BRITISH Volume 7

Number 2
December 1998
-
pp 73 144
JOURNAL -
ISSN 0961 771X

MALCOLM PARLEIT Editorial

and TrTr)mHEMMING

HLTNTER BEAUMONT Interviewed by JUDITH HEMMING- The Held of

Soul

DES KENNEDY Gestalt: A Point of Departurn for a Pemnal

Spirituality

BILL C m A N Remembering Earth: Fmm Armoured Spectator

to Sensuous Participant

RACHEtBrn The Gestalt ReflectingTeam

GORDON WHEELER Towards a Gestalt Developmental Mdel

Lectern to the Editor:

DAN ROSENBLATT Gestalt Writing of Differeat Kinds

V I N C E N T ~ Y S Marianne Fry in Zreland

PETER PHILPPSON 'Five Layem' versus lntemtptians to Contad' -

A Follow-Up Note

MALCOLM COWARD 'Qn Bracketing' -A Rqmnse to b l i t a Sapriel

LOLITA SAPRXlEL Reply to Malcolm Coward

Book Reviews:
ANSEL WOLDT Developing Getatt Counselling: Jennifer
Msckewn

Opinion
JOEL LATNER Sex in Thenpy

Notices
EDITORIAL and P d s should be revered and cantirmousEy r e f d to,
or dismantled, or ignored (or, indeed, thrown into the
Welcome to the second issue of %him 7. As usual Pacific Ocean as Fritz Perls once said it shwld k).
there i s a variety of Gestalt related topics and some The editorial function. as we see it h m , i s both give
excellent writing, both from new writers and voices expression to the various trends and movements of
familiar to regular readers - a goodmix. Weare wanting thought as they e ~ i sint Gestalt M y , as well as to respect
to stride out mote adventumusly by increasing our range, the tradition and enduring qualities of the approach. In the
in subjects, styles, and authors. This issue strekfies our language of the 6th European Conference of Gestalt
familiarity boundary in ways which excite us. Our hope, Therapy (Palerrno, ItaIy, October 1998), this is a
of course, is that it will excite you as well. hemzencufic activity - interpreting the texts, the hadition,
While we occasionally seek p a p s a m d a common what has gone before, yet doing so in the ever changing
theme, urnally we do not. Yet sometimes good material contemporary context. Alongside the process of
arrives, synchronistically.fonning a nahlral cluster. Thus interpretation is also integration, 'chewing' recent
it has been with the first three papers. Reztders will make developments in a way that is in keeping with wr ethos.
their own connections between Hunter Beaumont's The ground has indeed changed for the f i g u of ~ Gestalt
interview entitled 'The Field of Soul" Des Kennedy's hmpy. No list of the last fifty years'cchanges can suffice.
transcribed and shortened talk an Gestalt and Spirituality But think a h t some of their influences on Gestalt themy
at the AAGT Meeting in May 1998,in Cleveland USA; and practice: massive developments in holistic health
and a paper by Bill Cahaian,h u t our intimate relating to practice; proliferating new psychotherapy approaches;
the natural world. For us, what smds out is that each of changing psychiatric categories and thinking (e.g. in
the three writers is questioning the senhat humanist bias relation to personality disorders and increasing
of a lot of Gestalt writing, which regards as a bit recognition of post-traumatic stress); psychoanalysis
embarrassing such words as 'soul' and 'spirit' and almost reinventing itself in some regards; and the vast
'ultimate reality'. We a r glad,
~ therefore, hat with these attention paid to awareness training - e.g. in respect of
three papers (all very different, despite seeming a cluster) the civil rights, womens', and gayflesbian movements.
the BGJ is contributing to a kind of Gestalt topic and The world has indeed moved on. And it poses issues
discourse that is still somewhat unusual, not just for editors of Gestalt journals, but far all who
Equally refreshing, in another way, is Joel Latner's consider themselves park of the Gestatt community. The
piece, 'Sex in Therapy'. With this, we are glad to be European Conference in Palerrno, as well as the 1998
reinstating the 'Opinion' section - where unconventional Conference of the Association for the Advancement of
points of view can be given space with even less than Gestalt Therapy (AAGT) in Cleveland, Ohio, drew
usual editorial review. Dan Rosenblatt. in a letter in this Gestaltists from a huge range of countries. These
issue, suggests the BGJ could be helping to establish a gatherings reflect the fact that the Gestalt c&y has
new orthodoxy in Gestalt. We intend otherwise. more international communications. There is a lively
Other contributions include several other teeters ( from Gestalt prescrice on the world wide web; new journals
Vincent Humphries, Peter Phili ppson, Malcolm Coward, appear; trainers crisscross the planet; writers from
and h l i t a Sapriel); a thorough review by h s e l Woldt of different Gestalt 'culntres' are being translated more
Jennifer Mackewn's new book on Gestalt counselling; frequently. Gestalt, Iike much else, is being globalid.
and two papers which are sharply different from one Though it m m i n s a tiny specialist profession, it is less
another. In the first, Rachel Brier describes a tmining disconnected, at Ileast by geography.
method in detail. It is essentially practical, applied, and These chirgs make it a heady time, and at conferences
hands-on. In the second, Gordon Wheeler oRers the most it is easy to feel that Gestalt is healthy, viable, and
ambitious attempt to date at describing a Gestalt mode! of growing. Sadly, however, this is only one side of the
child development - long recognised as 'missing' - a d picture. It is not at all clear that wedl the field of Gestalt
as a paper, it is unrepentant1y theore:ical. As we said therapy is thriving, at least in some countries (although
earlier, this is a g d mix. here in Britain its reputation is steadily growing), In
Germany, for instance, Gestalt therapists have found
The Good News ard the Bad News themselves denied mognition by the state in ways that
formcrly they had received. and Gestalt institutes are
Publishing a journal is a tricky political process. closing. The Gestalt therapy community there has
'Positions' are taken up or hotly defended about lots of suffered a grievous blow. In s e v d other countries, too,
things in the 'Gestalt world'. as in any other specid f m s Gestaltists find themselves up against powerful
area. Opinions differ markedly, not least about how institutions - notably, national medical professional
Gestalt relates to spirituality, and certainly about the bodies. health insurance companies, and universities -
degree to which the founding text written by Goodrnmr which have 'endorsed' certain therapeutic approaches and
left out Gestalt therapy, thus removing economic
privileges and status. Such centralisation and political
control of the therapy scene is, of course, completely at
d s with the G e d t outlook, but it happens.
Arguably, the lack of recognition is a condition with
which G e s d t therapists have long contended. Either
Gestalt is not taken seriously, or is trivialised, or still
regarded as n fringe '60s style therapy, or othetwise
diminished in status. Most of us have had to contend witb
gross misuraderstandings and out of date stemtyp. This
long term pattern has now k o m e an acute problem for
GRstaltists in certain countries.
How a MinOR'Q Can Rmpnd
A situation like the one described above raises political
questions - not the local politics within the Gestalt
community, but in relation to the bigger systems and
power centres that dictate public policy. Given the
globalising tendency, these are issues for all of us, not just
those who discover their professional specialisation has
been sidelined and institutionally disparaged. I b e are at
least four different possibilities, it seems to us, for the
Gestalt professional community.
w o n One: .'NoW - O u t w e first approach is to
take refuge in W t ' s anarchic tradition. This position
involves standing outside the institutions of the state and
beingproud of it. Gestalt is a radical approach; it does not
invite accornm&tion with the powerful bodies tha! call
the shots. The Perls' and Paul G d r n a n made no attempt
to ingratiate themselves with the powerful establishment
b d i e s of theu era. So why should we?
This approach can be linked with images of the
bohemian outsider, the prophetic voice in the wilderness
urging 'no sefl-out', and the radical and anarchic
questioning of society's dominant vdues. It is a strong
and exciting tradition within Gestalt which seeks to
upho1d the approach as our founders defined it - alive,
innovative, and questioning of the establishment.
While there is much historical energy for this position,
there have k e n (and are) serious consequences. In its
most fundamental form, it ensures that Gestalt remains on
the fringe of the t h p t i c world; which in turn leads to
many of its practitioners being cut off from financial
security or influence. Arguably, a Gestalt approach thzt
adopts this position fully is shooting itself in the foot.
Proclamations of the vision can seem seIf righteous as
well as self deluding, especially if its adherents dwindle to
a tiny group and its networks go into oblivion.
On the other hand, losing the radical edge and the
abiljty to question orthodoxy seem to be abandoning part
of the essential heritage, and our strength. And there are
minority movements which come up in the world -
whose "time mnes' (like organic agriculture in the UK.
whose farrness are at present the only ones doing well).
Option Tho: Assimilation/Accomrnodation The
second approach is to move in the opposite direction
entirely. In extreme form it might be s u d s e d as 'if
you can't beat 'em, join 'em'. Many Gestaltists have
come to the view that to stand outside the dominant
systems and s c h l s , differentiated and isolated, taking
abut 'pure Gestalt', is suicidal. It is neoessary, they say,
to adapt, or even to shed the Gestalt label at times - in
other words, to relax the boundaries of Gestalt. The
vision is of integrating it with other approaches, thus
ensuring that the approach survives in some form or other
(as well as its practitionerssurviving eca~omically).
For those advocating this approach, it does not
particularly upset them that Gestalt may not continue as a
sepmte movement, school, or outlook. They will point
out that it has already made a considerable mark.
Elements of it have affected psychotherapy as a whole -
J k i t with little overt mgnition for its having done so
-and the task today is for Gestalt-trained pfessionals
to identify with bigger, more inclusive definitions of
psychotherapy and to accept the way in which the
profession at large has moved, working witb the
integrative tendency rather than against it. One's
influence personally is best exercised by operating within
the power slructure, not outside it.
From this position the idea of fighting to maintain
Gestalt therapy as a separate entity seems unattractive. It
suggests a narrow and exclusive definition of Gestalt
therapy, rather like a sect of Gestalt 'believers'.
Integrationists are, by temperament, opposed to
segregated or highly differentiated views of
psychotherapy. (Hunter Beaumont in this issue is an
unapologetic integrationist.)
The difficulty with a position that opens up the
boundaries of Gestalt to many diverre influences, is that
Gestalt does have a distinctive philosophy, a unity of
methd, of h r y and practice. If the particular synthesis
and specific qualities of Gestalt therapy are dispersed roo
much. the approach gets diluted to the point of its
disappearance. GestaIt would then end up, historidly
speaking, as a SO year long fad, of minor interest in the
history of mental health approaches in the 20th century.
Some do not mind this, including (we imagine) some of
our readers. Others are walled at the prospect.
Option Three: Snbversion/Contagion A third
alternative involves partial collaborarion, with infiltration
of Gestalt thinking and practice into fields which run
counter to them. Elere, Gestalt practitioners live alongside
and within big systems, complying to an extent with the
powerful forces, yet always actively seeking to deflect,
76 M e n and Hemming

question, s a w or otherwise subvert them. Those who Creative adjustment is not a one-way prams. On the
have lived in t o t a l h i m countries are finely tuned to the one hand, the strengths of Gesdt philosophy, practice,
possibilities of infecting large systems with foreign ideas and t h m y can k exp~essedin lively, informative ways -
and unasual thinking, to the point sometimes of Gestaltists have not always been very good at that,
undermining the systems from within. At the very leasf especially in ways that others can grasp. Yet it can be
they maintain healthy self-respect in the attempt. done. Assertive participation, creative influencing (or
Expedience and minimal compliance have a pIace in the "aggression' in the specialist Gestalt sense), m a s that
political VS. Gestalrists can be pushing for what they hlieve in, using
In Sicily, where one of us (MP) spoke briefly about ingenuity and skill in translating their experience so that
these matters, a conference participant d e s c n i how a others spot its benefits more easily and grasp its purpose
psyc5odynamically~rientedpsychiatrist used to come for more accurately. This calls, not least, for g o d writing,
weekly h t a lt therapy, and described it as "likehaving a strong journals, new books, fresh expositions.
secret love affair'. The notion of p p l e keeping their On the other hand, creative adjustment is also abont
Gestalt interest as a private matter, a secret indulgence, is how we, as a professional community, need selectively to
amusing, a, strange. be affectedby p m t possibitities. If we want a Gestalt
The main difficulty with Option Three, however, is therapy (dits derivatives) that is alive, progressive. and
somewhat like the difficulty with Option One. the me to its founders' intentions, we need to be respecrful of
anarchist position, There is a presumption that 'Gestalt is the novel features of the 1998 world, and open to fresh
right as it is' and is, in its essential nature, a l d y fully integrations - and that means changing, sometimes
developed. The n e d is not for Gesmlt to change but for uncornfo~tably;it means chucking out as we11 as taking
'the poor professionals who have not yet "got it" to in; it means living the ever-renewed transition between
change' - therefore we must infiltrate, permade, adopt the novelty and mtine.
missionary p s ition (so to speak). It can easily suggest - If Gestalt is to survive and grow, and become more
deep down, even if it i s well-hidden - a blinkered rather than less influential, it too must take on new
certainty, a failunz to mgnise the lmprovisaZional nature dimensions and Tresh perspectives, extending its range
of all knowledge struchms. and definition of itself, That is the nature of creative
At the same time, for many p p l e the Gestalt appmxh adjustment - and indeed of all contact in the Gestalt
palpably demonstrates a distinctive effectiveness. The sense: w e c&ineither stand still, nor can we guarantee that
synthesis and practice has tremendous face validity: it 'we will only be c h g e d a little bit'. We may even need
works. Enthusiasts identify with it and want to influence to reconstruct some of the theoretical edifice, however
others - by their ptesence, by the way they come across. profound1y unsettling for some of us this may be.
This is the view that Gestalt therapy is represented in the This fourth option is a courageous and confident
world by the nature of its practitioners and their position for the Gestalt approach t h y , The policy of this
enthusiasm. We stand or fall on the basis of our pemnd Journal is decidely in line with it. Our aim is to champion
impact and presence, communicated individually, and new thinking and extensions of the Gestalt discipline,
sometimes by subversive means. People catch the bug without abandoning fundamentals. This is what various
from wt excitement and example, writers in this issue are saying is required - albeit in
differing ways and words: Hunter Beaumont, Bill
Option Four: Creative Adjustment (Revisited) A CahaIan, Dan Rosenblatf, and Gordon Wheeler are all
fourth possibiIity, arguably the most daring and most advocating changing aspects of how we have ken. Such
difficult, calls for continuous creative adjustment. This is the mute to creative renewal. Debates that hinge on the
idea was there all along - in Pcrls, Hefferline, and nuances of theoretical exactitude can be like old style
Godlman. Yzs, there are powesful groups out there. and theologrcaI debates about angels on the end of e pin. This
more populous therapies; and these are ideological and seems out of character with the legacy that was providd
commercial pressures that can result in the deliberate by W m a n and Pals, both of whom were painters with
overlooking or casual by-passing of the Gestalt approach. a h a d brush and a flair for integrating ideas from others.
This is pan of the field in which we live, the 'what is' of They werc willing to change their thinking freely and
our present situation. And, pursuing creative adjustment, inventiwly, without abansoning their f u n c h m t a l d u e s
'the ever-renew4 transition between novelv and routine' or strong beliefs. We should be prepared to do the same.
as Goodman puts it, calls for our dialogz~ingwith,
wrestling with, these dominant outlooks, from neither a
position of arrogant certainty nor of itnconfident
suppression of our kliefs, but mther from a differentiated.
clearly articulated, and persuasive standpoint.
 IN THE FIELD OF SOUL

Hunter Beaumont Interviewed

by Judith Hemming
Received 28 February 1998
Editor's Note: Hunter Beaumont is a gneatly twpkd Gestalt teacher, Ihinker, and therapist in
Germany and in Britain (which he has visited frequently over the last twelve years and where he
has had a significant impact on numerous hnees and pfesslonals). He was on the faculty ard
was Resident of tile h Angela Gestalt Institute Mort moving to Germany in 1980, where he
was a gucst professor of psychology for three years. He has recently closed his large
psychotheqeuticpactice working with individuals, couples, and families, and is concentratingon
teaching in Munich 11d in other locations in Gemrany and hyond. He has long been a proponent
of what he has described as 'the integrative intention of Gestalt therapy established by Paul
Goodman and Fritz and Laum Perls*. Accordingly, in this complex and intawTi11gi n w e w , he
-
discusses his need in ol.rlw to be clinically effective -to intepate o h m methcds and concepts
into his everall Gestalt-based perspective: notably. object relations, Masterson's work on
bo&rline precess, Eiicksonian hypnotherapy, and most recently h e imovative work of the family
systems therapist and Wrist, Bert Hellinger. Hunter Besumlt has translated a d edited the first
major h k on HelIingervs work in English ( h u e 's Hidden Symmetry by Bert Hellingw with
Gunthard Weber and Hunter Beaumont, 1998, Zeig, Tucker and Co., Phmix,Arizona, USA). In
his far-ranging interview, among many other topics, Hunter Beaumont describes his early
experiences of Gestalt t h q y ; how he believes the "d' and its movements are essential for tRe
thempist to attend to phenomenologically; and the molutionary thinking of Hellinga's approach
to w m h g with the struclums of the field- -
i.c.its in-built 'orders' which consbrain arPd permit
the flow of love and energy b e t e n family members. He desniks tmw worlang with family
entanglements, sometimes across several generations, can be an additional focus of
psychotherapeutic work which complements other approsclles. We rn delighted to pubIish this
conmversial interview with one of Gestal~therapy's most indepdent-nundd and inkgrative
thinkers,

Early E q d ~ c c e osf Gestalt iThmpy psychotherapy. Nevertheless, something about that

Iectum-den~onstrationfascinated me, and I got curious
. ~ i - t , I would lilce to the grist 1~~ about Gestalt in spite of nly negative reaction to Jim. I
i n t e r n to know what ingredients went into your some pelsana1 wolk with Bob Itesnickand
training as a therapist and how you found your way to scon had to d m it that Gestalt was better able to put into
Gestalt. practice what the Jungians were talking about. I also met
Jim and learned an important lesson about the limited
validity of fmt impressions,
My initial interest was &ding with my own pain. My
parents we^ both in Jungiml analysis, SO that's what I did what in particular did you value in that first
as well. My wife discovered Ge~mltin gndu;lte S C ~ G D ~ , t ~ r i e n c e~ d t ?
and eventually took m e to see Jim Simkin give a public
demonstration. Tt mst have lleen about 1 968. That first It was a long rime a p . I m m k r how frustrated I got
time I didn't like him much. He scemed like an ill analysis when my analyst would say 'Well, that's very
authoritarian and uncaring person, md anyway, I was sure intersting. You'e ml swck m h a t pint. Let's just wait
that the Jungians a l d y knew evqthing wonh knowing and see whnr your unconscious does with it.' Bob
78 Judith Hemming

Resnick's message translated in my mind as 'Well, you're smcmres could each have a healing effect. It took months
real stuck and we'd better wait and see what your before something in my mind relaxed enough to disc
organismic self-regularion i s going to come up with. But that both were true in different ways, that paradox and
.
while you're waiting you might want to try. . .' and h contradiction exist quite comfortably in the soul. It's only
Bob would offer me an experiment or an exercise, the linear rational mind that has problems with
perhaps a chance to talk to a part of mymlf or to allow a contmdiction. 1 learned at rhat time to pay atsention to Be
part of myself to speak. It has dl become so self evident, criteria of the actual effect on my inner experience, ftK
but my excitement was enormous back then, to discover realm of what I call the soul. Learning how to hold
that there were methods to bring the voices of the contradictions until integration emerges was the
unconscio~sinto awareness, I was very impatient then foundation for a lot of the w o k that came later.
and I liked being able to do something. Actually, I"m no
longer so sure that was a good thing. It added to my You were already drawing on different
confusion about what we can do with will, trying, and psychotherapy traditions.
eg~intentions,and what can only arise spontaneously out
of the soul's re-organising itself. Still, it hclped m= to Yes,that was sonlething important that I Teamed during
begin to understand the process of healing the split that period: cross fertilisation of ideas. Gestalt changed
between our conscious intentions and what we actually my understanding of Assagioli, just as AssagioFi changed
find ocrselves doing. my undersbnding ofGestalt. I still use a modified form of
his sentences. Rather than, 'I have a pain, but I'm not my
You are d d b i n g a complex relationship between pain'. I say, "I'm not identical with my pain; I'm
what peap1e consciously m t and what they actually something in addition to i t . That allows our attention to
do,. move to what we are, in addition to our momentary
experience, to remember it. And the Gestalt sentences
Yw. It's obvious that many of our decisions are made weren't quite right either. It's not m e that 7 am my
outside of awareness and are at variance with what we body'. It is actually more like, "1' and M y are part of the
consciously believe about ourselves or intend. In Gestalt, s m e whole'; or "I' am not separate from body. Body
we have correctly seen that taking respmsibilily for what suffers from what I do just as 'I' suffer from what M y
we actually do - as opposed to our undone good does; they share a space'. Body and soul co-exist W u s e
intentions -facilitates healing, but what we do i s not they are different dimensions ofa single reality.
necessarily what we want. It isn't completely true to say,
You redly want to do what you're doing". It's fascinating GesW and Jlfe Soul
that we're capable of doing something we really don't
want. Sometimes, it's as if the 'I' that wants, 'and the 'I' What do you m e h when you use the word 'soul'?
that acts, are different.
The Jungians have always used 'soul" anand recently
So how dM your Gsstalt therapy connect with the Thomas Moore's book, Cure of the Soul (1994) has
rest of yow trtrining? brought the word into popular consciwsness again. As I
use it, the word is not a theological word at all; it's a
As I said, I started out quite young in Jnngian analysis, phenomenological word. Primarily I use it to describe a
then I worked with Bob Resnick in the early days when certain m l m of experience that is different from other
he was sharing a practice with fm Simkin. In graduate d m of experience. For example, kt's say I'm thinking
school T learned behaviour therapy, Rogerian client nbout a shopping list, or I'm solving a mathematical
centred therapy, and psychosynthesis.I can still ~ n m b e r problem: Those are clearly activities of the mind. They
the struggle trying to integrate psychosynfl~esiswith are thoughts. If on the other hand, I break my leg, get
Gestalt. We would practise Assagl ioli's sentences, suclr m sunburn or cut myself, I. feel pain in the tissue, in the
'I am not ~ n ybody. I have a body. I'm not my anger or my physical bdy.
grief. I have anger or grief.' Those exercises of Mental and somatic are two major dimensions of
disidentification had a profoundly calming effect on the human experience: the mind -clearly the rational; a d
soul. And then I'd go to the Gestalt training and practise .the M y -clearly tk somatic. Then thew's the realm in
the opposite, saying 'I: don't hrive emotions: I am my between - experiences like yearning, joy, hope or
emotions. 1 don't have a M y ; I am my M y . I don't have strength. When I'm feeling something like yearning, itms
hate; I am hate...', Those exercises of identification, of more than just a thought. Yearning has weighlt and
taking responsibility, also had a profoundly k-ling effect. svbsmnce that I actually perceive: i t can be described
At that time I couldn't understand how such contradictory phenomenologically. And yet it is not something that's
Hunter Beaumont Interview

identical to the pain or the heat or the cold that the exactly what I'm talking about.
physical body registers. Yearning has elements of both
mental and somatic experience, yet it is something And is the phenomenolqgy of the m o m e n t of the
different than either of them done,md it is different than soul what guides you towards gestalt completiorrs?
the sum of their parts,
Some people like to use the wotd 'emotions' to describe Soul recognises whether certain gestalts are open or
such experiences, but the word 'emotions" is less closed in a way that's different from how the mind
beautiful than the word soul, and it has very different magnises it. The therapy that tracks the movements of
connotations. Emotions are surnething I create or that the soul comes to different conclusions f m the therapy
arise in me. But when I say, 'Sm in love', or 'I'm in that tracks the opening and closing of the gestalts of the
despair', or 'I" in a Funk', there*sa poetry there that mind.
describes a difTet.ent quality of experience. They're not
only in me, I'm aisD in them. To be soulful is to attend ta TheAutununwrcs C&hn
this dimension of our experience and to care for it. On the
other hand, to be emotional has a different flavour. When It sounds as if youSvegot a different view of g&dt
I talk about 'having a11 emotion' or 'having a fiormonal completion and have left behind the idea of being
reaction', joy and hope and sadness are reduced ta being guided by what Perls et al. called the autonomous
physiological experiences, or chemical epiphenomena. criterion.
Emotions certainly are horrnonally mediated, but at the
phenomenological level, 'soul' more accuntely describes Perls, Hefferline and Goodman didn't quite convince
my actual experience. I use 'soul' in this me with their idea of autonomous criteria. They were
phenomenological way to direct attention to this m l m hoping that the criterion of the godness of a gestalt could
and quality of experience. offer an autonomous criterion about the goodness of
By the way, Kurt Lewin noticed that everytfiing that has contact, but the goodness of a gestalt dmsn't take us very
effects is r d . In this sense, soul is very real. Soul is a far in assessing the gomhess of an action. For example,
very big topic. most atrocities are committed by people with clear
gestalts. And most peopIe doing evil - Nazis or
Ooes that make a differem for your work? Could Stalinists or racists for example - believe that they are
you dmcribe how you focus on the soul in your work? doing good. The g m perpetrators have very pregnant
gesdts with clear foreground/background differentiation
It can be very powerful to track body sensations, and lots of energy. If you were to ask of someone. 'is
thoughts,fantasies or e x ~ t a t i o n swhen you work with your soul open or c l o d ? or 'are you looking at your
sorneone. In a similar way, you am also track soul. For victim? DQyou see a human being?Are yw guilty?' their
example, I suppose we've all had the e x ~ r i e n c eof doing answers would most certainly be different than the
something we thought was OK and noticing in dismay perpetrators" n e s e questions are essential to determine
that our swl c l o d down and shrivelled up. Or of doing the godness of m action, but they are not autonomous
something the super-ego forbade and noticing that our criteria. They require judgements and depend on social
soul opened up - as, say, a powerful experience of consensus.
n31ease. You can feel the movement of the so111closing or I do think there are autonomous criteria for truth that
opening, and you can track that and notice what is allow us to break out of the confines of social
happing that allows your soul to open so that you fee1 conditioning, but I'm not convinoed that the goodness of
yourself expanding, k o m i n g alive. becoming vulnerable the gestalt provides them. We can break out of our
perhaps, or showing yourself -they are movements of perceptual and m o d biases under special conditions, but
the soul. It's not an idea or a fantasy, it's an actual we usually need someone we trust to confront our
experience. And if you track that as a therapist, asking of prejudices. There have always been perpetrators who
your client, is he or she open or closed? strong or weak? came to regret their actions and to feel genuine remorse.
you come to very different conclusions about what's That's what repentance is. reopening your soul. Maybe,
going on than if you ask if such and such is logically hue if they had Geen feling their soul in the fmt place, they
or what's happening in the physical body. lt points the probably wouldn't have been able to do what they did.
therapy in a different direction. If we want to grow beyond our own limitations, we
So soul is what we actually experience opening and need to find wstworthy sources of feedback that shock us
closing. If I ask people who come to me if they have ever into wider awareness, because until our contact with our
had the experience of just shutting dawn, or hearing soul is well developed, we may not notice if it is open or
sameone say something and just opening up, they h o w closed. One source of feedback for me is my wife. She
80 Judith Hemming

can show me if I'm shaping the world k~fit a concept, or invaluable amounts. T think h t some of them t~ this
whether I'm actually perceiving what's here. Because I day. They are present in my heart. That's one example.
hrust her, I allow her to penetrate my belief about myself Another example is Milton Etickson's hypnotherapy. A
and the wwld. I allow her to rekindle my curiosity. When lot of what he does violates the socalled Gestalt 'rulw',
I'm in that lost space dominated by object relations, but it works. Like many other Gestaltists, I had a
believing I a h d y knav how things are, I'm no longer prejudice about hypnotherapy. I thought it was
curims. manipulative, that the interventions came from the
therapist and so en. What I found when I trained in
Ericksonian hypnotherapy was such a refined dialogic
approach, that I was saddenly able to see how
I know that many therapwtic a p p d e s haw fed manipulative the Gestalt approach can be. That was an
into your own, including Erichnian, Jungian, and eye opener.
object relations theory. Yet you have remained a A third example is the systemic family k m p y of Bert
Gestalt practitioner. What do you see as G,estalt HeUinger. Again, I've worked with clients on issues and
theory's distinctive quality? themes that just woulddt move with the mtbd that I
had avaiIable. Hellinger" approach opened the way for
I h o w here% interest right now in defining the many people to profound, sometims miraculous, healing,
&doxy of h e Gestalt approach, what is 'true' Gestalt I had to understand why and how it worked, and again,
and what isn't, The Gestalt approach I value loves truh, criticism has been abundant, But the implications of the
looking at what really IS, and it's willing to sacrifice obserrations Ihe made while applying his approach have
concepts, preconceptions, beliefs, in order to honour the changed my entire belief system abut reality.
lmcqtion of novelty, Fritz, as difficult as he was, had the
wonderful sentence, 'There is no end to integration'. The In an earlier paper yon wrote for this Journal
old man. until the end of his life, was interested in what (1992), you have similarly addressed the issue of
IS. He was open to being surprised. Orthdoxy kiUs the working with people whose relational prmcses can
spitit of inquiry and integration. I continue actively to threaten their capacity for selfad~&on, p p l e who
practise Gestatt as an integrating approach as best I am might be labelled borderline or narcissistic. You
able. I have a deep appreciation for m y different aspects criticised Gestalt's original concept of self-regulation
of Gestalt psychotherapy. However, it has been a long as an inadequate way of understanding their self
time since I've Fead a Gestalt paper that excited me and process, preferring the concept of seIf-~rgtznis~on, I
opened up a new anea of u u n m d i n g . I find that sad. irnane that those formulatiam emerged from your
reflections on working with those early clients you
Could y w give an example d what you have Pound remember.
to be important new Information that Gestaltists need
t o integrate into the main core of the Gestalt Once I read Masterson and got healed of my prejudice
approach? about psyehoanalysis, I moved on to Kernberg, Kohut,
Winnicon, Klein, Guntrip, Mahler and Homwitz as the
I'll give several. next steps in trying to understand the borderline and
Very early in my therapeutic career I was having object relations phenomena. The object relations theorists
difficulty with certain patients. I got supervision from understand that much of what we contact is not the
some of the most prominent Gestalt therapists of that environmental field but our mental constructs. That
time, and what they told rnc to do didn't work. They means, we don't usually cmmt the actual environment,
finally said, 'Well, the patients don't want to change'. But but rather our mental representations become our
that wasn't what I felt. Z was picking up something that environment. Much of what Gestaltists call contact is in
said, 'These peopie are desperate to change, and thm's faet nothing more than m object relation.
something about how I'm working with them that isn't
working'. Eventually, I found James Masterson's book, As I read how you are mostly understood by
Jndividral Psychothempy wirh rhe Adlrlr Borderline h a t students of Gestalt here in Britain, there are two
had just been published in the early 1970s. I read abut ccntraI ideas of yours that an: often quukd. Firstly,
forty pages and what he described gave me a key. I got Gestalt bas tended to be too figure-bound, and
what I needed from Masterson and with that information E secondly, that we need to t~ able to co-ordinate our
suddenly could work with those patients. Instead of "lfmg pmm' so we rrur take account of d1 that we
finding them impossible people, I found we could form a are rather thm idendfying with a momentary figre
profound alliance. They taught me immeasurable. of contact or self.
Hunter Beaumont Interview
If that's how I've been undmtd, I'm touched. My
concern is that in Gestalt therapy we've tended to ignore
the background, our larger context. That includes our own
background as well as the client's. What is the
environment? What is the p u n d of our Being, in all, its
complexity? We need to be clear about the assumptions
that inform our work and our view of reality. For
example, we make assumptions about people's stuchess.
I remember in my mining that I muld watch SOWpeople
actually go through the 'layers' that Perls talked about,
from phoney, through to the impasse, implosion and
explosion. But I dso saw that some people would just
implode and never go to the explosion. At that time, we
thought they were intempting a gestalt completion, so we
worked with frustrating their interruption. When hey still
didn't explode, we thought they didn't want to change,
that they were sabotaging, and so on.
After 1" found Harry Guntrip and also Stephen
Johnson {Characlerological Tra~ormation,the Hard
Work Miracle, 1985) the whole idea of the schizoid
position suddenly became a tml to understand why some
people didn't explode. Their observations made clear why
certain popular Gestalt techniques - being ironic,
pushing, frustrating the avoidance, getting dialogically
confluent -pst didn't work.For some people, it isn't a
question of blocking the completion of a gestalt, there" a
real deficit They have unstable self-organisation, Once
you see the actual phenomenology involved, it isn't
difficult to put the observations into a Gesdt language,
but .it was Guntrip and Jol~nsonwho taught me to
rscognise the fragility of self-organisation, My Gestalt
assumptions were working in the background to prevent
me from seeing the deficits for what they were.
I wrote a paper (in German) on diagnosis (Beaumont
1988) in which I tried to outline what therapy &an do and
what it can't do. Them has always k e n a strong objection
in Gestalt circles to labelling people, and 1agree with,that.
It is an insult to human dignity to label people with
psychiatric epithets. The other side of that is that the
psychiatric diagnoses are invaluable tools for a tl~enpist.
They help you recognise very quickly thc particular issues
with which a client is struggling. When I say of a client
that he's schizoid or borderline or narcissistic I don't
mean this person is in that box. Having information
about some of the most popular patterns that p p l e have
used to deal with painful situations helps me to recognise
someone in a way that allows them to feel understood by
me, within a few minutes. I haw plenty of time later to
adjust for their individual variations. If I have the
hraditio~ialdiagnostic categories in my baackground, I can
use them or forget them. If they're not there at all, I have
no choice. The literature about diagnosis heips me to
recognise what's there M o r e I've had lots of experience.
Psychiatric diagnosis compensated for my lack of
81
experience. As I get older, I'm finding it miec and easier
to forget what's no longer useful. I don" think much
about diagnosis the= days, but young therapists can learn
a lot.
He& and the SpirWdPath
If you use these diagnostic categoriq pmmably
you have a model of what it would be like to be
healthy. That must be pad of your typology too.
T suppose that's me, but I don't think about it much. It's
km.
implicit, in the My model of health is hard to
descrik. I've worked hard to cultivate a place within
myself where I can go and be safe while I'm confronted
with painhl feedback or perceptions that don't fit my
beliefs about myself, my self image. That's the
pmquisite for k i n g able to perceive novelty and to k
o F n to criticism, having somewhere inside myself I can
go while my beliefs about myself are being challenged
and my world is falling apart. Where do F go to be safe,
without shutting down. without denying, without getting
violent or abusive or defensive? Where do 1 go? Having
tlw place md loving what IS more than what I want to
believe -that's heaIth, 1 suppose.
As I hear you -be what you =
as health, you
seem to be describing therapy In a way that is clme to
a spiritual path.
I'm very careful here. I think there's been a lot of
mischief done by therapists 'combining' spiritual and
psychological work -just as them has been harm caused
by spiritual teachers inappropriately applying
psychological knowledge md technique. There is no
doubt that psychotherapeutic knowledge and traditional
spiritual work supplement and complement one another,
b ~ combinilig
t them is tricky. Spiritual truths are bigger
than psychotherapy arld they'^ far oIder. Eric Neumann
believed that the cave paintings wete the first evidenoe of
the spiritual path; people journeying dawn into the depths
of the earth to do some kind of transformation process.
Some of those paintings are 20,000 years old. So the
spiritual path is at least that old and Gestalt has been
going for about 50 years.
I s m c h the boundaries of psychotherapy as far as I can
in a spiritual direction, but I remain a pychotfierapist and
I doil't try to cross the boundary. I've had the privilege of
knowing several authentic spiritual maskrs,and they're in
a very different place than I am. I accept that and don't try
to emulate or copy them. I'm a therapist.
Nevertheless, there are some similarities between
working on yourself in a spiritual way and working on
yourself in a psychotherapeutic way. One Sufi definition
92 Judith Hemming

of a master is someone who hyou until you're able to One example that i s close to home is to notice how
love yourself. That, comes c l w to what we can offer as huffy some people get when their assumptions about
therapists. James Masterson talks about the therapist Gestalt are questioned. Their sense of self depends on
defending the client's Self until the client can do that theis identification with Gestalt. If you question Gestalt,
hidherself. b h t had the idea of miming, Carl Rogers they experience a personal threat. So they are Field
of unconditional positive regard. When we mirror dependent for a stable sense of self. The emphasis,
someone, we don't DO mything. We listen, we heas, but however, needs not to be on developing field
we don't DO. Mirroring that way creates a feedback loop independence, but rather on increasing the stability of
that can facilitate awareness. People sometimes say, '1 their self-organisation. Increased field independence
hear you', or 'I see', or 'I'm open to you, and who you are follows a~~tomatidly as a conwpmce. If someone tries
affects me. 1 Jlow you to touch mc'. The effect o f to increase their field independence withat increasing the
touching them and being touched by them becomes stability of selI'-orga.!~isation,they quickly move beyond
visible. That" s i ~ w t i n g Developing
. the capacity to heir s u m and will fail.
mirror as not doing is extremely demanding, You must
team to forego all intention, including the intention to
help. You have to trust a larger process. So, you see,
mirroring or unconditional positive regard in I want to move on now and ask you about your
psychotherapy has something spiritud about it. It isn't the m n t involvement with the form d thaw created
therapist who heals. The healing comes like a kind d by the Gennan systemic therapist Bert Hellinger that
grace to those whc wait, centred in non-doing, both he calb 'The Order of Cowe'. I'ou have b n teaching
therapist and client. it here in Britain for the past five years or more and
But even when we see these similarities between have also translated his ideas and p r o d u d the first
spiritual work and psychotherapy, if's a mistake to forget English book of Hellingerk teaching ( b v e ' s Hidden
that the Gestalt community is not a spiritual community, Synimetry, 1998). You are now collaborating and
and in spite of our interest in community, we don't working 4th him in both Amerim and Europe*Many
support one an~theras true spiritual work quires. readers of this journal may know little or nothing
about his life and what has trfluenced his thinking.
K would like to Fetnrn to the key notior1 of the self Could you begin by telling us a little about that
being a self-organising self. Does this d a t e to field
independence? Ile historical life experiences of Bert HeUinger have
certainly been important. As a young person of 17, in
Not exactly. I see a different emphasis. I've suggested Germany, he found himself on the Nazi list of people
(BritishGessclIt Joumal1992)that we have outgrown the suspected of being an enemy of the people. He was
term self-regulation, the traditional Gestalt term for refused his high school diploma. Being on the list was
describing the dynamic of individuals interacting with the simply one small step away from k i n g on the death list.
environmt. I proposed we use the twm more current in At she end of the war Hi tler drafted all of the 15-I 7 year
systemic thinking -ha of self-organismg systems. olds and threw these into the was as cannon fodder.
The difference berween self-regulation and self- Hellinger's escape from the Gestapo came by being
organisation is huge. They reflect different thought drafted into the m y as a part of that 1st ditch ~acrifim of
worlds. Self-reguIation implies that we lave and return to the youth of Germmy to HiWs d m s . However. he
a homeostatic balance. Self-organisation assumes an was captured, went to prison, cscapl, and hk c m e a
evolving system. Change is not just a response to novelty Catholic peat. He worked with the Zulu people of South
in the environment; it is ihherent to the organism itself. Africa, living with them, speaking their language,
There is an inherent zhtust to become or unfold within preaching, and ministering in Zulu. W n g that period he
,.ems.
self-oqanising syrt had very little cordact with white people. But he had an
Now, with that basic paradigm shift we can experience with his bishop where Ile was asked to submit
field dependence and field independence. Are we not himself in a way that wan? true for him, so he left his
always dependent on our environment? Is there any order and went to Viema to be trained rn a psychoanalyst.
possibility of existence without an envilmonmenrthat Re was just in the last stages of training when his analyst
supports us? Ultimately, field independence is impossible. presented him with a book by Janov about Primal
The crucial issue, as you suggest, is the degree to which Therapy. He went to America and studied with Janov for
self-organisation is limited or enhanced by a p u p of eight months, came back to Vienna and wanted to
refemoe or by family of origin and by our mernkrship integrate M y oriented therapy into psychoanalysis. As
in any smial group, was typicat for him he simply left his mining institute,
Hunter Beaumont lntervicw 83

abandoning his credentials and his degree ia WE, it usually wvorks out OK,but it places a burden on
psychoanalysis in order to preserve his autonomy.Later the kids. In alI cultures, it seems, love is d m a g d when
he discarded what wasn't useful abut Janov. So, Bert parents, without good cause, default on their job, and
Hellinger is a person who has experienced in his personal when children, without good cause, presumptuously
life thm of the most powerful ideologies of our century - assume their pamts' responsibilities and privileges.
the Nazi movement, the Catholic Church, and That's one example of what HeUinger caNs an Order of
psychoanalysis. He is a warrior for the ability and the Love, Once you hear it, i t is obvious d so simple, as if
need of the individual human to defend itself against we had known i t all along. It's a field structure that
group press=, not to surrender dignity or autonomy. conswains the success or failure of love. Once we h o w
these orders or field stnrctures, we can mognise whether
For you, I understand, Bert Hellnger's systemic or not we stand in alignment to them by paying atlention
insights and innovative style of working have found a h ow body experiences. When we act as if the orders did
s i ~ c a n place
t alongside other kinds of thempe~rtic not exist, we lase the support of being in alignment with
approach What d s d m Hellinger's work fulfil, Being and we can register the strain in our bodies.
do you think, that hadn't been so well addressed
before? What da yon especially value in his thinking? How du you see Heltinger's work fitting in 20 the
larger Ramework of psychotkrapy?
That's a nice question. What Hellinger has understood
is how systemic turbulence disturbs self-organisation, and I see four basic things psychotherapy can offer.
conversely, how systemic order is related to the Different schools focus on one or more aspects in
campletion of gestalts. I do not know anybdy elsc who different ways. For example, when somebody is not
has done that. Gordon Wheeler (1991$ wrote about the getting ahead in life as their potential would allow, we can
field being structured rather than random. It's not empty, assume there's something blocking h i r way. Depending
it has structure, but he had difficultytelling as how it is on our orientation,we might see t h e what's keeping them
strucmrad, stuck is either a I m e d pattern; or a psychodynamically
One structure all Gestaltists know well is the tendency arsested development or deficit; or, third, maybe they m
for gestalts to complete themselves. That's clearly suffering from the consequences of an act of fate that
something that Being imposes on us. It takes energy to cannot be changed with psychotherapy. In the latter case
hold a gestalt open. mat's an order of Being. It is in the we may be able to help the p o n learn to Iive with the
field as a structure of the field. Jung's a r c h e m m also consequences of what m o t be changed. In addition to
structures of the psychological field that shape our these three genera1 mas, Hellinger's work tecognised
experience. They give our experiem form. that vre also get caught and suffer from entanglements in
What Hellb~gerhas been interest4 in relates to what our family. We sometimes suffer the consequences of
there is in the field chat supports love and intimacy. Its what we did not even do. Working with that suffering
clear that if we do something that hurts love, it withers requires a different approach.
and dies. If we want it to mature aid grow and flourish, His approach gives us tools to help us work effectively
what do we have to do? How must we behave? Whnt with people caught up in solving family problems that
choices must we make? Bert Hellinget was the first they neither created nor consciously knew about. For
person I heard talldng about this. example, some people really want a relationship. Yet
there is a discrepancy of the type we were talking about
Can you give an example for thost unfmiiiar with earIier - between what they want and what they do. If
HeNnger9sidas? you look at what's going on from a systemic perspective,
you often see that a1though they are acting in a way which
Yes,one example would be that in the relationship militates against having a satisfactory relationship, they
between parents and children, Hellinger saw that love are undoubtedly acting selflessly, out of loyalty to the
works better when the parents behave like patents and the family or to someone in the family. Working an
children llke children. Love is damaged by mything else. relationship skills usually is not enough to help someone
The specifics of the behaviour will vary from culture to in that situztion, unless their unconscious function in the
culture, but the structure mains true across d1 culhtres: family system can be broughtto Iight md redirected,
hcnce the notion of an 'order'. Love is best served when
parents carry out the functions and responsibilities of You have suggested that Hellinger's work can be
parents, and w l ~ children
n behave as children. In some thought of as adding a different perspective for
families, of course, children have to take over what the looking at structures of ground, additional ways in
adults cannot do in orrler to susvive. If they do it for good which we am hard-wid to complete gestaIts.
84
I'm not sure that we're hard-wid, but Being is. The
question for me is: what are the smrctu~esof Being in
which we participate? The Jungian ideas o f archetypes,
the gwat myths by which we live - for instance, the hero's
journey or women's spiral dance of fertility; and t k deep
fhguistic structuresdescribed by Whorf and Chomky -
h s e are all examples of structuring dynamics within the
e n v h m n t a l field. But additionally, Bert Hellinger has
described how the hidden s t r u c of ~ love support aur
lat ti on ships when we a d h to their quirwnents, and
make our retationships difficult when we violate them,
SuperfichUy it may appear that in this work you are
making value judgements abont how people should
behave. But I don't think you are. (You seem b be
making a distinction between the process and the
content of a culture?)
Mwalistic value judgements have no place in this work.
We are looking at long-term consequences of what
individuals do at the p m s level, Any child will pay a
heavy price if what they do is not in conformity with their
social context. The question is, what supports a child in
freeing itself from destructive panems in the family or
social group? What is the motivation of that child to do
that? And. perhaps frighteningly, what are the
consequences for that child's children? If the child's
motivation is love of mth, or love of the good, tfien we
observe that the long-term consequences are often g d ,
in spite of the suffering. But if a child leaves a family
because s m n e else in the family needs it to leave the
system, then that child will suffer the consequences of
sometfiing it did not consciously choose and the long term
consequences for that child and its children tend to be
deshuctive. A child cannot defend itself against such
family pressom. There's no moral judgement in this. The
work with family constellations that Hellinger has
developed allows us to observe the conquences of an
action over sevaal generations.
Could you say more about the premises on which
snch work is b r e d ?
A1l psychotlaerapy assumes we get a second chance. For
instance, even clients whose mothers were mnmte still
have a sense of how she should have been. ahat meanmeans
that although such persons never actcally had the
opportunity to cxperiencc the gDod mother, they know her
contours. They know her shapes. n e y have knowledge
of the gwd mother even though their physical mother
may not have provided it.
At some point in she ~hcmplticprocess, they stand
More a choice - either to cling ro dleic memories of the
bad mother or to ele ease that bad mother and utifice the
Judith Hemming
informarion that they have about how their mother s b l d
have been in order to fulfil their own potentid. Where
does this information come from? Hellinget's work
demonstrates it comes Frrnn their parents,in the sense that
it is part of the life-field which their parents opened to
them. Part of the passing on of life includes the passing on
of this order, the inbuilt s.buEhlres of the field. Biological
parents also provide the genetic information to identify
this potential for good. Without a capacity to access that
kind of information in the fiejd, then what hope does
psychotherapy offer? fllat we have his inbuilt knowledge
of love strongly supports the movement from our
entanglement:' toward the realisation of our human
potential.
Soetisnot~fordentstobere-parented@
therapists?
Re-parenting in some form may EK necessary for some
psychologically ill persons, but it takes years and i s
extremely demanding on both therapist and client,
Hellinger's offer is nun: appropriate for people who are
p r e r or who cannot go every week to therapy. Iftheir
problem is systemic, it will shift in a m i o n or two, and
they can get on with heir lives.
One kind of psychotherapy supportr; personal growth.
It's not trying to get rid of some kind of problem, but to
develop our human potential. That is the kind of
therapeutic work that I'm actually most interested in, bat I
also see that it.requires a lot of discretionary time and
money. Hellinger has been v e q interested in helping
people who are in trouble and who urgently need a
solution or a resolution, but who have limited time and
money. It's really beautiful to see hope, joy, love and
growth open for people in m e or two sessions, even after
a lie-time of suffering.Seeing that happen time after time
chdlenges our hndamental beliefs about psychotherapy.
H d t h m y be closer than we think.
3hdfiom of P r e b h Solving
Obvlmly you have integFated FIelIhger's appFoac)l
to problem solving into your work as a therapist and
miner. Cadd you descrjbe how?
J use two metaphors for change. One of them is the
metaphor of the hero's joun~ey.It denotes an action-
oriented q m a c h to problem solving. A hem or heroine
seeks solutions by breaking away from convention, going
into isolation, questing, fighting the dragon. They fight
with weapons of insight and with gifts ofknowledge, a d
hey defeat adversity with cunning and strengh. Even for
women, it is a patriarchal approach, one that emphasises
ego consciousness and action. It is an important and
Hunter Beaumont Interview 85

indispensable approach. This action-oriented approach
seems to have taken a long time to evolve as a possibility
in human consciousness, but it also m s the risk of letting
loose rampant technology that rapes the earth and the
soul. It encourages the belief that if I'm still stuck or ill, it
is because I am not trying hard enough.
The other approach to solving problems is
metaphorically represented by the women's spiral dance,
This is an ancient tradition, Women dm& around the
fields More they were planted to remind the people that
we must move in harmony with the forces of nature, with
the phases of the moon, and with the seasons of the year.
This i s almost the opposite approach to solving a
probiem. It's the approach that says, 'Health comes when
I fmd m y place within a larger order and sumder to it'.
The path is surrendering to the eternal truths and laws of
nature.
Both of these approaches are relevant, but they have
different functions. nerr= is a time when it is necessaty
for us to fight and the~e'sa time when it is necessary for
us to surrender to the forces of what is. Wisdom is what
helps us to distinguish between the one situation and the
other. Both have their place, but there is a lot of confusion
about when the one or the other is most appropriate,even
in psychotherapy.
There are many hrms of surrender in our
persuasive society, ones that involve something that
sounds similar -the suspension of ego consciousness
so that belonging to a larger order is possible
'Surrender' has n negztive valencc in the context of the
hero's journey,w h e it~ implies defeat. Within the context
of the spiral dance, it opens one of the mast kmtiful af
all human experiences - surrendering to the rhythm of
the music as v,c dance, or to the y l e a s u ~of making love,
for exampie.
thought she was having a heart attack. It turned out that
the family member she was representing in the
constellation had almost died From a heart attack some
weeks earlier, but we didn't h o w that. Another example
is a man in Seattle, who, representing a suicidal p m n ,
passed nut and hit the floor so hard that we all thought he
had broken his head open. Just last week someone in a
constellation reported deafness in his right ear, and it
came out that the man he was representing had a war
injury and was deaf in his right ear, but we didn't know
that when we started.
Now, if people pass out,or get the symptoms of a h e m
attack just bexat~sethey're representing someone in a
family, in a constellatioa, we need to take these
phenomena seriously. It's cven more interesting when
their reactions repeat what the original persons
experienced, The representatives' reactions give us
valuabIe information about the hidden dynamics in a
family,
Ask yourself, 'WhaE is going on so that strangers, by
virtue of the fact that they stand in for someone else in a
consteIIation, experience such dramatic and precise .
symptoms? I experience things like this every working
day. I have thousands of anecdotes like this, and so does
every therapist working with conste1tations. We don't
really know how it happens but after a few years of
working like this, I've had to surrender to the weight of
evidence and conclude that we m connected in ways that
contradict my previous belief about individuality and
altonomy. Wen you see a thousand constellations with
things like this, you have to rtthin k Fritz's, 'You do your
thing and T'1 do mine'. That just doesn't stand up to the
test of observation.
What you are descn'b'ig fundamentally changes our
perspectives on what it means to be an individual
human Mng.

The main tool you use to make systemic dynamics 'fiis phenomenon wiB eventually alter our view of the
visible is the family mmtelation. The client wpresents rvorId. The ccnstellations are the only method I h o w that
or models their family, by choosing p u p participants make it possible for normal people to have the somatic
to stand in as family members. He or shc then experience of being influenced by another person's
positions them in spatial wlationship to one another. experie~lce,When you stand there in a constellation
The repmntatires in the constellation, each standing feeling like you need to vomit, and at the same time
in the place of a family member, are then asked what clearly feel, 'this has nothing to do with me personally',
they are experiencing. They are enconraged to gay you get a wo~derfufopportunity to rethink your beliefs
particular attention to their somatic exggriencc. I n a t about the boundaries between me and not-me. It opens all
is so crucial ahfit attencling to body expricnce? ki:~dsof new ground for investigation, and eventually,
will lead to a fundamental paradigm shift in
It's like Bob Resnick used to say, 'The body cannot lk." psychotherapy.
The representatives' sonltztic responses are cne of the Now d ~ econstellations stlow clearly that we ate also
most convincing things abut this r e t h o d . For exarnpIe, connected to other members of our famiIy across time,
one wornail doctor suddenly began to sweat and l~ad and that such connectio~~s do not depend on conscious
intense pain in her chest and down her left am]. She knowledge alone. Many of the synlgtorns we suffer l m l t
86 Judith Hemming

from things others in our family system have done or That's a profoundly Gestalt thought, that we are part of
failed to do. We ltruly are parts of greater wholes, That too a larger whole. that the total is different from the sum of
will eventua?ly force therapists to rethink the parts. The concept of Garalt impIies that 'the other'
psychopathology and developmental psychology. matters. It's a question of whether I'm looking at smaller
In addition, the representatives' experiences in the gestalts in whidi I am the totality, or at larger wholes of
constellations threaten our western illusions about which I am only a part. This has always been implicit in
personal freedom and autonomy. They place us as Gestalt. that an individual is a totality of smaller units and,
individual h u t m s inescapably in the context of l q e r at the same time, is a part of larger wholes. That is the
smial system. Working this way, we that the degree stnscture of Being. There's nothing other than that,
of free choice that we have is strongly limited by the Experiencing membership in the larger wholes requites
social systems in which we live. The price of what the beautiful surrender I was talking abut before just as
individual freedom we do have is the willingness to maintaining individuality within them requires walking
experience the deep guilt of violating the norms of the the hero's path.
groups that are important to us and of leaving those we
love bhind. You haw raaged o w the field of Gdalt and what
you see that we as Gestalt therapists could usefully
All therapy promotes a particular set of values. encounter. I like thc fact that, after this d i m d o n of
There%no way to avoid t b i I'm thinking of people Hellinger's contribution, you have returned to the
who have Eooked back on decisions which they holism of Gestalt and our inevitable membership of
thought were having n g o d sect on them, but which the larger wholes. Thank you very much indeed.
harmed others. Hcllinges's approach suggests that
therapeatic work should be measured in relation to a
whole system's well being, not just that of an
individual. This seems to be an importantly neglected Beaumont, H. (1 988). Ncurose oder Charakterstlirung:
value in our individualistically orientated therapeutic Fehldiagnosen in der Gestaltthempie. (Neurosis or
cultun?. Personality Disturbance: Misdiagnosis in Gestalt
Therapy). In Gestaltthemapie wrd Gesmltpidagogik
I agree. We can o b m e what a p o w h l effect it has on zwischen Anpassung wrd Auflehnung: Dokumenration
the representatives when every member of the family is der Miinchner Gestaltrage, Latka, J., et al.
included in the family, and when everyone is relaxed and GeselIschaft mr Fijderung der Humanisierung des
in harmony, having found their place within the system Etziehungswesens, Munchen.
J3mmny is a real phenomenon. Beaumont, H.(1993). Martin Buber's 'I-Thou' and
There's no way a therapist can escape his or her value Fragile Self-Organisation: Gestalt Couples Therapy.
system. Even bracketing can't zl timtely pmwt us from British Gesralt Journal, Vot.2,Ne.2, pp. 85 -95.
our biases. Systemic work values the individual in a larger Helllnger, 0.. Weber, G.,and Beaumont, H. (1998).
systemic context. That sounds very Gestalt to me. By Love 's Hidden Symmetry. Zeig, Tucker and Co.,
looking at 1-t gestalts of an individual within a family Phoenix, Arizona.
system, we can begin to see resolutions 'for everyone. Johnson. S.M. (1 985). Chamcremlogiml Th.@mation
Maybe there's no lasring resolution for an individual -The Hard Work M i m k . Norton, New York.
unless the family as a whole also finds resolution. What Masterson, 3,F. (19833, The Na~issisricd Bodedine
kind of pace. can I enjoy while my parents, brothers and Disorders.. An Integrated Developmental Appmch.
sisters suffer injustice? The work with family Brunner-MmI, New York
constellations teaches us that everybody in the system Moore, T. (1994). Care of rhe Soul: a Guide for
needs to have Ihe feeling, 'this is my place, 1 can stand Crdiivaring Depth and Sacdness in Everyday Life.
here" Only then is the system as a avhole in order. Only H a r p Collins, New Yo&.
then can all the individual memkrs know lasting paw.

The work with family constellations reinstates the

q u a l i t y of everyone in the system.
Hunter Beaumont Interview

Judith Hemming is a teaching and supervising member of the Gestalt

Psychotherapy Training Institute in the UK and deputy editor of the
British Gestalt Journal. She works as a haher in Btitain and M and
has a private practice in London. Since 1993 she has been teaching The
Order of Love to groups in Britain, Australia and Canada.

Addressfor correspondence: 79 R o d & Road, hndon N5 IXB.

Email: jfwhemming@dial.pipex.com
 GESTALT: A POINT OF DEPARTURE
FOR A PERSONAL SPIRITUALITY

Des Kennedy
Received I Septembr 1998
Abstract: This article is based closely on a pllper read at the inmational conference of the
Association for the Advancement of GestaIt at Cleve'tand:,Ohio in June T 998. Gestalt is not just a
therapy, it is a way of being in Ihe world. Its philosophy ernerg& Trwn the h o r n of the prison
camps. Undergirding Gestalt is a new paradigm of percepticln: no longer of *graspingtand
'mastering' but of respect, humility and allowing to be (different). The lhnrsr of this which
informs out least Wily movement is to lake up and transform every situation at every level af
existence. The lrorizon against which this embdierl perception makes sense is the silent and
uncuntrollable infinitude of reality przsent as mystery: n point of departure for a personal
spinmalily.

Key Words: Erty HiIIesum. meaning,Medeau-Pmy, spirituality, mth, mmscendence.

The h j e d i n F m i a of reality is presurt as,mystery. (Rahner 1984

p.33
Gestalt is a most powerful form of psychotherapy; but
it is far more: it is a way of life. When we look closely By Mystery 1 do not mean the &own or &e as yet
at the philosophy that underpins this way of life we undiscovered: but rather that which discloses itself to
discover an open door leading tls on to a personal me as beyond a11 understanding and in its disclosure
spiritual quest. This way is an expIoration in self- allows us to experience the mystery which we are to
understanding with an emphasis upon embodied ourselves; like the blackness of the night allows us to
awareness. Gestalt takes m s t seriously indeed this daily perceive the stars. Zn that mysterious presence we begin
fact of our experience, that we are given to ourselves as to endure the realisation that our own reality is not in
something to be understood, (MerIeau-Ponty, wr hands. Such a realisation can be the starting point
194511979 p.347). So. when I opened my eyes from for a personal spiriwlity: I come to understand myself
sleep this morning, my vcry first dawning of awareness asas, 'someone to whom the silent and uncontrollable
was a prayer and an cxistadal. queslion: 'My God, infinitude of reality is present as mystery'. This is not
where am I and what am I doing here?' That was the just a way of thinking; it is a W i l y posture, a way of
absolute demand of my being at that moment before being in the world. It is towards such a posture, I
anything else. I am given to myself as something to be believe, that Gestalt theory when l i v d through, points
understood, us. Everything that follows is going to 6e an elaboration
What I am pmposing to do is tbis: I shaft elaborate for and meditation upon [his selfdefinition. This is the base
you this view of the Gestalt approach not just as a cmnp fIu,m which the climb can begin.
m e w of therapy but as a way of k i n g in the world, a
way of understanding ~ l v e that s is vesy congeniaI to A Move Towards l W h
a personal spirituality,
When we look at Gestalt in this way we will find that By spirituality I do not mean special effects of any
it enshrines a pdrnlar view of what it means to be a kind like mystical states, psychic healing, or, God help
human king: us all, this peculiar condition that they call leaping or
levitation. No. By spkixitudity I intend the movement of
Someone to whom the silent and uncontrollable the hem towards truth. An embodied condition. Truth is
Gestalt and Spirituality
not a proposition. Tmtb is am event, an alignment between
me and that epiphanic moment when reality discloses
itself to me, and I say Y J 3 or NO in moving my body.
Let me explain with an example. My friend is an
excellent therapist, very charismatic. But then he was
having these terrible rows with his wife and, of course,
she was always in the m g . Then one day after the third
wodd war, he climbed the stairs and haw on her door
and said: ' I'm sorry, please forgive me, I was m n g . I
was so posses4 of my view that I didn? listen to you.'
He had been granted an epiphanjc moment w3en Being
disclosed itself to him: a moment of truth. And he, in
alignment with that m m t , said Yes, md went up the
stairs.
I shall introduce this view of Gestalt to y w , explain it a
little and then later spiral down to explain it more deeply,
My narrative it) this paper will hinge about two stories.
They both have to do with that paroxym of violence
which shook our world from the late 1930's until 1945.
Both stories relate to the genesis of Gestalt which owes
more to the ovens of Auschwitz than it does to the
armchairs of Oxford.
The fmt is the story of Etty SIellesum, a young Jewish
woman, resident in Amsterdam during the time of [he
German invasion and occupation who wrcte a remarkable
spiritual diary kfore she died in a prison camp in 1943;
the other is of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a French
intellectual, a contemporary of Etty, who died
pmaturely of a heart attack in 1%1, but not before he
had given us 3 'Magnus Opus', a Great Ifirk which
philosophically ratifies our Gestalt approach. (And
indeed, undergirds dl those therapies which make what
Stephen Mitchell (1988) calls 'the relabonal matrix' the
core focus of psychotherapy.) The book is his
'Phenome~ologyof Perreptiun': not what you would call
'a popular read' with its 456 pages of raw philasophy in a
prose style which occasioned a famous row with A I M
Camus when the latter publicly derided his conwluted
style. It is not just the style that is difficult, the very look
of the page is intimidating k a n s e Merleau-Ponty had an
aversion to dividing the material into paragraphs. Yet, for
all that. it is spell-binding work and has gone through ten
reprints since it was first translated into English in 1962. I
can never for the life of me make out how people can
write about the philosophical roots of Gestalt and not
mention Merleau-Ponty. Like Wing about stout and not
mentioning Guinncss.
blerleau-Ponty is a giant and his work bestrides the
whole of Humanistic Psychotherapy as the colossus.the
entry to the ancient harbour at Rhdes. As a young
philosopher be reflected deeply upon the h o r m of the
war and asked himself how mcl~could happen k l a highly
intellectual and sophisticated society. He concluded that,
ironically, the p k s t s m g h of this saciety was also its
most basic flaw: the apotheosis of the intellect: the
substitution of thinking for living; this has established a
tendency to disengage from others and regard them as
objects and fhen call his 'meeting'. We are a society that
sees the world through a window. Disengaged people.
I shall reeum to Merleau-Ponty later.
And now a note of warning: you may have already
notid I write as if I had k n on the mountain and seen
God. I am not going to weaken my sentences with
humble eqmssions like, 'In my unworthy opinion'.or 'I
respectfully suggest 20 you', and so on... You can do that
yourselves. I know that the certainties of mathematics
have no place in Eestalt. m a t T experience, I experience
and that is my anchor in the world. But the meaning of
what I experience - and we are condemned to meaning -
is always ambiguous. And that is a bodily posture of
humility.
Neither am I going to apologise for the philosophical
weighting of my paper. Spirituality unweighted by
philosophy is like Richard Branson" hot air balloon: it
' lifts spectacularly on the morning breeze, flaps about
uselessly, and comes to grief in the desert wastes.
If you want spirituality without philosophy, then take
the train to Afghanistan and try the Taliban.
Tke Sb~fingM c i p h s of Gestalt
While Gestalt, like any system that symbolises reality,
can and indeed must, k o m e very complex and difficult
at times, its basic world view can be very simply stated in
primary school terms.
Every human self is SJTUP;FEE). You always and ever
find yourself surrounded by things and people. They p ~ s s
in upon you and that is your world.
This condition of being situated is marked by three
basic movements:
1CeCRENION :We make one another's worlds.
2.TEMPORALITY: my M y is my history and I bring
it to every situdon.
3.HORIZONTALISM. We're aU in the same boat. And
the boat is aur humanity,
None of us, however distinguished wc may hare
become, however exalted our ranking in the world of
Iurninies, even as the Book of Revelation might say,
'unto the zenith of the Spice Girls and beyond', none of
us can raise himself on his elbows and say, I'm a cut
above all the others. That would be a step to the
Yellowbrick Road of illusion.
Now Iet us explore each of these a littIe more closely.
By saying that the existence of each of us is
ontologicdly situated, 1 mean that my very existence
depends on my being in contact with the wodd. (So, as
soon as I begin to think about someone I am moving
away from my contact with hmher.), Here,your world is
90
c o n s ~ & ~ b ~my voice, the decor, the PoveIy sunshine,
the g&dW the chair on your bottom, your feet on the
ground:~Thitcontact amugh your senses constitutes your
&tld. Our body in fact reveals to us the perceiving
subject as the perceived world. You are, in a sense, the
things that constitute your world, because you have no
being outside of a particular world. The dynamic in
Gestalt is always from the base of my primordial
belonging in the wodd and towards the way in which
world is impacting me in my body, not towards my
reflections upon that world.
So. Gestalt will move us to a spirituality entirely
different From those systems which direct mu attention
more and m m away Frwn the body, and such processes
as we find in the works of Plotinus or Augustine
(Confessions, Bk9 chx)
To peel away the layers of wrs - with the
world and think thereby to dimb into a place of great
stilhss where we can meet our soul, is not the Gestalt
way. Conlrary to what Augustine says, '...mthdoes not
"inhabit" onIy t j e inner man:there is no inner man; man
is in the world and only in the world does he know
himself.'(Merleau-?onty,op.cit. p.xi). Out of body
experiences cut RO ice in Gestalt. Such experiences d u c e
us to '... the transparency of an object with no secret
recesses (and) the transparency of a subject which is
nothing but what it thinks.'(ibid. p.198). Gestalt in its
very name envisages a human being as one and as
belonging in the world
So, the first thing to notice about Gestalt as a way of oflife
is that it is very W i d . ' The world is not what I think
but what I live hgh'(ibid.xvi). Thinking about life is
not the same as living. Dewarm' famous 'Cogito ergo
swn' - 'I think, therefore I m' is mistaken because it
takes for granted what it infers. He sneaks in the
p m c e p t u a l subject witfront anyone noticing it. How
can you think in the fmt place unless you exist? And the
thinking happens frwn that base which is your M y , That
is the situation of situations; that is where the action takes
place. So much for being situated.
Because 1 am my My and have no being apart from
my body I am always and ever in a process of
chmge.(Liketax legislation or she stories about President
Clinton.)
This process that I am has, like the shammk, three
lorel y laves.
It is a movement of c m t i o n : this emphssises how
thoroughly and totally I am stitched into the world. 'My
M y is a movement towards the world and the world is
DGs Kennedy
my body" ppoinr of support.* (Merleau-Ponty
op.cit.p.350). Life is one prolonged dialogue with the
world. Our project in life is to keep this dialogue gure,
smooth and uncontaminated by disruptive introjects.
When that dialogue is interrupted then I become ill.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. And white he was silling
on the atdl and having a smooth dialogue with the world,
ev-ing was 'hunky dolqr'. Then he told h i I f some
story which intermptd the smooth flow of dialogue and
things became very sticky. Humpty's world was never the
same again.
LeqfPvo
The on-going process that I am is marked by
temporality: this mans that to every present in my life I
bring the totality of my past. To this moment here now
with you 1bring the sun total of what J have thus far
made of my self. My experience is not something thal I
live through and then discard like an old coat. My
experience is me. Every moment I am appropiating my
existence anew like a candle-flame appropriating the
oxygen of the air: I am not given my humanity as a
complete package, like a fried egg on a plate in the
morning for heakhst; we @uaIly choose ourselves into
our human existence. Tme is not a great ti& flowing by
with me looking m; it is my process. I am my time, my
tire is me-kcoming. My body is my past and my present
k o m i n g my future.
W . f h
It is a movement of horizontalism: this means Ihat in
order for you and me to talk and communicate we must
share the same level of existence. Did you ever try to
teach your cat the ~ o x i c aTheory
l of Change? Well
don"t,however brilliant a teacher you may h.You and he
are at different levels of existence. We,however, who
share the same level of existence, are not just all in the
same boat, we are all joined up together like islands
under the water, we can look at one another and know
that we are sharing something greakr than either of us i.eh
we stre both subjectivities. In that act of sharing we
experience our profound equality. Neither of us is top-
dog. If I was topdog you oould not look at me like hat; if
you were topdog I couldn't look at you like this. The
things in which we are not equal, e.g. knowledge, status,
are so insignificant compared with what we have En
common, that to allow them to htmupt our dialogue is to
abandon the world of humanity and enter a world of
illusion.
I h o w of an Irish kpub1ican who would bum,kill or
d m men w o r m and chiIdren in the name of what he
called a 'FEE and United Ireland'. Mickey Mouse is more
real than that and much less c!gerous. Similarly, if 1 trot
offto occupy .the high dground Ed andm them speak
Gestalt and Spirituality
down to my degraded client, I have emigrated k r n the
real world and am spea)ong now from a world of iIlusion.
The Meeting of Rvo WorB
Very earIy in the morning of Wednesday the 25th
February 1943 a woman of 29 years was one of hundreds
of Jews cmmmed into a hall in Amsterdam under orders
to present themlyes for questioning, Her name was Etty
Hillesum, We know of this meeting in great detail
k a u s e she speaks abut it in the spiritual diary which
she was keeping at that time. Her interviewer was a very
young Gestapo officer, who paced about impatiently,
yelling intermittently at the Jews. They looked at one
another, these two people: the arrogant, self-opinionated
strutting racist, exulting in his new-found self-importance,
and this gentle, sexual, rasher self-critical woman whose
main -pation at this time was to find G d in the
awful things that were descending upon h e people she
loved. In this exchange of gazes two totally different and
irreconcilable worlds collided. The collision basically
derived from what was happening between them in that
moment two totally irreconcilable views of what it means
to look at another human being (Hillesurn, 194 1-3/85
p.101)
The officer came to Etty already with his heart and
mind contaminated with the centuriewld hatred of Jews.
We regarded her as a thing, a nuisance, an object of
derision m d contempt. So far as he was concerned she
was a subhuman creature, and the sooner a way was
f d of annihilating this form of degraded life From the
planet the purer the planet would be. When he looked at
Etty he saw her against a horizon of m o d contagion. To
him it was self-evident that she represented the lowest
form of criminal. So far as he was concerned this went
without saying; he took it unquestioningly for granted that
he was doing a service to humanity by ridding the world
of vermin like her. The 'sincerity' of many of the SS is
amply documented in Shirer (1962) and GoIdhagen
(19%).
There could be no question of his engaging with her in
conversation; no question of an exchange of ideas; no
question of his allowing himself to have any other
feelings for her but those that were premibed, s h a d and
rewarded in the Nazi Party, No dialogue. No starting point
for human equality. Yet,for those moments when their
eyes met she was his world. 'The perceiving subject is
revealed as the v i v e d world' (Merleau-Ponty, op.cit.
p.72).
For her part, 'I thought him,' says Etty, 'more pitiable
than those he shouted at, and those he shouted at, I
thought pitiable for being afraid of hirn,"he saw him
dso as a human 'being behaving in a very s m g e and
even comic way. She saw through him, as she says, to
91
something else beyond him and wanted to give him
therapy right away.She felt compassion for him and saw
him not just as s o m e yelling at and bullying the Jews,
but as a person belonging to and sadly abused by a cruel
world. She was open to dialogue with him, wondered
about his chiIdhod and his girlfriend; she saw him as a
young man sadly oppressed by a Satanic system, And she
wanted to rescue him, like an elder sister would want to
m u e her kid brother.
Desfiny and Chance in &stah
Etty had come to that place in her journey when she
could stand up and answer back this representative of the
most hideous empire of tyranny that has ever darkened
the annals of human history. Looking back from this point
in her story we see a joumey graciously punctuatsd by
coincidence in the way that marks out a person's destiny.
Gestalt does not acknowledge mere chance; because
everything is canied forward on the wave of existence
and this always constellates the situation in a particular
way -always in the direction of lie and love. The thrust
of existence is always towards health. The slightest
abrasion on your skin calls mt the whole paraphernalia of
emergency services in the mt of your body for immediate
repair and maintenance. The universe is incredibly
friendly towards us, although - ultimately and
paradoxically - it will kill everyone of us.
Tho years before this meeting with the Gestapo, Etty
went by 'cham' one Jarmary evening to a recital which
her brother Mischa, a singer, was giving at a friend's
house. It was there she met JuIius Speir. In her journal, as
if to shield her tender love from prying eyes, she never
calIs him by his name but simpIy writes of him
anonymously or calls him S.. He was near1y twice her
age, a banker, a singer, a reader of palms. H e was
d y s e d by Carl Gustav Jang who advised S. to give up
money-making and become a therapist and spiritual
teacher. Etty became his admirer and pupil ;tnd! client, or
whatever. The love that grew between them was to be
unforgettable even to this day, and their destinies
intertwined; and, as is the way with such love, the
fortuities immediately started fluttering down to it like
birds to the shoulders of St Francis of Asski (Kundera,
1985). Here the forhities wem not the gentle birds of St
Francis but their common interest in staying alive.
Somehow,together, they had lo Iive thrwgh a set of cruel
and Jewish laws which forbade them to move about their
own city in peace, or to use public transpost. ride bicycles,
sit down on park knches, make purchases, or even work.
In the gathering gloom of their mihilation they were to
one another a gdl of Iove as men and women can be to
one another with mutual comfott and warmth while the
whoIe power of the state is set fair lo d d m y them.
92 Dts Kennedy

Tt was in February 1942 that she stood before this DNA of our Gestalt world view. It has been, elaborated
y m g Nazi bullyboy; by the end of November 1943 her upon beautifully by Yontef, J a b s , Hycner and others.
journey would be complete in hw horrifying death. That And, of course. it was the insight of Martin B u k . W e
journey, narrated in her diary which she began writing may have a difficulty even imagining a world in which
within six weeks of meeting S., describes the Gestalt this principle was not taken for granted. But four y m
cycle of her life. It is our privilege to engage with some of before Etty Hillem's W g with the Gestapo, Mattin
he^ inltimate monmts through its pages. Every moment Buber gave his inaugural course as Professor of Social
she describes is an analogue of the overall movement of Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem There
her life towards truth. Buber takes issue with another Martin - Martin
When we look closely at the situation of Etty ~ e s u m Heidegger - who was teaching that a person can find
and the way in which she was caring for her soul, we fmd herself in relation to herself, dispensing with the need for
a rmwkable congeniality with the theoretical framework relating to another.
wherefrom Gestalt operates. This framework I have
already o o t l i i for you. I have fomlated it in terms of Man can become whole, says Bubet. not in vinue of
Maurice Mdeau-Ponty's Pherwmmlogy of Perception. ~Iationsto himself but only in virtue of a relationship to
At the very time that Etty was getting ready to go to another df.
Auschwitz, Metleau-Yonty was having personal (Buber 1929!1%8 p.2011)
experience of the Nazi termr as a member of the Fmch
Resistance. As a thinker he saw in his philosophy a On that morning before she set our for the hall and the
response ro this process of dehurnanisatien that was Gestapo,Etty tells us:
consuming the whole of Europe like a bubonic plague, I
shall return to this later. I have clipped my tmnails, drunk a mug of genuine van
Hwten's cocoa and had some bread and honey, all with
what you might call abandon. I opened the Bible at
The Stnature of G d Embodid in the S h y of
random but i t gave me no answers this morning. Just as
E#u wdl, bemuse here were no quations,jm etl~rmwsfaith
WhenEttyraisesherheadandgamatIheNazidficer and gratitude that life should be so beautiful, and that
she offers him a different world. And he with his gaze makes this an historic moment, that and not the fact that S.
offers her a different world. And eaclt evokes from the and I are on our way to the Gestapo this morning.
other a response signalling welcome or rejection. The (HiUesum, opkt p.101)
W i l y posture of each, the language they use, the way
they breathe, their tone of voice, e m m y the 'acquired So, here is the principle of m t i o n . Her life is one
worlds' (Merla-Ponty, op.cit. p.130) that they bring to long on-going dialogue with h e world. Her movements
the exchange. h the shwtd question of the oficer we give meaning and illumination to the reality that envclops
hear the slamming of a d m He is loelcing h i m l f in 20 a her. Her nail-clippers, her toe-nails, her hugging that mug
world in which he is a s u p e m and everybody else very of cocoa, her reaching for the Bible, her thoughts, her
second class. He feels Ihmt from her: 'What are you manner of bmthulg, all combine to make her world; and
smirking at? he yells. He deals with her by t-hg living in this present moment she sees the h u t y of it.
and dismissing her: 'Get the hell out of here', his face Every present carries in its heart the promise of happiness
saying, 7'11 deal with you latet'.(Hillesurn,op.cit. p.101). and is, therefore, beautiful. Evil is, as Aquinas says, a
We cannot meet another person without disctosing the mysterious failue of pmmce. Notice how engaged with
state of our soul. her world Etty is. The Cartesian dichotomy of
The principle of C&reation states that my being, my subjectlobject, so beloved of marchers, i s b l u d , and
continuing existence, flows in to me from the Etty and her friends and the flowers and the suffering
environment; not from my thinking about the k o m e one. And all this while she is on the way to meet
environment but in my sense contact with it. And rht the Gestapo,
environment depends for its meaning - that is, to be part
of a world - on my perceiving it. We have a h of us the On the ...First of July 1942 she writes:
Mdas touch; but instead of gold, we mm everything into
meaning. Our touch is like the sunshine, we illuminate SunannhebalcanydalightbFeezehughthj~c.
what we perceive. Etty and the off~cerwere to one AsIsaidariwdtly hasdad-howmany of h m h w
another s o u r n of illumination: signs of contradiction, there k e n sirice s e v ~ no'clock this &ng? X $MItin=
ahat out of their meeting the thoughts of their hearts would another ten minutes with the jasminc, and then on the
be revealed. This principle of co-creation is realIy the household bicycle - for which we have a permit - to see
Gatalt and Spirituality 93

the friend who has been part of my life for sixteen month gamim and the faded tea roses and her beloved books,
and whom I feel I have known fot a housand years, yet St Augustine and the Bible and Rilke and Jung.' My desk
who can still suddenly present me with an aspect so new she says, 'looks like the world on the first day of
that I catch my breath with surprise. How exotic the creation.' (ibid.p.164). Thankfulness is a basic spiritual
jasmine looks, so delicate and dazzling against h e mud- attitude.
brown wdl~.(op.~it.p.l68). Closely connected with thankculness is another quality
of this Gestalt perception: it is perspectival. When Etty
Etty engages with her world. She allows the jasmine to engages with the Gestapo officer she knows that there i s
reach her. Her -pion belongs to a different world of rno1.e to him than this arrogamt posturing and adolescent
discourse thm the perception of the Nazi ofioer.There is buliyiag, In other wcrds she acknowledges that her
a sense in which Etty becomes the jasmine.So, there are perception of him is very limited. She is aware that she is
different ways of perceiving the world: What is it to seeing only one a q s t of this person. The perspectival
pwceive something? nature of our perception and,thedore, of our awareness
Some wwld say: perception is like window-shopping. carries along with i t two consequences which are very
You look at the g o d s on display and then you purchase important for Gestalt as n bax for personal spirituality:
what you want. Such a view presupposes that everything
is pre-packaged and labelled before it meets you. This (i) humility with an invitation to remain ever open to
rules out the principle of co-creation, It is a world of change.
fmed things with fixed meanings. The11:is not much room (ii) the transcendent structure of our perception, indeed of
for creative dialogue in such a world; but a Id of m m for our very existence, and our mysterious reach for
prejudice which becomes mistaken for knowledge. In this meaning. This is our transcendence: that 'deepseated
view authority replaces the self-disclosure of reality. I momentum which is my very being' to take up each
know what you are like, not because I have really met you situation and transform it (Merleau-Ponty, op.cit. pp
in dialogue, but because someone 11% told me about yw. 377 & 169). In this momentum Etty takes up that
So the Nazi officer has had his heart poisoned with stories morning when she and S, arc due to report to the
abut the Jews and is absolutely sure he i s right h u t Gestapo and transforms it.
Etty. It is the things that 'go without saying' that most
require to be called into question. Meaning: The Searchfor i h t h
EthicalA#*ies Implicit in GestnU What we make of each situation will depend upon the
horizon against which we allow that situation to stand out.
If on the other hand we take our experience seriously Notice that I siiy 'allow'. This is w h our responsibility
and replace the commonsense Cartesian view of a world comes illto play: Yontef seems to me to make a very
of determined things, with dialogue, temporality and important point when he locates appropriation as a
horizontalism as the basic movements, then several component of awareness (Yontef, 1993p. 184).
corollaries follow for the Gestalt Psychotherapist. I will Once I allow myself to b e w m e aware of an event, I
confine myself to two which have a special relevance in dm the whole constellatio~~ of the field, in that thereafter,
regard to spirituality. that event becomes part of the horizon against which I
The first is this: If my customary view of the world is allow every subsequent event to stand our. Like if your
that it is giving itself to me with inexhaustible generosity, friend pnts a big sum of money into your bank account:
calling me by my name into being, inviting me to hereafter every financial transaction of yours is altered in
respond, then I shall live in an atmosplrere of the light of your friend's gift.
thankfulness. When you look nt the phenomenology of Let's look a little closer at the phenomenon of field
thankfulrmess, you see how it situates us beautifully in our conslellation i3 order to appmiate its relevance to our
rightful place in the world. Every person is to me a gift, an enquiry.
opportunity,a new disclosure of the kmty of being. That, You are, I take it, farnili with the figure and ground
of course, makes for pezce; that 1 give rnyself and theory of perception. Whenever I perceive something I
everyone and everything else their place in my hean. allow it to 'exis[' i.e. to 'stmd out' (from Latin 'ex'-
So in the midst of crippling oppression, Etty rejoices out,'strue'- to stand). Simultaneously, I allow all the
that no regulation can deprive her of the sky over the millions of other things to fade into the background.This
s m t and she looks at her desk and rejoices in the cup of one privileged thing becomes figure and derives its
b u m i l k instead of cocoa, and in the pine cones which energy, its meaning from the horizon of the things that are
she intends to take to Poland with her. not figure. As this event or person or thing stands
They remind her of the heath. She sees Tide's silhouettsd in your perception, it is having its day. It is
94 Des Kennedy

Nobl prizeday for this privileged person or event. visiting the dairy, everything turns sour. The sourness
In order that an event should have Nobel p r i a h y in originates in m y swl's inability to be present to itself
your perception, it has to be presented to you from the becaus there i s tm big a gap between itself and what is
giving hands and with h e watching eyes of all the things presenting for engagement. The gap is a failure of
that have gsaciwdy faded into the b a c k p n d and ,are support. I have entered a plivzttc world of my own making
not figure. So, a man at a conferem sees a woman and that is disconnected from the primordial sinews of my
fancies her. She is presented to him by the s h d inte~st, being, When the world no longer supports mr body, we
by the lovely weather,by the atmosphere of the gathering, tend to collapse and kcom objects. We 4 upright
by the decor of the hotel and also by the wife he has at not b u s e of our skeleton but because we are caught up
home and his three children. They all make the meaning in a world.(Merleau-Ponty, op.cit. p.254 ftmt.) In other
of this w m for this man. Now, if k decides lto block words, I am emkdied,
out his wife and family then the situation becomes
untruthful. And what is figure for him becomes an It happened TO Etty one day:
illusion, The truth of the situation calls for a movement of
the M y which allows the witness of dl interested parties b e must face pp to evwythmg that k g m s , even when
in order to be authentic. The situation needs to have their meone in tht shgpc of a fellow h u m king comes up to
presence as horizon in order to 'stand out' truly. This is you as you are leaving the pharmacy with a tube of
the sense in which I can say that in order to perceive toothpastc, pokes you with his finger and demands
anything I must be opn to perceive everything. In o h r inquisitwidly, 'Are you allowed to buy that?' 'Yes sit.'
words,my evesy act of pxception is a movement of my you say softly but firmly in your customary pleasant
soul, witnessed to by the presence of the silent and manner, This is a phamracy.' 'I see'. he says curtly and
uncontrollable infinitude of reality, p E n t as mystery. A suspiciousFy, and walks on. I am no good at such
barrier to such a posture is our mident grandiosity which exchanges. I can be sharp in inrellectual debate, but when
recoils at lthe defiant opaqueness attaching to the it comes to bullies in the street, to put it bluntly, I am
complexity of the world of things, of people and of my compIetely at a loss. I h o m e embarrassed and sad and
b d y . This may excite me but dso Ieaws me stunned with upset that people can behave like that .....'
blank incomprehension. And kin mind that your W y (Hillesum, op.cit p. 179)
is the pivot of your world and your body is where the
mystery is experienced o r not at all. That's where the Etty here describes the phenomenology of shaming;
action is. there is the draining away of her dignity as a person, the
So, the four b i c postures of the spirit which inform the loss of her sense of belonging., the drift towards
Gestalt approach are: mihilation. Shaming says: 'You are without meaning as
- A postur~lof thankfulms and gratitude. a person in my world.' Sartre very well describes the
- A posture of humility and openness given the experience of meaninglessness in his novel Nausea
limitations that my W i l y wrception place upon me. (1972). Roquetin, unlike Etty,is a privileged man entirely
- A hunger and thirst for authentic meaning and a thrust disengaged so that he feels nothing for anyone, wen for
towards ever more complete meaning. This is our the woman whom he uses for sex. He i s a brilliant
transcendence. historian in full flight from himself by the life
and ti- of a 17th century spyldipllomat: 'Rollebon" he
Meaninglessness: A Bed ~fVomit says, 'was my partner he needed me in otder to k and I
needed him in order not to feel my khg."en came the
This surge towards miming - towards a Gestalt - may day when 'the great Rollebon affairwne to an end. like a
be too much for us; 'Human kind can bear very little of great passion.' The disgust and terror for Roquetin is
d i t y . ' as T.S.Eliot says in his poem 'Burnt Norton'. So, without Iimit: he feeis, '... as if he has awoken in a bed of
we may intermpt the process by deflection, introjection, vornitY(Sartre,I 972 pp.85 & 143ff) Life disconnected
insensitivity, confluence,etc. If our interruption succeeds from the accrediting wwld h o m e s a bed of vomit. This
then we have restored the "tus quo ante' and can sit happens he says, when 'things are entirely what they
back and enjoy Dallas. However, the shelf-life for many appear to be and behind them there. is nothing'. No
of our favourite interruptions is quite limited and sooner horizon, no receding gracious infinitude of reality,
or later our situation presents itself to us in such a way present as mystery: no meaning. Always, always, it is the
that we cannot avoid it effectively. Then something else dialogue between the p~senlingredity and the horizon
takes over: meaninglessness. This. with its nausea and that makes for meaning. But, you can see, in order for a
confusion, happens when the presenting being is not Gestalt lo emerge, I must be o p n in some way to that
vouched for by the totality of reality. Like the witch horizon; I have to see that presenting reality from the
Gestalt and Spirituality
point of view of tho totality.
One very significant difference &tween R q e t i n and
Etty needs to be noted. Whereas Roquetin is ulterly
submerged in the meaninglessness - the vomit of his
experience - Etty is not. Rquetin scteams out:'I was only
a means of making him live, he was my mison d'etre, he
had freed me from myself. What am 1going to do now?
A b v e all not move, NOT MOVE......Ah'.
(Sartre, op.ci t. p. 143)
Etty on the other hand:
That man shouId not have been alIowed to question me
like that. He probably hinks he's a great idealist; no dwbt
he'll do his bit one day to clear society of all Jewish
elements. These brushes with the outside world stiiI make
me sad. But I am not the slightest bit concerned about
cutting a fine figure in the eyes of this persecutor or tha&.
Let them see my sadness and my utter defencelessness too.
There i s no need to put on a show. I have my inner
strength and that is enough, the rest doesn't
matter.(Hillesum, ibid. p. 179)
Etty owns what has happened to her 2nd mnscmds it.
Let us look a bit closer at 'transcendence'.
Reaching Beyorod OumeIves
As we allow ourselves to b m e aware of a p n or
of an event (and I stress allow, because this is the moment
of choice ) the tush of our existence s u m d s the pmn
and reaches out to encompass him exhaustively, like the
sea rushes around a stone on the beach. Bodily, we move
to live thmugh the experience. (Unless, of course, we
W f l e c t . )So,if you are hungry, your M y will move to
Iive through that experience and if you shop when you are
hungry you will 'buy more than you want to, Our
existence floods beyond the event and searches for more.
So you may say to ywrself. 'It is good for me rto fee1 what
it is like to be really hungry at times'; or you may be
caring for your health, or observing a fast or something.
That power of transforming every event i s our
transcendence o r rather, should I say, we are our
transcendencejust as we are our time and all. thetimes we
have ever :ivBd. This rush of existence courses t h m g h
me and of its very nature transforms events. Now if this
power finds nothing beyond itself to relate to then my
present collapses and that is me collapsing because I am
my own time. And that is the I d of vomit.
On the other hand this rush of existence may ~neeta
Presence so vast and incomprehensible that it manifests as
terrifying abyss. When Etty s p k s about a silent space
which she carried within her (Hillesurn, ibid.p.18 1) she is
taking about her transcendence.When things were d I y
dimcult for her she says:
I shall retire for the day into my own stillness, accepting
the hospidity of that calm space fw one whole day.
And again: (ibid. p.171)
And so I can sit fur hours and h o w everything and grow
stronger in the bearing of it....but that does aot mean that I
am always filled with joy and exaltation, I am often dog-
trred after standing about in queues, but 1 b o w that this
tca is part of life and somewhere [here ir something ins&
me that will never &sen me (emphasis hers).
In the situation Etty transcends herself. Her existence
floods beyond the present weariness and pain, and she
makes this extraordinary claim as if she could in some
way opt out af time. Deep in the mystery which she is to
herself, ratified in her body, Etty 'sees' some beauty
which defies undemanding.
The question remains: What is this b t y ? What is this
incomprehensible presence? To explore this question
would take us away far beyond the boundaries of the
present project. Instead, let us took a little closer at the
movement generated in her by this transcendence.
The Thinking He&
E q d m not leave her M y . She experiences herself as
truly embdied and receives this as insight and gift. Such
an insight affects the whole trajectory of her existence or,
as Merleau-Ponty would call it, her mscendence (op.cit.
p.169, p.360 et passim). She speaks about her experience
.in symbolic langtiage: 'The stil!ness'; 'the space of
silence*,'the vast silence'and so on. These are terms of
capacity, of receptivity, of passivity almost. This is not to
be confused with helplessness. From August 1942 to
September 1943, Etty stayed in Westerbotk camp
working in the lwal hospital. With a special permit from
the Jewish Council she was able to travel to Amsterdam a
dozen times in that period. She carried messages and
letters even to resistance groups aml picked up medicines.
Of this time she writes:
At night, as 1 lay in the camp on my plank M,smwnded
by women and girls gently snoring , dreaming aloud,
quietIy sobbing and tossing and turning, women and girls
who often told me during the day, ' We don't want to
think, we don't want to feel. a h s e we are sure to go
oul of our minds,' I was sometimes filled with an inhite
tenderness, and lay awake for hours letting ail the many,
too many impressions of a much tm long day wash over
me, and T prayed, 'Let me be ht h i n g heart of these
barracks.' And that i s what I want to be again. The
thinking heart of a whole concentration camp. 1lie here so
paliently and now so calmly again, that I feel quite a bit
better already. I fed my strengih returning to me; I have
stopped making plans and worrying about risks. Happen
% Des Kennedy

what may. it is b o d to be for the @(ibid. p.245). Swiet forces that same year entered Auschwitz where
1 2 , m people were gassed every day for months on end.
Etty, in the midst of such misery, is listening to her I was fifteen years of age at that time and I d l vividly
heart and thinking at the same time. Just as she mpndd how we reeled in unbelief that such horrors had
to the bullying of the Gestapo officer so now she responds hap&. In my innocence lignorance I m m m k saying
to this beckoning beauty that she discerns in her soul. that dme things were too awful to talk or think abut; and
Here we see another slant on what it rneansto be a h u m my mother shared this view with me. I also recall the
being - a definition of the hrnm selt an embodied, amsphere of quiet anti-Semitism that we dl b h e d in
inexhaustible capacity for the communication of love. To Catholic Dublin of the 1940's.
experience ourselves as such becomes possible in the The s m year that those tanks rolled into the camps,
ptemce of the Incomprehensible hfystery. thirty-seven year old Merleau-Ponty published his
Phetmmlogy of Pe~epn'onin Gallimar Press. He had
M d Buber a d the Every@ Thing fought in h e war as a second lieutenant, and then in the
Resistance under the banner of Socialists for Freedom.
If this all sounds a bit mystid, then let me i n ~ d u c c I-Ie also worked as a teacher duri~rgthe war years and
here the most dorm to earth of them all: Martin Buber, sweated over the ~henor~lerwlogy while the wupying
His great insight came, to him in a moment of Germans strutted m w d Paris and did all hey could to
disenchantment with mystical rapture. One day when he demonstrate what reasonable and civilized people they
was caught up in spirirual feelings and insight, he missed were. In June of that same year, after the Alllies had
hearing the desperate cry for help hidden in a question reached Paris he founded an intellectual journal with Jean
which one of his students addressed to him after his Paul Sartre called Lcs Temps Modernex. There he
lecture. This student subsequently killed himself and published an article (1945) in which he argues that the
Bukr had what he calls his "conversion' experience war and its horrors were intimately connected with the
( 192911958 p.30). He turned away from out-of-body way he and his countrymen and women and the Germans
experjenc~sand said he had nothing left except what he too bad refused to perceive the most obvious realities,
4 1 s 'the everydaya,When you look closer at it (by, for Even More. she storm of war bmke upon Europe in 1939:
instance, reading his Lectures on Religion, Feb.1922)you
ftnd that this 'everyday' i s not so bmal as Bubr twkes it We h e w !hat concentration camps existd. that Jews were
sound. being persecuted, but rhese ceminlies beIanged to the
world oJ thorlght. (emphasis nune) (Merlmu-hty, 1W.
Jn this ~elatimhipone hnot expe;iience anything abut p.139)
this pcrsot~.One confronts this p c m ~ l asyhis Thou.
Here this person appears not as an aggregate of 'It was the crusade of his life to nail the lie enshrined
expiencable qualities; he is not an object I can corn to solidly in European thinking since Descmks' Discourn de
h o w ( 8 u k 19224988 ~ ~ 7 4 ) . la Method (16371, that perception is primarily thinking.
Merleau-Ponty saw this as a 'forgetfulness of being'. He
This is the enigma of the between. In the other, in the taught that when our certainties become disconnected
opaqueness of the concenkation camp, in the h m piled from our primordisl experience of reality, calamity
upon horror Etty glimpsed an incomprehensible mystew, follows (Merleau-Ponty, 194511979.p.79ff).This chronic
a b u y , 'ever ancient ever new', as Augustine called it. stepping back from our experience into thought, stops us
And in the midst of it all she lqqt on loving. seeing what is under our noses. Thus, the world becomes
My God, are the doors really being shut now? Yes, they nut what I live through but what I think. This makes it
are. Shut on the herded densely packed, mass of people easier for us to lie to ourselves, Our connection with our
inside......the train gives a piercing whistle and 1,020 Jews bodies is weal;ened:
leave Holland. .....In the meantime, my love mcc again,
you dear people ((ibid.p.UIE.9). Wc hnd axrely m l v e d to know nothing of violence and
Etty died in Auschwitz on 30th Novemk 1943. unhappi~lasas elenents of histoty.'(MerIeau-Ponty, 1964.
p.138)

Reviewing the situatiun in 1945 when the knives were

Tho years later on the 21st of April, American rroops
wt for ~~Baborators, Merleau-Panty h d the courage to
over-ran the East German Buchenwald concentration
say:
camp and found 21,000 starving and dehumanised
survivors. This was just one of SCOWS of such camps. ahe
When we lmk closely at things we find culprits nowhere
Gestalt and Spiritualily
but accomplices e v e r y w h so it is we dl played a pal in
the events of 1939.' (op,cit.p. 141)
Self-righteousness, lie m a l ' s doctrines, needs only
to be pressed a Tittle to abounc! with
contradictions.(Merlm-fonty, 1945tl979. p.296).
Dm'ved and Secarodmy
Scienfific Knowledge i~
Following in the tradition of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty
gushed for a return to that basic experience of king that
fwnds all the rest. He argues that the universe of scierlce
is secondary to and dependent upon our primordial
experience of reality; that we are terribly and mgically
mistaken if we persist in seeing the world through a
window (Rovnanyshyn, 1992). The human body i s not a
thing as other things; when I start thinking of the human
heart as a pump or of the brain as a massive computer or
lymph glands as astonishing chemical factories, I had
b e r rememhr that now I have gone into the realm of
abstraction: I am talking about things that have redly no
existence in themselves. Our minds function by
considering aspects and then hypostasizing them (i.e.,
supporting them as having a separate identity in
themselves). The hean has no identity apart from the
person whose heart it is. The mistake is to read this
mental operation backwards and confer upon the thing the
reality my thinking has given it. The reality of a person is
not to be found in the way I think a b u t herhim but in
hidher relationship with me. If I distance myself from
someone by regarding himlher as an inteesting c w then
I am missing her reality and m i n g her into an object.
The mistake is to substitute thinking for living and
relating. That way the person becomes a thing. People
who are regarded as objects tend to become ill. So,
hospitals and dmtors' surgeries can br: d a n g m s places,
Merleau-Ponty would go further and say that as soon as I
have rnadc a person an object I have taken the fmt step in
the way of putting him in a concentsation camp.
It was to escape the terror of those camps that Fritz
Perk, exactly ten years before Etty died, fled Germany to
the safety of Amsrecdam. \Ve don" know if Perls and
Merleau-Ponty ever met. Probably not. They certainly
met indirectly in their extensive contact with the work of
Professor Kurt Goldstein at the Institute for Btairl-injured
Soldiers where Perls was an assistant in 1926 at the time
that Merleau-Ponty was starting his university studies.
Both these men were enmousl y creative and shred one
thing: that their creative genius was forged in the fm of
war. Perls served in the First World War and became a
Jewish refugee from Hitler in 1933. He was haunted by
the memory of his lost people (Perls,1977 p.127).
Merleau-Ponty, the French intellec%ual,was dominated by
a political passion for reconciliation between people
(Kn~ks,1981).
97
Neither of them I feel sure, envisagd their teaching as
a point of departure for a personal spirituality.
Gestalt is not just a therapy: it is a way of living in
contact with the primordial sinews of my being. This way
of living is distinguished by its emphasis upon perception
as an act of the total person, am embdied act. My being-
in-theworld has about it a thEeefold movement:
1. &creative dialogue.
2. Temporality: Nothing of my being is lost but is all
gather& up and present to me in my body in the here-
and-now.
3. Horizontalism: As human beings we are all on the
same level and this i s the currency of authentic
comnunication ktween person and pmn.
I believe that to live through these principles (as distinct
from thinking abut them) is to begin a personal spiritual
journey. Such a journey - I emphasise it again - engaga
with the total person. Nothing human, however dreadful,
is fa.from any of us.
I say 'point of departure' to avoid the formidable
question of how RELIGION features in this quest.
Religion is the garb that spirituality wears when it is
culturally articulated. Etty 's spirituality was Judaeo-
Christian; mine is unashamedly Jrish and Catholic;
someone else's will be Shaman or Sufi. The tension
between spirituality and culture is ever present, and
manifests itself wvkrever people gather to pray. The more
spirituality M s down with culture the more likely it is to
be smothered, like a baby depr~vedof oxygen. My own
experience leads me to think that it is very hard to be
religious and spiritual at the same tirne. The paradox is
that spirituality cannot exist unemMied and culture is a
W i l y phenomenon. Culture is not something out thw; it
i s in our b l d , in our bones, in our flesh.
The problem for us in Gestalt is to become i n m i n g l y
emkded and not to sell our souls for respectability.
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tonergan, B. (I 975). Method in Theology. barton, Shirer, W L (1 %2). The Rise Md Fdl ofthe Third Reich
Longman &Todd,M o n . The Reprint Society, London.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1 94511919). Phenomenology of Spinelf i, E. (1989), The Interpreted World. Sage,
Perception. Routledge and Kegan Paul, bndon. LQndon.
Merleau-Ponty, M.(1945/&4). The War H ~ f Taken
s P k e Yalom, I.D. (1 98). Existential Pqchotherepy. Basic
in Sense and Non-Sense. North Western University Books (Harper Collins), New Yo*.
Press. Yontef. G.f 1993). Awamness, Dialogue and Process.
Mitchell, S.A. ( 1 988). Relational Concepts in ?FR Gestalt Journal Press. hc.N.Y.

k Kmnedy Bk Lic.Phit., X)ip.Gm is a Teaching and Supervisory

Membr of the Gestalt Psychotherapy Tmining Institute, and a UKCP
Registered Gestalt Psychotherapist. His background is Irish, Jesuit and
academic. After hventy-five years as a Jesuit he left, &ed and Med
the Religion and Philosophy Department in a U.K. Grammar schruo2.
Eighteen yean later he trained in Gestatt Psychotherapy, married again
and kgan his third career. Presently he runs an extensive private p m t ice
in t h e w and supervision and is a guest trainer in Gestalt to some
institutes. His ma of special interest is in the philosophy underpinning
Gestalt thewy and practice.

Addmss far Cop~cspo~etlcc:

Shalom, 36 Hillside Road, West Kirby,
W d LA8 8BB.
 REMEMBEIUNG EARTH: FROM
ARMOURED SPECTATOR TO
SENSUOUS PARTICIPANT

Bill Cahalan
Received 10 October 1997
Abshd.. This paper extends the Gestalt theory of contact intemption by describing a
process by which many people in industrialconsumerist cultures alienate themselves
experientially from other-than-human nature. Senswy, verbal, and muscular-emotional
aspects of this process of armouring are described, as is a theory of the process's cultural
history and its emotional dynamics and motives. A contrasting description of healthy
hctioning which includes the natural community is proposed. An example of the
author's work with a client is presented, focusing on one extended session. Here
traditional Gestalt methods help the client move from a disengaged, armoured style
toward a more sensuous style of entering into the encompassing, nourishing psence of
nature.

Key words: organismic field theory,mechanistic world view, mflection, confluence,

arrnowing, s w t o r stance, emlogical pndedness, sensuous engagmat.

other. Earth also engages in self-regulation, and our

A few years ago I published an article (1995a) h u t
cultivating ecological gmundedness in Gestalt therapy.
In that article I described the organismic field theory of
Gestalt therapy. I also fleshed out this world view by
drawing on the science of ecology and the philosophy of
deep ecology. I asserted that, k a m e of the holistic and
ecological qualities of its organismic world view,
Gestzlt therapy offers a more fertile ground for
including the ecological dimension than any other
recognised h m p y theory, and for that matter any other
therapy methodology.
This orgatusrnic world view, as I have elaborated it,
perceives the natural world, and especially the Earth, to
k functioning more like a living, self-regulating body
than like an inanimate mechanism. We humans are
perceived to be as deeply embedded in this body OF
Earth as are the cells in a plant or animal, or the waves
in a lake. 'Ihe M h and ourselves are of one flesh. The
beings and elements of Earth's body are complexly
interwoven, not only constantly giving essenltia1
materials and ene~iesto aid receiving them from each
other, h ~ also
t ultimately being transformed into each
personal organismic self-regulation is a snaall reflection
of this greater reality which contains us.
In contrast, a mechanistic world view has been very
basic to industrial-consumerist culture, science and
economics, and most themputic ichoofs. In this context
I pmmtwl my view of human alienation from the Earth
multing fmm the mle of industrial consumer.
I wrote about the pervasive p r e s e ~ l ~ofethis alienation
without saying much about the specific ways in which
we sepmte or m u r omlves, the specific emotional
dynamics or motives which seem to be involved. or the
cuItural history of this phenomenon. In the present
article, I want to share a mote detailed description and
discussion of what I will mostly call m u r i n g . I will
also offer a mom detailed example of the ways I work
with clients as a Gestalt therapist who explicitly
includes the ecological dimension.
The Armowed Shme
As it has baerl describes in the past, armouring has
referred excIusively to humans and associated
interpersonal emotions. I believe that it also m u r s in
100
relation to much of the rest of nature. I see armwring in
relation to non-human nature, which will be my focus
here, as a pwvasive activity in urban-industrial cultures.
Armuucing functions as a part of consumerist lifestyles,
contributing to the gmwing global crisis of b t h the planet
and individual people. I feel an urgent desire ta respond to
this crisis by helping to bring the ecological dimension
into therapy, as well as into other amas such as education.
Amowing as I think of i t includes n subtle, chronic
deflecting of the person's sensing of, and blunting or
tensing of his or her muscularemotional responding to
fellow humans; and also to weather, daily and seasonal
rhythms, landscapes, plants, animals, places, and the
elements. This activity, or set of activities also usually
includes distracting ways of thinking and talking. So
sensory, muscular-emotional, and verbal dimensions are
usually interwoven as part of the armouring activity.
The term armouring was originally used in
psychotherapy literature by Reich (1933),and the concept
was expanded to include more than simpIy muscular
activity by Perls, Hefferline, and Godman (195 13 in their
concept of retroflection as a boundary intemption. I
prefer to use the term amuring due to its more graphic
connotations, even though I am actually referring, in
Gestalt terms, to a combination of retroflection and
deflection.
Yhe person in the a m d stance dates to the natural
world as a spectaior. Part of this stance, expressive of the
mechanistic world view which pervades mr aItune, is the
perception of the natural world as a sumwctnding but
separate 'environment' a disconnected collection of
objects seen either as resources to be exploited
economically, or as static scenery to be usad for recreation
or admired in a m l y aesthetic way.
This process of separating outseIves from the
encompassing world of nature - which we have emerged
from, are constantly sustained by, and wilI ultimately
return to - serves lo m n out nature's distractions from
wr addictive, narrowly focused attachment to the built
environment with which human kings have increasingly
sutrwnded ~ ~ l v eIt sseems . to me that through this
attachment we q to fd! up the emptiness resulting from
the loss of our amstow' original intimacy with both the
face-to-face hnrnan village and the sustaining natural
community in which the village was embedded.
We cling to an image of ourselves as owners and
consumers of products, traits, land, entertainment, and
relationships, rather than knowing ourselves mostly as
humble members of the natural community. The cocoon
of our surrounding built environment, including our
global economic and communications grid, constantly
invites and reinforces the individual's addictive,
mouring activity with its associated illusion of power
and control,
Bill Cahalan
CuErurrrERm of Our Aliendbn
Our v q nervous system seems to require an intimate,
face-to-face, balanced interchange with both the local
human and non-human communities. This inborn set of
needs emerged especially during our species' evolution
for *vend miltion years (perhaps 100,000 generations)
within a village-centred, hunter-gatherer way of life.
There was a utilitarian and emotional daionship with the
wide diversity of woodland and grassland plants and
animals which included their importance as food,
medicine. fibre, fuel. and instructivespiritual context.
Paul Shepard wrote, 'The h i t ' s complex cmstruction
and the mammalian brain are twin offspring of the
maturing earth; impossible. even rneaningIess, without the
deepening soil and the mutual development of savannahs
and their faunas in the last geological epoch. Internal
complexity, as the mind of the primate, is an extension of
natural complexity, measured by the variety of plants and
animals and the variety of nerve cells, organic extensions
of each other,'(l969).
People began adding agriculture to hunting and
gathering around 10,000 BC (about 500 gemrations ago).
This initiated the eventual sense of separation between the
wild and domesti~tedrealms of nature. People began
developing and controlling cultivated fields, a small
number of domesticated animals, md more permanent
dwellings and storage structures. This domesticated nnd
controlled realm was the original precursor to today's
elaborate built environment with which we have become
so enmeshed.
Over the centuries, these early fanners increasingly
separated Trom and lost their intimate familiarity with, and
tribal lore abut,. the multitude of wild plants and a n i d s
which had co-evolved with their ancestors for so long.
This separating and polarising of the human world versus
the larger natural world was apparently the kginning of
what I am calling armouring.
By roughly 3,500 BC the urban mvolution had begun,
and as villages grew into cities, whole classes of people
such as merchants and aristocrats lost even these
narrowed agricultural connections with the Earth
(Shepard 1982).
The industrial cities of the last 200 years (10
generations), with their distant sources of supply and
corporate control of business, have further increased
human disconnectedness from both domesticated and
wild nature. This has added to the deep sense of
emptiness which exists on at Ieast a dimly conscious level
in most people. This m a y 5e partly due to the fact that the
shifts to agriculture and beyond have been too recent for
any basic changes to occur in our inherited hunter-
gathem nervous and senswy systems. So our way of life
alienates us from needs which arise fm our i n h e ~ n t
narure and fails to fulfil them.
Uh-industrial humans are now ihoroughly a r m d
fro;m nature. Our alienated, armoud position tends to
pqetuate itself, since it shields us from an awareness of
the sources in nature of so much of what \ve have (fm
wr food to our spiritual inspirations) and so much of what
we are. At the same time it shields us from seeing the
increasingly destructive effects of our economic activities
upon these sources. So the closely selated crises of urban-
industrial persons and of the planetary web of life
intensify as the twentieth century comes to a c l m .
When I begin working with clients in retreat or therapy
settings, I often tell them that, as they begin to be aware of
and to open up from their m m d , spectator stance, they
m a y experienoe some boredom, anxiety, or feelings of
emptiness as they withdraw, even for a few hours from
their probably somewhat addictive attachment to the built
environment. Also, they may feel some grief about
remembered,ongoing, or anticipated losses of special
places or intimate connections with nature due to
destruction fsom 'development'. But. I tell them, if they
accept these emotions and continue their opening process, .
peaceful, compassionateand even ecstatic experiences are
likely to follow. These experiences, too, will pass
eventually, and should not be f m s d on as lthe primary
goai.
Another unpleasant emotion aften being avoided
through m o u r i n g includes a sense of helplessness when
away from our televisions, clocks,teIephon3, computers,
buildings, cars, pavemen&, and other technologies, due to
a lifetime without having learned to survive in wild
nature. Most of us have never learned how to get our
food, fuel, building supplies, water, medicines, and other
necessities direct1y from nature. We reIy instead on
gnmry stores, gas stations, and other "middlemen' which
in turn depend on long distance suppliers. The ultimate
suppliers usually extract materials in unsustainable ways
hfar away places which we never see.
So part of the dimly conscions 'function or goal of
armouring is to avoid unpleasant emotions and other
distractions from our consumerist, tunnel-vision
functioning.Yet,at the s a m e time, due tb our genetically
inherited nature, we arc also deeply drawn toward
opening up to the seductive call of other-than-human
nature.
This concept of m u r i n g and its emotional dynamics
has helped me to answer the following question, which I
have been asking myself over and over in recent years:
'How can m y of my apparently welleducated hends,
acquaintances, and also m y public figures, continue to
deny, despite so much evidence, that we are at the
beginning of a growing global w;ological crisis, causedby
our indusbial economy and lifestyles?
Through the regular practice of being aware of their
separateness and how are -hating it, people can
then Ioosen their armouring and come regularly to
experience their moment-to-moment embeddedness
within the mysterious and vibrant life of the Earth and
encompassing Universe. This tends to result in what I
have called ecoIogica1 groundedness, a dynamic state
which includes a traditional Gestalt ideal of healthy
functioning. However, T think that the concept of
ecological gmdedness significantly extends this i d d ,
describing ways of relating within the total field and
including not onIy the human aspects but also the
neglected rn~~=-than-hurtlan dimension.
Ecological groundedness incIudes a sense OF
confidence, belonging, pleasure, and wonder, resulting
from n progressive1y deepening, whole-bodied
communion with the wild and domesticated natural
community of the person's neighbourhood and larger
home region; with unpavd ground, soil, and landscape;
with weather and the diversity of native pIants and
animals; as we11 as with human Family, neighburs, and
local cultural -activities with the flavour of the home
region.
me ~ T has aE growing sense of the ways in which
these as* of home or place are intimately connected
with his or her seIf and houehold as well as with each
other. Gratitude for what i s received eventually tends to
e~lhanwla desire to give back, though living simply and
in harmony with the whole natural community.
A more literal aspect of groundedness within this
broader, more inclusive state is the development of the
W i l y cmficlenw:and grace which wmrs while regularly
encountering on foot one's actual home ground or
landscape. Handsan cultivation of fithe soil and growing
of foal can be a central part of this. The petson plants,
cultivates, harvests and otherwise centres their living
within the reassuring cycles of Ertrth's seasons.
Being grounded is enhanced and renewed by a regular
rhythm between extended, sensuous, empathic
engagemt with the natural world on the one hand, and
lightly armoured or contained moments of inward
reflectiveness on the other. Even when indoors and more
inwardly focused, the person m learn to experience the
h i l t environment as embedded within and supported by
nature, rather than as independent and self-suficient.
As the individual cultivates this intimate sense of
klonging, he or she m a y discover. in the seasonal turning
of his or her own life within this larger life, the natural
102 Bill Cahalan

urge to grow and mature; and symbolically to ripen and had difficulty sustaining romantic relationships with
leave seed to the human and other-than-human women, as well as close friendships with men. He stays
community, He or she may come to anticipate death as pretty busy and "social-wizh his work, a support group,
the final resigning or giving back of self to the elements and other intemt groups, but has mded for years to feel
and beings of the land community which have birthed and lonely and mildly to mdemtely depressed, He wants help
sustaind that self. with sustaining romantic relationships, relief from his
Similarly, relationships with family, friends, and loneliness, and a more cohesive sense of meaning and
neighbours can be enriched and given meaning when direction in his life.
explicitly grounded within the ultimate context of the Since the second session we have been including his
whole of nature. relationship with the natural world in our wok, to hdp
Whatever their situation, every p u n has the ability to him be less in need of relationships with people
begin, to cultivate actively, one day at a time, a deeper, (especially women) exclusively for a sense of belonging
richer relatedness to his or her life place within this and meaning. He has become more aware of his already
wondrous Earth and Universe. existing pleasure in some of the 'scenery' in and mar his
n e i g h h r h d , such as the broad, winding Ohio River
From Amnoruing and the lush, w& hills along the river. He has k e n
to SensuousEngagement: A Cli&alEmmple watching with intrigue the birds that come to the birdbath
in his yard. He seemed to like my idea of beginning s o m
In my previous article (Cahalan IWSa) I described intentional, regular practices which build on these
some aspects of my therapy ofice and personal style interests to help him feel more grounded wd at home.
which fit with my ~ ~ u s l oofnthe ecological dimension. In our sixth session Mark came in feeling scamred and
For example, I often meet with clients In rhe Front m m of anxious h t his petsortal qualities in the eyes of women,
my home, w h m entry walk passes by a small wildflower after some unsatisfyng contact with two female friends
meadow. I tend to dress casualty and co~nfombly,have over the weekend. Instead of woeking with his critical self
lots of potted plants and other natural objects in the mm, as 1had done with some success in our last hvo sessions, I
arid often share my -ions to the sunlight, temperature, suggested that we shift gears and try exploring his
and other as- of nature's presence. relationship with nature in some more & i t ways Ban
1 also wrote of ways in which I hWce to clients the we had so far, He showed a willingness, if not an
possib1e relevance to their concerns of including this enthusiasm, for hying chis direction.
dimension in our work together. With new clients I I started by asking him to descrih his anxiety in terms
emphasise that E will still include the traditional areas of of Mily sensation. After doing some work to invite more
therapeutic focus - such 3s the client's ways of relating to concrete deslcciption, to by-pass analysis and to open up
self and to other people - and that I shall be blending his tight breathing, I suggested Mark explore his contact
these areas with their Earth mlationship as the situation with the flom as he stood and as he walked slowly around
invites it. the mom. Eventually J suggested his tying to make some
In making this b i d , the Gestalt emphasis on sensuous self-affming statements in a fantasy encounter with one
engagement with the world is very fitting. ]introspection of his female friends while experimenting with various
and self-reflection m seen as part of gathering oneself grounded, =If-supprting ways of standing and breathing.
after conk% in preparation for further contact, f explore Intrigued with this approach, he agreed to try more
with the client the ways in which he or she intempts grounding work by moving outdoors with me and slowly
Fulfilling engagemt with other-than-human.nature as walking around the back yard and circle garden. I helped
well as with people, inviting experimentation to increase him attend to his breathing rhythm as an exchange with
awareness of these interruptions (espcially ammuring the grass and trees, savouring his inhalation of oxygen
when it is present) and of how new activity fads. fFam them and exhalation of carbon dioxide back to them.
In the following h p u t i c example I want to illustrate We sat for a while at the edge of the woods. I n o t i d his
my extension of traditional Gestalt methods when increased energy and fading self-absorption as he told
integrating the ecological dimension. J describe my wwk what he noticed abut the weather, birds, early autumn
with a client whom I shall d l Mark Mark has met with flowers, and swaying trees.
me fa eight weekly sessions in the h n t office m m of In the next m i o n we worked in mre .traditional ways.
my home, as well as in my surrounding meadows, lawns, Near the end Mark mentioned his enjoyment of wr last
and gardens and in the w d s k y o n d the back yard. He is session and a desire to do more with that approach. He
a tall, thin, articulate, college educate$, Euro-American showed enthusiasm when I suggested a two hour meeting
man. He tends to be overly intellectual, skimming over next time to allow us a m m extended outdoor session.
the emotional v t s of his experiencing. He has always
 Our E x t e W Session
We begin, as usual, in my front room. It is mid-
morning, in late September. Mark says that today he
hopes to Ieam some ways to 'get out of my head' and to
open up mom than he is usually able to natm's k a h g
presence. As a first step, at my suggestion, he leaves his
watch behind.
We walk slowly in silence around to the back yard,
relaxing o u r breathing and taking pleasure in each
footstep. W e pause at the edge of the w d s . It is misty,
but with a hint of the sun3 appearance. The yard and
woods have a damp leaf mould sort of smell from
yesterday's rain.
As we pause, I suggest that he approach this as a 'vision
walk', in which he allows himself Lo k intuitively led, to
wander, as opposed to 'hiking'. I invire him to open up
easily to his seeing. hearing, and other senses, so that he
can trike in plants, animals, weather, and places which he
encounters. noticing what most moves him emotionally,
what most seems to call him out of himself.
He turns in s e v d directions before choosing a faint
trail west into the woods, and I follow. We move slowly
through a grove of green but fading locust and boxelder
saplings, with snakeroot and yeIlowing jewelweed
brushingour legs.
We waIk easily downhill into the creek valley,
surrounded now by larger trees - swaying white ash, wild
cherry, and red oak. I smel! hints of the creek's mossy
wetness. I wonder what Mark is noticing and fding. I
ask him to shm his experience when he wants,but also
to keep dent as much as he wants. Mark tells me he is
k o m i n g relaxed, d noticing mostly the bird song, and
now also the creek's slight murmur and reflected light
from the water.
He continues down to the creek, crosses, and starts up
the steep opposite bank at an angle through the lezf mould
and scattered garlic mustard. I suggest that he try slowing
down, lingering a while with the bird song andlor the
meek, seeing how these may be moving or affecting him.
He slowIy turns back to the creek, steps closer to the
water clattering over limestone slabs, and sits on a stone
at the water's edge.
I can see his breathing deepen and his face relax a bit.
After a minute or two he says that he probably would
have kept walking if I hadn't said something, and he's
glad he stopped here.
'What are you seeing and feeling, h
Ad?I ask.
'I keep shifting from the creek to the bi!ds' shgirtg to
the sound of breeze in the trees and back.'
"Say mox as you notice the details.' I say, wanting him
to Linger and elahrate more concretely. 'Also see if you
notice any tightening against feeling a mponse.'
After a pause, he replies, 'It feels like the water's
rippling sounds and its brightness are lulling me and
waking me up at the same time.'
'Notice any sensations you fee1 in your gut or heart, and
see how you might feel moved to respond to the water
thrwgh touch, movement,sound, whatever.'
'I'm getting kind of tight in my chest and throat, and
my bmthing is shallow. For a second, I i m a m what
people might think if I showed a kind of sadness I was
feeling, and a longing to sort of merge with the creek. I
was picturing myself taking my shms off and letting the
water wash and soothe my feet.' He Imked at me and
grinned.
I say, 'That's an important awareness about how you're
armouting yourself by your thinking and stiffening. We
might work with these p p l e in your head later. But how
about looking at the creek and tightening your chest,
throat, and breathing on purpose, so you can feel exactly
how you're stopping your feelings and m o v e m t ... OK.
now see what doing the opposite feels like. Let your
breathing and chest open up and relax.' (His stiffness
visibly melts a little,)
'Now follow whatever emotion you notice into any
rwponse to the creek that comes if you don" hold onto
yourself like you were.' Ile continues his relaxed
breathing, and after a short while begins swaying. Then a
gentle humming sound comes from his throat, his face
softens, and he dangles hs i hand into the water's current.
He continues humming and swaying for a few minutes,
l the water's rhythm.
apparent1y a b ~ o r hin
Mark says, 'I feel ready to Ieave this spot and move on.'
He rises, turns back and makes a sweeping bow to the
creek, and oonrinues up h e bank as he had begun earlier.
'Howwould it be if 1gave you more privacy for a while
by heading off in that direction? You could continue
wandering and seeing what else moves you or seems to
call to you.'
'I'd like that.'
'Since I have a watch, I'll make a b a d owl caI2 w h
it's lime to meet back up at the yard,' I say, demonstrating
the call. Z step back across the stones, hearing Mark
pushing uphill behind me thrwgh honeysuckle bushes. I
feel d m da~vnstramto a massi\*eoak 1have visited in
 the past,
I sit with theoak, taking in the m g t
h and age ofits
massive rising trunk, at ti- imagining M W s journey.
After about forty more minutes, with about the same
amount of time left in wu =ion, Z slowly walk toward
Mark's hail, b t i n g my signal for him to ~etnm.
I wait by the edge of the woods, and Mark emerges
afier a while, ginning a bit self-consciously when he sees
me, and sitting down across from m:He pauses bfore
telling of how a congregation of crows over the next
ridge, seemingly talking among themselves after their
lunch, had compellingly absorbed his attention for a while
so that he lost track of time. He was startled that my dl
swmedtocomsosoon,
I invite him to speak to me as one of th crows, just to
see how this feels to speak in the first person, describing
himself. I am surprid that he d i l y begins, telling (as
the crow) of his love for the trees and the creek and
especially for rising up on the winds that circle out of the
valiey. He dm tells of his reckless playfulness.
As Mark again, EK c o m t s on how tme of himself it
had felt to say these things, although he knows that he
often hides these qualities. He also d l s that it had been
a relief to leave behind his 'critical people' after noticing
their imagined looks and voices a the creek with me, but
he wants to work with this part of hin~selfin a future
session. He intends to do some j m d writing on dl of
this betweentoday and our next session.
We walk back up through the yard to the house and
front m m , chatling, somwht giddy. As he leaves, Mark
mentions wanting to do this kind of vision walking
through wild places closer to his own neighbourhood
from time to time, getting no h w his home region and
its life much better.
Reflections on Mark% 2%-
I have described how I hied to invite an attitude of
wondming, of listening, and of opening up, as well as a
non-judgmental noticing by Mark of his ways of
mouring against such ope~ness.I invited him to slow
down and to savwr his sensory experience, sather chm to
keep moving on foot and skimming verbally over his
impressions. I then h ew him to notice, stay with, and
eventually move beyond the tensing of his chest,
breathing, and emotional responsiveness. I later invitd a
fuller expression of his empathic joining with the crows,
sensing some of their lessons for himself.
To integrate some of these new ways of sensing,
feeling, and responding into his mom habitual style will
probably take much hrtller practice by Miuk. This is hue
for m y of us - due not only to the lifelong momentum
of individual personality style, but also due to the
surrounding built environment. This, along with the
interpersonal environment, constantly minforces our
armouting activity. Mark m a y k helped to develop m
-
ongoing, day-today practice of ecological p n d e d n e s s
through grwp weekmd as well as through further
individual therapy sessions.
1 anticipate that a gradual bin the experience of
gmurtdeclness will help Maak to his loneliness,
depression, and the single-mindedness of his longing for a
romantic relationship, hadoxially, this may help him to
be more successful in sustaining deeper personal
friendships with b t h women and men.
I also assume that if Mark's opnness and sense of
grateful connectedness continues to deepen, he will tend
to feel agtowingurgetogiveback in return forwhat he is
receiving. He will relax his focus on consuming and
owning within the humanly constructed world as he shifts
toward living m m simp1y. He may feel drawn toward
meeting his life needs in ways which are more
harmonious with the natural world's abiding patterns and
rhythms, which are tk sources of all that he is.
Susan Griffin wrote, 'I love this bird when I sece the arc
of her flight, I fly with her, enter her with my mind, leave
myself, die for an instant, live in the body of the bird
whom I cannot live without.. All that I lonow s p h to
me through this Earth,and I long to tell you, you who are
Earth tm.' (1 979)
And I feel the same urge, wanting to call you who read
this, out of the fantasy world of humanly-made objects in
which nature is a passive, background knvironment', into
the real wodd of sentient beings in dialogue, of caressing
breezes, crows calling From g w n creek valleys, skies
heavy with rain 1yw who are Earth too, if you will let
ywrself ~rnrnba.
Cahalan, W. (1995a). The Earth is Our Real Body:
Cultivating Ecological Groundedness in Gestalt
TherapyraW The Gestalt Juunsal, XVIII ,l.
Pds.E,Heffdne, R., and Gaodman, F! (1951). Gestalt
Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human
Persmlip. Dell, New York.
Reich, \V. (1 9.45). CharacterAmlysis. Farrar, Straus, nnd
Giroux, New York (first published 1933).
Shepard. P. (1969). Ecology and Man: A Viewpoint. In
S h e p d , P.,and McKinley, D.,(Eds.) The Subvemive
Science: Essays Towani an ~ o I o g ofy Man. Houghton
Mifflin, New Ywk.
Shepard, F! (1 982). Nature and Madness. Siem CIub
Bwks, Sm Francism.
Remembering Earth 105

Suggested Readings
Abrarn, D.(1 9%) The Spell of the Semuous: Perception
and Language in a More- Than-Human World.
Pantheon, New York.
Cahalan, W. (1995b). Ecological Gmundedness in Gestalt
Therapy. In Roszak, T..Gomes, M.,and Kanner,
A.(Eds.) Ecopsychology: R e d o k g the Earth, Healing
rhe Mind. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco.
Callicott, J. ((1 983). The h d Aesthetic. Envimmnral
Review, 7,4.
Dillard, A. (1974). Pilgrim at Enhr Creek. Bantam
Bmks, New Yo&.
Griffin, S. (1 979). Woman and Nnture. Harper and Row,
New York.
Heyneman, M.(1990). The Sun is Among Us. Earth
Ethics. Summer.
Hillman, J. (1989). From Mirror to Window: Curing
Psychoanalysis of its Nmissism. Spring: Journal of
Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought. (no
volume number, published yearly).
Mander, J. (199 1). In the Absence of the Sacred: The
Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian
Nations. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco.
Wilson. E,11 984). Biuphilia. Harvard University Press,
Cambridge.

Bill Cshalan m.D. is a psychologist and pastoral counsellor trained in

GestaIt therapy by Joan Endsly, Jesse Thomas, and Tom Dyehouse. He
teaches a course in ecopsychology to undergmduates at the Union Tnstitute
and leads a support group for therapists who include the ecological
dimension in their work. He frst began leading Earth awareness retreats
and workshops in 1983, subsequently including this focus in his
therapeutic work. He has gardened organically for 18 years, and enjoys
regularly wandering in the woods and fields of the Ohio River region,
where he lives with his wife and son.

Address fur correspItdence: 601 Enright Ave., Cincinnati. Ohio 45205,

U.S.A
BrlishwJoural
rw.V d f . N o Z 108- 114

THE GESTALT REFLECT€NCTEAM

Rachel Brier

A m This paper demibes and d y s s a new madel for mining a d v d sbclents in the
difficult a m uf genuine dialogue. The Gtstalt Reflecting Team rep- the prestnt hierarchical
pxformance-oriented clinical pncticum, much used in many Gestalt trainings, with a more
cmnp1ex system that combines the Gestalt contact cycle with the Reflecting Team f h m famiIy
systems therapy. It provides a safe and open envimmnt for students to explore M i relational
capacities. By incorpwaling the principles of Gestalt therapy itself- field thewy,phmomena1ogy.
-
and dialogic existentialism the Gwtalt Reflecting Team offers trainers a dynamic method of
teaching and students a powerful rnerhod of self dise~"ery.

K q wordsr Advanced e g , Cmmt Cycle, Reflecting T- Genuine Dialog= Field aheory,

Phtnomenol~.

'1can't do it - I can't do therapy hfront of the p u p * relationship.

I'll freeze. I might as well quit!' Lmuisak mtpuring
on the first night of Level 2 in my fledgling Gestalt
training institute brought back memories of my own
frozen attempts as therapist in h t of my peers and Dr
Gerald Abraham, a master of Gestalt. I ~emernkned
how my mind went blank and my stomach sank as I
watched my interventions fail and I waited for the
polite, m m d feedback of my fiends. I recatled
how impossible it was for me consciously to expose any
personal flaws within the inhibiting environment of the
Ib-aditiondClinical Practicum.
Those were memories of twenty years ago. Now I
was Ihe teacher, the dimto: of the one year old Gestalt
Institute of the Berkshires, Massachusetts, and Louisa
was one of six experienced therapists - all sensitive,
skilled, highly motivated individuals who had asked me
to teach them the Gestalt approach. We had spent a
year together d i n g the philosophical basis of # d t ,
practising in dyads and triads, and discussing my
demonstrations. They were, we klieved, at the point at
which thy needed to synthesise thcir knowledge, skills,
and personalities into n comfortable style and to
discover and gsapple with any psychological difficulti~
that could limit their capacity to be in a healing
I wuld not let the i n d w f e e l i n g M s a drop out.
She was a strong integral member of the group,
someone we all cared about and respected. Yet I could
not fee1 comfortable with her remaining and not
participatingfully.
Even before that evening, I had kgun to consider
modifying the clinical practimm as T remembeced it. I
was looking for a model that would encourage self
exploration and reduce perFomance anxiety I wanted
to create a safe and supponive environment in which
students could be mure proactive in their learning. The
new model had to be less hierarchical, more actively
self-organised, more honest without being overly-
critical, and more phemmenoIogica1 than the traditional
kind ofpracticurn experience.
What I was looking far, in fact, was a mdel rooted
both in the foundations of Gestalt theory and in the
recent themetical shift in the realm of family therapy,
As a Gestalt therapist. I had learned to work within
the phenomenoIogica1 sphere of each client, to focus
awareness on how the individual structures each
moment of experience within the p u n d of possibilities
by using the frame of the contact cycle. 1had learned to
think field themtically, to view my client or group in
relationship, within 'the context of a complex web of
intenelated forces hat come together in a timeand plxe'
(Yontef, f 993, p.297). I had come to view change as an
active, cmtinuous, lively co-creation. I had learned that
entering relationship means becoming a part of anocheras
field and dlowing the other to become a part of mine. I
ha! ddiscuvered that the essence of learning or change is
intimately connected to the quality of the relationship,
which in cum is dependent upon the nature of the contact
&tween us, 'For the inmost growth of the self is not
accomplished as people like to suppose tuday*in man's
relation to himself, but in the relation h e e n the one and
..."
the other (Buber, 1 972 p.61).
The shift in the underlying assumptions of family
systems has brought the themy more into alignment with
Gestalt thought and p r e p d the ground for innovations
in method. During the late 1970s and early 198% family
systems thinking had evolved from fmt order cybernetics
- a theory that viewed change as something imposed by
an outside observer - to second order cybernetics, in
which the observer is included within the system and
change occurs through a reorganisation of the organism.
".. me net effect', of this shift in thought (according to
Lynn Hoffman (1985), in her comprehensive article on
the trend in family systems) 'is to point the way to an
overall framework for systemic change that is as much as
possible non-hierarchical, non-instrumental and non-
pejorative' (p.383).
The Rejhting TeamIdea
In accord with the shift described, Tom Anderson and
his colteagues in Norway developed a system of
conversations, and conversations about conversations,
calf4 The Reflecting Team. They brought heiu team of
consultants, formetfy hidden behind a one-way mirror,
into the room with the family and invited the family to
listen to the therapists' conversation. The team of
therapists, known as the 'reflecting zeam', were reflecting
in the sense that 'something heard is taken in and thought
about before a response is given'(Anderson, et nl., 1991,
p. 12). At an appropriate point in the therapy session, he
members of the wflecting team would be asked ta offer
their thoughts and observations on the problem being
discussed by the family. After the team completed its
discussion, the interviewer and the family could then have
a conversation - about the team's conversation h u t the
family's original conversation. Tlrmugh this indirect
system, family members could, if they chose, create or
discover a different meaning in, .oc explanation of, their
pmblem. Out of rhe new meaning or interpretation, the
family cwld perceive and act differently, m h g a new
reality.
In other words, by moving the clinical consulting team
from "outside' to 'inside" fmm king objective experts to
subjective participants; by altering the kind and quality of
t h e conversation; and by encouraging familial
commentary on the team's observations, Anderson hd
indeed created a new system. It was less hierarchical,
more self-organising, less pejorative and directive. In
effect, the theoretical framework of family systems, and
especially the reflecting team idea, had evolved into a
form that was more digned with the basic principles of
Gestalt, those of field theory, phenomenology, and
genuine dialogue.
By contrast, the traditional clinical practicum is not
grounded in Gestalt fundamentals. Its salient features
tend to be hierarchical, after-the-fact discussion; rigid
static roles;and,in my opinion, a limited, often ungenuine
and at times hyper-critical feedback system.
In seeking an alternative model I thought as follows:
hierarchy @ i s p o ~ people to experience perf==
anxiety. The 'performer' in the practicum - the
stu&nt/thmpisc - is a the bottom of the hierarchy and
therefore fears exposing him or herself. If I as trainer
could step out of the higher mle of the 'one who hows',
there would be one less contributing factor to Louisa's
fear of performance. I asked myself 'What if I became
consultant to the therapist, someone with whom the
therapist could discuss possibilities. rather than the one
who has the answer?
There is another difficulty with the clinical pmdcum as
'prformance': if one is performing, one is performing for
another, and a critic is watching. What if there were no
audience? What if, in fact, the audience could become a
part of the p e r f m e ? Would that not reduce the fear?
The entire group might reorganise if each
student~herapistwere to assess his or her strengths and
weaknesses, thought about where slhe got stuck as
therapist, and then used this infomation to create a
support system designed to meet thase needs, Roles
would shift if, effectively, the student'therapisc k a m e the
group leader and he, group mernkrs k a m e kansfonned
into his or her support. This permutation might also dter
perceptions of self as well as of others.
Honest yet not critical in the evaluative sense - the
reflecting team,I thought. Team memkm could develop
the ability to give suggestions in a non-clinical, non-
hierarchical manner. They could let go of their expertise,
offer ideas not as 'rigid explanations' or 'correct
interpretations', but more as 'tentative thoughts'
(Anderson, eta] 1991, pp.133-34).
A further possibility suggested itself. If the therapeutic
dialogue could k stopped by the shldentltherapist at the
lmment of his or her canfusion or emotional block, and if
that moment could be expanded and alternatives
considered through phenomenological observations by
the p u p , and observations on those obse~ationsby the
108
student client and therapist also included, then these
stages might lead to a sti1l greater possibility for learning,
of a kind all too often absent in the more traditional
clinical pcicurn.
The above were the ideas that I played with that
s u m . At the training session following Louisa's upset,
I presented my thoughts and we began the process of
refining the model, suitably named the Gestalt Reflecting
Team. This new mdel required a structural change and a
change in process.
In place of the traditiona1 design in which the
shldentltherapist and client have a therapeutic dialogue,
forming a single contact cycle of experience while the
class or training group obsewes, the Gestalt Reflecting
Team (GRTj mode! is designed as an overlapping gestalt
contact cycle system. In the new model Ihe thempeutic
dyad works in front of the whole group, as in the
traditional model. However, i n addition and
simultaneously, the studentltherapjst is in relationship to
the trainer, and to the group designated as observers. and
to the whole trainee group, forming multiple possible
contact cycles. The studentltherapist is asked to pinpint
histher difficulties; the trainer and g m p are expected to
offer observations, reactions, etc. at the moment of need.
The group working as a reflecting team, discusses the
studentltherapist's dilemma with each other while she
and the client observe. me studentltherapist could be
affected by a single comment which might have arisen in
the group as a whole, or i n any combination of
statements, thoughts, feelings, people. The field is open
to a whole variety of possibilities for contact.
The following are the crucial steps of the process: (I)
Therapist self-assessment; (2) Clarification and
pinpointing of therapist's stuck point and creation of a
strategy of suppon by self, trainer, and: t'earn (Cnxtion of
experiment); (3) Statement of present awareness by
therapist; (4) Beginning of therapy session; ( 5 )
Clarification and pinpointing of stuck point by therapist
and trainer; (6) Reflecting team conversation; (7)
Reflections on Fenections by therapist, client, and trainer.
The process of therapy, clarification of stuck point,
reflections fmm team, and reflections on reflections is
repeated until the therapy session is concluded. The
process concludes with a whole group di=ssion nbout
the experience - pecsonal reactions, further illumination
of the process, resolution of remaining issues or
questions.
Conversation is clearly stntctured. Once the therapy
Rachel Brier
begins, the therapeutic dyad and the reflecting team do
nor speak directly to each other. Instead, each group
observes the others in conversation about them. Then
they converse among themselves about the other, The
trainer is a conversational part of both groups. This
distinction in convecsationaF structure is absolutely
essential. It is what allows for greater freedom in what is
spoken. People often withhold their more intimate
thoughts when they speak directly to another, thoughts
that they feel free to expms when talking about that
other. This stmcture:also gives the other - the one who is
being talked about - an opportunity to reflect, to choose to
take it, to discard, w simply to consider what slhe k d
about him or herself.
It was Carrie's rum to work as therapist. Bob had
volunteered to be client. Carrie had filled out a self-
assessment form at home prior to the session.
What do you consider your strengths and abilities?
What do you consider ywr problem or difficulty?
Where do you consistently get stuck?
What can you do to support yourself when you get
stuck or the problem occurs?
What can the class do to support you?
Clarification o f need, including not only the
studenthkrapist? problem. but the plan of how she and
the team will proceed as a system of support, is the most
essential part of the process. If our direction does not
quite fit or is unclw, it will throw off the entire process.
Therefore it is discussed until the problem is perfectly
clear to every member of the class and until each member
knows his or her task. For the sake of brevity, the
following dialogue was cut to include only the most
pertinent infomation. Carrie read her self assessment.
Her strenfls lay, she said, in her interest in others and in
her life experience. Her difficulty was located in her
tendency to become intimidated by her client.
(2) Clarlfmtion dpinpointing of therapist's stuck
point and rmation of a strategy of support by self,
trainer and team
The hinet asked w h e she
~ got stuck and she replied:
Cade :Stuck at h a t point with being able to go on from
that point of intimidation and that anger and do
something that is creative with and for the person.
M e r :What can you do about it?
Carrie : Somehow keep more in awareness what's
Gestalt Reflecting Team
happening, but it balloons as a very lage thing. So I*m
not sure what to do with it. Tt's a double kind of thing.
I can sit and look at Bob and I can see Bob as very
human, very warm, very caring and also at the same
time he can scare me and I can't do mything with Bob
or for Bob. So there's both things that can happen.
W n e r :Right now?
Carrie :Right now, sure.
M n e r : So how can be aware of that intimidation
process and how can we support you?
Carrie : I can simply be aware of it by being aware of
how I'm feeling physically. I can sense in my chest and
in my belly and in my voice.
W n e r :And how about us -what: can we do?
Carrie : Tell me when you see me perhaps being
intimidated - when I'm not stopping and doing
something about it.
M n e r : So we can go one way or the other. If we see
you getting stuck, we can let you know.
Bob :And you can tell us too?
Carrie :I can tell you when I feel stuck -sure.
At this point h e question that could be asked is how
much shouid the trainer explore the problem with the
studendtherapist. Should I, for example, have asked
Carrie to say more a b u t the quality of the intimidation or,
when she used the metaphor of 'balloon'. should I have
asked her what she meant? .If one adheres to the form of
the GRT mdel, the .trainer should explore only enough
for everyone to be clear. The student/thempist shou?d
know concretely what her problem i s and how she can
sense when it is occurring. The class men~krsneed to
know concretely what the studeot/therapist needs from
them. The trainer's task then is to help create an
appropriate experiment for the entite class. Information
will emerge as the process unfolds.
Through the years, from Louisa" class tu the present,
each class member, when it was his or her turn to work as
therapist in front of the class, filled out m assessment
defining how and where he or she customarily gets smck.
Carrie froze in the face of client aggression. Jen cmld not
give herself permission to withdraw and connect with
herself and so she k a m e confluent with her client. Bob
told us that it was difficult for him to direct his client.
Donna said that sessions often went flit and 13st life. At
109
times Richard felt so caught up in his own critical
projections that he k a m e lost and confused. Barbara
became tied to a rigid idea - she could create an
appropriate experjment, but then she found herself stuck
in it, unable to flow with her client's changing needs.
Sonia was caught in her self criticism - she had been
told by her supewism at work that she had no empathy.
Each of these emotional blwks prevented the student
from being fully present in the dialogic relationship.
Richard lost the ability to be inclusive when he k a m e
caught in his projections; Barbara c d d not m s t in the
between, in the flew of change. Donna could not bring
her full alive self into the relationship.
(3) Statement of awamnes by therapist
Carrie : I'm very much in this room, doing what we're
doing. I feel somewhat ten=, somewhat nervous. I can
feel the tension in my stomach, but I
halso interested.
Thiner :And how &out the intimidation?
Carrie : The intimidation feels like such a blanket that I
wear all the time, such a skin that I wear that to even step
outside it is hard.
M e r :Can we assume then that perhaps you're feeling
somewhat intimidated right now?
Carrie : Sure,absolutely.
(4) k g h h g of therapy -.on
Bob : The thing I would Iike to talc about - about a week
ago when I saw my shrink, I got into this place which I do
not want to go into at all. I got up to the edge of this
place. I'm a m a d at how much I don't want to go in
t b .
Carrie : You were on the edge.
Bob : I don't even know if I'm on the edge because I
haven't given it much thought all week.
Carrie : But I mean you were - you said you were on the
edge.
Bob : Yeah,yeah. And I got to this place where I had this
image ofa big block in front of me - a w d e n block and
the block is there to protect me h m what is behind the
blmk and behind the block there's just a beautiful place
except I don't want to mess with this PI-. I don't want
to mess with the block. There's a blwk that's part of me,
but it seems to feel it's easierjust to leave this block be,
.-
 her hands) is something I. staaed noticing myself doing
Carrie: I'm hearing you say that it is fine, but it isn't so two or t h e years ago whenever I ride in the car with my
fineeither. husband, but 1 notice whenever I ride with him 1fold my
friggin' hands a d I don't know what that" s t except I
Bob : Yaah,becase I want m. I plan to go back there
at some pint, but I'm in no hmy I guess k a w e I write
keep thinkin' I mnst have been m& te sit and fold my
e v q t h k g down and I to ieview ic but I haven? paid
hands when I was a kid in the car and not fm1 around
any axtention to that piece of pqwr at dl. with my brothers. It's very much a control 'behave
yourself nice little girl' khd of thing. I would tie the g o d
Cade :You wrote it down, but ... IittIe girl and I"d sit and do what I was supposed to do.
What I wanted to ask Bob was a h t the block, but that
Bob:Yeah,it'smthefl~undermyseat,Ithinkinmy seems as though it's going off in a theoretical intelleclual
car. p!ace a d I don't think h a t MS where we r d y need to
be.
~:Inyaurcar.
'Ltginw : And what abut yaur Teehgs inside?
Bolb :Yeah,I know where it is, but I don't want to read it.
Csrrfe : As tong as Bob keeps taking with intemting
C d e r You haven? t e d it, probably. mmrmts, I'm finefine

Bob :No,no. M e f :And what abwa your belly?

(5) Clarification and pinpointing o f $luck point by
therapist 4trainer
Trainer : Can I stop you? Are you aware' of that
intimidation place? How is it going?
Carrle :It's not as bad. It's still thm, but it's not as bad
as it was. 1 feel more relaxed as we go on, but I also feel
that Ioould come to a crunch point -if Bob stops &g
d says, now you tell me sumthing, then I'll feel like
I'm ...

Cade : rm aware that I'm physically uncomfortable in Bob :But 'l'm not stbout to do Mright m>w (both laugh).
my stomach, but I'm also fascinated with what he is
saying and his imagery ahout ihe block and part of m is ofv O
-f
thnkhg how I should work, but I'm dso t h i i n g -he's
doing p w q goad by himself and I don't have to do an Carrie and Bob c o n h e to talk in the s a n vein
~ fw
awful lot because he's very interested in the block abwc five minutes.
himself. So even though he says he doesn't want to deal
with it, he has an immense in- in it -in the problem. Rdkdng team cmwmation

Jay : 'Ibis is t d y how rrn feeling. I start to get sleepy

Jay : T was noticing how Chris is holding ha hands and
dm doing mmeahhg with k foot and I imagined that
she was holding k k -to take care, of kherself in some
way.
Jerr :What I was ndcing most was her laughter -sort
of throughout. It felt a linle bit to me that it was akind of Ellea :It's getting heady. Tt's M
laughter that felt like somewhat intimidated - so that
what she described as intimidation was being qmssed
by the way she wvas laughi..
C a d e :*Ihe laughter and the smilhg is again so much a
that it is hard to separate hat out. This (sqoeezing
and I just f e l like he's just taking and I didn't feel any
energy happening there. M e has said several times that
she's really enjoying just listening to him and I'm
imagining that she may be afraid to make it a little mom
challenging to him, be a little confronting there or
stimulating.
y .
Jen : Well, my ewence of Carrie was that something
just sort of relaxed, although she's still doing h e same
thing with her hands. There was a little shift somewhe11;
where I UKlUght Bob was just gonna keep going off in his
head with this and somehow or other I wanted to shift into
anothfx place.
M e r :What we're talking about is making this a more
Gestalt Refleeting Team 111

contactful experience and that somehow Bob was taking something there - I want her to stand up, talk to
about, telling a story a d we really don't know what he s m e t d y eIse, I just m g h (fnrsha?d sound),
wants. I wonder, as long as he keeps talking, dm Carrie
doesn't have to deal with whatever this fear is dl about - Jen : Another behavim that feels intimi- to me is
this intimidation, But somehow if she made it more her reflecting back what Bob is saying as much as she
contactful, maybe that would increase her feac does. I think there me some tims when she asked him
what he was saying. A n u m b of timas where it was
FealIy a need for clarity, but I feel like she does it a lot
when, I imagine, she's buying time for herself by
Carrie : A part of me thinks that if I h o w him a little reff ecting back and there is some intimidation going on in
better, TI1 figure out what he's about and the other part of hat.
it is indeed that I'm afraid that if I ask Bob to do
something or if I suggest something that is more EIlen : Didn't we talk about Carrie telling him what she
contactful, he'll get mad (low tentative voice). was feeling, being more ptesent haself?

Trainer :So what are you gonna do?

C&e : I don't know. My mind becomes a blank,
kc= I don't want to do anything.
Trainer : So, might it be p i b l e for you to feel what you
feel? Or how about saying what you said?
Carrie :I feel it. But if I were in a true therapy sessioi, if
I started saying I was afraid, that's really fmsing on my
problem and it's not focusing on him.
Bob : But if you can't get past it, there's no other place to
l h h r : What about that? Can you bring you more into
the p i c m and engage him more? 'that will mean having .
to experience this fear. You m a y be modvlating the fear
by your khaviour.
Carrie :I don't know.
Trainer :How are you feeling about what we're saying?
Canle : T c a m in here tonight feehg like I w a n d to
cry. I feel exhausted and I don't know what to do.

Carrie : But I shouldn't be doing therapy if I can't get
past it.
Bob : I don't feel that I'm into this that much. I don't
h o w if I don't want to talk about it or I'm just not thee.
Carrie : You don't feel like its something you really want
to do.
Bob :I don't how.
Carrie : You mentioned the blmk a couple of times -you
want to just describe it7
Bob : I'd hate to 'be in your shoes right now. (nervous
laughter)
Reflecting Team member,Mamie,voices support :I think
that it's a moment that we might stop -that she's up there
letting herself hang out - that it's a real level of risk -
beyond vohsnteeringto be the thempist or volunteering to
be the client - to Iz the thempist in this (GRa). 1just
think she's doing great and letting herself cry.
Carrie :It just feels like it's been this way all week and
everything I do is a risk and nothing goes right.
'Sroliner : So how much does this fear having something
to do with it?
Carrie:Ithasalot todowithil. IguessIfeelTcando
better when things always haven't been going wrong -
and I don't know hew to be more confronting with Bob.

Reflecting Team Conversation
Jay : I'm feeling tense. J feel tension all round and I
don't know how much is me, how much is there, but I
feel contracted, that I shouldn't move very much and I
keep having the, fantasy of Carrie standing up. I'd like to
hear the other side, the confronting therapist. I*mmissing
' M e r :You h o w you can acknowledge your fear -you
cam even put that out.
G m l e :What, what I just said? It fels artificial to say it,
an artifice. Wms toward Bob) 1don't h o w how to work
with you - helping you w o k on this blmk that really is
interesting to you and also be a little more in contact and
112 Rachel Brier

in touch, be a little m confronting with you. I don't Bob :It just seemed mm reaI and more spontanews m
know how to do that. both wr parts.

Whole Graup discassion - personal reactions,

illuminations, d u t i o n s
Bob :You how, I said More I'd hate to be in your shoes
because I M a don't h o w w h m I'm at. Perliaps I'm in M e : I d l y feel more relaxed than when 1 s t a d
a place where what's up for me more is I don't want to and I appreciate the attention. I appreciate people seeing
lake a look at it that much. I know w h m the piece of me and being willing to say what they see.
paper i s in my car, but I don't lmk at it
Carrie had finally left the safe haven of merely
Carrie : The piece of paper tells yw, but you don't want repeating Bob's statements. She risked, for a moment.
to look at that. king in relation to him. This f d him to confront his
avoiding behaviour. The difference in the atmosphere
Bob : Yeah, i t kinda gives me an outline of what within lhe whole g m p was remarkable.
happened and w b I might go from there.

W e : Well. do you want to work or do you not want

to?
Bob :I ask myself why the hell I said I'd w d k now.
Carrie :And why did you?
Bob :Well, I was up in my h a d and I thought maybe we
could do some block stuff, but then again maybe I don't
w m a work with it all that much and that actually does
upset me because when I find things out about myself
nine out of ten ti- I'm gung ho, yw how, and here it
must be a huge thing with me. I don't want to even look
PI h stupid piece ofpaper.
Reflecting Team Convemtion
Thhm :Did you see the difference?
Jay : X felt really engaged. I woke up and she was in
there. The other piece that I was missing was them, for a
little bit - and it got d e r - more comactful.
Jem : I just feIt like some other aqect of M e showed
up - somehow her allowing k I f to cry - she became
more present, so 1was more engaged - watching.
Ellen :She beczune more real, more in her body.
Jen : It was as though she wasn't couching her respenszs.
She wasn't deliberately softening them. ?'hey were just
coming wt. They we= just what they were. m y were
d i m to me.
Wnw to Hob :Did you experience a difference?
It has been six ye= since the model was created and
about fifty sessions have been completed. Most mines
have found the Reflecting Team to be a significant part of
their learning. Some have considered it the most
powerful learning they received in the entire training
experience. It is not. of course, free of potential
problems. Difficulties arise when the model is not strictly
adhered to. For example, the studentttherapist or
sbdentrclient have b o r n e huit at times if m e m M of
the reflecting team have broken the conversational mles,
either by sperllung in absolute terms, directly to a member
of the therapeutic dyad or by talking in clinical jargon
about them.
It is the human element that can fail, and that human
failing is most often the trainer. Her job is quite complex.
I n addition to juggling two basic contact styles
(themputic dyad and student therapist - reflecting team),
she must hold the class to the conversational rules and
facilitate the movement between the groups. The miner
must dso nvke sure hat the experiment that is devised is
appropsiate, clear, and followed though; this is the ma
where I failed most often.
Richard's problem was his fear of being evaluated by
the whole group especially the miner, Although he could
verbally acknowledge that he had the same dificulty with
clients, he continued to act out his paranoia in the training
group, which therefore interfered with his ability to be
open with us. The first time Richard worked as
studenu'rherapist, I was caught, I did not make sure tllat
the experiment was defmed as his problem with m m t e
tasks for him and the team. The result was a phoney
session, a thetapeutic tutorial that focused on the client's
problem mher than Richard's. The class and I both saw
that the session had failed because of this inappropriate
focus and we decided to try again. Before the second
session began, each group member, and myself, and
Gestalt ReflectingTeam
especially Richard, took respansibility for his or her part
in his self-critical system. Ellen described herself as a
little hound going after his b l d when she experienced
him shutting down and protecting himself. After the
second session she told him, 'As you moved dong and
made that shift, little hound took off into the woods. I'm
feeling like your struggle is so ~mchlike what I'm doing
when I'm sitting right there and what T've seen everybody
else do and that d l y felt good.'
Jen's session also required a repeat performance
because the rules were not followed. Jen defined her
problem as a tendency to become confluent with her
client. The problem was further cldfied as her inability
to give herself permission to br& her connection with
the client md turn into her own experience. I suggested
an experiment in which Jen wwld consciously connect
with her client and then consciously connect with herself
by saying out loud her inner thoughts and feelings. I lost
track 2nd failed to remind her and the team failed to
mmind me. The session k c a m diffuse and intellectual
and the reflecting team droppad into a more critical, after-
the-fact feedback mode. Donna declared 'she (Jen)
evaded the experiment". Jen felt criticised. The session
looked and felt like the traditional pcticurn.
Again, the second try succeeded. Because Jen was
more connected to herself, she was led to use her innate
curiosity to direct her client into a far more contactful,
relational mode. He beEame frightemd of his looseness
with her and acknowledged feelings of setf disgust with
his weakness. The intensity of his feelings frightened Jen.
'I think where I am right now is he described a sense of
mushiness - of melting that felt very potent to me and
that potency shifted me into this place of I'm supposed to
have a won&&ul idea of where to take him now ... But if
I'm uncertain as he is, then I get scared ...' She m l d not
stay in contact with her client and herself, be with his pain
and not feel mpnsible for it. She was able to connect
this difficulty to a belief from childhood that she had to
save her mother from physical and emotional collapse.
Her solution was to look for support in her intellect.
Donna, reflecting on 3en's fear, said, 'As soon as she
needs to know shs stepped out and was cut off from
herself so that she lost the ability to know - that the
knowing means staying in even if that's temfically
uncomforcabie.' Jen's client, Bob, aff~m 'When you
just say what's happening rvith me, I fecl like. -that is a
10k 1 was aware of how upset 1 was. If you had said I see
you upset, that would have k e n enough.' file reflecting
113
team was a support to both client and therapist. The
entire class was profoundly moved by the work and a
lively, involved discussion ensued on the topic of real
support.
In response to a need within the original h n i n g gmup
for a clinical practicum that would reduce performance
anxiety 1constructed a new model for advanced mining.
This new model accomplishes a primary task of the
pmticum, that of enabling students phenomenologically
to explore their emotional blocks to being in genuine
dialogue. It d m so k a u s e it- is grounded: in the basic
theoreticaI approach of GestaEt psychotherapy. In its
adherence to the principles of field theory, GFT attends to
the complexity and dynamic nature of human experience;
in its phenomenological method, it fmses on the unique
experience of the person in the moment. By
incorporating the Reflecting Team from Family Systems
into the framework of the Gestalt Contact Cycle, GRT
replaces the passhe feedback model of the traditional
practicum with an active, self-organid support system
for self-exp~otation.Although at this time I have use GFT
primarily to explore students' relational difficulties, the
same system can be used to highlight their relational
strengths. I am incorporating this emphasis into current
work. In its present form the GRT Clinical b i c u m has
proven to be an exciting and effective training tool for
students.
I would espially like to thank Dr Philip Pechukas for
his wise counsel, patience, and endurance during this
aduws writing.
Andersan, T.with Kak, A., Lax, W.,Davidson, J. and
Lussardi, D.(1991), 7 %Rq?ettiin;g
~ Team: Dialogues
and Dinlogues a h & rhe Dialogws, WSV. Norton &
Co., New York.
Buber, M.(1 972). The Knowledge of Man: Selected
Essays. H u m i t i a Press, Int., Highlands, New Jersey.
Hoffman, L. (19851, Beyond Power and Control: Toward
a 'Second Order' Family Systems Therapy. F-1y
Systems Medicine, 3.4, pp.381-396.
Yontcf, G. (1993). Awareness Dialogue and Process.
Gestalt Journal Press, New York
 Rack1 Brier

Rachel Brier Ed,D.is a k m e d psychologist in l'vhsachusetts, a graduate of

Adelphi's School of Social Work, Columbia University's doctad program in
Family and Community Education, and the Gesralt Center for Psychotherapy
and Training in New York City. Under the m t m h i p of Dr Gerald Abraham,
she haz k e n Cherapist, supervisor,and then clinical director of a residentid
school for adolescents, in which Gestalt psychotherapy was the primary
therapeutic modality. She is now in private practice in Richmond,
Massac- and i s clinical director of the Gestalt Instituteof the Berkshires.
Addwss for Comsporrdmce: 1055 h o x Rod, Richmond, Massachusetts,
01254, USA.
 TOWARDS A GESTALT
DEVELOPMENTAL MODEL

Gordon Wheeler
Received 5 December 1997
Abstract: Traditional rndels of development have emphasised developmental stages of the
individual self as powered from within, in varying degrees of isolation from h e experiential and
social field Even models such as Erikson's, which attempt to consi&r the sucial surround, rest on
the individualistic premises of a reifled and autonomous self model. As a result, clinicians and
o'thets who work with children and adolescents have long expemed a split between theory and
actual practice, which &Iy rests on seeing and working with their clients in their social
context. The use of a Gestalt lens sewes to =integrate the false dichotomy in this field, nwving us
toward a whole-field view of self and development that re1ate-sthe inner and outer worlds of the
child as a unitary dynamic process. Thematic implications of h s view are d i s c w , with
emphasis on intersubjectivity and intimacy, support and shame, gender and identity, and voice and
n m t i v d l as developmental dynamics and issues.

Key w o r k development,Gestalt, =If, individualism, field model, intetsubjectivity,intimacy,

s u m shame, gender, identity, voice, narrative.

Develop& M&k in Existence: The Need
for a New Appmach~
Most of us in the Gestalt tradition who work with
children and adolescmts have long felt uncomfortable
(at best) with applying standard clinical and
developmentaj models. With these models the
developing child is viewed too much in isolation, as if
h u m development were something purcly 'inner' or
biologidly-driven. The social context of development
can b likened to a physical environment (and certainly
this has h n done in many models), but in the end this
metaphor also breaks down. Such a reductionist picture,
the 'environment as background', does violence in
particular to the intersubjective nature of our social
world, which is populated not only by 'objects',
res-, targets etc., but by other subjective beings.
As we go about our life business of organising our
world to meet our needs and goals (avoiding the dangers
and risks we perceive around us), the inner lives and
serf-pmcessaf other peopk am significant pam ofour
, rather as a Sack-and-forth or recursive developmental
expen'&[ jield. - These influence and are influenced
by cnu own self-process and construction of meaning, in
ways that the behavioural,and drive mdels of self and
development cannot handle or amount for.
Objections such as these apply ~ oonlyt to the classic
Freudian model and its derivatives - with their
language of drive, cathexis and object - h ~even t to a
sweeping revision such as Erik Erikson's influential
attempt to include fnmiIy and culture in the
de7elopmental picture (195 1 , 1963). Erikson's
ambitious synthesis of psychoanalysis and anthropology
is probably as far as anyone can: go in trying to integrate
Western individualism with broader social and cultural
perspectives. Ultimately the attempt is limited by the
terms of the individualist, separateself model Erikson
inherited from Fmd.
Since Erikson's time there have been two generations
of infant m a r c h and feminist and other critiques of our
established developmental models, all of which
emphasise the development of relationdity from the
earliest days of Iife (see for example Stem, 1985;
Belenky a a!, 1986 ;also discussion in Wheeler, 1994).
Our sense of self and sense of other - identity and
relationship - cannot be regarded as separate stages but
pmcews. These run all through life, each giving rise to
the other in ways that a self-in-isolation model cannot
very we11 address.
Also in the 'irltemal' camp are important cognitive
models such as Piaget's 1947) and Kohlberg's m o d aur langnzlge and our e x p i a c e in ways of which we are
developmental scales (1981)' each of which lays out (in not fully aware. Thus it seems natural to us to speak of
roughly @Eel form) maps of developmental progress 'self and other',or even 'self Y ersus OW.
fmm prirnitivdimfantile sages to mature stages, in a sort In our work with chddren - and imleed in our lives in
of natural unfolding of inborn potential. Both models general - we sense intuitively that here is something
emphasise that the stages have a biological-clock wrong with this picture, some way in which the
component and cannot be much accelerated: for instance assumption of 'seIf h $ ~ r e relationship' misses our self-
a child cannot reach the Piagetian stage of concrete experience of being constituted in lcurd by sehtbnship. To
operations, say, (or the Kohiberg state of social- be sure, we have sum clear sense of being a unique locus
conformity ethics) much before the age of 'latency', or synthesis of experience. However, we do not exist
becaum these stages are dependent on the developmt of h d e p n h t l y of a field or context. As Mark McConville
symbols and a certain type of abstract thinking which pints out (1995), the family field, for instance is in a real
younger children are incapable, of physically or sense the 'unconscious' of the developing child, the
cognitively . 'unthought h w n ' titat he or she carries. The field the
These three - E i b n , Piagec and Koh-, together child internalisesis not comprjd of "bjects' at all, but is
with Kohut ( a.g, 1977) - probably repmnt the most deeply intembjecsive from an early age, perhaps from the
important and influential of dl h e developmental m d e l s very begnning.
offered roughly at mid-century, which is to say up to As an example of the extent of intersubjectivity,
around a generation ago: and all of them still remain consider for example the way a child of under a year will
broadly influenrid today. try to get the caretaker's attention, even reaching
At the othet extreme, seemingly, are all the social- physically to turn the other person's head in the right
'
psychologicd theories and models which, by cmlmt, do dimtion, in order to see not just the child but what the
talk a b w t system, culture and the inletpersonal world, child sees. Tlis implies an enormous degree of what we
Clinically, we have all the systemic schools of thought, call intersubjectivity. It appears that the still preverbal
now branching out and deepening m and more into infant assumes that is another person 'in there', one
narrative models, self-organisational models and with some kind of inner attentional pro~essZike the child's
complexity theorJF ( see White, 199% M a m a , 1987; own (Stern, 1985). Traditional modem beliefs about
Kaplan & Kaplan, 1994, K a u f m , 1991). developmentjust do not hold up when we observe actual
Just as working with children inherently undermines infants or two-year-oJds in, the play situation. Far
our cultural bias towads viewing p p l e and problems in instame, there has been an (enormous) belief that the
isolation from context, so also it can makc it glaringly toddler is tm m c h a qmate individual by nanm to play
obvious how much we are always navigating wirh some cooperatively. This tends to harmonise with (and even
implicit map, however W l y buried or unspoken am ~e justify) the usual living arrangements of the separate
assumptions. With children, no-one approaches a fwr- nuclear family which is isolated from other M iand a
yearald, say, as one would q m a c h a fmn-year-old: wider community of coddlers and older children.
nor does one treat a preverbal child the same as a verbal Children raised in that relative isolation may Weed tend
child; nor fail to take take& of puberty and so on. Hiving to show a delayed capacity to play interactively and
to attend to contm and to dmbpmelttal a g e , are gifts intersubjectiwely, What this shows is that what is seen
of clinical pspective fomd on the child worker by the and done depends on the map's assumptions that are
nature ofthe child. These truths cmn reorient and sharpen bnnrght into the ohvation situation.
our work with children (and adu!ts as well). However, The question is - how can we take up a different view
them needs to be a model which can do justice to both of self and development, if the one we have now, and the
these points at the same time - 'developmenlalism' on v e q language we express it in, are enclosed in deeply-
the one hand, Lconte~tualism' on the other. held assl~mptiomsh u t h u m nature that at (in part) out
of our awareness and very firmly embedded in our ,

Serf& Development culture? Goodman (1951) sketched out the beginnings of

T d i d d l y in Westem culture thme is an assunpion
that something called 'self, or the essential individuality
of a person, deady exists in a real way prior to (and
apartfim ~htiomhipsand hvlopmmt in a mlclrionai
fieEd, So deep is this tdedying assumption about wr
nature and andlfexpwieme that it mmts to a doominant
cultural pmdigm, an implicit belief system that colours
an answer that destabilises this firm paradigm - not by
challenging the uniqueness of our self-experience but
rather by t*elocatingthe self-function, oult of the deep
private recesses of the individual and toward some
overarching position as the integrator of experience.
A h p n g Goodman, we do better to piare self-process
not in the hidden centre of the person, but "at the
boun&ry' berwccn me and my environment, actively
Gestalt Development 117

poised to resolve the worlds I think of as 'outer' and and development, it still takes time to get used to a
'inner' into some workable, liveable lvhole (Goodman, different language of self, a language that includes the
1951). outer ww%d o f the child (orof ourselves) as well as her or
The implications of this shift of vision, from ' h e r self his inner world, as two equal poles or dimensions of self-
to 'wholefield self,m subtle but extremely far-mching experience.
- for both seIf-experience and for a developmental Neither neah 'inner' or 'outer' e x p i m e , makes any
perspective. If self-pmess is to be found not just in the living sense except as it ~ i b to, s and is irtfomd by, the
innermost recesses of the private world, but in the other: Needs take us toward the outside world; and our
'contact' - or the gestalt resolution of that private world perceptions of that world, as Lewm obsewed Iong ago
with the outer or 'publichorld - then 'self' itself (1935). organise the chaos of that world into usable
becomes so-mg both private Rnd shared, something wholes d meaning.
"iven in contact', (Goodman, 1951, p.256), an We are 'wired' for m i n g . The self, viewed in this
expimtial process which is found and comes to life in subjective or phenomenological way, is the agent - or
the encounter with the world at large. This is what better, the process itself - of that constructive activity.
G d m a n called 'creative adjustment' - by which IE Development, h m this persptive, is the elaboration of
means to emphasise the dual nature of elf-process: 'me' s ~ ~ ~ e s s imore
w l y c o m p k mom kg& organired wholes
acts (creatively) on 'my environment' and 'my of Potentially, these wholes evolve throughout
environment' acts on, constrains and informs 'me' fife, from the first dawning organisation of the
(adjustment). experiential field into 'mdyou'; through the integration
The most crucial f e a l o~f ~this picture is one that is and evaluation of wider and wider fields of perception
often left out of even i n W v e or contextual models. It and activity and on to include, ultimately, the meaning of
is the fact that the fiekl of selfexprience is not for the the imaginable cosmos. This i s the 'direction of
most part a field of 'objects' at all. Rather it is a world of developmnt', to use Montague's phrase (1955), directed
people who, 'like me', each represent a lacus or vantage by the terms of our human nature, Ft is that pnxless which
point of organising the field into his or her own by our nature we cunnor NUT do. The process of fmding
meaningful wholes (of u n d e W i g and action). And in whola of meaning mediates and orgmises ow behaviour
a deep sense this insight and perspective - that the and e-rience at each developmend age and stage.
people in my field have experiences and perceptions of A number of impiicarions follow. A whole-field model
their own - i s not some later developmental of self-process and self-experience implies that the most
achievement, which comes (if ever) only after the central organising dimension in development is the
achievement of my cohesive individual identity and self- interpersonal (or as we would prefer to say, the
process. Rather, from a very early age, there is no intersubjective). As human anirnals, our environment is
succlessful, satisfying 'creative adjustment' which i s rwf fmt, last and always a social environment. Even our most
based on the dawniogs at least of this ppective. physical needs and appetites (as well as our thoughts,
In an experiential field which is, as we argue, feelings and memories themselves) are mediated and co-
intembjective h m the beginning, my very capcity to constructed in nnd though our social experience.
know myself' as myself arises almg with my capacity to Moreover, foftowing a whole-field view of self and
know yourself as yourself each supports, informs and expieme leads to realking that developmen?a h q s mad
also limits the 0 t h . Thus in a Gestalt perspective h e necessananLy meam the d e v e l o p m t of a wholefieEd - not
development of intersubjectivity, far f m being a late just development in a field or context, but devefopment of
stage in the progress of individual identity formation, as that field or context. If healthy adulthood and M t h y
the individualist models would have it, describes the living are to be supported, achieved and sustained over
course ofdevelopnaent itsee fI:' and relationship are not time,the 'auter' realm of the child's selfexperience must
opposed terms in a field w t i v e , with the one given in also undergo development, as much as the 'inner' (or
a d v m and the &r added on later. Instead, they are structural) realm that we are used to talking about in
poles of experience in a dynamic figure-ground clinical models. The environment that is integrated into
relationship, each one the context or ground for the other, the child's evolving self-prooess must itself evolve over
developing mutually or else becoming arrested or lime, in some organid harmony with the biological and
distorted together. eqeiemtial growth of the child. At the simplest level, the
parents that the four-year-Id needs ase 'different pen&'
Implicationsfor a i%i&& M d e l of Development h r n the ones that the infant needed. or that the 20 year-
old will need later. h t s themselves have to grow and
First of all, it is hpmkmt to mognise that although we develop so as to present different selves, to meet the
may welcome the idea of a whole-field approach to self evolving self-pass of the child. As the world widens
 the cummunity, schml and smiety which the chikl naeds
(or sadly, needs to be protected from) become
increasingly significant. Again, these are not just 'the
environment of the child's self' but are the dynamic
material which is a m . V y being intepkd, In this model,
political and social conditions become something more
than the background: they are integmkd into the self-
apucture of the deveEoping subjective person.
Tkse essential obsmations do not take the p k e of the
'milestones' and stages we are accustomed to W i g
about in developmenral mdets; nor do they make
available models d l y wrong. What they do - and
what the GeslaEt model in g e n d provides, corn@ to
other perspectives and schools - is to allow for
contextualising and integrating other developmental
models. We can d m consider which particular models
are useful for what k i d s of situations and problems and
w M the implications of the various developmental maps
may h,for OUT underStanding of a particular child in a
pahcular situation.
For example, think of an array of developmental
models widely in use today, underlying and guiding
interventions in clfnicat, & c a t i d , and related settings.
Broadly, these d e l s may be g r
o w in line with the
three major traditions of clinical shdy and practice a m s s
the past century: psychoanalytic, c o g n i t i v ~ h a v i o u d ,
and 'existentiaVhumanistic' - the three great streams
which, we are proposing here, can be usefully integrated
and contextudised by the Gestalt approach (see also
discussion in Urheeler, 1994a). With Freud we have he
familiar od-aulal-phallic stages, paralleied in E5iksm by
trust-autonomy -industryF and by Kohlberg's moral
development scale, {of punishment, conformity, and
ruleSrptincip!es), Somewhat more derivatively, Mare
Koht's stages of mh.roring, idealizing, and twinship.
With Piaget, we have a different view based on
perceptua Wcognitire processes: sensorimotor,
~ t i o n a lconcm, operations, and so forth. Among
the humanistic models we have the familiar Maslovim
(Maslow, 1954) hierarchy of needs, from security up
though xlf-actualisation, which mid also be conceived
developmentally, with each Hfe stage characterised by a
dominant class of needs (assuming the previous stages nre
resolvsd). Thomas Kegan (1982) focum on meaning-
making, which is much closer to out Gestalt
understanding of human p m s s , and lists progressive
'stylistic' stages like incqmative, impulsive, imperial,
interpersonal, and so on.
Wrthin a Gestalt tradition, we likewise might derive an
implicit devetopmental table From Perls's ideas on oral
aggression (1 95 I), with life task stages based on stages of
contact. These might k in the form as elaborated by
Goodman (1951) in his joint work with Perls, or as
refined in the 'Cyc!et model (Wexberg, in press)-
moving b m sensation and rmwamess thmgh action in
contact or m1ution.z
The Perlsian perspective on development could be
regarded as falling somewhere near the F m d h (with
oral aggressionmwmting tbr eFos and thamtos). Buth
the F r e d b and Perlsian view is of a m w e m t Frwn the
supposedly passive dependency d the infant to an ideal of
fully auto- self-reliant &It mafttrizy. In d these
cases, the content of the identified stages - and to a lesser
extent, h e exact placement of the bundmies between
stags - s M s . What remains fairly constant is bK notion
of amoreor Eesshearquam o f m e orlm discrete
stages, from age to age and stage to stage. Moreover,
many of these d e l s are implicitly unidirectional: to
Perk as to Freud,it is 'infantile', and thus shameful, go
back to dependency (or to 'polymorp~sperversion" in
the Freudian lexicon). We simply "get over* our
'infade' needs, as we become firmly individuated and
non-dependent adults. (Among the Freudians, Kohut
(1977) was one theorist who recognised that life and
development simply do not work this way, and that the
theory must be adjusted to mmgaise h e legitimacy and
crucial role of lifelong weds - for empathic mirroring,
i d d s , and the inmkpndent relationship).
In conmast to this Perhian picture is the more whole
field Gestalt developmental model offered by Mark
McConville (1995). He chmcterises the adolescent
process as om of 'diibedding the self* from the family
context of childhood and qsitioning the developmental
process within a wider social field. The result of this
movement, in McConvillc%view, is not necessarily a
sharp break with family, as implied by mote
individualistic models of sdolescenee. Instead a new,
more complex relational prrrcess occurs, which is ifself
the new adolescent self: In particular, useful implications
of McConville's approach include his dynamically
interrelated ~t of developmtal tasks which rake place
recursively - that is, lthe relative a c c o q l i s h n t of any
given task saves as p u n d for the figuse: of lthe other or
'next' task, in a sequence which will recw a d vary with
each individualcase and context.
Thus, for example, the first adolescent task in the
-
model namely d i t i a t i n g or 'disemWig' itself,
which involves making a m w kind of bwndary batween
family and a more autonomous, private, and protected
self-world - is bDth the gmundfor and in some ways,
the wmlt ofusing this more private inner space as the
location of the 'nextQask, which is the growth of
".
'interiority This recursive process continues until
enough complexity and solidity have been achieved that
both of thest: things can sene as a ground for the new
stage of integration. This then supports new boundary
complexily, new intai.ority, new connections with others
and new movement our into an adult world.
 the fiel~nomeno1ogica.lmodel, is the mapping and ofreadiness.trainigorattirude~~1~doffull
manipulating of a full field of experience. vertral intersubjdvity later on. The wards are lost on the
'Meaning-making' is the natural extension of innare child, to be sure: but we may assume (from the
gestah-formation process. Our capacity for fomting and developmental results) that the attitude is in some way
emgisig a 'figure of inemst' mt of - and within - an noted, intemalised and then used And by 'attitude' h m
- organised background of relational patterns, gives we man intmubjecttvemeta-sldlls and @ems, such as:
predictability to our world and signrfbnce to the focus of pause and scan to checkfor inner need sfate of the other
interest itself. This is our nabure and the elahmion of and tartarlor q m s s i o n ro moslulate k
k other b r e m e in
these meaninghI wholes is, in a real scnsc, the p r m s of thefiH, making Is mom to our liking.
development itself. This pmess, of making my inner world known and
W e u ~ e t h i s ~ v e p r t m -s h s e p n n s w e getting to h o w the inner world of the other, is what we
are calling "If - in a field of other p p l e who arc call intimacy, or inside knowing. In this
doing the a l e . And their behavia like ours, is not fieIUdevelopmentd prspective, intimacy hen emerges
governed just by 'what h q p n s ' . I n s t 4 it is mediakd, as the rlecessary arena arrd deveLopmmb1 g t v d for
like ours, by their,'s" their own understanding and learning how to bww the self - which is inseparable
estimation of predictions, promises and risks in their field. from leaning how to h o w the inner reality of mother
Their inner worlds are thus crucially significant parts of pwson.
our relevant field. They have to k taken into w n t as Developmentally then, we begin not with a separate,
we organise a useful and meaningful map of isolated self, gradually freeing itself From infantile
understanding. dependency. Rather we hgin with a field of mlatimhip,
But how do I know your inner world? Plainly the out of which a sense of self-boundary, of 'me' and 'you'
methds I use for bowing the physical world (mostly not being the same1 begins to take m dynamic shape and
observation and inference, or what I call 'projection' cohesiveness. Only to the extent that the relariond field is
when i t comes to understanding the motivations of a field of intimacy dms a full experience of subjectivity
others), are still relevant here, but are not a complete arise. Moreover, it is a field of subject dating to subject,
method for learning about mother's world. How do I not a field of 'object relations'
learn how to go about Learning s3rjfls md b 1 e d g e of
this kind? The answer is: we l m skills and mta-skiMs 2. SqqwrtandShame
i~ersubjectively~ which is to say in a W e d refationship In an individualist model of development, the self
with another perscn, who pmsen&- QP a se& who models, develops out of an inner drive - mwe or less on the
who exposes herhis own self-process in some w4y and strength of its own impulse, with only the provision of
who wlates to us us a subjective being with rur active self- some minimal standard of environmental input and
process like hidher own. Thus,the intersubjective stability in the very early years. The presumptionand the
caretaker talks to the child d m t what is going on in an gad state of m y of thmx models is -'mum amnomy
intersubjective way. For exampie, ", M y ' s suny, of sev Development is seen, @cwhly in the Fmdian-
Daddy's so tired this morning, we almost fell down, derived systems, as progress from infantile dependence to
didn't we! Here we go, now just let Daddy find this matwe independence - or, as Rrls put it (1%9], fnm
cream. Them,this will just take a second and hwe're 'environmental support to self-support.' In mdlels of
going to feel so m h htrer.' And then a moment lam these Idnds, based on asmmpfions of this type, the idea
(speaking as if for the baby now, giving the baby w k e : itself of 'support" i s i a t e d with wedmess and poor
'Oh,I don't like that mEd man, do I, Ithark freezing me, character.
Daddy, there, now, that's &re' It is no surprise, again In a field model, the p i ~ b mis entirely different. In
fmour field persptive, that this early talking ammi place of thinking of 'self-support' as mature aid good and
and talking ro is now emergirtg as a crucial field m s 'support from others' as immature and compromising, the
in eady and later cognitive devdopment, right in the fust, therapist m s dle whole field of the child" living, with a
.
so-cdled ' p r e v d ' year of life This kind of discourse view to moblisinga coherent whole pichrne o f s u p p i for
is spoken with a relaxed self-boundary and as such is the intervention and dewlopmental d i t i o n we have in
perhaps Inherently . vulnerable or 'undressed' nlind. l l e healthy fidd presenm the 'right amount' of
communication. It can be somewhat e m b m i n g to be scope and challenge (which is the same thing as the 'right
overheard in his d e . And yet it makes Meet sense amount* of support) to foster and stretch she child at a
when we think of it as cmcial lraining in inpe~~Icbjectivi~given &velopmentd moment. Notice how the field itself
and dialogue. must develop and that to assess a child we must dso
Incorporated in this activity is something which we assess the developmental status of that field.
might call subjective or intersubjective orientananon, a kind This daes not mean developing unjdirectionally, in a
Gestalt Development 121

s k d y linear prqpssion from more to less environmental m,the more support we have from 'inside', the more
support over time. Rather, the movement is fluid, flexible and free we can be in choicefully building our
rec~rsiveand situational, The secure and independent supports 'outside' - making them fit and in- beater
nursery-schoolchild may well need more outside support, with our developmental needs and our inner support
not less, as he moves up to kindergarten with all its social system. But again, this is quite different fiom saying that
and academic challenges. h the same way many childm the child, adolescent or adult should be moving away
need more support from the outside at the end of 'latency' from external supporn in the all-or-n'&ing way implied
(whichis typically a moment when they get vastly less of by older mdets.
it) when there is transition to middle school orjunior high, And again, what happens if the outer field 'pulls away'
leaving a familiarIfamilia1 neighbourhd primary school, from some important felt need or part of the inner self?
a stable peer group and often the security of a single- (By pulls away, we mean not just opposition or resistance,
ctassroom teacher. but 'non-reception', the kind of m t i o n that threatens or
We can see how this pe-tive on supprt plays m t in breaks the relationship itself). In these cirmmstances we
our own lives, when we underiake any important ncw know experientially, we know that these are the
challenge. A major reorgmisation of the whole field antedents of feelings we how as shame, which always
(which is what any Iarge project in life entails) does not arise originally in an important relationship, when that
mean a move to greater 'field-independence'. Rather relationship itself is t h r e a d . After all, to the infant,
there is a call for considerably increased suppm from the cmtaking ~Iationshipis the dominant field and from
both the inner and outer realms of self-experience and the keginning the developing child senses, even before the
living. Plainly a well-developed inner process of self- verbal period, what parts of its inner self are not
knowing is crucial support here, as are less visible acceptable, cannot be received, or which provoke a
processes, such as holding and evaluating infomation, 'pulling away of the field'.
making priorities and choices, and managing multiple Thus, in a field model shame, like support, is
needs and variables. Moreover. if the 'important new something more than just an individual feeling or
challenge' is to be well-supported by significant others in experience. It is that, of course, but it is also a field
my personal world, then I n d the skills and support of condition - or, perhaps better, a sign or information
dialogue and feedback from and with hem. about the conditionsof the ~evantjield.As information,
In o t k words, in a field &el we view support not shame d l s us when the field is too deeply split for the
just as an edvironmental transaction, nor as a sign of self to integrate it whole; e.g. xqtanw;and rejection co-
immaturity or dependency, but as afield cudition, a exist at the same time. If the threatened telationship is
dynamic as- of a field of living - one the individual important enough and the split is deep and long-lasting,
can influence and ctFcorrstruct. Indeed, the whole course the result will be self-integration which excludes or
of development f m infancy through adulthood could be diminishes significant dimensions of the felt inner world.
characterisid as achieving more and more of a complex If shame is early and pervasive, then development
and integrated whole-JeId organisalion of support. follows the kind of course that Wimicott called the 'false
ahis brings us to consideration of the other pole of self' (see Guntrip, 1971) - the kind of fieldiself
support in a field model, which is shame as a integration that is overwhelmingly constituted by the
developmental issue. In an individualist perspective, outer pole of field experience, to the neglect of the
shame is above all a feeling of personal weakness and exploration and articulation of the felt inner world.
inadequacy - which means among other things that Shame therefore emerges as the 'key affect' of the
shame itself is shameful and thus best kept hidden and fieldrself model, the feeling that tells us when the key
unexpressed. Shzme after all relates to field- processes of self are under threat and possibly not well
connectedness (in a sense field-dependence)in d i n g enough supported to be maintained on some present
and not getting some reaction or validation or other course. Shame takes the role in the field model that
support h m others. In an individualist perspective, it is anxiety held in the individualistic model. A field
that very fielddependence that development is supposed perspective enables us to see how and why extreme
to lead away ftom. To the extent that I am still =tive to shank experiences may be catastrophic, internally and
your acceptance or lack of it, I am in a state of w a k n a s externally, and why it is that extreme shame can be
and immaturity (and femininity). (For further discussion directly associated with rage, substance abuse, violence
of this point from a gender point of view, see Wheeler & towards others, and suicide. In the final analysis, the self
Jones, 1996). must integrate - and for that process must draw on
In a field &el by contrast the purpose and activity of whole-field support. In cases of drastic, sustained failure
the self is to unify the whole. field, and thus we are never of that support, the self moves in some way to self-
in a state of not needing support from the field. To be destruct (for firthee discassion, see Lee 1995; kand
Gestalt Development
new n d e l . Here we would view 'voice' and 'rapacity to
give voice' first and always as charncterMcs of a fiebd.
In a field w b one p-sm or one group of persons has
the 'right to speak' and others have diminished rights or
no rights in some areas, no-one really has v o i c ~no one
person can achieve full voice in this sense. This is
because the achievement of full voice is utterly dependent
on a developmental field of other voices - i t . other
selves who can first lead and then engage in the kind of
intersubjective dialogue which is essential to evoke and
support self4evelopment.
To 'have a voice' is thus a mattet of i m r capacity and
of the receptive conditions in the field. This means that
the relevant unit for developmental study, in a field
perspective. is not 'voice' alone, but 'mice and listener ' .
How voice is given and whether it makes sense ta give
voice to anything at all are all questions which begin
crucially, of course, in childhood. Here the absence of
any important listener leads to amphy and diminishment
in the development of voice and thus of self.
How is voice organised? How do we h o w when to
give voice to out experience in a particular moment?
What grounds that moment in larger contexts of meaning,
so that voice connects and makes sense, to ourselves and
to others? The thrust and effect of wr inborn perceptual
nature is to be able to sense and also to judge practically
what is going to happen next, in selation to where we
want and need to go. In other words, in a very red sense
in Gestalt we understand our nature as fundamentally
future-oriented (with the very notion of 'development',
certainly, king a pime example of that orientatim). We
are 'wired' to think and perceive in ten~porally-linked
sequences of meaning - 'first this, then that', or 'that
means (or Ieads to) this.' When we speak of the child
learning through her or his development to know and
understand the world, we are thinking of associations and
sequences of this kind, raised to elaborately complex
interactive levels.
The idea of 'temporally-linked sequences of meaning,
raised to complex interactive levels' is a close working
definition of srosy. The 'recounting' of one thing leads
(or has led) to another and what tha;t means (or Iias
meant). This is why we can say, in Gestalt, that the
human W i g 'is the story-klIing animal' (Wheeler, I 993).
We understand ourselves and others in tern of story. We
do this not just 03t of tradition or C U ~ I U T Cbut as a
manifestation of our developmental nature in pmept-~?raI
and cognitive terns. We did not and do not invent our
self-stories so much as our self-stories invent lar. To
q m t she point: we do not first exist as individuals, s h r a
h o w ourselves, f k t t form a self-story andjmlly tell it to
another. Rather we find and c m t e our story in the selJing
of it to another person and thnt act is the same as the
creative construction of the self. To be sure, that self-
123
story can then be continued internally, in what we call
-
'monoIogue' but this happens if and only to the extent
that that monologue, developmentally speaking, grows
out of dialogue.
The self that acts creatively to unify the field into
wholes of meaning and action is itself a narrative self,
both a story-maker and a story. Development car! be
viewed as the narrative therapies view it, as the
development of a cohemt, meaningful, contextualised
self - self- and life-story - one that has clear
boundaries, clear relatedness, meaningful inter- and htra
connections and articulation. It is one that Eeads
, energy for presence; carries experience
s o m e w h ~has
forward in time and into more inclusive and cohesively
meaningful wholes of understanding. 'Here and now and
next,' was Goodman's phrase (1 995). Meed. d1 these
properties of g o d story form and of che developmentdly
mature self are none other than the characteristics
described by Kohler, Kohut, Koffka and others as the
inherent properties of ' g d form' or ' g o d gestalt' (see
discussion in Zinker, 1995; also Wheeler, 1991). For
discussion of Gestalt narrative therapy, see Wheeler,
19981.
The self that develops is both the result and goal of
development. It is not an individua? self in the way we
have been used to conceptualising it. Rather it is a
cohemnr integrative pmess rhar un$es flre whole fieEd,
resolving inner and outa realms of experience into new
wholes of meaning and action. Self-process is the engine
of its own growth, by virtue of our inherent drive ro
organise Ae jeld, which Gofdstein called the 'single
drive' of our hunlan nature (1939). Ris is development
and this means in turn that the field in which that
develupment rakes ylam is itself a field which is always
developing. Fm individual development to be supported
and full, this developing field must itself be actively
intersubjective: without this, the interior pole of self-
experience can never develop fully. Intetsubjective
bonding and reception emage as the first key field criteria
and characteristicsfor full human development.
This need for intersubjective reception and reflection
(including the support of differentiation and challenge) is
developmentally crucial not only in childhood, bur
il~roughoutlife. A theme discussed here is the need for a
fieId uliderstanding of the dynamics of intimacy in
development. Development can be constrained and
channelled by-theinterpersonalprocess we feel and h o w
.
as shame Much of the differential support and s h a m
we are subject to developmentally i s then encded as
gender, which we can also view in field perspective as a
map far negotiating the deeply gendered field of our
124
socia1 w d , The relation of the developing sense of self
to the wholetfield context is reflected in a field definition
of idenlily, The d y m c concept of voice a c t u h s the
exercise of self-organisation in the field. We find
ourselves by giving voice in relatiofinship,thereby both
articulating and at the same time constructing our interior
experience. The po& of v i m we consmcl is the esence
of self in the field perspective. Finally, narrative
organists our developing sense of self and locates us in
the spacdime of our field. The development of self,
through childhod and adolescence and on thmgtrout the
lifespan, involves the construction and articulation of a
story that locates us meaningfully in the field. The
development of self, at any m o m t of life, is the s m as
the emergence of the properties of 'god gestalt' in the
self-narrative and in the observed and inkgrated e l f (and
in the obsewing and integrating self),
Here are the beginnings, at least, of a Gestalt
perspective on development. The use of a
fieldlphenomenogical model of this kind, we 'believe, puts
us in a better position to construct an understanding of the
child in the field. We can then choose and apply
interventions to any domain of that field. to both (or
either) inner and outer worlds of the child's developing
self-process: interior experience. family, peer and adult
relations, schoo!, community,politics, and culture.
Ultimately our concern in working with children is a
concern with their worlds: the interior world (of
imagination, cieatlvi~~ developing thoughts and feelings)
and also the arrzr wortd (of political and scrcial realities,
economic conditions and cultural practices and values).
In a Gestalt developmental model we are sopported to
understand and apply what we d d y know deep within
oumlves - namely that every part of the field is a part
of each of us; that d1 the children of the world are the
particular charge of us all; and that the best conditions for
their development, which will become inkgated as (and
, the best conditions for our own
into) their very ~ l v e sare
developing selves as well. We are unique, but not
separate; we are deeply part of one another. In our
belonpingness, to each other and to the global ficld which
we shm, lies both our full common humanity and our
fullest individual development of self.
Notes
1.For the ideas about a Gestalt field approach to
development in this essay, I am very much indebted to
a sustained exchange on these topics with Mary Ann
Kraus (see Kraus & Wheeler, in press). For the
discussion of shame below, as always I draw on
extensive collabration with Robert Lee (seeLee &
Wheeler, 1996). An extended version of this essay
appears in The Heart of Development: Gestalt
Gordon Wheeler
Appmches to Working with Children, Ahlescen~s,&
their Wor2dF; bi. II; AdOEescencc (M. McConviUe &
G. Wheeler, eds.) The Analytic Resq Hillsdale, NJ.
(In Press)
2, For a fuller -on of these models in table form,
together with extensive discussion of their relationship
to an emerging Gestalt d e l , see Wheeler, in press.
Beledq, M.,Cliinchy, B.,Goldberger, N.,& Tmle, J.
(1986). Women 3 Ways of Knowing. Basic Books,
New Yo*
Erikson, E.(1951). Chitdhoad rmd Sociw. NNorton, New
York.
E W n . E.(1963). Identi5 Youth & Chis. Haward,
Cambridge MA.
Fantz, R. (1963) FWms of Msion in Newborn Infants.
Science 1#,29&7
Goldstein, K. (1939) The Orgunism American Book C.,
Boston.
Goodman, P.(1951). Novelty, Excitement & Gxowth (in
F. Peris, R ITefdirme & P.W m a n , Gestdt 77wmpy)
Goodman, F? (1995) C q y nape anrf Finite mcrieme
(T, Stoehr, ed,). Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
Guntrip, H.(1971). P s y c ~ y t i Theory,
c d
the Seg Basic Bmks, New Ymk
Kagan,J. (I 984) The Natum of the Child. Basic Bmb,
New York.
Kaplan, N. & Kaplan, M. 11994). Processes of
Experiential Organization in Couple and Family
Systems. On Intimate Ground (G. Wheeler & S.
Baclonan, 4 s . ) Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
Kaufmann, S. (1991). U&rsEmfding Comphi~y.Basic
Books, New Yo&.
Kegan, T. (1982). The Evolving Scif. Harvard,
Cambridge MA.
Kohlberg, L. (1981). The Philosophy of Moral
Developrnenf. F b p r & Row, San Francisco.
Kohus H.(1977). ??te Restomtion ofSe& btemtional
Univesities Press,New York.
Krrms, M.& Whelm, G.(in press). Wice and Gender.
The Heast of Developmmt: Gestalt Appreaches to
Working with Children, Adolescents, & zheir Worlds:
vol I?: Adolescence (M.McConvi!le & G.Wheeler,
4s.) The M y t i c Press, Hillsdate. NJ.
Lee, R. (1995). Gestalt and Shame. British Gestalt
Journal, 4, 1.
he,R. and Wheeler @. (1 996). The Voice of Shame:
Silmce and Connection in Psychotherapy. J ossey-
Bass, Sm Francisco.
Lewin, K. (1 935). A dynamic Theory of Personalip.
McGralv Hill, New York.
Gestalt Development 125

Maslow, A, (1 954). Motkcion and Pemalrality, Harper, Wheeler, G. (1993).Translator" Introdu~tionin The
New York. and the Legacy of
Silence: German FmanuIies
Colkchchw
Mamrana, V. Bc Varela, F,(1987). TEEof lYnowledge: Shame. Jmsq-Bass, San Francisco.
The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Wheeler, Intimate Ground: A Gestalt Approach to
Shambala,Boston. Working with Couples (G. Wheeler & S. Backmna,
McConville, M. (1 995). Adolescence: Psychotherapy eds.) Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
and the Emergent Se& Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. Wheeler, G.(1 997). Self and Shame: a Gestalt Approach.
Money, J. (1985). Straight, Gay & In Between. Basic, Gesullt Review, 1,3.
New York. Wlwler, G.(1993). Tell Me a Story. (ia J. B m , Back
Montague, A, (1955). The Direction of Human to the Beamtalk). GIC h s , Cambridge MA.
Developtrim. Harper & Row, New York. Wheeler, G. & Jom, D. (1996). finding Our Sons. The
Perls, F. (1951) see Goodman, P.(1 951). Voice of Shame: Silence and Connection in
Perls, F. (1969). In a d Out of the Garbage Pail. Real ~ Lee & G.Wheler, HIS)
P q ~ h o t h e m(R. Jossey-
People Ress, Ma& UT. Bass, San Francisco.
Piaget, J. (1947). Intelligence, Basic Books, New Y d . Wheeler, G.(in pms). Toward a Gestalt Developmental
Stern, D.(1985). The Interpersonal World of the I n f a . Model. The Heart of Development: Gestalt
Basic Books, New York. A p p m h e s to W o r h g with Chiidwn, Adolescents, &
Wexberg, S.(in p m ) . A Gestalt Developmental Mode1 their WorIds; voi. II: AdoIescence (M. McConville &
with Applications for Working with Ywng Children. G. Wheeler, eds.) Tlre Analytic Press, HilEsdaIe,NJ.
The Heart of Developmenr. G , Wheeler & M. White, M.& Epston, D.(I 990). Narrative Means to
McConvilIe, eds., Analytic Press,Hillsdale, NJ. Therapemi:Endr. Norton, New York.
Wheeler, G. (1 99 1). Gestalt Reconsiderd Gardner Zinker, J. (1995). ln S m ~ h d G d F m Jossey-Bass,
h, New Yo&. San Francisco.

Gordon Wheeler Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist in private practice in

Massachusetts, working with children, adults, families, groups and school
programmes. He did his Gestalt training at the Institute of C!evelat#L,where he
is now a m b e r d the teaching faculty and Editor-inchief of the GIC Press
(publishing jointly with Josxy-BasdMacmiI!m). He teaches widely in the US
and Europe. His bodks include Gestalt Reconsidered: n New Approach to
Cowact and Resistance (Gardner Press) and On Sntimak Ground: a Gestalt
Appmach to Working with Couples (Jossey-Bass, co-edited with Stephanie
Backman).

Addtess for correspondence: 29 Chaunoey Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts

01238, USA.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GESTALT WIWlNG OF DIFWRENT
KINDS
Daniel Rosenblatt
Received 10 November 1998
I want to comment on the types of-t writing that
are represented in the British Gestalt Journal and tho*
which are not. The last issue of the Juumal (kl.7, No. 1 )
can be taken as an example.
First, 1 want to look at the issue as a whole, as a t d t y ,
a gestalt. ln the h a d e s t terms I recognise major t h m
and current Gestatt issues: Sapriel and Philippson
discussing important theoretical topics; Edwards, Risi,
Graham and Clemmens examining pamGuEar applications
of practice; Rosenblatt, Jacques and Singer filling in
i m p m t areas of gender and sexuality which have been
relatively neglected; and Hemming and the Kogans
recognising the mique contributionof an impomnt figure
in British Gestalt development. So far so god,
In examining the individual pieces more closely, I begin
to recognise some long standing tensions in the Gestalt
Wition. Lee me begm with Hemming on Marianne Fsy,
a loving obituary of a charismatic healer, a creative,
sensitive, intuitive clinician and teacher who was not
afraid to traduce W e s , a somewhat eccentric, highly
individualistic human being with a wide range of
inte~sts.Clearly Fry belongs in the panheon of leading
trainers. Fritz Perls, hut Goodman, her own h r
Ischa Bloornbrg were all charismatic figures who were
careless of boundaries and whose style of treatment
included i w a t i v e leaps of understanding based in part
on intuition; being unafraid of being foolish or even of
making mistakes in the service of finding greater co-
immediacy and sharper gestalts.
In contrast to the picture of emblematic healer, engagd
practitioner, or sensitive clinician is the picture of a
rational, detached writer who gives the impression of
having abandoned the M y give and take of empirical
study in favour of struggling to be a post-modern
theoretician. Thus, when d i g the texts of Sapriel or
Philippson I found myself gasping, searching desperately
in my mind for some applications which would p n d
me. I found myself speculating. Now where does this
lead m that is useful or enriching beyond the intellmd
stimulation of following a puzzIe-maker intricately
making a new toy?
Certainly Sapriel and P h i l i p are not alwe among
Gestalt writers. hdeed, the tradition goes back to the
beginning. Many of the trainees I have encumtend over
the years have complained of thc original k l s HefFdine
dG d m n text kcawe of its relative rmpenetrability.
(Isadore Eram used b say that this was deli'berately done
so that G d m d s work. wmld not k easily introjected.
Unfortunately I think he was wrong on both counts. I
think it was difficult because Goodman had trouble
expressing his theory in a clear marmer. secondly, 1Ithink
many Gesdt therapists, including some of those who
write for this journal, have easily managed to introject
Gcdman, and Prom as well.)
The British Gestalt J d allows for some questioning
of orthodoxy, but may itself be contributing to
establishing a new one. M7timsuch as myself contime
to question this.
Thus, in the classical Wtalt theory I learned, diagnosis
was i p d . Human beings and patients were, mgnised
as being too complex to fit neatly into Kraepelian
categories. (Some Gessalt therapists even shoute3 that it
was sin to think categorically - that at1 categories
transgress the richness of the phenmologicaE field.) I
found great power in being able to leave diagnosis and
attend to what was happening immediately between
myself and the patient. Yet the Iast issue of the BGJ deals
frequently with diagnosis. Without any discussion, it
appears that Gestalt therapists have slipped k k toward
diagnosis. Before giving up so powefil a formulation, I
would like to see the issue debated. If we go back to
diagnosis, then let it 'be clear why this is being done and
what is king lost.
Similarly, it appears that s y m p n s are now regadd as
the basis for fmmmt (see Ed&, Risi and Graham).
My understanding of Gestalt t h e m was that we did not
treat 'symptoms', but the whole person. In my own work
with smokers or overweight peupIe or drug addicts, I did
not f m s on the symptoms nor even on a 'cm' for them,
but for an understanding of the whole person. Many
patients sought what Fritz used to call 'a quick fix' and I
would tell them that it mqht I x belter for them to go te an
auto mechanic for a repair job. What 1 was interested in
was the develqmenr of the petson and his n w ~ m asd
understanding of himself and his wodd.
Missing Tuph
Reflecting on the range of writing, there is something
else which is missing. Your jwmal and W r Ltaature
more +y can beoom fasted on some issues and
not talk about others at all. Thw, for example, to my
recollection just at about the same time that Perls and
Goodman published the portentous Gestalt Therapy,
Excitement and Gtavth in the Humnn P e ~ s o d ~ at Q the
, the wider issues of the rimes.
middle of this century, the k t tmquillisers and anti-
depressants were coming into use (Chlorpmmazine,
Resenpine, Librim Elevil, M e p r o w , etc.). To my
howledge, however, there has k e n no cross-fertilisacion
between these two fields. Gestalt therapists simply do not
mention dicatim as an adjunct, as an alternative, or ns
a copetitor.
In a recent issue in the Tms Literary Supplemenf (Oct.
30, 198) Mark M i d in discussing David Hedy's 73me
Anti-Depressant Era raises a series of existentia1
questions: "Is the key to the age-old quest for human
happihess really selective serotonin reuptake inhibition?
Should all our modls be c m e d medically, and what
are the risks of pathologising an ever wider range of our
actions? DDes rhe drive towards 'scientific psychiatry'
ignore the crucial subjectivities of psychological
suffering? More specifically, is depression a disease,
illness, syndrome, or symptom? If depression is cawed
by an event or circumstance, should we seek lo deaden it
with a drug? And couldn't many cases equally be
regarded as common unhappiness, spiritual angst,
existential b d g , the winter doldrums, a bad case of
the blues? Should we expect psychiatry to cure the
hwnan condition?'
Well,that's quite a q u d o n . But the issues are very
important and 1 don't think Gestalt therapists have
addressed any oF them. I have had fitful experiences with
perhaps half a dozen patients who elected to use
medication, and it has always been informative and
enlightening. But I'm in no way quipped to come to any
concIusions. Nonetheless, I would be happy to share witb
others what my experience has been, individual by
individual.
The= have been other topics which have been missing
from Gestalt. Politics and the Wider Reld is om of them.
The struggle with Communism and the Soviet Union
meant that most concern with larger social issues and
therapeutic agendas ended, But they were not neglected
by Paul G d m or Fria Perls. Similarly the issue of
prejudice (on the part of the therapist or on the part of the
patient) is not discussed. 1 once asked Isadore From
about this and he muttered something about projection,
but I was quite unsatisfied. Prejudice is a larger social
and cultural issue and may at times be related to
projection, but it has a stronger base in the larger s a i d
and cultural field and needs a more powerful analysis.
What I am asking for here - returning to ow founders -
is a closer look on the one hand at the value of the highly
developed, personally grounded, creative individual
(including his or her Wm and eccentricities), and on the
other hand a slower, more carefully crafted theory which
is closely connected to its mditions, does not abandon
them without a thoughtful discussion, and cl#s not ignore
Damlel Rosenblatt Ph.D. practises in New York City
He was a close friend and colleague of Laura Perk and
Isadore Fmm, and a Fellow of the New York Gestalt
Institute for over 20 years. He has taught in various
universities and led Gestdt training groups on four
continents. He has written several books about Gestalt
~ Y Y -
Address for correspondence: 3225 Lighthouse Road,
Southold,New York 11971, USA
Vincent Hurnphreys
Received 29 September 1998
Dear Editor,
It was with great sadness and loss that I leamed of the
death of Maiame Fry. mere is a small group of Gestalt
therapists in Ireland who owe the foundation of their
&ning to Marianne. Thus, the spirit and heart of her
w d lives on here. Wlth this letter I would like to put on
record and appreciate her work in Ireland and also add
some personal. memories.
Tn 1980 a small group of psychologists and social
workers, mainly from Belfast and Dublin, began to
explore group work and personal development. This
interest then focused on Gestalt and we invited Mariame
to Ireland. Over the next four years Marianne came to
Ireland two or t h ~ times
e a year, at first doing group
thempy with us and then moving on to training in Gestalt.
The gmup also went to her home in France for a two
week intensive with Gestalt trainees from other countries
in Wpe.
Two things come to mind when I think of Marianne.
First, i t was from her that I learned to think the
unthinkable and say the unsayable. She always
123
encoutaged us to experience the M o m which comes Address for wmspondmce: Uanch&er Gestalt Centre,
from speaking hUUth 0f OOUr OWn ex@en~e. second, 7 N m Road, Manchater M14 5LF
when E close my eyes and picture Marianne I have an
image of her smiling, of her jaw relaxed and her eyes
wide open with delight. her face exuding joy, warmth and
life. For me that picture is her *st legacy.
Humphreys is a Gestalt psychotherapist,
v i s o r , trainer and organisitid consultant in private
pactice. He is founder and d i of the Dublin fnstitute
of Gestalt Therapy.
Addms for comsp~mh~e: Dublin Institute of Gestalt
Therapy, 189 Upper Kilmaeud Road, Stillorgan, Co.
Dublin. ErmT humpre@indigo.ie
LAYE:RS' VERSUS
41NTERRUPT10NSTO CONTACT' - the relationship between intersubjectivity theory and
A FOLLOW UP NOTE
Peter PhiIippson
Received 26 August 1998
Dear Edirn,
In my letter to the British Gestalt Jarrmal m VoI.7 no.1,
relating to "ve Layers' versns 'htm@ons to Gmtact',
I wrote about the 'relative lack of attention given to the
model of neurosis describd by Perls (1969. p.59)'. ,
It seems only right for me to confess hat I omitted to
exempt from this statement Friedman's very pertinent
article (1993)on the 'Layers' in relation to the 'Empty
Chair', which is an important r e f m c e on this theme. I
would appreciate it if you would print this cmtion.
Friedman, N. (1 993) Fritz PHIS'S 'Layers' and Ihe Empty
Chair: A Reconsideration. The Gestalt Journal, FalI
1993, pp. 95-1 19.
P h ilippson, P.A. ( 1998) 'Five Layers' versus
'Intemptions to Contact'. Bririsli Gestnh Joumd, Vo1.7
no.1, pp.58-61.
Peter Philippson is a Gestalt trainer, author, and
psychotherapist based in Mancbter, as well as a fquent
contributor to b e British Gestalt Jaumal.
Philippson, Coward
WON BRACKETING' - A RESPONSE
TO LOLITA SAPRIEL
Mdcolm Coward
Received 25 Septemb 1998
kEditor,
On d i g Lolita Sapriel% iine d c l e in BGJ Vol7.1, I
Find m y 4 f in broadl agreemart regarding her vkws about
W t th-y practice. The very humanity of therapists
responding to clients with their own full sense of
themselves in relation to the other seems to be a critical
basis for psychotherapeutic growth. Also, this fils in with
the three primary tenets of 'what is Gestalt' - as put
forward by Gary Yontef (1993): i.e. that it involves
awareness,dialogue and field theory,
However, I have some concerns abut ditching the
phenomenological: notion of 'bracketing'. This process
may be of protective importance if we are to be Fully
engaged in relationship with an oth fur the^, there are
ethical issues in the professional practice of a Gestalt
therapy which is dialogical and intersubjective, which
have yet to I x fuj1y researched.
Yontef (1 993) has said that the 'phenomenological
attitude involves mognising and bracketing off (putting
aside) preconceptions about what is relevant. A
phenomenological description integcih both observed
behaviour and expexiential personal zr=portsr(p. 183). This
conveys to me that this process, as it has been integrated
into Gestalt therapy, is about understanding our world
freshly and openly without preconception, not about
closing off and fading to use our nrbjdve judgement.
Yontef also talked about 'bracketing-off' one's own
needs to act as an agent of change and to define our own
g d s in relation to o w clients (p.217). It is implicit to me
in the writing of Yontef that the therapist is the keeper of
the therapeutic procjess. The very act of choosing to be
open to, and to practise in accord with, a dialogical
process i s a conscious decision based upon our own
attitude and values as rt therapist. It entails a belief that
this is the 'right path' for creative and healing
psychotherapy. It is also based upon our experience,
'On Bracketing'
knowledge and expertise as theqkts, It is excellent that third; acknowledging our power, experience and
we are committed to debating with each other and
understanding m own howledge base, but as tkcapists
we have access to the power of this knowlsdge w h m our
clients have nt# 'This discrepancy is inevitable, maybe
even desirable in a professional sene, however, it is my
belief that it is extremely dangerous to commit to
intersubjectivity without full acknowledgement of our
power, and without protecting ourselves and our clients
by taking responsibilrty for the decisions we make as a
tesult of this howfedge base.
In the therapeutic relationship the focus is upon the
client's growth not our o m . Yonted (p.220) argues hat
'... Being a good therapist depends upon an overlap
between the personal needs of the therapist and the
requirements of ~ F E tkqmtic task of the patient.' It is
not enough for the therapist merely to k present in the
relationship, IIhe therapist has to recognise the choices
shelhe makes with a client, based on needs defined
through professional expertise (drawn as it is from
personal therapy, training and supervision). Of course
thew responses are hopefully human and fully involving
of oneself with the client, d these choices are made in
the uncertainties of the spontaneous relationship.
However, they are made from resources not yet fully
available to the client and in hat sense therapists have
interpretative power and relationship potency. As Ymtef
M e r says, '...the therapst's values are valuable to shm
with the patient if done in the context of dialogue and
bracketing and not with the attitude of persuasion and
authority' (p.227). Yontef believed that this dialogue can
onfy M e place in an envhnmenr which has hexternal
boundaries for which the therapist takes primary
responsibihty
If we do not keep the notion of 'bracketing' we lose a
key way of protecting the therapeutic process from
aspects of htembjectivity which m y be very dmagmg.
Bracketing is lie a 'psychological condom' which d w
nos stop us from being fully engaged in the activity of
relationship but does provide us with an ability to p ~ v e n t
us from being over confluent and 'infected' with
destructive interpersonal and psychological material. It
seems fine for us to say 'this feelinglexperience is
something I acknowledge as a subjective experience' but
in my relationship when working with a particular client I
need to put these experiences to one side. Bracketing
does not mean we are being subtly objective; it means we
nte being in relationship in a rral way, but also in a way
which dmowledges the focus of therapeutic practice, i.e.
the psychological heahl eatlh of the other.
There is clearly a fine balance between several
positions: first; not presenting oneself to a client in the
form of being a figure of authority; m o d , appmching a
client as a human being in a dialogical attitude; and yet,
129
expertise. In this I very much like Lynne Jacobs'
q p m c h w h she says,
One of the most common mistakes made by Gestalt
therapists is a tendency to i m p their preseace on their
ptienfs. Faone'spxxetobeaprtofwhathdstk
orher, it must be delicately balanced against the patient's
&iness to enemnm an other. (pas).
She talks further about a client's 'dewe~opmental
d i n e s s * . This inevitably entails a certain amount of
professional assessment and judgement. Surely this
cannot be achieved in a spirit of inbmubjectivity, without
losing sight of the a e n c e of the hs', without our ability
to 'bracket' around our intersubjective experience and to
d m from our experience, recognition, and perception of
the psychalogical field at that time. If we do not practise
and acknowledge 'bracketing" how can we monitor
effectively the efficacy of our practice? Bracketing is
about 'antianflueme' {when confluence with another is
not helpful or may be harmful), h t it is not about anti-
inclusion; it enables rather than prohibits us from Wig
dialogical.
I agree with Sapriel" cenclusion about authenticity
when she says,
Even if the therapist chooxs not to self-disclose, it would be
a mistake to assume that Mshe is W o r e being 'neutral'.
' one's personhod cannot be avoided since
' D i s c l ~ of
our personalities are always being 'read' by the client.
@.43)
However, the reality that we make therapeutic choices
in the name of the therapeutic relationship and for the
benefit of the client, whilst moving in and out of
intersubjectivity means that we take a professional stance
and I am left wondering about how we dwribe, explain
and justify, through research, the protection we put in
place for owselves and our clients, and how this works in
therapeutic practice. In other words, I think we need
Inore research in this critical area, and research that
continues to be focused upon a phenomenological
methodology. It is not enough to debate the issue of what
Gestalt theraw may or may not i n t e r n but dso what is
actually effective, protective, and ethical in practice.
fCeep using a condom!
References
Jacobs, L.(1995). The 'Pherapist as 'Other': The Patient's
Search for Relatedness. h Hycner, R. & Jacobs,
L.(ed). The Heding Relationship h Gestalt Therapy:
A Dia ZogicaUSelf-PsychologyApproach. Gestalt
130
J m d Pms, Highland, NY.
Sapriel, L.(1998). Intersubjectivity, Self-Psychology and
Gestalt. British Gesrnlt Journal Vol7.No. l ,pp.33 - 34
Yontef, G. (1993). Awareness, Dialogue a d Process:
Essays on Gestalt Therapy. Gestalt Journal Press,
Highland, N.Y.
hlalcohn Coward is a UKB Registerad Psychhempist
with an MA in Gestalt Psychotherapy and a graduate
Member of Shewood Pqhthempy Training Insitute in
Nortingtram He trains owlnsellols in Brarlford and has an
independent practice in Huddersfield and Leeds.
Address for Correspondence: Bankgate Cottage,
Bankgate, Staithwaite,HudMteld HD7 5QH.
A REPLY TO MALCOLM COWARD
Received 20 October 1998
Xleat Editor,
E appreciate the opportunity to dialogue, and while I am
in agreement with some of the pints Mdwh Coward
makes, I differ with others. Of course, ethical
considerations are p m m An ~ ethical thempist of any
persuasion is always guided by he kst interests of tthe
client. Coward rightly expR.esses a concern regarding the
emotional well being of his clients and wants us, as
therapists, to take pains to ensure that these concerns
remain iri the forefront of our theoretical and clinical
thinking. However, when he states that adopting
intersubjectivity theory with its elimination of
'bracketing' risks plunging the therapist into a polluted
sea of 'confluence*,a confluence detrimental to the
patient and "infected with destructive interpersonal artd
psychological material', he gives the impression that he
sees intersubjectivity theory as a sort of contagious
d i e . F u r t h o r e , when he says that 'bracketing"is
about 'anti-confluence' and 'if we do not pcactise and
acknowledge "bracketing" how can we monitor
effective1y the efficacy of our practice? he seems to
believe that intersubjectivity theory, withcut the safeguard
or 'condom"of 'bracketing', can be dangerous to both
pntient and therapist.
Perhaps he f m the inmbjective therapist's loss of
Coward. Sapriel
p q d v e and sense of selff Pernaps he fears possible
abum of p o d T h e am legitimate concerns, but as
applied to intersubjectivity theory, they reflect a
misunderstanding of the m p e c t i v e of intersubjectivity
theory. To clarify further: the term 'intmubjective' is
uxd to connote field tkmyIas applibd to Ihe therapeutic
dyad. It i s not meant to imply a forum for one
subjectivity (name!y the therapist's) to be pushed into
mother's (the ctmt). Entersubjectivity themy does not
connote unbridled selfexpmsion; sather, it refers to t k
psycholqicdfteIdin which dl th-c pmesses take
place. Thus, intersubjectivity is not something one
'commits' to not is it something ate can move 'in and out
of'. Rather, intersubjectivity is the investigation of this
field of recipma! mutual influencing. It is something one
can either be aware of, or not aware of. Such a
therapeutic investigation can include an examination of
the self-pwtective masum needed by b th therapist and
patient and the investigation of issues of power and
perceived danger. A dialogic investigation is a central
methodology by which intersubjectivity thawy attempts
to address ti.ese concerns as descriw by Coward.
Furthermore, my understanding of 'bracketing', as
defmed by Yontef, is that is does not centrally involve
self-restraint. Rather, it involves tbe setting aside of
preconceptions, a feat which intersubjectivity theory
holds is impossible. Donna Orange et d (1977) staks:
'...tday most psychologists and philosophers agree that
all experience - even perception - is structured, that
observation i s theory-laden, and that Husserlian
presuppositionlessh w i n g is impossible'. And similarly
Parlett notes: 'any suggestion *at the+therapist can act
more or lm as if he is an objective observer1"'mere!y" an
inte-r of what is going o n . . , b m highly suspect'.
(e author's paper Vol. 7 No.1)
I am confused by the distinction Coward draws
between 'judgements*and 'pmmqtions'. He writes as
if intersubjectivity theory azcuscs Gestalt tkqy of being
without judgement, and as if Gestalt therapists can set
aside their preconceptions, (but not thei t subjective
judgements), to 'see afresh'. Intersubjectivity theory
t>e!ievesnaitkr can be set aside. Rather they must k the
object of continual self-reflection and awareness on the
part of the therapist, and their impact on the patient must
be investigated.
Coward also uses the concept of 'bracketing' to
describe a defensive protective measure which acts to
keep potentially destructive thoughts and feelings from
the patient. I~~tersubjectivity theory very specifically
neither prescribes not proscribes sharing of values of
other self disclosures. Stolorow, in Mbrking
Int~rsubjectivelystates: intersubjectivity 'enjoins the
analyst to make specific decisions about self-disclosure
on the basis of his or her best understanding of h e likely
'On Bracketing' 131

meanings of such disclosutes for the patient and Coward's concerns ae best addressed through solid
...
on whether such interacting meanings are likely to training. A therapist practising in an intersubjective
facilitate or obstruct the...pm'.(p44) In this way, the perspective needs to have a strong sense of self and
potential for destructive self disclosure is mitigated by an boundaries, an acute appreciation for the mutual
on-going dialogic feedback loop. influencing in the field, and a well developed self-
In 7he Jntersubjecfive Perspective Stolomw -ses reflective capacity. I do think that m t therapy's tenets
some common hnd persistent misunderstandings of of I-Thou, dialogue, and field h r y amply provide the
intersubjectivity theory. The fmt is the misunderstanding safeguards Coward sees as necessary. Finally, since
based on the fear of surrendering om's personal reality. intembjx?ivity theory is not license for the thempist to
Here, 'the spectet... is of losing grip on any assumptions at push hisher subjectivity unto the patient, additional
aI1, of the dissolution of the analyst's personal reality, theoretical constructs like bracketing are not d e d to
leaving him adrift in a sea of uncertainty, pexhaps in pretctise safe h m p y .
danger of being swept into the vortex of the patient's
psychological world'. (p.206)Coward, in his fear of
'confluence' and possible 'infection' seems to fall prey to
this mishken inkpetation. Omge, M.D., Atwood, G.,and Stelorow, R. (1997)
The second misunderstanding is that which is based on Working Jnrersubjectively; ContextuaIism in
the fear of anarchy in the analytic relationship. Coward's Psychoanalytic Practice. The Analytic Press,
concern that the intersubjective brapist will not maintain Wsdale,NJ .
the necessary boundaries and professionalism to protect Sapriel, Lolita (1998) Can Gestalt Therapy, SeIf-
the patient seem to reflect this fear. Stalmw writes: Psychology & Intersubjectivity Theory be htegmted?
'&..featureof the intersubjective perspe~tiveis the view of British GestaltJ o m l Vo1,7 no1 pp33-44.
the analytic relationship in terms of interaction between Stolorow, R.,Atwood, G. and Brandchaft, B. (1994) The
subjective worlds of analyst and patient. The parity we Intersubjective Perspective. Jason Asonson Inc.,
ascribe to the worlds of patient and analyst at the level of Northwale, NJ.
abstract conceptualisation of the therapeutic dyad
k o m e s , however, misinterpreted as implying symmetry Ldita Sapriel LCSW is in private practice in Santa
in that relationship at the level of concrete clinical Monica, California. with the Santa Monica Center for
practioe...ttae autirority ordinarily m l d by h c analyst Psychotherapy m d Training. She is a trainer and past
collapses, as the patient is thought to acquire a voice equal *dent of the Gestalt Therapy lnstitute of Los Angeles.
to that of the analyst in setting the conditims of the
treatment...the ulti- excreme of this overly concrete A&ress for c o ~ n d e n c c : 429 Santa Monica Blvd.,
misinkqmation of intersubjectivity theory is the loss of Suire 200, Santa Monica, California, 90401, USA.
the very distinction between patient and analyst...what is
left to tell us which of the two is the patient?' (pp.208-
2W)
Both intersubjectivitytheory and Gestalt h q y see the
therapeutic relationship as one between equals. but nut a
symmetrical one, and the therapist remains the keepek of
the boundaries and the holder of professional expertise. The Editor always ruelcomes letters, on any Gestalt-
In Working Intersrcbjectively Stolorow addresses how relevant subject, He reserves the right to refuse or
there is nothing in the intersubjective position that shorten letters. Letrers should be sent to The Editor;
klvocates denid or obfuscation of the asymmetry of the British Gestalt J o u d The Old Chapel, Fairview Drive,
patient-analyst relationship. The meanings of this Redland, BristoS BS6 6PH or faxed to 0117-907-7539.
asymmetry are to be investigated, not covered over'. email to bgj@parlerr.demon.co.uk
(p.44)
I am aware that in questioning the usefulness of Il:e
paradigm of 'bracketing', f am targeting an important
pillar of Gestalt therapy theory. However, I do not believe
that bracketing is necessary for the practice o f self-
restraint or the prevention of confluence. On the contmq,
only good therapy, supervision and mining can do that.
Nor is intersubjectivity lheory to be equated with
destructive unbridled self-expression and openness.
 AWAKENING THE FIELD IN GESTALT
COUNSELLING

Arne1 L.Woldt
A review of DeveIoping Gestalt CounselIing: A field thmretiwl and
relational model of contemporary Gestalt counselling and
psychotherapy, by Jennifer MacKewn. Published by Sage Publications,
London,England, 1977.262 pages, Price 514.99 (paperback).

Jennifer Mackewn's newest addition to the growing a p p ~ ahd rhe p&ner w meet the otherperson or
body of books on the theory and practice of Geslalt peoph whem they am avaiEabSefor meeting (preface).
therapy is f d l y a t . I say 'finallyv because I've been The second and third objectives of the book evolve
g b k ' s from the context of goal number one, which might be
looking forward to its publication. After ~ i n the
m t h e at the 1995 Gestalt WritersWWorkshop in Boston, anticipated for someone who appears to be a natural at
I placd an adoption order for use in my graduate course intersubjective field-based therapy. Ad with other Gestalt
in Gestalt therapy. P was disappointed to find it was not therapy educators, Mackewn is often asked how our
yet available as 1 was excited about using it as a approach has changed in the past 30 to 40 years? T h i s
strpplementaq textbook. Having met Jenny, and having question is at the heart of her other aims:
dher c&authored biography of Fritz Perls (Clarksun & Secondly, I I v e attempted to meel the need fur an
Mackewn, 1993), I was eager to see her finished p d u c t wemniew of mntempornry &eg& Gestalt, .... 7hirrll~
Well, this semester it was available and I repoctedly am I m proposing a d l of counselling and them^ as
h e fmt profam to have used the k m k in a university complex p~ocesstswhich are not linear in nature but
course. iterative, recursive and spiralling [sic]. I a m also
Althorrgh tdd as an Emeritus Professor at Kent Stak suggesting that counselling and rherapy need to go
University, I continue to teach my favourite graduate beyond individwlism, beyond even intedqnmhce with
c a m for the 30th year - namely, Gestalt therapy. Last the m m l w o r 4 beyond men human intersubjectivi@
km I had a gmd mixture of 28 doctoral and master's and address issues of rhe3el.d in which we live - our
degree students - majors in counselling psychology, interdependence wish the natural world, our
clinical psychoIogy, rehabilitation counselling, reqwmibilities for fhe ecm~1.c Md cuhmI wnditIons
community mental health counselling, schml psychology, of our rims M well as our wspomibiSi~stmarSS the
school counselling and counsellor education and other species which crr-habit our earth
superuision. These students have given me permission to
incorporate their feedback and critiqne of Mackewn's manner. Her ideas are well-
book in this review. -
Mackewn approaches her writing in a systematic
and p~esentedin a
textbook fashion as though she had developed a
Mackewn SG?Swt to accomplish three major a h ,and comprehensive outline and built upon it, dthough at tims
much of my commentary d critique will be based on in a simplistic way. Overall, she does a g o d job of
these: accomplishing her goals. In appraising her presentation
Firstly, I hope to provide a view of contemporary style, my giaduate students used such phrases as: 'The
integmrahve GestoIt, which will go soate way to offset nrrd book flows well from chapter title to heading to sub-
counterbalance the oft repeated and sometimes headings; egch chapter kgins with the author telling you
reduciionhtic descripti011~ of Fritz Perls' demomtrntr'on what will be discussed, and after the dhssion, at the end
work in the 1960s. ... I especially want to convey how of the chapter, she summarizes it in a 'key points'
flexible a d adaptable Gestalt can be, allowing the section.' 'Overall I like the way the bmk is written -
practitioner to incorporate all manner of ideas and although there are parts that are a bit circular - in general
iwiights fmm other f o m of therapy and from difmnt it is a well written kxtbmk. The chapters are short, easy
fields of expertise, within the illregmtiveframe offield to follow and enjoyable to read .... vignettes of
theory. Gemlab is not. at heast, a rnattcr of developing counselling sessions to explicate the thmy o k n follow
....
nav sricb and techniques but of m ' v e b mhpting the her disc~~ssion I like this model. Using case examples
to illustrate the concepss made Gestalt therapy theory in existential philosophy and phenomenological
rxrme to life.' Another student said, 'Mackewn is off to a psycholea said: 'Although she presents material in a
g d start ... although I was expecting more in-depth most economical Fashion, making it difkuIt to &orb her
coverage of Gestalt therapy themy" it covers the '~basics" ideas in a single pass, Mackewn is to be commended for
and will serve as a good beginning resource, I ... providing key information about the phenomenological
appreciated her 'key points' at the end ofeach unit' approach - a confusing and sometimes overwrought
subject - in a compact, defined,arad descriptive way'.
Her third chapter contains a compact set of essays on
'Developing a Dialogic Relationship as a Crucible for
Mackewn leads off in Chapter I with a natlrral thrust - Self Development'. Students applauded her efforts to
amazingly uncommon in coum1ling textboob -namely, make the person to prso~dialogue 'practical and down
'Attending to Beginnings: Initial Conditions and to earth'. She does a commendable job of explaining the
Existential Meeting', in which she provides some transferential processes in therapy from a Gestalt
practical material a b u t using the initial counseIling perspective. The concepts of transference and
session(s) for meeting, clarification and two-way countertransference are often not dealt with in Gestalt
assessment. A quote worth noting is one highlighted by literature, and, although quite brief, she differentiates
several students: between proactive countertransference, reactive
OccasiodIy people who are new to Gssmlt will say countertransference and projective identification. Her
that t h q 'can'tdo Gestnlr with their clknfs' because they examples help to illuminate these concepts.
are 'toolf5urgile', 'roo rtenwus ', 'toof o n d ' or 'mfhed Chapter TV is much too short - 8 pages - to cover
in their ways: This sort of observation is based on a adequately the topic of 'Observing Process, Developing
mhmnctption which mually adesfrwn mistaking some Diagnostic Perspectives and Therapeutic Smtegies' Her .
of the metmfor the approach... For Gestalt is nor about thumbnail sketch of what to look for in clients' styles of
practitioners getting clients to do things... It is always making and moderating contact is a good beghing and
abou~prn~'tioner~f;tding out how and w h m clients am is written in a most comprehensible fashion. However, it
availabiefor meeting and exploration and t h n imagining needs considerable expansion and etaboration to do
how they can best mcuu~estthemselves to meet the person justice to these important aspects of Gestalt therapy.
m tha point (p.11). ~m f i f i chapter, entitled 4 ~ 1 0 r i nAgW ~ M S and
The section on 'Styles of Contact' (pp. 27-28) is Contact', provides a basic introduction to Gestalt ideas
painfully brief - only a sentence for each of the about reintegrating d i s o d aspects or polarities and
resistances or interruptions and nothing about the polarity exploring personal responsibility. One student
of these concepts. The conoept of contact is not presented commented, 'The language Mac kewn uses to define
sufficiently for the reader to comprehend it as one of the concepts in C h a p V is uncomplicated for a kginning
core ingredients of Gestalt therapy theory and ptactice. A student in Gestalt therapy. I appreciated her simpIe
doctoral student with considerable counselling experience manner - so different from Petls, Hefferline and
aptly said: 'I was left unsure of where this brief discourse. Goodman - where the concepts are lengthy, technically
was taking me, or how to build upon it ... not until much dficuFt and fnrstrating to red'.
later in the book could I understand what she was wing I was pleased to read the essays in Chapter VI,
to say abut contact on these two pages. In her need for 'Integrating Experimental, Creative and Transpersonal
brevity*she also provides m u ~ htoo little explication and Dimensions', as the integration of the transpersonal
explanation of her figures, charts and diagrams b the domain with other aspects of Gestalt therapy is often
text'. neglected. We are presented with a useful table that
In Chpte,r 11, which is entitled 'Exploring the Client's compares various therapeutic interventions associated
Context and Culture', Mackewn develops a fine set of with logical and linear processes with experiential and
essays to facilitate an understanding and comprehension experimental interventions associated with intuitive and
of the field theory basis of Gestalt therapy. Most creative prwesses.
noteworthy are the sections on 'Understanding How Similarly, Chapter W,'Working with Embodiment,
People Organize W r Psychological Field' and 'Wing Energy and '"Resistance"', and Chapter Vm, 'Attending
Phenomenological Methods to Describe and Investigate to the Background Features and Processes in Clients'
the Field'. Students found the mini-twhniques in the Lives', contain pertinent information for beginning
methods section, which she identified as 'bracketing therapists. I am certain that seasoned Gestalt therapists
assumptions" 'tracking and describing', and 'qualising may also appreciate d i n g these sections, especially if
and enquiring' to be of particular value. Another dwtoral they have subscribed to an historic 1960's and 70's
student with considerable life experience and background 'Perlsian', or traditional intrapsychic model of Gestalt
134
therapy. The sections on 'Attending to the Ground From
Which Figures of Contact Arise', 'Exploring and
Developing Awarwless of Support System', 'Identifying
and Unraveling Life Themes', and 'Calibrating Your
Approach for People Who have a Fragile Sem ofSelf or
are Easily Shamed', are immensely valuable for
caunseElors in training, as well as for experienced
'traditional" Gestaltists. b fact, I recently referred
someone to this particular chapter who had requested
i n f o d o n h t potential pmtical applications of field
thegr to doing Gesraft therapy on the Internet.
Finally, a word about the last chapter and the
appendices. As we know from our history, Gestalt
therapy has been viewed by many as a short-term
intensive model (based on the one-shot views available
h r n seeing Fritz's films) without much sense of Tong-
term work. Chapter IX, 'Shaping CounseEling Over
Tme', c o n h s brief but (and) valuable informalion on
formulating ways to conceptualise and shape the overall
therapeutic process in a sustained, long-term therapy
relationship, while also remaining flexible, spontaneous
d q m to the unfdding that takm place in the present
moment, Likewise, the brief commentary on 'Attending
to ?heFmal Stages and Endings5is a vaIuable mnhder of
the importance af faciIitating the assimilation of
experiences, focusing on completing pats,identifying
assmiations and pattans of endings, and helping clients
with the anticipation of voids foIIowing termination of
fiesapye
My own initial impression of the @ices was hat
ttwx didn't fit - it seemed as if they bad been 'dropped
in' or 'dumped' at the endl of the h k . Yet,although the
appendices a p p to be unhtegrated with the text, some
of them contain infmmtion that might well be included
in chapten of a future edition. Most OF my students fiad
very positive comments on the utility of the Enformalion
they contained, particularly Appendix 2, 'Integrating
Geslalt and Psychiatric Diagnosis', Appendix 3, ' F m to
Support Gestalt Diagnosis of h e s s and Psychiatric
Diagnosis", Appendix 4, 'Diagnostic Criteria for Those
with Borderline and Narcissistic Self Process', and
Appendix 7, 'Shame in the Intersubjective Field*.
Amazingly, a couple of students r e p d these as bemg
the most vhable part of ttre book!
Some Gnerrrl Commenfr
Unlike most bwks on Gestalt therapy, Mackewn's
makes a nominal to modest effort to cite relevant
empirical m x c h to s u m her contentions. However,
there are additional studies that m be used to document
the effectiveness of oertain types of Gestalt interventions
and to verify the validity of certain theoretical assertions
of Gestate therapy. For example, in Chapter VI where she
Ansel Woldt
compares Iogicalllinear vs. intuitivelnon-linear
interventions, there is available research evidence
demonstrating the e f f a s of training to enhance right
hemispheric functioning (Belzuwe, 1980); to validate
some cerebral differences k t w w Gestalt and Reality
therapists (Brand, 1989); and to provide empirical
evidence for the measurement (hgersoll, 1995) and
intqmtion of transpersonal and spiritual prmesses into
Gestalt h m p y (Prosnick, 1W73.Although I am mfening
here to, as yet, unpublished dissertations, citing such
research would not only help to verify her (as well as
other 'Gestaltist's') claims as more than
c l i n i c a V ~ o n a scum
1 or theorizing, but may also
provide additional e m p i r i d data that certain boatds are
seelking in various countries to 'prove' the effectiveness of
the Gestalt approach.
Finally, something I have never had reason to note
befm in a book review is criticism of a h k ' s physical
consmction - a major source of complaints from my
students. Unfortunately the binding of the paperback
edit ion is poorly constructed and Sage Publications
should I x made aware of this problem as over half of my
students noted pints dong the lines of: 'The's one vwy
slinks!' "
bad thing about this quite gmd textbook - the binding1
have d d y fallen out of my h k and I
don't even have it paid for on my VISA bill'. 'Three
ctraprers fell out ofmy b k kfore I had fmished reading
it', 'The pages are coming loose all too readily, even for a
soft cover book'... 'whoever "Sage" is, they need to use
lxtk glue. f hadn't even finished d i n g it yet and my
book fell apart'. Fortunately, I received a hardbound
complementary instructor3 copy from Sage Publications
a d i t is holding u p h t fm!
In closing let me say that Jennifer Mackewn has
conscientiously created a worthwhile addition to our
p w h g body of Gestalt therapy literamre. She is to be
commended on having made a g o d job of p m t i n g a
valuable overview of contempomy Gestalt therapy by
sticking with the complex intersubjective approach based
on phen~menologicatfield theory, and by providing a
gmd beginning teKtbk that addresses Gestalt therapy as
a process d e 2 that is 'iterative, recursive and spiralling
in nature'. I admire you, Jennifer, for striking out to
accomplish hIhme worthy g d s and getting as far as
you have in achieving them. WfiiIe I have found some
things tacking, and areas that can well afford to be
bolstered, I admire you for y w r contribution, and I will
continue to use it as a supplemental text in my classes,
and to mornmend it to my colleagues.
Belnmce, (1980) Efects of Glossohlic Tmining on
Right Brain Functions. Unpublished doctoral
Review: Gestalt Counselling 135

dissertation, Kent State University. of the Spiritual WelEness Znvencory, Unpublished

Brand, C. S. (1 989) A Comparative Analysis of Gestalt dmtoral dissertation, Kent State Universiky.
a d Reality Therapists regarding Brain Hernirphen'c h m i c k , K.(1 996).Find C o w t and Beyond in Gcsidt
Aqmwtry and Sex Role Identification. Unpublished Therapy Theory and Transpersonal Research: A
d m t d dissertation, Kent State University. Factor Analytic Sf& of Egotism and TransPucnce.
Chn,P.&Mackewn,J.(1993$Fii~Perl~.London, UnpubIisheddoctoraldissertation,KentState
England :Sage PubliGations. University.
Ingersoll, It. E. f 1995) C m l c t r ' o n and Initzbl Validation

A m l L. Woldt Ed.D* is Professor Emeritus at Kent State University and

in private practice in Kent, Ohio. He is a graduate of the Gestalt Institute of
Cleveland. During his 30 years as a professor of counseling, Ansel cmted
the Gestalt Therapy Archives at Kent State University and directed over 40
dissertations researching variws aspects of Gestalt therapy. He has been a
holder of ofice within the Asstxiation for the Advancement of Gestalt
Therapy (AAGT) since its inception. He is an Associate Editor of the
Gestalt Ileview.

Admss for mmspo&nce: 5 11 Bery I Drivq Kent, Ohio, USA 44240

I-. -
BrrtnOllMJwnw
Vd.7. M.P. 11W lm
OPINION
SEX IN THF,RAPY
Joel Latner
Sex. A delidm topic. Sex in therapy? Never h d of
i t Oh,yes, rherr! is sex tallc, talk about sex. Sex thetapy,
even (but k t ' s only a mechanic's delight). Not much
talk, but a W e talk. But no sexy talk. No talk which is
action--much less action itself. Although we express
ourselves in M p y in many other ways. We get mad,
we cry, we laugh together. It may not be legal in some
p h , but we even touch.
No surprise, eh?- It's a professional activity,
psychotherapy. But consider: we are not mere
psychoeherapists; we are Gestalt therapists. We have a
different approach, pioneered by expatriates from the
birthplace of modem psychologid thought, a man and a
woman, and a few other brilliant men. We honour them
the 'founding' group for their contributions, for their
lives' work.
They were pioneers, ground breakers, icon
...
smashers in the world of words. In the world of
psychologid philosophy. W e are their c h i I h . @oes
this mean we are their progeny? Yes,it does. We am
their issue. We come fkom their joining.)
The fact is, t h y put sex into Gestalt therapy. At least
they tried. What would they say about sex? Sex in
therapy, T mean. Do we, issue of their joint activities
(their mtaphysical copulation),care?
I call to them now ...I am listening to their ghostly
..
voices.. I don't hear rhem say anydung about it, about
sex in therapy. (Of course, Monsieut; they are dead.)
What did they say, though? Nothing. They wrote
nothing--and they said nothing, either--about sex and
~VY-
Ah, but we have a saying, ' d o n s speak I& &an
words! W e have another saying: 'do what I say, not what
I do.' And a third: 'Silence sneans ass en^' Is h r e swne
'doing" we listen to? M a p s their acts can speak to
us a b u t sex and therapy. What did the founders do?
OECTProgenitor~
We have (to remind the rider) hzx major founders to
listen.to, as heir actions 'speak'to us: Fritz Perls. Lam
Peds Paul M m a n . Our p m g d m s .
Let us look first at the notorious faunding father. He is
undoubtedly the chief founder, le pdre fondte, the
f w n t a i n h d . Wrthout him t h m would be no Gestalt
therapy. This is only true about him It is not true about
hPerls, who had not the ambition, the mpmment,
or the vision. It is not me abwt Pad Goodman,either.
He thwght he was an artist. Gestalt therapy was a paying
gig, but not his heart's desire. Therapy paid his way while
he wrote. It was W e r than what he'd done before to
support himself a d his family*waking (to save permies)
to bookstms a11 over Manhattan, asking if they would
sell copies of his poems which he himself had printed.
When he could live on the revenue from his bob,with
the r n m of G m h g Up Absutd in the early sixties, he
was n Gestalt thetapist no more.
What is Fria Perls best Sonown fw, today? Is there any
question? Sex. He is the dirq old man of GestaFt therapy,
isn't he? The disreputable om, bounding from one bath
at Esalen to another, kissing a11 the girls (and even,
occasionaIIy, the boys.) Approaching his students, his
h i n e s with his licentious propasals. He says he was
too old for the full seven course banquet - he m l d only
eat the appetisers. But Still, a teacher and a therapist
abusing his professional position - mt d m . A bounder
and a cad,in the rightews English phrase,
Is this disapproval a uniquely American attitude? Who
would deny we are pmdcs and religious fanatics? But
Americans are diverse, Even then, in the immediate post-
war em, it was true. Fritz was arguably an American.
(And Laura, by the same argument. Goodman was,
certainly. Rudes? None of them.) W h y else, though,
would Fritz PerIs - this brilliant innovator, stodent of
Goldstein, of Reich, of Homey, synthesiser and original
thinker, seminal figure even in the writing of Gesinlt
Therapy (written from his manuscript, under his
supecvision, for a fee paid by him) - be shunted into the
role of the bIack sheep of Gestalt t k q y by the Gestalt
orthodoxy, even in these conservative t i m ?
What a relief it has ken for us to get rid of the d i i old
man. He's been such an embarrassment. Can't we,
instead, honour his wife, Laura, who stayed at home to
tend their children; and their colleague, the prodigal son
as well, Paul Goodman. It's such a b u t i f u l story! But
no. We cannot do this - at least,not in this case. We
cannot cast FriB Perls aside for his virtuous, abandoned
wife and their brilliant young man, h l Goodmrm. They
lay in the same bed in which we find the old guy.
Godman's sex activities are widely known, not least
because he made a p i n t of telling how he mid for
boys in bars and working class hangouts, on handball
courts and campuses. (More power to the brave and have to work but the structure of therapy for ourselves, as
sometimes foolhardy iconoclast.) He didn't say he everything else - a perpetual improvisation. I am certain,
proposed sex to his patients, as far as I know, but he however, that it would be very interesting, vastly
would have said so, if he had been asked. He believed in informative and greatly constructive if we were, even
telling the truth, like it or not, and his friends have left from time to tim, to reconsider our safe conventions in
their seports. Sex in therapy:yes, or no? Yes,certainly. the light of these activities (uniform; all three!) by our
Like Fritz Perls, Paul Goodman thought it was fo~rading~amil~.' ~ a y theyb were trying to teach us
therapeutic to mix sex into therapy. It was honest, it was something, something about the possibiEities of the
direct, it was vital and alive. No joke. For Fritz Ms, it therapeutic alliance. There is, you h o w , a long span
was probably rime a m aw of 'I do my tfiing and you do between the intimations of sex in therapy through the
yours,' Iessons in separation, personal responsibility carefbl and gentle experiments in affection before you
('response-ability') and, as Goodman, honouring arrive at coupling on the therapeutic couch. Perhaps there
fundamend feelings. are places betwen those beginnings and that ending
Laura Perls? Well, she didn't have the flamboyance of where we could permit the encounters, episodes,
these men she loved, but she was a free woman, make no experiments, meetings which await us in therapy and
mistake, with many of the same ideas as these principled which, like dl emerging figures, are meant to be our
Tree spirits. destiny, the shape of therapeutic work, the direction of
Oh, well. ... Oh, my. Our blighted ancestors?. Our growth.
blighted history? Our blighted work? (Our blighted
pmfession? Jung; F d ? ) Part the Second. Fallitlg in khve
In this befouled situation, it can't do any harm to
consider the obvious. Why is it that we, (religious zealots That's +h end of Part the F Iof this comedic pastiche,
that we are), sanctify and promote the theory and practice this recitation on sex in therapy. It's a capriccio, a
which is the legacy of these Ihree, and at the same time fantasia, a divertimento, a Punch and Judy show.... Part
ignore entirely the constructive possibilities of these - can the Second is different. It's more a romance,or perhaps a
we say it? - innovative experiments in the m t u r e and rondo, 'Smiles of a Midsummer's Night."e subject is
premises of the therapeutic hour? Do we believe so more daring than 'le a!': sex - and love - in therapy: le
completely in tIte smcturzs of propriety which came to rml et I'amour. After ali, who else would you fall in love
characterise psychoanalysis and psychotherapy as it came with, besides your therapist? And, by exactly the same
under the hegemony of the medical men? Is this yet m i n g , who else would y m fall in love with, except
another example of the loss of our revolutionary fervour your patient? We are mch other's most likely candidate.
in the years of our own (and Gestalt therapy's) middle Here i s what I see with my eyes: every week, each of
age? I think we can at least entertain the possibility that us spends our time involved with each of our patients.
these events are part of what these three and others We leam to know them - we must, to work well with
attempted and often achieved: at the very least, 'a revision them. We u d l y leam to like them - as a rule, we must,
of psychoanaIysis,'but really much m,r e l y : a new, to work well with them. We are devoted to the work we
natural approach to our thinking, feeling, acting and do with them - we must, to do thmpy well. If things go
growth, based in what is deepest in us and in the pulse of well, they mst us with what is most important, and often,
lik. with what is most intimat. With gome of our patients,
Perhaps this suggestion i s not quite as scandalous as it over time, we k x m m more a d more deeply twched by
might, at first blush, seem. I think it is not. I wouldn't them - by their suffering, by their naive moments of
even be surprisd t3 find that here are some therapists revelation and illumination,by their trust in us. We must:
who - inspired perhaps by our seminal trio, or more we are human.
likely by their own patients or muses - experiment i n It has long been a mth of therapy that rhe patient will
psychotherapy with is difficult and profound subject, fall in love with the therapist. I have had patients tell me
sex, though they zm probably keeping it well hidden. that they knew this, that they came to therapy e x w n g
All right, let's get it over with: do I suggest you Fuck this! A woman once told me she had k e n disappointed
your patients??? Do I think you should make love to in the course of her work with me,because she had not
them, even? Not really; not as a rule. I myself couldn't (yet!} fallen in love with me.
manage it: love-making I can do; patients 1 can do - but It is also tm, I notice, that the thm are changing. In
not both. the mainstream of rherapeutic work, all this occurs less
Worse,Tt wwld be another rule, anohex bad rule. and less, and is expecid less and less. Why? Now we
I think that we need fewer rules for doing therapy, not have a short march: the march of the socioIogy and
more of thean. This is the Gestaltist attitude. Then we economics of psychotherapy: the course of therapy is
now a matter of public kmwledge and entertainment,and these stand ready to enter our offices, invited there as the
the contemporary ethos and economics effecting doors open and close with the weekly entrances and exits
psychotherapy are in the direction of short t a m , problem of our patients, as we h m e more and more involved
oriented tmhmnt, I see this, at least, in my county. All with our patients and they with us. Eventually, and with
of this tends in the apposite ddizsction from these special g o d fortune, this climate becomes the atmosphere of
currents which psychotherapy makes possible, therapy: trust and regard and courage and all the test
phenomena which appear only through the invmation of come crowding inside our offices. It has become
in-dwelling. (Does this mean that contemporary impossible to keep them out. And so, eventually, and
psychotherapists suffer fmm a failurn of couxage?j Of inevitably, sex also walks in.
cwrse, this is both a mgedy, and a relief: the course of Don't be so shocked. How atten do we consider the
events, the press of the modern and post-modern has harm which is done by not tmching?
allowed us to escape from this delicious quagmire. This has been part the first and part the second of a
While the culture of psychotherapy has traditionally modest, (and only rhetorical) exploration of sex; sex and
included the prospect that the patient will fall in love with therapy. Sex in therapy. Qr, (sex) in therapy. What can
the therapist, I have never had a patient tell me, 'I expect we conclude ftom these pmgraphs, From the images and
y w to fall in love with me.' X am sure some have felt this feelings they evoke. the thoughts they stimulate? Why
bur none I know would have admitted it to themselves, conclude anything? They ask nothing in return, except za
much Iess said it to me, Alas, I have k n left to discower be read. Perhaps they give you pleanue, or enliven you;
it myself. well and good. Perhaps today, or tomorrow, or some
she story of my love for my @mts is a tong, beautiful time, your own responses wilt ask something of you.
and painful one, the theory and practice of falling in love Perhaps they do now. Maybe,they will be spurs to new
in k q y , as a kind of therapy. It is a story for another thoughts or acts. Or, not. Maybe they will k c o m only
time. For now, right now, today, the musicians who play memories. Or m aps they will be forgotten aItogek,
for us ask you only to look at sex and love in thetapy, passed over, or suppmsed. It wouldn't be che first time.
their existence and their conjunction. This point creeps
..
up on us.. But, as Freud was preeninen t in pointing out
to us - remember when his was the path of the pariah for
his insistence on this?!? - where love is, sex is not far 1.Accepted for publication in Cahiers de Gestalt
behind. Thempie, 1938, for the them issue 'Le f i l * ,
It must be so, by the Iogic which governs t- We
are involved with our patients. We e them Frequently, 2.llose familiar with the history of psychothempy know
regularly. To work well with them, we must learn to zhat many of its other founders - Jung is a noted and
know thetn, and so we do. We must learn to like them, e x d i n g l y interesting instance - experimented in this
and so we do. We must put our hearts into the work we fashion.
do - our courageous hearts, our devoted hearts, our
compassionateand m f i l hearts -and so we do. They,
in their m,are a J f d y disposed from the start towards Joel htner is a Gestalt therapist in New York and a
us. They seek us o u they ~ want to step inside what they frequent visitor to mining programmes elsewhere. He
feas, with us. And so, if we are faithful to this process, we mined with Fritz and Lauca Perls, Isadore E m Erving
receive in return some of the most important of the Polster, William S. Warner and the Cleveland Institute,
tmwm they a n y with hem. It is a moving process, His essays about Gestalt thernpy have appeared in many
isn? tit, full of sentiment, full of mutuality, joy and graoe? books and articles, and his book, rite Gestnlr 7krapy
It h the seedbed of love. And ('Play it again, Sam'). as Bo& has been pubtished in four languages and is stiH in
Fmd was preeminentin pointing out.. .. print, 25 years after its ftrst publidon. He is now the
Respect, affection, re@, ammderie, love; falling in Back Pages editor of Gestalt Review.
Iove, even. Some. of us would say that we wish and strive
to create a climate for therapy which is the atmosphere to Address for correspondence: One Durham Way,
which we aspire for our patients' lives (and our own)- Pittsford, New York, USA 14534 2309. E-mail:
one which is filled with honesty, mutuality, vitality and lamerJ@aoI.com
curiosity, risk and bnvery, a k i d of friendship, ebbing
and flowing tides of m t h , surge of spontaneity. (All
this, as well as the other ever-present elements of this life
we find ourselves living: treachev, danger, mystery,
death, temptation, disease, misunderstanding.. ..) All of