understanding the dialogues that follow. The first is the listserv discussion group of gestalt therapy practitioners. The second is an understanding of gestalt therapy principles enacted on the list. The third is an orientation to spirituality and religion that is conversant with Erv Polster’s concept of the sacred, as he explained that in his book, Uncommon Ground (2006), and elsewhere in this volume. Gstalt-L (the list) is a listserv discussion group originally archived at St. Johns University but now located with similar lists, hosted by L-Soft and the non-profit organization known as the Information Center for 1

In the effort to retain the “feel” of the original journal (which published rapidly the development of ideas in the field and encouraged growing writers to publish), the editors have chosen to retain the original articles as they appeared in the online venue. The errors are not a reflection of the publishing policy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2 First published as: Brownell, P. [2009] Gstalt-L, a virtual, electronic community. In B. O’Neill (ed) Psychotherapy, community, and life focus: A gestalt anthology of living in community, pp. 171-191. Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia: Ravenwood Press. (Used by permission of the publisher.)

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Online Resources and Services, Inc. (ICORS). Gstalt-L began in 1996 as an initiative of the original staff of Gestalt!, an online journal for gestalt therapy. That early history is outlined in more detail in Appendix A of Woldt and Toman (Woldt and Brownell, 2005). The list grew to include over two hundred participants from Europe, Russia, Asia, North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East. Established Gestalt trainers and new trainees alike interact with one another on this list, and it evolved into a community in which people meet and grow in relationship as well as debate points of theory and practice. Portions of the theoretical dialogue have been synthesized for publication in Gestalt! (for instance a discussion of field theory among Sylvia Crocker, Philip Brownell, Gerhard Stemberger, Steve (Vinay) Gunther, Bruno Just, Amit Sen, and Ruth Wolfert (2001).The list is un-moderated, meaning it is not censored, and participants are free to self-regulate. In fact, this central commitment to self-regulation has resulted over time in the evolution of community values, expressed through contact in that text-based environment, and it has provided a home for people in which they can experience a sense of belonging. Even for those many who read only, they do so with the sense that they are checking in with friends and keeping up with the flow of real life. Some have expressed that it feels compelling, almost like watching a soap opera on television. Gestalt therapy is an existential and experiential approach with four major theoretical commitments (Brownell in press d; Brownell 2008; Brownell 2002; Brownell 2000; Crocker 1999; Resnick & Parlett 1995): (1) appreciation for the influence of context, which is field theory; (2) commitment to a phenomenological method, which focuses on both immediate experience and the interpretation of that experience; (3) reliance upon interpersonal connection in dialogue, which supports relationship; (4) interest in experiment, which moves the process out of just knowing facts and into action–the experiential moments that sharpen and shape life and which are instrumental to learning. As one reads the dialogues that follow, it is possible to both see these tenets lived out and explicitly discussed among the participants in community. Finally, Erving Polster provided a working definition of the sacred in his book, Uncommon Ground (2006): The four attributes of sacred experiences that I believe to be operative in both religion and psychotherapy and that will form the foundation for a definition of sacred experiences are: amplification, symbolism, sanctification and indivisible union with otherness. Though each of these attributes is distinct, all overlap with one another. (Polster, 2006, p. 17)

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In that book Erv described God as a poetic creation of mankind, in the existential quest for the sacred (as he defined it). In this current book Erv expands on the beginning he made in the previous book, and I would like to make it clear that although we've enjoyed a satisfying dialogue at times over these issues, we certainly differ at some points. Calling God our poetic creation essentially eliminates God as the ontologically distinct Creator. Emmanuel Levinas would quibble with any characterization of God, claiming it is impossible to thematize God and still have God remain Other, a matter of transcendental importance to him. (Levinas 1998) Martin Buber took Carl Jung to task for making God the intrapsychic construct of mankind (Buber 1952), and Erv is not far from Jung in my opinion, because both men peer into something they do not accept or seem to understand for what it is, and Erv relies a great deal on Jung's analysis of religion while building his argument in this book. For Erv, though, I have the sense that an ontological or epistemological consideration of God is not the figure of his interest, except that God is the focus of religious congregations that are of interest to him. I find Erv's description of the "sacred" to be diluted. For example, "indivisible union with otherness" is a pretty generic and watery substitute for communion with God. It will do, because in a general discussion it permits many experiences to be considered, including communion with God (as will be seen below). I agree that "sanctification" is a setting apart, but to me it's a setting apart unto God. That is what makes sanctification sacred as opposed to a general act of discipline–one among many. Thus, in my experience what makes something truly sacred is its association with divinity. This is what Rudolph Otto called The Idea of the Holy" (1950). "At the heart of the sacred lies God, divine beings, or a transcendent reality" (Pargament 2007, 33). Also to me, the field is spiritual, and by that I mean a decidedly God-in perspective (Brownell in press a; Brownell in press b; Brownell in press c); I realized this while reading Brian O'Neill's and Seán Gaffney's chapter on field theory (O'Neill and Gaffney, 2008). All this said, it merely contrasts two takes on what is sacred as opposed to mundane. Both Erv and I would say that there is something in the experience of the sacred that calls people to attention, elevates their experience, and sets it apart. So what do I say in response to Jung and to Erv's use of Jung? I differ strongly with the interpretation of the book of Job that is prominent in Erv's writing here. I believe there are better ways to build a case for the psychological appropriation of spiritual principles operational in religious community. The date for the authorship of the book of Job is hardly indisputable; many people see it as much older (2000-1800 BC). Instead of

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Job being vindicated in his confrontation of God, and instead of God's "ego-laden" contest with Satan (as Erv describes the case), what of these words at the end of the book of Job, which provide a bottom line to the whole thing: "Then Job answered the Lord and said, 'I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' 'Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.' 'Hear now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.' 'I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; Therefore, I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes.'" (Job 42: 1-6, NASB)

Job goes through suffering, made more intense by the well-intentioned but ill-informed counsel of various friends, and at the end, after having questioned why he was suffering, Job repents. Job has a closer and more meaningful encounter with God. He says, basically, "Before that encounter, I heard about you, but now my eye sees you–now I know you experientially." And what came of that? The same thing that came to Isaiah when he had an experiential encounter with God: "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." (Isaiah 6:5). These people are undone by the presence of God, and they repent, fall down, and worship. That is the experience of the numinous that Otto described, in which the encounter with God produces a mysterium fascinans and a mysterium tremendum. And all that is a far cry from the naturalistic interpretation offered by Carl Jung and Erving Polster in this book: "... the Book of Job represents a decisive illumination of adversarial engagement between man and God, where man holds his own in rationality, in justice and in endurance, earning recognition of his raised authority. From Jung’s sense of historical sweep from the distant God to the realization in Christ of a God joined in man, we may now also extrapolate what Jung failed to note, a glacially slow move toward the

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Appendix I primacy of human beings, graduated from subservience to the supernatural into the capability to guide each other in their own lives." (Polster in press)

For now, and this volume at this time, it is enough to assert that splitting religion and theistic spirituality off from the application of gestalt principles in a life focus community is an unnecessary process. It is hoped that the dialogues that follow will demonstrate how gestalt principles, theistic spirituality (even religion as some would define it), can be integrated into the life flow of relationships in community. That is because the drive for fulfillment of spiritual life is common to human beings and will express itself when people gather in community. Erv’s tenets of amplification, symbolism, sanctification, and indivisible union with otherness are fully in play and evident as the dialogues evolve.

The Dialogues The dialogues in this case occurred during 2001 and 2002, and they began on the list, diverged into a relationship between the list facilitator and one of the members, and meandered back into the life of the community. Email discourse comprising the dialogues in question can be organized into three phases: an introduction to the community, facing a significant challenge, and a turn toward indivisible union with otherness.

Phase One: Introduction to Community On July 13, 2001 Jean posted her first message on Gstalt-L, asking if anyone knew about financial aid for Gestalt training and wondering if she might sort her questions and thoughts on the list. Jean Hayden grew up in New York in the 1950's and 60's and developed an appreciation for analysis. By the time she was 20 she had read everything Karen Horney had written, as well as many of her contemporaries; when she was 19, Jean began seeing an analytical therapist and became more enthralled with psychoanalytic theory and neoFreudian psychotherapy. On July 14th she wrote to the list, "...even though I have been out of school now for 19 years, I never came across anyone who was into Gestalt, and so it remained off my radar screen until a few years ago when I realized, on February 26th, that I had miscounted my CEU'S and was 2 credits short! I had until February 28th to get 2 credits and it was a Friday! I called the social workers clinical society and they informed me that the only thing going on that weekend was a 2 credit course in Gestalt therapy. After groaning, I decided that credits were credits and I went."

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"How can you explain it," she went on," when you step into a dress or pair of pants or shoes that fit you so well that you don't understand why you haven't had them all your life? Before the end of the seminar I was hooked, and when they offered to do a small-group, long-term seminar, I was on the list. I 'studied' with them for about a year and a half and, had I not had some physical issues last year, I would have applied to the Gestalt Institute a year ago." Jean contributed to various threads of discussion, making a small space for herself in the community of the list. She was in the beginning of her training as a Gestalt therapist, so she wondered how more established Gestalt practitioners viewed the world, professional practice, and the integration of Gestalt principles into personal life. On August 9, 2001, an exchange occurred between Jean and Phil (the list facilitator). Jean wrote, "I have been on this list for a couple of months now and have requested lots of things but only two of you have ever responded to me. I really want to learn all the ways of gestalt - not just what I have been trained in or experienced. If others on the list do not want to hear this, then I would be happy to take it off the list..." Phil responded, "You seem quick to assume that others' silence means something about the connection between you and them, as if we don't want to have you cluttering up the list with your questions or your dialogue..." On August 28th they exchanged messages again. Jean wrote, " Over the last couple of months since I have been on this list, I have experienced several people to be abrupt, judgmental, and flip..." Phil responded, "Gestalt people are, inescapably, merely people. Some are very sophisticated and some are plain folk. Regardless of our understanding of Gestalt concepts, we cannot keep from being human. That doesn't mean you, Jean, or anyone else, is limited by these other people in your efforts to apply the good principles available in Gestalt theory. Your only limitation is your own humanity." When the terrorist attacks occurred on September 11, 2001, many list members began expressing their feelings. That led to schisms as people with political views more critical of the United States took issue with the outrage of those with views more sympathetic to the United States. Jean found herself at odds with several people on the list. On October 6th she wrote to them, "I cannot believe the hatred I feel coming from you and I will NOT continue to dialogue if that is what you are going to do." On the same day, she wrote again, saying, " I am beyond hurt, anger, and everything else. I am done. I am crumbled. If that was intended, you did a good job. If it wasn't, well then I am telling you that this is the result. I have been torn apart worse than I ever gave. I also

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poured my heart out honestly to this list. I am sorry I did. I allowed myself some vulnerability and you have used it against me." Jean refrained from posting; she continued with her Gestalt therapy training program. She had entered a text-based community and experienced initial contact with those already there. On-line communication lacks the warmth and visual cues present in face-to-face interaction. Thus, it lends itself to imagination and projection as those new to one another fill in the gaps in their perceptions. As that process had just begun for Jean, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took list members to conflicted and polarized positions on politics and economics. On January 13, 2002, Jean returned to posting and wrote, "Philip, a long time ago ... I reminded folks that I was very much a beginner and a student. I have become very aware of a bunch of stuff that I wasn't aware of then and as I look back, I realize that you made some assumptions about me that were untrue and I would like to explain this to you..." "Of course I was projecting," she continued, "but you have to understand that I was still emotionally, and even intellectually to a large extent, operating from a defenses-as-pathological, analytical viewpoint. I feel like I have grown about 10 years in the last couple of months in many ways. And I apologize for not being able to clearly understand what you were saying..."

Phase Two: Facing a Significant Challenge By April of 2002 Jean had become integrated with others in discussions on the list and described herself as learning from her participation, whether she were just reading what others were posting or contributing her own thoughts. Then, she was diagnosed with a reoccurrence of cancer and announced it to the list. She wrote, "This is real and must be dealt with, and all of you will at sometime have to deal with decisions like this for yourselves, your parents, children, siblings, friends or clients and maybe now is a good time to discuss it." This is when Phil began writing plainly to Jean on the list and speaking to her about the possibilities ahead in the relapse of her persistent cancer. He asked her about the unspeakables people often avoid, and she wrote back, "I want to say thank you more than anything else for going to that place of I might die. I am greeted with others' fear when I go there, and they get angry at me that I might give up ... My therapist is, so far, the only one that can look me in the eye and agree that we may have to make that journey together. So thank you for acknowledging this and know that I

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may need to 'go there' with you when I can't right now with others." That is when Jean and Phil also began writing to one another off list. It must be noted here that the list is not a therapy group, and there is no rule against sub-grouping. Rather, people choose what they will say to whom and in what context, but they also remain connected to others in the community. As in any community, then, people are not forced to always say whatever they have to say to everyone; they can choose to speak only to some or one, but when they do that, the field effect inevitably reverberates in the community as well. On May first Jean wrote, "Phil. Just wanted to let you know where I am. I got more results and basically there is a 20% chance of survival if I go ahead with the surgery, chemo and radiation ... I don't want to leave people. I don't want to leave my love, Kate. I don't want to leave my sister and my brothers and my nieces and nephew and my friends and my precious patients with whom I have struggled and cried and fought and I don't want to leave not having finished learning - Gestalt and so many other things." Early in May Phil engaged in dialogue with others on the list. In a discussion of faith as a principle of contact, he wrote, "I think it more exact to say that faith is double-sided. On the one side, it is a conviction of things unseen, a 'belief that.' It takes an object that is formed in the accusative. The other side is more akin to trust and is a matter of putting one's 'belief in,' investing oneself, actually stepping into and trusting oneself to the outcome. In Gestalt we might understand this as our trust in the process." "The Greek word 'pistis,'" he continued, "is derived from a word-group concerned with the immediate relationship with a person or thing which is established by trust and trustworthiness. If this relationship comes about through persuasion or conviction, the verb 'peithomai' is used (the perfect tense of that verb expressing the firm conviction and confidence that has come about). If the faithful relationship of partners in an agreement and the trustworthiness of their promises is in view, then the verb 'pisteuo' is used. Both these concepts came to stand, in the development of language, for the credibility of statements or accounts of things, both sacred and secular. Also of note is the fact that the verb is rarely used in an absolute sense, standing alone in a sentence; it is usually accompanied by some kind of prepositional phrase, denoting the direction of process and the object of faith. Thus, one puts one's confidence 'in' something or someone, or a person believes 'that' something is something. (Dana and Mantey, 1927). This element of faith forms the bedrock of trust we have when we

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extend ourselves for contact; we must trust what we are experiencing and we must trust in the process of experiencing." A List member wrote back saying, "Without 'not knowing,' I have no need for faith because once I 'know' I shift into certainty. Without 'doubt' I could never experience my faith. For me, at this stage, my faith is the field within which I can explore the 'more than' of my being. It's where I encounter Other, Thou, I, and sometimes God in the everyday of my life." (Shipman, 2002) Phil wrote, "I like this, but I think it is related to other things besides just faith. In other words, in spite of not knowing, there is trust of some kind working that supports contact in the midst of the unknown, but the faith is not the not knowing part - the faith is what meets the not knowing part." On May 5th, Jean wrote to Phil on the list, "I just finished my final Gestalt weekend for the year. It was amazing and energizing and healing. I think it gave me the courage to post this ... I am in flux right now. I am re-examining my beliefs and my faith. My ground has shifted. I have had an earthquake, and I need to wait for the aftershocks to settle in order to see how I will reassemble my knowing. Death and the afterlife: I have always believed in an afterlife. I have had many experiences that tell me that there is one. My belief in angels and the experience of angels in my life tells me that. I believe in a process of renewal that may mean evolving through many lifetimes. I do believe I have been here many times. I am not sure how the angels fit into this, however ... It is difficult to talk about death as you said, Phil. Very few people can without euphemisms. I hate those words, especially having watched so many of my friends and relatives die. Death is death and we have so few words with which to discuss it." Phil wrote, "I wish you a peace that goes beyond comprehension. I wish you loving touches and warm expressions on the faces of your friends around you. I wish you good grief. I wish you courage. I wish you high moments of clarity and contact in a very peak period of life. I wish you long living." On May 9th Jean wrote to Phil off list. She said, "Your opinion beliefs - mean a lot to me. I am not taking offense at anything you say." On May 11th Phil wrote to Jean off list. He said, "What I know is that God is. That is a matter of faith; I know God by faith, but by faith I have stepped out in life and met God, so I have an experiential history in which I have learned some of His ways with me. I also believe that the Bible is His revelation of Himself to us. Reject the Bible and you have nothing but your own relative experience to go on, and I don't know about you, but

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sometimes I have been either so swept up in the ideal and sublime that I have totally lost my grip and perspective or at other times I have been so depressed and hopeless that I was ready to lay down and die. Neither was very helpful, because life went on and I discovered that things were not as rosy as I had thought, nor as bleak as I had thought. So, unless a person is content to fool him or herself all the time, it helps to have the perspective of a higher being, someone outside the system who can give you a heavenly perspective. And that is what we have in Christ. The Bible says that we have received the mind of Christ through faith and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit when we put our trust in the work Christ did by dying for us on the cross… I'm interested in your personal relationship with Jesus and what you trust Him for. I want to see you in heaven after we each have left this world. In all of this I am also sensitive to you as a human being with feelings who is going through a very difficult time. I want to support you and encourage you. I want to be available to speak plainly with you about things that matter." Jean wrote back, "I don't know what to say. What is my personal relationship? It has been a cynical, skeptical, locked-up-in-my-rejectionof-the-church relationship. Do I believe he is God? I think so. Do I believe he is my savior? Don't quite know what that means. Do I start my days with, 'All for Thee sweet Jesus, all for Thee?' Yes. Do I know how to listen to him? Damned if I know. I thought I had listened for Him for years and never had a clue what He wanted. I thought He wanted me to be a nun once. Oh the time I had being in love with Jesus! It was safe and warm and yet I was so scared. I wanted to KNOW and I never heard. It is much like now. I am afraid I am getting wrapped up in following what I think is His path and when do I know? I am a good person. Whether I have been religious or not I have tried to follow Christ's teachings. I do believe that it is a way of life. I have tried to do the right thing and I truly love others. I have done good work and I have been sorry for the things I did that I really knew were wrong. Cheating by eating meat on a Friday, not going to church and cursing, don't send me running to confess my sins. Hurting someone, lying to them, not being there when I could be for someone - those are sins. Being a Lesbian gives me a different perspective on the Bible and on Churches. I know that I am not bad, sick or sinful. I have and will reject any religion, church or biblical theologist who states that I am because an ancient work says so. I know deep down in that place of knowing that there is nothing bad about me loving a woman. I do believe, although I haven't read alot of it, in what the Bible says as long as I filter it through the current realities

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and culture." "I really want you to speak plainly," she continued. "I want to hear what you have to say about God and Jesus. I want to hear more about your choice of a Gestalt life and what that means to you and how it fits with the rest. Phil, I am really searching at this time... I need and want your help in this. I think you may be part of that listening I need to do. If you can help me with that perspective, I think it will make things different and meaningful." Phil wrote back, "I started with asking God to help me speak to you for Him, and as soon as I did that, what was brought to my mind were His words through Paul, 'As though God were entreating through me, I beg you, be reconciled to God.' I recalled how it was for me. People had been praying for me, and I had burned them down with scorn, tried to argue them out of their faith to their faces, rejected them, and laughed till the tears rolled down my cheeks at what seemed like ridiculous lyrics in their hymns of worship. Within three years I stopped running, turned within my soul to face Him, and said, 'Okay, if you are real, make yourself known to me.' Then, I made a deal with Him. I said, 'On my part, I will read this Bible, but on your part, make yourself known to me.' He did. I became reconciled to God. I do not know what it is like for you, and I'm not trying to say that you've been running away from Him, but I know that for me, it was a kind of giving up the resistance - a giving in and a real opening up to the possibilities. I yielded every preconceived idea I'd had and read that Bible as if it were a true story. If you do this, start with the Gospel of John, and get a modern translation, like the New International or New American Standard version (the Phillips version of the New Testament is not bad either; that's the one I had). You wrote: 'Do I believe he is God? I think so. Do I believe he is my savior? Don't quite know what that means.' He is like the surgeon who cuts out the cancer so completely that no trace of it can be found again, ever, but more than that, he is like the plastic surgeon who restores the body tissue and makes it new, like another body altogether. He does this by not just cutting the cancer out, but by taking it upon Himself; He takes it into His own body and lets it kill Him in your place. (You wrote) 'Do I know how to listen to him? Damned if I know. I thought I had listened for Him for years and never had a clue what He wanted. I thought He wanted me to be a nun once.' I don't know what God might want you to do for Him, but what I have come to learn in my own life is that what I do for God is not in the least

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important compared to what He does for me, and the most fundamental thing about it all is that He wants ME, not my work. He wants my whole self for His very own. He wants me to believe what He says and trust Him with my whole life. (You wrote) 'Oh the time I had being in love with Jesus! It was safe and warm and yet I was so scared. I wanted to KNOW and I never heard. It is much like now. I am afraid I am getting wrapped up in following what I think is His path and when do I know?' You might approach this as dialogue with God. You've been learning about Gestalt, dialogical process, right? Presence, bracketing, acceptance, commitment to dialogue. Presence: This is between you and God, so you need to show up and press Him like you've persisted with people on the list. You want contact with God; well, believe that He is (the Bible promises that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him). You need to speak plainly to Him, like you do with me in these emails. Bracketing: You will experience creepy doubts and disclaimers, all the unfinished business about the church and every Christian who ever let you down. Acknowledge these things, but bracket them and put them aside to be dealt with later; do not let them stop you from the dialogue. Acceptance: Be alert and sensitive for the way in which God chooses to meet you, the way He comes into the dialogue and the message that impresses itself on your heart. He is real and He will meet you. Commitment to Dialogue: Don't give up. Listen for a faint 'voice' that comes to some people like an inner thought that seems to come out of nowhere, a conviction, an "aha!" or even something more miraculous such as a physical sound or a vision. However it comes, it will be yours and yours alone. (You wrote) ‘I am a good person...’ God knows your heart, Jean. He knows you completely, and He's been there at every point in your life. There is no mystery to God about you. (You wrote) ‘Being a Lesbian gives me a different perspective on the Bible and on Churches ... I know deep down in that place of knowing that there is nothing bad about me loving a woman.’ I do not want to argue over what is and what is not sin. What I know is that every one of us has committed at least one, and it only takes one to put us out of relationship with God (that is why we need a savior). God is perfect, and His purpose is to create a perfect community with other perfect beings; He is in the process of creating perfection in them and putting together that perfect community. The church is not it, even though some would like to think so. Israel is not it, even though they have been singled out in history to be a nation for God's purposes among the people of the world. The perfect

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community is the Kingdom of God, which is in seed form at the present (Jesus told those who came to see Him, 'The Kingdom of God is among you,' but it was among them in seed form, not in full bloom). I chose Gestalt because it fits with my sense of how life works; of all the clinical modalities, this one seems most completely in accord with my faith and my spiritual understanding. Gestalt is about personal experience and responsibility for one's OWN experience. What I know is that Christianity is experiential; faith without works is dead - it is mere intellectualizing. Gestalt is field theoretical, and that means the metaphysical aspects of field as well as the physical and empirical; Christianity, true Christianity, is entered into by faith, and faith is a fundamental principle of contact and relationship, both in the physical and metaphysical dimensions. It is a complex, rather than a simplistic life, and one that requires contextual logic, not just a linear chain of cause and effect. God is this wonderful being who created all this. I am in awe of Him and the grandeur of his creation. Whether you consider the beauty of the illuminated galaxies swirling in deep space, or the amazing design of neuronal networks alive with chemical-electrical impulses in our heads; it's a testimony to the "Watchmaker" at every level. Gestalt is dialogical, and Christianity is all about relationships; God tells us we must be made new through a trusting relationship with Christ, and then we must experience ourselves in relationship with others in the community of faith…” Jean wrote, "I can't even begin to respond! I am overwhelmed and honored with your words, thoughts, beliefs and caring for both my physical existence and my soul. I will respond more maybe tomorrow but right now I am in pain and very tired."

Phase Three: A Turn Toward Indivisible Union with Otherness Jean wrote, "I am beginning to think this journey I am on right now is not about getting well or not. I think it is about my soul. I want to be reconciled with God - whatever his/her manifestation. I have read a fair amount of the New Testament but I will pull it out again. I think you are very much where I need you to be. Continue to tell me what is coming to you. I think I need to hear it." Phil responded, "When you read, read dialogically. Talk to God ahead of time and ask Him to show Himself to you, and then read expectantly. When thoughts come to you, or questions, jot them down. Don't race past such moments, but ponder out loud to God. This is very much between you and God."

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Jean responded, "Thanks for tracking and hanging in. I have had a hard time concentrating ... I have almost finished with the remnants of my clients ... I am still confident that whatever is - is. And whatever will be, will be. And I know that God IS. I can feel his (her?) presence at times and I know that he is guiding me and this process. There is a nurturing warmth that floods me at times and brings tears to my eyes. I call those times my God times - the times when I can feel him within me and can feel his love for me and his compassion for what I am going through. On May 31st Jean wrote to Phil, saying, " Quick note before I fall into bed. I am hanging in. I am trying to keep up my energy... It is frustrating because there is so much I want to do. I have been reading the NT and having a good time with it. It is interesting since I don't remember these passages meaning quite so much to me before!! What is particularly interesting to me is His clarity. He is not muddy waters but clear, cool, and refreshing ... There is a part of me that wants to just fall into that crystal clear water forever. Exhaustion and pain are saying this, but it could happen. I do want to be ready." She added in a subsequent message, "Thessalonians was deep. The others were great too but Thessalonians spoke clearly to me. What else do you think is left for me to do? I think I am close to being ready - to live or die in Christ." Phil wrote, "You ask what else is left for you to do. I want to make sure of the basics, Jean. It would seem that you belong to Christ, but I don't want to leave any stone unturned, so please bear with me while I attend to that. I have called you a gift to me and our conversations a privilege, and I mean those things, but saying that does not seem to account for the extent of tenderness in my heart for you, of divine appointment and providence in our talking plainly about death and eternity and one's relationship with God. You have become one of a few peak 'moments' in my life ... You have become a solid reminder to me of my reason for being and that all my earthly attachments, including the important relationships of family, are relatively transient. I see my experience with an earthly perspective, one the Bible calls 'through a glass darkly.' When I pass from this perspective into heaven, I will see clearly with the eternal perspective God has been viewing me all along. I became a minister because I gave my life to God to be used in my vocation as His instrument; when I left the ministry it was not clear to me how I might be in this world (as I had become a 'professional' Christian and was leaving that behind). I have found my voice as a Christian man once again, and you have become part of that. It is a very meaningful thing to me.

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I start from the fact that God is - a real fact - and a real part of the field. You've seen me argue for this realistic perspective before on the list. Well, just as we live in a real world, we exist because of a real God. (Hebrews 11: 6.) After that comes the fact that God loves us, even with all our spots and imperfections, often called 'sins.' (John 3:16;1John 4:10; Romans 5:6 & 8.) Then comes the fact of our imperfection, our sin, and something that cannot withstand the presence of an infinitely perfect being such as God ... The imperfection is our humanity, which is a mixture of the good, having been formed in the image of God and purchased through the death of Christ, and a mixture of flaw. (Psalm 14: 1-3; Romans 3:23; 1 Peter 2:25) And then comes the need to trust in the death of Jesus as the base for bridging between an imperfect and a perfect being. This comes at the instant of believing, trusting, in the efficacy of Christ's death to cover the distance between your personal imperfection and the perfection of God, so that you, personally, can have an encounter, a dialogical relationship with God. (Matthew 10:32; Romans 10: 9 & 10; Romans 5: 1& 2; Romans 8: 14; Ephesians 2: 8-10.) Jean, for me, when I came to the Lord, when I believed and confessed, it was a matter of nailing it all down by asking ... suddenly I became burdened, heavy with a need, and the need was to ask Jesus to be my savior. I knew that He came to save the world, and that he was the savior of the world, but I needed to ask Him to be my personal savior, for my personal life and to cover my personal failings and imperfections." On June 9th Jean wrote saying, "I am dying, Phil. I have healers in Santa Fe I am going to see. I still want a miracle but that may not be what God has in mind. I will come back and probably do the surgery during the 1st week in August ... I think I will die. I am afraid only to die without being ready on many levels. The main level is with God. Yes, I want you to help me ... I want to know I am ready..." On June 22nd she wrote to Phil, saying, "I have been reading and talking and bitching and complaining and struggling and mourning. It has been quite a week. God is listening. Jesus is with me. He has come to me in my dreams and he has assured me He is in charge in so many ways." On June 27th she wrote, saying, "God is still busy upturning even the most minor plans. If I didn't know he was kind and gentle I would think he was having a good time here. I am hanging in ... I have been reading and re-reading your last post. I am ready. I am there. I thank you for everything you have done. On June 29th, Kate, Jean's domestic partner, wrote to Phil saying, Jean "... had the surgery yesterday. Unfortunately they found that the tumors in

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her trachea and esophagus were bigger than they had anticipated ... Yesterday she was busy writing notes and waving her hands. She was in charge. She was quite feisty and very up beat. I stood there crying and she told me not to worry... She often talks about all the wonderful emails she gets from you and occasionally shares them with me. They are wonderful. Thanks for being there. I will keep you posted. If you want to write back, send it to my email address so I can check it there." On July 2nd Jean wrote to Phil, saying, "My experience in the surgery was horrible. They had to intubate me awake. I learned first hand what it would be like to smother to death, and it was only for about maybe 60 seconds altogether over a 15 minute period. I have been yelling at God ever since. I felt like Christ on the cross asking, 'Why have you deserted me?'" On September 7th Jean wrote to the list. She said, "Thank you all of you for the Birthday wishes!!! I am again fighting an infection which has left me kind of low but I am perking up a bit today." On October 1st, Kate wrote to Phil. "Dear Phil. Right now I am doing one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, but it is something I promised Jean I would do. I am writing to let you know that she died on Saturday, September 28, around 2:00 in the afternoon. She was on the porch in the sunshine with her family making her laugh at our place in New Jersey. She was an incredibly human being and I loved her beyond just beyond. I don't know what else to say because there are huge puddles in my eyes right now. She talked about you all the time, and really enjoyed the list-serve and all that that involved. I kept telling her that I was going to respond to the email you sent me back in June. I never did, but I am here now. I would love to hear from you."

Epilogue In a community no one interacts with everyone at once all the time. Rather, what happens is that there are moments when all or most of the community is present–so what someone might do or say is available to all–but for each of those events there are numerous smaller groupings and dyadic interactions. These can also be called sub-groups, but they are subgroups that are directly related to and emerge from the context of the overall community. In a text-based environment such as Gstalt-L, this process is referred to as "off list" or "back channel" communication. It may be "off" the list, but it is clearly birthed in communal relationship, and often something from the sub-group affects the larger community

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when a result, conclusion, or shift in the way someone is present finds its way into subsequent communal discourse. When Jean and Phil began to speak about her dying, they each took a risk. Jean wanted answers about her eternal soul, but she did not want to encounter the familiar rejections from hyper-religious people who in her past had rejected her sexual orientation. Phil felt the importance of the moment and wanted to speak candidly without encountering the religious prejudices with which he had become familiar. Jean was encouraged to inquire and explore her personal spiritual issues with Phil precisely because he frequently spoke openly with others on the list with all present, but each decided to take this phase of communal life "back channel" in order to speak openly without the distracting chatter of a communal chorus. This is not to say that Jean said nothing on the list about herself, her progress through treatment, or that she never engaged in discussion of other subjects. Phil also was active in ongoing plenary activities of the community and multiple discussions. Thus, when Jean died, Phil announced this to the entire community, and the community responded with grief. The people on the list conducted a wake for Jean at an Irish Pub during the international conference of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT), held that November in St. Pete's Beach, Florida, USA. Phil continued developing a relationship with Kate, and the episode contributed to the sense that this was not just a professional discussion list where parts of real people were not acceptable. Jean Hayden came on the list because of her interest in gestalt therapy, elbowed her way into the streams of discussion that take place there, and then unloaded the bombshell that she was dying. We walked with her through the process, and she helped people realize that Gstalt-L is a real community where people make real contact, conduct real relationships, and mourn for those who depart.

References Brownell, P. (in press a) Spirituality in gestalt therapy, in From the Here and Now to the Future–Advancing Gestalt Theory and Practice, Talia Bar-Yoseph Levine (ed.), np, New York: Routledge —. (in press b) Spirituality in the praxis of gestalt therapy, in The Healing Power of Spirituality: How Religion Helps Humans Thrive, J. Harold Ellens, Ph.D., ed., np, Westport: Praeger/Greenwood —. (in press c) The healing potential of religious community, in The Healing Power of Spirituality: How Religion Helps Humans Thrive, J.

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Harold Ellens, Ph.D., ed., np, Westport: Praeger/Greenwood —. (in press d) Gestalt Therapy: A Guidebook for Mental Health Professionals. New York, N.Y: Springer Publishing Company —. (Ed). (2008) Handbook for Theory, Research, and Practice in Gestalt Therapy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press. —. (2002). Psychological testing: A place in gestalt therapy? British Gestalt Journal, 11(2), 99-107. —. (2000) A theoretical matrix for training and practice. The Australian Gestalt Journal, 4(1), p. 51-61. Buber, M. (1952) The Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy. Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books. Crocker, S., Brownell, P., Stemberger, G., Gunther, V., Just, B., Sen, A., and Wolfert, R. (2001) Field and Boundary. Gestalt!, 5(2). Available online at http://www.g-gej.org/5-2/1998field.html Crocker, S.F. (1999) A Well-Lived Life: Essays in Gestalt Therapy. Cambridge, MA: GIC Press & The Analytic Press. Dana, H., Mantey, J. (1927) A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament. Toronto: MacMillan Co. Levinas, E. (1998) Of God who comes to mind. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Otto, R. (1950) The Idea of the Holy. London, UK: Oxford University Press. Pargament, K. (2007) Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Understanding and Addressing the Sacred. New York, N.Y.: The Guilford Press. Polster, E. (in press) From the supernatural to the human, in Psychotherapy, Community, and Life Focus, Brian O'Neill, ed. Ravenwood Press. —. (2006) Uncommon Ground: Harmonizing Psychotherapy and Community to Enhance Everyday Living. Phoenix, AZ: Zeig, Tucker, & Theisen, Inc. O'Neill, B., Gaffney, S. (2008) "Field theoretical strategy" in The Handbook for theory, research and practice in gestalt therapy, Philip Brownell, ed. Newcastle Upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Resnick, R., Parlett, M. (1995) Gestalt therapy: Principles, prisms, and perspectives. British Gestalt Journal vol. 4, p. 3-13. Shipman, K. (2002) Personal communication on May 3, 2002, Gstalt-L listserv discussion group. Woldt, A., Brownell, P. (2005) Digital gestalt: Online resources for the discipline of gestalt therapy, a comprehensive international listing, in

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Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory, and Practice (Ansel Woldt and Sarah Toman, eds). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

APPENDIX II EMAIL HAIKU

(From the AAGT email discussion list, 1995-96 ) Dear heart, dear laughter dear seven lines of counting the spirited song. Haiku requested slow fingers on the keyboard Nothing in the mind.

Listening, sort of distracted by anger ah, present again.

New voices join our list always here regardless sometimes pissed.

This morning's dawning arrived on counting fingers: sunlight, haiku, smile.

Open doors expose hearts pounding in amazement river running wild.

Stark fingers, coral sky Barren trees, teasing--promise the approach of Spring.

Play's the best time spent work and play make merriment lots of room for both.

Daphne, fragrant brew ravishing mesmerizing new season dawning.

Beautiful baby contains the essentials hope, innocence, joy.

Haiku abounds the net void of time and space right NOW some glow and some fade.

Puppy brings bonding, torn clothes, smelly car, no sleep love, affection, joy.

Un-sub-scribe-me-please razor blades against my side bleeding strips of pride.

Synchronicity: puppy and baby haikus, many babies born.

Un-sub-scribe-my-heart snatch away the chance to feel fettered soul cold steel.

524

Conference in the wings midwifing in San Francisco A new creation.

Appendix II

Un-sub-scribe-these-eyes watching others playing free reaching inside me.

CONTRIBUTORS

Editors Brian J. Mistler, Ph.D. is a seasoned therapist, educator, and higher-ed administrator, actively engaged with Gestalt Therapy since the 90s. Dr. Mistler trained for six years at the Gestalt Center of Gainesville with Dr. M. Pat Korb while completing his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at the University of Florida. He received his bachelor’s degree in computer science, philosophy, and humanities from Stetson University and, as a Rotary Scholar to the U. K., his master’s degree in conflict resolution from the University of Bradford with an internship at the British Parliament. Mistler also completed a post-grad certificate in financial management from Cornell. Dr. Mistler has served on the executive boards of numerous professional organizations including The Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) and The Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT), on the Editorial Boards of Gestalt! and The National Association of Student Personnel Administrator (NASPA) Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, and as a reviewer for journals such as The Humanistic Psychologist, The Clinical Social Work Journal, and The Journal of Muslim Mental Health. Dr. Mistler lives in Sarasota, Florida and serves as Associate Dean of Students and Director of Health Services at Ringling College of Art & Design, one of North America’s preeminent art and design colleges. Mistler is also Title IX coordinator for New College of Florida, and on the rotating faculty of NASPA’s Certificate Program in Higher Ed. Law and Policy and the Medical House Staff Teaching Faculty of Manatee Memorial Hospital. Philip Brownell, MDiv; PsyD, is a clinical psychologist licensed in Oregon and North Carolina and registered in the British Colony of Bermuda, where he lives and has a private practice. He is certified as a gestalt therapist by the European Association for Gestalt Therapy. He also works as an Employee Assistance Counselor and coach, working with managers, executives, and employees of international financial and legal organizations. Phil is a writer and independent scholar and researcher. He is a co-coordinator for an international research project studying the efficacy of gestalt therapy. He is co-editor at Gestalt Research Press

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(www.gestaltresearchpress.org), on the editoral staff of the Korean Journal of Gestalt Therapy, Series Editor, The World of Contemporary Gestalt Therapy (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), and Consulting Editor for the European Journal of Qualitative Research in Psychotherapy. Phil is the Chair of the Education and Training Committee for the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, and he is the author of Gestalt Therapy: A Guide to Contemporary Practice, Gestalt Therapy for Addictive and SelfMedicating Behaviors, and Spiritual Competence in Psychotherapy. He has contributed numerous chapters and articles and trains and teaches internationally (www.drphilipbrownell.com).

Contributors1 Dan Bloom, JD, LCSW, is in Private Practice in New York. He is a former President of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT), former President of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, a member of the European Association for Gestalt Therapy, former Editor of Studies in Gestalt Therapy: Dialogical Bridges, and is current Co-Editor for Gestalt!, journal of the AAGT. Bloom is a chapter contributor to numerous volumes and conducts training in gestalt therapy internationally. Charles Bowman MS, LCSW, LMFT, LCAC has over 30 years of experience as a helping professional and focuses on general psychotherapy for adults and adolescents couples work, addictions, weight loss and bariatrics. He also has extensive experience in employee assistance and organizational development. Charlie is Past President of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy, Senior Faculty at the Indianapolis Gestalt Institute, and a member of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy. He completed three intensive years of core Gestalt therapy training in Indianapolis and extensive training in Integrative 1

Biographies included in many cases reflect the most up-to-date information known by the time Gestalt! was last published. That is in an effort to both contextualize the pieces and record the history as uniformly and completely as possible. Listing of degrees are also not necessarily reflective of a person’s current employment or an individual’s highest degree attained at present or time of writing, but represent the individual’s preferences (or our best ability to ascertain those preferences) about self-description in the original piece which are honored herein. In some cases where biographies were conspicuously inaccurate information as been updated from other sources or with details known to the editors.

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Psychotherapy. He has trained and mentored psychotherapists and counselors in the U.S.A. and abroad. Publications include commentary on the treatment of trauma, addictions, domestic violence, various aspects of Employee Assistance Programs and the advancement and development of Gestalt therapy. Rodger Bufford, Ph.D. is a licensed Psychologist in private practice through Western Psychological and Counseling Services in Tigard, Oregon. He specializes in Clinical Psychology; Behavioral Psychology, and Religious Issues in Psychotherapy. Dr. Bufford is a graduate of The King's College and received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He is currently a professor of psychology and Director of Research and Integration in the Graduate School of Clinical Psychology at George Fox University. Dr. Bufford has written The Human Reflex: Behavioral Psychology in Biblical Perspective (1981), Counseling and the Demonic (1988), several articles in the Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology (1985, 1997), numerous articles in professional journals, and several articles for Christian publications. He is a contributing editor to the Journal of Psychology and Theology, was formerly a contributing editor and guest editor for the Journal of Psychology and Christianity, and has served as an ad hoc editorial reviewer for a number of journals. Dr. Bufford has taught at The American University, Huntington College, Psychological Studies Institute/Georgia State University (Atlanta, GA), Western Baptist Seminary and George Fox University. M’Lou Caring was a member of the Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy Interest Group workshop at the 1998 AAGT conference. Dan Carpenter, M.A., Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist working at the Oregon State Hospital. He received a Master's in religious studies and is an ordained clergyman specializing in working with religious clients. Dan was among the original editorial staff at Gestalt! One of his current projects (in press) is entitled "Cross-Cultural Counseling with Clients of Diverse Religious Worldviews". Cynthia Cook was a member of the Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy Interest Group workshop at the 1998 AAGT conference. She was active in the AAGT and helped plan the AAGT’s conference that took place in Manhattan.

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Contributors

Sylvia Crocker, Ph.D. is a Gestalt Therapist in private practice in Laramie, Wyoming, USA. She is the former chair for the special interest group devoted to theory development of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT). She is on the editorial staff for Gestalt Review, and she has recently completed a new book, A Well Lived Life. Victor Daniels, Ph.D. is professor of psychology emeritus from California State University, Sonoma. He taught gestalt therapy for years at that university. Bruce Edward Barrett, M.A., received his Master's degree in clinical psychology at the University of South Dakota in 1973. He completed the Intensive Training Program at the Boston Gestalt Institute in 1975, under Michael Vincent Miller and Rich Borofsky. Barrett is currently reestablishing his activity in Gestalt Theory, with a particular interest in writing and working in the development of endeavors other than the clinical application of Gestalt Theoretical principles, including performance, personal growth, and inter-disciplinary studies. At the time he prepared this article he was working from his home, Cloverset, in Duxbury, Massachussets, USA. He is currently serving, with Judi, his wife of 21 years, as the full-time, at-home Joint Commander of a fiercely autonomous army of nine children. Bud Feder, Ph.D. has served as president of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy and the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy. He has written extensively on group process in the Gestalt therapy field. Gail Feinstein is a past president of The Associate for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT) and was a member of the Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy Interest Group workshop at the 1998 AAGT conference. Full biography not available. Robb Feldhaus, Ph.D. is an ordained New Thought minister with a background in clinical psychology. His special interests have been in selfpsychology, Jungian psychology, and Gestalt Therapy. He is also a professional massage therapist. After sojourning in the Southwest USA for fifteen years, he has returned to his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio and enjoys practicing healing arts there. His overarching interest is in the psychology of mystical experience, and the dialectical synthesis of Eastern and Western psychologies and theologies.

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Iris Fodor was a member of the Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy Interest Group workshop at the 1998 AAGT conference. Iris is on the faculty of New York University, and she practices gestalt therapy in New York. Jon Frew, Ph.D. is Director of Organizational Consulting Psychology Track of the Psy.D. Clinical and MA Counseling programs at Pacific University Oregon and a diplomat in Organizational and Business Consulting Psychology. Zelda Friedman was a member of the Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy Interest Group workshop at the 1998 AAGT conference. She is a member of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy and a voice for quiet reason in the midst of often conflicted discussion. Debbie Friedman Biography not available. Seán Gaffney, Ph.D. was born and raised in Ireland, has spent six years in Great Britain, and has lived and practiced in Sweden since 1975. He is educated both as a psychotherapist and OD consultant. In addition to supervising therapists and teaching in the Gestalt OSD Center/ GISC International OSD Program, Seán teaches at the Stockholm School of Economics, the Riga School of Economics (Latvia), Bocconi University (Milan, Italy) Graduate School of Business, and consults in Estonia, Latvia, Ireland, Great Britain, and the US. Alice Gerstman was a member of the Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy Interest Group workshop at the 1998 AAGT conference. Full biography not available. Serge and Anne Ginger had over 28 years of clinical practice within the Ecole Parisienne de Gestalt (EPG; Paris School of Gestalt). They trained gestalt therapists all over Europe, and Serge published several books. Both have passed since publishing in Gestalt! Leslie Greenberg was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on September 30, 1945. He initially studied engineering in college, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1967 from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and a master's from McMaster’s University in Toronto, Ontario in 1970. Five years later, Greenberg graduated with a PhD in psychology from York University in Toronto, and he promptly began his teaching career at the University of British Columbia. He completed his externship at the Family Therapy Mental Research Institute and an internship in family therapy at the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Francisco. Greenberg is a

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Contributors

professor in the department of psychology at York University, where he is also director of the university's Psychotherapy Research Center. Greenberg co-founded emotion-focused therapy (EFT), also known as emotionally focused therapy, in collaboration with Sue Johnson. Greenberg's emotionfocused therapy is informed by therapeutic approaches such as personcentered and Gestalt therapy and by neuroscience, which can help explain how emotions work. Greenberg refers to his approach as affective regulation and he aims to help people in relationships express themselves more fully. He is also the director for the Emotion-Focused Therapy Clinic housed at York University. He is the author of several books, including Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy: The Dynamics of Emotion, Love and Power and Emotion-Focused Therapy for Depression. Greenberg has been recognized for his contributions to psychology with the Distinguished Contribution to the Profession from the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Distinguished Research Career award from the International Society for Psychotherapy Research. Elinor Greenberg, Ph.D., CPG, lectures and writes extensively on borderline, narcissistic and schizoid disorders. She received her doctorate in psychology from The New School in 1979 and has been a practicing gestalt therapist for over thirty years. Every seven to ten years, Elinor retrains in another form of psychotherapy and integrates it with her knowledge of Gestalt therapy theory and practice. She is a certified Ericksonian hypnotherapist; she is in the National Registry for Certified Group Psychotherapists and she is a graduate of and former faculty member of The Masterson Institute where she taught and supervised students in a psychoanalytically oriented object relations approach to the theory and treatment of personality disorders. Elinor has been studying kabalistic tarot and the Western mystical tradition for the past ten years and is at present working on integrating spirituality into her practice of psychotherapy. Sheis psychology consultant to The Tarot School and is on the editorial board of Gestalt Review. Steve (Vinay) Gunther has a Masters of Mental Health, Advanced Certifiicate of Gestalt Therapy, and Graduate Diploma of Social Ecology. He has been in private practice for 26 years, working with individuals, couples and families. Carol H. Pollard received her Ph.D. from the California Institute of Integral Studies and is a senior flight attendant for United Air Lines. Carl Mitchell is a Marriage and Family Therapist who also treats domestic violence offenders at Ananda Institute Santa Rosa, California. Victor

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Daniels is Professor of Pychology at Sonoma State University. Scott H. Kellogg, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist at the Cognitive Therapy Center of New York, a Clinical Assistant Professor in the NYU Department of Psychology, and a Past-President of the NYSPA Division on Addictions. Lynne Jacobs, Ph.D. is co-author of The Healing Relationship in Gestalt Therapy: A Dialogic/Self Psychology Approach, and various articles on Gestalt therapy. She serves on the editorial board of the Gestalt Journal. She's also a member of the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Los Angeles (GTILA), the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and a trainer with Gary Yontef at the Gestalt Therapy Institute of the Pacific. Lynne is adjunct faculty and a board member of the Institute for Dialogical Psychotherapy in San Diego, California. She has a private practice in West Los Angeles. Rudolf Jarosewitsc is founder and trainer at the “Integrative Gestalt Centre” in Christchurch, and tutor and director of the counseling faculty of the “College of Natural Medicine” with more than 30 years experience as group facilitator, counsellor, therapist, supervisor and trainer. Susan Jurkowski was a member of the Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy Interest Group workshop at the 1998 AAGT conference. Full biography not available. Bruno Just was editor the first Gestalt Journal of Australia. Jungkyu Kim is a gestalt therapist living in Seoul, Korea and has been a professor in clinical psychology at Sungshin Women's University since 1988, where he teaches clinical psychology, abnormal psychology, gestalt therapy, group therapy, and art therapy. He is the former President of the Korean Clinical Psychology Association and current President of the Korean Gestalt Therapy Association. He trained at the Fritz Perls Institute in Germany, with Erving and Miriam Polster in San Diego, and with Gary Yontef and Lynne Jacobs in Los Angeles. Maria Kirchner, Ph.D. was a member of the Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy Interest Group workshop at the 1998 AAGT conference. Dr. Kirchner graduated from The Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, CA, with a PhD (Philosophical Doctor) in Clinical Psychology and is licensed in New Jersey. Maria also has a Master’s Degree from Germany, her home country, in Social Pedagogy. She is thoroughly

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Contributors

trained in several psychotherapy modalities as well as in psychological testing. Gregory Kramer, Ph.D, teaches meditation, writes, and directs the Metta Foundation in Portland, Oregon. He has been practicing meditation since 1974. Greg's primary teachers were Anagarika Dhammadina, Venerable Ananda Maitreya Maha Nayaka Thera, Achan Sobin Namto, and Venerable Punnaji Maha Thera. Greg has been teaching Dhamma, Vipassana, and Metta (lovingkindness meditation) since 1980 at retreats, workshops, and weekly groups at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, the Metta Foundation, Auroville-India, Esalen, and elsewhere. His primary focus for the last seven years has been developing the meditation practice of Insight Dialogue, a form of Vipassana meditation encompassing listening, speaking, and online communication. Greg holds a PhD in Learning and Change in Human Systems from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He cofounded Harvest With Heart, a hunger project in the Northeastern United States. Formerly a composer and National Endowment for the Arts Composition Fellow, he has made significant contributions to music technology and is a leader in the field of data sonification. He lives in Portland, Oregon, is married, and the father of three sons. Jay Levin is a Gestalt therapist practicing at the Kanner Academy, Sarasota, Florida, and was an Associate editor for Gestalt! Jay M. Uomoto, Ph.D., ABMP was Clinical Director and Neuropsychologist of the Acquired Brain Injury Program at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also Clinical Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. His research work has included focusing upon risk factors for dementia in older Japanese Americans, determinants of long term care in that same population, as well as investigating the relationship between mild traumatic brain injury and chronic pain, the efficacy of music therapy in improving sustained engagement in patients with brain injury, and is researching the contributions of religious coping in patients with brain and spinal cord injury. He holds a Diplomate in Medical Psychotherapy and is certified in Health Care Ethics. Carl Mitchell Full biography not available. Brian O'Neill is director of the Illawarra Gestalt Centre, living in Wollongong, Australia. He is the founder of The Australian Gestalt Journal, and editor of the Gestalt Forum at Behavior Online.

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Peter Philippson, M.Sc. (Gestalt Psychotherapy), UKCP Reg. Gestalt Psychotherapist, is a Gestalt therapist and trainer, a Teaching and Supervising Member of the Gestalt Psychotherapy & Training Institute, UK, a founder member of Manchester Gestalt Centre and a guest trainer for Institutes in Britain and America. Peter is a Full Member of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy. He is editor of 'The Nature of Pain', coauthor (with John Bernard Harris) of 'Gestalt: Working with Groups' and co-editor (also with John Bernard Harris) of 'Topics in Gestalt Therapy', all published by Manchester Gestalt Centre. He has published many articles on Gestalt Therapy in British, American, Australian, French, Canadian and Spanish Gestalt Journals. His writings include two books: 'Self in Relation', published by the Gestalt Journal Press, and 'The Emergent Self', published by Karnac/UKCP. Peter is co-author (with his GTin colleagues) of 'Contact and Relationship in a Field Perspective', ed. J-M Robine, pub. l'Exprimerie, Bordeaux. David Pocock is Principal Family Therapist at Child and Family Consultation Service, Marlborough House, Princess Margaret Hospital, in Swindon in the U.K. Jean-Marie Robine, Psy. Dipl. (Institut Francais de Gestalt-therapie, Bordeaux, France) is a psychologist who was, starting from 1967, director of the French Institute of Gestalt Therapy. Teaches gestalt therapy in many countries. Vice-president of the Eoripean Association of Gestalt Therapy. Editor of the “Cahiers de Gestalt-therapie” and a series of books about gestalt therapy. Author of many articles, published in France, Great Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, Poland, Russia, Germany, Holland, Italy, Mexico. Author of three books about gestalt therapy, that are translated to many languages. Claire Salisbury Full biography not available. Amit Sen Full biography not available. Yaro Starak is Gestalt Psychotherapist and author of books on Gestalt Psychotherapy & Group facilitation. He is Director Gestalt Art Therapy Centre-Australia. Full Biography not available. Gerhard Stemberger is an editor at Gestalt Theory and an early pioneer in web publishing. He was one of the first staff members at Gestalt! and developed major lists of links of various kinds for gestalt enterprises on the Internet.

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Contributors

Sue Congram, PhD, Chartered Psychologist, is an organisation and leadership consultant based in the UK. Her practice is rooted in Gestalt and Jungian ideas, which also inform her PhD research in leadership at Cardiff University. She is a visiting trainer at institutes around Europe, teaching Gestalt in organisational practice. Sue uses the arts and active imagination when working with personal and professional development and is an editor of Education and Imagination: Post-Jungian Perspectives, published by Routledge (2008). Victor Daniels, Ph.D. is a retired professor of Psychology whose writing includes meditation and eastern disciplines, politics, the environment, and futurology. He was born in a mining town in Utah, and grew up as a semi "Army brat" -- his parents were civilian employees of the Army and Air Force in Germany, France, England, Florida, Nebraska, and California. He has a Ph.D. from UCLA, served in the Peace Corps, and taught at Sonoma State University where he was psychology Department Chair and director of the India Studies program. He has been program chair or co-chair for several international Gestalt therapy Conferences. His web page at Sonoma State University (search "Victor Daniels Sonoma") has a wealth of lecture notes on the history of psychology, existential psychology, and other subjects. Living beside a creek in a redwood forest, he has become a woodsman and skilled in stream-bank maintenance, erosion control, and filling potholes in the road. Ruth Wolfert was a member of the Women's Issues in Gestalt Therapy Interest Group workshop at the 1998 AAGT conference. Ruth Wolfert was on the faculty of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy for nearly 20 years and has served as Vice President, Conference Co-Chair and Workshops Chair. She was the director of The Chrysalis Institute, a center devoted to the treatment of traumatic stress, and on the board of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy. John Wymore has a BA in Anthropology from California State University--Northridge, and an MA in Counseling from Webster University. He has trained in psychotherapy at Gestalt Institute of New England and in consultation skills at National Training Laboratories. John was an organization consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation for 10 years where he led 5-day residential workshops, designed and facilitated large change and transition projects, and taught counseling skills to managers and supervisors. He has led groups at McLean Hospital, Belmont Massachusetts (Harvard Medical School) and Heights Psychiatric Hospital, Albuquerque. He is currently director of the Gestalt Center of

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New Mexico; is in private practice in Albuquerque; and is a member of the American Academy of Psychotherapists. Gary Yontef, Ph.D., A.B.P.P., Fellow of the Academy of Clinical Psychology and Diplomat in Clinical Psychology (A.B.P.P.) has been a gestalt therapist since training with Frederick Perls and James Simkin in 1965. Formerly on the UCLA Psychology Department Faculty and Chairman of the Professional Conduct Committee of the L.A. County Psychological Association, he is in private practice in Los Angeles. He is a past-president of the GTILA and was longtime chairman of the faculty. He has been on the editorial board of the International Gestalt Journal (formerly The Gestalt Journal), associate editor of the Gestalt Review, and editorial advisor of the British Gestalt Journal. He is a co-founder of PGI. He has written over 50 articles and chapters on gestalt therapy theory, practice, and supervision and is the author of Awareness, Dialogue and Process: Essays on Gestalt Therapy.

INDEX

5 5-Layer Model, 343, 344

A Anxiety, 7, 46, 87, 98, 201, 285, 291, 313, 316, 326, 330, 331, 332, 333, 336, 342, 344, 405, 406, 414, 421, 452, 473, 485, 486 Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy, 4, 6, 12, 13, 22, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 131, 190, 195, 196, 268, 518, 521, 523, 524, 525, 526, 527, 529, 532

B Bob and Rita Resnick, 22

C Carl von Clausewitz, 3, 50, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65 Client-Centered Psychotherapy, 184 Contact, 7, 11, 28, 30, 31, 56, 68, 82, 86, 89, 90, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 119, 133, 137, 146, 150, 153, 159, 160, 167, 191, 193, 195, 198, 199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 224, 227, 228, 230, 242, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 260, 265, 267, 276, 296, 298, 301, 307, 311, 313, 316, 338, 343,

345, 354, 355, 357, 358, 359, 367, 368, 371, 384, 386, 390, 409, 410, 414, 418, 427, 428, 431, 434, 435, 436, 439, 440, 441, 442, 443, 444, 448, 451, 458, 464, 487, 488, 490, 493, 494, 498, 500, 501, 502, 505, 509, 510, 511, 512, 514, 515, 519

D Dialogue, 4, 6, 17, 22, 25, 26, 32, 34, 42, 43, 48, 81, 88, 90, 91, 94, 95, 101, 102, 104, 105, 109, 111, 113, 119, 122, 131, 138, 153, 155, 171, 172, 175, 181, 186, 187, 188, 189, 203, 205, 215, 217, 219, 221, 222, 224, 229, 231, 238, 239, 258, 278, 279, 281, 282, 290, 296, 299, 325, 334, 354, 357, 390, 392, 401, 404, 411, 418, 428, 430, 431, 446, 448, 451, 453, 468, 469, 479, 491, 504, 505, 509, 510, 514 I-It, 92, 95, 96, 102, 169, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 186, 187, 232, 250, 280 I-Thou, 5, 23, 80, 81, 89, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 103, 104, 106, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 186, 187, 188, 189, 205, 211, 215, 221, 232, 250, 251, 253, 280, 281, 359, 438, 489, 490

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E Edmund Husserl, 190, 191, 204, 290, 302, 303, 434, 470, 471, 483, 500, 502 Ethics, 3, 36, 37, 68, 530 European Association for Gestalt Therapy, 195, 200, 523, 524 Existential, 2, 17, 22, 30, 39, 93, 94, 149, 156, 171, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 186, 188, 191, 193, 204, 207, 208, 219, 226, 285, 289, 290, 291, 299, 322, 325, 347, 376, 379, 435, 452, 471, 505, 532 Experiment, 30, 131, 133, 138, 144, 160, 163, 197, 215, 233, 242, 261, 262, 272, 344, 346, 431, 432, 442, 444, 491, 505

F Feminism, 137 Field Theory, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 16, 22, 24, 25, 26, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 50, 54, 55, 56, 58, 60, 63, 67, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 77, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 99, 103, 108, 109, 110, 112, 113, 119, 130, 133, 134, 139, 153, 155, 161, 164, 167, 168, 190, 192, 193, 197, 199, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 210, 212, 215, 216, 219, 220, 221, 223, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 233, 234, 237, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 265, 266, 267, 268, 278, 283, 284, 298, 299, 300, 301, 304, 316, 318, 324, 330, 337, 342, 348, 350, 351, 353, 355, 356, 357, 358, 360, 361, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 375, 377, 380, 382, 383, 384, 386, 388, 390, 395, 428, 429,

537

430, 431, 432, 434, 435, 439, 440, 441, 443, 445, 454, 455, 462, 464, 465, 467, 471, 472, 473, 474, 476, 477, 480, 482, 483, 490, 491, 493, 494, 495, 496, 497, 498, 499, 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 510, 511, 515, 516, 526, 530 Flow, 165, 175, 197, 198, 200, 210, 212, 224, 250, 276, 368, 439, 443, 459, 487, 505, 507

G Gary Yontef, 5, 24, 188, 529, 533 Gestalt Australia and New Zealand, 195, 480, 481 Gordon Wheeler, 24, 207, 218, 222, 260, 350, 360, 382, 389, 392, 394, 421, 448, 449, 450, 453 Group therapy, 22, 139, 144, 149, 152

H Healing, 3, 4, 44, 45, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 179, 180, 181, 199, 220, 235, 264, 279, 281, 284, 294, 317, 400, 403, 405, 406, 409, 416, 427, 449, 451, 453, 487, 511, 519, 526 Humanistic, 21, 22, 31, 90, 276, 468

I International Gestalt Therapy Association, 37 Isadore From, 194, 195, 355, 360, 433

K Kurt Goldstein, 4, 84, 85, 88, 199, 201, 205, 220, 249, 434, 470, 471, 496, 503

538 Kurt Lewin, 1, 10, 71, 75, 86, 88, 192, 193, 203, 205, 227, 236, 241, 246, 249, 250, 251, 254, 255, 261, 434, 465, 470, 471, 473, 474, 478, 494, 495, 496, 498, 501, 503

L Laura Rice, 19, 20, 22 Lynne Jacobs, 4, 5, 7, 89, 186, 348, 529

M Martin Buber, 24, 81, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 103, 106, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 193, 205, 207, 211, 220, 232, 236, 250, 288, 290, 298, 430, 470, 471, 472, 506, 519 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 191, 204, 290, 302, 434, 470, 497, 498, 503 Medical Model, 345, 429 Military, 3, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 64, 65, 309 Mindfulness, 7, 197, 199, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 336, 430, 446, 449, 484, 530, 532

P Paul Goodman, 7, 9, 10, 22, 24, 50, 66, 124, 130, 133, 134, 138, 150, 193, 194, 195, 201, 206, 208, 212, 220, 221, 236, 248, 250, 251, 302, 343, 344, 347, 350, 353, 354, 360, 368, 381, 416, 433, 450, 451, 453, 493, 495, 497, 498, 500, 503 Perls, 7, 9, 10, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 32, 50, 66, 72, 83, 84, 86, 89,

Index 130, 133, 134, 138, 148, 150, 152, 155, 157, 159, 168, 184, 193, 194, 195, 196, 198, 201, 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 218, 220, 221, 222, 224, 225, 227, 230, 236, 237, 249, 273, 342, 344, 346, 347, 350, 360, 368, 381, 404, 407, 408, 416, 417, 418, 422, 433, 440, 444, 450, 451, 452, 453, 485, 486, 487, 492, 493, 496, 497, 498, 500, 503, 529, 533 Frederick, 10, 66, 84, 193, 322, 329, 533 Fritz, 21, 23, 24, 25, 42, 66, 72, 150, 152, 157, 193, 194, 195, 196, 201, 204, 206, 220, 222, 237, 238, 302, 315, 346, 416, 422, 433, 440, 451, 452, 453, 457, 485, 486, 529 Laura, 19, 20, 22, 23, 89, 193, 194, 195, 201, 206, 238, 433, 440, 444, 451, 453 Phenomenology, 22, 25, 39, 70, 86, 90, 102, 124, 153, 155, 165, 192, 204, 211, 241, 248, 250, 251, 254, 260, 261, 279, 280, 290, 298, 351, 355, 385, 434, 435, 437, 471, 473, 483, 491 phenomenological method, 6, 41, 103, 104, 125, 189, 215, 219, 258, 261, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 427, 505 Psychotherapy, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 17, 20, 22, 26, 27, 31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 56, 67, 75, 76, 95, 97, 111, 115, 144, 168, 169, 172, 188, 189, 190, 193, 194, 220, 221, 229, 255, 263, 280, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 293, 311, 391, 392, 394, 395, 396, 397, 400, 420, 422, 423, 425, 426, 430, 432, 436, 437, 438, 440, 443, 444, 445,

Global Perspectives on Research, Theory, and Practice 446, 487, 505, 508, 524, 528, 530, 532 Psychotherapy Integration, 6, 8, 16, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 75, 152, 203, 205, 221, 257, 408, 416, 429, 430, 431, 433, 446, 447, 448, 450, 452, 494, 508

R Religion, 4, 27, 48, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 91, 106, 118, 142, 265, 266, 281, 284, 288, 289, 290, 295, 416, 431, 485, 506, 512, 518, 519, 525, 530 Buddhism, 5, 130, 197, 202, 206, 287, 483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 488, 490, 491 Christianity, 70, 71, 72, 271, 515, 525 Confucianism, 484, 485 Judaism, 91 Taoism, 5, 130, 197, 206, 484, 485 Research, 1, 3, 7, 8, 20, 31, 34, 35, 72, 76, 80, 85, 86, 87, 107, 117, 123, 143, 157, 160, 192, 194, 216, 217, 221, 234, 245, 252, 255, 289, 386, 392, 393, 398, 415, 417, 426, 431, 446, 447, 454, 458, 459, 461, 466, 468, 469, 473, 474, 476, 478, 479, 480, 520, 523, 530, 532 Robert Stolorow, 24, 25, 348, 351, 357, 358, 359

S Schema, 8, 395, 396, 397, 399, 400, 402, 407, 413, 415, 418, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 429, 432, 436, 438, 439, 446, 447, 450 Schematherapy, 398, 425

539

Self-Conscious Emotions, 382, 383, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 393 embarrassment, 270, 388, 390, 391, 393, 394 guilt, 145, 273, 310, 321, 385, 386, 387, 388, 390, 391, 393, 394, 490, 501 pride, 274, 286, 388, 390, 391, 393, 394, 421, 449, 466, 521 shame, 24, 101, 145, 347, 354, 369, 370, 382, 383, 385, 386, 387, 388, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 421, 449, 463, 485, 490, 501 Self-psychology, 274 Self-regulation, 57, 61, 195, 209, 211, 213, 364, 505 Spirituality, 5, 6, 19, 41, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 73, 74, 132, 144, 173, 197, 198, 199, 200, 207, 264, 267, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 313, 322, 470, 472, 506, 507, 515, 518 Supervision, 5, 36, 40, 68, 147, 155, 193, 223, 224, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235, 293, 348, 461, 465, 533

T Training, 3, 4, 12, 14, 21, 23, 29, 30, 33, 36, 40, 41, 42, 43, 51, 60, 64, 68, 73, 79, 89, 94, 131, 134, 135, 137, 141, 193, 194, 195, 206, 217, 223, 228, 234, 236, 240, 245, 246, 247, 301, 315, 319, 320, 324, 329, 364, 378, 401, 404, 425, 445, 446, 452, 455, 456, 457, 461, 463, 464, 467, 468, 485, 508, 509, 519, 524, 533