Gestaltalt therapy and love

By Marina Berg 2006

The holistic field perspective of gestalt therapy lays the ground for peoples love to themselves
and others.
This essay is an abridgement of my article about gestalt therapy and love – a part of a
larger whole (Berg, 2006), with some adjustments. 1
I have no intention of describing love and gestalt therapy in a broader sense.
I will examine the phenomena of attitude, the state of ”not knowing” and authentic
relation, and how this can bring people in contact with love.

Love and gestalt therapy.

Paracelsus thought that the doctor’s task first and foremost is to practice love.
“Where there is no love, there is no art.” (Clarkson, 1995, p. 23).
We are required to act constantly in the arena of love, yet renounce all personal
gratification; we work in one of the most potent cauldrons of intimacy, yet we are
prohibited to drink from it;…(ibid., p. 25)
In the literature of psychoteraphy empathy or “empathic warmth” is more
commonly mentioned than love (Clarkson, 1995). Traditionally empathy can be
understood as follows: “…the therapist`s imagination of how it is to perceive and
experience the world in the way the client does (Staemmler, 2007, p.47) He criticizes
this one-sidedness, disembodiment and individualistic attitude towards empathy
and argues in favor of a new understanding of the term empathy, partly based on
mutuality and joint situation (ibid.). 2
I have chosen to focus on love, since the concept of love is more comprehensive
than empathy, and at the same time it may include the meaning of empathy. 3
Love is basically “a complex feeling of devotion, consideration and participation”
(Egidius, 2003, p. 254) that arises in relation to something or someone.
And that has a direction, both towards therapist and client, that is, the relation
between them, and towards relations in a wider context.
1 : Some adjustments of the content of this essay: a) gestalt therapy and spiritual love is left out b) I agree with Staemmler’s
criticism of the traditional understanding of empathy. In Berg (2006) I added the concept of love to emphasize what is
particularly important to me in gestalt therapy, and which is absent in the traditional understanding of the concept of empathy.
I agree with Staemmler’s criticism and will accordingly leave out the part that discussed the difference between the concepts of
empathy and love in the context of gestalt therapy, and my own criticism of the concept of empathy. c) The focus on our
society’s tendency to think in individual terms and in terms of cause and effect is reduced to a minimum. Two of the cases are
left out. I’m including excerpts of three cases from the article “To awaken the heart” in couples therapy. Gestalt therapy and love – som
experiences (Berg, 2002)
2: See Staemmler’s suggestion of a new definition of empathy 2006, p 60
3: When I speak of empathy, it also includes love.

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 Like empathy love is “based on mutuality…that transcends individualism…to a
certain extent….; the whole is more than, and different from, the sum of it`s parts”
(Staemmler 2007, p.56).
Both psychotherapy and love is concerned with the well-being of the other person.
Another shared aspect is the subject of choice.
Man has the ability (May, 1993) to experience love, both towards ourselves and the
world around us. And both Buber (1990; 1992), Fromm (2000), May (1993) and Yalom
(1998) are concerned with love as an attitude.
For me love and love in psychotherapy is not a feeling, an ability or an attitude that
can be obtained once and for all, and there is no given road to get there. Love is like
growth, always in a balanced relation to something or someone, it’s an ongoing and
mutual process of creation, where two becomes one and yet continues to be two. The
experience of love in psychotherapy can give both therapist and client - and the
relation between them – a feeling of being intimately connected to something or
someone else, to the whole world and everything alive – and thereby intimately
connected to oneself and at the same time to something larger than oneself.

Attitude – love and gestalt therapy.

Gestalt therapy represents a counterweight to our society’s individual focus and
it’s linear, cause and effect thinking, where the goal is defined beforehand, and the
road to get there is straightforward and predictable. Focusing on the individual
human being emphasizes the opportunities of the individual instead of the
opportunities of an equal relationship, where the members (the parts) are mutually
related to each other. Most of my clients in gestalt therapy are influenced by this sort
of attitude towards love and psychotherapy.
“The concept of field generates a different way of thinking, opens up a whole
outlook or perspective of linking self with other, where we can recognise that
people`s lives cannot be separated off and treated in isolation, because their lives
overlap and affect one another`s perpetual interdependence (Parlett, 2000, p. 18).

The state of not knowing

Professionalism in our society is rarely associated with the state of not knowing.
There is at tendency in our society to produce many and often premature answers. C
Man has the ability (May, 1993) to experience love, both towards ourselves and the
world around us. And both Buber (1990; 1992), Fromm (2000), May (1993) and Yalom
(1998) are concerned with love as an attitude.
Clients of gestalt therapy might provide many answers and explanations to
their problems, but it doesn’t seem to solve their problems.

Case 1: Nina; From It’s the world that is wrong to I wonder what I’m doing in
relation to others.
She attended therapy once or twice a year for a period of five years, always having
problems with the man she was dating at the time. She talked and talked and came to

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some conclusions. She didn’t seem to notice my numerous attempts to contact her.
She disappeared after 1-3 appointments, and then she called me again a few months
later, tearful.
N: “It has happened again, another man has betrayed me. It’s always the
same. What’s wrong with today’s men? They’re unable to devote themselves! I’m
having a crisis, can we make an appointment?
After five years we had a talk over the phone that represented the beginning of a
different relationship:
N: Hi, it’s Nina. There’s no crisis, but I’d still like to make an appointment
with you. During these years I’ve woken up in the middle of the night thinking of
you or some earlier boyfriend, and I’ve remembered things you’ve said. I’ve realized
that my connection to you has been no different than to my dentist…and that I’ve
related to all these men in the same way… I’ve started to wonder what I’m really
doing, and I realize it’s a whole lot I don’t know about myself or how other people
experience me…help… Would you be willing to explore this together with me?
Would you?
An I – It attitude (Buber, 1992) characterized the way Nina and I related to each other
during the first five years. And both of us held back quite a bit. When relating to a
You, on the other hand, one gets fully involved, and no reservation is possible
(Yalom, 1998).
M: (I’m smiling) Yes, I’d very much like that.
“To surrender to what is, seems more difficult than surrendering to what they wish it
to be” (Berg, 2002, p. 82). To be in a state of not knowing, to be with someone in what
Perls (1992) calls the fertile void is to be in the void from which all the phenomena
arises. Increased awareness of what is, awareness continuum, might bring about
change (Yontef, 1993).

Case 2: Romeo and Juliet; From accusations and demands to cooperation and an
experience of ‘us’?
Romeo: You just sat there, silently, and got more and more grumpy. Don’t you
understand how important it is to me that they had a nice evening? This is a
potentially big client. Don’t you care if my business is going down?
Juliet: I’d been shopping, cleaning the house, cooking and even bought myself
a new dress. You came home, tired. And the only thing you noticed, was that my
stockings were ripped. You asked me to get the hell out of my stockings and put on
some new. You think that was nice?!
They became aware that both of them tried to justify their own experience by
attacking the other one, and implicitly expecting the other one to change, to make it
better for themselves. It became a joint context, in which they began to cooperate.
To be in a state of not knowing is not a passive attitude, it is an active position
directed towards the still unexplored, towards something new unfolding between us.

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Authentic relation
According to Buber (1990) the realization of myself as a human being takes
place in relation to another person, not in an “I – It” relation or in isolation.

Case 3: Romeo and Juliet; From fixed roles to who are you?
Juliet: Yes, you tell him first… I don’t know, what do you think?`
Romeo: Yes, I’m thinking that…you ought to…
R and J recognize this way of communicating and agrees to an experiment where
they change roles.
Juliet: (walks on the floor and pounds her chest) I know everything, has the
answer to any question, I’m mister Know-it-all. You soon have to pull yourself
together.
Romeo: (walks with a slumped body and lowered head) I really don’t know, I
don’t know anything, what do you think? I’m miss Don’t know, I think, or what do
you think?
J and R falls to the floor, laughing. They simultaneously say that this was fun! After a
while they sit down and some kind of gravity seems to have emerged between them.
In turn they share their own experience, and they ask their partner follow-up
questions.
The absence of fixed roles sets Romeo and Juliet free; “free” in the meaning of “what
they have been, they are now, and what they shall become, they do now” (Berg 2002,
p.) “It requires…that each of them turns towards the other as a person, just the way
he or she is” (Buber, 1990, p. 67). To open up, with your body, your feelings, your
thoughts and all your senses, and meet the other person and what is unknown to
you, with curiosity and openness, and to set aside what you experience knowing, for
many clients is associated with fear of losing control of their life.

I think that the clients must be wanting gestalt therapy and the other person, as
in a relationship of love, where you have to be wanting your partner. By wanting in
this context I mean wanting the other person as the other, not as any other boyfriend
or girlfriend or any gestalt therapist, but this particular person.

Case 5: Juliet; From turning to someone else to come into being together with
someone
Juliet was discontent with her 40 year long marriage. In the beginning I used to be
tired during our therapy sessions, and from time to time I found myself thinking of
other things. I tried in many ways to tell her this, but Juliet kept talking about. Until I
told her straightforward. She then wondered if I didn’t care about her. After some
time she realized that I actually did care about her and us. Scaling a therapeutic
intervention (Zinker) also is about scaling up. This was the first time she responded
both physically, emotionally and mentally when I shared my awareness with her.
Two months had passed, and here are three excerpts from a period of almost two
years:
Juliet: Now I know that you care, that you want the best for me… At night,
when I can’t sleep, I don’t go to Romeo, I go into this room, I’ve spent many nights
here, being surrounded by this atmosphere…

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 Juliet: It feels strange, but lately I’ve felt like being moved by Romeo. I was
kind of excited yesterday, when we were going out to eat just the two of us. I called
your answering machine just to listen to your voice. It gave me the courage to see
him, instead of my thoughts about him……I had some warm feelings towards him,
hmm…we sat there, the two of us… This is scary… It’s like I see him for the first
time…etc.
Juliet: I’m in the latest stage of my life, and I can feel love, first together with
you, and now towards myself and my husband. It’s tough, I feel vulnerable, and at
the same time it feels incredibly good “inside” of me. I feel like a young girl on my
first date with my husband.
The paradox of human spirit is that I am not fully myself till I am recognized in
my uniqueness by another – and that other person needs my recognition in order
to fully become the unique person she or he is. We are inextricably interwined.
Our valuing of another brings value to ourself. We are part of a loop of reciprocal
relations. (Polster, i Hycner & Jacobs, 1995, s. ix)
Williams (2006) refers to Wilber: ”In the deepest within, the most infinite
beyond” (ibid.,p. 11). According to Martin Buber (1992) an interpersonal encounter is
necessary to get a sense of who I am, what I’m meant to be and what I am to
actualize. Man might have thoughts of what to become, but only in relation to
another person one comes into being. Zinker (1978) refers to Virginia Satir, who
describes therapy as “people-making”.
“Who are You?” is something we never stop wondering about (Buber, 1990),
neither in psychotherapy nor in a relationship of love. But according to Buber (1992)
we cannot live in an I-You relationship all the time: “It will consume us…Man cannot
live without It. But he who only lives with It, is not a human being” (ibid., p. 34)
The I-It attitude is not wrong, or evil: Rather, it is its overwhelming
predominance in the moderen world that is problematic, even tragic. It is
problematic when predominant; when this objectifying attitude is out of balance with
a dialogic approach to one`s existence, and to others. (Hycne & Jacobs, 1995, p.9))

Conclusion
One of Gestalt therapy’s contributions is to further contact with love within
each person and between people, and it represents a counterweight to the tendency
in our society to focus on individuality and linear thinking. Gestalt therapy might
stimulate growth and new experiences within each person and between people. “All
living is meeting”. (Buber quoted by Hycner, 1993, s.3) Gestalt therapy provides the
possibility for people to meet the You (Buber 1992) and themselves “afresh”. It
requires that both therapist and client is able to and want to meet the other person and
be touched by her.

Litteratur
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Buber, M.(1990). Det mellanmänskliga. Oversatt av Pehr Sallstrøm. Lundvika: Dualis Forlag.
Buber, M. (1992). Jeg og Du. Oversatt av Hedvig Wergeland. Oslo: Cappelen.

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