Gestalt Review, 4(1):1–7, 2000

Editorial
Sexual Issues in Therapy Consultation
and Training


J O S E P H M E L N I C K, Ph.D.

A young girl . . . aroused a feeling of pleasure in me. . . . I sud-

denly found myself standing directly behind her and throwing
my arms around her from behind; for a moment my hands met in
front of her waist (in front of her lap, in front of her genitals)
[Freud, 1901, p. 176; cited in Haynal and Falzeder, 1993].

HE EXPERIENCE CITED ABOVE , along with others, so worried and

T troubled Freud that he suggested that a paper be written on coun-

tertransference, which was to be circulated secretly among his
inner circle (McGuire, 1974). If this incident had occurred today, Freud
would have been left with a number of difficult choices regarding how
to respond. Concerning himself, should he say nothing, seek out con-
sultation, or explore his behavior in psychotherapy? What about his
patient and the psychotherapy? Should he ignore the incident altogether,
or instead, focus on it, taking full responsibility and apologize to her?
Concerning the actual experience itself, should he view it solely as coun-
tertransference, the unconscious expression of unfinished business, or
view his behavior as an understandable response to her seductiveness—
seductiveness that she should examine? Or perhaps it should be viewed
as a co-creation for which they both have some responsibility. And what
of his choices outside the therapy office? Should he consult a lawyer to
help him strategize how to protect himself, notify an ethics officer, or
alert his malpractice insurance carrier?
Managing erotic energy is no less difficult today than it was in Freud’s
time. In fact, as indicated by the dilemmas mentioned above, it is prob-
ably more so. Sexual issues, whether in the form of feelings, attraction,
or behavior continue to establish an important and essential backdrop
to many therapeutic, supervisory, teaching, consultative, and work
1  2000 The Analytic Press
2 JOSEPH MELNICK


relationships. Yet we do not have a unified perspective or framework

from which to view and respond to sexual and erotic issues in these
settings.
Because of the importance of this topic combined with a dearth of
Gestalt writing, we are pleased to feature a dialogue on this subject in
our current issue of Gestalt Review. Throughout this conversation, is-
sues of time and place, gender, and therapeutic approach help to frame the
perspectives of the individual commentators. Time and place, of course,
are the primary shapers of culture that in turn help determine our views
concerning gender in the consulting room and in work relationships.
They not only determine the relevant psychological theories, but more
specifically, the process of relating that occurs in therapist–patient, su-
pervisor–trainee, teacher–student, and consultant–client dyads. Of
course, in our lives, these themes of time and place, gender, and psy-
chological approach are seamlessly interwoven. However, in order to
frame the upcoming dialogue, I would like to briefly discuss each dur-
ing three time periods: the first half of the twentieth century (the hey-
day of Freudian analysis); the 1960s and 1970s when Gestalt therapy first
gained popularity; and the year 2000, the start of the new millennium.

First Half of the Twentieth Century

Freud’s ideas gained prominence in Victorian times. Families were au-

thoritarian, patriarchal, and highly structured. Like the culture, sex was
about self-control, and uncontrolled impulses were considered abhor-
rent and perverted. Fear of homosexuality was rampant, and women
were considered inferiors: physically, intellectually, and emotionally.
Although psychoanalysis was born partially as a reaction to this re-
pressive society, it still carried many of its values. Psychoanalytic theory,
while interested in the deeply unconscious and eroticism in general,
was also concerned with the management and bounding off of energy.
To behave spontaneously in therapy was to “act out.” Any strong irra-
tional feelings (much less sexual ones) on the part of the therapist to-
ward the patient were labeled as countertransference and implied a
failure of method, calling for immediate consultation or a return to one’s
own therapy. No wonder Freud’s impulsive outbreak so troubled him!
Regarding gender in psychotherapy, women were the usual clien-
tele (with hysteria a frequent diagnosis), and men served primarily as
psychotherapists. The relationships were rigid and hierarchical, and
sexual differences were well defined and emphasized, thus reflecting
Victorian values. The interested reader can consult numerous volumes
written concerning Freud’s views about women, both theoretical and
personal (cf. Kerr, 1994). In therapy, as well as in society, women were
viewed as less than men and homosexuality as pathological.
EDITORIAL 3


The 1960s and 1970s

Times change, so much so that by the late 1960s when the Gestalt ap-
proach achieved popularity, we were actively questioning societal rules
and values. There was a disintegration of sexual and social stereotypes.
Fixed hierarchies and rigid structures in relationships were challenged.
Our values included idealism, inner exploration, creative expression,
and the throwing off of societal restraints. One result was the open ex-
pression of affect and the breaking down of sexual barriers (Melnick,
Nevis, and Melnick, 1994).
The therapeutic focus began to shift from within (intrapsychic) to
between (interpersonal), from repression to expression, and from under-
standing to feeling. The goal of therapy also broadened, from the uncov-
ering of neuroses to the working through of issues of intimacy and
connection. Simultaneously, the role of the therapist changed from that
of a scientific and detached clinician to an authentic, transparent, emo-
tional, and at times, self-disclosing therapist.
Gestalt therapy, as part of the anti-establishment and counterculture
movement, shared its distaste for rigid boundaries and hierarchies. It
focused on undoing retroflections, while supporting the full range of
emotional expression. Consequently, the Gestalt approach became as-
sociated with the sexual revolution. As a result, there were many posi-
tive outcomes of sexual exploration within therapy and training. For
example, the shame of many around their sexual, sensual, and physical
selves was diminished.
Unfortunately, there were also many violations leading to pain and
suffering, on the part of both clients and students, deriving from inap-
propriate and abusive behavior on the part of Gestalt therapists and
trainers.
Gender emerged as a powerful issue in the 1960s with the advent of
the Women’s and Gay Rights Movements. It is not surprising that
women and homosexuals always played a significant role as trainers,
writers, theoreticians, and therapists within the Gestalt movement. In
contrast to Victorian times, our culture (at least the liberal-radical end)
deemphasized gender differences and focused on similarities. We not
only attempted to homogenize gender, but also hierarchy (real or imag-
ined), in intimate relationships, be they husband–wife, therapist–pa-
tient, or student–teacher.

The New Millennium

In the new millennium, partially fueled by the AIDS epidemic, a height-

ened awareness of the negatives of too much sexual freedom, and de-
structive use of power—sexual or otherwise—we are once again
4 JOSEPH MELNICK


tightening our sexual boundaries. One could argue that we have moved
from repression and secrecy to openness and back again to repression.
But it is not quite that simple.
In fact, as O’Shea points out in this issue, contemporary society is
caught between two poles. On one level we are more open regarding
attitudes and lifestyle. For example, sex and sexuality are discussed
freely, and sexual inequities are confronted head on, whether in inti-
mate relationships, jobs, sports, or politics. We are more inclusive re-
garding nontraditional family styles and practices. Yet, paradoxically,
there is an equally strong force embracing old style traditional family
values, along with a growing moral conservatism. Our society is often
hyper-alert and punitive in response to even the most mild of bound-
ary violations.
As a society we are also polarized regarding gender. The homogeni-
zation of sexual hierarchies and differences has resulted in greater
sexual freedom, in the increasing popularity of same-sex marriage, the
acceptance of long-term, nonmarital relationships, and as a whole, more
gender equality. Still, many also feel that we have thrown out the baby
with the bath water. They believe that there is something unique that is
lost by viewing gender differences as primarily a social construction.
Furthermore, as Becker points out in this issue, they believe that this
“gender-neutral” voice is not neutral at all, but still largely favoring
the male side of the equation. This important concern for the acknowl-
edgment of basic differences is reflected in the United States by the
popularity of books such as Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
(Gray, 1992).
In terms of therapy and consulting, we are also polarized. On the
one hand we live in the age of managed care, short-term focus, symp-
tom alleviation, and sexual malpractice. In the organizational world
there is a similar focus on fast action and quick outcome. As a result,
there is tremendous pressure to deemphasize the therapeutic relation-
ship. We are also very aware that even the minimal mishandling of
sexual issues can result in severe trauma to our clients, not to mention
the aftereffects on ourselves. To further complicate matters, the deter-
mination of error often resides in the hands of a sometimes righteous
and hyper-vigilant society that is contextually insensitive, litigious, and
quick to judge. To ignore or bracket off sexuality and sexual issues in
the therapeutic session might rob the work of richness, but to err in the
opposite direction appears to be much more dangerous.
On the other hand, there is a tremendous pressure to openly address
issues of sexuality, simply because they are so important in our lives
and our experience of ourselves. This perspective resonates with Ge-
stalt values because our approach is committed to the heightening of
awareness and to helping individuals learn to make contact with oth-
ers in lively and creative ways.
EDITORIAL 5


Ignoring the opportunity to explore some of these deep and inner

forces, erotic sensations, emotions, and behaviors results in the loss of
a wonderful opportunity to grow and change. But even more so it vio-
lates our most sacred ethical values. For if we are not open to exploring
sexual, as well as angry, hurtful, tender, and loving feelings, to name a
few, then can we fully do our jobs? This job entails our being in contact
with ourselves and of engaging our clients, students, and trainees in an
authentic, respectful, and safe encounter. The dilemma is not one of
how we feel in the therapy or consulting hour, but what we do with
these feelings.

Our Current Issue

In this issue I am pleased to feature a dialogue among five therapists,

trainers, and consultants on the subject of sexuality and eroticism in
therapy and training. It is not just a polite conversation, nor should it
be, given how personal and powerful this topic is. Each of the authors
blends perspective with personal experience.
We start with Leanne O’Shea’s ”Sexuality: Old Struggles and New
Challenges” in which she moves between personal, theoretical, and cul-
tural vantage points utilizing a field perspective. Thus sexuality in
therapy and training is viewed as a co-creation—not transference or
countertransference, but co-transference.
O’Shea addresses four dimensions of sexuality: in our wider culture,
in therapy in general, in Gestalt therapy in particular, and personally.
She doesn’t just limit herself to raising issues. She presents her vision
in the form of an outline for an “ideal curriculum” for addressing sexu-
ality in training. Last, she presents a wish to create forums where thera-
pists can talk together as a community about what it is that creates
much of the ground of our work, “our terror, our fears, our desires, our
fantasies, our hopes.”
Four respondents follow O’Shea, each presenting a different perspec-
tive drawn from their experiences as clients, trainers, and therapists.
While agreeing with much of O’Shea, Renate Becker takes her to task
for being gender-biased. She argues against the homogenization of sexu-
ality, resulting in the minimization of sexual differences. She cautions
that the supposed agreed-upon perspective might not represent the
minority. Instead, she advocates the heightening of awareness of these
differences by reintroducing them in our language and discussions.
Charles Bowman looks at the Gestalt approach to sexuality from both
historical and personal perspectives. Personally, he describes his hav-
ing a very different training experience from O’Shea and her peers. In
terms of our history, he reminds us of the larger cultural field. While
not excusing the sexual excesses of many of the first-generation Gestalt
therapists, he questions our movement toward the mainstream. He
6 JOSEPH MELNICK


challenges us to look at not only what is gained, but also what is lost
(such as authenticity), when a revolutionary approach such as ours
becomes more culture-bound.
Peter Thompson’s commentary clearly addresses the differences we
all have reflected in our personal experience of sexuality and gender.
He discusses sexuality from the perspective of a gay man who often
works with gay clients. He is constantly faced with the horrors of AIDS,
in which sex and sexuality are often figural. He suggests that O’Shea
might be practicing “heterosexualism” and assuming that the domi-
nant discourse is “what is.” He argues that it is our training in being
aware of our own process that provides our grounding.
Michael Clemmens, in his discussion of sexuality, emphasizes the
difference between sensation and action, between feeling, expression,
and behavior. He argues that more attention to bodily experience is
needed in the training of Gestalt therapists and supports O’Shea’s sug-
gestion for “resexualizing” our Gestalt training programs. However,
he also reminds us that, unless the trainers are willing to discuss their
own sexuality, enough support will not be created to address this com-
plex subject successfully.
O’Shea, in her response, believes that a major problem in dealing
with sex and sexual identity is that we view them as discreet—as sepa-
rate from the rest of our ongoing (including developmental,
intersubjective, and cultural) experiences. How we hold, manage, and
express our sexuality in relationship to another is the art of therapy.
Finally, she believes that it has been a combination of the objectifica-
tion and the cutting out of eroticism from our essence as human beings
that has generated the current dilemma.
Kevin Prosnick’s “The Relationship Between Reports of Mystical
Experiences and Gestalt Resistance Processes,” in which he empirically
investigates resistance style and mystical experience follows this
series. Attempting to measure these elusive concepts is indeed contro-
versial. For some, even to conceptualize these constructs empirically is
not in keeping with our phenomenological and existential roots. For
others, investigations such as this one are essential in order for our
theory and concepts to have validity in this age of short-term therapy
and managed care. In the present study, Prosnick found, in general,
that individuals whose measured resistance styles were deemed more
excessive and inflexible scored lower on measures of mystical experience.
In a far-ranging essay, “The Land Mines of Marriage: Intergenera-
tional Causes of Marital Conflict,” Theodore Schwartz explores mari-
tal conflicts that are influenced by unresolved and, often unaware, past
relationship experiences. Focusing on incomplete childhood trauma and
transgenerational causes of marital conflict (introjected patterns from
EDITORIAL 7


one’s own parents and grandparents), he demonstrates how they are

destructively played out in marriage. Integrating the work of some of
the pioneers of family therapy such as Bowen and Satir and criticizing
some of the postmodernists, he arrives at a model that is uniquely
Gestalt.
Joseph Zinker, in his commentary, focuses on couplehood, describ-
ing it as a complex third entity. He encourages us to see the couple as a
unit, while at the same time cautioning us not to forget the therapist’s
own transgenerational distortions and how they affect our ability to be
with a couple in a grounded and effective manner.
Ann Teachworth, in her response, describes a sophisticated model
of doing psychotherapy based on inherited marital patterns and also
advocates an intergenerational approach. She agrees with Schwartz that
a couple’s problems are often a result of projection onto the partner of
unfinished business from childhood, which incorporates not only their
relationship with their parents, but aspects of parental relationship
patterns as well.
Schwartz finishes this discussion by first reemphasizing the power
of past transferential patterns. He agrees with Zinker ’s deemphasis of
pathology as a base for working with couples. He ends with a plea for
couples therapists to focus more on the imprinted and transgenerational
process that affects them, the therapists, as they sit with couples and
families.
We are pleased to end this issue with “Back Pages.” As usual, it con-
tains a lively mixture of reviews, poetry, and reports.

References

Gray, J. (1992), Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. New York: Harper-
Collins.
Haynal, A. & Falzeder, E. (1993), Slaying the dragons of past or cooking the
hare in the present: A historical view on affects in the psychoanalytic en-
counter. Psychoanal. Quart., 13:357–371.
Kerr, J. (1994), A Most Dangerous Method. New York: Vintage.
McGuire, W., ed. (1974), The Freud-Jung Letters. Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press.
Melnick, J., Nevis, S. & Melnick, G. (1994), “Therapeutic ethics: A Gestalt per-
spective. Brit. Gestalt J., 3:105–111.
Gestalt Review, 4(1):8–25, 2000

Sexuality: Old Struggles and

New Challenges


L E A N N E O’S H E A

This paper begins by highlighting the degree to which the discussion of

sexuality and its relationship to therapeutic practice has been absent,
both from our literature and from our training programs. The paper then
goes on to suggest that this “silence” may be attributable to a number of
factors in the field, these being the way in which sexuality is under-
stood in the wider cultural field, the history of sexual misconduct in
psychotherapy generally, the place of sexuality in the founding of Ge-
stalt, and the impact of shame in the experience of individuals. The pa-
per then goes on to suggest a range of outcomes and learning conditions
for a Gestalt therapy training program that might contribute to sexual-
ity again becoming a vital component in the training and work of the
Gestalt psychotherapist.

VER THE PAST FEW MONTHS , people have invariably asked me the

O question, “What are you going to speak about at the conference?”

“Sex!” I have responded! It is certainly a response that gets
people’s attention. But why talk about sex? And what exactly is it about
sex, or sexuality, that I want to explore in this paper?
Central to my interest is the question of how we as practitioners and
trainers manage, interact, and deal with, not only the sexuality of our
clients and trainees, but also our own sexuality. In part, my interest has
been provoked by what seems to be an absence of any real discussion,
theoretical or otherwise on this subject. Almost nothing has been writ-
ten by Gestalt practitioners or theoreticians on the subject of sexuality.


Leanne O’Shea is a faculty member of Gestalt Therapy Australia in Melbourne,
Australia. She also runs a private practice and is a student member of G.P.T.I. in the
United Kingdom.
An earlier version of this paper was presented in 1998 at the Inaugural Conference
of GANZ (Gestalt Australia New Zealand) in Fremantle, Australia.

8  2000 The Analytic Press

SEXUALITY 9


In recent years, even the more significant of Gestalt texts have made
only passing reference to sexuality. Carodoc-Davies (1997) and Melnick,
Nevis, and Melnick (1994) are two notable exceptions, while Latner ’s
(1998) more recent article is a wonderfully provocative piece that dares
us to think about sex and love in therapy. However, what is missing is
not so much an articulation of what a Gestalt approach to sexuality
might be, for indeed the idea that there might be one approach is nei-
ther practical nor desirable, but rather an open and lively debate, a
conversation about how our experience and understanding of sexual-
ity impacts the work we do as therapists, trainers, and even clients.
Reflecting on my training in Gestalt psychotherapy, I have been sur-
prised by just how little attention was given to the issue of sexuality. In
over 5 years of training, sexuality, as an individual or group process
issue, emerged explicitly only a handful of times and never as an issue
raised by one of the leaders. As something the client might bring to
therapy, the training tended to focus on the types of presenting prob-
lems people might have, with almost no attention being given to teach-
ing trainees how to talk about sexual issues or problems in ways that
might support, rather than shame, clients. In well over 600 hours of
training, only several hours were given to addressing the specific needs
of clients presenting with a history of sexual abuse. What little theo-
retical input there was reflected a strong heterosexual bias, with no at-
tention being given to the specific therapeutic issues facing gay, lesbian,
or bisexual clients. The issue of erotic transference emerged only inci-
dentally, with erotic countertransference receiving even less attention.
Being sexually attracted to clients and managing that process was some-
thing never talked about within the confines of the training group. The
few discussions I either had or knew of took place over lunch or during
breaks. It was an issue that some trainees were able to explore in super-
vision, but as a specific training issue it remained unacknowledged and
unaddressed. Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the various ethical
codes by which we were bound received what seemed to be a dispro-
portionate degree of attention.
Having raised my concerns with a number of other Gestalt trainers
and trainees, I know that this experience is not unique to the United
Kingdom. Colleagues in Australia and the United States have made
similar observations. So then, as a community of Gestalt therapists,
trainers, and theoreticians, what has become of our sexuality?
I do not believe this “absence” indicates a kind of ambivalence to-
ward sexuality or that sexuality has ceased to be of any importance. Of
the groups I have been involved with in recent years, sexuality has al-
most always been a potent force. As heightened energy, often emerging
as interest, desire, or attraction between members of the group and
10 LEANNE O’SHEA


between trainers and trainees, sexuality has been a powerful force, shap-
ing the processes of the group in particular and often significant ways.
What seems to have been absent in these groups is not so much sex or
sexual energy, but rather the space or support to make its presence and
its power explicit.
On those occasions where people did raise issues relating to sexual-
ity within the context of such groups, the responses and discussions
that followed were frequently shaped by a kind of therapeutic correct-
ness. All too often, sexual attraction, on those rare occassions when it
was acknowledged, was acknowledged by making reference to the ethi-
cal prohibition against sexual intimacy: “Well, yes, I do find you attrac-
tive, but I am bound by a code of ethics and therefore won’t act out on
my feelings in any way.” There is a cautiousness and a defensiveness in
this type of response, which is at odds with Gestalt’s insistence on au-
thenticity. It is also deflective in a way that diminishes energy, discour-
aging both dialogue and any real exploration of process. Also
problematic is the assumption that the restating of an ethical principle
resolves and manages the actuality of sexual attraction. This response
demonstrates the caution and conservatism that has emerged in much
therapeutic practice, perhaps as a consequence of increasing profes-
sional regulation, and is indicative of the fear and mistrust that has
become so pervasive where sexuality and intimacy are at risk of “en-
croaching” the therapeutic relationship.
It would seem that this apparent failure to deal adequately with sexu-
ality has more to do with fear and uncertainty than it does with sexual-
ity having become somehow absent or irrelevant to our interactions.
Nor can it be argued that our apparent silence as psychotherapists is in
some way due to sexuality being unimportant to the people we work
with or the wider cultural field of which we are a part. In so many
respects, Western culture seems utterly obsessed with sex and fraught
by conflict and contradiction as to the meaning of sex, its value, and
the place it has in our collective lives.
I find the polarities fascinating. On the one hand it is evident that
there are attitudes of increasing tolerance and openness, and on the
other there is, indisputably, a growing moral conservatism. While there
seems to be a willingness to embrace diverse models of family and re-
lationships, there is, at the same time, an insistent restating that tradi-
tional family values are the only means of creating a stable society. In
the media, we are witness to an overexposure and exploitation of sexu-
ality that is unprecedented, the tolerance of which seems out of place
when viewed against the increasingly intolerant way individuals guilty
of sexual misconduct are often treated.
SEXUALITY 11


Recently, in the United Kingdom, the House of Commons, by an over-

whelming majority, voted to lower the age of consent for homosexual
sex. The House of Lords then overturned the decision. This conserva-
tism was reflected several weeks later in the decision of the Lambeth
Council to reassert the Church of England’s position against homosexu-
ality. For some it was a decision that reestablished the moral integrity
of the institution; for others it was a decision that consigned the church
to a position of ineptitude and irrelevance. The recent impeachment
proceedings have become a part of presidential history, but the tale of
“Monica and Bill” is one of further contradiction and confusion; ap-
parent moral outrage on the one hand, insatiable appetite for detail on
the other—prudity juxtaposed against voyeuristic obsession.
What sense or meaning are we to make of this and all the other con-
tradictions, polarities, and obsessions that our Western society demon-
strates? It was Freud who suggested that we display outrageously and
obsessively that which we do not fully possess or have deeply at our
disposal (Moore, 1998). As such, it seems not unreasonable to conclude
that if sexuality emerges in ways that seem outrageous, exaggerated,
unseemly, inconsistent, or obsessive, then it may be that what we are in
fact demonstrating is our failure to integrate sexuality into our indi-
vidual and collective lives. If indeed the struggles and contradictions
of our culture reflect a yearning for a sexuality that is more fully inte-
grated, more connected to our sense of self, and for a sexuality that
touches people at their deepest level of need, then our silence as thera-
pists is all the more perplexing.

Silence as a Response to the Field

In raising these issues, I want to open and invite an exploration of what

it is that might be supporting this silence or at least this struggle to
deal with sexuality in ways that are more explicit, more open, and more
comprehensive. In doing so, I want to employ an approach that is field
sensitive. From this perspective the task is not to point out what is
wrong, but to explore what might be “in the field” that supports or
shapes the way our training as Gestalt psychotherapists is or appears
to be. From this position of increased awareness, supporting change
may become more of a realistic possibility (Parlett, 1997).
So, in exploring this question of what is, I want to look at four di-
mensions of the field that may interact and shape the way sexuality
emerges in training and therapeutic work. The first dimension has to
do with sexuality in our wider culture; the second with sexuality in
psychotherapy generally; the third with the impact of our history as
12 LEANNE O’SHEA
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Gestaltists; and the fourth, has to do with the way in which our per-
sonal experience and expressions of sexuality impact the work we do.

Sexuality in the Wider Culture

In recent months, one of my clients has been examining a range of is-

sues centered around her sexuality. As she explored her beliefs, her
introjects, and her desires, a complex and often contradictory picture
emerged. Lingering questions about the appropriateness of sex outside
of marriage sit against a determination to be sexually active without
consenting to the constraints of a traditionally conceived marriage. A
desire to delight in and abandon herself to her own pleasure struggles
against a set of introjects that assert that “good girls don’t.” A profound
longing to embrace her deeply erotic sensuality fights against a narrow
conception of what it means to be beautiful and attractive in this soci-
ety. Embedded even more deeply in her struggle are profound, barely
articulated questions that have to do with gender and power, ques-
tions about what it means to be a woman, and the rules, myths, and the
stories that shape the way she makes contact in the world.
In essence her struggle has been and continues to be to construct an
experience of her sexual self that is coherent, accessible, stable, and
meaningful and that also has the corresponding flexibility to adapt to
her changing desires and needs. It’s no easy task! And it is precisely
this same struggle that underlies any attempt to define, understand, or
even talk about sexuality in our cultural context. Over the past 50 years,
shifts in the meaning and place of sexuality in our culture have been
profound. Conservative attitudes based in religious morality have been
challenged; challenged by the liberal and anarchistic voices that began
to emerge in the 1950s; the social, political, and sexual revolution of the
1960s; and the hedonistic individualism of the 1970s and 1980s—in ef-
fect, a complex and multilayered redefinition and reconfiguration of
values, beliefs, and experiences. In this same period, the emergence of
the women’s movement and its exposure of the inherent sexism and
inequality of patriarchy, together with the widespread availability of
safe and effective contraception gave further impetus to the shift in
values and beliefs.
In many respects, these are all changes that have supported more
tolerant, more open, and more responsible attitudes toward sexuality.
In some parts of the world homosexuality has been decriminalized.
Sexual abuse, especially that of children, is taken seriously, and there is
some recognition of the relationship between power and the violation
of sexual boundaries. But just as there has been a shift toward toler-
ance, so also have we seen a growth in right-wing fundamentalism. As
SEXUALITY 13
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women have sought to redefine themselves, others have argued that

they have done so at the expense of men. In this debate between gen-
ders, there has been much bitterness, a great deal of confusion, and for
some, a sense of hopelessness about the place men have in this post-
1960s, postmodern world.
More pragmatically, the promise of sexual liberation has been dulled
by the specter of HIV and AIDS. For the conservative and right-wing
fundamentalists, the disease has been heralded as a judgment of the
Divine. If so, it could only have been the judgment of a god that had no
capacity for mercy. For even now as the availability of drugs makes the
disease less of a threat than it was, those who live with the inequalities
of wealth suffered by the two-thirds world face a social and economic
disaster that the West would prefer to ignore.
These changes are profound and represent a fundamental restruc-
turing of the cultural field. I think we are only just beginning to inte-
grate and make sense of these shifts. As such, it is perhaps not surprising
that Gestalt theoreticians have said little on the issue of sexuality. Nor
should it surprise us that our clients come with complex and contra-
dictory attitudes toward their own sexuality or that couples present in
ways that mirror what is a wider cultural confusion. Nor should we be
shocked that beneath the political correctness that so readily seems to
manifest itself in training groups, there exist beliefs that are narcissisti-
cally individualistic, homophobic, patriarchal, sexist, exploitative, and
moralistic. More important than the condemnation of such attitudes is
the creation of supported spaces in which they can be exposed and ex-
plored, with the hope that a more integrated and coherent experience
of sexuality and self might emerge.

Psychotherapeutic Field

Without question, the entire psychotherapeutic endeavor of the past

100 years has been instrumental in opening a space in which sexuality
can be explored. However, in several important respects, the practice
of psychotherapy has contributed to the difficulty with which we are
now faced.
It is not possible to explore the issue of sexuality without addressing
the reality of sexual attraction and sexual intimacy between the thera-
pist and the client. Although therapist–client sexual intimacies have
long been considered inappropriate, it is only since the 1970s that there
has been any open acknowledgment of the ways in which this prohibi-
tion has been violated. While there is now compelling evidence that
sexual relationships between the therapist and the client can be very
damaging, it remains an area shrouded in shame, secrecy, and even
14 LEANNE O’SHEA
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self-righteousness, all of which make any discussion of the subject highly

charged and deeply emotive.
However, it would seem that it has been equally difficult to acknowl-
edge the attraction that therapists routinely experience toward their
clients. While the first research findings on therapist–client sex were
not published until 1973, the results of the first surveys focusing on the
sexual attraction of psychologists to their clients were not published
until 1986 (Pope, 1986). Why then has this issue received so little atten-
tion? It cannot be because it hardly ever happens. Research undertaken
by Pope in the late 1980s indicated that 87 percent of their sample ex-
perienced sexual attraction towards their clients. In the same study,
respondents were asked if their training had supported them in terms
of dealing with this phenomena. Over half, 55 percent, indicated that
they had received no training, 24 percent had received very little, 12
percent had received some, and only 9 percent felt the issues had been
given adequate coverage. This survey was conducted among psycholo-
gists, and it may be tempting to think that if the same survey were
conducted among Gestalt practitioners, the results would differ mark-
edly. However, reflecting on my own experience, the figure of 9 per-
cent, as representing adequate coverage of the topic, seems optimistic.
What then might contribute to the issue of therapist–client attrac-
tion being primarily overlooked in training programs, Gestalt or other-
wise? I suspect that we are suffering from a kind of guilt by association.
Certainly, being sexually attracted to a client is not the same as having
sex with them, but in an environment where the risks of misunderstand-
ing, litigation, and even prosecution are increasing, it can only become
harder to find the space to talk about what it might mean to be sexually
attracted to a client and how it might be managed as an issue of the
psychotherapeutic process. Nor can the issue of shame be discounted.
As we become more emphatic in our statements that sexual intimacy
with clients can only be damaging, our response, as we find ourselves
becoming aroused by our clients and fantasizing about what we know
we should not do, is more likely to be one of shame, further contribut-
ing to the silence and secrecy that already surrounds this issue.
Of course, the matter of sexual attraction between client and thera-
pist has not been entirely ignored. A great deal of material has been
written on the process of erotic transference and countertransference.
However, one of the difficulties with the notion of countertransference,
especially when used in the stricter psychoanalytic sense, is that thera-
pists can and do use it as a means of not acknowledging or taking re-
sponsibility for what are their own experiences or proactive
countertransferential responses to the client (Mackewn, 1997). Further-
more, from a field theoretical perspective, I do not believe it is possible
SEXUALITY 15
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to see the transferential process as something that “just” happens to

the therapist because of what the client thinks, feels, or does. It is a co-
created experience, better described by the term co-transference (Sapriel,
1998). As therapists, we cannot afford to ignore what we contribute to
the experience of heightened erotic tension, nor can we fail to take re-
sponsibility for or recognize our reactions as being a part of what we
bring to the process. Little has yet been written about sexuality and co-
transference from this more field-dependent position.
With respect to the wider psychotherapeutic field, I want to make
one other brief comment. I think it’s worth reminding ourselves that it
wasn’t until 1973 that homosexuality was removed as a diagnostic cat-
egory from the American Psychiatric Association. There has continued
to be an attitude toward homosexuality that regards conversion or cure
as the only successful therapeutic outcome (Rosenblatt, 1998). It is a
judgment about what constitutes “normal” behavior that has and con-
tinues to narrow the ways in which we conceive of and respond to is-
sues of sexuality in our practice and psychotherapeutic theory.

Gestalt Field

And what of the history of Gestalt therapy? In what measure has our
history and experience either supported or dissuaded us from dealing
more comprehensively with the matter of sexuality?
Thinking about this I am reminded of an incident that happened sev-
eral years ago. During a training weekend and in one of the breaks, I
passed one of my peers on the stairs, who, in full flight, was waving
around a copy of Gestalt Therapy, announcing, “For sale, for sale . . .
going cheap.” When I asked her why she was selling it, she responded,
saying that Perls was just a “sexist pervert” and that she had no inten-
tion of reading anything written by him. In some respects the comment
came as no surprise. The environment we were in certainly advocated
a view of Gestalt that was heavily biased toward the support end of the
“toughness–tenderness” continuum, and in that environment, Perls’s
more uncompromising attitude toward authenticity was less understood
and respected than it might have been. What surprised me was that her
comment had the flavor of orthodoxy rather than heresy.
Even in spite of the efforts of authors like Clarkson and Mackewn
(1993), who have sought to present a more balanced account of Perls’s
life and work, there remains a persistent desire to cast him out as the
“dirty old man” of Gestalt. Perls has been rather more easy to vilify,
perhaps because his shortcomings were displayed more theatrically,
but his attitude toward sexuality was certainly not unique. Goodman
pursued sexual relationships with his students (Stoehr, 1994). In these
16 LEANNE O’SHEA


more conservative times, I wonder if we really know what to do with

this heritage. Have we been shamed and silenced by our own past?
Have we become afraid of our own potency?
For contemporary students of Gestalt, the approach to training more
directly influenced by the later and often caricatured style of Perls seems
surrounded by mystery and suspicion. There are wild stories, some
probably apocryphal, some probably not, about the strange things that
used to happen in training groups—risky, provocative, and probably
unethical experiments that pushed people to their limits and beyond,
or so any number of students would believe. The truth of what actually
happened during the latter years of the 1970s and 1980s seems far less
accessible, but without doubt people were damaged and indeed con-
tinue to be at risk by a therapeutic style that upholds the needs of the
therapist and the demand for authenticity in the moment, above what
is best for the client.
While I think it remains likely that some of the experiential training
of that period was undertaken without sufficient attention being given
to boundaries or the necessity of providing adequate environmental
support, I suspect that what has been even more damaging was the
failure to be clear that exercises used in training groups for the pur-
pose of raising awareness were not generally appropriate for work with
clients. In more recent years, this lack of discrimination has given rise
to cautiousness and even a fear and suspicion of the more experiential
and experimental style of training and practice. In turn, this seems to
have led to an impoverishing of the experience base available to train-
ees and has led to a narrowing of their therapeutic range.
Faced with an ambiguous history, the potential for ongoing abuse,
and a pervasive fear about the more experimental style of Gestalt as
practiced and learnt by some trainers, an attitude of “therapeutic cor-
rectness” has emerged, although this is not unique to Gestalt. The be-
lief that somehow the adoption of codes of practice will resolve whatever
issues we have around sexuality and our practice as therapists is both
naïve and dangerous. While I understand that ethical guidelines are a
necessary safeguard, I am unsure regarding the degree to which the
imposition of rules is ever successful in preventing undesired behav-
ior. What I am certain about is that rules, on their own, do little to ho-
listically manage the range of feelings that are bound to emerge between
two people in an environment that is intense and often intimate.

Personal Field

Inevitably, how we manage sexuality in both the training and thera-

peutic context will be shaped by the way in which sexuality is config-
SEXUALITY 17
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ured in our own lives. For some people the issue of sexuality barely
emerges. I recall a particular training weekend where, for me at least,
sexuality had figured prominently in the various interactions between
people. Toward the end of the weekend, I expressed my surprise that,
despite its obviousness, no overt acknowledgment had been made of
the emergent sexuality of the group. I commented, “This is the most
sexual weekend we’ve ever had.” One group member looked at me
somewhat incredulously and said, “Do you think so?” He had not ex-
perienced the weekend in the same way. He simply did not see the sexu-
ality that was present, and in many ways, his own sexuality was not
present in the group. The same thing can happen with client work. Is-
sues of sexuality might be present, or the client’s sexuality may be alive
in the therapeutic work, but to a large extent the capacity of the thera-
pist to recognize this will be dependent on the therapist’s own rela-
tionship with his or her sexuality. At the other end of the polarity,
therapists may oversexualize, configure everything around their sexu-
ality. A more ideal position is one in which sexuality is neither excluded
nor overemphasized. However, our capacity to be choiceful about sexu-
ality and how it emerges in our work will depend on how we have
managed these issues for ourselves.
Of those issues that impact how sexuality is organized in our own
lives, the presence of shame is perhaps the most potent. Shame and
sexuality are deeply and inextricably tangled, both culturally and at
the deepest level of self. The ease with which we are able to contact our
sexuality, our ability to experience desire or pleasure, and our aware-
ness of sexual energy will all be shaped by the way in which shame and
sexuality have become entwined in our patterns of self-organization.
Indeed, the way we understand and give meaning to sexuality is itself
deeply embedded with issues of shame and beliefs about what is right
and wrong. This whole area is one that deserves more urgent attention.

Finding Ways of Moving Forward

All of these factors, or conditions of the field, interact, making sexual-

ity less easy to deal with openly, directly, experientially, and creatively.
So, what might a training course look like if it were to take a different
approach?
Over these past months, I have spent time reflecting on training pro-
grams and have thought about what has been missing, what has been
avoided, what has been included, what has been useful, and what might
be different. As a part of that process, I have come up with an outline of
what I personally feel to be important training outcomes and necessary
learning conditions. It is an ideal list, and for that I make no apology.
18 LEANNE O’SHEA
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Whether or not it is possible to cover such a broad and comprehensive

range of issues is open to debate; whether or not it is necessary is, I
believe, less debatable. Issues of sexuality are so fundamental to our
experience of self that I think we exclude or minimize them at our own
peril. Either way, this list serves as a point of reference and a way of
highlighting what might be either missing or already included in cur-
rent training courses.

Outcomes and Learning Conditions for a Gestalt Training Program

Trainees need to be educated about sex.
Trainees need to be sufficiently educated about sex. It is important that
they have a good understanding of sexual function and be able to deal
with and manage basic issues of sexual dysfunction that clients are likely
to present with. This means being able to recognize when a problem
might require medical or other specialist intervention, while also main-
taining an openness to explore what other meanings a particular prob-
lem might suggest or symbolize. It also means being informed about
the wide range of sexual practices that people engage in, while also
having the space and support in training to explore and examine per-
sonal responses and prejudices to sexual practices and preferences that
fall outside of the trainees’ own. Trainees also need to be aware of the
complex web of practices and beliefs that sexuality can generate, while
at the same time not being naive about the inexperience or difficulties
faced by some people.

Trainees must have the ability to talk about sex openly and easily with
people who do not normally talk about sex, sexual problems, or sexual
pleasure.
The ability to talk about sex in a way that is open and easy and without
obvious self-consciousness is a critically important skill and not one
that comes without practice. Role-playing exercises provide trainees
with useful and often humorous opportunities for developing these
skills. In a recent workshop, I was role-playing a rather shy and embar-
rassed girl who eventually admitted that she didn’t really know what
oral sex was. My well-meaning but inexperienced therapist just about
fell off her chair laughing. It was a human enough response, but one
that may not have been so useful in the therapeutic situation.

Trainees need to be able to understand, speak about, and work within

the complex web of erotic co-transference.
Erotic transference, particularly between male therapists and female
clients, has received considerable attention, particularly in the psycho-
SEXUALITY 19


analytic literature. But as I have already indicated, I think there are

some dangers in seeing transference as something the client does, while
countertransference is the therapist’s response. Understanding the
transference process from a field perspective means seeing it not as a
cause and effect phenomena, but as a function and consequence of the
therapeutic relationship itself.

Trainees will also understand that transferential eroticism emerges

naturally in relationships with authority figures (i.e., trainers,
supervisors, and therapists), and both appreciate and accept that what
is easily triggered in such environments may include sexual longings,
seductiveness, and promiscuity.
In teaching people about the transferential process, I believe that we
need to be explicit, openly acknowledging that erotic transference is
something that happens naturally as a part of the relationship process
and that it is more likely to happen in relationships where the power
balance is not equal. While I think we are more adept at acknowledg-
ing this reality in the client/therapist relationship, I think we have been
less clear that this attraction also emerges, somewhat routinely, in the
trainer/trainee and supervisory relationship.
If we are to give support to the idea that erotic transference is some-
thing that happens as a consequence of the co-created relationship, then
the risk of shaming or humiliating trainees who find themselves “in
love” with their trainers will be diminished. Making this process ex-
plicit also serves to remind trainers that the attention they sometimes
receive comes not just because of who they are, but because of the posi-
tions they hold, and that as such they or we have a responsibility to
hold certain boundaries.

In a safe and supported training group, trainees will have the oppor-
tunity to explore what happens in an intense learning environment
where energy rises and is eroticized. They will be able to talk about
and process their feelings, responses, and desires in ways that avoid
acting out.
At least from a theoretical perspective, Gestalt offers some very useful
ways of understanding sexuality. Most simply, sexuality can be de-
scribed as energy. The cycle of awareness describes the flow of energy—
how it is blocked, how it is managed, and how to hold or increase energy
and excitement at certain points. As such, training groups provide places
in which this flow of energy can be explored. What can be made ex-
plicit in this setting is the process of eroticization, where energy rises to
the point where it becomes sexual. By focusing on this process, trainees
are given important opportunities to explore and become aware of their
20 LEANNE O’SHEA


own reactions and responses. They can, provided the group is suffi-
ciently safe and that the necessary boundaries are maintained, explore
and learn how to stay with their increased or eroticized energy, and
that they learn to choose options other than those of acting out or with-
drawing, both of which are responses to arousal that can be unhelpful
or even damaging in the therapeutic relationship.
Also of value is the opportunity to develop a greater degree of aware-
ness of individual contact styles in relation to sexuality. For instance,
the important question is not “Do I retroflect my sexuality?” but rather,
“What situations are likely to trigger a more retroflective response, and
will this be helpful?” “In what circumstances am I likely to express my
sexuality, and what impact will this have?’ This way of mapping con-
tact styles against the various polarities in relation to sexuality is a very
useful way of understanding and describing how it is that individuals
respond in differing circumstances.

In the training group, trainees will have the opportunity to acknowl-

edge and explore their own sexual responses to clients.
If 86 percent of therapists find themselves sexually attracted to their
clients at some point (Pope, 1986), then I think the training group is the
place where this needs to be acknowledged. The research suggests that
when sexual attraction to clients is not acknowledged in the training
process, trainee therapists can end up experiencing shame, guilt, inad-
equacy, and distress. Such feelings may encourage a therapist to look
for support in supervision, but they may not. Shame can lead to in-
creased isolation and withdrawal, and if these issues are only raised in
the relative privacy of supervision, then what is lost is a collective ac-
knowledgment that this is something that happens to most of us.

The training environment must necessarily be one in which sexual

favors do not flow to trainers or supervisors.
There is some suggestion in the research (Pope 1986) that trainees who
have experienced a training environment where sexual boundaries be-
tween trainers and trainees were either unclear or crossed are more
likely to cross those same boundaries with their own clients. Even if
this is not the case, the environment that is created when trainers are
unclear about their boundaries or when in fact they choose to engage
in sexual relationships with their students is one that is often full of
fear, competition, and jealousy. Such groups can end up being very con-
flicted and divided, and invariably, they lack enough safety or support
to deal with or resolve what is happening in the group.
SEXUALITY 21
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Trainees need to understand and take responsibility for the power

differential that necessarily exists in the therapeutic relationship and
the implications that this has for intimacy, nurture, and abuse.
Despite what might be our desires to the contrary, most of our training
institutes are structured, if not by intention, then at least by practice on
models that are essentially hierarchical. Trainees, for a variety of rea-
sons, are almost always in a position of having less power than those
who train them. The same is also true of the relationship between client
and therapist, and these differences in power have critical implications
for the possible emergence of intimacy. While it is not uncommon for
us to think about the therapeutic relationship as being an intimate rela-
tionship, it is arguable whether in fact it can be described in this way.
Melnick and Nevis (1994) argue that genuine intimacy emerges between
two people within the context of a long-term relationship where there
is an experience of power being balanced over time. Clearly, within the
therapeutic relationship, the therapist is in the position of having more
power, and while this increases the therapist’s capacity to provide nur-
ture, it also increases the capacity for abuse. However, what is possible
in therapeutic and training relationships are moments that are intimate.
At such times, the boundaries and power differences that normally ex-
ist collapse or are momentarily transcended. Sadly, such moments can
and have led therapists to ignore the power differential that does and
must continue to exist, and in some instances the abdication of profes-
sional responsibility has led to either the emotional or sexual abuse of
clients.

Trainees will have learned to use important contact functions like

touch in ways that are ethical and in ways that do not risk misunder-
standing or litigation.
Unspoken prohibitions against touch and against the deepening of in-
timacy do not remove the longing or the need for such contact, either
in training or in therapy. Touch can be a potent healing force. But in
this climate where misunderstanding and litigation are real risks, touch
as a legitimate therapeutic strategy has become deeply problematic.
How to work within the very real constraints that face us both cultur-
ally and legally, without compromising what we have to offer, is a real
challenge and one that deserves more thought and a good deal more
exploration in our training programs.
This “climate of fear” has impacted training courses in other ways. I
have heard people comment that by the end of their training they knew
the most incredibly intimate details of each other ’s lives. What they
22 LEANNE O’SHEA


didn’t know was each other ’s last names. Of the training I have done
more recently, I would have to say that the opposite has been true. In
most cases I have had a full address list of group participants before
the course started. However, there are people I have trained with whom
I have never touched and details of people’s lives of which I have no
knowledge. It is a professionalized approach to training that doesn’t
require the substance of peoples’ stories or life journeys, but it may
also be a defense against the kind of risks detailed above. Without doubt,
it is an approach to training that is deeply impoverished as a result.

Trainees will have experienced an approach to training that, rather

than supporting an assumed understanding of what is normal sexual
practice, will acknowledge its own bias and will have sought to create
an atmosphere in which values, beliefs, assumptions, and prejudices
about sexual practice can be brought into individual awareness and
made available to the group as a whole.
The problem with political correctness is that it leaves little or no space
for us to own or even acknowledge the very un-politically correct
thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that lurk somewhere in our souls. We
need to give space for the expression of these less acceptable parts of
our selves, thereby encouraging integration rather than further split-
ting or desensitization.

Trainees will need to understand the current climate around sexuality

and therapy.
I simply want to highlight the importance of being aware of the wider
field of which we are a part, so that we can be attentive to ways in
which it may be contributing to how we work and give meaning to
experience. At least one of the important issues that we need to give
some thought to is that of gender. I suspect that our thinking, our train-
ing, and our practice are gendered in ways that we have not yet even
begun to realize.

Concluding Remarks

Rather than feel daunted by this list, I feel excited by the possibilities it
suggests. I believe that Gestalt inherently lends itself to working with
sexuality in ways that can be both transformative and liberating. Some
of what needs to be done has to do with making explicit things that are
already or have already been a part of our Gestalt tradition. However,
there is also much new and exciting work to be done. Also important,
SEXUALITY 23


in the face of increasing professional regulation, is the need to find a

way back to a more experientially based style of training. As various
Gestalt training institutions have sought accreditation with universi-
ties, the balance between the more traditional didactic styles of learn-
ing and the more experientially based training methods has become
harder to maintain. As Gestalt finds its way forward in this increas-
ingly academic climate, it may be that it needs to rediscover its anar-
chistic roots and ask whether or not institutions can continue to be or
even become subversive.
But having made the case that sexuality deserves more attention in
training courses and supervisory practice than it does at present, it needs
to be acknowledged that there are other issues of importance that re-
main neglected or receive a good deal less attention than might be use-
ful. The time constraints and economic limitations that are necessarily
a part of training programs means that choices do need to be made
about what is taught in depth and what receives only fleeting atten-
tion. I am not wanting either to dismiss or overlook these difficulties.
What I am suggesting is that, as trainers, supervisors, and therapists,
we do need to remain mindful of what is missing. If it is that we rarely
talk about money or tend only to talk about what we charge and how
such charges can be justified without any rigorous examination of the
Western middle-class assumptions that might shape our attitudes, then
I would argue that something is missing from our conversation. The
same can be said of our thinking about death and, more particularly,
suicide and euthanasia. Time constraints aside, these are not issues dealt
with easily or simply. In different ways, conversations about money
and death have the capacity to touch us at our deepest level, pushing
well beyond our practiced rhetoric. But as trainers, how might we en-
courage such conversations about money or the sense that we make of
death or even the social and political responsibility that we share as
therapists?
Perhaps one response is to encourage students to read more broadly.
Irving Yalom’s books, for instance, Love’s Executioner (1991) and Lying
on the Couch (1997), both open for examination the “less than perfect”
inner world of the therapist. Becker ’s book, The Denial of Death (1973),
is a forceful reminder of the existentialism that is so fundamental to the
roots of Gestalt psychotherapy. It is also a timely challenge to the medi-
cal models that are becoming so dominant, both in terms of how courses
are funded and the way therapy itself is increasingly paid for or
subsidized.
But while making changes to the content of training courses may go
some of the way to opening up a space in which these conversations
can occur, I suspect that it will only go part of the way in addressing
24 LEANNE O’SHEA


the problem. How could it be otherwise? Continuing conversations,

honest confrontational dialogue about the work we are engaged in as
therapists and trainers, is, I believe, the work of a training community.
When we are able to move away from models of therapy that train in-
dividuals to work in semi-isolation, toward a vision of a therapeutic
community that holds as central the support and nurture of its mem-
bers and the work they do, it may then be possible for such conversa-
tions to emerge, and they will emerge not as a necessity of the
curriculum, but more as an essential support to the work in which the
community is engaged. We can change our teaching practices and con-
tinue to struggle with the constraints of time and the choices it imposes,
but when as a community of therapists we can sit and talk together
about what it is that matters—our terror, our fears, our desires, our
fantasies, our hopes—then, and perhaps only then, is the possibility
for change and healing likely to emerge.
And so to end where I began. I believe we live in a world that has a
deep longing to be reconnected and access the kind of sexuality that
enlivens, liberates, and fills life up with richness and pleasure. But I
also think we live in a world unsure of how to do this. If we take seri-
ously the notion that support in the field for change allows for the pos-
sibility of change, then as a therapeutic community, our voices, our
practice, and the way in which we understand and give meaning to
and value to the expression of sexuality could be that support that will
create the conditions for change. Correspondingly our ability to take
hold of and integrate sexuality more fully may well be that which al-
lows it to become a reality for the wider community of which we are a
part.

References

Becker, E. (1973), The Denial of Death. New York, Simon & Schuster.
Carodoc-Davies, G. (1997), Professional sexual boundaries. Austral. Gestalt J.,
1:48–54.
Clarkson. P. & Mackewn, J. (1993), Fritz Perls. London: Sage.
Latner, J. (1998), Sex in therapy. Brit. Gestalt J., 7:136–138.
Mackewn, J. (1997), Developing Gestalt Counseling. London: Sage.
Melnick, J. & Nevis, S. N. (1994), Intimacy and power in long term relation-
ships: A Gestalt therapy-systems perspective. In On Intimate Ground: A Ge-
stalt Approach to Working with Couples, ed. G. Wheeler & S. Backman. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, pp.
  & Melnick, G. N. (1994), Therapeutic ethics: A Gestalt perspec-
tive. Brit. Gestalt J., 3:106–113.
Moore, T. (1998), The Soul of Sex. New York: Harper Collins.
Parlett, M. (1997), The unified field in practice. Gestalt Rev., 1:16–32.
SEXUALITY 25


Pope, K. S. (1986), Sexual attraction of Clients: The human therapist and the
(sometimes) inhuman training system. Amer. Psychol. 41:147–158.
 Stone, J. L. & Holroyd, J. (1993), Sexual Feelings in Psychotherapy. Wash-
ington, D.C. American Psychological Association.
Rosenblatt, D. (1998), Gestalt and homosexuality. Brit. Gestalt J., 7:8–17.
Sapriel, L. (1998), Intersubjectivity, self-psychology, and Gestalt. Brit. Gestalt
J., 7:33–44.
Stoehr, T. (1994), Here Now and Next. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Yalom, I. D. (1991), Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy. London:
Penguin.
 (1997), Lying of the Couch: A Novel. London: Harper.

Gestalt Therapy Australia

18 Glenlyon Road
Brunswick, VIC, 3056
Australia
email: leanne@gestalt.cc
Gestalt Review, 4(1):26–28, 2000

La femme n’éxiste pas ( Jacques Lacan):

L’homme non plus1


R E N A T E B E C K E R, Ph.D.

HIS ARTICLE BY LEANNE O ’ SHEAseems long overdue. Well written and

T well argued, she manages to address the dilemmas of “Sexual

ity: Old Struggles and New Challenges” without falling into the
trap of narrowing it down to “easy answers” or moralistic solutions.
On the contrary, this article opens up and challenges and could itself
become that which she would like to support: the beginning of a lively
debate.
I agree totally with her that Gestalt therapists, after much sexual
experimenting in the beginning of Gestalt, have shifted to the other
end of the spectrum. We have either ignored sexuality altogether or
have become so interested in the creation and application of ethical
codes that we have stifled anything remotely to do with sexuality. She
argues also that our field has become more sexual than ever—oscillat-
ing between prudity and voyeuristic obsession—and she finds the si-
lence of psychotherapists somewhat surprising. Then, after a long, and
by her own account, idealist list of issues concerning sexuality that need
to be addressed in a training context, she concludes that “Gestalt in-
herently lends itself to working with sexuality in ways that can be both
transformative and liberating.”
Well, I beg to differ. I think that if we don’t allow for the possibility
that our theory and practice is as gender-biased as many other forms of
psychotherapy, we will not come to grips with the dilemmas that we
are faced with. Before I elaborate further on this point of gender bias,
using my own experience, let me quote a remark from a book recently
published in Germany. The author looks at the beginnings of Gestalt


Renate Becker, Ph.D. has been a Gestalt therapist, training and supervisor for more
than 15 years. Her particular interest has been in the field of philosophy and gender
and she has published numerous articles in both German and English.
1
A rough translation is: “Women Don’t Exist; Men Don’t Either.”

26  2000 The Analytic Press

LA FEMME N’ÉXISTE PAS 27


therapy in the United States and talks about sexual encounters between
trainers (male) and trainees (female). So far so good. This is part of our
“Gestalt history” and we have to deal with it. However, the way he did
it was to say, “Well, this is what happened, and it hasn’t done anyone
any harm.” My outrage is partly in response to the sheer ignorance of
this statement, but more so that something like this can be said in 1997.
Maybe this example is particularly gross, but it felt nevertheless fa-
miliar: a male voice defining female reality, without a hint of a doubt
and without a glimmer of awareness about his own partiality. Looking
back on my training, I experienced a similar undercurrent throughout.
I don’t think that my trainers were particularly sexist; they just oper-
ated within a field that has sacrificed sexual difference on the alter of
“humankind.” And let there be no misunderstanding: I am not advo-
cating a position where women are simply the victims of a patriarchal
culture and men have all the benefits. Nor am I suggesting that we
walk the well-trodden path of biology, that is to say, women are, just by
virtue of being women, more aware. The position I am suggesting is
that both men and women are, at this point in time, “products” of a
culture, a language that does not reflect sexual difference at all. Instead,
it has successfully unified both into something that is supposedly iden-
tical with the male position, yet that does not, however, represent man
as a sexual being. Abstractions and generalizations have subsumed both
sexes. In light of the above, which in this context had to be somewhat
reduced, there is no such thing as a unified field. Every field is a
“gendered” field (the title of a book published by GIC Press last year).
Very little, if any, attention is given to this fact.
Let us take another “cornerstone” of Gestalt therapy, the I–thou re-
lationship. I do think we need to think and write differently about the
dialogic relationship, that is, include sexual identity. This is because,
up to now, there has been a discrepancy between the content, which
talks about an incomplete “I” that needs a “thou” in order to fully be-
come an “I,” and the formal structure of discourse, which implies very
much the opposite. The structure of our discourse no longer contains
the sexual distinctness of the speaker but, instead, produces an artifi-
cial, abstract other. It would seem to me that every text dealing with
dialogic relationship needs to reintroduce sexuality explicitly. If that
were done, we could create a space, an in-between where desire could
be at home. This desire can only exist within an awareness of one’s
own sexual identity, where the “I” experiences itself as incomplete,
through a fully owned need for a relational other. This “I” would truly
desire to contact the other in a real meeting, since it could not produce
the other by reason or abstract logic from within itself. The acknowl-
edgment of and identification with one’s own sexual position would
render every hierarchy and every domination of the other superfluous.
28 RENATE BECKER


Although these last thoughts include wishes and hopes for the fu-
ture, I do believe strongly that we need to look at the theory and prac-
tice of Gestalt, not with the underlying assumption that somehow
Gestalt is inherently more equipped to deal with sexuality and its as-
sumptions but, instead, as a product of our time. We do have the po-
tential to reverse the title of the essay, so that woman and man can
exist, but this requires the acknowledgment of our starting point.

Meinekestr. 8
10719 Berlin
Germany
Gestalt Review, 4(1):29–31, 2000

Commentary on Leanne O’Shea’s

“Sexuality: Old Struggles and
New Challenges”


C H A R L E S B O W M A N, M.S.

FIND THIS WORK TO BE EXCITING ,promising, and at times, troubling. I

I was initially reluctant to delve into what seemed a discourse where

“the Gestalt approach to sexuality” would emerge and quickly be
shelved with the compendium of other “Gestalt and” approaches. Her
call for dialogue and lively debate provided the salve necessary to re-
quite my fears, opening my ears to the discussion of sexuality as a po-
tent and often neglected figure in Gestalt therapy training.
As Ms. O’Shea reflected upon her training, I remembered my own
initial training. This was my first understanding of sexuality as inher-
ent in our being, and I realized that my academic training fell far short
of adequate. It certainly had not included sharing and processing my
own sexuality in terms of sexual energy and presence! I remember cre-
ating a “sexual timeline.” This was a daunting task. We spent many
hours processing this experience in the training group. My greatest
growth came through the acceptance by the group and the trainers of a
sexual history that I found embarrassing and full of shame. What I
learned most as a neophyte Gestalt therapist was the respect and sup-
port necessary for an authentic exploration of here-and-now sexuality
and honest discovery of unfinished business. Clinical understanding
followed.
Perhaps Ms. O’Shea’s training experience occurred more recently
than my own. The Gestalt training to which I am referring occurred in
the early 1980s, on the heels of the “let it all hang out” generation. This
was before false memory syndrome, political correctness, and the siege


Charles Bowman is Past President of the Association for the Advancement of
Gestalt Therapy and is currently Co-President of the Indianapolis Gestalt Institute.

29  2000 The Analytic Press

30 CHARLES BOWMAN


of rampant moralism that today promises to bring even the most re-
spectful inquiry into sexuality under scrutiny and inquisition.
“Therapeutic correctness” is indeed at odds with authenticity and
is many times deflective. That Gestalt therapy would move toward this
pole is unremarkable, as we are the microcosm reflecting the macro-
cosm. What is troubling is that, perhaps as a consequence of profes-
sional regulation and cultural moralism, we would desire to be accepted
into the mainstream! The powerful effects of the wider cultural field on
our intimate relationships and our sexuality are more fully explored in
Michael Vincent Miller ’s (1995) Intimate Terrorism, and I recommend
this work as a means of understanding the effects of the cultural field
upon our training programs.
Gestalt therapy introduced into the field of psychotherapy a bom-
bastic approach to rejecting cultural values that stifle authenticity and
an infusion of anarchical values in their place. Gestalt therapy also con-
tributed a history replete with examples of inappropriate therapist
sexual behavior considered unethical by today’s standards (if not by
any standards). The stories of Fritz’s antics have often become the lore
and excitement of our verbal tradition. Whether it be Perls’s,
Goodman’s, or the sexual acting out of any other Gestalt trainer, this
behavior cannot be subsumed under the hubris of authenticity. The
professional ethics of the 1950s and 1960s were background to most
practitioners of psychotherapy, regardless of whether or not some Ge-
stalt therapists chose to value them. I echo Ms. O’Shea’s wondering
whether or not we really know what to do with this heritage although
we seem to approach the issue from different perspectives.
I disagree with her assertion that what actually happened in the 1970s
and 1980s is “far less accessible” because there are several accounts
published (Shepherd, 1975; Gains, 1979). Perls himself identified with
the character of a bum (“dirty old man” [sic]) in his autobiography
(Perls, 1969). Of course, there are many Gestalt trainers from whom we
could get first-hand accounts if we were only to ask.
I believe these comments complement the “four dimensions of the
field” that Ms. O’Shea outlines (wider culture, personal culture, psy-
chotherapy culture, and Gestalt culture). Two contributions that seem
to have been overlooked in our Gestalt culture are Sexual Aliveness
(Smith, 1987) and “Gestalt Therapy and Erotic Disturbances of the Con-
tact Boundary” (Alexander, and Kopple, 1997). At least as important as
the issue of sexuality is the new challenge of researching our processes
and issues from a “field-dependent approach.” I want to applaud this
effort. I am challenged by this work to continue exploring the effects of
the larger field on Gestalt therapy.
COMMENTARY ON O’SHEA’S ARTICLE 31


I hope to hear more from the author in regard to at least two intense
and provocative statements she has offered. First, the phrase “prudity
juxtaposed against voyeuristic obsession” has a poetic ring of truth that
captures the poles of the field across all dimensions. Second is the state-
ment, “If our culture yearns for a more integrated sexuality, then our
silence as therapists is all the more perplexing.”
I am left to ponder several questions. Is Gestalt therapy becoming
regulated as an industry? If Gestalt therapy is polarizing toward prudity,
what next? Finally, as a Gestalt trainer, how can I rediscover the elan
vital imparted to me by my trainers during a time when freedom was
more figural than moralism in our culture?

References

Alexander, D. & Kopple, G. (1997), Gestalt therapy and erotic disturbances of

the contact boundary. Presentation at the Third Annual Conference of the
Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy.
Gains, J. (1979), Fritz Perls Here and Now. Millbrae, CA: Celestial Arts.
Miller, M. V. (1995), Intimate Terrorism. New York: Norton.
Perls, F. S. (1969), In and Out of the Garbage Pail. New York: Bantam Books.
Shepard, M. (1975), Fritz. New York: Bantam Books.
Smith, E. W. L. (1987), Sexual Aliveness. New York: McFarland & Company.

Indianapolis Gestalt Institute

9292 North Meridian Street, #311
Indianapolis, IN 46260
Gestalt Review, 4(1):32–34, 2000

Commentary on Leanne O’Shea’s Article

“Sexuality: Old Struggles and
New Challenges”


P E T E R T H O M P S O N, Ph.D.

S. O ’ SHEA ’ S ARTICLE STATES

the obvious: there is an absence of

M adequate discussion regarding sexuality. But I believe this is

not obvious for all communities of psychotherapists, and I do
not agree that greater attention to the issue in training programs will
provide much of a solution. Just as I would argue that it is not the lack
of attention to sexuality in training programs that has been a part of
causing the problem in the first place.
As a gay man and a psychologist spending a good deal of my time
with gay men, I have not had the luxury of avoiding sexual issues.
Confronted by clients with HIV, the discussion of sex and sexual be-
havior is critical. I have had to face my own shame and prejudices in
order to deal effectively and compassionately with those that have come
to me frightened, ill, and, too often, dying. Talk to almost any gay or
lesbian counselor and I believe you will not discover much shyness
about sex. Indeed, it is indicative of a bit of heterosexism in Ms. O’Shea’s
argument that she does not, first, know that the condition of sexual
discussion is quite different in our community, and second, that she
does not think to suggest that there might be something for hetero-
sexual therapists to learn from us by seeking us out for supervision or
consultation.
Sex is messy. Talking about sex is complicated, in part because rarely
are we simply taking about sex. It is a grand metaphor. We all know
this. And it also isn’t a metaphor. So, no easy answers. In addition, my
experience is that there is little correlation between therapist sex edu-
cation regarding sexual functioning and being able to deal with the
client right in front of me who is struggling (unless the client is simply


Peter Thompson, Ph.D., is a member of the American Psychological Association
and on the faculty of the Gestalt Institute of Seattle.

32  2000 The Analytic Press

COMMENTARY ON O’SHEA’S ARTICLE 33


struggling because of a lack of solid sex education). I may have to sit

with someone listening actively and deeply for some time before it be-
comes apparent what is really being talked about. And I may be talking
with my client about sex without ever using the words. I agree that we
can all hide out in rules and regulation; there are lots of other ways to
hide out. Sometimes I need to hide out until I have a clearer sense of
what is going on in front of me. I am certain that it is also sometimes
good for my clients to hide out, to be inauthentic (which must be in-
cluded in being authentic or the concept means nothing). Judging when
it is best to do what is always in the moment, fraught with error and,
hopefully, apology if necessary. It will never be easy to talk about sex,
just as it will never be easy to talk about anything which goes to the
heart of our work.
The very best way we learn to open to ourselves and our clients is
through our own therapy, to begin with, and if finished with that for
the time being, through competent and demanding supervision or con-
sultation. But, bottom line, we probably won’t make use of these set-
tings to talk about sex, or I would argue other threatening issues, unless
something wakes us up. Like a client saying, “I would like to make
love to you,” or a client painfully trapped in compulsive sexual behav-
ior, or a sudden awareness that as this client’s therapist you are receiv-
ing more consideration from him or her than you are from your spouse/
partner (of course, the consideration can always be washed away in
“countertransference”). We need to keep awake and doing so requires
a discipline akin to that of the Buddhist monk or the Christian practic-
ing contemplative prayer.
It is precisely this need to stay awake (aware) that my own training
in Gestalt therapy stressed, relentlessly. While we may not have talked
about sex (though sometimes we did), I did learn about my human pro-
cess. Staying as true as I have been able to this process has helped me
grasp what is before me to see. It is the words about my own process
repeated, often more than I thought I needed to hear them, by my thera-
pist/mentor Marrie Creelman that come back to me now when I sit
down with another human being. I don’t recall that we ever talked about
sex much but, nonetheless, I learned a great deal about it.
I believe what we really need to take up in our training programs,
and after them, are some of the very tough notions which fill the back-
ground of sex/sexual expression. Space dictates that I select only one,
but I think a critical one: the notion that there is a power imbalance
between therapist and client, skewed in the direction of the therapist.
Yes, certainly sometimes, in some contexts, but not always and
especially not always when it comes to sex/sex issues. Just as Ms. O’Shea
argues that we need to pay attention to when and under what
34 PETER THOMPSON


circumstances we will “retroflect” our sexuality, so we need to pay much

more considered attention to this notion regarding power.
Finally, it is our existential heritage that leads us not to deduce any-
thing from an idea or notion. We want to avoid making categories and
then fitting everything into them. We know that the more stereotyped a
notion becomes, the harder it is for us to adapt ourselves to it and that
any successful adaptations cost us our spontaneity, our liveliness. We
also accept that human fate includes the impossibility of existing with-
out notions. We can, however, deconstruct them.
It is too simple a notion to say that there is insufficient discussion of
sexuality, especially when it is not true for all of us, and then propose
training as the correction for a “problem” which may not be the actual
“problem” after all.

1162 15th Ave. E

Seattle, WA 98112
Gestalt Review, 4(1):35–37, 2000

Response to Leanne O’Shea’s Article

“Sexuality: Old Struggles and
New Challenges”


M I C H A E L C R A I G C L E M M E N S, Ph.D.

to find many of the questions and

I
WAS PLEASED AS I READ THIS ARTICLE
concerns that occur for me about sexuality in my work as therapist
and trainer. O’Shea’s discussion of the place of sexuality in the thera-
peutic field is long overdue. In training students, I have observed the
conservatism and silence about sexuality that she refers to in her article.
While in agreement with many of her comments, I want to respond
to O’Shea’s discussion of authenticity and sexuality with trainees and
clients. Second, I want to elaborate the importance of attending to bodily
experience as the fundamental contact point of sexuality.

Authentic and Cautious

O’Shea points to therapist tendency to be cautious and less than

authentic in responding to client’s statement of mutual attraction. What
I disclose about my sexuality is based not only on my own comfort
level, but on other field conditions (the length of time we have worked
together, the client’s history, and their contact functioning). In my own
practice I work with many clients who have been sexually abused or
taken advantage of by those in power. At times we discuss mutual
attraction, but my emphasis in doing this is in the service of the client,
not just in what feels good, right, or honest to me. I am cautious and
curious about the impact on my client of my discussion of mutual


Michael Clemmens, Ph.D. is a psychologist/bodyworker in private practice, teaching
at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and elsewhere, both nationally and internationally.

35  2000 The Analytic Press

36 MICHAEL CRAIG CLEMMENS


attraction. The part of the field that O’Shea does not acknowledge is
our cultural tendency to move from sensation to action, where feeling
sexually attracted can lead to immediate intimacy. I find myself work-
ing with clients and trainees to normalize sexual feelings while valu-
ing the distinction between feelings and acting, being sexual, and
verbally expressing sexual feelings. These are all choice points for both
of us.

Body and Sexuality

My experience is that, unless I am aware of my own sensations, body

movements, and energy flow, I will tend to identify whatever occurs as
being about the client. My goal in working with trainees is to help us
be aware of ourselves in our bodies, at this moment, with each other. This is
the phenomenological ground of sexuality. This attention to bodily
experience is sorely lacking in the training of most Gestalt therapists. It
is one means to accomplish what O’Shea is suggesting and needs to be
part of the training and supervision of trainees.

“Sometimes you have to touch, to be in touch”—Tom Cutolo, faculty

member Gestalt Institute of Cleveland

I have a special interest in the author ’s section on touch. As a body-

oriented Gestalt therapist, the more tangible boundary of body and skin
is frequently part of my work with clients. In our culture many people
experience Body as equivalent to Sex. The sensations that sometimes
emerge in powerful training experiences can be highly erotic. What I
would add to O’Shea’s suggestions is a methodology of attending to
the physical boundary that acknowledges these sensations and provides
trainees with some skills to attend to sexual/erotic energy and remain in
contact.
At the Institute in Cleveland the faculty of the Physical Process train-
ing program attend extensively to the boundary of touch, contracting
for touch and the politics of touch. We have developed approaches for
using touch awarefully and collaboratively with students and clients.
Authenticity not only exists for the individual in being true to self, but
also for the client/therapist as a system in being open and respectful.
This is the development beyond “doing my thing” to a contactful,
mutually consentful form of interaction. When we do this we create
opportunity for more discussion of what is unstated or unexpressed,
such as sexual feelings.
RESPONSE TO O’SHEA’S ARTICLE 37


If we want to help our patients to realize themselves more fully as

truly human beings, then we must have the courage to risk the
dangers of being human [Lore Perls, 1992] p. 121.

The suggestions O’Shea makes for improving or “resexualizing” our

Gestalt training will obviously enhance our work. These steps are
attempts to resensitize therapists/trainees by providing support for
sexuality in training. But trainees will only talk about or acknowledge
what we as trainers and Institutes can explore and acknowledge in our-
selves. Support for discussing sexuality comes from our example. If we
talk about our bodies, our attractions, and our own sexuality, we can co-
create a field with our students that is not shamed or heavily
retroflected.

References

Perls, L. (1992), Living at the Boundary. Highland, NY: The Gestalt Journal.

401 Shady Ave. #104A

Pittsburgh, PA 15206
Gestalt Review, 4(1):38–41, 2000

Sex: Some Further Words



L E A N N E O’S H E A

T MAY WELL BE THAT I STATE THE OBVIOUS when I suggest there has been a

I lack of adequate discussion about sexuality. But I’m in good com-

pany. Perls (1969) describes Gestalt as the “philosophy of the obvi-
ous,” meaning that our way of seeing the client requires simple phe-
nomenological description. It’s a valuable process and often far from
easy. When we describe what’s before us, what we sense, what is obvi-
ous, when we pay attention to what is, we “map the field.” Each of the
four writers, as they add their voices to this conversation, offer up some-
thing of their experience, of what it is that they see from their vantage
point in the field. In doing so, they allow all of us to see and under-
stand the issues with greater clarity.
But if the claim is, as Peter Thompson seems to suggest, I am also
being simplistic, then I must beg to differ. Had I argued that the prob-
lem of sexuality was one of insufficient discussion, whether it be in the
“straight” community or among therapists generally and that the solu-
tion was to pay more attention to the subject in training programs, I
would agree. But this is not what I am saying.
Sex is indeed a grand metaphor, tangling together a range of issues
that are anything but simple. Even the way we use the word is prob-
lematic. We want sex, we have sex, we talk about sex. We also under-
stand sexuality as an attribute, a quality, and as energy. We have made
it into a commodity, objectifying sex itself. It is something to be had,
something to be possessed, something to be sold, and something that
sells. When it comes to matters sexual, guilt and shame are never really
very far away. Before we even get to the question of how sexuality
emerges and is managed in the therapeutic relationship, we need to
recognize the very conflicted ways that sexuality appears in our cul-
ture, in our lives, in our relationships, and even in our language.


Leanne O’Shea is a faculty member of Gestalt Therapy Australia in Melbourne,
Australia. She also runs a private practice and is a student member of G.P.T.I. in the
United Kingdom.
38  2000 The Analytic Press
SEX: SOME FURTHER WORDS 39


I am assuming that our obsession represents something else: a deep

longing for connection, for reenchantment, a profound yearning for the
élan vital to be restored in a culture that has lost its sense of being
embedded in a sensuous world. It is perhaps our deepest need.
The lack of conversation about sexuality in training is part of a wider
phenomena, reflecting, as Bowman suggests, the macrocosm. As such,
my intention was to tease out some of the conditions of the field that
have contributed to the stifling of this conversation. And of course sim-
ply “talking more” is not the solution. What is needed is an ongoing
exploration of all of the things that constrain us, an examination of the
structures that form the ground to this conversation. To say this some-
what differently, it’s time Gestalt took field theory seriously.
To this end Becker ’s comments on gender are critically important.
The field is “gendered,” but we have barely begun to understand what
this means. I would agree that, through a process of abstraction and
generalization, our theoretical framework has tended to subsume
experience in ways that either collapse the experience of maleness and
femaleness into the same perspective or assumes the male voice as domi-
nant. The Gender Conference, organized by GISC in 1998, marks an
important starting point. It is my hope that, from this place, Gestalt
clinicians will begin to attend, reflect on, and write about the experi-
ence of being female and male and what it means to live in a gendered
world.
Becker also makes the point that desire will only find a “home” when
there is an explicit awareness of “one’s own” sexual identity. I want to
push the argument a little further and suggest that the problem is com-
pounded by the way we conceive sexual identity.
The notion of self opens a theoretical debate that is complex and at
times confusing. In Gestalt we are used to the idea of self being at the
contact boundary. But as Wheeler (1991) points out, even Goodman is
inconsistent in how he speaks about this concept of self. In conflict are
differing philosophical notions, self as a discreet and bounded struc-
ture, and self the organizer of experience. I want to suggest that what-
ever our theoretical leanings, our tendency is to describe sexual
experience as something discrete. Sexuality, sexual experience, and even
the development of sexual identity have rarely been considered from
the relational standpoint that is at the heart of Goodman’s notion of
self. How sexuality might be constructed, if considered from this radi-
cally different starting point, is work that requires attention and, fur-
thermore, is work that would restructure our therapeutic frame,
particularly with regard to the issue of power, raised by both Becker
and Thompson.
One of my frustrations is that I cannot hope to address all of the
issues raised; however, I do want to briefly consider the wider
40 LEANNE O’SHEA


question of the therapist’s authenticity and how this is held in tension

with the needs of the client. As Clemmens suggests, the opening up of
a conversation between client and therapist that exposes either the
client’s attraction, the therapist’s attraction, or their mutual attraction
must emerge from a consideration of a range of field conditions and
from a commitment to do what best serves the client. But it is also a
process that, on the part of the therapist, requires an incredible deli-
cacy of awareness, as well as an uncompromising commitment in per-
sonal work to explore his or her own sexual identity and needs.
But it is not just a matter of disclosure once the therapeutic relation-
ship becomes erotically charged. Of at least equal importance is the
way in which the therapist “holds” his or her sexuality throughout the
entire relationship. I want to suggest that how this is done profoundly
impacts the way in which the client experiences both the therapist and
the relationship between them. Where the eroticization of the thera-
peutic relationship is unable to be contained by the therapist, the con-
sequences are more obvious. But therapists also respond to the
upwelling of erotic energy with fear, retroflection, and withdrawal. In
doing so, they may pull away from clients in ways that evoke shame
and uncertainty. In such moments, individualism’s doctrine of self-
sufficiency is reinforced, as is the notion that the desire for connection
is misconceived, that wanting the “other” is the mark of immaturity,
and that sexuality is bad and shameful. What is lost is the opportunity
to play in the feeling of our relatedness, to hold our sexuality in differ-
ent ways, and to dance, however tentatively in the field that enlivens
and gives life, the field that is erotic.
As a final word, I want to say something about the implied
heterosexism of my argument. The accusation must stand. This is how
I am in the world, and as a consequence I see the world in particular
ways, noticing some things, overlooking others. That my cultural field
shares this same bias only serves to compound the problem. As such, I
would not question Peter Thompson’s assertion that, for him and for
the gay community generally, sexuality has not been an issue so easily
avoided. In the case of HIV this has been tragically so. But I am not
interested in engaging in the kind of debate that marks out the terri-
tory in terms of who knows what. What I am interested in encouraging
is dialogue and the kind of conversation that courageously lays bear
the struggle, the difficulty, the shame, the longing, the fear, and even
the joy and pleasure that must necessarily form the ground of this work.
Having accepted heterosexism as an unavoidable consequence of my
heterosexuality, I feel both a sense of loss and railing against the labels.
I don’t want my sexuality to be defined just by my sexual preferences.
It feels too much like a collapsing of my sexual identity into my geni-
SEX: SOME FURTHER WORDS 41


tals and what I do with them. I am more interested in cultivating an

erotic response to life, to the re-enlivening of desire, to the evoking of
that deep sense of embeddedness in the sensuous world. For me it is
about rediscovering and supporting connectedness, about challenging
the myth of disconnection, and my passion for this work grows out of a
sense that our world longs for much the same thing.

References

Perls, F. (1969), Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. Moab, UT: Real People Press.
Wheeler, G. (1991), Gestalt Therapy Reconsidered. New York: Gardner Press.

Gestalt Therapy Australia

18 Glenlyon Road
Brunswick, VIC, 3056
Austalia
email: leanne@gestalt.cc
Gestalt Review, 4(1):42–46, 2000

The Relationship Between Reports

of Mystical Experiences and
Gestalt Resistance Processes


K E V I N P. P R O S N I C K, Ph.D.

This study investigated the relationship between measures of mystical

experiences and the six traditional Gestalt resistance processes (i.e.,
confluence, desensitization, introjection, projection, retroflection, and
deflection). A group of 152 adults completed the Mysticism Scale (Hood,
1975) and the Gestalt Contact Styles Questionnaire—Revised (GCSQ-R;
Woldt and Kepner, 1993). Significant negative correlations were found
between the Mysticism Scale and four of the six Gestalt resistance scales.

N HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY , FRITZ PERLS(1969) described his personal satori,

I or mystical experience. Mystical experiences are also a didactic and

experiential topic of discussion at Gestalt training centers (Gestalt
Institute of Cleveland, 1999–2000). However, no empirical data have been
reported regarding the relationship between mystical experiences and
the Gestalt resistance processes.1 The theoretical literature suggests that


Kevin P. Prosnick is a research Gestaltist, Certified Transpersonal and Licensed Psy-
chologist, Adjunct Professor of Counseling at John Carroll University, Cleveland, Ohio,
and rock and roll drummer/scholar.
The author wishes to acknowledge the editorial assistance of Drs. Ansel L. Woldt
and Joseph Melnick in improving this article.
1
Resistance processes, as measured by the GCSQ-R, are gauged quantitatively, such
that flexible or normal usage is on a continuum with inflexible, acontextual, or “patho-
logical” usage. The GCSQ-R scales are an effort to assess Gestalt resistance processes as
“dimensional constructs” such that a particular individual may fall anywhere from a
relative absence (i.e., nonuse, even when need or field warrant its use) of the resis-
tance, to a flexible use of it, to a fixed and rigid application that we might see in DSM-
IV personality disorders. With a quantitative-dimensional model, such as that which
underlies the GCSQ-R, there are no sharp divisions between normality and pathology,
and both extremes have negative implications (i.e., very low or very high resistance
scores).

42  2000 The Analytic Press

MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES AND GESTALT PROCESSES 43


report of mystical experiences would occur more readily in individu-

als who report being less resisted or less defended (Lichtenberg, 1991;
Lobb, 1992).
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between
measures of mystical experiences and the six traditional Gestalt resis-
tance processes (i.e., confluence, desensitization, introjection, projec-
tion, retroflection, and deflection). 2 It was hypothesized that mystical
experience scores would be negatively related to Gestalt resistance
scores. In other words, individuals reporting more mystical experiences
were expected to report lower Gestalt resistances.

Method
Participants
A total of 152 adults participated in the study. The volunteer sample
consisted of 53 males and 99 females with ages ranging from 18 to 78
years.

Instruments
Report of mystical experiences was measured by the Mysticism Scale
(M Scale; Hood, 1975). The Mysticism Scale is scored in the direction of


The GCSQ-R reflects this dimensional process in two ways. First, each individual
item is responded to on a dimensional Likert-type scale from strongly agree to agree to
neutral to disagree to strongly disagree. Second, each person’s degree of a particular
resistance is a reflection of how highly they rate the particular items that make up that
scale. For example, one person may rate more highly the items that make up the
Confluence Scale, while another might respond more strongly to the Retroflection Scale
items. When each scales’ items are then combined, a score is obtained that suggests
that individual’s standing on the dimensional continuum, from very low to very high,
for that particular scale.
But even while the GCSQ-R offers a quantitative gauge of an individual’s status on
the continuum of each of seven resistance processes, these scores might best be con-
ceived as a point of departure for dialogue, and not necessarily an end in themselves.
Individuals do not fit neatly into the Gestalt resistance taxonomy, or any taxonomy for
that matter, for ontological reasons—because individuality is more than the sum of its
parts. Likewise, any collection of representations, such as the Gestalt taxonomy of re-
sistances, are simply abstractions of reality rather than reality itself and therefore can
only point to the processes that they supposedly represent.
2
Although there is theoretical controversy over whether deflection is a “real” resis-
tance, it is considered to have empirical validity and is included here by virtue of its
emergence on four separate factor analytic studies (Mraz, 1990; Caffaro, 1991; Woldt
and Kepner, 1993; Mills, 1997). For Gestalt therapy theory to mature, it must be in-
formed by quantitative and qualitative empirical research, not just by increased theory
and arguments over such.
44 KEVIN P. PROSNICK


reported mystical experience, with 32 measuring least mystical and 160

assessing most mystical. A 5-point Likert-type scale was utilized. The
scale was derived from factor analysis, and reliability and validity
information is presented elsewhere (see Hood, 1975). It is the most
widely used and only psychometrically acceptable instrument avail-
able for operationalized reporting of mystical experience.
The Gestalt Contact Styles Questionnaire—Revised (GCSQ-R; Woldt
and Kepner, 1993) was selected to measure the six traditional Gestalt
resistances of the participants (i.e., confluence, desensitization, introjec-
tion, projection, retroflection, and deflection). A 5-point Likert-type scale
was utilized. Responses ranged from 1 (“I Strongly Agree with This
Statement”) to 5 (“I Strongly Disagree with This Statement”) for each
of the 100 items. The questionnaire was created through factor analy-
sis, and reliability and validity information is presented elsewhere (see
Prosnick, 1996, for a summary). The GCSQ-R is the only extant mea-
sure of Gestalt resistance processes with acceptable psychometric
properties.

Procedure
All participants were given the above measures and were given as much
time as needed to complete them. A complete description of the par-
ticipants, instruments, and procedure can be found elsewhere (see
Prosnick, 1996).

Results

Table 1 contains the statistics (i.e., means, standard deviations, and co-
efficient alphas) for all study variables. Pearson correlations between
the M Scale and the six resistance scales are also presented in Table 1.
As can be seen, the M Scale was significantly correlated in a negative
direction with four of the six resistances—confluence (r=–.20, p < .05),
desensitization (r=–.19, p < .05), projection (r=–.20, p < .05), and deflec-
tion (r=–.26, p < .001). This supported the hypothesis that individuals
with greater reports of mystical experiences would also report lower
levels of Gestalt resistances. There was no significant relationship be-
tween the M Scale and the Introjection and Retroflection Scales.

Discussion

The present study supported the contention that individuals with higher
self-reports of mystical experiences describe themselves as less de-
fended. Individuals scoring higher on the Mysticism Scale tended to
MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES AND GESTALT PROCESSES 45


Table 1 Statistics of Study Variables and Correlations Between the Mysticism

Scale and the Study Scales

Internal
Consistency
Variable Mean SD (Alpha) M Scale

M Scale 99.26 22.92 .96 1.00
Confluence 66.55 7.38 .59 –.20*
Desensitization 33.65 5.57 .58 –.19*
Introjection 75.61 6.16 .35 –.11
Projection 70.12 11.92 .85 –.20*
Retroflection 109.08 15.81 .85 –.12
Deflection 102.79 15.42 .85 –.26**

*p < .05; **p < .001.
Note: SD = Standard Deviation; M Scale = Mysticism Scale.

score lower on scales measuring confluence, desensitization, projection,

and deflection. There is a variety of personality dynamics that might
make these relationships feasible. A confluent individual might be re-
sistant to experiencing and reporting mystical experiences because of
his or her dislike of differences. A desensitized person might not only
be less insensitive to his/her physical and interpersonal processes, but
also less sensitive to mystical contact processes. A person high in pro-
jection thinks acontextually in absolutes (Prosnick et al., 1998), which
might decrease their capacity to experience the ambiguous and inef-
fable mystical. Likewise, an individual high in deflection tends to be
inflexibly superficial and disconnected (Prosnick et al., 1998), which is
counter to the sacred and profoundly connected mystical realm.
The two remaining resistance scales (Introjection and Retroflection
Scales) were in the expected direction, but it is unclear why they did
not reach statistical significance. The low negative correlation of
introjection may be caused by its adherence to authorities and rules
whereas retroflection may be caused by its self-control and self-critical
introspection.
The results suggest additional evidence for the construct validity of
the Mysticism Scale, as well as the Confluence, Desensitization, Projec-
tion, and Deflection Scales. In other words, it is logical that significant
relationships exist between the Mysticism Scale and these resistance
scales.
In summary, the results supported the above-cited theoretical litera-
ture. In theory, the findings suggested that Perls’s mystical encounter
may have been facilitated by his “less-defended” personality. In
46 KEVIN P. PROSNICK


practice, the results indicate that we may be helping to “clear a path”

for mystical experiences, for ourselves and for our clients, by modulat-
ing excessive and inflexible applications of resistance processes.

References

Caffaro, J. V. (1991), A factor analytic study of deflection. Gestalt J., 14:73–94.

Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. (1999–2000), 1999–2000 Gestalt Workshops [Bro-
chure]. Cleveland, OH: Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.
Hood, R. (1975), The construction and preliminary validation of a measure of
reported mystical experience. J. Scientif. Study Relig., 14:29–41.
Lichtenberg, P. (1991), Intimacy as a function of autonomy and merging.
Gestalt J., 14:27–43.
Lobb, M. S. (1992), Childbirth as rebirth of the mother: A psychological model
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38.
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stasis and the Gestalt Personal Homeostasis Inventory—Revised. Doctoral dis-
sertation, Kent State University, 1990. Dissertation Abstracts International,
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Mills, B. (1997), A psychometric examination of Gestalt contact boundary dis-
turbances. Gestalt Rev., 1:278–284.
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Prosnick, K. P. (1996), Final contact and beyond in Gestalt therapy theory and
transpersonal research: A factor analytic study of egotism and transfluence. Doc-
toral dissertation, Kent State University, 1996. Dissertation Abstracts Inter-
national, 57-12, A5064 (UMI No. AAI9716995).
 Woldt, A. L., Kepner, J. I., Wagner, J. J. & Park, A. L. (1998), History and
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vised (GCSQ-R): Item composition of factors I–VI. In A. D. Carden, A pro-
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6384 Peck Road

Ravenna, OH 44266
Gestalt Review, 4(1):47–62, 2000

The Land Mines of Marriage

Intergenerational Causes of Marital Conflict


T H E O D O R E W. S C H W A R T Z, Th.D., ABPP

This paper suggests a systemic, intergenerational approach to treating

serious marital conflict. Conflicting inherited marital patterns are a pri-
mary source of severe marital conflict because the partners’ emotional
security is threatened. Unhealed, emotional wounds are compared to
abscesses that accumulate pain and resentment. Many deeply structured
psychological wounds are also inherited from past generations. Emo-
tional injuries from early experience are also buried deeply in the psyche.
The parent’s marital patterns are introjected and imprinted on small
children during preverbal years.
When persons marry, the clash of their inherited patterns and needs
threatens the couple’s security and leads to conflict. Such conflicts often
do not belong to the couple, but to previous generations. Postmodernist
therapies are evaluated and compared to the original family therapy
methods and applied to treating systemic interpersonal conflict. The
author presents examples and suggests Gestalt family therapy as the
preferred treatment for severe marital conflict.

married couples, I was plagued

D
URING 30 YEARS OF TRYING TO HELP
by several questions that remained unanswered for years. “Why
do otherwise sophisticated, mature, and intelligent spouses be-
come irrational, attacking, and abusive antagonists in the midst of a
marital fight?” They appeared to have flipped into entirely different
personalities.
What happens to people in a marital fight that distorts their think-
ing and their emotions? Have these otherwise sensible people lost their


Dr. Schwartz is a Board Certified Family Psychologist (ABPP) who brings over forty
years of experience as a family clinician, teacher of Psychologists and systems research
to this study. He is currently consulting and semi-retired in Colorado.
* Presented at the 30th Annual APA Midwinter Convention, Div. #43, Family Psy-
chology, February 5, 1999. West Palm Beach, FL.

47  2000 The Analytic Press

48 THEODORE W. SCHWARTZ


senses? They act as if they are spinning in an emotional hurricane, out

of control. They say and do things to each other that they would not
otherwise consider. I did not find effective means to treat these fights.
Traditional therapies such as cognitive–behavioral, rational–emotive,
behavior modification, or analytical methods were not productive.
Nothing seemed to provide positive, long-term results. Short-term,
problem-solving methods (Wile, 1981) substituted better roles and rules
for dysfunctional ones, but they only alleviated symptoms without treat-
ing the deeper causes of marital conflict. (S. Nevis, 1977).
Couples have been torn apart by therapists who encourage couples
to express their feelings, falsely believing their expression would get
them moving toward resolution. Although these fights are repeated
countless times, some aspect of their relationship dies. Forgiveness is
reluctant and tinged with mistrust and fear. The scars thicken, becom-
ing more visible (Beaumont, 1994). These marital fights are character-
ized by a marked change of personality of the combatants, including a
shift of identity. As one married partner complained, “I’m not myself
anymore.” Clinicians have called these episodes a “mini-psychosis”
(Johnson 1984), “an emotional thunderstorm” (Schwartz-Salant, 1982),
or a “schizoid experience in miniature” (Beaumont, 1994). Such erup-
tions in miniature can be conceptualized as systems pathology, the dis-
ease or malfunction of the marriage relationship. Gestalt therapy defines
systems pathology as “interruptions in the natural process of gestalt
formation and resolution leading to repeated, vain, though often brave
efforts to solve a problem” (Zinker, 1992, p. 294).
In this article, I propose a systemic, intergenerational approach to
understanding and treating serious marital conflict. Different inherited
marital patterns are a major source of severe marital conflict. Conflict-
ing marital expectations and unhealed psychological wounds from pre-
vious generations also cause marital conflict. Recent postmodernist
family approaches will be compared to original family therapy con-
cepts and applied to emotional and systemic interpersonal conflict.

What Are These Land Mines of Marriage?

When I was a boy, a large dog bit me, leaving a puncture wound in my
leg. The doctor was careful to explain that, in order to heal without
forming an abscess, the small, deep hole should be filled with a medi-
cated strip of gauze keeping it open so that it would heal from the bot-
tom up. It would be more painful if he needed to lance the abscess to
drain the infection. Week after week, he pulled out the old gauze to
inspect the wound and make certain it was healing properly. He then
stuffed a fresh strip of gauze into the healing hole, telling me to come
back next week. I did as directed, but I dreaded doing so, wishing for a
THE LAND MINES OF MARRIAGE 49


quick cure without any more pain. To this day, I have the scar to re-
mind me that healing, if it is to be effective, requires patience and in-
volves pain if it is to heal from the bottom up. Long-term healing is
also necessary to heal emotional wounds.
The land mines of marriage can be compared to abscesses. Resent-
ment, like infection, is attracted to an unhealed wound. A wound that
scabs over will later need to be lanced. In all marriages there are open
wounds from injuries inflicted during formative years that become
potential land mines. Some therapies do not take the time to complete
the healing process. Marital pathology is evidence of emotional wounds
that have gathered infection, forming painful abscesses. In order for
healing to take place, the therapist must locate these emotional abscesses
and lance them, providing enough time to drain the poison and allow
the wound to heal from the bottom up.

What is this Emotional Infection?

It is not the original wound that causes the problem. The problem is
caused by infection, the accumulated resentments, anger, and pain. The
pain can be ignored or deadened, but it inevitably infects the entire
organism and will not heal unless treated properly.
Interpersonal wounds may seem insignificant. Our parents per-
suaded us that we didn’t hurt when we did, and they distracted us
from crying. Many wounds were inflicted when we were helpless and
had minimal experience. Our parents may have been unaware of hurt-
ing us because we hadn’t yet learned to communicate with words. We
didn’t understand why, but we knew that we hurt.
Decades of accumulated resentments, pain, and anger produce
minefields of unhealed emotional abscesses. These abscesses included
unfulfilled expectations, unhealed wounds, unfinished business from
growing up years, and relationship patterns. When we first marry, we
dream of having no more pain and no more injuries so we try to avoid
stepping on our land mines as well as our partner ’s. Under stress, we
lose our balance and invariably step on these historic land mines.

Family Systems Research

Marital satisfaction has been studied and marital conflict has been ana-
lyzed, but the study of transgenerational systemic causes of marital
conflict seems to have been neglected. Studies have focused on con-
flicting attitudes, communication problems, roles, and rules, as well as
problem-solving methods. Few have compared conflicting marital pat-
terns transmitted from the previous generation. Some research has
traced the transmission of characteristics between same-sex family
50 THEODORE W. SCHWARTZ


members, such as mother and daughter (Martin 1978). Other

transgenerational studies have addressed how individual characteris-
tics, attitudes, sexual orientation, and trauma are transmitted from one
generation to the next (Segal, 1983).
Bowen (1978) proposed that family-of-origin programming takes
place because of the multigenerational mechanism of the family pro-
jection process. He explained how this is a major determinant of atti-
tudes, orientations, and dysfunctional expectations of individual
behavior in marriage. Bowen (1981) also wrote about the link between
family beliefs transmitted via role prescriptions. Lieberman (1980) de-
picted family relatedness, structures, and family history using a
genogram to neutralize destructive antagonists. Lee, Gordon, and O’Dell
(1989) developed a Family of Origin Scale to measure the health of the
family of origin. Paul and Paul (1980) proposed a clinical model based
on transgenerational concepts. Substantive theoretical work was done
by Martin (1990), who studied the transmission of interpersonal con-
flict patterns from one generation to the next. More recently, Freeman
(1997) wrote about his clinical experience describing intergenerational
therapy with families.
Teachworth (1996) described Gestalt therapy with three couples fo-
cusing on intergenerational processes, but she cited no research. There
appears to be little research on marital patterns being passed on to suc-
ceeding generations.

Introjection: The Imprinting Process

Imprinting is a theory that explains the transmission of characteristics,

of systemic patterns across generations. As an old English proverb says,
“Children insist on imitating their parents, despite all efforts to teach
them good manners.” Preverbal children are imprinted with many pat-
terns, particularly their parents’ marital pattern. In childhood, aware-
ness is like soft, fresh wax. Children are programmed with relationship
issues. They reenact roles and characteristics belonging to people and
relationships in the past. For this reason, interpersonal conflicts and
the resulting rage belong to the child’s emotional inheritance, not to
them as individuals (Bowen, 1981).
Introjection is a resistance meaning literally “swallowing whole”
(Perls, 1973). Small children accept their limited world as true and com-
plete without considering other possibilities. Evaluating and consider-
ing alternatives is not possible until school-age. Preverbal children learn
by observation, not cognitively. The marital relationship of parents is
introjected and becomes part of the child’s hard drive input to use a
computer term. Adler believed that the parents’ relationship is
THE LAND MINES OF MARRIAGE 51


introjected by the child as an absolute belief system and is experienced

as destiny (Powers and Griffith, 1987).
Harris (1988) believed that neurosis is established very early in life.
The child sees the world thereafter through a screen of cellular memory.
Preverbal experiences are imprinted in the child’s organismic struc-
ture. These unconscious memories are imprinted in the biological, neu-
rological structures of the organism and function separately from
intellectual and cognitive structures. These imprints function as a filter
through which individuals view their world.
Perceptions of reality are circumscribed by transmitted neurons from
birth onward. Imprints in the infant’s nervous system result in a life-
time pool of residual tension beyond revision or control. Our parents’
behavior shapes both our physiology and personality. Chopra (1993)
affirmed that the imprinting process is biological, not psychological.
Neisser (1962) termed this process “pathological imprinting.” Adult
recollections are not necessarily accurate, but they present a valid de-
scription of symbolic experience in the present moment.

Imprints Include Expectations of Marriage

When couples marry, they unconsciously expect their parents’ marital

patterns to be repeated. These relationship patterns may not have been
healthy, but small children accept them as reality. When later reality
disrupts these images, this imprint exerts a powerful drive to recreate
the pattern that dictates, “This is how people relate in marriage.” For
this reason, young adults unknowingly seek a marital partner who re-
sembles their opposite sex parent.
Couples who marry after years of amicably living together suddenly
erupt in emotionally charged conflicts. As long as unmarried couples
remain lovers, buried marital patterns appear to remain dormant. As
(Malone and Whitaker 1981) explained, “When couples marry, they en-
gage in a struggle to see which family of origin will be reproduced.
They may well spend a lifetime deciding which family to reproduce”
(p. xxii).

The Child’s Security: The Parents’ Marital Relationship

Satir (1972) came to the conclusion that small children need the secu-
rity of the emotional bond of parents’ marital relationship more than
they need their parents as individuals. It is not the child’s relationship
to mother or to father that is crucial but, rather, the child’s relationship to
the parents’ relationship.
52 THEODORE W. SCHWARTZ


At the height of the human potential movement, two families, each

with two small children, engaged in an unusual experiment. They
formed a private encounter group to discuss at length the possibility of
forming two new families, created by trading fathers. The children were
to stay with their respective mothers. They utilized a consultant to ex-
plore the feasibility, values, anxieties, and fears of that possibility. Af-
ter 6 months of living in the same house as an extended family, they
decided to form two new families. Both families have been stable for
over 2 decades. The children didn’t just trade fathers. More importantly,
they exchanged one parental system for another without interruption.
The children’s adjustment was easy because their emotional security
was not threatened. Many divorces traumatize the children because they
not only lose a father, but they also lose the security of their parents’
relationship.

Marriages Depend on Balanced Polarities

All systems contain many polarities, opposite characteristics, joined in

an inseparable unity, like a coin with two sides. Polarities cannot exist
without each other (Perls, 1969). Perls conceptualized one basic polar-
ity as “top-dog and underdog.” The introjected marital system is expe-
rienced by the child as a pattern of complementary behaviors (Zinker,
1994). A balanced polarity pattern is required for the survival of the
marriage and the emotional security of the partners as well as the chil-
dren. When stress threatens, infantile patterns surface, and partners
fight desperately for that security. In every marriage, all polarized as-
pects must balance equally or systems become unbalanced and eventu-
ally disintegrate.
Satir explained that a small child of a one-parent family faces an
incomplete parental relationship that cannot provide the needed emo-
tional security. In order to complete the incomplete marital system,
children often create or invent an image of the missing parent. The child
may adopt a parental figure, an uncle or older sibling, in order to have
the parental relationship he or she needs. They may create an imagi-
nary parent in contrast to the disciplining caretaker who may be bur-
dened with all of the parenting responsibilities. The parental pattern is
imprinted as a complete system when one parent is absent or unknown.
Satir also told about a repeated phenomenon in young families of
returned World War II veterans. The young mother would tell their tod-
dler to “Go, get Daddy,” whereupon the child would retreive the father’s
photograph and take it to the mother while the veteran-father observed.
The toddler ’s security involved the mother ’s relationship with the pho-
tograph but not the actual mother–father relationship (a post-graduate
lecture, Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, 1972).
THE LAND MINES OF MARRIAGE 53


Becoming an Adult

Lovers experience a wonderful closeness, sharing wishes and dreams.

This mutuality is like a romantic fog blurring differences in order for
them to maintain their new, fragile relationship. Much of young adults’
lives are occupied with finding out who they are. Because self-defini-
tion is lacking, they may be unable to form a mature and differentiated
relationship with others. “The result is messy fusion. Enjoying this ro-
mantic fog soon gives way to the necessity of defining their new and
unique relationship” (Napier, 1988). Zinker ’s (1994) interactive cycle
describes how each partner needs to move from his/her respective pri-
vate world into a joint effort. As needs conflict, couples negotiate and
collaborate.
Our first experience with an adult, intimate relationship was that of
our own parents. Very early, we learned by observing the family’s rules,
experiencing satisfaction, disappointment, and injury. For example, I
was both premature and sick as an infant, requiring continual caretak-
ing. My mother needed some relief from this ongoing task. The first
time that she and my father left me with a babysitter so they could go
to a movie, they had instructed me to say the right thing. Pressing my
nose against the dirty screen door, I wailed, “Have a good time, Mother.”
I felt abandoned despite the script I had learned. Small children learn
to parrot precepts and admonitions, but the preverbal patterns are
learned much earlier. These reference patterns are stored, ready to sur-
face under stress, regardless of subsequent years of cognitive learning.
Emotional security in marriage is measured against the pattern of the
parents’ early marital relationship. Partners bring into marriage their
relationship imprints, expressed in attitudes, drives, values, and inti-
mate behavior. Most often, the two inherited marital patterns do not
match.
It is common for young adults to accept their need to individuate
from their family of origin. It is rare for them to be aware that this pro-
cess continues in marriage. Often, they assume that getting married
somehow proves that this phase of human development has been com-
pleted. Unfinished personal development is another focus of Gestalt
couples therapy (Zinker, 1997).

Unfinished Business from the Past

“When individuals marry, they present their childhood unfinished busi-

ness to their partner expecting to be cared for like a parent cares for a
small child” (Missildine, 1963). For example, lovers call each other
“baby.” When these introjected patterns of newlyweds conflict, they
become energized, and coercive reflexes and tensions escalate. Con-
54 THEODORE W. SCHWARTZ


flicts also arise when both partners try to assume the same pole of a
polarity. One goal of Gestalt therapy with couples is to help them ex-
plore ways of completing unfinished business from the past.

Accommodation is Necessary

In the honeymoon, partners generously accommodate to each other ’s

expectations. This is necessary to stabilize the new marriage. Negoti-
ated accommodation is usually not resented, but if one partner accom-
modates and the other does not, resentments accumulate. Often, one
partner may try to force the other to accommodate to his/her inherited
marital system. Unilateral accommodation exacts a price: resentment.
Parts of his/her own marital imprint may be surrendered in the pro-
cess, but some stability is temporarily achieved. The partner who ac-
commodates most will be the least satisfied with the relationship and
vice versa. When accumulated dissatisfactions reach an intolerable level,
friction often erupts into outright conflict. Accumulated resentments
may also be expressed indirectly in psychophysical ailments such as
migraine headaches, arthritis, frigidity, or gastroenterology.
When emotional security is consistently compromised, the dissatis-
fied partner may rebel. Suddenly, what formerly was inconsequential
and not worth fighting over feels like a life and death struggle. The
fighting is characterized by a desparate intensity, which is irrational
considering the immediate issues involved. The partner who accom-
modates most may smolder and silently consider divorce. When the
threat of divorce finally emerges, the more satisfied partner often feels
blind-sided. “I thought we were getting along quite well.” Occasion-
ally, the resentments explode in abuse or worse. The Associated Press
reported a California couple who arrived for their marriage counseling
appointment and shot each other with handguns. Both were charged
with attempted murder. Murderous feelings in a marital fight are not
uncommon.
A person who rigidly adheres to his/her inherited marital pattern
will often experience a demand to change as being disloyal to his/her
parents. Therefore, a demand to change will meet with energized resis-
tance. Such demands are absent when the partners’ inherited marital
patterns correspond. Although secure, such marriages may be experi-
enced as boring, stuck, or frozen. If patterns conflict, there will be dis-
satisfaction. Unless both partners equally accommodate, their new
system will probably not achieve stability or survive without thera-
peutic intervention. This aspect of the relationship is usually not dis-
cussed or examined.
One illustration of unbalanced accommodation involved Mary and
Mark who were married in their forties. Mark enjoyed Mary’s creativ-
THE LAND MINES OF MARRIAGE 55


ity and excitement while Mary depended on Mark’s steadiness and

dependability to balance her sometimes erratic enthusiasm for life. Mark
was a master craftsman and a construction supervisor while Mary was
a successful school principal. Unlike Mark, she had travelled exten-
sively and had many diverse interests, including theater, in which she
excelled.
Mary’s mother was the steady partner, and her father was the final
authority. Mark’s father was a blue-collar worker who dominated his
home. After a few years of married life, they sought marriage counsel-
ing. Mark was largely content, living in the only home he’d ever owned.
Mary was not at all certain that married life was to her liking, but the
love and respect they had for each other was unmistakable. Mary had
become gradually restless and dissatisfied, seeing Mark as domineer-
ing. She reported that Mark sulked when he didn’t get his way. Mary
alternated between pleasing him and just going her own way regard-
less of his wishes. This infuriated him, and he habitually withdrew.
Mary and Mark had planned a Caribbean vacation when she sud-
denly moved out of the house amid tears and gnashing of teeth. Mark
went on vacation without her. After the holidays, Mary moved back,
and they committed to changing their marriage. They examined care-
fully their assumptions about marriage and considered how their rela-
tionship was like that of their parents. They achieved freedom from
their inherited introjected marital systems and negotiated their new
marriage relationship. The renovation of their marriage culminated in
the major remodelling of their home.

Systems Versus Individual Therapy

It is not easy to get troubled couples to view marriage as teamwork.

They usually focus on each other as individuals, blaming, attacking, or
placating. They ignore the fact that they are interactively linked parts
of a relationship pattern.
Bowen (1981) conceptualized families in terms of compensatory
change. White (1963) pointed out that a change in one partner is auto-
matically compensated for by the other. Partners always appear to act
in concert. Whitaker (1988) called this “the dance of intimacy.” Therapy
can help a couple learn how they can use both poles of a polarity to
meet marital and individual needs, rather than being imprisoned by
inherited patterns of polarities.
An impasse occurs when there is an unresolved conflict between the
inherited marital patterns. In decision making, couples can learn to be
flexible by expanding their choices, particularly in terms of alternating
polarities that function like a marital teeter-totter. When partners alter-
nate being up and down, they can experience excitement and energy.
56 THEODORE W. SCHWARTZ


Those who are stuck in one position or the other spend all their energy
trying to get unstuck, rather than enjoying the movement.
Individual therapy may be somewhat useful by focusing on the in-
herited marital pattern rather than focusing on a partner ’s inherited
marital pattern interdynamics alone. Remodelling a marriage requires
integrating and controlling many introjected assumptions. Couples need
to contract for new behaviors to increase their options for relating.
Unlearning old, destructive marital patterns is difficult, but it can be
more easily accomplished working with the couple as a system rather
than with just one partner.

Why Individual Therapy Fails with Couples

Individual psychotherapy with one marital partner has largely proven

to be unsuccessful in treating marriages. It may change the individual,
but in doing so, it adds more stress to the marriage. It takes two to
maintain a marriage, but it takes only one to disrupt it. Observing the
partners’ interaction is crucial in couples therapy.
When one partner seeks individual psychotherapy and the other
partner does not, the result can be disastrous for the marriage. The part-
ner who is the most dissatisfied will be the one seeking therapy. The
partner who does not receive therapy may not be aware of how their
marriage is frozen. The more satisfied partner usually takes the atti-
tude, “If my partner gets his/her head on straight, then we can be happy
again.” In individual therapy there is a tendency to diagnose what is
wrong and recommend new behavior. The therapist may recommend
new behaviors such as better ways of relating rather than treating the
marriage as a functioning system. A goal of those seeking therapy may
be to gain reinforcement and support for the way they see their marital
problem. Thus, the therapist is provided only a partial view of the mar-
riage relationship, all from one partner ’s perspective.

Comparing Original and Second Waves of Family Therapy

Virginia Satir, Carl Whitaker, Sonia Nevis, Joseph Zinker, and others at
the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland were my mentors in family therapy. They
defined the family therapist’s role as that of a process observer and a
coach. The Gestalt family therapist remains outside the couple’s inter-
action as much as possible. Gestalt therapists focus on how the couple
interacts, not the content. The Gestalt therapist seeks to involve the
couple in examining their process, their interaction in action. Gestaltists
involve the couple in experimenting with alternative patterns of inter-
action in therapy sessions (Zinker and Nevis, 1997).
THE LAND MINES OF MARRIAGE 57


The second wave of family therapy includes social constructionism,

solution-focused, postmodern, and narrative family therapy. Tomm
(1998) specifies that the therapist should join the couple as an active
participant and expert. A primary assumption is that the expert knowl-
edge provided by the therapist is the basis for marital change. My clini-
cal experience leads me to disagree. Advice is a vice. By actively joining
the couple’s interactive process, the therapist may add information, but
it creates a new system. “This invites projection and heightens the
potential for transference and counter transference” (Minuchin, 1988,
pp. 397–403). Tomm and others believe that dialogue therapy with one
partner is beneficial. When the therapist-expert joins the couple’s sys-
tem, the couple’s interaction, the marriage relationship in process can-
not be observed by the therapist. The therapist does not go home with
the couple. Cognitive processes do not connect directly with the organ-
ismic level of existence or with the ongoing interaction of the marital
system.
One objection to postmodern therapies concerns triangulation and
“aboutism.” These therapists engage the couple in defining the prob-
lem, setting goals, and considering solutions. Talking about a marital
problem is not the same as actively solving it. Dealing with the prob-
lem in itself creates a triangular system. The husband and wife and
their problem form a triangular system. Existential therapy is critical
of focusing on any third point for the following reasons: (1) Focusing
on the problem, no matter how well-defined or analyzed, shifts the fo-
cus away from the couple’s interaction. In therapy involving one part-
ner and the therapist, the remaining partner becomes an observer and
doesn’t actively participate in the interaction. The marital system itself
is deprived of energy and attention. Almost anything, such as a stress-
ful event, can serve as the third point in the triangle, sucking energy
out of the couple’s interactive process and serving as a detour.
An illustration of this is the family whose child contracts a severe
illness, understandably requiring concern and attention. After months
of effort directed toward the child’s recovery, both parents may have
become obsessed with the child’s illness. When the child is restored to
health, the partners may discover that in the meantime, they have be-
come strangers to each other. Only concerted effort and possibly couples
therapy can restore vitality to their marriage. (2) The couple’s problem
itself can be the third point in triangulation, especially when the ex-
pert-therapist joins the couple in discussing the problem and ways to
solve it. This is the therapeutic sin of “aboutism.” As long as they talk
about the problem, the couple’s energy will gravitate to the problem.
The energy needed for maintaining and improving their relationship is
not available to nourish their system. Talking about anything creates a
58 THEODORE W. SCHWARTZ


de-energizing triangle. (Nevis, 1977). Couples may gain understand-

ing about their problem, while little or nothing changes in the marital
relationship. More than understanding is required for changing any
system. The couple may know why they have the problem, but they
don’t understand how to go about changing their marriage. (3) When
the therapist and the couple cooperate in focusing on a problem, they
also risk what has been called analysis paralysis. Dependency on the
therapist-expert increases and another triangle has been created.

Bringing the Past into the Present

When a problem is objectified, it automatically becomes the property

of the past, not the present. Discussing and defining goals is a task that
belongs to the future, also attracting energy and attention away from
the couple’s marital relationship. You cannot change the past or control
the future. An old adage states, “The past is a canceled check, the
future is uncertain credit, but the present is ready cash. Spend it wisely.”
Neither the past nor the future can be experienced in the present
moment.
If a problem exists outside the present, it is no longer a problem, but
the memory of the problem or the possibility of a problem. The person
constantly recreates the past in the present, making a new impact on
present experience. Boscolo and Bertrando (1992) described this pro-
cess as the “self-reflexive loop.” Couples cannot solve problems if their
time frame is frozen. Encouraging clients to realize that they can in-
vent the future creates this self-reflexive loop in the same way as re-
constructing the past. The image of the future also influences the present
and creates conditions for the future to become reality (Watzlwick, 1981).
Talking about the past and the future is safer than dealing with the
immediate present. Objectifying any experience makes it less emotional
and more easily controlled by intellectualizing it. Talking about the
future or the past does not focus on the immediate interaction, thus
robbing the here-and-now situation of the energy needed to mobilize
personal change as well as interpersonal systems such as marriages.
The present experience utilizes more of the couple’s available energy
for changing the interaction rather than understanding the past (a post-
graduate training lecture, Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, Zinker, 1978).
The past is objective while the present is dynamic, providing a stage on
which to experiment with interactive patterns.
Bill and Betty illustrate how old patterns trapped them. They came
for marriage counseling because of Bill’s frustration and mild depres-
sion. Betty had recently graduated from chiropractic school. Instead of
starting a practice, she spent her time shopping with friends and tend-
THE LAND MINES OF MARRIAGE 59


ing her flower garden, which infuriated Bill. He swallowed his anger,
which he expressed in mild depression. Betty had worked hard getting
through school, so she believed she was entitled to enjoy life. Betty
seemed to be content with her present lifestyle and showed no sign of
wanting to change. Bill wanted children, but Betty claimed this was
not possible because of her numerous ailments. Betty was diminutive
in appearance and presented herself as a little girl who just wanted to
play and have a good time. Bill felt overburdened and was obviously
not having a good time.
Betty wanted me to treat her as a fellow professional and was eager
to diagnose Bill as having the problem. When I focused on their rela-
tionship, Betty began missing appointments, citing her illnesses. Betty
had abusive parents of whom she was still afraid. Bill’s mother was a
dominating invalid confined to a wheelchair, and he was afraid of hurt-
ing her. His father cared for his wife in every way and his children did
also. Betty was responding to her truncated childhood, while Bill ex-
pressed his resentment for his caretaking role. Betty terminated therapy
because she saw no reason to change. Bill continued in individual
therapy, which was not my preference, but I kept his focus on the fam-
ily systems of which he was a part. He became aware of his conflict
between fear of losing Betty and his need for change. Bill finally ac-
cepted his personal impasse and began confronting Betty at home, which
heightened their conflict and alleviated Bill’s depression.
In another example, Lou and Lucy came for counseling because of
heated disagreements and fights concerning the disciplining of her teen-
age daughter. This was the third marriage for both partners. The daugh-
ter was seeing a school counselor as well as a family therapist who
occasionally involved the parents in consultation but not therapy. Both
agreed that the problem was their conflict over disciplining the daughter.
They examined the contribution of their relationship to this prob-
lem. Lucy’s childhood had been chaotic. As a child, she was more or
less on her own. She never knew when one or the other parent would
angrily walk out of her home. Lou could never please his parents, who
had very high standards for all the children. Lou described his father
as consistently critical, creating a negative, disapproving atmosphere
that permeated their home. His mother ran the home with an iron hand
in a velvet glove, and he couldn’t remember either parent praising or
affirming his accomplishments, since superior performance was
expected.
In therapy, Lucy would verbally attack Lou in her attempt to involve
him in solving any emotionally laden problem. She leaned forward in
her chair, using aggressive gestures remininding me of a buzz saw. Lou
described her as “always being in my face.” In response to her aggres-
60 THEODORE W. SCHWARTZ


siveness, Lou would physically and emotionally pull back. In turn, she
would be more aggressive, fearing abandonment, while Lou reacted
like a small boy facing an angry mother. In both cases, the unhealed
wounds from their childhood erased a clear view of what was happen-
ing between them. They repeated this locked-in pattern at home. I sug-
gested that their interaction reminded me of a yo-yo. If Lou would give
Lucy a small string when he withdrew, it could remind her of the invis-
ible cord that held them together. As they considered this, both visibly
relaxed and appeared to be comforted by visualizing this image of their
connection. When they relaxed, both Lucy and Lou were able to con-
sider their daughter ’s problems.

Summary

Optimum health in marriage is achieved when partners deliberately

and flexibly respond to the needs of their relationship as well as each
other ’s needs. Marital health is evidenced when partners deliberately
negotiate, choosing and collaborating to balance changing polarities
within a trusting and secure relationship. Marital health requires a
lifestyle of deliberately exchanging polarities, which is both satisfying
and exciting (Paul 1980).
When land mines explode, the most effective treatment is Gestalt
couples therapy, which helps complete the unfinished business of both
partners. This offers a method for revising their expectations and
introjected relationship patterns, thus freeing the couple to design their
own marital pattern.

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2596 Lochbuie Circle

Loveland, CO 80538-5386
Gestalt Review, 4(1):63–65, 2000

Some Comments in Response

to the Ted Schwartz Article
My Experience


J O S E P H Z I N K E R, Ph.D.

Generosity

CHWARTZ ’ S ARTICLE IS FULL OF IDEAS

about couples’ dysfunction. It is

S generous with a variety of references to the literature in the area.

It includes factors of systemic and intergenerational imprinting,
out-of-balance polarities, and childhood trauma. On the therapeutic
side, Schwartz wisely points out that encouraging a couple to vent feel-
ings does not necessarily lead to resolution of problems. (Actually, this
may exacerbate an already out-of-control situation.) All these factors
are part of a larger set of truths about couples, and the article fulfills
the promise of its title.

Pathology

Years of experience tell me that the therapist’s tendency to focus on

dysfunction does not yield a process and a spirit of healing and resolu-
tion. If, for example, we look at how parental systems and trauma of
the individual contributed to marital problems, can we also ask how
these same systems may have also contributed to positive and still in-
tact aspects of the client couple? It may surely be true that often paren-
tal marriages may contribute to the couple’s mutual respect, carefulness,
humor, efforts to protect the couple, and their common vision for the
future. How do we incorporate this dimension into a balanced meta-
phor and a coherent therapeutic process?


Dr. Joseph Zinker is a psychologist, teacher, and an artist. He has written several
books on Gestalt therapy and the creative process.

63  2000 The Analytic Press

64 JOSEPH ZINKER


The Third Entity

Two individuals (with their own traumas) do not constitute a couple. A

couple is a complex system, a separate entity, differentiated from each
one of them—what I call “the third entity.” It is a kind of third “organ-
ism,” a new metaphor: a system that has its own aesthetic qualities of
beauty, ugliness, humor, energy, color, a sense of irony and sarcasm,
capacity to play, and so on. The therapist learns to “squint”—as Sonia
Nevis would say—to watch how these phenomena emerge as descrip-
tive terms in the synthesis of this third entity. Interventions and pro-
cess emerge from this phenomenological diagnosis of the whole couple.

Temptation to See Individuals Only

The therapist’s own family contributes to his/her countertransference

(both negative and positive) to see how one or another partner doesn’t
look or sound good—or how “wonderful” they are. In any case, the
therapist’s own unresolved, unhealed “infections” distract the move-
ment of interventions in the direction of (1) seeing two single partners
and (2) focusing on juicy content that has more valence for the thera-
pist than is often useful for the couple. Unless the therapist repeatedly
practices seeing phenomena as intrinsically interesting about the
couple—independent of his/her own family and friends—the danger
will always be there to focus on causes and effects and individuals, not
system boundaries.

Three Families in the Room

So, we see here that the therapeutic situation involves two sets of par-
ents whispering into the ears of the couple and a third set of parents
whispering into the ears of the therapist. It is a potential mess!

Distilling the Process

In our training program on the Cape, Sonia Nevis introduced a “unit of

work” for couples which still exists with minor modifications. This unit
of work involves:

1. observing the couple interaction while maintaining a creative dis-

tance
2. seeing the interactive phenomena that show the working, well-
developed parts of their (here and now) interaction
RESPONSE TO TED SCHWARTZ 65


3. allowing the couple to process these observations while observing

them
4. sharing with them the actual phenomena that show how they are
not well developed in the here and now (generally, the polarity of
what is developed—as Ted Schwartz may point out)
5. constructing an experiment for the couple that has the potential to
strengthen the undeveloped parts of the system, and
6. making sure to ask the couple what they learned.

This model has the advantage of staying away from talking about
causes and effects, from giving unsolicited advice, and from interpret-
ing the meaning of shared content (coming from the couple).
The model works well when practiced out of our protectiveness and
respect for the couple system. It invites the couple to increase curiosity
about their “stuck place” and, most importantly, leaves them feeling a
potential sense of self-affirmation and hope for the future.

Supplementation

This phenomenological model of the third entity and its extension to

the unit of work supplements Schwartz’s many insights and allows us
to move on to a more optimistic existential/phenomenological vision
of couples’ processes.

P.O. Box 861

Wellfleet, MA 02667
Gestalt Review, 4(1):66–70, 2000

Response to Ted Schwartz’s Article

“The Land Mines of Marriage:
Intergenerational Causes
of Marital Conflict”


ANNE TEACHWORTH, M.A.

HAT A DELIGHT TO READ TED SCHWARTZ’ S ARTICLE on marital con-

W flict and renew contact here. I met Ted one time 20 or so years
ago. Now, two decades later, I find once again that we share
similar views. I agree with Ted’s basic thesis that the clients’ inherited
marital patterns are a primary source of severe couple conflict. Having
used an intergenerational approach for 10 years now, I am also con-
vinced that it is not each client’s troubled relationship with one or both
parents in childhood that interferes with his or her ability to live hap-
pily ever after with a mate in adulthood. The root of the problem is the
troubled relationship that existed between the adult parents in the
client’s childhood, not the client’s relationship with the parents then.
I appreciate the image of land mines that Ted uses to describe the
highly charged marital introjects that are buried deep in the terrain of
the current couple’s relationship. Still unresolved, these land mines
stayed hidden under ground until stepped on. However, these inher-
ited issues quickly become apparent, and I do mean “a-parent,” when
clients begin to describe their parents’ adult-adult relationships dur-
ing each client’s early childhood. For this reason, I have clients fill in a
10- point genealogical questionnaire before couple counseling sessions
even begin. Exploring their parents’ relationships with them assists me
in identifying three early imprints in each client: (1) the introjected In-
ner Adult role model parent, (2) the projected Inner Mate model par-
ent, and (3) the Introjected Interactional Pattern (IIP) learned from this


Anne Teachworth, M.A. is the director of the Gestalt Institute of New Orleans/New
York and the author of Why We Pick The Mates We Do. She is also a Diplomate of the
American Psychotherapy Association.
66  2000 The Analytic Press
RESPONSE TO SCHWARTZ’S ARTICLE 67


Inner Couple pair. Written and verbal histories of their parents’

conflicts provide a map that helps me quickly locate each client’s land
mines and pinpoint things that will go boom in the night. Revisiting
their parents’ old battlefields with them helps us identify historic
issues to be resolved so that, instead of being like their parents, they
can become the happy couple they wished their parents had been in
their childhoods.
For many years prior to this systematic approach, my couple ses-
sions were based on the traditional belief that marital problems stemmed
mainly from the projection onto a partner of the unfinished business
with a parent in childhood. But I no longer think marital problems come
mainly from parent-child unfinished business. The effect of the par-
ents’ adult-adult relationship has too long been overlooked in couple
counseling. I now believe that most couple problems are an introjec-
tion of the unhappy relationship between the adult parents in the client’s
childhood and the client’s unconscious repetition of the adult role
model’s feelings and behaviors with a mate. Consistently, I have found
that each client’s Inner Couple interactional behavior is more reflective
of the identification with one parent’s personality, and not based on a
traditional same sex role modeling. Once I began having clients role
play and express their adult role models’ suppressed feelings, like
magic, my clients made comparable progress in their own couple rela-
tionships.
Like Ted, I had often wondered what triggered disastrous personal-
ity shifts in otherwise well-balanced mates. Many years ago, after what
I thought was an exceptionally good third session with a young couple,
I got the first clue. Two clients left my office in smiles, only to return 5
minutes later with the usually happy-go-lucky wife in tears and the
usually reserved husband in rage. “I can’t take it any more. He doesn’t
talk to me like a husband should,” she wailed. Not at all calm anymore,
he was now red in the face. “I will, when you start acting like a wife
should,” he yelled. All I could hear were the shoulds and all I could
think was, “According to whom?” What unknown past stimulus had
elicited such explosive reactions? Obviously, their responses were way
out of proportion to losing their car keys and they knew it.
During the next few couple sessions, as I dug deeper into each client’s
childhood looking for parent-child unmet needs, I discovered instead
that these same unhealed emotional wounds and angry reactions had
also erupted between their parents. Was it just coincidence that both
clients had parents with similar couple interactions? No, it was just the
first of many introjected repetitions I would find as I studied the nega-
tive behaviors learned from the parents’ adult-adult relationships.
Now after 10 years of using an intergenerational approach, I can
definitely say from experience that the reason most troubled couples
68 ANNE TEACHWORTH


conflict the way they do is that their parents also fought like that, and
often over the very same issues. The problem is not only, as Ted says,
that troubled couples inherited different couple patterns that clash, but
that they inherited similar patterns of how to clash from their parents
and then found a mate raised in the same style to do it with. I began to
notice how often both clients’ Inner Couple patterns matched; in fact,
even previous generations of pairs in the family had one adult like this
and one like that. Discovering matching Introjected Interactional Pat-
terns (IIPs) led me to begin writing Why We Pick The Mates We Do, pub-
lished by the Gestalt Institute Press in 1996.
But it wasn’t until months after that lost key incident that I began to
understand why these disastrous personality shifts kept happening.
Under the stress of misplacing their car keys, the young couple regressed
to the same set of explosive feelings and negative interactions they had
seen and heard from their parents in childhood. Rather than join forces
to solve the problem, like their parents, they attacked and blamed each
other when anything went wrong in their lives. Because their parents
had never found a solution for simple problems in their own couple
relationships, both my clients had unresolved conflicts handed down
as is from their parents. Years later, their parents’ land mines were again
being detonated on the field of this young couple’s relationship. If they
were not deactivated, they could damage or even destroy it.
I often compare such couple explosions to PTSD, Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder. Indeed, it is as if one or both clients were having a
flashback to their parents’ wars, reacting in shock, and repeating their
behaviors in deep trance. Either way, these clients are no longer in their
“own” mind. We might better label their flashbacks as PGMD for Pre-
vious Generations’ Marital Disorders. I believe that for couple work to
be successful, clients must first dig up these land mines and role play
their parents’ resolving these old couple battles. Practicing these new
positive behaviors as if their parents had really interacted that way in
the clients’ childhood memories, created new Inner Couple introjects.
By 1990, all my couple sessions began with interviewing both cli-
ents’ parents. Setting up three chairs, I had each client role play, first
person, present tense; (1) his or her mother, (2) the father, (3) the child/
self introjecting this couple relationship. Both clients role played their
imprinted Inner Couple relationship once as it was and then once as
each child/self had wanted it to be. Much to their surprise, while role
playing, clients not only remembered long forgotten Inner Couple
interactions but also released their role model parents’ long repressed
feelings and withheld emotions as they resolved their battles.
During the next year, many clients eagerly created and practiced
improvements in their parents’ old relationships, and made correspond-
RESPONSE TO SCHWARTZ’S ARTICLE 69


ing improvements in their own. As a result, all my clients now re-pair

their Inner Couple introjects before even attempting to work on their
current relationship problems. I wrote a case study describing the first
time that I had used this Psychogenetic Model™ exclusively with a
couple (Teachworth, 1994) and the lasting, amazing results achieved in
only 12 sessions.
One thousand or more case studies later, I can state that Inner Couple
“trance-ference” is clearly the answer to why so many otherwise intel-
ligent, caring and well-intentioned couples who really wanted to im-
prove their relationships have continually failed. Without any positive
couple behaviors as precedents, under stress, they could only automati-
cally react in pre-conditioned negative ways that they did not under-
stand or even like in themselves. Rarely did they or the counselor realize
that these were the same behaviors their parents had exhibited with
each other. Still hypnotized in childhood by their parents’ example,
whenever they got in a similar situation with their own partner, they
had regressed to these old PGMD battlefields. Methods that dealt only
with their parent-child issues couldn’t fix their adult-adult couple
issues.
I often describe my Psychogenetic Model™ as the Star Trek approach
to couple counseling because I invite my clients to boldly go where no
couple role models have gone before. The clients can then bring posi-
tive advances in their parents’ relationships back into their own cur-
rent relationship. This intergenerational approach to re-solving their
parents’ conflicts through role playing them is met with little or no
resistance compared to the difficult ego resistances most often incurred
while working directly with a battling couple. By becoming their par-
ents, clients can actually feel the emotional release happening inside
their own bodies as they begin genuine communication and solve their
parents’ problems for them. Relationship land mines are deactivated
and corrective couple memories imprinted to use in future stressful
couple situations.
In conclusion, I agree with Ted that Gestaltists need to help couples
complete their parents’ unfinished business. Lasting peace can only be
achieved by going further back than the previous generation’s tradi-
tional counseling approach. When clients re-pair their introjected In-
ner Couple memories from the past, they are unconsciously improving
their own couple interactions in the now. As author Tom Robbins (1980)
says in Still Life With Woodpecker, “It’s never too late to have a happy
childhood” (p. 277).
70 ANNE TEACHWORTH


References

Robbins, T. (1980), Still Life with Woodpecker. New York: Bantam Trade, 1984.
Teachworth, A. (1994), Three couples transformed. In: A Living Legacy to Fritz
and Laura Perls. ed. B. Feder & R. Ronall. Montclair, NJ: Bud Feder, 1996,
pp. 185–202.
 (1996), Why We Pick the Mates We Do. Metairie, LA: Gestalt Institutes
Press.

Gestalt Institute of New Orleans

1539 Metairie Road, Suite E
Metairie, Louisiana 70005 USA
Gestalt Review, 4(1):71–72, 2000

Response to Anne Teachworth’s Review



T H E O D O R E W. S C H W A R T Z, Th.D., ABPP

WAS PLEASED TO LEARN OF ANNE ’ S WORK and clinical development in

I addressing how married couples introject the relationship patterns

of previous generations. She has contributed much to the search for
answers to the phenomenon of intergenerational causality in married
couple’s conflict. Her work in developing models is most welcome.
My research is based on the principles that all systems balance or
disintegrate. It culminated in an instrument that outines the polarity
profile of the marital pattern of each set of parents. My Parental Systems
Polarity Profile identifies areas of conflict defining the battleground of
the present couple’s conflicts. It identifies three dimensions of intimate
systems: nurturance, control, and risk-taking. Comparing these previ-
ous marital relationships with the couple’s present relationship has of-
ten been a revelation to couples. Seeing how these introjected polarity
patterns conflict enables couples to design a new intimate relationship
based on present needs, not past experience. As Anne states, the work-
ing-through in role-playing needs more than two chairs. I have utilized
six chairs, symbolizing the interactions of three couples, two from the
previous generation and one from the current situation. The parallels
soon become obvious to all.
Marital counseling can be enhanced by identifying which polarity
pattern belongs to which couple. Couples are reassured in finding out
that they didn’t invent their conflicts and that real emotional security
can be realized by making conscious choices of the “shoulds and ought-
to-bes” about marriage inherited from their parents’ marriages. The
search for mature security is futile if it is based on introjects inherited
from parents.
I particularly liked Anne’s use of the process (and spelling of) trance-
ference. Marital therapy can be seen as the process of helping couples


Dr. Schwartz is a Board Certified Family Psychologist (ABPP) who brings over forty
years of experience as a family clinician, teacher of Psychologists and systems research
to this study. He is currently consulting and semi-retired in Colorado.

71  2000 The Analytic Press

72 THEODORE W. SCHWARTZ


break both of their “trances” when it comes to the source of their rela-
tionship and expectations. Gaining freedom from the slavery of these
“trances” is an important goal of intergenerational systems therapy with
married couples.

2596 Lochbuie Circle

Loveland, CO 80538-5386
Gestalt Review, 4(1):73, 2000

Response to Joseph Zinker’s Comments



T H E O D O R E W. S C H W A R T Z, Th.D., ABPP

how much my systems therapy practice

I
T WAS REASSURING TO KNOW
had integrated my training 25 years ago at Cape Cod and
the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. The principles Joseph cited in his
response have been basic to my clinical practice for decades. I am in-
debted to Sonia Nevis and Joseph for their valuable training in Gestalt
family therapy.
It is difficult for me to respond to Joseph’s comments because they
are so familiar and almost second nature in my practice of systems
therapy. I am looking forward to the time when the Cape Cod model of
family therapy will be universally utilized by Gestaltists. Postmodernist
tangents seem to me to be a futile attempt to bridge the gap between
existential therapy and cognitive approaches. They merely succeed in
watering down the intrinsic power of systems by focusing on thinking,
which Gestaltists believe dilutes human experience and violates uni-
tary concepts of change.
I agree with Joseph that too much psychotherapy concentrates on
what is pathological, what is wrong with marriage, rather than build-
ing on what is healthy. Encouragement in a positive atmosphere is es-
sential for couples to make needed changes in their marital system.
Kurt Lewin is correct that a system has a life of its own and becomes
the third patient, an organism integral but distinct from its parts. The
imprint of the therapist’s marital system is certainly an important fo-
cus for the therapist’s awareness to counter possible transference and
countertransference in couple’s work.
I greatly appreciated Joseph’s indirect affirmation of my therapeutic
work. I wish he had commented on the imprinting and transgenerational
processes more than “whispers in the ears of the therapist.”

2596 Lochbuie Circle

Loveland, CO 80538-5386

Dr. Schwartz is a Board Certified Family Psychologist (ABPP) who brings over forty
years of experience as a family clinician, teacher of Psychologists and systems research
to this study. He is currently consulting and semi-retired in Colorado.
73  2000 The Analytic Press
Gestalt Review, 4(1):74–76, 2000

In Memoriam: Harold Greenwald



BARRIE SIMMONS

HEN HAROLD GREENWALD DIED ON APRIL 1 , 1999 ,

he had, by his own

W decisions over many decades, come to be an embodiment of

the ethic he saw as central to psychotherapy:

Basically . . . the greatest single cause of mental distress is the

absence of growth-fostering love and acceptance in the develop-
ment of the individual; therefore . . . the analyst’s task . . . needs to
supply such growth-encouraging love in the form of deep under-
standing . . .
When we approach the development of psychoanalysis with this
concept, it is possible to see that Freud provided growth-foster-
ing love by understanding and accepting the formerly rejected
emotions and fantasies of sexual love and hate; successively. Adler
accepted competitiveness and the wish for dominance, Sullivan
and Horney the variety of ways in which individuals interact with
each other in society, and Jung the different aspects of the
individual’s way of being. Finally, Rogers attempted to go even
further by not interposing any theory of personality between him-
self and his clients, but by permitting them the fullest latitude of
expression while trying to feel with them. All of these creative
thinkers . . . base their approach on displacing censorious judg-
ment and criticism with the effort to accept and understand.
[Greenwald, 1959].

Barrie Simmons practices individual, group and couple therapy in Rome, conducts
professional training in Italy and Greece, and teaches group psychotherapy at the Post-
Graduate School of Specialization in Psychology at the University of Naples. He is
Vice-President of the Shang-Shung International Institute of Tibetan Studies.
74  2000 The Analytic Press
IN MEMORIAM: HAROLD GREENWALD 75


Later, in Direct Decision Therapy, the method he invented, Harold

applied this vision radically: he would ask the patient, at outset, to
decide the duration of treatment, the frequency of appointments, and
would then, during therapy, constantly have the patient choose format
and content, that is, whether or not to work on dreams, to enter or exit
hypnotic trance, to lie down or sit up, indeed to change, or postpone
change, or not change at all. Harold’s stance was totally permissive. “I
don’t push them because most people have been pushed enough in life.
Or, again: “Many people don’t necessarily want to change. It’s not up
to me to decide that they should change . . . I try not to push them be-
cause that would just make it more difficult for them to change when
they are ready. If I push, I would just postpone the moment of decision,
postpone their moment of change” (Greenwald, 1973).
Instead, Harold would investigate with his patients the “payoffs” of
their decisions. In his view, every decision promotes payoffs—some
conscious, some kept out of awareness. If the patient does not carry out
a decision, he or she has made another decision, knowingly or not, pre-
ferring a different set of payoffs. Staying sick, for example, is a deci-
sion leading to tangible or symbolic payoffs, such as obtaining a pension,
the continuing attention of the therapist, or the solicitude of family and
friends.
A decision will not stick unless one recognizes and discards the pay-
offs of prior or opposite behavior patterns. With a patient who stated a
desire to kick a drug habit, Harold asked “Why?” and pointed out the
manifold payoffs to dope—relief from anxiety, the euphoric psycho-
physical reaction to a dose, and the simplification of life to a single
issue (with consequent near-total abdication of responsibility).

I do not try to get the patient to necessarily make the decision, I

just try to show him that he has made some kind of decision and
that it is important to be aware of it. My real goal is awareness, an
awareness in terms of the choice he has made, the context in which he
made the choice, and the payoffs. What I’m always looking for is
awareness, not necessarily change. But with something as destruc-
tive as a patient planning to commit suicide, I would have to tell
him that it makes me unhappy, that I’m uneasy at the thought of
him killing himself, that I’ll have to work on that.” [Greenwald,
1973].

Harold’s own life made obvious the paramount importance of

decisions.

I was close to forty when I discovered that I was a failure . . . A

man I knew came up . . . (and) asked, ‘How old are you?’ I said I
76 BARRIE SIMMONS


was in my late thirties and he demanded, ‘When are you going to

do something, when will you get yours?’ . . . Then and there, I
had a realization. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to do something.’
Within one month I had the best job I’d ever had . . . executive in
a good-sized manufacturing company, and within two years, as a
result of reading a book by Theodor Reik . . . I had also decided to
become a psychologist . . . The payoff has been quite remarkable.
A few years after . . . I found myself with a Ph.D. and a full psy-
choanalytic practice. I wrote a book, based in part on my doctoral
dissertation, which sold about a million copies and was made into
a movie . . . I had a different feeling about myself . . . So that, for
me, the payoff of decisions in neither an abstract idea or some-
thing I use only for patients . . . [Greenwald, 1973].

As Harold himself wrote, in another context:

This reminds me very much of a story Theodor Reik once told me

about Freud . . . Reik met Freud in the street one day just at the
time Reik was trying to decide whether to get a Ph.D. in psychol-
ogy or got to medical school and become a psychiatrist. He asked
Freud this very important question, ‘What should I do?’ Freud
replied, ‘Anything that important, don’t think about, do what you
feel like doing.’ [Greenwald, 1973].

References

Greenwald, H., ed. (1959), Conclusion. In: Great Cases in Psychoanalysis. New
York: Ballantine.
Greenwald, H. (1973), Direct Decision Therapy. San Diego, CA: Edits.

Appia Antica 109

Rome, Italy 00129
Gestalt Review, 4(1):77–90, 2000

Back Pages: Topics and Reviews

Awareness as an Instrument: Book Review


T O D D B U R L E Y, Ph.D.

The I in Science: Training to Utilize Subjectivity in Research, by Judith R.

Brown. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press: 1995.

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in what has come to
be called qualitative research. Part of this movement has come from an
understanding that not all questions yield to hardcore experimental
design and statistical analysis, with its linear equations and the assump-
tion of fairly simple and controllable relationships between variables.
Universities have also begun to broaden the definition of research that
has dominated higher education, by accepting less tightly controlled
studies than was true in the past.
Paradoxically, this movement comes full circle from the point about
100 years ago when British astronomers began to notice that astrono-
mers’ assistants provided variable data because reaction times between
individuals were too variable to provide objective data needed in the
research of the time. This was part of the impetus for the establishment
of what came to be known as psychophysics, one of the disciplines that,
today, makes up experimental psychology. Now we have come to un-
derstand that objectivity is not only not always possible, but perhaps
not always desirable.
This is the academic climate out of which Judith Brown’s The I in
Science came to be written. This book grew out of a course taught by Dr.
Brown and her husband, Dr. George Brown, at the University of Oslo
on the use of self in social science research. In order to deal with the
problem of subjectivity in qualitative research and what has come to be
commonly known as “The Rosenthal Effect,” the notion that the expec-
tations and biases of the researcher have a clear and biasing influence
upon the subjects involved in the research, the author has drawn upon
the two theories and methodologies that deal with subjectivity most
effectively at the present time. These are the concepts of confluent edu-
cation developed by the author ’s husband when he was a professor of
77  2000 The Analytic Press
78 BACK PAGES: TOPICS AND REVIEWS


education at the University of California at Santa Barbara and a fairly

classical interpreter of Gestalt therapy.
Dr. Brown is at her very best when she describes the actual methods
that she uses to enhance awareness of oneself and one’s effect upon
others. She describes in detail the methods she uses in training stu-
dents in “process awareness,” the name she gives to training in careful
and disciplined observation required in social research when the
researcher is interacting with or observing the subjects of his or her
research.
She is least satisfying in her exposition of the theory of Gestalt
therapy. Here she relies uncritically on the weaker work of some Ge-
stalt writers. There is, for example, the familiar confusion of the field
or ecosystem within which the person exists with that person’s phe-
nomenological field and the confusing question of whether the figure
exists in the field or whether it is a function of the individuals’ phe-
nomenology. Her concepts of contact and awareness are dealt with in
ways that are contradictory to the Gestalt definition of awareness. Lastly,
although she discusses the concept of process at considerable length,
she accepts uncritically the notion of a fixed Gestalt, a concept that is
not easy to defend if one looks closely at the structure and function of
figure and ground within the person’s experience. This book is not about
the theory of Gestalt therapy, so this flaw is not a major issue. It simply
means that this is not a source to which one would refer someone for a
good exposition of Gestalt theory.
It is at the practical level that Dr. Brown’s book truly shines. It con-
tains an articulately described set of experiments and exercises that are
a marvelous and thorough guide to training in understanding the
sources of personal bias in subjective methods of research, at an expe-
riential level. And for this, I highly recommend this book to anyone
dealing with subjective data, not only in the research scientist that Dr.
Brown is writing to, but others as well, whose investigations take them
into arenas that require a self-aware, but subjective, approach. After
reading this book, I redesigned some of the training of psychothera-
pists in which I am involved, using some of Dr. Brown’s recommenda-
tions. The effects were very rewarding. I found that her approach
allowed me to help psychotherapists observe client behavior, as well
as their own reactions, in a way that hastened the development of their
observational skills, helped them become aware of and cope with their
subjective biases, and made their interventions more effective. And as
a bonus I was able to do this training much more quickly than I had in
the past. Judith Brown has clearly helped me to be a more effective
teacher.
 Adolescence and Gestalt Therapy:
Book Review
SYLVIA FLEMING CROCKER

Adolescence: Psychotherapy and the Emergent Self, by Mark McConville.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass: 1995.

Mark McConville’s book contains a model of what a Gestalt theory of

human development should be. He explains the developmental changes
of this period in specifically Gestalt-theoretical terms and does full jus-
tice to the phenomena associated with adolescent behavior. This is a
book whose ideas then come to life through the clinical examples that
the author gives from his own professional and personal experience.
Moreover, McConville’s organization of his ideas is masterful, clearly
illustrating Mortimer Adler ’s criteria of a well-written book: the cen-
tral idea is given, and all of the subordinate parts elaborate and sup-
port that central idea in ways that make the book a unified whole. By
the end of McConville’s book, any clinician working with adolescents
will have an understanding of this important development, which is
both cognitively rich and therapeutically powerful.
McConville tells us in the Preface how he came to develop a Gestalt
model of adolescent development. While he had learned a great deal
from the writings of the psychoanalysts, particularly Blos, and from
such family therapists as Minuchin, Satir, and Haley, none of these ad-
equately equipped him for successful therapeutic work with adoles-
cents. The analysts deal too much with intrapsychic phenomena, while
the family therapists are almost entirely interested in the field condi-
tions in which the client lives. In the Gestalt field model of the organ-
ism-in-the-environment, McConville found the proper balance between
the inner life of the young person and the outer circumstances in which
he lives.
Gestalt model is a growth/adaptation model in which behaviors are
seen as a person’s attempt to survive and/or to grow in his present
circumstances. Looking at adolescence from this perspective enabled
McConville to “tune in” on the logic of even the most bizarre adoles-
cent behavior, to see these phenomena as adaptations in the service of
the adolescent’s attempts to grow up. The Gestalt model permitted
McConville to gain an overview of all human development, since the
issues that are central to adolescent growth recur in differing contexts
80 BACK PAGES: TOPICS AND REVIEWS


throughout each person’s lifetime and richly suggestive of therapeutic

interventions, which McConville has found to be at once respectful of
the adolescent individual and highly successful in helping him deal
with the salient issues of that period of his life.
McConville’s point of departure is Gestalt therapy’s central tenet that
the primary task of every human being’s life is to find ways to make
contact with others and to do so for the sake of both survival and growth
to maturity. Thus the first of the book’s two major sections sets forth
the central developmental tasks of adolescence in terms of boundaries,
the adolescent’s discovery and exploration of self, and the working out
of how she will have contact with self and others.
The tasks of adolescent development are accomplished through three
(not strictly linear) stages. The first involves what McConville calls the
“disembedding process,” wherein the adolescent begins to move away
from childhood—with its introjected contact styles and values—by dif-
ferentiating herself from the family field. Here she must establish bound-
aries with family members in such a way as to clear a space for
self-discovery, the next major task. Thus “the first organizational task
of adolescent development is to establish, in fact and in principle, own-
ership of self—a preliminary sense of authorship, identity, and
boundedness” (p. 104). As the adolescent moves away from childhood,
she must reorganize and restructure “the interpersonal field as a place
where experiments with heightened authorship can take place” (p. 104).
It is only after these “interpersonal boundaries and processes” have
been altered “that intrapsychic emergence and maturation become
possible” (p. 104).
The second phase of development is characteristically a period of
intense self-awareness in which the adolescent begins to discover a
“richer world of poignant feelings, interesting and frightening
awarenesses, and intriguing abstract thoughts” (p. 112). The adoles-
cent begins to explore two distinct fields of experience: inward and
outward. During this period these young persons often “find them-
selves swimming in a sea of private affect and intuition that segregates
them from others in their environment,” which often produces “feel-
ings of alienation and aloneness” (p. 116). Conflicts in the earlier stage
were dealt with by projecting one pole of the conflict onto others while
the adolescent identified with the other pole. At this later phase the
conflicts are, in contrast, experienced intrapsychically as “owned am-
bivalences” as “the struggle of self with self” (p. 116).
The third stage usually occurs in late adolescence. Here the adoles-
cent begins to integrate the learnings and experiences of the preceding
years. The maturing self becomes “more of a con-figuration . . . [of]
impulses, prohibitions, introjects, attributions, wants, polarities, and
partial self gestalts” and emerges “as a higher-order gestalt that inte-
BACK PAGES: TOPICS AND REVIEWS 81


grates increasingly diverse aspects of self and promotes an ever-grow-

ing sense of ownership of experience” (p. 117).
The theme of this stage shifts toward a more future-oriented point of
view and is concerned with “choices about relationships, career direc-
tions, values, and the like” (p. 118). Ultimately the purpose of adoles-
cent development is to produce individuals who are both existentially
responsible and authentically interdependent in the adult world. This
is usually achieved naturally and normally—if all goes well.
Unfortunately, a variety of difficulties can emerge at each of these
stages. The second major section of the book, therefore, deals with those
therapeutic issues that most commonly arise as the adolescent and her
family move—or fail to move—through these phases and describes
many of the requirements and interventions for effective therapeutic
work with adolescents and their families. McConville says that the work
of the therapist is, first, to assess the contact style that typically charac-
terizes the interactive processes of the adolescent’s family. Much of his
analysis draws heavily on the Gestalt theory of contact distortions and
describes predominant family contact styles in terms of projection,
confluence, retroflection, and so on. Each of these suggests specific kinds
of therapeutic interventions.
The adolescent’s relationship with the therapist—the sine qua non
of successful therapeutic work—is important in two ways: as aiding in
the development of cognitive understandings about various aspects of
life and as a growth-encouraging existential field. The therapist pro-
motes the adolescent’s cognitive development and self-understanding
by raising questions, giving answers, posing dilemmas, making sug-
gestions, and generally supporting the emergence of self-ownership and
responsibility. Equally important is the fact that “the therapeutic rela-
tionship will implicitly create (or reinforce) a new form of contact with
the adult world, contact wherein the adolescent is recognized precisely
as a self, an author, a center of experience and synthesis that legiti-
mately holds its own place in the field” (p. 190). McConville asserts
that this touches on “an essential, core dimension of all psychotherapy:
the creation of an interpersonal field where the interiority of the self
can emerge, be fleshed out, and become whole” (p. 221).
Mark McConville’s model of adolescent development is both the first
installment of a Gestalt adolescence theory and a demonstration of what
must characterize the other installments. McConville says that the three
tasks of adolescence occur and reoccur throughout human life, lending
salience to the term the human life cycle. Schematically stated, human
development always involves developing and/or discovering ways to
move away from what has been to explore and to experiment with what
can be and what is judged as desirable and then to integrate these learn-
ings in a way that builds motivation and leads to new actions. A
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Gestalt developmental theory will therefore place the changing tasks

of contact at its theoretical center. It will describe the kinds of changes
occurring during certain identifiable periods of life and will analyze
how these changes call for new cognitive, physical, and/or social tools
that will empower the growing individual to have more effective con-
tact with self and others in these changing circumstances.
McConville understands this process theoretically by appealing to
human organisms’ intrinsic abilities to synthesize wholes and to adapt
themselves to internal and environmental change. His analysis of de-
velopment springs directly from the biological foundations of Gestalt
theory and orients us to the proper way for Gestalt therapists to under-
stand all human development.
McConville’s model can serve as a helpful guide as future Gestalt
theorist-practitioners work out similar models that will enable us to
understand the issues involved in the normal changes of early child-
hood, preadolescence, and the several phases of adult life—and to be
effective in aiding those individuals and families who are having diffi-
culty navigating the turbulence of these changes. Those therapists who
currently work with adolescents will be grateful to Mark McConville
for sharpening their understandings and their perceptions and deep-
ening the satisfaction they experience in their work.

Unity and Knowledge: Book Review

JOHN WYMORE

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, by E. O. Wilson. New York: Alfred

E. Knopf: 1998.

Ethnographic literature has revealed that the aversive response to snakes

is not only universal in humans but also appears to be so in old world
primates—chimpanzees, for example. Humans seem to have consis-
tently transformed observations of animal behavior into dream con-
tent, mythology, and art representations with broad complexes of
meaning. Although we do not yet know the exact neural pathway of
this snake aversion, we can construct with some confidence the ulti-
mate cause, the survival value, of this phenomenon.
Through eons, humans and certain snakes have been very danger-
ous to one another, so much so that human culture has evolved elabo-
rate symbolism, which in turn has made snakes ever more
fearsome—not a bad thing for snakes and humans.
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

To understand this movement from snake as organism to serpent as

symbol requires that several scientific disciplines combine resources,
for example, herpetology, cultural anthropology, psychology, art his-
tory, mythology, and finally, neuroscience. This is the subject of
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge and what E. O. Wilson builds a case
for in his most recent book.
The Harvard professor of biology affirms the isolation between the
social sciences and the natural sciences. Furthermore, he lays responsi-
bility for this squarely on the steps of the social scientists, from
Durkheim to Coleman, from Boas to Bateson, Freud to Skinner. Their
problem was a rigorous insistence on the tabula rasa notion of the hu-
man neonate and that it was social learning (culture) that filled the slate.
They denied, as many today still do, that there was a universal and
innate human nature.
The bridge across this divide is being built by biology, asserts Wil-
son—four bridges, in fact: cognitive neuroscience, human behavior
genetics, evolutionary biology, and environmental science. Regarding
the latter, Wilson notes that it is the environmental sciences that study
the “theater” in which the physiology and behavior of our species
evolved. It was a pleistocene theater, that is, stone age. Neither biology
nor social science can possibly make any sense without taking that into
account.
The human mind was, for the most part, not constructed to easily
grasp reality. It habitually and automatically has filled the gap of igno-
rance with myth and self-deception. As Wilson says, ”Natural selec-
tion built the brain to survive in the world and only incidentally to
understand itself. The proper task of scientists is to diagnose and cor-
rect the misalignment.” In other words, knowing and understand has
to somehow overcome our stone-age Darwinian mentality.

Postings

A Discussion of the Current Status

of Gestalt Therapy in the United States

This is a report of a discussion that took place during the Southwest

Regional Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt
Therapy (AAGT). This meeting was held in San Antonio, Texas, on Sep-
tember 18–20, 1998. The participants in this discussion were Todd Burley,
Liv Estrup, Isabel Fredericson, Irv Gadol, Janice Roosevelt Gerard, Jo-
seph Handlon, Erv Polster, Miriam Polster, Rita Resnick, Robert Resnick,
84 BACK PAGES: TOPICS AND REVIEWS


Jolynne Reynolds, Bruce Robertson, and Judy Robertson. Our purpose

in presenting this summary of our informal discussion is to stimulate
further exchanges of ideas about this important topic in our field.
The basic question was raised by one of the members of the group:
“Why is it that Gestalt Therapy (GT) has less currency in the USA as
compared to many other countries?” Here are some of the major points
of discussion that were stimulated by this question.

The Evidence for the Current Status

• The removal of the chapter on GT from the latest edition of a major
text on current psychotherapies because of lack of reader interest
• The withering away of GT institutes and training programs over
the years
• In a major professional organization of psychotherapists, GT as no
longer the largest identified therapeutic orientation
• Empirical research on GT not supported in universities
• Fewer experts now in GT on higher education faculties
• Articles on GT not visible in professional journals that are not de-
voted exclusively to this orientation
• Fewer presentations of GT material to students in higher education
• Lack of presentations of GT orientation to medical students or psy-
chiatric residents
• GT not viewed as a major psychotherapy method by third party
payers of health insurance
• GT training programs that attract more master ’s level students than
Ph.D.’s or M.D.’s

Some Possible Reasons for This Current Status

• In the eyes of many, GT is still tainted by its reputation from the
1960s for giving license to “act out and lash out.” Also, GT seen as
scornful of society’s conventional values
• The medical model, which is antithetical to the GT approach, hav-
ing increasing currency in the psychotherapeutic marketplace
• The model of: obtain diagnosis, specify treatment plan (including
length of time) before therapy begins strongly supported by man-
aged care protocol
—Emphasis placed on immediate problem solving, not on concern
for clients’ nonproductive, long-term relationships with his/her
environment
—Current emphasis on biochemical basis for psychological prob-
lems, hence extensive use of drugs as sole psychotherapeutic agent
BACK PAGES: TOPICS AND REVIEWS 85


—Paradoxically, GT’s ability to accomplish a good deal of thera-

peutic gain in a “short piece of work” not understood by managed
care
• A major historical influence in GT theory has been an anti-
authority orientation that has often eschewed hierarchical organi-
zational structures. This has often made it difficult to maintain an
effective, flexible institution able to reach fully its own potential
and to exert a positive powerful influence on the professional
environment
• GT theory reluctant to make conceptual links with other current
psychotherapy theories possibly because of its heritage from the
past that fought against the then accepted theories
• Little effort made to make formal connections between GT training
institutes and higher degree granting institutions
• GT theory development has often focussed its energies on internal,
territorial issues of dogma and orthodoxy rather than exploring
possible diversity of ideas while still maintaining its basic theoreti-
cal integrity. Has GT become maladaptive because of concerns for
orthodoxy?
• Current students of psychotherapy more consumer-oriented, with
a greater need to learn techniques for problem solving specific, con-
crete issues; GT viewed as being antithetical to this approach
• As the popular currency of specific psychotherapies wax and wane
over time (witness the history of radical behaviorism, classical psy-
choanalysis, and pure client-centered orientations), certain aspects
of GT being inconspicuously incorporated into the recent develop-
ments of cognitive, self psychology, and intersubjectivity approaches
to psychotherapy without giving due credit to their origin

A Few Initial Suggested Remedies

• Encourage GT authors and practitioners to participate more actively

in professional organizations not exclusively devoted to GT (e.g.,
AAP, APA, AGPA, etc.).
• Invite non-GT authors to write articles for GT journals that explore
possible theoretical linkages.
• Encourage the publication of GT articles of wide appeal in other
than GT journals.
• Create up-to-date professional media presentations of current GT
methods for dissemination in universities and elsewhere.
• Encourage the publication of research on GT theory and outcome.
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• In GT conferences, such as AAGT and others, invite guest speakers

from other therapeutic approaches to explore possible connections
with our current theory.
• Develop and disseminate more documentation on the possible ap-
plications of GT to a broader spectrum of applications: in edu- cat-
ion, organizational and community development, health promotion,
and more.

It is our sincere hope that the above report will serve to stimulate a
lively, ongoing discussion in these pages.
—Joseph Handlon

Dispatches

Writers Conference, Cleveland, Ohio, 1998

The ups and downs of writing come out in the risks taken in a warm,
supportive, and challenging milieu. Both the writers and the respond-
ers (the same folks in different roles) elicited excitement for me, an
excitement far beyond what I expected and what I have become accus-
tomed to. The styles of thinking and presenting—also strikingly vari-
ous—assured me that real people were groping their way forward. The
reactions of the presenters to the commentary they received—from tears
of being heard and appreciated to embarrassment to a sense of affirma-
tion in what one wants to do—were heartfelt and moving. The sense of
community, coming from honest presentation, openness, and risk, along
with honest reaction, though caring, respectful, and perceptive, was
evident and important.
Overall, I had a positive experience, one worth the 7-hour drive each
way, through rain, sleet, and snow out and then a sunny winter ’s day
on return. Some of the topics were attending to body and movement in
adult clients in relation to child developmental accomplishments; sexu-
ality discussed in training; anger in relationship; evolutionary theory
and clinical work; spirituality; intimacy; the background and origins of
Gestalt therapy; culture and Gestalt therapy; studying competence of
developing Gestalt therapists; sexuality in everyday life; and, impor-
tantly, attending to experience of individuals in organizations and in
relating to alcohol and drugs.
Some of the problems in the writing come from loneliness, lack of
support for ideas different from the conventional, having many ideas
BACK PAGES: TOPICS AND REVIEWS 87


and not finding a way to tame them into a figure, needing to reformat
the organization of an argument, wondering if anyone would be inter-
ested in one’s thoughts, feeling tired of doing theory, and believing as a
novice that the task is too big. From my vantage point each of these
concerns was addressed, most in a positive fashion.
—Phil Lichtenberg (reporting on the con-
conference sponsored by the GIC Press)

“What I Learned at the Gender Conference”

Fate decreed that I would go to the Gender Conference as a man. There

were others of my kind in attendance, of course, but I should point out
at the start that we were no ordinary men (ordinary men do not go to
gender conferences). We were there to work: to talk about the issues, to
join in a dialogue with our fellow men and women, to come to new
understandings. And in light of this, it seems to me that the most re-
vealing point to consider is that, although we men were full of good
intention going into the conference, we didn’t seem entirely sure what
to do or how to be once it started.
Let me qualify that. We weren’t floundering around looking for di-
rection, but neither did we have a clear idea of what we needed, what
we wanted, or how we might try to get those things. I say this to point
to a contrast with the way many of the women seemed to this observer:
like old pros. Women have been advocating for themselves in this arena
for far longer than men, and they’re better at it. Bringing us together
highlighted the different stages of the women’s and men’s “move-
ments”—and I use quotes only because after the Gender Conference I
can’t say that men’s progress in the sphere of advocating for themselves
has really begun to approach the stage of being a movement.
But I get ahead of myself. We arrived. We didn’t resort to (too many
of) those things that men are supposed to do when we get together in a
strange situation: tell loud jokes, slap one another on the back (or, if
we’re feeling frisky, the buttocks), and act boisterous and disruptive
like the carefree little boys we sometimes wish we were. Nevertheless,
we were faced with the foreboding task of creating a way to be together
for several days to talk about gender, and my guess is that not many of
us had been in a situation quite like this before.
I hadn’t. I’d been to plenty of women’s rallies. They’re easy. I know
how to be at those. I’ve signed countless petitions demanding equal
opportunities for women and marched proudly in pro-choice rallies to
advocate for women’s right to choose. I believe in those things and know
what to do at those events. But the Gender Conference was another
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

story. What, exactly, is a generally progressive guy to do at a gathering

that isn’t exclusively about supporting women? The fact is that I hadn’t
given much thought beforehand to what it was that I wanted and needed
as a man—and I’m not sure that many of us had.
This neglect of our needs and desires is, of course, symptomatic. For
men to begin to articulate the deepest stirrings of their hearts, we must
first learn to pay attention to those aching organs—something we’re
notoriously bad at. (Really? This reads too much like holy writ, not so
much a fair appraisal of you and your cohort. It’s two points: this seems
so generalized when you are surely no general man at all [so it’s dull-
ing and impersonal], and knowing you even the little I do it seems un-
true, the hokum so many sophisticated men and women believe.) But
gathering together at the Gender Conference led us a step in the right
direction; once we’re connected to our hearts, we can discern that they
are, indeed, stirring. Wildly.
Among the men, a curious excitement began to emerge as we spent
more time together. There was a sense that some missing energy was
being restored, some important kind of togetherness was retrieving
itself. But whereas the men seemed almost enchanted (if only “almost,”
is there another descriptive word that would tell better?) by the nov-
elty of what was happening, many of the women seemed at times to be
bordering on . . . what? Boredom? (Question mark?) Almost as though
they’d been there, done that. And in some ways, of course, they had:
many of them had been gathering with other women and men for
decades, collectively struggling to give expression to women’s deepest
needs, desires, and demands. (What’s the truth here? I don’t mind the
heroic mode in general, but again I feel this feels too uncritical, as though
you’ve unthinkingly repeated p.r. If you were the dull clods and jerks
all this suggests, you wouldn’t be writing this, and it wouldn’t have
gone this way.) Yet several women mentioned one aspect of this par-
ticular conference which they did find quite interesting: watching the
men.
Even while a few felt that they were repeating an old mistake (“Here
we go focusing on the men again!”), others told me that yes, much of
this drill is familiar from other Women’s Conferences, but Wow, isn’t it
amazing to see the way the guys are talking to one another?
All of this is to highlight how much work needs to be done if men
are to create a legitimate “Movement” at all (and even before that we
must ask the question: do we really want one?). In order for such a
movement to exist, men and women alike must address an unnamed
hesitance that hovers around the idea of men gathering together to form
a coherent movement in the first place. There is concern there—some
fear, maybe. On both sides. The question looms: What is that fear about?
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

(A problem with this rewrite is that your observation of this fear has
been replaced by something vaguer, seemingly more in your suppos-
ing than what you saw. And you seem effaced. What do you think this
fear is about?)
This is the unaddressed issue. It’s clear that both men and women
will have their work cut out if men decide they want a movement of
their own. But what do we actually want—and what are we actually
afraid of when we imagine ourselves asking for it? Not only will some
of these things be difficult to say out loud, they may well be surpris-
ingly difficult to listen to. We men could find that we have something
to learn from those forward-thinking women who want to assist us as
we struggle to publicly articulate our grievances and desires. (Again,
this seems clichéd.) They won’t all be easy to hear. What I learned at
the Gender Conference is that we all need to start naming our fears.
Men and women alike have to prepare themselves if men are to learn
to speak their heart’s truths—and be more than good listeners to the
hearts of women.
—Arthur Roberts

A basic premise of the GIC Gender conference held in October 1998 at

Cape Cod was that we all live in a gendered world: an obvious truism.
So why has the topic of gender been so absent in Gestalt writing since
Gestalt therapy began? However, we also live in a world divided by
class, race, politics, age, ability, and ethnic background. Gestaltists have
been equally silent on these topics too. GIC has led the way in encour-
aging writing that supports our understanding of particular popula-
tions, such as couples and families, adolescents, and those recovering
from addiction and abuse. It has also elaborated the new relational para-
digm, setting it against the individualism of our patriarchal culture.
This conference took an admirable and passionate step to attend to the
implications of this in the field of gender.
In England there has been a veritable upheaval in the field of gender
relations. Feminism emphasizes different issues these days. Whereas
30 years ago it was hard for girls and women to achieve their full
potential in most fields of endeavor, now the buzz anxiety is the under-
achievement of boys. Our economic landscape no longer supports many
of the domains in which boys became “men.” Feminism here has
ridden on this wave; now there are more women than men studying to
be doctors, lawyers, therapists (as we know), and even priests—tradi-
tional male preserves that benefit from traditionally female qualities of
good relational skills. The glass ceiling is melting. Boys are in trouble.
However, class and race structure our possibilities, as I believe they
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always have, far more than gender. It seems to me that what it means
to be a man in our present culture is under huge challenge, not from
women but because masculinity is no longer occupationally supported
except in certain pockets of society. The power of the global economy
both follows and leads in manipulating our deepest longings for con-
sumer gain, attempting to blur class while emphasizing the complexity
of gender images. Reflecting on all of this, my curiosity was piqued to
focus on gender all these decades on. I had a slight sense of time warp
when the conference began although the title wasn’t just gender, but
narrative, dialogue, and gender. Appropriately, the conference was
structured by the participants themselves, gathering frequently in same
sex and mixed groups to explore and receive personal narratives and
their responses to the conference inputs—family histories, myth, and
media images. We had fishable groups too, where the men and women
could listen to each other talking. In line with the shifts described above,
what struck me most was not the familiar perspectives of the women,
but the pain and the freshness of the men’s conversations, men who
were actively struggling to express their nurturing energies, their vul-
nerabilities, their love and affection—alongside their strengths and their
capacities to act on the world. They seemed so much less confident and
supported than the women, despite the fact that the world of therapy
encourages men who have these relational capacities developed, yet
even here among this self-selected group of men, being emotionally
direct wasn’t easy. I was heartened by the support for gender ambigu-
ity, too, for gays, lesbians, and transsexuals. As I listened to the many
powerful, competent, and often angry women, I was in more familiar
territory. The stories we women told were not so much stories of the
present but of past injuries. The pain of the men seemed more current.
I look forward to reading the Gestalt writing seeded by this
conference.
—Judith Hemming, England, December 1998

These sections, “Dispatches” and “Postings” will appear periodically

in the Back Pages section of Gestalt Review and regularly on our web
site. They contain reports on conferences, workshops and trainings (dis-
patches from the front lines, as it were), and opinion pieces, reviews,
announcements, and other essays of general interest to Gestalt thera-
pists (“Postings”). Contributors should send what they have written
(include a disk, please) to Gestalt Review or directly to Joel Latner, the
Back Pages editor, in an e-mail, at jlatner1@rochester.rr.com.
Some of the above are excerpts; the full reports will be online at the
Gestalt Review site.
—J.L.