Gestalt Therapy: The Basics [1 ed.] 1032321156, 9781032321158

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“In 50 years of reading gestalt therapy literature, I’ve never encountered an author who accomplishes what Mann does. This book stands out for its clear and comprehensive exploration of the fundamental principles of gestalt therapy, allowing curious readers to delve deeper into the implications. Mann not only articulates these ‘Basics’ with precision but also provides vivid clinical examples, making it a valuable resource for both beginners and those seeking a profound understanding of how these principles are applied in therapy. A truly remarkable achievement.” Rich Hycner Ph.D., author of Between Person and Person: Toward A Dialogical Psychotherapy “Although covering ‘The Basics’, this book is an important resource for both beginners and seasoned practitioners. Mann manages to convey the fullness and richness of gestalt theory whilst offering the detail of key maps and concepts in a well referenced and meticulous way. This is certainly a book to be dipped into and re-read over and over again.” Dr Marie-Anne Chidiac, author, Relational Organisational Gestalt and co-founder Relational Change “In writing The Basics, Dave Mann is like a high quality builder. Here are reliable theoretical foundations, contemporary materials, with sound therapeutic craftsmanship on display throughout. Each gestalt therapy writer has to find their own synthesis of history, clinical experience, philosophy, and practical examples. This book is a creative achievement from a seasoned writer and confident explainer. I recommend this engaging read for beginners and familiars alike, a skilful summary full of wisdom and energy.” Malcolm Parlett Ph.D., international gestalt coach and Whole Intelligence researcher “Pull up a chair! Reading Dave Mann’s book is like chatting with him while sitting around a warm fireplace. His easy, conversational style and his creative use of accessible, everyday examples allow the reader access to concepts and terms that might seem daunting at first. One comes away loving gestalt therapy, eager to learn and practice. What more can one ask?” Lynne Jacobs, Ph.D., co-founder, Pacific Gestalt Institute

GESTALT THERAPY

Gestalt Therapy: The Basics provides an accessible and concise overview of the approach and its substantial theory. Experiential exercises, clinical vignettes and examples from everyday practice are included to enrich understanding of gestalt’s theory and its clinical application. This book explores: the history of gestalt therapy, gestalt maps, philosophical beliefs, creative experimentation and ethical considerations. Useful chapter summaries are featured throughout to aid comprehension. This book is essential reading for gestalt trainees, as well as counsellors and psychotherapists wanting to learn more about the gestalt approach. Dave Mann, M.Sc., is a UKCP registered gestalt psychotherapist who delivers training and supervision across the United Kingdom and abroad. He is author of two editions of Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques and several chapters on aspects of gestalt.

The Basics Series

The Basics is a highly successful series of accessible guidebooks which provide an overview of the fundamental principles of a subject area in a jargonfree and undaunting format. Intended for students approaching a subject for the first time, the books both introduce the essentials of a subject and provide an ideal springboard for further study. With over 50 titles spanning subjects from artificial intelligence (AI) to women’s studies, The Basics are an ideal starting point for students seeking to understand a subject area. Each text comes with recommendations for further study and gradually introduces the complexities and nuances within a subject. RELIGIONS AND SPORTS Terry D. Shoemaker CRITICAL THEORY Martin Shuster SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIES Kath Browne, Mary Gilmartin, Dhiren Borisa and Niharika Banerjea JAPAN (SECOND EDITION) Christopher P. Hood PHILOSOPHY OF TIME Graeme A. Forbes GESTALT THERAPY Dave Mann For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/ The-Basics/book-series/B

GESTALT THERAPY THE BASICS

Dave Mann

Designed cover image: KjellBrynildsen © Getty Images First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Dave Mann The right of Dave Mann to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-1-032-32115-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-32113-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-31288-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003312888 Typeset in Bembo by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

To Mum and Dad, for providing the ground upon which I stand today.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

xii

Introduction

1

Gestalt Therapy: The Background Shapes the Foreground

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1

1.1 What Is Gestalt?  3 1.2 Gestalt Psychology’s Laws of Perception  6 1.3 The Birth of Gestalt Therapy  13 1.4 Gestalt Therapy’s Development  16 1.5 Summary 21 2

Gestalt Maps 2.1 Awareness and Contact  23 2.2 The Contact Boundary  28 2.3 The Gestalt Cycle of Experience  30 2.4 The Here and Now  34 2.5 Self and Selfing  36 2.6 Polarities 39 2.7 The Paradoxical Theory of Change  42 2.8 The Zeigarnik Effect – Unfinished Business  44 2.9 The Five Explorations  46 2.10 Summary  48

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CONTENTS

3

Moderations to Contact

50

3.1 Moderating Contact  50 3.2 Types of Moderations to Contact  52 3.3 Summary 65 4 The Situation: Field Theory

66

4.1 Field Theory – The Situation  66 4.2 The Embodied Field  71 4.3 Developmental Theory in Gestalt  74 4.4 Shame and Guilt as Functions of the Field  80 4.5 The Cultural Field  84 4.6 Summary 87 5

Experiencing the World: Phenomenology in Gestalt Therapy 88 5.1 Phenomenology as a Philosophy  88 5.2 Phenomenology in Gestalt Therapy  93 5.3 Intersubjectivity and Co-creation  98 5.4 Phenomenology and the Body  101 5.5 Holism 107 5.6 Summary 111

6 Dialogue: Emerging Through Relationship

112

6.1 Dialogue in Gestalt Therapy  112 6.2 I-Thou and I-It Relating  115 6.3 Characteristics of a Dialogic Relationship  119 6.4 The Between  128 6.5 Summary 133 7

Creative Experimentation 7.1 Gestalt Experimentation and Challenge  134 7.2 Two Chairs and the Empty Chair  138 7.3 Experimental Methods  142

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7.4 Dreamwork 148 7.5 Remain Mindful and Come to Your Senses  151 7.6 Summary 153 References 154 Index 167

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I was fortunate to arrive in the world in a supportive and loving family, my mother and father were consistently present throughout my upbringing supporting me through the trauma and confusion of recovering from major surgery over many years of my childhood. I still stand on the solid relational ground that they provided for me and my brothers today. The greatest support in my life is my wife Karin whose consistent love, care and authenticity is the background that supports the foreground of my work as a therapist, supervisor, trainer and writer. She also acts as my first editor and proof reader and has reeled in my tendency to use ten words when seven or less will do. My grandchildren, Ru, Otto and Asa over the years have re-taught me the value of play that has helped me across my professional life. I am fortunate to have many professional supports, too many to adequately acknowledge here. My friends, colleagues and fellow gestalt therapists Sally Denham-Vaughan and Malcolm Parlett are two stand out influences and valued supports. My peer supervision partner of many years, Brenda Luckock, and significant consultative supervisors over my career include Ken Evans, Peter Philippson and Rich’ Hycner all of whom have played a part in my professional development. A far from comprehensive list of other trainers and colleagues who have helped shape my thinking through introjection, agreement and disagreement over the years in chronological order include: Ian Greenway, Des Kennedy, Richard Erskine, Petruska Clarkson, Judith Hemming, Lynne Jacobs, Lynda Osborne, Phil Joyce, Gary Yontef,

Acknowledgements

Frank Staemmler, Maggie Ridgewell, Gordon Wheeler, Friedman Schulz, Donna Orange, Jan Roubal and Anne Pettit. Thanks are also extended to the editorial team at Routledge for their patience and support, particularly as submission of my manuscript was delayed due my undergoing surgery. I would also like to thank Miguel Fernandes-Arias for providing material for me to adapt, Carmen Galea and Beth Newton for providing useful examples and Jay Gort for his help in creating the figures. A welcome by-product of working in the field of psychotherapy is that as long as I remain open, I learn from my contact with many clients, supervisees and trainees. Some of those lessons have not been easy, some joyful, all ultimately welcome. To the vast majority it has been a privilege to know them and be part of their journey, I continue to be staggered by the creativity of human beings.

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INTRODUCTION

Whilst I was delighted to be asked to write Gestalt Therapy: The Basics I approached the task with a smattering of trepidation. So many simplistic ideas about gestalt therapy and its methodology have abounded over the years and I felt wary of inadvertently reinforcing such notions by being too basic. That concern was outweighed by my desire to play a part in making gestalt therapy’s rich interwoven tapestry of integrated theories and ideas that support the clinical application of the approach more accessible, hopefully to a wider audience. In gestalt therapy we believe that the background shapes the foreground so to be consistent with gestalt philosophy I have designed this book by first outlining the background from which gestalt therapy emerged that shapes the foreground of how gestalt therapy is practiced today. Experiential learning is central in gestalt therapy, so again to be consistent with the methodology of gestalt I will invite the reader to participate in experiential exercises at various points as this often leads to a deeper embodied learning than simply discussing theory and practice. You don’t have to complete these experiments but if you choose not to I invite you to consider your resistance. I think of my work with clients as a journey and am thinking along similar lines with you, the reader. In my relationships with clients the road is not always smooth, we can stall, things sometimes get bumpy, confusing. Notice your reaction should such moments arise for you and what meaning you might attribute to your response. I have intentionally referenced this introductory book heavily, from the gestalt psychologists to the founding text Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in Human Personality (Perls, Hefferline & DOI: 10.4324/9781003312888-1

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Goodman, 1951), through generations of gestalt therapists to contemporary gestalt practitioners. This is to help direct readers whose interest has been pricked towards further study. In the interests of gender equality where I have referred to clinical work I have moved between referring to the client and therapist as ‘they,’ ‘she’ and ‘he.’ Any terms that readers may be unfamiliar with will be explained as they are introduced in the text. Gestalt therapy is a creative synthesis that stands upon the foundations of three interrelated disciplines – phenomenology, field theory and dialogue. Through the lenses of these disciplines we will explore the ways in which gestalt therapy integrates gestalt psychology, experimentation, existentialism, holism, bodywork alongside Zen Buddhism and Taoism. In gestalt therapy we do not seek an outcome. We do not try to ameliorate anxiety or lift depression. We do not aim to solve the client’s problems or improve their situation. No therapist can know the other’s situation better than they do. What we do is explore how a person reaches out to their world and how they make sense of their situation with a single aim – to heighten awareness. We believe that heightened awareness increases contact with ‘what is’ in the present, broadens choice and inevitably leads to change. Our task as gestalt therapists in relation with the person before us is to create the conditions for such growth by providing as much support as necessary and as little as possible (Perls, 1978). Gestalt therapy is, ‘…an adventure in living’ (PHG, 1951: 15).

1 GESTALT THERAPY The Background Shapes the Foreground

Gestalt therapy did not suddenly appear overnight; but arose from a rich background. This section contains an explanation of what gestalt therapy is with an introductory overview of the philosophies that underpin it – phenomenology, field theory and dialogue – that will be discussed in more detail in later chapters. We then proceed chronologically from the gestalt psychologists work around perception that was integrated into gestalt therapy, to the birth of gestalt therapy through its adolescence to where it stands today. In doing so, we will look at the many influences that have contributed to the creative synthesis known as gestalt therapy, including the journeys of its co-founders Laura, Fritz Perls and Paul Goodman, before a brief sketch of the development of the approach over the years.

1.1  WHAT IS GESTALT? In the English speaking world the word ‘gestalt’ offers few clues about a therapy that has been with us since the early 1950s with one of its primary roots, gestalt psychology, dating back to the turn of last century. This German noun has no direct English translation, the closest single terms being ‘form,’ ‘pattern,’ ‘shape’ whilst a more accurate translation might be ‘a whole configuration that is more than the sum of its parts’ as ‘gestalt’ relates to overall appearance and totality. Let’s see if we can make practical sense of these last two definitions. Look around you or out of your window and focus on something, it DOI: 10.4324/9781003312888-2

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could be an item of furniture, a TV, car or tree. You will perceive this thing as a whole rather than its constituent parts. If you’re looking at a car you don’t break it down into its parts – the wheels, tyres, chassis, windscreen, etc., but experience the complete object. How we perceive this car will be shaped by many background f­actors including our experience of cars, our cultural background, our need in that moment, the circumstances or situation we stand in, our familiarity or otherwise with cars. These factors and many others will shape, pattern and form the way in which we complete the whole, in this example the car, and our emotional, cognitive and behavioural response to it. If the perceiver has recently been involved in a car accident she is likely to have a very different experience of the car than if she is a car mechanic or needs transport to get home. In this process of perceiving, we gestalt our experience in the present in relation to our past experience and any future need or imagining to make meaning of the whole, a meaning making process that in health will change over time. If you have read any gestalt literature you will often find that gestalt is capitalised, just as other German nouns would be. However, ‘gestalt’ is far from a new addition to the English language. As a therapy it has been with us since the founders published Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in Human Personality (Perls, Hefferline & Goodman, 1951, hereafter referred to as PHG), and one of its roots, gestalt psychology, predates that by virtually 50 years. Gestalt is not a new modality but one of many accepted approaches and ‘is as English a word as frankfurter or sauerkraut’ (Bloom, SpagnuoloLobb & Staemmler, 2008: 7), therefore throughout this book it will appear in lower case just as any other counselling or psychotherapy would (except when quoting others who capitalise). In answering the question ‘What is gestalt therapy?’ one is likely to generate more questions than answers as the approach stands upon the ground of three interrelated philosophies all of which merit further clarification and discussion. Below I give a brief outline of these three philosophies that in gestalt therapy are referred to as ‘the three pillars of gestalt’ (Yontef, 1999: 11). They are: •

Field Theory or Situation – The person’s experience is considered in relation to their entire situation, where they are situated in their world. A dominant need will organise the situation. No one is an island, the person and their situation (of which the therapist is a part) are inseparable.

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• •

Phenomenology – Concerned with the way the world appears to the person experiencing the world with a focus on description opposed to interpretation. It is the study of subjective experience. Dialogue – This relates to a meeting in all our humanness that may include verbal contact but also goes beyond verbal communication and dialogue with humans. We are always in dialogue with our world, with people and things.

All three of these philosophies need to be practiced by the therapist to practice gestalt therapy, if not then gestalt therapy is not being practiced. I will discuss each of these philosophies, that are the foundations upon which gestalt therapy stands, in more detail later in the book but for now let me try and make sense of how these philosophies interrelate in the here and now in relation to my current experience. I am sitting typing this introductory chapter in a coffee bar and facing me is a mirror mounted higher than I am sitting that is reflecting part of what is behind me. My phenomenological experience is to be curious around the edges of this mirror, what it does not reveal. I have a bodily felt sense of wanting to stand up to enable me to see more of what is not visible to me. Beneath it there is a man intently looking at his phone, again I am curious about what he appears to be writing but I also have a vague sense of guilt about writing about him without him knowing. He glances up at me briefly and my sense flips to one of mild embarrassment.

When I reflect on this on-going dialogue with my world as these moments pass, I can make sense of my curiosity as I have long been curious about human relating and the edges of experience since first entering the world of psychology over 40 years ago and probably well before that! My immediate experience is also strongly influenced by my current activity, writing this introductory chapter. My guilt is likely influenced by my Catholic upbringing and social and cultural norms become prominent when the man I am observing makes direct eye contact. My phenomenal field of my past shapes my current experience, just as it does for everyone else in this coffee bar. If I allow my imagination to wander, the artist to my left is staring at two empty coffee cups and plates whilst contemplating them as a possible still life piece. The elderly gentleman in the corner struggles to enjoy a passed its best Danish pastry with a sadness as he reflects back on his life and the loss he has experienced. Our individual phenomenological fields are different as we sit in this shared space. In gestalt we do not define people as isolated entities, ‘only in terms of their interaction in the field’ (Jacobs, 1992: 32).

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Amongst the uninitiated gestalt therapy is probably associated more with experimentation than the above three underpinning, interrelated philosophies. Experimentation is to gestalt therapy what free association is to analysis, part of its methodology, and was a radical departure from two of its founder’s analytical backgrounds where neither patient or analyst would venture from the couch. Again, I will discuss experimentation in more detail later but probably the best-known gestalt experiment is with the empty chair or two chairs. In essence, it involves the therapist facilitating the client in placing a person from their past or present life (or it could be a quality, aspect of themselves, organisation, Allah or God) and dialoguing with who or what they place on the chair. Unfortunately, as gestalt therapy’s popularity grew in the 1960s and 1970s many poorly trained (or untrained) therapists simply churned out this technique as a form of behaviour modification. This led to the wildly inaccurate and minimising view outside gestalt circles that gestalt therapy was about the empty chair or chairs experiment (Roubal, 2019), a view that still lingers today. It is not. The gestalt therapist holds an experimental attitude with any experiment emerging from the dialogue between therapist and client in relation to the client’s phenomenal field of experience, in simple terms what they experience in the present moment and how their past affects that experience. The number of possible experiments is only restricted by the limits of creativity between client and therapist and the field in which they are situated and may not include chairs!

1.2 GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY’S LAWS OF PERCEPTION It may seem strange to begin an introductory book on gestalt therapy with an account of a related discipline, but gestalt therapy is an integration of several different philosophies and the gestalt psychologists thinking and research on perception forms a hugely significant part of gestalt therapy’s background with some key concepts being integrated into gestalt therapy. Whether we are observing an item of furniture, listening to violins in an orchestral piece or looking at how history shaped a psychotherapy the background always shapes the foreground. The original gestalt psychologists hailed from Germany and Austria and researched common patterns of perception, initially focussing on visual perceptual organisation before moving on to research other

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modes of experiencing. The founders of this early 20th-century movement – Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka – developed a set of ‘laws of perception.’ One of these ‘laws,’ that could be considered the mother of all the other laws of perception, is known as the law of Pragnanz. Pragnanz is German for ‘pregnant’ and in this sense is meant as being pregnant with meaning; we humans are meaning making beings. In making meaning the law of Pragnanz states that we will shape our experience into as simple a pattern or form, ‘… with as much cleanness and definiteness – directedness and economy, stability and strength, as the global conditions allow’ (Yontef, 1993: 246), we organise our field in the best way possible in the given situation. The Law of Pragnanz formed the ground upon which all the other perceptual laws developed by the gestalt psychologists stood. These laws include: closure, continuity, similarity, proximity, symmetry, common fate and figure and ground. I will discuss figure and ground separately but offer descriptions and diagrammatic examples of the other six laws below. •

•

•

• • •

The Law of Closure – We close spaces to complete a regular figure. In Figure 1.1, we naturally close the spaces to create a circle and a square. The spaces can be quite far apart as in Figure 1.2 where I assume you see a football rather than six separate shapes. The Law of Continuity – Our need for closure and completion comes into play again in Figure 1.3 as we literally join the dots to complete two lines. You’ll notice that these laws are not separate as there is overlap between the law of continuity and the law of closure. The Law of Similarity – Similar patterns are grouped together. Visually this may be a grouping of images due to colour, form or shape. In Figure 1.4, we group the black dots together in horizontal lines. The Law of Proximity – In the given example in Figure 1.5, we group the dots that are closer together perceiving two columns rather than lines with spaces. The Law of Symmetry – In Figure 1.6, we perceive the symmetry of the brackets as belonging together. Our need for balance tends to override the rule of proximity. The Law of Common Fate – When we observe a series of elements moving together in a certain direction they are perceived as connected. Flashing Christmas illuminations that form an image of a reindeer are one example. Another might be the crowd at a football match that we may see as one.

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Figure 1.1 

Figure 1.2 

Figure 1.3 

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Figure 1.4 

Figure 1.5 

Figure 1.6 

Of course with any of the above laws (also referred to as principles) if we make a conscious effort to pattern separately, asymmetrically or unfinished we can do so but we naturally gravitate towards order, continuity and completion. If we listen to a melody we hear the whole first rather than perceiving separate notes, just as we close the incomplete circle above first, only then may we perceptually divide it up into separate notes or lines (Wertheimer, 1938). The given images are all visual but the principles of needing to complete and/or shape in the best form possible with order and simplicity apply across a whole range of experiencing. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Listen to a piece of music and suddenly stop the melody mid-phrase. Notice any impulse that may arise to complete the melody.

Similar to the above exercise consider your experience when you read the following, ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on.’

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Knowledge of gestalt psychology can help us understand how we perceive our world. In day-to-day life understanding what and how we perceive can be applied practically, for example in developing road signs with simple and clear communications. The laws of perception can often be seen at play in the advertising industry also with designers, artists and publicists of all kinds employing these principles to convey their messages. 1.2.1  Figure and Ground Gestalt therapy imported the concept of figure and ground from gestalt psychology and it should be eternally grateful, the study of the relationship between figure and ground has furnished gestalt therapy with a conceptual framework. There are numerous diagrammatic representations of figure and ground but by far the most well-known and well-used is the two faces/vase illusion created and named after its creator Edgar Rubin in the early 20th century. Not surprisingly Rubin’s vase generated great interest amongst the gestalt psychologists who went on to develop similar examples. In Figure 1.7, one can perceive a vase or two faces but we are unable to perceive a vase and two faces simultaneously though we are likely to move between the two rapidly. When one image is background the other is foreground. Figure and ground is often eloquently discussed in cognitive, neuroscientific terms (Fineman, 1996; Hoffman, 2000; Hassan et  al., 2001 and others) but although we align ourselves with many of these views in gestalt therapy we apply the concept more broadly. The figure is your immediate experience in the here and now that surfaces from the ground of your experience in this moment and may change in the next moment.

Figure 1.7 

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This figural experience could be a sensation, emotion, cognition, behaviour or any reaction but will always be in relation to the background from which it emerged, just as Rubin’s vase emerges from the faces or the faces emerge from the vase. Gestalt therapists pay attention to the relationship between what is figural for the person (what stands out), and the ground from which that figure emerged, the movement between the two and sharpness of the figure, being attentive to the process of figure formation. The emerging figure will be shaped by the person’s need at the time and their situation. For instance, I have just paused for thought and am with my ideas for the next sentence, in this moment this is my figure; I reach for my hot drink for comfort and momentarily the warmth of the cup becomes figural with my ideas sinking into the ground. I take a sip from the cup and the warm sensation of coffee is foreground before my fingers return to the keyboard with the plastic feel of the keys fleetingly becoming figure before I type out my thoughts – what was ground has returned to being figural. However, it is not only my drink that was ground for unlike Rubin’s vase the world is multidimensional. Our ground is everything in our past from what happened a moment ago back to our birth and beyond, it includes our upbringing, embodied cultural beliefs and field, inherited privilege or otherwise, where we are situated in the world, race, ancestry and more. These areas form an undifferentiated background from which figures emerge in response to needs, desires or interest at the time. When the persons interest changes their field is reconfigured. In healthy functioning this process of figure formation is fluid and responsive to the changing situation. It is important to note that in gestalt therapy we do not see this process as happening within the person but between person and their situation, take a few moments to chew this over for it may be difficult to grasp from a Western cultural viewpoint. Perhaps Figure 1.8 may help. In the illustration the image of the old woman and the young woman alternate between being figure and ground. You are likely to see one first and if you are unfamiliar with the image may struggle to see the other. Notice the point that the other image emerges. It seems to come off the page, as we make sense of the image it meets us in the space between us and the image. Although we reach out to the world bodily with our senses the world also reaches towards us. Step back for a moment and consider what figures have emerged for you whist you have been reading this section of text. Notice the way in which you shift between what is figural for you and your ground. Note the rate of movement between your figures and ground and compare this with other areas of your life.

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Figure 1.8 

Although it is important to explore each individuals experience in relation to their situation particular dynamics in the flow between figure and ground characterise certain conditions. In severe depression the figure, ‘strains to emerge from a ground which is devoid of energy … not even the vaguest hint of a figure peeks through’ (Roubal, Francesetti & Gecele, 2017: 8) whereas in acute anxiety states, ‘figure formation is rapid and poorly differentiated from the ground …’ (Mann, 2021: 18) as would be the case with a mood disorder such as hypomania. Post-traumatic stress disorder would likely present with dominant and invasive figures suddenly emerging in the form of flashbacks and fear from a traumatised aspect of the person’s ground. Conversely, in healthy functioning well defined figures of interest emerge fluidly from the ground before falling back into the persons ground a process that provides the opportunity for change. At a simple level this can be re-evaluating a food you once disliked rather than staying with a fixed view – not many children like cabbage! A more profound change could be the challenge of a fixed belief such as all men/women can’t be trusted that may have been constructed in childhood to keep the person safe in a toxic environment but in adulthood is now outdated. As figures emerge from the ground of our experience of our phenomenal world, change takes place in the persons ground as new figures fall into that ground and are assimilated to rise and form new figures. In the person that struggles to trust women an experience with a caring, reliable women in therapy will fall into their ground and create the possibility of movement. The therapist may also work to heighten the persons awareness of any supportive

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females she has encountered in her wider field, whilst appreciating the client’s need for wariness around some women and how this creative adjustment has served the client in the past. Unfortunately there have been times in gestalt therapy’s past where the focus has been placed solely on what is figural without paying attention to the ongoing structure of the person’s situation, the ground from which the presenting figure emerged (Wheeler, 1991). Such ‘figure therapy’ is non-relational and deprives the client accessing the many resources that already exist in their ground but are likely out of awareness. Ground needs to be carefully tended to provide the right conditions for growth – a daffodil does not grow at ten thousand feet!

1.3  THE BIRTH OF GESTALT THERAPY As we have seen the background shapes the figure and the background story of the birth of gestalt therapy is as colourful as the lives and journeys of its three founders. Frederick Perls (known as Fritz) is sometimes named as the sole founder of gestalt therapy but his wife Laura Perls part in the development of this radical departure from their psychoanalytic backgrounds cannot be underestimated. Likewise, neither can the co-author and critical thinker of the founding text, Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality PHG, 1951), Paul Goodman be neglected when we look at gestalt therapy’s conception. The story of gestalt therapy’s formation began with Laura and Fritz Perls in Frankfurt, Germany – a zeitgeist of creative thinkers, artists, philosophers and psychologists. The influences that were integrated into shaping the creative synthesis known as gestalt therapy followed the journeys of its founders. Having completed his medical Doctorate Fritz assisted Kurt Goldstein, a renowned figure in the field of holistic psychology, in his work with brain damaged soldiers. It was through this work that he met Laura who was a student of Goldstein’s. She studied with numerous distinguished psychologists and philosophers including the existential philosopher Martin Heidegger, the gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer and the existential theologians Paul Tillich and Martin Buber. Whilst Fritz’s views on bodywork had been shaped by his training analyst Wilhelm Reich, whose work centred around body armour, Laura’s philosophy for bodywork formed from her study and experience of contemporary dance (Wysong & Rosenfeld,

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1989). Though Fritz and Laura had both studied psychoanalysis the dogmatism of the approach never rested easily with either of them. Laura’s doctoral studies researched the feeding and weaning of infants that formed the foundation for Fritz’s first paper written for a psychoanalytic conference in 1936 entitled ‘Oral resistances.’ Expecting it to be seen as an advancement of psychoanalytic theory it was generally received badly, but appears to be a marker for the couple’s departure from classical psychoanalytic theory, the development of their theory on introjection (see Part Three) and ultimately along with Paul Goodman, the creation of gestalt therapy. As the Third Reich rose to power in Germany Fritz and Laura fled Frankfurt for The Netherlands before moving on to South Africa where they met Jan Smuts, the South African Prime Minster, who in his writing on holism considered the organism to be self-regulating and containing its past as much as its future in the present (Smuts, 1987). Fritz Perls is often credited with being first to bringing work in the here and now into the field of psychotherapy that up until the late 1940s had concentrated solely on the archaic. However, it was his contact with the analyst Otto Rank who stressed the importance of re-experiencing and establishing new meaning in the present that played a major part in shaping this aspect of gestalt therapy, being further supported by the analyst, Karen Horney. Horney also advocated a more environmentally focussed approach to psychotherapy that married at least to some degree to the social psychologist Kurt Lewin, who had undertook work with the gestalt psychologists before developing his ideas on field theory that were integrated into gestalt and still have great relevance today. Laura and Fritz worked as analysts whilst in South Africa having initially been ‘sent’ over to form a psychoanalytic foundation by the president of the international psychoanalytic association (Wysong & Rosenfeld, 1989), but eight years later they had to give up due to pressures arising as a result of World War II. Laura continued to develop her work with the body and abandoned the couch in favour of facing her patients and experimented with them lying on the floor, exploring their co-ordination and alignment. Whilst Fritz and Laura continued to identify themselves as analysts and Fritz remained tied to the couch at this time, both he and Laura’s thinking and practice were on a trajectory further and further away from classic psychoanalysis a journey that appears to have begun with their enthusiasm for the work of the gestalt psychologists that provided them with the organising principle for gestalt therapy (Yontef, 1993).

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At the end of World War II the couple moved to New York. Fritz moving in 1946 to be followed by Laura a year later, the year that saw the first statement against psychoanalysis being published under F.S. Perls authorship. The book Ego, Hunger and Aggression was poignantly subtitled a Revision of Freud’s Theory and Method. Although Laura was not credited with the work it is widely considered that she had considerable input given that many of the influences that shaped her clinical thinking and practice run through the text. It was in New York that the couple met and collaborated with Paul Goodman in the writing of the seminal text PHG (1951). The book is divided into two ‘books’ with the original first ‘book’ (the order of the books was changed in some later editions) containing numerous experiential exercises and the second being much more theoretical. Goodman received a rough draft of the book from Fritz and contributed most of the theory, a huge contribution to forming the ground upon which gestalt therapy stands today that is often overlooked (Davidove, 1985) along with Laura’s uncredited input. Ralph Hefferline, a professor at Columbia University was also recruited; his contribution generally understood to centre on his student’s participation and reports on exercises in the first ‘book’ (Mann, 2021). The New York Institute was formed in 1952 with shades of the zeitgeist from Laura and Fritz’s early days in Frankfurt who along with Paul Goodman were now referring to themselves as gestalt therapists rather than analysts. They were joined by others who were to become instrumental in developing gestalt therapy theory including amongst others Isadore From, Elliot Shapiro and Richard Kitzler. In the words of The New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, Fritz’s enthusiasm sparked the fire whilst for many years Laura’s forceful patience sustained it. Paul Goodman provided the ground for theoretical rigour. This radical new therapy quickly began to generate interest further afield and other Gestalt Institutes were formed, the first being The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland who, with input from the New York Institute, developed an intensive training programme delivered by renowned gestalt trainers and writers such as Joseph Zinker, Erving and Miriam Polster, Elaine Kepner, Sonia and Edwin Nevis. Word continued to spread about this new modality and its popularity grew, but as it grew Fritz began to get itchy feet. He was letting go of working with people individually in favour of working with groups and running a circuit of trainings but remained unfulfilled. He found his home some 4,000 miles away on the West coast at

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the Esalen Institute, California where his particular version of gestalt therapy afforded him celebrity status. It is unfortunate that some of his work at Esalen led to misunderstandings, misconceptions and simplistic ideas about the approach that was largely painted as atheoretical. Laura, Paul Goodman and Elliott Shapiro were all later to criticise Fritz for, in Goodman’s words, ‘taking gestalt down the wrong road’ leading to it becoming ‘anti-intellectual’ (Wysong & Rosenfeld, 1989). The sensational nature of some of the techniques used by Fritz were simply copied by some of his students with little, if any, theoretical underpinning. The counter-cultural movement of the mid-sixties provided fertile ground for an explosion in the popularity of gestalt in the United States, at the centre of which was Esalen and Fritz. Meanwhile, back on the East coast in New York, Laura, Goodman and Fritz’s old contemporaries continued to practice a less sensational, more grounded version of gestalt therapy in line with the original theory and practice discussed in the original text (PHG, 1951). Future generations of gestalt therapists were to take the approach further both clinically and theoretically. A version of Section 1.3 appears in the introduction of my chapter in The Handbook of Individual Therapy – Sixth Edition, Mann (2014) and Mann (2021).

1.4  GESTALT THERAPY’S DEVELOPMENT One can only speculate where Fritz and Laura Perls, together with Paul Goodman and their contemporaries, would have taken gestalt therapy theory and practice had they still been alive today. Inevitably it was left to later generations of gestalt practitioners to stand on the shoulders of these giants to develop gestalt therapy further. Here I can offer you the briefest glance of an overview of gestalt therapy’s development that will be elaborated on as far as space will allow later, although the interested reader may wish to study my references for a more comprehensive picture. In Ego, Hunger and Aggression (1947) Perls alluded to field theory but did not develop these ideas. PHG (1951) developed the notion of field and situation further, particularly Paul Goodman, but fell short of a full articulation of this aspect of gestalt theory although the ground was laid for future development as they moved away from the dominant Western cultural view from an individualistic paradigm where the person is primary, towards a field view where ‘… the energy comes from both parts of the field, i.e. both the

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organism and the environment’ (PHG, 1951: 182). Although Fritz Perls had deserted a field perspective with his highly individualistic work at the Esalen Institute, in his later years he showed signs of returning to a situational view of the person saying that behaviour was always a function of the total situation and that to be able to work effectively the therapist needed an awareness of the total situation (Perls, 1973). Later generations of gestalt therapists including, amongst others, Yontef (1993), Latner (1983), Parlett (1991, 2000, 1993), Wheeler (2000), Robine (2001) and more recently Wollants (2012), Robine (Ed.) (2016), Francesetti and Griffero (Eds.) (2019), developed more comprehensive and well-articulated gestalt views of field theory. At this point we need to bear in mind that as we live in a phenomenal field, a situation that is forever changing. field theory cannot be separated from phenomenology – our perception of the world – and we are in constant dialogue with our world. Parlett (1991) outlined five principles of field theory: organisation, contemporaneity, singularity, changing process and possible relevance – work that he has since gone on to develop further (Parlett, 2005, 2015) and will be discussed later. This was part of a wider process of enabling the principles of field theory (a situational view) application in the clinical setting. Schulz (2013) named four of the principles of field theory that contemporary writers articulated, I offer my own take on these below: 1. Holism – The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, therefore studying parts of a system, person or phenomenon will not reveal the whole picture. In the words of Latner, ‘The foundation of the first principle of Gestalt therapy is holism’ (1986: 6). 2. The here and now – Whether we are looking to the future or thinking about the past we are doing so in the present moment. The here and now may be all that exists but, in the words of the phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty, ‘… the present is not shut up in itself, but transcends towards a future and a past’ (1962: 421). 3. Phenomena being determined by the whole situation – Clients entering therapy often want to know why they are experiencing what they are experiencing. From a field perspective this is virtually impossible to answer due to the multiple layers of constantly changing relational dynamics in their whole situation, a situation that includes the therapist and the relational dynamics of their situation.

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4. Field self-organisation – This relates to gestalt psychology’s law of Pragnanz in that we organise ourselves in the best possible way as the prevailing situation allows. A child in an abusive or neglected situation may creatively adjust to that situation by escaping into a fantasy world. As indicated above gestalt therapy’s development has not been linear, it can’t be as meaningful development in a discipline requires sound knowledge of the ground that it stands upon, as the second generation gestalt therapist Isador From said, ‘Beethoven was a brilliant composer and he knew his Mozart well.’ Parlett (1993) brought the work of Lewin to the forefront of gestalt therapy and field theory. Robine (2011) highlighted that Paul Goodman distinguished between an organism being ‘in the field’ and ‘of the field’ – we do not live in an environment but by means of an environment. Latner (1983) drew on Einstein and Faraday, ‘space is not empty’ (ibid: 75) in applying physics’ views on space and energy to the psychological field. These are but a handful of examples that have been built on, argued against or developed further by subsequent theorists (Wheeler, 2000; Philippson, 2001; Staemmler, 2006, 2009; Wollants, 2012, 2016; Francesetti, 2015 and many others). As I write I am experiencing difficulty in separating out aspects of gestalt therapy theory and am feeling uncomfortable in crediting specific authors with developing specific areas of gestalt therapy. I can make perfect sense of my reaction because gestalt therapy is an integrated therapy and what I am doing here is a false separation, the referenced authors will be discussing field theory, phenomenology, dialogue, self, experimentation and all aspects of gestalt therapy within its integrated framework that stands upon the three pillars. Just as in architecture, take away a supporting pillar and the whole construction will collapse. Having emphasised this I will move on with my false separation! The work on articulating the integration of dialogue into gestalt that began in PHG (1951), and was believed to be heavily influenced by Laura Perls contact with the theologian and philosopher Martin Buber, was developed further by Hycner (1993, 1999), Hycner and Jacobs (1995), who translated and unpicked Buber’s work clearly discussing dialogue and I-Thou/I-It relating in particular his classic text I and Thou (Buber, 1958). Many have contributed significantly to understanding dialogue and the dialogical in gestalt therapy, Wheeler (1991), Yontef (1993, 2009, 2008), Staemmler (2009, 2012), Bloom (2010, 2014) to name a few.

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As stated phenomenology in gestalt therapy cannot be separated from the other two pillars of gestalt – dialogue and field theory. Therefore for all of the aforementioned theorists phenomenology will inevitably be woven into the fabric of their work as this broad philosophy explores how we construct meaning and experience. Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) is generally considered to be the founder of phenomenology in gestalt therapy, he developed a process where he believed we could suspend or transcend our natural experience of the world to be touched by it afresh – his phenomenology was known as transcendental phenomenology. Another renowned phenomenologist of particular relevance to gestalt therapy is Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) who initially worked as Husserl’s assistant and developed existential phenomenology, whereas Husserl’s phenomenology was the science of pure consciousness (Husserl, 1931), Heidegger’s phenomenology is a phenomenology of being. Of no lesser significance is Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) who majored on bringing the body to the forefront of phenomenology, ‘The world is not what I think, but what I live through’ (MerleauPonty, 1962: 16), he considered inside and outside to be inseparable, a view that married well with Goodman’s view in PHG (1951) that we are of the field. The title of the phenomenologist Ernesto Spinelli’s book, The Interpreted World (2005) explains what we attempt to move beyond in phenomenology. In the clinical setting the therapist’s reality is no more objective, valid or ‘right’ than the clients and one’s experience of the other shapes the other, ‘I touch the world and the world touches me in a dialectic of co-creation [that] changes me and transforms the world’ (Kennedy, 2003: 78). The breadth of experiments available to the gestalt therapist are only limited by the creativity between therapist and client, that includes their respective fields. Within the gestalt therapist’s field are those who have contributed theoretical ideas and sought to develop gestalt experimentation beyond the empty chair. Early significant post-Perlsian contributors include Polster and Polster (1973), Zinker (1977) and Feder and Ronall (1980). Houston (1982, 1995) produced two short books with sample experiential exercises. A gestalt experiment is designed to challenge the way a client organises themselves in a given situation through what is termed a safe emergency (PHG, 1951: 65) affording them the opportunity to try out different ways of being. Many recent authors have expressed their views on experimentation including Philippson (2001), Yontef and Schulz (2016), Roubal (2019) and Skotten and Kruger (2022).

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In discussing a therapy that sees the person’s body, mind and phenomenal field as inseparable it seems ridiculous and contradictory to be identifying ‘body therapists’ or ‘body work’ in gestalt therapy’s developmental story – so I won’t! Rather, I’ll identify some of the therapists that have contributed considerably to developing body process as an integrated whole firmly supported by the three pillars of gestalt therapy. Kepner (1999, 2008) explains how we creatively adjust to our environment bodily whilst Frank (2001, 2023) and Frank and La Barre (2011) offer a body oriented developmental perspective on child development that will manifest in later life. This ‘body’ of knowledge is built upon by Clemmens (2020) who covers a range of embodied work by a cross-section of authors. The clinical application of gestalt therapy in the field of psychopathology and in relation to specific presentations have been eloquently and comprehensively discussed by Francesetti, Gecele and Roubal (2013), Francesetti and Griffero (2019) (editors) whilst Taylor (2014) focussed on the broad area of trauma with reference to neuroscience. Elinor Greenberg has written about personality adaptions focussing on Narcissism, Borderline and Schizoid adaptions and beginning her book, the culmination of many years of writing on the subject, with ‘Nobody is a Borderline. Nobody is a Narcissist. Nobody is a Schizoid’ (2016: 3) summing up the unique and fluid way any map or diagnosis is viewed in gestalt. 1.4.1  Gestalt Therapy’s Growth in Britain and Beyond Back in the early 1950s there were a mere handful of people practicing gestalt therapy. Today there are hundreds of training institutes around the world producing thousands of well-trained therapists. It was around the time of Fritz Perls death in 1970 that gestalt therapy began to grow in Britain. In those early days there were no formal guidelines for training delivery, consequently trainers delivered their favoured version of gestalt therapy that varied from integrated versions in line with the original theory to eclectic mixes that might draw ad hoc from aspects of other approaches. Shades of what has been referred to as the ‘East coast/West coast split’ (more accurately the different practices of gestalt therapy at Institutes such as New York and Cleveland compared with Fritz’s version at Esalen) that had manifested years earlier in the United States presented in Britain with some trainings being attracted to the drama of cathartic experimentation. Gradually things began to change as gestalt

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training became more formalised. The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) formed in 1993 and trainings began to align their syllabuses with the requirements for registration. The pendulum swung further as gestalt therapy training organisations formed partnerships with universities and subsequently offered qualifications up to and including doctorate level. Numerous research projects undertaken on trainings and supported by gestalt research publications (Brownell, Meara & Polak, 2008; Fogarty et al., 2016; Roubal (Ed.), 2016; Brownell (Ed.), 2019) has added substance to the value and efficacy of the approach. In most of the Western world gestalt therapy has moved from its anarchic past to sit, albeit somewhat uncomfortably, within formalised educational systems. I imagine that Laura Perls, Paul Goodman and Fritz Perls would smile at some areas of its development and cringe at others. There are definitely gains in its move towards the respectability of the centre ground of the therapy world, a considerable one being that it is now more widely accepted as a psychotherapy. However, there is a cost to such respectability. Gestalt therapy was born breaking the mould of conventional psychotherapy at the time, it rose from the ravages of a world war, was daring and edgy, its birth, ‘owes more to the ovens of Auschwitz than it does the armchairs of Oxford’ (Kennedy, 1998: 89). Perhaps a danger is that gestalt softens to fit the armchairs of Oxford.

1.5 SUMMARY • • •

• • •

Gestalt therapy has roots in the early 20th century with the work of the gestalt psychologists thinking about perception. ‘Gestalt’ is a German word its closest translation being, ‘a whole configuration that is more than the sum of its parts.’ It refers to perceiving things in their entirety rather than as separate elements. The three pillars of gestalt therapy are: Field Theory (considering a person’s experience in relation to their entire situation), Phenomenology (studying subjective experience without interpretation) and Dialogue (meeting with the world and others in all our humanness, including but also beyond words). All three philosophies must be practiced by a therapist to practice gestalt therapy. Experimentation is central to gestalt therapy. Gestalt psychology’s laws of perception show how we make meaning.

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• •

• • •

Figure and Ground is a way of understanding the relationship between immediate experience and broader context. Gestalt therapy was founded by Frederick ‘Fritz’ Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman. The seminal text Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (1951) being a collaborative effort. The New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, formed in 1952, was the first gestalt institute and played a pivotal role in the therapy’s evolution, it is still active today. The person’s body, mind and phenomenal field as inseparable. Gestalt therapy continued to evolve through generations and continues to evolve.

2 GESTALT MAPS

If we set out on a journey to somewhere unfamiliar we need something to help direct us, some form of map. The therapist and client set off on a journey when they sit together. The therapist, and consequently the relationship, can benefit from the direction offered by a theoretical map. Over the next nine sections I will cover a range of therapeutic maps used in gestalt therapy. However, anyone who has followed a Sat Nav blindly down a cul-de-sac will know that the map is not the territory. Consider the following maps and theories but they may not fit for every client, even the best maps and theories need to be held lightly.

2.1  AWARENESS AND CONTACT The phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty (1962/2014) poetically described awareness as the cradle of things and gestalt therapy holds the ‘cradle of awareness’ central to its philosophy. Many theorists consider awareness to be gestalt therapy’s only goal (Yontef & Jacobs, 2010). We increase our awareness through our contact with the world via our five senses, proprioception and the ways in which we hold our bodies in any given situation, it is a whole body event that is marked by excitement – hence, the sub-title of the founding text ‘Excitement and Growth in Human Personality’ (PHG, 1951). One of the many experiential awareness exercises that appear in PHG is a four phase process with the first three points laying the ground for DOI: 10.4324/9781003312888-3

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the experiment, I offer an abridged variation that can be completed alone but is best done with a partner. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE 1. Maintain a sense that your awareness exists here and now in the present. 2. Realise that you are living this experience, actioning it, resisting it, observing it. 3. Attend to all experiences, ‘internal,’ ‘external,’ abstract, concrete, those that move back in time and those that orient towards the future, any ‘oughts’ or ‘shoulds,’ any that you deliberately produce and those that arise spontaneously. 4. With regard to every experience verbalise ‘Now I am aware that …’ and continue to complete this sentence, I suggest for ten minutes.

The task is simply to notice ways of avoiding and minimising awareness and contact just as a gestalt therapist would in the therapy room, such exercises are not designed to make one aware of something rather to heighten awareness of how one may avoid being aware. Pace is important as the quality of contact is reduced if the exercise is rushed, likewise one can reduce contact bodily through shallow breathing or holding bodily tension. The gestalt therapist may simply notice and say what they see in the client whilst paying attention to their own bodily reactions. Such a simple exercise as noticing what one is aware of in each passing moment can reveal favoured areas of perception and in what areas there may be blocks. Fritz Perls (1992) described three areas that he called zones of awareness, his recommendation was to allow a flow through the three zones. We need to remain mindful that though I describe the zones separately these three zones are interconnected and mutually dependent (Joyce & Sills, 2018). 1. Inner Zone – Concerned with what we might consider internal phenomena such as muscular tension or relaxation, breathing, heartbeat and bodily sensations. 2. Outer Zone – Concerned with our perception and awareness of our world through our five senses. It is how we make contact with our outer world. 3. Middle Zone – This is a movement away from sensory experience and what is happening ‘here and now’ towards cognitive

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processes. This would include interpretations, memories, fantasies, thoughts about the future and past. The middle zone acts as mediator between the inner and outer zones of awareness. In another classic gestalt experiential exercise (that you may also wish to try) similar to the first, the client is asked to describe what she or he notices in the here and now alternating between their internal world (inner zone) and their environment (outer zone), for example: now I feel shivery … now I can smell the flowers in the room … now I feel a tightening in my chest … now I see you looking at me … and so on. The idea behind this exercise is based on the awareness continuum, it moves people away from a ‘why’ orientation and towards a ‘what’ and ‘how’ perspective (Levitsky & Perls, 1970), in doing so it is phenomenological in gaining description about how the person reaches out and what they reach out to in their world. The awareness continuum is a four phase sequence outlined in PHG (1951) having its initial roots in Perls ‘cycle of inter-dependency of organism and environment’ (Perls, 1947: 44). It describes how the figure/ ground dynamic shifts from emergence through to assimilation, completion and withdrawal. I’ll illustrate this process of fore-contact, contact, final contact, post-contact with an example from daily life: Fore-contact – Having been sat writing at my computer for a while I become aware of bodily sensations of stiffness in my shoulders and thighs along with a vague discomfort at the base of my spine. These figural sensations relegate my desire to write to my background. Contact – Following this increasing awareness I mobilise, disengaging from the computer and pushing myself up out of my chair before a new figure forms as I stretch my arms, legs and arch my back. To meet this immediate need I need to alienate competing needs temporarily such as my need to complete this chapter. I refine my need to stretch further, the emerging figure becomes the stretching of my arms and expanding my chest. Final contact – I really lean into this stretch fully. For a few moments the rest of my situation is background as I enjoy the sensations of my chest expanding as my arms arch backwards. Post-contact – Reinvigorated and satisfied I glance at my computer before shrugging my now relaxed shoulders. Space has emerged for a new figure to emerge. I reject the idea of returning to my computer in favour of venturing outside for some fresh air. Back to fore-contact I begin a new cycle as I walk towards the door.

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This model of the awareness continuum formed a template for further developments that I will discuss in Section 2.3. I hope that it is becoming evident that we gestalt therapists are not in the business of archaeology, we simply work with what is on the surface and trust the client to find their own depth basing our interventions on the figures that surface from the client’s ground and their process of figure formation. We attempt to strengthen awareness by intervening to sharpen and support figures as they surface and, when appropriate, allow space for them to fall back into the client’s ground for a new figure to emerge. Although Fritz Perls stated that ‘awareness per se of and by itself can be curative’ (Perls, 1992: 37) awareness cannot be ‘of and by itself ’ as it cannot be separated from contact. If we become aware it follows that we are in contact with ‘what is’ then we have a choice whether to increase or decrease our level of contact, our choice will depend on our situation at that time, ‘Gestalt therapy is organized around the central theoretical concepts of awareness and contact’ (PHG, 1951: 8). Latner saw awareness as having five qualities, those being: contact, sensing, excitement, figure formation and wholeness (2000, in Nevis). Similarly awareness and consciousness are inextricably connected, one being a function of the other, ‘Awareness is our sense of one another, as the ground for whole ‘intersubjective’ experience … the fringe around our consciousness’ (Bloom, 2014: 118). EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Slowly and gradually complete the following exercise. Stand up and check that you are breathing regularly before taking account of any areas of tightness or stress in your body no matter how slight. Now lean to your right side and gradually place as much of your weight as possible on this side of your body increasing it incrementally. Notice the stress present on the right side of your body and where your awareness is focussed. It is not that you won’t be aware of the left side of your body but this will be swallowed up in the awareness of what I am assuming is tension on your right side that is likely to be figural.

From a Western cultural ground of individualism it is easy to view the heightening of awareness and contact as a one-person process by considering the awareness continuum of the client without considering the situation in which their process is taking place, that includes the therapist, and the environment in which they meet as

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well as the wider field. In numerous schools of psychotherapy and counselling we often encounter the term self-awareness and this has different meanings for different approaches. In gestalt therapy this does not mean some introspective process detached from contact with all that surrounds us, quite the opposite, self-awareness from a gestalt perspective means being in full contact with oneself in relation to one’s ever changing field and having the ability to creatively adjust one’s level of contact in accordance to those changes in the field. As human beings, as long as we are breathing, we are always in contact with our environment: we smell the newly mown grass, we taste the food, we touch the other, we hear the music, we see the sunset, we tense our body in reaction to danger, our heart rate quickens with excitement or anxiety as we approach a new adventure. We might like to think that we initiate contact but in gestalt we believe that contact is an event that takes place between ourselves and the environment. The smell of the newly mown grass, the sound of the music, the sight of the sunset reach towards us as we reach towards them. Just as awareness is not passive, but active and organising, neither is contact passive perception – we reach out actively to meet our environment through motor and sensory processes that are wider than our five senses, what we refer to in gestalt as contact functions. In this reaching out process we make and break contact and that informs our lives and how we are in the world. The quality of the contact we make can range from dull and lifeless to vivid and vibrant with all shades between these two polarities as we moderate our level of contact depending on the situation (Mann, 2021). Full vibrant contact is not needed when filling the car up with fuel, but enough awareness is needed to avoid spillage. In the process of making contact a figure emerges from the ground, the quality of contact will be determined by how clearly defined the figure is. ‘It is in the contacting phase that we try out different possibilities’ (Skotten & Kruger, 2022: 260). With an innumerable range of contact and awareness options possible in numerous areas – body, immediate field, wider situation, sensations and more – the therapist could feel swamped. A question that often arises with therapists in supervision or training is how do I choose? What area do I work with? I’ll conclude this section with the wise words of Laura Perls, ‘We start with the obvious, with what is immediately available to the awareness of therapist and client, and we proceed from there in small steps which are immediately experienced and thus are more easily assimilable’ (1992: 156).

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2.2  THE CONTACT BOUNDARY To give an explanation of the contact boundary seems a simple task, a boundary being defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as, ‘a real or imagined line that marks the limits or edges of something.’ However, we are not talking about something as clearly delineated as a fence, wall or country’s border. A straightforward description of the contact boundary is offered by the Polsters who describe it as ‘… the point at which one experiences the ‘me’ in relation to that which is not ‘me’ and through this contact, both are more clearly experienced’ (Polster & Polster, 1973: 102). The contact boundary does not separate the person from the environment, ‘rather it limits the organism, contains and protects it, and at the same time it touches the environment’ (PHG, 1951: 229). In many ways it is not a boundary at all rather a meeting place between the individual and the environment, but this meeting place does not have a definite identifiable location. The skin has been named as an example of the contact boundary as it both separates and connects, but this is used more as a metaphor (Ginger, 2018) rather than a literal meeting place – even in a concrete way, we make contact beyond our skin though our contact functions but it is naïve to suggest that the limits of the contact boundary are organs of sensory and motor responses. Instead of considering the contact boundary as a meeting it is better to consider it as the meeting (Latner, 1985), as the between, for to be congruent with gestalt therapy’s philosophy the contact boundary cannot belong to the individual or the environment. Whilst many examples of boundaries from the physical world don’t fit with the construct of the contact boundary in gestalt one offered by Latner to my mind does, ‘We would not say that the shoreline belongs to the sand or the sea. It is brought into being by their meeting’ (ibid: 57). Gestalt therapy is the study of what happens and how it happens at the event of the contact boundary. In healthy functioning between self and environment this meeting will be fluid, flexible and in relation to the current situation. It follows that where there is suffering fluidity and flexibility will be affected and may be in relation to an archaic situation rather than the present field. Helen experienced sexual abuse as a young child with intimate personal boundaries being crossed. To manage the trauma she creatively adjusted to this appalling situation by detaching, desensitising and escaping into her imagination. As an adult, now with a caring partner, she continues to detach and desensitise herself, her contact boundary between her and her partner

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hardens whenever he is intimate with her. Her creative adjustment, that was once protective, is now outdated and leads to problems in her present relationship whilst depriving the couple of the closeness they both crave.

In the above account it might be easy to see this as ‘Helen’s problem’ enclosed within the confines of her own skin. However, if Helen is suffering then her situation is suffering too. Even with a less traumatic experience where someone has picked up messages that they are not artistic, not creative or unintelligent they may then deny themselves and the world their art, creativity and intelligence as a consequence. From a gestalt perspective, ‘The effects of the suffering of the between (of the contact boundary) … can be felt by anybody standing in the relationship’ (Francesetti, Gecele & Roubal, 2013: 61). Obviously, in the therapy room one person standing in the relationship is the therapist, it follows that the vibrations of suffering, denial of intelligence, creativity or artistic potential will be felt by the therapist. The task is then to discover the nature of creative adjustments that emerge by raising awareness of how the client and therapist moderate contact in the here and now of the meeting – what happens between them in the present situation. Although we are not the sole owners of the contact boundary between ourselves and the environment, we do all have favoured contact styles that will have formed over the course of our lives. The innumerable contacts we have experienced will have shaped our relational style. Just like Helen’s detachment and desensitising we develop a way of being in relationship in certain situations that may have become habitual. The present situation may be perceived as dangerous or safe when the opposite may be the case, the creative adjustment between self and environment can be a mismatch as the environment is viewed through a historic, out-of-date lens. Constant reassessment of our relationship with our environment, of what happens between us, is needed to maintain healthy present-centred functioning – a task that we are all likely to fall short of to some degree! In health the contact boundary needs to let nourishment in and in doing so, ‘… maintain a fluid permeable boundary that blocks or eliminates the unhealthy, toxic and the overwhelming’ (Gonzi, 2020: 8). However, though this may be achieved to some degree ‘psychologically’ in relation to our environment, our environment is constantly within us – if you doubt this simply take a breath. COVID-19 gave us a stark reality check if we believed that we owned and controlled the contact boundary, that we were somehow separate – where the psychological ends and the physical begins is a matter for conjecture. For years gestalt and

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other relational approaches have argued against a Cartesian split of a separate mind and body (Yontef, 1993; Wheeler, 2000; Philippson, 2001; Jacobs, 2007; Denham-Vaughan, 2010; Robine, 2011). Orange (2002) posits that there is no outside, that it is not possible to stand outside the system or individual as the other. So where does this leave us with the concept of the contact boundary? I believe that it is important in the give and take of relating in the therapy room to view it as an event, to note what type of boundary events we co-create with our clients and how they are created and maintained between us. Also not to let go of the fact that the contact boundary is a theoretical construct.

2.3  THE GESTALT CYCLE OF EXPERIENCE The four phase awareness continuum outlined in PHG (1951) and discussed earlier acted as a platform for other theorists to refine and build upon. The first of these developments to enjoy popularity was developed at The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, the Awareness-ExcitementContact Cycle (Zinker, 1977: 97) – see Figure 2.1, sometimes inaccurately referred to as ‘The Cleveland Wave.’ Just as with PHG’s four phase map of an experience of contact, a completed cycle represents a completed gestalt – that is the completion from the emergence of a sensation through each phase of the cycle to satisfaction, withdrawal and the void – a complete unit of experience. This might be a brief activity such as drinking a glass of water or something over a considerable period of time such as studying for a university degree. The various models of the gestalt cycle of experience can be used to map any life experience from birth to death, including the entire journey! ENVIRONMENT ACTION

FINAL CONTACT

MOBILISATION

IL E V RT

SENSATION WITHDRAWL

O ID

SATISFACTION

AWARENESS

FE

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SELF

WITHDRAWL

Figure 2.1  The Awareness-Excitement-Contact Cycle.

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2.3.1  The Awareness-Excitement-Contact Cycle To avoid confusion I need to clarify that the term ‘awareness’ in relation to the gestalt cycle of experience is used to denote the point where a figure of interest emerges from the ground, rather than consciousness. Joyce and Sills (2018) use the term ‘recognition’ and for a time the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland used ‘figure formation’ (Korb, Gorrell & Van De Reit, 1989) to avoid such confusion. 2.3.2  The Gestalt Cycle of Formation and Destruction A further diagrammatic representation of the phases in the completion of a gestalt named The Cycle of Gestalt Formation and Destruction (Figure 2.2) was offered by Clarkson (2013: 35) and was based on Zinker’s model. Though popular in Britain this offered little that is new and by virtue of being represented as a closed circle has more of an individualistic feel than Zinker’s wave illustration. All three models – PHG’s, Zinker’s and Clarkson’s - illustrate an evolving contact sequence describing shifts in the figure/ground dynamic, invariably problems present when there is stuckness at a phase or when it is rushed through or bypassed. There can be overarching patterns that are out of our awareness that can be cultural, typically in Western culture we tend to spend insufficient time at the sensation phase, where the first stirrings of a figure emerge. The more time we spend in early construction of a gestalt, the stronger, the brighter it will ENVIRONMENT

F

ENVIRONMENT E TIL ER

ID VO

SENSATION

WITHDRAWL AWARENESS

SATISFACTION

SELF MOBILISATION

FINAL CONTACT ACTION

Figure 2.2  The Cycle of Gestalt Formation and Destruction.

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be. There is also a general trend to rush or miss the latter phases of the cycle in not allowing sufficient space for satisfaction, withdrawal and a void between experiences, we often rush on to the next task. Rather than human beings we are sometimes human doings. 2.3.3  The Gestalt Cycle of Experience Below are two examples of gestalt cycles in relation to very different experiences. You will note that in the second column the satisfaction phase does not necessarily translate to the common usage of the term ‘satisfaction.’ Bear in mind that in both examples this is one cycle in an ongoing, co-created process (Table 2.1). Table 2.1  Gestalt Cycle of Experience DOOR BELL RINGS

JOB DISSATISFACTION

Sensation

Hear the sound, fleeting surprise.

Sense of irritation and dissatisfaction.

Awareness

Sensation is interpreted and realisation that there is someone at the door.

Begin to realise there needs to be change. Anxiety and uncertainly emerge.

Mobilisation

Decides to answer the doorbell begins to mobilise self to get up to move out of chair towards the door.

Moves towards exploring possibilities. Moves into deciding to be proactive rather than staying in current post.

Action

Moves towards the door, unlocks it and opens the door.

Explores what posts are available in the field. Completes applications.

Final Contact

Realise it’s my brother visiting. ‘Hi, Paul great to see you’ Hug. ‘Come on in.’ Coffee, sit and chat.

Gains an interview but is not appointed. Feels downcast and angry, ‘what’s the point.’ Cries post-interview.

Satisfaction

Feel appreciative of Paul’s visit, maybe reflect on the conversation. Alternatively could feel relieved he’d gone!

Resigns self to remaining in her current post, comforting herself by trying to find some positives. Replays memories of the interview.

Withdrawal

Move to put the cups in the dishwasher.

Moves away from thinking about the interview.

Void

Leaves space for further need to emerge.

Space is left for the next need to emerge in this process.

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You may note that within each of the above gestalt cycles there are cycles within cycles. Getting up from a chair could be conceptualised as a cycle in itself. If we chose to refer to the gestalt cycle model in our clinical work we chose the most figural gestalt cycle that emerges between client and therapist. The flow of contact and withdrawal from figures that surface from the ground whilst being created in relationship will be idiosyncratic to each person’s perspective (Yontef & Fairfield, 2008) and will be co-created in relation to the situation. The cycle models are not without critics. One criticism that I have already alluded to is that they can promote an individualistic view of the person moving away from a field perspective (Wheeler, 1991, 2003; Wagner-Moore, 2004), and that the person is primary, ‘They imply that first there is a subject and then an environment … they imply that the individual system is superior to the situation’ (Wollants, 2012: 93). However, any map or model needs to simplify as much as illustrate and therefore we need to hold them lightly, the map is not the territory. Personally, I use the gestalt cycle model when teaching or supervising and may look back retrospectively at work with a client to help inform what processes may have been at play between us, but I do not tend to consider it in the give and take of the meeting. Like any map or model the gestalt cycle is a metaphorical way of conceptualising human interaction (Miller, 2001). It is not only referred to in individual work by many practitioners, but also group work (Tudor, 1991; Cole & Reese, 2018), coaching (Francis & Parlett, 2016) and organisational consulting (Saner, 1999; Brownell, 2018; Chidiac, 2018).

EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Take a few minutes to consider your background (whatever that may mean for you) before moving on to look at how this may affect your journey through the cycle in the present. Now consider an activity you engage in – this could be as simple as eating a meal. Now ask yourself, at what phase(s) might I habitually rush through, spend more time at, get stuck or skip completely in relation to the cycle? How might this play out in other areas of my life?

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2.4  THE HERE AND NOW We can only ever be aware of our here and now experience, ‘There is no other reality than the present’ (Perls, 1947: 208). Whilst those from Fritz and Laura’s previous psychoanalytic training were working with the subconscious and archaic they focussed on present ‘here and now’ experience in order to raise their client’s awareness of ‘what is’ rather than what was or could be. In many ways they were ahead of their time as Stern asserted over 50 years later that, ‘most psychotherapies agree that therapeutic work in the ‘here and now’ has the greatest power in bringing about change’ (2004: 3). An aware, dialogic, presentcentred approach is gestalt therapy’s phenomenological methodology and as such has been summarised rather simplistically as ‘I-Thou, here and now’ – but then Fritz did love snappy catchphrases. That is not to detract from his brilliance and bravery in explicating the here and now moment when all around him were engaged in archaeological digging. To demonstrate a here and now awareness exercise I’d like to invite you to experiment with the following experiential exercise, that should be completed with a partner. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Sit facing your partner and for a few minutes try to complete the following three sentences several times beginning with each of the following alternately: I see … I feel … I imagine … e.g. I see you frowning, I feel irritated, I imagine you feel judged or I see you are wearing a white shirt, I feel light, I imagine you are going to work later. Alternate with your partner in completing the three sentences several times. Check that you are stating something that you can actually see and are not interpreting e.g. I see you are smiling, you can’t see ‘happy’. Also check that you comment on a feeling/sensation rather than a thought. Note your reactions as you complete the exercise with your partner.

Before we move on let us address a dumb question because dumb questions usually dig down and help with understanding – don’t be afraid to ask them in therapy. What is the here and now? If the here and now moment stands in not-so-splendid isolation from any other time zone it is by definition a dissociative state. Living in such a state would be closer to psychosis than anything else. Goodman (1994) had gone part way to correcting the risk of isolating the ‘here and now’ by connecting it to the ‘here, now, next’ and PHG did describe the present as a

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passage out of the past towards a future. The here and now, the present moment, contains within it as Stoehr (1994) points out, a past and a future, an orientation and a direction. The phenomenologist Edmund Husserl (1931, 1964) proposed that the here and now held within it a duration that consisted of a present-of-the-present-moment, a futureof-the-present-moment and a past-of-the-present-moment. In completing the above here and now awareness exercise you will lead into it from an immediate past that trails behind you like the tail of a comet and depart through an immediate future that holds anticipation. That is not to say that the three parts stand separately but, ‘… stand together, subjectively, as a single, unified, coherent global experience …’ (Stern, 2004: 27). Husserl’s views were echoed by Thompson and Zahavi (2007) who described the present as a ‘duration-block’ that comprised of the present, past and future. So, the here and now does not stand balancing precariously on some metaphorical knife edge, the figural here and now moment emerges from a ground of experience and contains that ground within its fibres. Consequently, in here and now relating between therapist and client in the therapy room in each passing moment the story of a history is being revealed coupled with a story of expectation, or to be more accurate the stories of histories and expectations because the therapist is not a detached observer and the meeting takes place amongst a whole field of relationships, ‘Every present includes in the end through its horizons of immediate past and nearest future the whole of possible time’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 109). It is inevitable that we will carry our past into our present momentto-moment relating with the world. The way a person walks, the way in which they carry their body, use their senses, their speech and so on will reveal aspects of their past. On a residential training my co-trainers and I invited students simply to walk across the room and for the other students and trainers to comment on what they observed (the trainers also took part). Jane (pseudonym) walked across the room with such confidence and in such a ‘correct’ way. Others commented on her wonderful erect posture, her straight back her apparent confidence, one person said she walked like a model. My rather blunt comment was that I didn’t quite buy it. Jane looked aghast, but then revealed that she had spent long periods of her childhood in a supporting cast for her back with years of physiotherapy exercises teaching her to walk ‘correctly.’ This wasn’t some magic piece of intuition on my part, I simply noticed what I saw on the surface but crucially I drew upon my own experience, not as a gestalt trainer, but as someone who had also journeyed through years of physiotherapy as a child and years of my leg

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being held in a calliper. There were tears with Jane and I as for a time our roles of trainer and student fell away. As gestalt therapists we need to be prepared to be truly present at the contact boundary in the here and now and to be truly present means being vulnerable. In gestalt therapy the answers all lie on the surface and therapeutic effectiveness is grounded in the here and now unfolding of the therapeutic relationship and the inter-subjective phenomena that emerges between self and other. This inter-subjective phenomena might not always be present focussed but as therapists we can invite the sharing of material from the past in a present focussed way, which is something Erving Polster (1987) advocates as he acknowledges the immense value of people telling their life stories. It is important to understand the client’s total situation to gain an understanding of their here and now experience. In working with trauma it is essential that the therapist ensures that the client has a firm hold on the here and now and part of the therapist’s task is to act as an anchor to the present to avoid losing the client in a there and then ‘trauma bubble,’ such anchoring is achieved through relationship building rather than technique. As Delisle states in Taylor (2014), ‘it is not the historic past that is at stake but the past as it acts upon the configuration of the present field’ (ibid: 76). Whether it is coincidental or not Fritz Perls first post-doctorate work was with brain damaged soldiers. His development of the here and now focus has been found to mobilise, in particular, the hypothalamic areas and the frontal and prefrontal lobes of the brain (Ginger, 2002). Given the undoubted genius of the man I doubt whether this was entirely coincidental.

2.5  SELF AND SELFING In gestalt therapy self is an emergent process at the contact boundary, the place where I meet other, PHG simply state ‘self is contact’ (1951: 151) and go on to define self as ‘the function of contacting the actual transient present’ (ibid: 371). Take a few moments to digest this, it means that from a gestalt therapy perspective our self emerges in every single moment as we relate to our environment, as long as we are breathing we are always in relationship with our environment in a dynamic, everchanging, fluid dance of contacting. Right now you are in relation with these words on the page and your self will form between you and these words as you read. As I write I become conscious of going public with my thinking and become a little hesitant, our respective selves emerge in relation to this book and will reform a moment later as we make contact

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with something else in our world that may be the next word on the page or an emerging need to put the kettle on! This view of self as emergent was radical when created by gestalt therapy’s founders and remains so today. It has been developed further by numerous gestalt theorists (Parlett, 2000; Wolfert, 2000; Philippson, 2001, 2009; Francesetti, 2016; Robine, 2016; Spagnuolo Lobb, 2016; Bloom, 2019 and others). As Francesetti (2016) notes it sits well with recent models developed in neuroscience and quotes Damasio’s (2010) metaphor of self as the conductor in an orchestra who appears only when the orchestra starts to play. It is not surprising that metaphors are often used to describe this dynamic process as literal explanations are difficult given the limitations of language, the noun ‘self ’ does not convey the fluid nature of self in gestalt, consequently the term ‘self-as-process’ maybe used or ‘selfing’ (Parlett, 1991; Wheeler, 2000; Philippson, 2018). ‘Selfing is an activity, a dynamic relation which is ever-moving, ever-changing – an organization shaped by and shaping experiences in the play of the forces of the field’ (Wolfert, 2000: 77). Self is temporal, or more precisely self is the temporal sequence of contacting whether we are looking at PHG’s fore-contact, contact, final-contact, post-contact model or other gestalt cycle models. I have often met with clients who want things to be back as they were but of course they never can be, their environment has changed and so have they as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, ‘You can never step into the same river twice’ what is sometimes missed here though is that it is not only the river that has changed, ‘nothing endures but change.’ Self is inherently relational we are social beings that are constantly selfing in relation to the world as we experience it. That doesn’t mean that we can’t isolate ourselves. I live close to an old hermit’s cave, that hermit might not have seen another human but he will have been in relation with the trees and plants, the wind and sun, the earth and rock, his world – constantly, from moment to moment. Hence, gestalt’s theory of self brings together key core gestalt concepts: field theory (or situation), phenomenology, dialogue and contact. There is no pre-existing self that surfaces to be magically revealed at the event of the contact boundary, self does not manifest in contact, ‘instead, it is contact; it is created in and through contact’ (Robine, 2016: 213–214) and is created and re-created through a continuous on-going process of figure formation in relation to a constantly changing ground as new figures fall into that ground.

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2.5.1  Three Self Structures/Functions PHG described three self structures or functions that emerge during a contacting sequence: id function, ego function and personality function. It is unfortunate that the Freudian terms are used for two of these structures as this can lead to confusion given how different these functions are in gestalt compared with those discussed in psychoanalytic theory. So what are these three self functions? The id function is described as, ‘the given background dissolving into possibilities’ (PHG, 1951: 378) but let’s clarify that in relation to an ordinary contacting sequence through a simple experiential exercise. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Focus on that last word ‘exercise’ for a moment. As you focus on it you are surrounded by a situation that contains endless possible figures of interest, smells, sounds, things on the periphery of your vision, physical sensations to name a few. Something will emerge from this plethora of possible figures, as it does you move from id functioning to ego and personality functioning. You have already moved from one word to another in reading this paragraph.

Id functioning is present at the beginning and end of a contacting sequence, your day began with id functioning as you awoke from sleep in that hazy state that precedes ego and personality functions. What you selected to do next would be processed by your ego function that selects and sharpens a figure whilst other figures fade and fall back into the ground – you may have turned the alarm off, prepare to get up or rolled over to grab more time in bed. Ego and personality functions would have been at play here. Whilst self emerges at the contact boundary in relation to the situation ego function is deliberate and separates from the situation but although it ‘allows for self/other process of the moment it offers no sense of continuity of selfhood’ (Philippson, 2009: 66). It is the personality function that maintains a sense of continuity of selfhood in forming a framework of attitudes and beliefs about who we are in the world in relation to the situations we encounter over time. It is more sedimented but still changes over time – think how you were last year, or 10 or 20 years ago or yesterday. Although I have described these functions/structures of self separately in healthy functioning there is a seamless fluidity, ‘id, ego and personality

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do not act separately, but all emerge synergistically in the process of ‘selfing’ in the present moment’ (Chidiac & Denham-Vaughan, 2007: 9). The gestalt concept of self can be difficult to grasp, partly perhaps because self-as-process is not graspable, it is always moving. Bloom (2008) uses the metaphor of a rainbow that we see as an arc of colours spanning the sky, but we know that it is not a solid object we cannot grasp it. We know that it is water droplets and light and that it is in constant motion – just as the gestalt theory of self is in constant motion. It emerges from, yet remains of the field from which it is inseparable.

2.6 POLARITIES Where to begin in discussing the theory of polarities? They are all around us, in nature and in human life. In health polarities are complementary and connected, one pole highlights the existence of the other, problems occur when they are not experienced as connected, rather as isolated dichotomies or with one polarity being denied. Polster and Polster (1973) say that there is nothing new about looking at polarities in human relating, this is certainly true as the polarities of yin/yang from Taoist philosophy that represent a dynamic balance of opposing but complimentary forces are thought to date back around three thousand years. An example of the characteristics of yin/yang can be seen in Table 2.2 (Huang, 1989). Table 2.2  Polarities YIN

YANG

Feminine

Masculine

Dark

Light

Passive

Active

Negative

Positive

Yielding

Firm

Falling

Rising

Warm

Cold

Night

Day

Moon

Sun

Being

Doing

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Fast forward a few thousand years and we arrive at the gestalt psychologist’s complimentary polarity of figure and ground that starkly illustrates that one polarity cannot exist without the other. Amongst other polarities PHG discussed the polarity of the contact/­withdrawal process also stating that ‘many phenomena could not exist if their opposites did not also exist’ (1951: 43). Zinker (1977) described the individual as ‘a conglomerate of polar forces’ and drew upon a term created by Erving Polster, ‘multilarities,’ to illustrate that a person possesses more than one opposite – the polar opposite to kindness might be cruelty but it could also be insensitivity or ruthlessness depending upon the situation. Zinker went on to say that theoretically a healthy individual possesses thousands of integrated polarities holding awareness of each end of every polarity. However, we all have areas that lack awareness. Study the following qualities adapted from Zinker (1977: 198/199) and consider what polarities you may need to develop and how the qualities at each end may be healthy or unhealthy and in what situation. Caring

Ruthless

Brilliance

Dullness

Kindness

Cruelty

Selflessness

Selfishness

Fluidity

Rigidity

Warm/Friendly

Cold/Distant

Sentimental

Callous

Graceful

Clumsy

The health or unhealth of any polarity is field dependent, that is to say it depends on what is called for by the situation and that may change moment to moment. In seeking to raise awareness of internalised conflict between polarities the gestalt therapist seeks to facilitate the client in exploring each polarity and may invite him to experiment by giving a voice to each of the poles. Fritz Perls discussed what he named a topdog/underdog polarity. The topdog presents as authoritarian, commanding, bossy and full of demands of how one ‘should’ be – whilst the underdog presents as helpless, can be spontaneous and rebellious and is primarily sabotaging. The topdog appears to be the stronger and more powerful

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but it is the underdog whilst masquerading as the weaker is covertly powerful and invariably wins any conflict through sabotaging the topdog from taking action (Perls, 1969). This dialectic could go something like: Top Dog:  I need to complete this coursework and it needs to be perfect. Underdog:  C’mon, I’m tired. Anyhow perfection isn’t possible so why bother at all.

The client may be encouraged to enact such a split through experimentation with two chair work one possibility. In adopting the role of topdog and underdog the therapist pays attention not only to the dialogue between the two poles but also the nature of the dialogue, how one part spoke to the other and what may be indirect subtext. Both sides can present with a dismissive self-righteousness, ‘I’m right, so you’re wrong’ with the therapist’s task being to mediate between the two to raise awareness, giving opportunity for integration through appreciation of the others point of view. If we allow ourselves the full expression of our potentialities then we are well positioned to centre ourselves, but this is much more difficult to achieve in Western culture (Ingersoll, 2005). In Western culture, ‘… light is at war with darkness, life with death, good with evil, and positive with negative, and thus an idealism to cultivate the former and be rid of the latter flourishes … To the traditional way of Chinese thinking this is as incomprehensible as an electric current without both positive and negative poles … [they] are different aspects of the same system and the disappearance of either one of them would be the disappearance of the system’ (Watts, 1975: 19). This begs the question if the undesirable polarity is disowned then what happens to it? The likelihood is that it is either maintained as an internalised conflict or attributed to another whether this be a person, organisation or country. Awareness is limited and consequently so is the potential to live fully being restricted by internalised or externalised conflict. It is ‘a prerequisite for fundamentalism, terrorism and genocide, for when individuals so strongly identify with one polarity, they totally obliterate the other’ (Evans, 2007: 196). To denote the point of balance from which differentiation into opposite poles occurs the term creative indifference is used, this is somewhat unfortunate as it can paint a picture of disinterested detachment when quite the opposite is the case. This term that Perls (1947) and PHG applied to psychotherapy was never translated into English by

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its originator, Salamo Friedlaender (1918), and its true meaning can be lost. The German Schöpferische Indifferenz used by Friedlaender is better rendered into English as ‘creative undifferentiation’ (Wheeler, 1991: 47) or ‘creative impartiality’ (Joyce & Sills, 2018: 40) that more accurately describe a process where the therapist maintains a stance that is ‘full of interest, extending towards both sides of the differentiation’ (Perls, 1969: 17). In essence, the gestalt therapist does not invest in a particular outcome, rather they remain in a position of neutrality between poles. If we apply this principle to the polarities of figure and ground and the process of figure formation, in the case of the diagrammatic example in Figure 1.8 on page 12, then the place of creative indifference would be at the point where neither the old woman nor the young woman have emerged (adapted from Sonne & Toennesvang, 2015: 73). This particular diagrammatic example of a neutral point of creative indifference has only two poles or possible figures whereas maintaining an attitude of creative indifference in the therapy room with another has any number of possible figures that can emerge from the ground between therapist and client. Practicing creative indifference in therapy is not an easy task as it is a position of non-attachment, of entering a void with only an undifferentiated landscape of possibilities stretching out before you. One can probably see how this was imported and integrated into gestalt therapy from Fritz and Laura’s interest in Zen, Taoism and Eastern philosophies. If we return to the polarities of yin/yang in simple terms the more we go into the dark the closer we come to the light but the dark contains light and the light contains dark. Polarities are our life blood, quite literally as without systolic and diastolic pressure blood would cease to coarse through our veins. Without organism and environment there would be no existence. Without inhalation and exhalation there would be no breath.

2.7  THE PARADOXICAL THEORY OF CHANGE Some clients come to therapy to try and rid themselves of an undesirable quality, discard unwanted thoughts or emotion or return to a previous way of being following a life event. They may arrive with some preconceived idea of a prescribed change. Different therapies have different philosophies in relation to change, some challenge ‘negative thoughts’ or ‘thinking errors,’ others offer interpretation in the hope of providing insight that will lead to change whether this is in relation to ‘ego states’ or ‘defence mechanisms.’ Gestalt therapy has

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a different philosophy regarding change, one that seeks to facilitate awareness and contact with ‘what is’ and acceptance of ‘what is.’ Yontef (1993) considers gestalt therapy to be ‘clinical phenomenology’ grounded in Buber’s work on the dialogic relationship and Beisser’s Paradoxical Theory of Change. I’ll be discussing phenomenology and dialogue in gestalt therapy in more detail later, here we will address Beisser’s much quoted but sometimes simplistically understood theory. The line that is often quoted in his paper and sums up the theory is, ‘that change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not’ but he also stated that, ‘Change does not take place through a coercive attempt by the individual or by another person to change him, but it does take place if one takes the time and effort to be what he is’ (Beisser, 1970: 77) adding that the gestalt therapist rejects the role of change agent. He saw the person seeking change through therapy as ‘constantly moving between what he “should be” and what he thinks he “is”’ (ibid). What for me is a profound theory gained added gravity when I was gifted with a fuller background of Beisser’s life by Lynne Jacobs who had known him personally, on a residential training at the Pacific Gestalt Institute. Our dialogue began when I made the mistake of describing Beisser as a womaniser and Lynne correcting me in no uncertain terms! He was popular with women but was not a womaniser, he was simply a companionable man. What followed was an account of a hugely generous man’s life, his early struggle with self-esteem, extreme disabling illness, and depression before finding contentment. Arnold Beisser was an intelligent, athletic, attractive man, a US ranked tennis player, who despite his many attributes was apparently ill at ease with himself. At the age of 32 he was struck by polio resulting in paralysis from the neck downwards. Having been an active, virile young man the only things he was then able to do for himself was to eat and breathe, and he could only do the latter with the aid of an iron lung that he needed for the first three years following his paralysis. Following a period of depression Beisser grew to accept his new life and developed The Paradoxical Theory of Change that had emerged from his personal journey. He was a sociable man, popular with others following his paralysis, his field of relationships reflecting his own self-acceptance. Even with his profound disability he was willing to support friends in any way he could. Towards the end of his life he said that even if it were possible to be given the choice of returning to being the athletic young man he was prior to

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his paralysis he would not take that option, he had truly accepted what was. Apparently, prior to his paralysis Beisser did not consider himself to be a particularly likeable man. His self-perception probably wasn’t shared by those around him judging from the number of people that maintained close contact with him. As Jacobs told me, there was always someone sitting with him on his porch whenever she visited. A version of this summary of Beisser’s life also appears in Mann (2021). Beisser’s theory is often viewed as applying to the individual, he does say that it was developed as a result of dyadic therapeutic relationships but he ends his paper by saying the same principles are relevant to social change taking the field theoretical view that, ‘the individual change process is but a microcosm of the social change process’ (Beisser, 1970: 79). He expands on this sharing his grave concerns over the compartmentalisation of people from different backgrounds, race, colour, ages, class, education, etc., viewing the various forms of separation as a threat ‘to the survival of mankind’ (ibid). Sadly such fears seem just as relevant today as they did over 50 years ago. As the paradoxical theory of change forms such a significant part of gestalt therapy’s ground it follows that when working with difference of all kinds as therapists we need to sit with and truly own our assumptions, prejudices and colour blindness rather than pushing them to one side because they are uncomfortable, or superficially seeking to soothe them by appearing more ‘right on’ than the next person. The paradoxical theory of change stands upon the ground of gestalt’s theory of organismic self-regulation that states, ‘we have a capacity for awareness of and contact with what is growthful that will bring us to the best solution in the situation we are in’ (Philippson, 2009: 136). My body moves towards what I need from my environment at that time in a holistic, fully integrated way rather than responding cognitively in response to how I think I should be responding. The paradoxical theory of change is a theory that empowers the client and trusts in the therapeutic process. ‘So simple, so unusual and so easy to forget even for a gestalt therapist’ (Kolmannskog, 2018: 74)

2.8 THE ZEIGARNIK EFFECT – UNFINISHED BUSINESS The world may be made of atoms but it is held together by stories. Having just given a brief insight into the story that brought the paradoxical theory of change to gestalt let me now share the story of how

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the theory of unfinished business came to gestalt, or rather in this case two stories. Berlin, the mid-1920s and Professor Kurt Lewin and colleagues, are out with their students in a local café-restaurant one of whom is a bright Lithuanian woman, Bluma Zeigarnik. The order is long and complex and surprisingly the waiter does not use a notepad but memorises the entire order, rumour has it that the waiters not using notepads is what attracted Lewin to the café-restaurant. The meals and drinks arrive exactly as ordered are enjoyed and after some lively conversation the bill is settled and the party depart. Once outside Zeigarnik realises she has forgotten her scarf and returns to the restaurant, she approaches the waiter who served her and her colleagues and explains that she has left her scarf behind. To her surprise the waiter with the amazing memory asked her which table she was sitting at. ‘How can you not remember that when you memorised every little thing on our order?’ Zeigarnik asked when she realised he wasn’t joking, ‘I remember everything until the final dish is served and the bill settled’ explained the waiter, ‘when completed, I forget it.’ Zeigarnik (1927/1938) went on to complete research discovering that unfinished gestalts called for completion. In a widely reported experiment participants were given between 18 and 22 various tasks to complete, a cross-section of mental arithmetic, puzzles and manual skills. Some were interrupted part way through the task whilst others continued. ‘Zeigarnik found that unfinished tasks were 90% more likely to be recalled than finished ones’ (Seifert & Patalano, 1991: 115). She formed the hypothesis that the tension held with unfinished tasks would make them more memorable (Roos, 2001), as long as they remained unfinished they would take up psychological space. Tension was released when the task was completed, ‘but when activity toward completion is interrupted, the tension persists and keeps the memory alive’ (Melnick & Roos, 2007: 97). This is played on in marketing where interrupting an advert, especially towards the end, can make it more memorable (Heimbach & Jacoby, 1972; Hammadi & Qureishi, 2013). It was in Zeigarnik’s personal life that the greatest, embodied insight into the effects of unfinished business was gained. She suffered a massive trauma that triggered what could be considered to be a neurosis that is described by Mazur (1996). In the summer of 1931 her husband was arrested and she never saw him again, Zeigarnik was left alone with the couple’s two children. Living in the family home, a dacha just outside Moscow, she found it increasingly distressing surrounded with

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reminders of him so in order to avoid her increasing anxiety and pain she moved to live in Moscow itself. This had the opposite of the desired effect as her anxiety increased, she began suffering panic attacks and became agoraphobic. In the face of ever increasing symptoms she decided to return to the dacha, the place where her husband had been wrenched from the family’s life so brutally. There was no magic turnaround, but over time her symptoms decreased in intensity as she visited the very situations that had caused her such angst – the railway station and venues that held emotive memories of her relationship with her husband. She later described her decision to walk to and through these situations as a self-regulating process from crisis (Zeigarnik, 1981). In later years Zeigarnik focussed on self-regulation as voluntary conscious control of behaviour in contrast to Perls (1969) concept of organismic self-regulation (Mazur, 1996). I don’t believe that Zeigarnik has received the recognition she deserves in gestalt for her work on unfinished business, Fritz Perls (ibid) failed to credit her work when discussing unfinished business and that trend has continued with some contemporary gestalt authors. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Consider what unfinished business exists for you and notice any changes in energy as you think of it. It does not need to be anything big. Do you feel mobilised to move towards it? Is there any tension you hold around this?

2.9  THE FIVE EXPLORATIONS A user friendly gestalt map was created by Parlett (2000) when he outlined five dimensions of creative adjustment that have also been referred to as five abilities (Parlett, 2003) before being recast as the five explorations (Parlett, 2015). They outline the ways in which we make contact with our environment. In many ways it is a simple theoretical map but as Einstein said, ‘a theory should be made as simple as possible, but not so simple that it does not conform with reality’ (Nasser, 2008: 27). The five explorations are identified as: responding to the situation, interrelating, embodying, self-recognising, and experimenting. Though they can be considered separately their functioning is interlinked, rather like the fingers of a hand – each can function

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alone, but for more complex tasks all need to work together. They were originally created with individual, group work and organisational work in mind but have been expanded to a wider ecological and global focus (Parlett, 2000, 2015). Below is a brief outline of the five explorations: •

•

•

•

•

Responding to the Situation. We are all situated in the world and respond to every situation we encounter – passivity and indifference are still a responses. Our life experience (ground) will shape our figural response in the present and our ‘responseability’ (PHG, 1951). If we are under stress and/or have unacknowledged trauma (of any kind) in our background we may creatively adjust in a way that will affect our ability to respond to the present situation. Interrelating is concerned with our ability to relate together individually, in groups or communities with people that may be like-minded or with whom we may hold differences and conflict. ‘It is essential that we remember that all energetic effort is relational as well as self-organizing’ (Lichtenberg, 2012: 146), we are looking at a continuum between understanding the others viewpoint and wanting to annihilate them. Embodying relates to our ability to experience ourselves as fully embodied beings rather than a cognitive talking head or mind/ body dualism. We carry our life stories in our bodies, we shape ourselves in relation to our world, or to be more precise, our perception of our world. ‘Embodying is about living fully as a whole body-mind-energy system, which is exquisite in its complex functioning’ (Parlett, 2015: 137) Self-recognising. To fully appreciate this area of exploration we need to remember the gestalt view of self-as-process and the fluid nature of self (see Section 2.5). It relates to our ability to take on feedback and update any out-of-date creative adjustments in the given situation in response to the present field conditions rather than responding in a habitual way that may now be out of place. Examples could be a manager genuinely asking her staff for feedback on her performance or an orchestra listening to a recording of their performance to refine it (Parlett, 2015). Each may have previously held a ‘self-contained’ view that their performance could not be improved. Experimenting. We live in a complex, ever-changing field and as we are of the field, rather than separate from it, this calls for

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experimenting in relation to the changing situations we face. It can be tempting to stay with the familiar but this can be selflimiting; if we limit ourselves we limit the world too. We often encounter old internalised messages about how we should be in the world, this prompts the question, ‘Is this the world of the here and now or the world of the there and then?’ We need to consider the five explorations/abilities in relation to the cultural field we are standing in, for example, some cultures are more embodied, some more spontaneous in responding to the situation. To be able to engage fully across all five of the above abilities will require firm ground having been built through a good enough upbringing of secure attachment, or secure attachment having been achieved through later relationships, that could include therapy. A lack of supportive ground will be experienced as anxiety that is likely to be more acute when one meets with the novel, the temptation at such moments is to withdraw to the familiar to create an illusion of secure attachment. The danger is that the five abilities are then played out as five disabilities as they relate to an archaic situation. To a greater or lesser degree we will all have our blind spots or areas of growth, I invite you to complete the following exercise. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Peruse the above explorations/abilities and consider which may be your strengths and which may be your growing edges. Think of them in relation to several different situations and different people as your way of being will change depending upon the situation you are in. Also consider what support you may need in any areas that you imagine might be difficult.

2.10 SUMMARY • • •

The prime goal of gestalt therapy is to increase awareness with fluid movement along the awareness continuum. The awareness continuum outlines phases of fore-contact, contact, final contact and post-contact. Three zones of awareness were identified by PHG: Inner Zone (internal bodily phenomena), Outer Zone (perception of the world) and Middle Zone (cognitive processes).

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• • • • • •

• • • • • • •

The therapist’s role is to support and sharpen figures that emerge from the client’s ground. Awareness and contact are inseparable; in becoming aware one increases contact with what is. Contact is an active event that occurs between the individual and the environment, involving sensory and motor processes. The contact boundary is an event where one experiences the ‘me’ in relation to the ‘not me,’ it is a meeting place between the individual and the environment and where self emerges. Gestalt therapy focuses on understanding what happens at the event of the contact boundary and how it affects healthy functioning. Later gestalt therapists developed gestalt cycle models building on PHG’s awareness continuum, notably the eight phase Awareness-Excitement-Contact Cycle (The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland) that represents a completed gestalt. Critics argue that the cycle models promote an individualistic view and prioritise the individual over the situation. Gestalt therapy focusses on the here and now, but the present moment is not isolated; it contains a past, present and future orientation and direction. In health polarities are complementary and connected, one pole highlights the existence of the other, problems occur when they are experienced as disconnected. ‘Creative indifference’ is a therapeutic stance of impartiality, maintaining interest in both sides of a polarity. The Paradoxical Theory of Change emphasises that change occurs when individuals fully accept themselves as they are rather than trying to become something they are not. Unfinished business creates tension that keeps cognitive and bodily memories alive. Five explorations outline the ways in which we make contact with our environment they are: Responding to the Situation, Interrelating, Embodying, Self-Recognizing and Experimenting.

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We all creatively adjust to our environment in certain ways depending on the situation at the time. This is an ordinary process you don’t need to be in wonderful contact when nipping out to buy some milk. We all slide along a continuum with full vibrant contact at one end and dimmer numbed contact at the other. In this chapter over two sections, we will look at the various ways in which contact can be interrupted or moderated both healthily and unhealthily along continuums of contact.

3.1  MODERATING CONTACT ‘Moderations to contact’ is but one term used in gestalt therapy to describe particular ways in which we can reduce, diminish or calibrate contact, they are particular creative adjustments made in relation to our environment at the contact boundary. Originally described as resistances by Perls (1947) and PHG (1951) – the term having echoes of Fritz and Laura’s psychoanalytic background – they have since, and still are, referred to in a variety of ways: resistances, boundary disturbances, modifications, interruptions to contact and moderations to contact. This can be confusing to those unfamiliar with gestalt. The founders noted certain patterns by which people interrupted their flow of energy, these ways of adjusting contact with their environment will have served the individual well at one point in their lives but they are often out of date habits originally formed in a situation that lacked support. DOI: 10.4324/9781003312888-4

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James, an only child, was brought up in the British countryside by critical and unpredictable parents, it wasn’t safe for him to fully express himself. To make his environment safe he made himself wrong and kept quiet, pushing down any feelings of anger, sadness and hurt. Today he struggles to contact emotions, his habitual pattern of repressing his feelings has left him depressed with low self-esteem as he struggles to form and maintain relationships. Others feel warm towards him but experience him as distant. Although James’ environmental field has now changed completely he continues with his out-dated creative adjustments holding back any feelings he has for others.

The majority of gestalt therapists will describe seven inter-related processes through which we moderate contact with our environment. These moderations to contact are neither positive nor negative in themselves and always need to be viewed in the context of the situation in which they present, neither do they function in isolation from one another – one moderation will affect all other moderations in the contacting process. Healthy functioning will involve continual revision and updating of the way in which the person employs these processes and in what situations, habits form easily but are difficult to break. This lifelong task of assessing and re-assessing the way in which we creatively adjust to our eternally moving field of relationships is central to gestalt developmental theory. In the above example James originally found a way of isolating himself with a critical commentary about himself to keep his environment as safe as possible, his environment has now changed with support now available, but he continues to close down his emotional response and turns his energy in upon himself resulting in depression. James is relating to a past field in the present, what is termed a fixed gestalt. The seven moderations to contact are: Introjection, Retroflection, Projection, Confluence, Egotism, Desensitisation (Perls, 1947; PHG, 1951) and Deflection (Polster & Polster, 1973). The founders discussed the first four of these moderations at length in the founding text and I see these as core ways of creatively adjusting contact, From and Muller gave a succinct and simplified summary of the four: You might experience something is inside which belongs on the outside. This means introjection. Or, you experience something which is outside and it belongs to your organism. This is projection. Or again, you might experience no boundaries between your organism and your environment. That’s confluence. Or you might experience a fixed boundary with no fluid change. This means retroflection. (1977: 83)

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The seven moderations to contact can be viewed as one end of a continuum connected to an opposing polarity or polarities with middle ground. Healthy functioning would be an ability to fluidly move along the continuum in response to the situation. Introjection-------------Questioning, assimilating-----------Outright rejection Retroflection-----------------Expression---------------Impulsivity/Explosion Projection----------------------Owning----------Own Everything/Literalness Confluence-----------------Differentiation---------------------------Isolation Deflection-------------------Staying with---------------------------Bluntness Desensitisation----------------Sensitivity---------------------Hyper-sensitivity Self-monitoring/Egotism-----Spontaneity-----------Lack of all field constraints

Similar to the cycle models in gestalt therapy there is a general problem when theorising in relation to moderations to contact in that they invite an individualistic view of the person rather than a relational perspective. If a client is moderating contact with me in a session their behaviour does not take place in a void, it is cocreated and I am part of that co-creation. The clinical setting and a whole host of field conditions will contribute to the client’s way of being in the here and now. I need to consider how I may be contributing to the client’s process as any moderation to contact that presents can say as much about the therapist as it does about the client.

3.2  TYPES OF MODERATIONS TO CONTACT As outlined in the previous section most gestalt therapists identify seven moderations to contact that are styles of creatively adjusting to our situation. I will discuss the four moderations that I see as core ways of adjusting to our environment and how they present before moving on to outline the other three moderations. However, please remember that although I am outlining these processes separately they are interrelated processes. 3.2.1 Introjection Although Fritz Perls disagreed markedly with much of Freud’s theories his thinking around dental aggression in relation to introjection is based on Freud’s understanding of oral aggression. Fritz used the metaphor of swallowing, chewing or spitting out food to develop his notion of introjection. If we take in a piece of food whole without

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chewing and tasting it, this piece of food can pass through our system without being assimilated. It is in the interplay between person and environment that a process of introjection takes place, as Laura Perls said, ‘stuff is stuffed into little kids … leading to introjection. They are not allowed time to chew’ (Wysong & Rosenfeld, 1989). Consequently, there is a lack of choice and little or no differentiation regarding what is taken in whether this is food, attitudes, beliefs, traits or a way of being that reflects a lack of support for alternatives in the situation. The result can be an internalised rule book of how the infant, who then becomes an adult, should be in the world. When picturing a habitual introjector I think of Eric Carle’s ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ that indiscriminately consumes anything in its path, but whereas the caterpillar gets stomach ache before turning into a butterfly the person who habitually introjects is out of contact with their sensations and ends up with a bunch of oughts, shoulds, do’s and do nots to live their life by. These undigested unassimilated lumps eventually crowd out the organismic space available for new experience (Kepner, 1999). Introjection can present quite obviously in language with statements such as ‘I mustn’t cry,’ ‘I shouldn’t be angry’ that are reinforced by gender stereotyping in the media. The observant gestalt therapist will pay attention to the client’s body process, they may appear to swallow down therapist’s comments and there can be a look of distaste or disgust on a clients face when sharing an introjected message that is ego dystonic. There might be hesitation in taking the lead and someone who chronically introjects is likely to be vigilant and observant in assessing how they ‘should’ be in a given situation. Anxiety will present if a client goes against these internalised ways of being, in the case of unhealthy introjects in need of updating this might be a sign that the work is in the right area of the ball park! In marketing introjection is used as a strategy to convince you that you really do need the latest phone, gadget or skin care product. It used to be that smoking was sexy, now attempts are made to portray on-line gambling in the same way whilst showing care that you don’t lose too much money! Introjection can be subtle and pervading and there are examples in our use of the English language. Until relatively recently in Britain terms like ‘sub-normal’ were used to describe people with learning difficulties and ‘invalid’ to describe a disabled person. Imagine what introjected views this could create not only amongst the disadvantaged person but also in society, this is but one example of possible societal introjects.

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Before reading on I’d like to invite you to complete the following exercise. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Get a piece of paper and divide it into two columns. Title one column ‘Black’ and the second column ‘White’ and beneath write any suffix prefix or term that comes to mind, ideally as a flow of consciousness rather than giving it a lot of thought.

When you sit back compare the two lists. I don’t believe that there will be many that are positive in the black column. Examples might be: black leg, black magic, black balled, black Friday, black sheep, black mark, black propaganda, black heart, black market – I’m not sure that there will be a single negative in the white column. All fuel for introjected beliefs of white superiority for what Jacobs (2000) calls ‘white skin privilege.’ Some introjects can be more readily challenged than others, a definite statement like ‘I must be strong’ provides a well-defined figure. Those that are explicit and follow a coherent theme are more accessible than those that have formed in the ground of a person’s upbringing (McConville, 2013). The latter have been absorbed from the environment through a process akin to osmosis as the person’s experience of their world that is beyond cognition and articulation. Such a process will underpin shame, but equally the process could underpin a belief in oneself. It depends upon what is in the air that the child breathes in, the ground upon which she walks. Such fundamental beliefs about herself shape her relationship with her world, the way in which she holds her body and the possibilities for her future. I don’t believe that these ground introjects can simply be spat out and they will be the foundations for the building of whole systems of moderations to contact. To return to where I began regarding the development of the theory of introjection in gestalt therapy, Freud noted that humans fail to take in information or events that challenge our core beliefs. We are capable of a creative selective capacity regarding what information we assimilate and what we distort, forget or reject in relation to these core beliefs. I realise that I have concentrated on the negative aspects of introjection but it can be a healthy and necessary process. Society

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probably would cease to function without the internalisation of rules, likewise beyond our awareness most of the time we carry cultural norms that are introjected ways of being and behaving. It is needed in all types of learning. A healthy process is to introject the new material and chew it over once an understanding has been gained. Young children need structure in the overwhelming experience of organising their experience (McConville, 2013) and introjects can provide that structure. Habitual rejecting is potentially just as harmful as habitual introjecting as neither will be in contact with the here and now. 3.2.2 Retrof lection Whereas in introjection the contact boundary is characterised by permeability in retroflection it is characterised by rigidity. Energy is turned back against oneself rather than aggressing upon the environment in something akin to an armouring process but whilst armour protects from the environment it is also self-containing and therefore inhibits connection as contact with the present environment is restricted. When retroflection presents there is a ‘doer’ and a ‘done to’ and this split is often evident in language. A client says she feels angry, the therapist might enquire who she is angry with and the client’s retroflection is revealed as she replies, ‘I’m angry with myself.’ The client has split themselves into ‘I’ and ‘myself.’ This process can also be positive as is the case with self-care or self-appreciation, ‘I’m going to be kind to myself.’ This splitting process also presents bodily, most obviously when someone strikes themselves or in self harming behaviour but a person may also hold or stroke themselves when physical comfort is not available. Less obvious ways in which retroflection may present is in muscle tension, including tension held in the diaphragm restricting breathing therefore limiting contact with the environment. The ‘held in’ nature of retroflection can result in a pale pallor, low voice, lack of facial expression, eye contact that appears to look inwards, tension in the person’s jaw but unlike introjection we are looking at a high energy moderation to contact – maintaining chronic retroflection can be an exhausting process. Metaphorically, and likely actually, one skeletal muscle pushes against another resulting in little movement or action but out of awareness expends a lot of energy. Over time this can result in joint problems and enduring fatigue.

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EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Hold your thigh and calf muscles a little tightly for 5  minutes and notice the sensations and any possible restrictions of movement. Notice if holding these leg muscles tightly affects you in any other way. When you relax after the 5 minutes imagine what it might be like to hold your muscles tightly in this way more permanently.

There are different types of retroflection but all involve turning an impulse in upon myself and are characterised by a level of impermeability at the contact boundary. This may take the form of doing to myself what I want to do to others, or doing to myself what I want to receive from others. The latter could be seen as something of a reversed projection, hence it is sometimes identified as a separate moderation called proflection. The person’s behaviour may not necessarily reveal what type of retroflection is at play, for example, someone who is stroking their arm or holding themselves could be wanting to do this to another or have a desire to receive it from another. It is always important in gestalt therapy not to assume or interpret, we need to gain description through dialogue. Freudian theory viewed depression as what we would describe in gestalt therapy as a retroflective process in which aggression is turned towards the self, PHG developed this further to include areas such as self-soothing and self-stimulation as forms of retroflection (Wheeler & Axelsson, 2015). Perls (1947) description of suicide as the retroflective equivalent of homicide echoes Freud’s thinking on the subject when he describes suicide as murderous impulses against others redirected upon himself (Freud, 2001). ‘In suicidality and selfharm, the disruption is often due to the hardening and decreased permeability of the contact boundary’ (Krysinska, Roubal & Mann, 2022: 111). It is invariably when we are most visible in our lives that we are at our most vulnerable and given societal introjects around vulnerability, neediness and the like our impulse may be to hold back from expression, retroflecting it into self-criticism, guilt or shame. The relationship between introjection and retroflection is often a close one. Unhealthy introjects lurking in a person’s ground based around a lack of worth can lead to self-criticism and/or self-harm of all kinds, from mild to severe and at an extreme suicide. Conversely, if

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those archaic messages reflect a good upbringing containing encouragement the retroflective messages may take the form of self-belief rather than self-chastisement, with metaphorical pats on the back replacing metaphorical blows to the stomach. A lack of ability to retroflect would result in impulsive, anarchic behaviour and society would cease to function. In microcosm we might see this in a discussion group where no-one retroflects their need to speak. There is a need to hold back in day-to-day life whether that is choosing against expressing anger with a manager at work or encouraging ourselves to keep going with an important task, like caring for a young child, when tired. Healthy parenting often requires the art of retroflecting one’s own needs. Some people who lack an ability to retroflect present with antisocial behaviour and anger management problems, they can be the perpetrators of abuse. Retroflection is needed for healthy levels of guilt and shame. 3.2.3 Projection A cinema projector sends an image onto a screen, the image that originates in one place, the projector, appears in another, the screen. This is basically the process when human beings project on to each other, so unsurprisingly Perls referred to projection as ‘a screen phenomenon’ (Perls, 1947: 288). The ‘screen’ can be another person, race, institution, group, country or object to name a few possibilities. What is potentially projected are attitudes, traits, qualities both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ and a prerequisite is a lack of ownership. As with retroflection implicit in projection is a split but rather than the energy being turned inwards, as it is in retroflection, it is thrown outwards onto ‘the screen’ – whatever or whoever that may be. ‘Simply stated projection is seeing in others what is present in myself ’ (Mann, 2021: 65). The term ‘projection’ is widely used, in addition to the above descriptions it can be used to: •

• •

The ability to project into the future. This could be in a constructive way such as anticipating potential problems, anticipating financial needs (budgeting, pension plans). Conversely, it could be self-defeating as in catastrophising an outcome. Projecting as a piece of art, writing or any creative piece of work. A process where a person and a collection of their qualities is projected onto another person, often discussed as the client

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•

projecting onto the therapist using the term ‘transference.’ This can take the form of a person from the clients past such as a parental figure, an erotic transference, negative or idealised transference and the therapist can do this too! In relation to separating off and distancing ourselves from parts of our own bodies.

Regarding this last point the body is often spoken of as a separate object (Kepner, 1999) as in, ‘the back aches’ the therapist might intervene to invite greater ownership and receive the reply that ‘my back aches.’ Whilst this last statement appears a step closer the projective split between me and my body is still just as present, ‘What is experienced is kept separate from the “I.” The body is still considered an object of experience and not part of the subject’ (ibid: 111 original italics). The process of deflection is also at play here. In Western culture such a manoeuvre is so common it can go unnoticed and therapists do it too! If we break with a Cartesian body/mind split a true statement when a part of our body hurts is simply ‘I hurt.’ What can easily get missed when we discuss projection is that this process takes place surrounded by a field of influences, it can never simply be a case of something being thrown out by the client to land on the therapist. The process takes place amongst a field of relationships and is co-created within that field and between client and therapist – it is not a one-way street. I would also like to emphasise that we are talking about an ordinary process that happens all the time in everyday life, not just in the therapy room – whether we are talking about projection or transference. As Zinker said in an imaginary interview with his teacher and mentor Fritz Perls speaking as if he were Perls (a projection exercise in itself!), ‘You know I thought that 90% of all human interaction was projection. But there’s a kernel of truth in every projection’ (Zinker, 1993: 133). There is a danger that looking through a lens of projection will establish a hierarchy of truth in the therapy room with the therapist allegedly having a better grasp of reality than the client who is seen as projecting (Jacobs, 2012). Central to gestalt therapy philosophy is the belief in co-creation and simply saying that the client is projecting takes a giant step away from a relational stance in which we seek to equalise the relationship – no-one projects into a void. However, if as therapists we hold in our awareness the possibilities of unbalancing the therapeutic relationship there are many projection exercises and methods that can be employed with clients. One can use projection in the form of drawing/art with clients who

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struggle with expressing themselves verbally. Discussing her work with children Oaklander, in relation to the therapeutic use of drawing and painting, says ‘Projections are also useful for children who talk a lot because they serve to focus on what’s underneath the talk’ (2015: 193). With experimentation being a central tenet in gestalt therapy it is well placed to utilise such creative expression. Spagnuolo-Lobb in discussing projection describes it as ‘the capacity to leap into the environment through the imagination, the courage of discovery, the use of the body as a promoter of change …’ (2012: 44 original italics). Whether that leap is in the service of good or evil, war or peace, justice or injustice is another matter. 3.2.4 Conf luence Confluence is a geographical term describing the place where two rivers come together, so it’s no coincidence that in gestalt therapy the term is used to describe a process of merging. The confluent person goes with the flow, doesn’t rock the boat, consequently they expend little energy being swept along by the current in whatever situation they encounter as differentiation is avoided. Flowing together in confluent moments can be a life enhancing experience when we lose ourselves in the togetherness in a football crowd or music concert, in completing a piece of art, making love or feeling at one spiritually. If you have ever fallen in love, lost yourself in a beautiful sunset or the night sky, bonded with an infant then you will know confluence. Whilst these are positive examples, naturally the flip side of the process also exists and pathological confluence has received more attention in the gestalt literature, though contemporary gestalt authors are redressing the balance. That ‘flip side’ is a loss of a sense of oneself, one’s existence as an individual, on a more enduring basis. It is marked by ‘we’ with ‘I’ subsumed in constant agreement whether this is a couple, group, organisation or nation. One can probably see how confluent behaviour could be supported by a process of introjection, that could be based on out of awareness fears of abandonment – ‘I can’t survive alone’ for example. The dark side of confluence can be seen in cults of all kinds and unsavoury nationalistic behaviour. Fritz Perls had quite an aversion to confluence, a contributory factor likely to be his and Laura’s history in fleeing Nazi Germany and their death camps – confluence with the hollow promises of the Nazi’s would have been life threatening. It is thought that this led him having a stance of early differentiation in his work as a therapist

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(Robine, 2006), believing that empathy should be banished from gestalt therapy as he saw it as a form of confluence (Strawman, 2011). When I think of people I have worked with who have a confluent contact style unsurprisingly I experience little friction, they tend to reach out to me in some way, perhaps with their eyes. They can collapse into the furniture, be overly apologetic, compliant, make few demands and I need to take care not to take them for granted by thinking in terms of ‘an easy session.’ I find I need to work harder with a confluent client, an example being that if I suggest an experiment they are likely to simply agree to it, so I need to suggest a few experiments to invite choice and rejection. Some confluent clients may expect me to be something of a mind-reader due to a lack of differentiation, I need to disappoint them! The proverbial ‘we’ is likely to be dominant in sessions so ‘I’ language needs to be invited and modelled. However, whoever this ‘confluent client’ is before me they are not sitting in an interpersonal void but a field of relationships that has shaped their way of being in the past and we are co-creating our way of being together in the present. Questions I may ask myself are: What is my part in this person’s need to be confluent with me? Does this confluence need to be broken at this point? Is this a necessary developmental stage in our relationship? Western culture is largely confluent phobic whereas a more communal culture will lean into confluence. In gestalt therapy, ‘treatment of introjection and confluence, both of which are key processes in community formation … have largely been pathologized’ (Polster, 1999: 334 original italics). However, the tide is turning as what have become known as the relational schools of gestalt therapy show greater appreciation of confluence and the necessity of shuttling between confluent moments in therapy in service of dialogic encounter. The discovery of mirror neurons has thrown new light on how we relate (Gallese, 2001; Staemmler, 2009; Cozolino, 2014) with a greater understanding of the value of empathy – and empathy is not possible without the ability to move in and out of confluence (Staemmler, 2012). In the earlier phases of a cycle of contacting confluence is not helpful as a figure needs to form from the ground, therefore differentiation is needed in selecting a figure of interest, ‘as the process progresses to final contact, confluence or merger is inevitable’ (Lichtenberg, 1999: 161). It follows that as long as we journey through a healthy contacting process we will also journey through moments of confluence. As with any process problems only occur when things are out of sync with the current situation.

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3.2.5 Def lection A person who habitually deflects is elusive, sidesteps and turns away from direct contact. Interpersonally she ducks and weaves like a boxer avoiding getting hit by impactful contact. The process will be noticeable in language with a lack of ownership and definite statements. Present-centred language will be substituted with generalisations, ‘talking about,’ discussing experience in the past tense – any manoeuvre that dodges direct contact. The deflecting person may consistently feel misunderstood, being one step away from direct relating can leave them and the person/people they are with untouched. Contact with the environment can also be minimised by not breathing it in fully, eyes may appear slightly glazed or distant, direct eye contact avoided. Bodily movements such as shrugging of shoulders, distractive movements and tightening of muscles may present. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Consider your behaviour when you receive a direct compliment. What is your reaction? Do you fully breathe it in? Do you maintain eye contact? As an exercise you could practice giving and receiving compliments using direct language with ‘I’ and ‘you’ in the sentence.

Culturally in Britain and broadly speaking in Western culture deflection is commonplace, a simple example being an exchange between husband and wife: Dave: That’s a beautiful dress you’re wearing, Karin. Karin: It’s just something I got from the charity shop.

Karin’s knocking aside from taking in Dave’s compliment is quite obvious but Dave’s comment is a more subtle deflection, what he is really saying is, ‘You look beautiful, Karin’ this illustrates the interplay between projection and deflection, it’s more comfortable for Dave to project onto the dress. A similar interplay between projection and deflection that underlines how all moderations to contact interrelate is often at play when we use ‘you’ instead of ‘I.’ For example, a student sits with her college counsellor having been unprepared for an exam and referring to herself states, ‘You sometimes aren’t fully prepared are you.’ If deflection is at one end of a continuum, then presence, complete acceptance, breathing in is the opposite pole of the continuum.

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If the environment is toxic in some way then moderating contact through deflection would be a healthy way of managing the situation, along with retroflection. Polster and Polster (1973) first identified deflection, describing this turning aside from direct contact as a sub-process of the armouring seen in retroflection. The deflector may ‘not reap the harvest from his activity’ (ibid: 90) but then if the harvest is not nourishing or poisonous it is better left alone. When functioning as a sub-process of retroflection deflection will present as a hardening of the contact boundary, but I believe the process of deflection can also be marked by an apparent softening of the contact boundary and as such can also act as a sub-process of confluence for example use of ‘we’ language rather than ownership. Use of humour in therapy is often viewed as deflective, we might smile when discussing painful material or laugh to reduce the intensity of contact during intimate moments. This dilution of full contact by therapist or client might be an unhelpful avoidance or a constructive way of grading contact. Humour can connect in helping to grease the wheels of contact and it can sometimes be helpful for clients and therapists to be able to smile at their own pathology. I have just perused a number of journals containing accounts and obituaries of gestaltists who have made considerable contributions to gestalt theory – Bluma Zeigarnik, Ischa Bloomberg, Marianne Fry, Fritz and Laura Perls. All refer in favourable terms to their sense of humour. In gestalt therapy, in the service of the client, we need to bring all our ways of being. 3.2.6 Self-Monitoring/Egotism The process of egotism can be viewed as the blocking of spontaneity by control, being described by PHG as, ‘a slowing-down of spontaneity by further deliberate introspection and circumspection’ (1994/1951: 236) before going on to say that it was a way of guarding against the unpredictable, ‘… an attempted annihilation of the uncontrollable and surprising’ (ibid: 456). The person steps outside themselves and observes themselves in a relationship rather than being in the relationship, whether that is with a person, people or things. An example could be a person meditating and running a selfcongratulatory commentary whilst doing so, rather than being in the experience. A further example that I imagine many of us can relate to is watching oneself as an uncomfortable spectator when struggling to sleep and internally commenting.

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As I have stated elsewhere (Mann, 2021) the term egotism (that translates to ‘I-ism’) does carry negative connotations and can be misleading, therefore I welcome Joyce and Sills (2018) rebranding it with the more descriptive term self-monitoring, a move followed by other contemporary gestalt writers (Chidiac, 2018; Skotten & Kruger, 2022). Characteristics such as caution when encountering a new situation, assessing a situation before moving into action as well as acting as a self-conscious spectator are seen in self-monitoring, the antithesis being impulsiveness or a lack of any constraints. We can see a relationship to retroflection here as there is a holding one’s self back. Isadore From likened self-awareness to egotism, which he viewed through a lens of retroflection (Mulgrew & Mulgrew, 1987). This view speaks to me as implicit in self-monitoring is a retroflective split of a doer and done to, taking the form of a commentator and a commentated on and/or the observer and the observed. However self-monitoring is a more internal and primarily cognitive behaviour and lacks any impulsiveness that is sometimes present in retroflection. PHG described what they called ‘neurotic egotism’ as a type of confluence with deliberate awareness. I believe unhealthy habitual selfmonitoring has its roots in introjection, messages that might dictate a certain way of being taken in from family, religion, education, societal norms that may result in shame if these ‘rules’ are transgressed. Self-monitoring may inhibit instinctive or unrehearsed action but this function may be positive as well as inhibiting. To be sceptical and consider the possibilities of a potential scam phone call or email before handing over your bank details may be useful employment of this moderation! Taking a brief step outside oneself and ‘helicoptering’ in assessing yourself performing an activity such as driving or working as a therapist can be useful, also when learning a new skill. Learning to play a musical instrument may initially require observing yourself but will then call for a letting go in order to play fluidly. At the other extreme obsessive behaviour where a person considers every possible option can prevent them from taking a single step. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Consider aspects of your life where self-monitoring is useful and where it is less useful. In the latter think what moderation may underpin your self-monitoring.

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3.2.7 Desensitisation Desensitisation does what it says on the tin, the person anaesthetises themselves to the environment avoiding or limiting pain, stimulation and essentially becoming ‘senseless.’ This numbing process is commonly seen in Western culture in the early phases following a profound bereavement where the person who has suffered the loss is often able to function relatively well for a brief period as the desensitised pain of the loss does not form as a full figure, ‘that doesn’t allow the person to perceive clearly the situation’ (Spagnuolo-Lobb, 2020: 19). As a temporary measure this may not be an unhealthy creative adjustment but if it becomes a fixed gestalt with lack of movement then it will become problematic. A healthy desensitisation could be a mother with an infant who desensitises from some of her needs to attend to her baby. Sportswomen and men often need to desensitise temporarily to complete races, boxing bouts, football matches and endurance events, numbing themselves to every aching muscle, blister or punch. Some people with insomnia describe being sensitised to stimuli such as sounds, heat or humidity as they struggle to ‘switch off’ from their environment, they may need to learn to a level of desensitisation. As with all moderations to contact when discussing desensitisation we are looking at one end of a continuum, with hypersensitivity at the opposing pole in this case. Anything approaching such sensitivity can also be problematic as anyone with a phobia or allergic reaction will tell you. There are ordinary levels of desensitisation that help us get on with our lives as we are bombarded with distressing news from wars, natural disasters, climate change, murders and crime. We wouldn’t be able to function if we opened ourselves fully sensitised to the horror of these catastrophes. However, if we desensitise from such events completely then we endanger ourselves, our fellow humans, our wild life and our planet. We do live in a world that is becoming increasingly disembodied and desensitised, in which the cold virtual reality of the computer replaces the wind on our faces and the sun on our backs, and we cannot divorce ourselves from the impact of this pre-packaged field of convenience that distances us ever further from the natural world, from sensation. We also live in anxious times, in an anxious field, and to avoid anxiety it is necessary to desensitise the body but any underlying anxiety does not simply dissipate, that may be why we have so many anxiety related disorders, PTSD, depressive problems and attachment disorders (Francesetti, 2015).

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3.3 SUMMARY • •

• • •

‘Moderations to contact’ is a term used in gestalt therapy to describe specific ways in which individuals creatively adjust their level of contact in relation to their environment. There are seven inter-related processes through which individuals moderate contact with their environment: Introjection, Retroflection, Projection, Confluence, Egotism, Desensitisation and Deflection. Moderations are neither inherently positive or negative and must be understood in the context of the situation in which they occur. Therapists need to be mindful of their own contribution to the client’s process and consider how they may be co-creating ways of moderating contact with the client. All moderations to contact take place between the person and their situation that includes the therapist.

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4 THE SITUATION Field Theory

We are all situated in the world with influences that press in upon us, cultural ground that shapes us, development that moulds us. Field theory can be difficult to explain partly because it can be spoken about in vague terms but also because there are different perspectives within gestalt therapy. Whilst this can enrich the approach it doesn’t help me in writing this brief introduction to the subject! Therefore I have devoted the first of these five sub-sections to outlining different perspectives and the way in which leading gestalt practitioners conceptualise field theory. Further sub-sections examine developmental theory in gestalt and the cultural field with attention also given to embodiment and major regulators of our field guilt and shame.

4.1  FIELD THEORY – THE SITUATION Field theory can be a confusing and difficult subject to grasp as there is a potential that the field/situation ‘can become so inclusive as to include anything and everything’ (Parlett, 2005: 45). A further contributory factor is likely that the terms ‘field,’ ‘situation,’ lifespace and lifeworld are all used interchangeably by different gestalt therapists and theorists. My preference is for the term ‘situation’ as we are all situated in the world and I prefer ordinary language. However, the term ‘field’ is also widely used, so I will alternate between the two. Just as the term ‘field’ has multiple meanings (Staemmler, 2006), so too does field theory that is defined through a number of perspectives (Parlett, 1991, 2000; Philippson, 2009, 2018 Robine, 2011, 2015; DOI: 10.4324/9781003312888-5

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Francesetti & Roubal, 2020) this adds to the richness and diversity of gestalt therapy but makes life difficult if one is looking for a solid definition particularly as field theory is often referred to in vague and casual terms (Staemmler, op. cit.). It’s not surprising that we cannot definitively pin down field or situation, nor should we be able to, as the field or situation is in a constant state of flux, just as in health we are forever selfing as we creatively adjust to changing situations. The person is indivisible from her context (Denham-Vaughan, 2010), in my experience in the therapy room raising awareness of this reality often creates a shift in the client when there is the realisation that the problem is neither just out there in the environment nor selfcontained within the person but in the relationship between person and environment. As Parlett states, ‘The field is the entire situation of the therapist, the client and all that goes on between them. The field is constantly made and re-made’ (2005: 43). Whilst I agree with Parlett’s assertion it is in need of some clarification as ‘the entire situation’ and ‘what goes on between’ can be viewed simplistically and miss the multi-layered, laminated nature of the therapist and client’s situation. To explain let me return to my earlier statement that we are all situated in the world. What do I mean by this? We have all emerged from fields of relations, from a generational lineage, from a history, conception through infancy, developmental and life stages to the present moment. These fields of relations press in upon us, they shape us, they shape our thinking, our behaviour, our bodies, our expectations, our way of being in the world. I am not just considering relations as interpersonal but in the widest possible sense. We are in relationship with our environment, ‘we are situated in the world of things, natural objects and cultural objects’ (Daly, 2016: 49) and we view that environment and all objects within it from our cultural ground. If we stand upon communal cultural ground we will have a very different view of the world than if we stand upon highly individualistic cultural ground. Just as we don’t have a culture but are of a culture, as Paul Goodman outlined, we humans are of the field rather than being ‘in the field’ as we do not live in an environment but by means of an environment (Robine, 2011). A hugely significant figure in field theory is the gestalt psychologist and social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) whose work has been integrated into gestalt therapy. His action research covered perception and behaviour and integrated early gestalt psychology with real life, dynamic situations. As Wheeler and Axelsson (2015)

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recount Lewin gave an example whilst on active duty in World War I that emerged from the situation surrounding him in which a traveller, let’s say a soldier, moves across a valley. As he does certain features emerge from his ground to become figural and others do not, those that become figural are integrated as they fall into the soldier’s ground as he meets with his environment to make meaning. This process illustrates that our soldier’s field is a phenomenal field, that is to say that there is a horizon of possible phenomena that emerge within any given situation (Francesetti, Gecele & Roubal, 2022). As gestalt psychology had shown the subjects behaviour will then be based on this meaning-making that often contains a predictive element (more often I imagine in a war situation). For any other soldier moving across this same valley their perception would differ as different elements would become figural for them in relation to an environment that will have changed. Then what if the traveller is not a soldier and this same field is not a war zone? How does that shape perception? A lover, a farmer, a builder, someone out for a walk in the country would all perceive this scene differently and make different meanings. The need will shape their perception and meaningmaking and no two lovers, farmers, builders or walkers will share the same perception or make the same meaning, ‘The need organises the field’ (Marrow, 1969: 167) and none of us are in precisely the same situation. In a sense you and I and eight billion people on the planet perceive different worlds. I have just been gazing at the window in front of me in a busy coffee shop, taking a break from writing as I’m feeling a little blank. A casual observer might think I’m looking at the street outside, as some of my fellow coffee drinkers seem to be, but I am looking at the window itself and the hand and finger marks on it. This window with its marks and smudges reaches out to me as I do to the window. I make sense of my experience as at the time of writing I am three days away from scheduled surgery and am guarding against possible sources of infection that includes various decontaminating treatments. In my reflecting on this brief experience I ponder did I reach out to the window or did the window reach out to me? Culturally we view any impulse as originating in ourselves when the objects and settings we encounter meet us with a will of their own; they challenge us to think, feel and behave in certain ways towards them (Lewin, 1936), ‘… the energy comes from both parts of the field, i.e. both the organism and the environment’ (PHG: 182). If the recent COVID pandemic taught us anything it illustrated the long

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held gestalt belief that we are created by situations just as much as we create them. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it does it make a sound? It has been hypothesised that there is a world that nobody perceives (Lewin, 1952; Marrow, 1969; Staemmler, 2006), whilst this might make for interesting philosophical debate it is of little clinical relevance. What is of clinical significance and central to our work as gestalt therapists is that fields only exist in relation to ‘… an engaged subjectivity. Fields cannot be spoken of properly as existing in themselves …’ (McConville, 2001: 200). It follows that for all practical and clinical purposes ‘the field’ does not exist, for a field or situation to exist it needs a perceiver, we do not say ‘the perception’ or ‘the feeling’ and if a client were to we would likely challenge such deflective language. 4.1.1 Co-creation My description of fields and situations thus far might inadvertently suggest that we all function as separate, atomised individuals. From a gestalt philosophical viewpoint nothing could be further from the truth; human beings are more similar than we are different and innately relational. Thoughts, feelings and sensations do not simply arise from within the individual but emerge between subjectivities in a process of co-creation – we co-construct our worlds with the other in the present (Desmond & Jowett, 2011). This view has gained gravity following neurological research into the functioning of mirror neurons resulting in a movement away from a one person psychology (Keysers, 2011; Schore, 2012; Cozolino, 2014, 2017). However, that is but part of the story as we know more about the other than we perhaps first realise due to social referencing but also as human beings we share situations, hence we are able to identify with the other even when marked difference is present. I know that when my heart aches with another’s pain and anguish, when my eyes prick in the presence of another’s sadness, when my muscles tighten as the other recounts their trauma. 4.1.2  Five Principles of Field Theory Heavily influenced by the work of the gestalt psychologists Lewin and Kohler, Parlett (1991) recast field theory into five principles, producing a useable map for working with complex phenomena

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holistically (ibid: 71). These five principles, though listed separately all interrelate. 1. The Principle of Organisation – As Lewin (1952) identified meaning emerges from the total situation and the meaning derived will depend on the way in which the person or persons organise their situation. A young woman’s depression cannot be understood without a picture of how she organises the different elements of her field and how those elements organise her. 2. The Principle of Contemporaneity – The constellation of influences in the present situation explains the current situation. The present might include what is remembered and what is projected into the future, for example, our depressed young woman may predict a bleak future and select memories that reinforce that view but this all happens in the present. 3. The Principle of Singularity – As discussed, every person’s situation and perception is unique. There may be common factors in clients who present with depression/anxiety/bereavement but no two experiences are ever the same. 4. The Principle of Changing Process – Nothing is permanent, hence in gestalt we are sceptical about diagnoses that appear to fix the client in a category, hence a preference for using verbs to describe a client’s process rather than nouns. 5. The Principle of Possible Relevance – No part of the person’s situation can be dismissed as any aspect has the potential to hold significance. This ties in well with what is known as equalising in phenomenology. A seemingly innocuous event or comment could have, or lead to, huge significance. Similar to Parlett’s five explorations a helpful way of viewing the interrelatedness of these five principles is to think of them as the five fingers on one hand, if you give a thumbs up sign the other four fingers are involved in that action. Just as with moderations to contact where one moderation will affect all other moderations, one principle impacts all principles. 4.1.3  The Id of the Situation As I sit here looking out at the Peak Districts landscape in England there is a horizon of undifferentiated possibilities that existed before I experienced this view. The range of trees, fields, undulations,

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blossoms and clouds and countless other possibilities were there before they caught my gaze. I’m giving a literal example of what Paul Goodman first described as ‘the id of the situation’ (PHG, 1951: 403). The term ‘id’ is not to be confused with the Freudian use of ‘id’ which refers to an unconscious part of personality with instinctive and primitive drives (Sayers, 2021). Goodman’s description refers to the drive originating in the situation rather than the person’s psyche; this being consistent with gestalt therapy’s theory of self as contact or self as process. The id of a situation is present in any encounter we meet with, and remember that the individual is part of the situation. The situation gives form to the person just as the person gives form to the situation or as PHG put it, ‘Only the interplay of organism and environment constitutes the psychological situation, not the organism and the environment taken separately.’ It was proposed that even before we begin to gestalt our experience within our phenomenal field, ‘a situation has already started to be built and will be ground for forthcoming figures’ (Robine, 2011: 110). Localising the id in the situation itself was a radical shift made by Goodman and built upon in particular by Robine (2001, 2016, 2011). When we meet with a situation, or should I say when a situation meets with us – please forgive my cultural bias in seeing humans as primary! – each will hold a certain atmospheric quality. The view from my window holds a different quality than an airport lounge, a hotel swimming pool or a dentist’s waiting room. Therapy rooms hold these qualities too, clients I saw that were new to therapy were often surprised to be met with a room that presented more as a lounge than an office or clinical space. The situation has begun to shape the meeting before we have reached the meeting.

4.2  THE EMBODIED FIELD As a person approaches a situation the way in which they body forth towards that situation will reveal something about their perception of the situation they are about to encounter. The field calls to the person and shapes their bodily response. A woman might drag herself into the office but show more energy as she leaves at lunch and depending upon the situation she is approaching at home and the energy in her immediate field (work colleagues, the atmosphere in the office, etc.), have a different energy at the end of her working day. We have a bodily felt sense of situations we meet with and an

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ability to assess that is pre-verbal that reflects the meaning for a person in the here and now, ‘… the client bodies forth his sense of the situation, how the situation affects and impresses him.’ (Wollants, 2012: 132). People will embody aspects of their field, if there is pressure at work one may feel ‘weighed down’ and heavy, sporting events and concerts provoke all types of anticipatory and situational emotions, when I walk into our nearby woods with tall sycamore and ash trees I feel my spine lengthen and straighten and my breathing relax and deepen. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Consider different environments that you move to and from and take a few moments to consider your bodily reactions in each of these environments. As you reflect lightly consider what field conditions might be at play to account for your response, just let your imagination wander rather than try to find a reason. You could complete this exercise as a creative visualisation.

Our environment shapes us, ‘Just as the contours of the earth I stand on subtly shape the soles of my feet, my grasp of the ground I push off of affects my gait and posture …’ (Bloom, 2016), so too does the ground of our upbringing, every grain of sand from our life story shapes the way in which we body forth in the present. Our histories present in every step we take, how deeply we breathe in the environment, how erect or cowed we stand, the tension or lack of tone in our muscles. Although gestalt therapy focusses primarily on the present moment past fields are contained within the fabric of the here and now, pointing towards a yet to be revealed future. We are eternally interconnected with the world hence the term ‘the lived body’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1962/2014, 1968) is used in gestalt therapy to describe the body as a lived unity of mind-body-world rather than the body being seen through a Cartesian lens in which mind and body are seen as separate from each other and discrete from the world, ‘Our body is in the world as the heart is in the organism … it breathes life into it and sustains it inwardly and with it forms a system (Merleau-Ponty, 1962/2014: 203). The unity of mind-body-world is what we are referring to in gestalt therapy when we describe it as a holistic therapy. In the clinical situation the gestalt therapist is attentive to the observable bodily

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expressions and movements of the client whilst noting their own bodily reactions to the client. A few areas that the gestalt therapist is likely to observe in relation to body are: how the client moves into the room and how he moves at different points during the session, the depth of his breathing, how he may fill space or take up little space bodily, how he may situate himself in the room, how he uses his voice, congruence between his verbal and non-verbal communication. Whilst being attentive to such areas and their own reactions to the client the gestalt therapist will also allow themselves to wonder about possible connections with the client’s reasons for coming to therapy and how in microcosm their way of being in therapy reflects their way of being in their wider field. This may offer clues regarding possible fixed or outdated gestalts. So much information is present in the first few moments of meeting, as I often say to trainees and supervisees regarding how a client bodies forth, ‘Never forget the first few moments when you meet a client.’ A prime need for any human being is to be understood, allied to understanding is a need to empathise with the other’s situation. Though empathy has been a thorny issue in gestalt therapy’s past, due in no small part to Fritz’s aversion to confluence and him viewing empathy in a similar light, relational gestalt therapists have redressed the balance acknowledging the need to move in and out of confluent moments to truly understand and empathise with the others situation. The discovery of mirror neurons (Gallese, 2001; Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004; Staemmler, 2009; Cozolino, 2014) have added weight to the argument that in healthy functioning a degree of confluence is inevitable and that we are wired to understand and empathise, also that this is not a one-way street – clients have mirror neurons too! However, whilst neuroscience has added to the body of knowledge in gestalt therapy, ‘Simply put, neuroscience studies the function of the nervous system and brain’ (Frank, 2023: 120). Empathy, understanding, in fact human relating is a whole body experience that takes place in a particular situation or field that shapes any meeting. It would be grossly reductionistic and deprive us of the mysteries of relating to explain away having your heart ache in the company of another as being due to a particular set of neurons. Anyone’s field is far broader than that. Ruella Frank, a body oriented gestalt therapist and former student of Laura Perls, discusses kinesthetic resonance, the subjective experience of, ‘reverberating feeling tones that are generated from one person to another (2016: 373 original italics) this being co-created in the between of relationship, ‘as we compose and are composed by the

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situation we live’ (op. cit.: 23). This view of the physical and sensory in the field between therapist and client and all that they bring from their respective situations is central to gestalt therapy and echoes Staemmler’s (2012) thinking on the shared situation. We have a felt sense of our world long before we have any verbal capacity to describe it (Stern, 1998), it is at the point that we begin to develop language that we begin to journey away from an embodied way of being as language can never express our full range of experience. We have an inadequate range of language for describing movement and sensation and live in a field that falls short in supporting an embodied way of being. Our pace of life is invariably fast, people eat whilst walking or at workstations, our ever faster processing computers and phones are matched by our ever faster thinking and behaviours – living faster than we are able to sense has become a way of life (Clemmens, 2012). To return to being in touch with our bodies and therefore our field we need to return to sensation. It should go without saying that this is not a cognitive process, yet people including therapists can slip into the cultural trap of reporting on sensation rather than staying with its emergence, ‘sitting in the cockpit of my head, reading the dials about the body down their’ (Kepner, 2003). It is one of the tasks of the gestalt therapist to linger with the emergence of sensation to allow the space for meaning to emerge. It may be counter-cultural, but all meaning making and awareness begins with sensation.

4.3  DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY IN GESTALT A criticism of gestalt therapy is that it does not have a clearly defined developmental theory, however it is more accurate to say that historically it has not had a clearly defined developmental theory that is consistently accepted across the approach in the same way that, for example, Freudian psychoanalysis does with its model of five psychosexual stages. It is interesting to note that prior to the birth of gestalt therapy a similar criticism was levelled at field theorists who were considered to lack interest in development when, ‘Nothing can be more mistaken. In fact, field theorists are most interested in developmental and historical problems’ (Lewin, 1952: 45). As field theory is one of the pillars of gestalt, from an integrative perspective it is nice to know that we share being misunderstood in the same way! Development in gestalt therapy is, ‘characterised by a recurrent need to deal with new and specific themes or tasks …’ (Wollants, 2012: 47),

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or to put it another way, the ongoing need to renew and revise creative adjustments in relation to our field. It follows that from a gestalt perspective development takes place between a person and their situation, rather than within a person. Fritz Perls did lay out a developmental sequence around the infant’s hunger instinct, how this matures and the importance of the cutting of different sets of teeth. Initially the infant receives nourishment through suckling, there is little choice over what the infant takes into their body at this phase. The development of middle teeth allows the infant to cut into solid food before that painful process when the molars break through and the infant is able to chew. However, these later abilities are field dependent. If the infant is kept on the breast for too long or fed mushy baby food, the ability to bite and chew would be disrupted. Conversely, if there is an early withdrawal from breast feeding that is more common in Western culture disruption occurs. Either way, Perls hypothesised that, ‘a fixation on sucking develops that endures into adult life’ (Sluckin, 1993: 10) where the adult can ‘suck their relationships dry.’ As discussed Fritz and Laura developed ideas around this phase of development in relation to introjection. Fritz also described the infant as ‘cannibalising’ the breast leading to forced weaning, the consequence being a lack of assertion as the price of intimacy (Wheeler & McConville, 2002). Fritz and Laura Perls did differ in their views on support in relation to development. Fritz saw development in a linear way, as a transition from environmental support to self-support (Perls, 1973) that was at odds with gestalt’s theory of self-as-process and field theory. Laura’s position emerged from her background in dance in considering what environmental support might be needed to facilitate movement (Perls, 1992). Goodman (1977) described adulthood as ‘childhood plus,’ flying in the face of most psychoanalytic thinking at the time regarding regression as he considered that we were simply every age we had ever been and had the capacity to enter that way of being. As we have seen, figural experience emerges from a background and the here and now exists in relation to other time zones. Most of the gestalt therapists of the 1950s, with solid clinical and philosophical roots, embraced the importance of background in relation to what presented as foreground. It was in Fritz’s Esalen era of the 1960s that background was neglected or even viewed as irrelevant in that particular goldfish bowl of the gestalt world that unfortunately became a caricature of gestalt therapy that spread wider than that corner of the West coast of America. At this point rather than ‘a

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revision of Freuds theories’ as Perls (1947) subtitled his first statement against psychoanalysis, he moved to a position of outright rebellion against anything archaic. From the 1980s thankfully gestalt moved ‘to bring the here and now figure and the historical background into more of a synthesis’ (Yontef, 1991: 8), with a view that ignoring developmental issues and effective therapy were incompatible. Gestalt therapy does not believe in a phasic model of development where one stage needs to be completed before another begins. The psychoanalyst Daniel Stern shares this view of development and consequently his research based theories integrate remarkably well with gestalt therapy (Gillie, 1999). Rather than talking of sequential developmental stages he discusses four domains of relatedness, ‘Once formed, the domains remain forever as distinct forms of experiencing social life and self ’ (Stern, 1998: 32). They begin at different points in the infant’s development but are never redundant. Space dictates that I am only able to give a brief outline of the four domains here. 4.3.1  Emergent Domain of Relatedness (0–2 Months) The infant experiences a mass of stimuli in an emergent process similar to id functioning. During this emergent domain the infant moves to systematically order their isolated experiences in identifying what is me and not me. In doing so, they experience the emergence of organisation. Just as with id functioning all learning and creativity begin in the emergent domain of relatedness. 4.3.2  Core Domain of Relatedness (2–7 Months) As the infant enters the core domain of relatedness she begins to make direct eye contact, with infectious smiling following soon afterwards. The infant appears more wholly integrated, she develops senses of: selfagency – authorship of her own actions, self-coherence – a sense of physical wholeness with boundaries, self-affectivity – patterned qualities of feelings develop, self-history – a sense of continuity develops. I and other become distinct and the parent or caretaker becomes the self-regulating other. Experiences such as arousal, feelings of attachment and security, play cannot occur unless elicited or maintained by the actions of another. What Stern termed ‘Representations of Interactions that have been Generalised (RIGS)’ form these being predictive process relating to how unfolding experience is likely to proceed and are activated by a cue such as an association with a bib and food, a game of peek-a-boo,

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the sound of a door opening. In health these RIGS are constantly updated and flexible, which may sound familiar if you think of the process of creative adjustment in gestalt. The important conclusion drawn regarding the seismic development of this domain was that the interpersonal world of the infant was deeply social. In many ways the infant presents almost as a different person when this domain develops. 4.3.3 Intersubjective Domain of Relatedness (7–15 Months) There is another quantum leap in the infant’s relationality as he not only discovers that he has a mind but that others do too (Stern, 1998) and that they are separate. There is the realisation that inner subjective experience is potentially shareable. ‘Intersubjective relatedness is built upon the foundations of core relatedness’ (ibid: 125). Core relatedness differentiates self and other through ‘concrete’ physical and sensory distinctions that provides a platform of meaning that provides the ground for subjective experience. Hence, the domain of core relatedness continues as it co-exists supporting intersubjective relatedness. The development of intersubjective relating sees recognition of the empathic process in relation to the other whereas prior to its development this would not register, only the empathic response. This process may be something like, what I’m experiencing might be similar to what you’re experiencing and we might be able to let each other know non-verbally. Alongside this empathic responsiveness affect attunement develops. 4.3.4  Verbal Domain of Relatedness (15–18 Months) Are you always able to find the words to express yourself fully? The development of language is double edged as words to not exist to express our full range of experience. The child is able to verbally express experience, partake in social engagement and communicate, but verbal communication can never fully convey their felt sense. With all its advantages verbal communication appears to narrow our range of expression particularly in cultures where there is a tendency to use body minimally to supplement the verbal. Language ‘moves relatedness onto the impersonal, abstract level … away from the personal, immediate level intrinsic to the other domains …’ (ibid: 163). The gestalt psychotherapist Ruella Frank has contributed greatly to developmental theory in contemporary gestalt therapy. Her studies, research and theories centre around movement and somatic processes.

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Through integrating Body-Mind Centring (Bainbridge-Cohen, 1993) in her practice based theories Frank identifies six fundamental movements that develop between the infant and their environment: yielding, pushing, reaching, grasping, pulling, releasing (Frank, 2001; Frank & La Barre, 2011). Just as with Stern’s theories it is made clear that these ‘integral aspects of experience’ (ibid) become part of the complex pattern of relating throughout life. Yield – The infant gains a sense of weight as she surrenders to gravity and the baby’s different muscle groups are stimulated as she rests on different parts of her body. Changing position as she lies enables the infant to differentiate the different parts of her body. Just as firm ground is needed physically, solid relational ground is also needed relationally with her primary carers. The ability to surrender creates the background from which all other movement emerges. We are not talking about a passive act of confluence, but a choiceful movement that in later life may present as leaning into support and one that broadly speaking is culturally dystonic. The receptivity or otherwise of the parents will be key in developing this ability. A struggle with yielding could result in a person being overly self-supporting in relationships in later life or develop sleep problems as the person maintains a bodily tension rather than surrendering to gravity. Push – This process begins when the baby squirms as they adjust themselves in relation to the gravitational pull. The act of pushing again allows an experience of weight in the infant and compresses soft tissue in the body, energy is in the opposite direction and something solid in the environment is needed to push against to allow the infant to experience, ‘separating from while including the other’ (Frank & La Barre, 2011: 27 original italics). In those early years if the baby pushes themselves up to meet the gaze of an interested parent their experience will be very different from a push that is met with a vacant gaze. Whereas yielding allows one to join another, pushing allows one to differentiate and a healthy way of being is an ability to fluidly move along a yield-push continuum throughout life. Reach – There is a sequence to the infant’s process of reaching. First, there is a reach for the mother’s breast with her nose and mouth, this is followed by eyes and hands reaching towards the mother’s face and a reaching action as the infant stretches her fingers. How the infants reach is met is likely to shape their reach in later life in terms of how the adult reaches gracefully, tentatively, fluidly, cautiously, confidently. As the infant reaches further their experienced world expands but this is accompanied by a loss of balance that requires attunement by the

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parent. In the present as one reaches for another, ‘there is a movingfeeling-knowing – a remembering of how one executed this reach in earlier experiences’ (Frank, 2023: 132). Frank refers to this process as kinesthetic remembering, body memories of specific moving-feeling dynamics that could apply to any of the six fundamental movements. Grasp – When the infant develops the ability to grasp, that will first develop when they grasp the nipple with their mouth, they gain a sense that the world is three dimensional. Shortly afterwards they develop ability to grasp with their hands broadening their range of exploration in terms of weight and textures of things. Paired with reaching where the child can reach and lose balance as they reach towards the unknown, grasping will stabilise the movement. This stability is reinforced by the parent’s presence. Pull – Having reached and grasped the nipple the infant pulls it into his mouth. If you have had contact with any 3- to 4-monthold baby you will likely have witnessed a reach-grasp-pull process as objects are reached for grasped and pulled towards the child’s mouth. Throughout this lifelong reach-grasp-pull process the child/adult discovers to what extent ‘me’ and ‘you’ can become ‘we’ and degrees of separateness and connection that will be unique to each relationship encountered and the situation in which that encounter takes place. Release – In common with all other developmental movements we are looking at release in relation to the other developmental movements and the situation. When pull is complete, release follows. The infant initially only breaks her gaze when sleep comes or when there is a disturbance but after a few weeks the first signs of a more deliberate release are evident as the infant shifts her gaze around the room. There then follows a grasp-release dynamic after a few months in relation to objects. As adults we may need to release ourselves from psychological clutter, out-dated ways of being or an activity/ occupation that is no longer satisfying. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Consider the above six fundamental movements in relation to your current life. Can you think of examples of each? For instance, when you have yielded and when you have pushed? Consider how each are manifest for you physically e.g. how firm is your grasp when shaking hands, how is your push away from the ground as you walk? Try not to attribute a value to your way of being, but consider possible growing edges.

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It is impossible to cover all contributions to developmental theory in gestalt therapy in this short section but in addition to the work of Stern (1998), Frank (2001, 2023) and Frank and La Barre (2011) the interested reader may wish to peruse the work of Wheeler and McConville (editors) (2001, 2002) and McConville (2013) who discuss childhood and adolescence from a whole field perspective. In summary, in gestalt we do not see development as taking place in the individual but in relation to the person’s whole situation. Any process of development begins with the surfacing of a developmental need whether this is a hungry infant, a five year old learning to swim, an adult broadening their vocabulary or an elderly person adapting to living with restricted physical ability. Throughout life creative adjustments can be seen as developmental achievements and these achievements are never complete once and for all.

4.4 SHAME AND GUILT AS FUNCTIONS OF THE FIELD Guilt is primarily associated with an act, when we have either done something wrong, failed to do something we believe that we should have done, or thought about doing something such as seeking revenge or committing a violent act. Shame is associated with a state of being wrong. In simple terms guilt is when I make a mistake, shame is when I am a mistake. Both can arise when we do not follow the prevalent norms or rules of the situation, they are functions of the field but feel detached from any situation. With toxic shame the affect can feel locked behind the person’s contact boundary but agonisingly visible for all to see. Guilt and shame are formed in relationship can then be maintained in isolation but can only be revised in relationship, they are creative adjustments to a past situation where there was a lack of support. Processes of retroflection and introjection are invariably present in maintaining and sustaining these affects, although confluence with criticism and disapproval can also be present both in forming and maintaining these affects. Shame, and to a lesser extent guilt, are major regulators of the contact boundary between self and other. One of the first to write about shame in depth was Gershen Kaufman (1985, 1996) who described it as, ‘the affect of indignity, of defeat, of transgression, of inferiority and of alienation … felt as an inner torment, as a sickness of the soul’ (1985: vii), his writing suggested that he knew shame beyond a cognitive level. He went on

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to consider it to be the source of such states as depression, paranoid and schizoid states, compulsive disorders, borderline and narcissistic personality disorders – states all rooted in interpersonal failure. The ‘inter’ of interpersonal is lost behind excruciating self-consciousness, self-observation and self-criticism. There is the desire to hide, to vanish, yet the physiological effects of shame make the person more visible in a social situation; blushing, an inability to maintain eye contact, loss of vocabulary, struggle with co-ordination, tics, stuttering or even a complete loss of words can accompany a sense of social paralysis. The only escape from shame at its most toxic may seem to be psychosis – or suicide as the ultimate escape – unless the retroflective dagger is turned outwards and projected onto the other with equally catastrophic possibilities. The physiological effects of shame are considered ‘a more visceral experience than guilt’ (Taylor, 2014: 157) with such dysregulated functioning heightening an already acute self-consciousness. To experience shame itself can be shameful, particularly in an individualistic culture, and this process can lead to a shame spiral in which simply having the feeling equals inferiority and weakness resulting in shame of shame. ‘The view of need and dependency as a weakness, and the creating of an icon of the self-sufficient hero, so prevalent in American [Western] rugged individualism, is fertile ground for creating shame’ (Yontef, 2009: 43) – it works for guilt too! A shame reaction can be triggered by another feeling or way of being initially experienced in an early relational rupture. Kaufman (op. cit.) discusses shame binds where a feeling, reaction, drive or interpersonal need binds itself to shame resulting in the shame-prone person experiencing shame as soon as they touch the emotion, drive, need, etc. Some examples of shame binds are: anger-shame, fear-shame, sex-shame, hunger-shame, need-shame, power-shame and differentiation-shame. Certain shame binds are more likely in certain cultures, people from a more communal culture are more likely to be susceptible to differentiation shame binds whereas those that stand on the ground of an individualistic culture may be more prone to need-shame binds. Any straying from cultural/subcultural/familial norms has the potential of forming a shame bind. I believe the above process could equally apply to guilt but a guiltshame bind is more likely to be in relation to an action or failure to act. Guilt and particularly shame can be debilitating, if not paralysing affects and creative adjustments may be made to defend against the

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affect. The introjected shameful way of being is too much to bear in a field either void of support or perceived to be void of support, so a solid deflective shield is erected and a variety of behaviours defend against the underlying affect. These may take the form of rage, perfectionism, blame, masking, grandiosity or acidic humour all designed to protect the vulnerable underbelly of shame. Whilst these behaviours might successfully defend against the person experiencing their underlying shame they also deny them the empathy and understanding that was developmentally absent, it takes an astute therapist to notice and attune to the underlying relational need for empathy when everything a shame-based person does invites the opposite. Shame and guilt based self-criticism can be considered second arrow wounds. This idea comes from Buddhist teaching where the person is shot by a first arrow, a suffering that is unavoidable (Seely, 2022). Whist suffering this initial wound they engage in the retroflective behaviour of picking up a second arrow and stabbing themselves with a self-blaming internal commentary, for example, in response to being attacked ‘I shouldn’t have walked this way.’ Regarding the physiology of shame the neuroscientist Cozolino (2017) hypothesised that shame is associated with the right hemisphere of the brain and Panksepp (1998) considers shame to emerge from separation distress systems in the brain. Such thinking is only of value if we maintain a field perspective, it can inadvertently lead us away from a situational view of the person and down a physiological tunnel in the search for a cause. Neurobiological responses to shame are symptoms of a rupture in field and are not self-contained under the skin even though the individual may feel that they are. Whilst there have been amazing advances in neuroscience in recent years that has thrown light on the physiology of what may happen between humans, not least the discovery of mirror neurons that, ‘demonstrate the profoundly social nature of our brains’ (Schore, 2003: 116), standing upon our cultural ground of individualism we can gravitate to viewing affects through a ‘self-contained’ lens. There is a real danger that viewing shame and guilt through such a lens will only exacerbate isolation. Guilt and shame have a function and a meaning, they restrict and shrink a person’s ability to impact the world. There is a danger for the therapist that when shame rears its toxic side in the between of the therapeutic relationship, we either seek to soothe or avoid.

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When training or supervising therapists I have often heard, ‘that might shame the client’ as a reason for not delivering a particular intervention or being more proactive. Without being gung-ho and respecting the need for solid relational ground as therapists we need to remind ourselves that we are in the business of building resilience to shame. The same can be said for guilt. Whilst there has been an enormous focus in the literature on healing shame within the field of psychotherapy, to which guilt has taken something of a back seat, my impression is that insufficient attention has been given to the healthy functions of shame and guilt. A society or any group would fail to function without guilt and shame, there would be complete anarchy, sociopathy would reign. At a less extreme level shame and guilt helps enable us to hold back impulses. An awareness of one’s guilt and shame makes the world a safer place as it will counter any unaware process of managing these affects by projecting them onto others and then attempting to destroy the other and with it the illusion or delusion of freeing oneself from such pain. Joyce and Sills (2018) describe a sense of shame as an inter-personal boundary and note that Schore (2012) identified the surfacing of feelings of shame around the age of 12 to 18 months that develop, ‘as a (potentially useful) neurobiological regulator of social interaction’ (op. cit.: 87). In her work on shame in relation to white privilege Jacobs champions the need for shame arguing that we need guilt and shame, as they ‘remind us we are all more alike, vulnerable and fallible, than different …’ (Jacobs, 2014: 304) she notes that failure to acknowledge our guilt leads to a failure in acknowledging our privilege and should we disavow our shame we forfeit our access to humility and compassion. They are essential for human relating. If we are able to recognise our shame and guilt reactions and are sensitised to signs of them surfacing within the fibres of these affects is woven information about what is needed or lacking in the field. We may be attuning to a lack of support in the current environment that can lead us to take action appropriate to the presenting field conditions, this might include seeking support, realising a need to follow a social norm or armouring oneself through retroflection until there is more support. Even if we notice that our guilt/shame reaction is a response to an archaic situation it still says something about the current situation. ‘Guilt and shame indicate a rupture between the individual’s needs and the environmental receptivity to meet those needs’ (Mann, 2010: 148)

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4.5  THE CULTURAL FIELD As stated in gestalt therapy we work with ‘what is’ but ‘what is’ stands upon a cultural ground that shapes our entire perception of things, our understanding of the world, the way in which we hold our bodies, our values and assumptions and most of these embedded, embodied beliefs and ways of being will be held out of awareness. We tend to take our culture for granted and it is not until we encounter a different culture that we can increase awareness of our own. Something that appears to be just ‘what is’ in Western culture such as dichotomies of me/not me or inner/outer, ‘is learned in social/ cultural development and is particular to our own individualistic culture’ (Wheeler, 2005: 94). The anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1988) describes culture as being a shared system of communicated meanings and moves on to view the embedded nature of culture as giving the person stability. We can equate Geertz’s stability with gestalt’s ground – as in figure and ground – for culture is the ground I stand upon that will shape every figural movement I make – emotional, physical, psychological and behavioural – culture shapes the limits of my awareness, ‘… one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions … even given a mastery of the country’s language. We do not understand the people … we cannot find our feet with them’ (Wiggenstein, 2008). Again we can draw a parallel with Wiggenstein’s inability to ‘find our feet’ with gestalt therapy’s theory of ground. As we are not in a field but of a field, it follows that we do not have a culture or are in a culture – we are of a culture. Wheeler does use the term ‘being-in-culture’ (op. cit.: 114), but the hyphens illustrate our eternal connectedness to our being and our culture in much the same way Heidegger (1962) uses the term ‘being-in-the-world,’ to show the unitary nature that being and culture/world need to be viewed as a whole. Pinderhughes (1989) defines culture as values, beliefs and behaviours passed down from generation to generation, if we accept this definition then an aspect of our shared field in Britain is our colonial past with its assumptions of racial superiority. As a white British man I’m finding it uncomfortable to acknowledge this, but when I look a little closer I believe I am contacting healthy shame that may help horizontalise my relationship with clients from another culture, a culture that people from my ancestors generation (maybe my ancestors) could have enslaved.

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In the give and take of dialogue, if we are to truly embrace gestalt philosophy we need to own the privileged positions we hold and the power imbalance that comes with our privilege. Jacobs (2000, 2016) explores privilege in relation to being white, latterly with a greater focus on power. She observes that, ‘Dominant culture therapists are least likely to understand their participation in power imbalances that constrain dialogue’ (Jacobs, 2016: 149). In these hard-hitting papers she explores the uncomfortable areas of white ignorance and white supremacy and although she uses the US socio-political culture for her research, I believe the points raised translate across the Western world. In my white Britishness I need to hold an awareness of what it might mean to be a person of colour in my therapy room, in our society. That said, our cultural struggle in understanding the other is that our imagination is limited by the culture in which we live, the ground upon which we walk, which makes it unlikely that we are able to think, feel or act in ways that are contradictory to it (Mead, 1949). We can only try, and trying in our white and privileged world of psychotherapy might mean reaching out from the comfort of our consulting room armchairs and moving towards other’s communities, keeping ourselves informed about other cultures, seeking to widen our awareness of our own backgrounds and how this shapes our foreground; as white therapists recognising our position of power and privilege. Language is culturally embodied, just as our culture shapes the way in which we hold our bodies so language shapes the way we hold our jaws and move our mouths. Consequently, some words will be pronounced differently by a non-native speaker. People from the same culture share a more intimate understanding of their language than the most accomplished foreign speaker. An area of unrecognised privilege in the West is to be a native English speaker. This personal capital will afford privilege in numerous situations; at international conferences where the language is English (Chidiac, 2023), as a visiting tourist in a non-English speaking country. The English speaker’s answer to not having their foreign language understood can be to speak louder, when they need to speak slower! In Britain there is also different value placed on different regional accents. A further example of ‘unrecognised privilege is being able-bodied … as the world provides obstacles to various kinds of disabilities’ (ibid: 14) that are out of the awareness of most of the general population. In our individualistic culture, ‘Most personal difficulties that clients experience result from a rupture of the ‘we’ in a situation’ (Wollants (2016: 226).

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From a field theoretical viewpoint it is not surprising that the culture we inhabit not only shapes us physically, psychologically and behaviourally but also neurologically; an aspect of the field will affect all aspects of the field. There is empirical evidence that cultural experiences affect neural function, particularly areas of the brain associated with perceptual processing and how neurobiological processes, social behaviours and cultural contexts are interconnected (Park & Huang, 2010; Kim & Sasaki, 2014). What is the effect on people who become dislocated from their culture through migration or becoming a refugee? As there is separation from well-known supports and the familiar, ‘from social introjects, from recognition of self-narration and of the cultural shape acquired by the body’ (Gecele, 2014: 111) parallels can be drawn with a trauma response. A supervisee I worked with in Britain introduced me to the term ‘re-mooring’ in relation to immigration. As a Maltese immigrant herself Carmen had left one country in which her identity had been supported and understood and relocated to another where identity needs to be re-situated and often re-defined (Deaux, 2000), any familiar sense of self can be lost or minimised as the field talks back, actually and metaphorically, in a foreign language. An absorbing documentary series that turned traditional anthropology upside down was aired in Britain on Channel 4 in 2007. Titled ‘Meet the Natives’ five tribesmen from Tanna, Vanuatu, a remote South Pacific island, travel to a strange foreign land on the other side of the world to spend time with three tribes. The peculiar land is Britain and the three tribes; working, middle and upper class. Whilst amusing as the islanders discover fox hunting, karaoke and sample a ‘national delicacy’ known as KFC, it is also a poignant reminder of different cultural values. One of the enduring memories for me was when the five ambassadors stood dumbfounded that ‘the natives’ walked past the homeless man on the pavement but took their dogs to grooming parlours. ‘We would build him a house’ they said – the stark difference between a ground of individualism and a ground of communality summed up in a sentence. There was a danger of mockery as the series revealed the tribesmen’s spiritual beliefs. They worshipped Prince Philip believing him to be an ancestral spirit who had risen from a volcano and who, according to prophecy, this ancestral spirit would eventually return to Tanna. At the risk of treading on a few toes, is that really so far removed from many Western spiritual beliefs? Even with our radically different cultures

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and values I return to us humans being more similar than we are different … rather than thinking of ourselves as entirely separate individuals we are, first and foremost, interconnected and interdependent, and we cannot exist otherwise (Parlett, 2015: 103 original italics).

4.6 SUMMARY • • • • • • • • • • • • •

The field/situation is in a constant state of flux. The person and their context or field are indivisible. The terms ‘field,’ ‘situation,’ lifespace and lifeworld are all used interchangeably by different gestalt therapists and theorists. Human beings co-create their worlds through relational interactions, emphasising our innate interconnectedness. Human beings are ‘of the field’ rather than ‘in the field.’ A drive can originate from the field rather than from the person, Paul Goodman referred to this as ‘the id of the situation.’ Our environment shapes us bodily, the field calls to the person and shapes their bodily response. Gestalt therapy views the body as a holistic unity of mind, body and world. Development in gestalt therapy is characterised by creative adjustment to new themes or tasks in relation to one’s field, rather than as an internal process. Daniel Stern’s work on Domains of Relatedness has been integrated into gestalt therapy, these four domains – emergent, core, intersubjective and verbal – continue throughout life. Ruella Frank’s focuses on six developmental movements – yield, push, reach, grasp, pull, release – that develop in relation to the environment and continue throughout life. Shame and to a lesser extent guilt are major regulators of the field. Guilt is linked to a sense of doing wrong, whilst shame is linked to a sense of being wrong.

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5 EXPERIENCING THE WORLD Phenomenology in Gestalt Therapy

How are you reaching out to make meaning of this book at this moment? What is your experience? Both are phenomenological questions that seek to gain an understanding of your perceptual experience. In being phenomenological we stay as close to the person’s experience in the present without interpreting. That means holding a phenomenological attitude in which the therapist remains neutral in relation to what might ordinarily seem obvious in order to gain as fuller description of the client’s subjective experience as possible. Over five sections we will look at phenomenology as a philosophy before looking at its application in gestalt therapy that includes intersubjectivity – the interplay between subjective experiences. The chapter will conclude by looking at the related theory of holism.

5.1  PHENOMENOLOGY AS A PHILOSOPHY I am feeling uncomfortable. For the purpose of clarity in this chapter I will be separating phenomenology from my previous chapter covering field theory and my forthcoming chapter on dialogue. I cannot create a clean cut between these three philosophies – the three pillars of gestalt – nor do I want to for they weave in and out of each other like an intricate tapestry; it would feel like carving up the Bayeux. So, dialogue with the world of humans and things and field theory will run through this chapter on phenomenology but I shall major on the latter. DOI: 10.4324/9781003312888-6

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The above is my experience as I move to write. I begin with a feeling of what I call discomfort as I reach out to what I know as my keyboard, discomfort with what I call separation of what I know as three philosophies. My discomfort settles as I reveal my intentions to major on phenomenology whist the threads of dialogue and the situation entwine around it. Stating what might be obvious phenomenology translates to the science or study (‘-ology’) of phenomena (Zahavi, 2019) this then begs the question what is phenomena? It can also be described as the study of consciousness, again a philosophical question as to what constitutes consciousness can be posed. In existential phenomenology we are more likely to describe it as the study of being – what is being? With such questions we might be in danger of vanishing down some philosophical black hole, so before we venture into what phenomenology is lets first look at what it is not. As we go about our daily lives we engage in a process of sense-making that is full of assumptions, judgements and ideas about what constitutes ‘reality.’ Of course, this process doesn’t happen consciously we just accept things as we perceive them, as we gestalt them. I’m sitting on a chair writing at my kitchen table facing the gentle hum of our SMEG refrigerator, through the window I can see trees and birds, my wife Karin is sitting in the adjoining room. I am not deconstructing any of this ‘reality’ or questioning its existence, I am just accepting it as what is. I meet with my world not with a phenomenological attitude in making sense of it but with what is known as the natural attitude. In maintaining this ‘natural attitude’ all experience, all perception, all reality is interpretation. To practice phenomenology we step aside from our ordinary meaning-making process, the natural attitude, with all its assumptions and preconceived ideas of what constitutes reality and maintain a phenomenological attitude (Husserl, 1931). A straightforward description of phenomenology is, ‘… the study of human experience and of the ways things present themselves to us…’ (Sokolowski, 2000: 2). The roots of the term ‘phenomenology’ come from the Greek for ‘that which appears,’ this points us towards what phenomenology is about – if we hold a stance where we allow something to appear we move away from the interpretive stance of the natural attitude. To apply this to my previous sense-making activity, as I type in my kitchen and look up at what in my everyday life is my SMEG refrigerator holding a phenomenological attitude I no longer jump to this conclusion but allow this thing to unfold before

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me, as I would allow all other aspects of my interpreted world. I will come to the theory and method of how this movement is achieved later, but first a brief history of phenomenology. The founder of 20th-century phenomenological philosophy is Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), although the phenomenological tradition can be traced back to the 18th century with other philosophers such as Leibniz, Hegel and Kant. The 20th-century phenomenological tradition was taken forward and developed by philosophers including Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), Emmanuel Levinas (1905–1995) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002). Of greatest relevance to gestalt therapy are Husserl, early Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty and it is the essence of their thinking that I will try to convey. 5.1.1  Transcendental Phenomenology Transcendental phenomenology was created by Edmund Husserl. Whilst there are renowned works that convey the thinking of the existential phenomenological philosophers Heidegger (Being and Time) and Merleau-Ponty (The Phenomenology of Perception) no such magnum opus was produced by Husserl. Husserl began as a mathematician before coming to the world of philosophy, evident in his first published work – The Philosophy of Arithmetic. As a mathematician he was constantly reworking his ideas and his mathematical way of thinking runs through his work. His philosophical studies of phenomenology can be divided into three main periods (Macann, 1993), but it is his middle period that is of interest to gestalt therapists, that being when he developed transcendental phenomenology. As the name suggests in transcendental phenomenology Husserl was attempting to transcend the natural attitude with all its associated beliefs and assumptions about reality. Once free from our judgements he believed we would be released to gain an objective view of the world through our senses, to gain knowledge through what he described as original experience. He believed that knowledge began with wonder and curiosity and sought to find a way that experience could be uncontaminated by prior knowledge, in the same way that a young child might meet with a new object they have never experienced before. Husserl proposed that such a movement was possible by engaging in a process he devised known as phenomenological reduction also referred to as the phenomenological method. Through a three-step process Husserl

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proposed that preconceptions of the world could be suspended. The three movements are: •

•

•

Bracketing (also known as the rule of epoche) – As the name suggests all assumptions of what is or could be are quite literally held in brackets and put to one side so that the perceiver is touched by the experience of meeting this person or thing as if for the first time. In Husserl’s language of phenomenology they are touched by the virgin experience. To return to my SMEG refrigerator, I meet this thing as if I have no knowledge of my well known piece of kitchen equipment. Any notions of its function, that it has handles, that the letters S-M-E-G are spelt out in bright chrome, that it opens are held to one side. Description – In phenomenology we do not seek explanation, we seek description. As far as possible we avoid interpretation in this present-centred activity. In simple terms we say what we perceive. Hence, I simply describe my experience of my SMEG refrigerator as it unfolds before me in the here and now. As I meet it with my senses I allow it to unfold before me and figural aspects begin to emerge, its curves, its glossy finish that reflect something of what I assume (!) is behind me. There is a low pitched hum that invites my steady breathing. I can wrap my hands around two shiny pieces that stick out from the smooth surface (that in the natural attitude I’d call handles). If I pull on these a cavity is revealed that is cold inside. Horizontalisation or Equalisation – All aspects of a thing or person are held equally with no one aspect being deemed more or less significant than another. In the language of gestalt therapy we could say we were in id functioning until a figure begins to emerge. You’ll note that there are overlaps between these three movements as I need to horizontalise in order to describe, in this case my emerging experience of my SMEG refrigerator. The handles carry no more ‘weight’ than what I describe as a glossy finish or it’s curves.

5.1.2  Existential Phenomenology Martin Heidegger worked as Husserl’s assistant during which time he began developing his own ideas becoming a key figure in creating the foundations of existential phenomenology, more commonly known as existentialism, taking the focus of phenomenology in a different

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direction. Whereas Husserl’s phenomenology focussed on consciousness, Heidegger’s phenomenology focused on existence or being (Gorner, 2007); he did not believe that phenomenology could simply be reduced to consciousness. Heidegger’s thinking in Being and Time influenced Fritz and Laura Perls in their development of working in the ‘here and now’ as phenomenology is a present centred discipline. As existential phenomenology views human existence as inextricably tied to the world phenomenologists from this school, including Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, reject the idea of bracketing one’s experience. They also reject the Cartesian view, ‘I think therefore I am,’ that would be more accurate should it be reversed. The problem with Descartes famous statement from an existential-phenomenological point of view is that it creates a false split between the person and the world as well as making the person primary. To illustrate our connectedness to the world the hyphenated term ‘being-in-the-world’ is used and in common with gestalt therapy existential phenomenology views our awareness and existence as intersubjective, ‘we must be subjective, since subjectivity is in the situation …’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2010: 6). This statement also illustrates that existential phenomenology and field theory cannot be separated, neither can either be separated from dialogue for we are always in dialogue with the world, ‘… an existential-phenomenological approach defines existence as relational’ (Cohn, 1997: 126). Heidegger discusses being thrown into an uncertain existence with existential givens that include finitude (death) and existential guilt, a sense that we have not done enough. The given that we will die, according to Heidegger, leads to an overwhelming angst which in turn leads to a choice. To manage this angst we can bury this existential given alongside other givens such as existential guilt and live our lives inauthentically thus deadening our vitality through restricting ourselves with rule bound limitations. Alternatively we can choose to live authentically acknowledging the realities of our existence and responsibility in our lives and in doing so increase our freedom of choice. This increase in freedom of choice should not be mistaken for an ability to choose the events that happen to us, but we can choose the way in which we react and respond to such events and the meaning we attribute to them. There is a dramatic example of such choice earlier in this book with the account of Arnie Beisser’s story that underpinned the paradoxical theory of change. There is also a paradox in living authentically in relation to one’s death too in that if we take death into our lives we free ourselves from the angst that surrounds death.

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Deeply influenced by the work of Husserl and Heidegger the philosopher Merleau-Ponty used their influences and thinking as a platform for developing his philosophy of embodied perception. Just as gestalt therapy does not buy into a dualistic splitting of mind and body neither did Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, he saw perception as inseparable from what he referred to as the lived body contributing, ‘a new concept of perception and its embodied relation to the world’ (Carmen & Hansen, 2005). Central to his philosophy was the notion that perception was a bodily experience not simply psychological. He saw body, consciousness and perception as inseparable in our relation with the world. Opposed to every type of dualism MerleauPonty believed that inner and outer could not be effectively distinguished, ‘The world is wholly inside and I am wholly outside of myself ’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 407), his argument was that there was no private inner being but only the embodied and perceiving being in the world (Orange, 2010). There are many areas where existential philosophers such as Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger compliment and enrich gestalt therapy, their thinking on time and focus on the present, the former discusses standing in the present and comprehending his past differently, changing its meaning and thereby freeing himself from the outdated meaning (Merleau-Ponty, 1962) that we could equate with updating a fixed gestalt. I’m sure you can relate to changing the meaning of a past event, a relationship or updating your fashion sense – you probably don’t attribute the same meaning to that childhood comfort blanket or teddy bear! We cannot talk about the history, development and philosophical roots of gestalt therapy properly without acknowledging the enormous contributions made by Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty in the field of phenomenology. The existential phenomenologists are of greater relevance to today’s gestalt therapy and for me MerleauPonty is the most influential of these giants, but he and Heidegger benefitted from the substantial ground laid by Husserl. As a certain Irishman put it failing to mention Merleau-Ponty when considering the philosophical roots of gestalt is, ‘like writing about stout and not mentioning Guinness’ (Kennedy, 1998: 89).

5.2  PHENOMENOLOGY IN GESTALT THERAPY Having given a brief overview of phenomenology as a philosophy I now need to state the obvious in that this is a book about gestalt therapy and we are psychotherapists and counsellors not philosophers.

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Although phenomenology is integrated into of our therapeutic philosophy we are in the business of working with people’s distress, desire for personal growth, crisis points in life and suffering. Bloom makes this point and goes on to note an essential commonality, ‘Yet both phenomenology as a philosophy and gestalt therapy as a psychotherapy have one essential common denominator. They both are concerned with first person experience – the very process of personal experiencing itself ’ (2019: 184). They are also both concerned with description, with allowing experience to unfold without prior judgement, subjective experience, in our case as therapists intersubjective experience – what happens between client and therapist within a field of relations. Whether we are able to engage in a Husserlian phenomenological reduction as we sit facing a human being in our therapy room is more than doubtful and most gestalt therapists would agree, including this one, that we can never completely bracket our preconfiguring material – our ‘knowledge’ of the person, our theories, our diagnostic maps, our beliefs and values. Hence, being touched by the virgin experience will always remain just beyond our reach, but we can get a fair way down this road enabling us to describe rather than explain and equalise the plethora of verbal and non-verbal information that greets us as our client makes contact with us. In getting as close to a phenomenological attitude as possible we hold, ‘an attitude of openness to the world of the other’ (Wollants, 2012: 99) as we meet with this new outlook attempting to be unencumbered by our own perception of what we consider reality. Whilst we gestalt therapists owe a great deal to Husserl’s thinking and incorporate his ideas in an adapted form into our work gestalt therapy is not based on transcendental phenomenology (Yontef, 1999). Assumptions and judgements are so easy to make, I will offer a simple example from a training group I facilitated and one that I have witnessed many times: In group process, where the group work with their own process issues, the subject of bereavement (it could have been any subject) was being shared. Rachel began to sob, tears running down her face. Several members of the training group rushed towards her with boxes of tissues.

What’s the problem with that you may ask? The group members were responding from what they thought Rachel needed, they were caring – they were also interpreting. There was no consideration for how she was with her tears, what her experience was, she could

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have been comfortable with the sensation of tears rolling down her cheeks, needed space, needed to sob uninterrupted or needed her hand holding. The significance of Rachel’s tears is for Rachel to discover, just as the meaning of holding muscles rigidly is for the one who is tense or the clenching of teeth is for the one who clenches their teeth. The gestalt therapist might simply say what they see, without taking a hierarchical position by then making sense of it for the client, it is in the between of the relationship that meaning needs to unfold. There are two foci in phenomenological enquiry those being the what of experience and the how of experience. This does not mean that we relentlessly ask questions – we are therapists not interrogators! There are many ways of enquiring to gain description and many are non-verbal such as nods, facial and bodily gestures. Simply saying what we see, e.g. ‘I notice you’re sitting on the edge of the chair’ can facilitate description whist modelling direct present-centred relating through statements. Information will also be given by the client in their way of being in the therapy room, they may talk quickly or hesitantly, fidget or remain still, take up space or shrink. In our fast moving Western culture with its focus on results and outcomes it is all too easy for a therapist to move on quickly before gaining a full description of the client’s experience. Time needs to be spent to allow full figures to emerge and form from the relational ground between client and therapist and we need to return to this figure/ground process of emergence again and again, for what is experienced and how it is experienced will change between client and therapist – if it appears not to, then we explore how stuckness is maintained and what is the meaning of this stuckness in the here and now of this relationship. In exploring these foci we are working to gain an understanding of what is known in phenomenology as an act of intentionality. This term was used by Husserl who had been influenced by the philosopher Franz Brentano (1838–1917) who first introduced the notion of intentionality. It has been described in terms of the mind reaching out to the world to translate stimuli into meaning (Spinelli, 2005; Siewert, 2022). However, such descriptions suggest a mind/body split in that intentionality is viewed as a mental activity, and is often named as such, and gestalt therapists do not separate in this way. An act of intentionality is a whole body event that takes place between subjects and objects, what is more is that from a gestalt perspective it does not originate in one person but is an emergent process

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between subjectivities, that I would situate at the point that a figure begins to emerge from the ground of possibilities. Intentionality is the emergent phase of a person’s meaning making process. ‘Human beings are always directed toward something; for instance, toward an object that has neither existence nor “objective” meaning in itself, but acquires these thanks to the intentionality that aims at it’ (Robine, 2011: 140). From a gestalt-phenomenological perspective there is no knowable objective reality only intersubjective reality, even if there were an objective reality hovering somewhere in the ether as hypothesised by Marrow’s non-psychological (1969), it is beyond the reach of human awareness, therefore we’ll leave that possibility for the philosophers. I think that it is unfortunate that Brentano’s term intentionality was used and passed through the generations of phenomenologists from Husserl onwards. Unfortunate because it leads to confusion with the common term intention. Being emergent intentionality is primarily a function of id functioning as it moves towards meaning-making whereas with intention meaning is already established, hence it is a function of ego functioning. It is my intention to write this book, it is not my intentionality to write this book as that makes no sense. In simple terms intentionality directs us towards, we need to have arrived at meaning for us to intend. The practical application of phenomenology in gestalt therapy focuses on the client’s figure formation in relation to their ground so that the therapist gains a picture of how the client perceives their world in the here and now of the meeting – a perception that will shape their attitudes, their beliefs, their bodies, how they move, the volume and quality of their voice their whole way of being in the world, ‘… the psychotherapist closely observes … how patients confer their own expressive styles (including symptoms) upon both their experience of themselves and their worlds, or more accurately, their experience of themselves in their worlds’ (Miller, 2011: 12). We attempt to achieve this by remaining open to all possibilities, allowing ourselves to be curious and to wonder as we engage with the other with naivety, listening to our own body’s senses and resonance as we sit with the other. We track the client’s movement in the therapeutic dance, noticing moment by moment changes in the client and ourselves without conferring meaning to these physical and psychological movements. We focus on what is and de-emphasise what would be or could be, clinical phenomenology is, ‘a study of the advent of being to consciousness, instead of presuming its possibility

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as given in advance’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 61). We focus on the present, but not a dissociated present that stands in disconnected isolation from a past and future, rather the present moment that is intimately connected to a past and stretches forth towards a future – the present moment does not balance on a knife edge. However, as therapists we do not remain in this neutral position ad infinitum, when a figure emerges and begins to sharpen between self and other we move with that figure building a picture of its relationship to the relational ground and seeking to sharpen that figure further whilst noticing any new emerging figures. Here is a possible example of this process: Client:  I’m not sure what I want from therapy today. Dave:  Okay, what’s it like for you to sit with this uncertainty? Just breathe into it for a few moments. (Client maintains eye contact and deepens her breathing) Client:  Somethings surfacing. I feel strangely excited, when I’ve come to therapy in this place before often something significant has surfaced. Dave:  So, we have strangeness, excitedness and expectation all surfacing and you’re on the edge of your seat. (I name what I perceive as possible figures) Client:  I’m more with my expectation (slumps a little). I could be disappointed. Dave:  How might I disappoint you?

In the above example I could have easily moved with the client’s excitement that initially seemed to carry more energy. However, my further enquiry by naming emerging figures led to a new figure of possible disappointment emerging. It is tempting to move with the more energetic qualities the client presents with before sharpening that figure. However, we should remain mindful that certain ways of being carry more energy than others, for example emotions such as anger or rage carry more energy than disappointment, shame or depression and the same can be said for bodily movements. I am not saying that it is wrong to follow energy, just to allow time and enquire about other possibly less visible figures. Before concluding this section I feel a need to reiterate that we cannot separate field theory, dialogue and phenomenology in gestalt therapy. Any part of the client’s entire field/situation, including the therapist, is part of the client’s total organisation and is therefore potentially meaningful in this moment (Parlett, 1991); in dialogue we shall see that the act of confirming the client requires that the therapist enters the phenomenological world of the client (Hycner & Jacobs, 1995), as it does in the process of inclusion. We cannot understand a person’s experience by isolating them from their

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whole situation, ‘suffering arises from the relational field that the person has gone through, lives and expresses’ (Francesetti, 2021: 29), the same can be said for any experience whether it be joy, wonder, shame or loneliness. Gestalt therapy as a situational, phenomenological approach defines existence as relational and the three pillars of gestalt stand together. The language of phenomenology can appear unwieldy and technical but the curiosity, wonder and need not to assume meaning was summed up perfectly by the 6 year old son of a supervisee who said, ‘I love corners, you never know what is around them.’ Thank you, Camello.

5.3  INTERSUBJECTIVITY AND CO-CREATION As phenomenology is the study of subjective experience, ‘We must be subjective since subjectivity is in the situation’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2010: 6) the world is opaque, indefinite and uncertain. We all have our different histories, sometimes radically different histories, with particular different contact styles that emerge from the ground of that history and the inimitable stories weaved within it. Every one of us makes sense of the world, our world, differently building from the foundations of our unique upbringing and life history up to this moment. Regarding perception Staemmler notes that ‘… “we see” about 10% of what we think we see – 90% is a “construction” from what we just saw, … remember seeing in similar situations (Nadal 2010) and what we expect to see’ (2012: 15). We will all make that construction differently. As I write this it’s a wonder that we don’t all walk the planet as isolated, detached beings immersed in our own subjective perception of the world, but, and it’s a big but, we know stuff about the other and we know that stuff through our being human. We are intersubjective relational beings who recognise ways of being because we have invariably experienced similar ways of being. If I return to my earlier example with Rachel group members knew she was distressed, there was no need for verbal enquiry regarding her emotional state, her tears and sobs spoke. They spoke to the hurt and loss that group members could relate to from their different life experiences, the group members could identify with Rachel’s grief. Even if they had not experienced a significant loss they knew of loss. Then there are the possibilities associated with mirror neurons (Gallese, 2001; Gallese et al., 2011; Cozolino, 2014, 2017), the functioning of which are thought by some to, ‘… demonstrate the

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profoundly social nature of our brains’ (Seigel, 2007: 166), although the early popularist fervour that surrounded the discovery of these cells with claims that they were, ‘cells that read minds’ (Blakesee, 2006) and ‘the neurons that shaped civilisation’ (Ramachandran, 2009) has subsided over the past decade. However, these particular brain cells are believed to gain their mirror qualities through sensorimotor learning and will change that learning in the same way (Gallese et al., 2011), in other words intersubjectively. Reality might be interpreted with no knowable objective reality but awareness cannot only be subjective as it points to something (Yontef, 2005), it has an intentionality and a direction. It is through our ability to relate intersubjectively that makes it possible for humans to share their experience and in doing so understand, empathise and experience a sense of belonging with others. ‘We learn who we are and what we can expect in the world from the mirror that others provide for us’ (Yontef ibid: 91). We depend on one another in order to make sense of our shared world, we cocreate each other’s worlds. Intersubjectively when two realities meet a third reality that is greater than the sum of its parts is created in the between of the relationship, this third reality will be shaped and reshaped by the presenting ever-changing field conditions. In this lived experience, ‘… subjective realms of experience interpenetrate one another’ (Midgley, 2006: 104) in an ongoing process that will change both parties, not only the two people in the therapy room but also the whole situation that surrounds them – as discussed previously, change one part of the field and the whole field changes. Let’s try to make sense of this in relation to you, the reader and me the writer of this book. I am dialoguing with you through the written word and you will be experiencing something, I don’t know what, it could be frustration, boredom, interest, fascination or a struggle in understanding some of the language of phenomenology. On the other hand I might be feeling that I need to impress and sound academic as I think about writing a book that will be read by others, including editors, including you. In addressing you, the reader, directly I have become aware of a prospective readership – these words might not just remain in the depths of my computer’s hard drive! My anxiety rises slightly and I decide to take a break as a vague bodily sense of needing to perform begins to rise. My experience changes as my perception of writing shifts slightly, I’m wondering what might have moved for you?

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The individualistic view of a client’s ‘resistance’ or ‘interrupting/moderating contact’ taking place within the person is blown asunder when we look through a lens of intersubjectivity and cocreation. The person’s way of being, their resistance or moderating contact, is a function of the whole phenomenal field that has become figural between client and therapist, therefore any type of diagnosis, whether that be ‘the client is retroflecting’ or ‘the client is borderline’ will say as much about the therapist as it will about the client. The emergence of emotions, sensations, thoughts, feelings do not belong solely to the person but arise, ‘from the between of relationships where meaning is co-constructed with others in the present’ (Desmond & Jowett, 2011: 222). We have individual unique fields and shared fields but we do not drop a phenomenological cleaver between the two. From the beginning of life what is traditionally considered as ‘inner’ is shaped by what we might consider to be ‘outer,’ our world begins as an intersubjective world. I don’t need to tell any mothers or fathers reading this that the birth of a child reconfigures the whole family, extended family, friendships, work patterns … I could go on. What is more the infant’s development will see a development of the entire field, the whole situation. Another example discussed by McConville (2001, 2013) arises when this infant reaches adolescence, it’s not only the adolescent that journeys through developmental change but the entire situation surrounding the adolescent with ripples outwards from the immediate family and friends. From a gestalt phenomenal field perspective our whole existence is reliant upon a reciprocal contact with the world. As long as we are breathing it is a given that we will be in contact with the world, we take it in through our living bodies – through our senses, our needs for air, nourishment and sunlight. There is a choice in terms of the level of contact we have with the world, as we have seen we are able to moderate contact in all types of relationships, we can choose how we moderate that contact through introjection, retroflection, desensitisation, etc., but we cannot choose no contact. I can walk away from you but we will both be affected and I cannot walk away from the world (short of suicide). We are forever in a co-created, intersubjective dance with the world and our fellow humans, a dance of mutual dependency. Although PHG never used the term intersubjectivity as Jacobs (2005) outlines they did discuss at length the process of configuration and reconfiguration of the organism/environmental field, the

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beginnings of an intersubjective view of the world. There were inconsistencies in PHG where they moved towards a more individualistic view, for instance in their accounts of boundary disturbances that are discussed as though they belong solely to the person. However, they repeatedly return to an intersubjective stance in asserting that experience and contact is emergent between organism and environment. As Goodman states in a later text, ‘… both the “I” of the organism and the “that there” of the environment are abstractions, coming after the primary fact of experience itself ’ (1994: 17). Much of Daniel Stern’s work has been integrated into gestalt therapy and it is useful for us gestalt therapists to consider his thinking regarding five aspects that create a sense of vitality. The five aspects being movement, force, time, space and intention (Stern, 2010). As we view the therapeutic relationship as co-created as therapists I believe we need to heighten our own awareness of our strengths and growing edges in relation to these relational dynamics in paying attention to our own energy flow and how it fluctuates from one encounter to the next. We cannot make sense of the meaning of a lack of energy or high energy from one pole of the relationship, we are working with the between of the relationship. Any variations in energy levels needs to be seen as a function of the field of which client and therapist (or self and other) are figural parts. It is information, what we do with that information will depend on the nature, maturity and openness of the relationship. It is possible to stifle the life out of therapy by becoming too attached to our theories – they are after all just ideas, fantasies, not the life-blood of the relationship. Us gestalt therapists need to learn our theories thoroughly but hold them with a soft touch, ready to let them go when they do not fit the vital, creative person before us. It may be true that ‘there is nothing so practical as a good theory’ (Lewin, 1952) but that doesn’t mean that a good theory is always practical.

5.4  PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE BODY When reading about phenomenology you will encounter the terms lived body and living body, this might sound strange as surely a psychotherapy would not focus on a body that was not living! The reason for the language is to emphasise that we work with persons who carry in their bodies a narrative history, experience and are part of the world and its complex interwoven relationships rather than being

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separate from it. In gestalt therapy we do not subscribe to a Cartesian view of the world but in Western culture we separate the inside of our body from the outside, we tell ourselves that there is the world of things that we perceive and the world of inner experience because culturally, ‘The average person having been raised in an atmosphere of splits, has lost his wholeness, his integrity’ (PHG, 1951: xxiv). So we split our bodies constructing a cultural fantasy of mind and body separate from the world – such Cartesian interpretations may offer us security but it is only an illusion of security (Denham-Vaughan, 2010). In gestalt therapy we subscribe to the view that there is a mind in the body and a body in the mind and we are situated in the world. Separating out the functioning of the senses does of course hold value from particular perspectives. Let’s take one of the senses. In hearing sound waves enter the outer ear, they travel down the ear canal to hit the tympanic membrane (eardrum) these vibrations then journey to three minute bones that magnify the vibrations which are then transferred to the cochlea that translates the movement into nerve signals. The journey continues via fluid filled canals and receptors to where electrical impulses are generated that are picked up by the brain via the auditory nerve. This describes the mechanics of hearing, essential knowledge for a medic or audiologist, but we are viewing this from a phenomenological perspective not a biological or medical one – this is not how we experience hearing. The functioning of hearing does not communicate the whole body experience of cringing to the sound of fingernails scraping down a blackboard or being moved by Mozart’s requiem. If we focus solely on biological and neurological processes we overlook what is central in gestalt therapy – how the person engages in an ongoing embodied unfolding of the world before them from moment to moment, ‘the world is not what I think, but what I live through’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: xvii). If I am in the crowd watching a football match I don’t just see the match, I hear the thump of the ball the noise of the crowd, there are smells all around me, vibrations, senses of expectation, myself and everyone in the crowd are holding their muscles and the fibres of their bodies in a certain way. All of this experience, this perception, is only for a moment – it is ever changing as am I. I do not ‘live through’ isolated sense experiences but my various sense universes converge as they meet with the world I am experiencing.

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From the first moment that a client walks into the therapy room they begin to reveal their history and their way of being in the world. They may stride in with their body erect, a fixed gaze with chest puffed out or tentatively feel their way into the room, with head and neck bent downwards, collapsed chest, perhaps reddening face and avoiding eye contact. If we are to remain phenomenological we need not to rush into assuming the former is say, ‘confident’ or ‘defended’ and the latter ‘depressed’ or ‘ashamed’ but wait for the client’s full story, bodily and verbally, to unfold. Whilst doing so we need to shuttle between noting what is happening for the client and how that may be impacting us as therapists, paying close attention to our emerging bodily sensations and physicality in the here and now. Of course, as therapist I would need to check out my own ground to ensure that my bodily resonance is not a resonance from that argument I had with my wife this morning, or some archaic response from my past and I would need to repeatedly engage in such a process as I meet with the client. There is a dance between therapist and client, it may have the flavour of a tango or a waltz, be smooth or clunky, confluent or retroflected, these movements between client and therapist form ‘a dance of reciprocity’ (Spagnuolo Lobb, 2016, 2020) and involve the whole living body located within a field of relations. Allowing space for the figure/ground dynamic to form (even if the figure that forms is confusion or unclear) that facilitates the gaining of what Francesetti describes as aesthetic knowledge that is ‘… emergent (it is born in an instant), ephemeral (it only lasts as long as a given experience), bodily (it is incarnate in the senses and in the resonance of the body’ (2012: 7), we can gain a felt sense of what it may be like to be the client or what it may be like to be someone in the client’s life, a felt sense of the whole complexity of their situation. So what might all this look like in terms of the nuts and bolts of the therapeutic dialogue? I use ‘dialogue’ in the broadest terms here encompassing far more than words. I offer an example from my practice. Sandra had referred herself to me for ‘self development’, she had attended a number of personal development workshops over the years and described herself as, “very self-aware.” When I collected her from the waiting room she rose from her chair forcefully and purposefully as I showed her the way to my therapy room. Once in the room she sat down on the edge of adjacent sofa without using the support it offered, bodily I felt somewhat ‘knocked back’ by her brusque manner, even a little threatened. I checked my level of breathing

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and grounded myself in my chair, leaning back for support. Sandra sat with a fixed look, her breathing was shallow and her pallor pale, her forearms were on her thighs but I wouldn’t say they were resting there, in common with the rest of her presentation there appeared to be a tension in her arms, face, thighs and neck. “Welcome” I said, a simple greeting that took Sandra by surprise as I was met with a quizzical look, I waited a few moments. “What would you like from therapy?” Sandra lent forwards even more, to a point I thought she may topple from the sofa, “I came to see you because you’re a gestalt therapist and I want to be challenged” she said in a voice that seemed powerful yet simultaneously held vulnerability. Again I paused before responding, “I suggest that you sit back and feel the support of that sofa,” I said whilst sitting back and feeling the support of my sofa. Sandra sat back awkwardly, shuffling and struggling to use the furniture’s support. “Unfamiliar?” I ventured. Sandra nodded, there were no words her featured had softened, there was the merest hint of wateriness in her eyes, she was bright – she got the challenge. I felt moved by her and Sandra noticed as we breathed each other in for a few seconds.

Having written the above account of my meeting with Sandra, I have become acutely aware of the limitations of language. It is difficult to concisely convey the atmosphere of this meeting, the flesh of the meeting, the between of the meeting. There is a loss in our ability to express ourselves bodily when we develop what Stern (1998) refers to as the verbal domain of relatedness (see Section 4.3). Culturally verbal expression through language is afforded higher status than other bodily forms of communication, yet if I watch two deaf people signing they are invariably engaged in a more embodied form of communication, are far more animated and expressive than two people communicating verbally – what is more is that with minimal knowledge of the different forms of sign language, I can usually understand much of what is being communicated. As therapists we can fall into a trap of trying ‘to do the impossible: to integrate personalities with the help of non-integrative language’ (Perls, 1948: 567), the world of words is full of splits evident in the way in which we describe our own approach as ‘psychotherapy’ (Wollants, 2012) implicitly suggesting that disturbance is an internal affair located in the person’s psyche. We can counter disembodied verbal communication through use of metaphor that is often more descriptive, can be offered for the client to adjust to their own meaning (therefore more phenomenological) and can create a bridge between client and therapist that transcends the words used as well as being more embodied. Such subjective use of

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language moves us closer to an experience-near form of description (Mann, 2021), our tasks as therapists is also to ‘flesh out’ our words with sensations, movement with a focus on bodily existence (Kepner, 2008). Introducing physical movement in a therapy session can often facilitate psychological movement. As I have stated earlier patterns repeat and physical stillness can reflect psychological stillness. If there is no movement a person’s perception of their body and of objects in contact with their body is vague (Goldstein, 1939), for this reason I have developed a habit of moving in some way in sessions and if the temperature is right inviting the client to do likewise. This might simply be changing the way we are sitting, fidgeting or standing up for a few seconds, perhaps even shaking ourselves. With the movement towards more on-line video sessions since COVID-19 it seems even more important that we therapists are mindful of the need to move as the immediate situation of sitting in front of a computer screen invites the opposite. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE I am assuming that you have been sitting reading for a while. I’d like to invite you to get up, walk around, shake your arms and move your head and neck. Venture outside for a short time and deepen your breathing in the open air. When you return to this chapter before reading on take a few moments to notice any changes in energy, your level of contact or anything that stands out for you.

Although Husserl and others had made reference to the body in phenomenology the prime focus of the discipline remained consciousness. It was the French philosopher and phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty who went further than anyone else in building a philosophy that placed the body and embodiment at the heart of phenomenology. I find it important here to clarify what we are discussing when I use the term ‘body.’ There is the ‘objective’ body that we dress each morning, place on the bathroom scales and beautify, that is not the focus of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. He focusses on ‘the lived body’ that is the lived unity of the mind-body-world system (Bullington, 2013), when we discuss the body in gestalt therapy it is this concept of body we are referring to – a body that is intimately connected with its

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environmental field and one that is situated in the world, a unitary being that is part of a unified world. The lived body perceives but according to Merleau-Ponty perception is not as we often like to suppose, a psychological event that happens in our brain via our sense organs, it is a bodily phenomenon that takes place in relation to our world. ‘One’s own body is in the world just as the heart is in the organism: it continuously breathes life into the visible spectacle, animates it and nourishes it from within, and forms a system with it’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2014: 209). The lived body, our bodies, are in constant dialogue with the world, if you doubt this notice that you are breathing the world in at this moment, you are taking in the words on this page – as long as we are living breathing beings we will always be in contact with the world. The world unfolds before us in each passing moment and then again in the next moment, awareness and contact forms between the person and the world as they are ‘born together’ – the French word for knowledge is connaissance that translates to born together. Merleau-Ponty’s work was ground-breaking in terms of embodied perception but it is far from easy bedtime reading, he uses unfamiliar language with words such as ‘chiasm’ and the term ‘flesh’ carries a different meaning to its common usage. ‘Flesh’ is used to describe the interwoven inseparability between human beings and the world, ‘That the presence of the world is precisely the presence of its flesh to my flesh, that I “am of the world” and that I am not it, this is no sooner said than forgotten …’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1968: 127). As such we can view flesh as a relational ontology, it is the between. The term ‘chiasm’ is used to describe the intertwining of our embodied belief systems with the world. This weighs us down with sedimented embodied beliefs and meaning but also gives us hope (Orange, 2010), hope and lack of hope being part of the same continuum. The use of Merleau-Ponty’s somewhat strange language was, Orange hypothesises, ‘… his wrenching himself away from his own lingering philosophy of consciousness (i.e. Cartesianism)’ (ibid: 57). For those wishing to study the work of Merleau-Ponty further I recommend Orange (2010) as a good starting point, Zahavi (2019) or Merleau-Ponty’s The World of Perception (2008). It seems fitting that I close this sub-heading with an invitation to engage in a body-orientated experiential exercise, one that was shared with me by my friend and colleague Sally Denham-Vaughan in relation to her work on Liminal Space (2010).

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EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE I’d like you to stand and preferably close your eyes. Pay close attention to your breathing and deepen it a little, do not force it, just gently deepen each breath. In your own time, and take your time, consider a dilemma or a choice that you face in your life. It doesn’t have to be a major issue, just something that you can either move towards or remain where you are in relation to it. I’d now like you to gently, ever so gently, rock forward towards your toes and back towards your heels. Be aware of your breathing, pairing breathing in with your rocking movement forwards and out with your movement back. Remember times in your life when possibilities have opened up for you – note how this feels in your body as you gently sway forwards and backwards. Take a few moments and then return to your dilemma or choice. Visualise this situation as you continue to move backwards and forwards and breathe in as you rock forwards, out as you rock back. In your own time consider whether you want to take a step forwards or back in relation to this choice. Try not to place a value on this but stay with your body’s sense of what is right for you in relation to the world at this moment.

When I first completed this exercise I tried to focus on something major in my life but moved to focus on my Sunday morning dilemma of whether I move to go cycling or stay in my dressing gown reading. As we are process focussed in gestalt therapy the actual content carries less importance, we are seeking your embodied felt sense of the situation.

5.5 HOLISM Whilst mulling over the writing of this chapter I asked a friend, a retired teacher with no experience of psychotherapy, what her understanding of the term ‘holism’ was. After her initial ‘Oh, gosh!’ (after all we were on holiday), Sally replied, ‘I think it’s seeing the person as a whole rather than as separate parts.’ A few days later at a psychotherapy conference I posed the same question to a group of colleagues, some of whom gave the same answer as Sally, whilst others gave a broader understanding that extended beyond the person to include the situation. In researching the gestalt literature and beyond I have found that both the narrower more individual viewpoint of holism and the view that holism needs to be viewed in relation to

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the whole field has been espoused. My view is that in common with phenomenology and field theory when viewing the person holistically we do not separate mind from body or ‘interior’ experience from ‘exterior’ experience. Where I differ from Sally’s on-the-spot definition is that neither do we separate the person from the world. Each are seen in their complete, interrelated entirety, an entirety that is never static but in a constant state of flux. There are wholes within wholes, an atom is a whole but is part of a greater whole just as we humans are wholes but are also part of greater wholes. Jan Smuts, who is considered to have coined the term expanded this philosophy beyond our world, ‘The evolution of the universe, is nothing but the record of this whole-making activity in its progressive development’ (Smuts, 1987: 326). In the introduction in PHG the authors emphasise the importance of healing the splits inherent in ourselves, our society, and our environment. They believed that the average person had been raised in ‘an atmosphere of splits’ (ibid: xxiv) and consequently had lost their wholeness, in that respect one can easily argue that not a lot has changed over the past 70+ years. Such splits from early childhood create embodied ground introjects many of which are culturally reinforced. The philosophy of holism – meaning whole, complete, interconnected – flies in the face of such splitting, reductionism and dualism so prevalent in Western societies. From a holistic viewpoint we cannot gain a complete picture of a person by adding together the individual component parts of the person and their field. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, to illustrate this we can consider the arts – a musical stanza, a painting, a verse in a poem – all are more than the sum of the separate notes, brushstrokes or words. That said, any part of a whole can be said to encode the whole (Clarkson, 1993). Fritz and Laura Perls were influenced by Jan Smuts work on holism during their time in South Africa after fleeing Nazi Germany prior to arriving in New York. Smuts (1926/1987) introduced the term holism in his book Holism and Evolution in which he considered the organism to be self-regulating and to contain its past and much of its future in the present. Smuts work had already generated much interest amongst the gestalt psychologists who, as we have seen, showed that man does not perceive things as unrelated isolates but organises them in the perceptual process into meaningful wholes (Perls, 1973: 2). Smuts saw holism as, ‘a process of creative synthesis’ (1926: 87) viewing the perceived wholes as a

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dynamic, fluid process that ‘… can only be explained by reference to its past and its future as well as its present; the conception of the field therefore becomes necessary and will be found fruitful in biology and psychology no less than physics’ (ibid). In physics one of the ways we can describe the motion of light waves is through particle theory, one of the ways we can describe the motion of humans is through holism. With Smuts’ descriptions, some of which were adapted and used with similar language in PHG, we can clearly see how inseparable holism, phenomenology, field theory and our dialogue with the world is and it has been described as, ‘the most central feature of Gestalt psychology and Gestalt psychotherapy’ (Clarkson, 1993: 5). The clinical relevance of holism and a holistic view of the person in the give and take of the therapeutic encounter is that in order to make sense of the person’s experience we need to explore their wider field. We need to gain an understanding of the ground from which the figural issue(s) emerge and the way in which the client patterns emerging themes. The gestalt therapist attempts to achieve this through phenomenological enquiry, observation and noticing what takes place in the between of the relationship during dialogue whilst holding a field perspective with any understanding being temporary. As Parlett states, ‘If psychology was to have relevance to people’s experiences, to how people lived and thought and perceived, then psychologists needed to be observing patterning and relationship, whole configurations and complex interactions, rather than chopping up nature and experience into underlying sensations or stimulus-response units in the manner of reductionist science’ (2005: 43). However, whilst I am in full agreement with Parlett we do need to recognise that our cultural ground will inevitably shape our perception of the person and the world. Realistically if we have been brought up in an individualistic culture of splits, dualism and reductionism, if that is the ground upon which we have walked upon during our lifetime, we cannot simply shed our tendency to ‘chop up nature.’ What the gestalt therapist can do is to notice and heighten their awareness of their tendency towards such embedded cultural norms. In many ways it is similar to having been brought up in a dualistic ‘she/her, he/him’ culture and now with greater awareness needing to include ‘they/them’ and other pronouns. Anyhow, if we apply the theory of polarities then we need to fully experience dualism, reductionism and separation to know holism – the light cannot exist without the dark.

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The gestalt therapist Michael Clemmens (2020) observes that whilst many therapists and trainers recite the ‘Torah of holism’ in practice they focus on body as distinct and of a lower order of significance than mind. We can take depression as an example that is classically considered as a ‘mood disorder,’ but it is far more than a mood disorder – it affects the person’s whole body. Not only does it affect the person’s whole body but depression radiates outwards affecting the person’s relationships, with those close to the sufferer, with work, with colleagues. The person suffers and the whole situation suffers. There are cultures that would not identify with depression as affecting mood because the body is affected. From a phenomenological and holistic perspective we experience our world through our bodies. Most gestalt training organisations continue to assess competencies solely through mind-oriented assessments – essays with word counts, final case studies and transcripts with theoretical reflections – there can be a mismatch between methods of assessment and the embodied (that includes mind) practice of gestalt therapy. If we believe in the unity of body and mind we need to attend to somatic experience in learning and assessment, rather than teach and assess only the top few inches of the learner’s head. ‘In the learning process … there is a tendency to become stuck in a one-dimensional view of self, thereby losing the holistic richness of the individual.’ (Desmond & Jowett, 2011: 225). A holistic philosophy can also be a casualty if we become too narrowly focussed on neuroscience. We cannot understand the marvel of all marvels, our constant dialogue with the world and the world’s dialogue with us, by studying a single organ or system in the body. Although holism is ever-present in our theory and practice, I agree with Phillips (2014) that the use of the term has become increasingly sidelined. Perhaps it has been consumed within phenomenology and field theory in gestalt therapy as comparatively few contemporary gestalt texts use the term to any degree, even though they discuss holistic practice. ‘Holism’ and ‘holistic’ are certainly terms that have been used casually or misused in many ‘therapy’ arenas. Bowman believes that, ‘The death knell for holism as a useful concept …’ (2012: 34) is to be found in the human potential movement of the 1970s ‘… which had a major – and unfortunate – impact on Gestalt Therapy’ (ibid). I believe there is truth in his assertion and it is a sad irony that Fritz Perls version of gestalt therapy at the Esalen Institute around that time contributed to that movement. Perhaps it is now time for gestalt therapy to reclaim holism – in its entirety!

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5.6 SUMMARY • •

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Phenomenology is the study of human experience and the way in which phenomena presents. In our daily lives, we engage in a process of sense-making, making assumptions and judgments about reality, this is known as ‘the natural attitude.’ In holding a phenomenological attitude one does not make such assumptions. Transcendental phenomenology aims to transcend the natural attitude and gain an objective view of the world through original experience, achieved by a process called phenomenological reduction. Existential phenomenology focuses on human existence and rejects the idea of separating consciousness from the world. It emphasises being-in-the-world and views existence as relational. In gestalt therapy, practical application of phenomenology centres on understanding how clients perceive their world in the present. Therapists aim to remain open, curious and attentive to the client’s movements and expressions without prematurely assigning meaning. Gestalt therapy rejects the notion of a knowable objective reality, focusing instead on intersubjective reality. Intersubjectivity is described as the meeting of two realities, creating a third reality greater than the sum of its parts. Humans are in a continuous, co-created, intersubjective dance with the world and fellow humans, emphasising the mutual dependency that underlies our existence. Phenomenology emphasises the terms ‘lived body’ and ‘living body’ to highlight that we carry in our bodies a narrative history and connection to the world. A holistic view of a person does not separate mind from body or interior from exterior. It encompasses the complete, interrelated entirety of an individual.

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6 DIALOGUE Emerging Through Relationship

Dialogue in gestalt therapy is far more than the everyday use of the term where we might understand it as a conversation or discussion; thought of only in terms of verbal communication. Dialogue in gestalt therapy is a whole body experience, it is being willing to be vulnerable in reaching out to the other and holds specific characteristics. It takes place between person and person or people, but we are also in constant dialogue with our world. The poles of human relating are I-It and I-Thou and therapists need to be willing to hold an I-Thou attitude, be willing to stand in that vulnerable place ready for the relational call if or when the client is able and/or willing to meet them there. Certain relational themes can hamper such deep relating and we will explore these dynamics alongside what is known as the dialogical.

6.1  DIALOGUE IN GESTALT THERAPY Two of us walked a narrow ridge today. To our left was a drop to a comfortable cushion of questioning. To our right a drop to a feather mattress of interpretation. Our footings were unsure, uncertain, vulnerable and at times unbalanced but we kept walking, feeling and sensing our steps always in relation to the contours of that narrow ridge and the space between us. The above is a metaphorical description of the process of dialogue in gestalt therapy inspired by Hycner’s description of the art of dialogue as, ‘Walking the narrow ridge’ (Hycner and Jacobs, 1995: 14) that was in turn adapted from the existentialist, theologian and philosopher Martin Buber’s description of dialogue as, ‘… a narrow, rocky DOI: 10.4324/9781003312888-7

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ridge between the gulfs where there is no sureness of expressible knowledge but the certainty of meeting what remains undisclosed’ (1965a: 184). Laura Perls (1992) was deeply influenced by Buber who tutored her, ‘… more than any psychologist or psychotherapist.’ It is therefore curious that PHG make no reference to Buber and the word ‘dialogue’ appears only once in the whole text, one can only reasonably speculate that the remnants of psychoanalysis were still jangling around and that at the time the healing qualities of interpersonal dialogue ‘played a marginal role’ (Staemmler, 2016: 4). It was left to later generations of gestalt therapists to fully integrate dialogue and Buber’s work into gestalt therapy with landmark texts in the 1990s as relevant today as ever: Hycner (1993), Hycner and Jacobs (1995) and Yontef (1993). Buber was a prolific writer and gestalt therapy owe him a debt of gratitude for his work on dialogue and the different elements of dialogue: presence, confirmation, commitment to dialogue/ non-exploitation, the between and inclusion that I will address later. You may have gathered by now that when we talk about dialogue in gestalt therapy we are not referring to an everyday meaning of the term, generally defined as a conversation or discussion between two or more people. Dialogue in gestalt therapy often includes language but moves beyond words and beyond the ordinary understanding of non-verbal communication that is often interpretive. The dialogic relationship is central to gestalt therapy because when the client and the therapist enter into dialogue they co-create one another and then re-create one another moment by moment, minute by minute, hour by hour, as selves-in process; it is through the dialogical that we heighten awareness and increase contact with what is. As Buber states, ‘The limits of the possibility of dialogue are the limits of awareness’ (1965b: 10), and these limits are determined between contact boundaries rather than behind them as Buber makes clear, ‘Man becomes an I through a you’ (Buber, 1958: 80). From a gestalt and Buberian perspective there can be no such thing as an isolated ‘I,’ we can feel isolated, or isolate ourselves but we will always be connected, always be in some level of contact. Working dialogically can be demanding work, like any skill it requires practice and commitment, but it is not rocket science. Inclusive, dialogic interventions can appear quite unremarkable. A simple intervention such as, ‘I am wondering how that was for you when I said that,’ invites dialogue and phenomenological exploration, whilst a more immediate statement such as, ‘I feel really touched by you’ can be really impactful for the client especially if such relating is alien to them. As a

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general guide an intervention will be more immediate if the sentence contains ‘I’ and ‘you.’ Of course, dialogue is not a matter of robotically phrasing interventions correctly, the therapist needs to hold an openness in their heart to receive the client alongside a willingness to be vulnerable, firm, boundaried, loving, to touch their own shame – whatever quality may be in service of the furtherance of dialogue. We need to pay close attention to the client’s bodily reactions, depth of breathing, muscular tension, subtle deflections, etc., as discussed in previous chapters. The therapist needs to develop an ability to move along a continuum, to relate honestly rather than respond with constant softness (Yontef, 1993). If dialogue can be achieved it has a transformational effect, something remains for the client that changes them but this is no unilateral change as the therapist changes too. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE The invitation I gave on page 40 regarding considering your growing edges would be useful here, but this time I’d like to invite you complete the same exercise but in relation to specific others (that could be clients or friends) rather than simply for yourself – how do you and the other configure this relationship?

We can view dialogue as a dance in which the therapist holds a dialogic attitude in allowing the dance to unfold. The two partners may begin with their respective versions of the dance, say a tango. The therapist might misattune dancing the steps of an Argentine tango when the client is dancing a ballroom tango, before, when at a moment of connection, a third reality unfolds and the dance itself takes on a life of its own. Such a moment cannot be forced, it comes through grace and as soon as will enters the room it is lost. A tango illustrates the need for distance and closeness in dialogue and our being in the world as, ‘The ontological character of existence requires both distance and relation’ (Buber, 1965b: 61–62). In my decades of clinical practice, other than the occasional student of psychotherapy, I am yet to meet a client who walks into my therapy room for an initial meeting seeking a dialogic relationship. The vast majority arrive with problems – anxiety based, situational based, relationship based, depression based problems – that result in symptoms; the beginning point is that most simply want that problem and their symptoms to be resolved. We meet clients where they are, often

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clients objectify the therapist as a fixer maybe even a miracle worker or view gestalt therapy through a medical lens. At these times, that can endure, the therapist needs to hold a dialogic attitude for the relationship, available until such time that the client is able to move towards being more process focussed rather than content focussed, intervening at points to invite movement in that direction. If and when the therapy becomes more process focussed a reparative contact experience can be created between client and therapist, ‘… symptoms are always a plea for a specific relationship: a kind of contact where the symptoms are not needed anymore’ (Roubal, Francesetti and Gecele, 2017 my italics). Whilst essentially I agree with Roubal et al, I always like to hold a degree of uncertainty, for instance mood disturbance can be caused by thyroid dysfunction that may require medical intervention. It is difficult to give a description of dialogue in concrete terms, I am discussing a way of being and the ontological does not lend itself to being pinned down with the written word. This is probably why I have used a couple of metaphorical descriptions and why Buber’s writing was so poetic. He put dialogue, ‘… at the ontological centre of life, meaning that you cannot come into being except through dialogue … there is no self without other’ (Jacobs, 1992). If you struggle to understand this particular pillar of gestalt, this relational dynamic, you are in good company, ‘To study the relational is like scooping up a handful of sand. For an instant, you can grasp it – it feels like you have something in hand yet inexorably, what seemed so solid a moment ago slowly slips through your fingers’ (Jacobs & Hycner, 2009). Although we theorise over the dialogical, and we need to, it is a bodily felt way of being, one that is more about the human spirit, courage to let go and trust in the process that emerges than being a theory. As the gestalt psychologists discovered in their research at the turn of the past century, we perceive relations not separate, isolated things as, ‘In the beginning is relation’ (Buber, 1958: 18).

6.2  I-THOU AND I-IT RELATING Your Thou, my I, And between us, Something fleeting, Something we cannot grasp, We cannot aim for, The moment that we do, Is the moment it dies.

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I-Thou and I-It represent the poles of human relating. Between these poles there is a natural flow of connection and separation, a flow that in gestalt therapy has been referred to as the relational, dialogic and the dialogical. The I-Thou moment emerges when both parties meet in all their humanness, it is a fleeting peak experience of human relating that requires both parties to let go of any goals or perceived way of being. For that moment therapist and client are absorbed by one another – no introjects, no projections, no retroflection, no confluence – simply a meeting of souls. As such these figural moments, ‘… wherein the participants confirm each other as the unique being each is’ (Hycner & Jacobs, 1995: 54) are to be treasured, as they will inevitably fall into the ground of each party and such profound meeting changes each party. The I-Thou moment has the flavour of the spiritual, a touching of hearts. One cannot aim for I-Thou as the moment one takes aim is the moment I-Thou is objectified and thereby becomes an It. The therapist’s task is to provide the ground from which I-Thou moments can emerge by holding a dialogic attitude. In crude ‘geographical’ terms the therapist can only journey 50% of the way across the between, no more, to be available to move to that vulnerable position to be present for meeting without an expectation they will be met. Of course, this depends on what is called for in the therapeutic relationship at that time. There are many times in therapy and life that the call is for the opposite relational polarity, I-It relating, when we move into doing rather than being – the therapist and client wouldn’t even get to the therapy room if we didn’t! If there is a need for experimentation then we are relating from an I-It position, likewise if we move into psycho-education, invite ownership, in fact many gestalt interventions and conversations will, to a greater or lesser degree, be I-It. Buber’s classic and poetic work I and Thou (1958), as the title suggests, focusses almost exclusively on the I-Thou moment of mutual contact in relation to its polar opposite, I-It. This can inadvertently lead to a dichotomising of each pole accompanied by a devaluing of the absolute necessity of I-It relating. Between any two poles lies a continuum, there are extremes of I-It relating that completely objectify, speaking down from a podium of self-righteousness, and other styles of relating that whilst still rooted in I-It contain care, compassion and understanding. If we journey along this continuum towards the I-Thou polarity we move towards an I-Thou attitude or I-Thou process (Hycner, 1993; Yontef, 1993; Hycner & Jacobs, 1995) that

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provides fertile ground from which I-Thou moments may emerge. Holding such an attitude in itself can be confirming for the client but the therapist needs to move fluidly between I-Thou and I-It relating, for example: J ohan tells a story about a change in his past behaviour in relation to a work colleague. Johan:  … so I didn’t get mad, or bottle it all up like I used to and take it out on Ange (his partner) when I got home. I just told him straight, “Don’t talk to me like that” It felt good. Dave:  I am really impressed by you. (I-Thou relating) Johan:  (Talking quickly) Yeah, I did okay. You know, I would have held on to that for weeks and the resentment would have spilled out all over the place, at work at home with family … ( Johan continues talking quickly in the same vein) … and then I’d probably drink too much and … Dave:  Johan, just stop for a minute. (I-It) Johan: Uh! Dave:  Notice your breathing, how deep is it? (I-It) Johan:  I was going fast again wasn’t I (he has been gaining a growing awareness of his deflective/retroflective process). Dave:  So, we know how to counter that now don’t we? (we have covered body armouring, softening and breathing in the environment in previous sessions, so rather than take control I want to leave some responsibility with Johan, it also feels more equalising – this is still I-It relating but is underpinned by an I-Thou attitude). Johan: (Deepens his breathing whilst maintaining eye contact, his facial muscles soften, his shoulders drop slightly as he relaxes into our contact). Dave:  Did you hear what I said to you? Johan:  Yeah, you said you were impressed. (deflects by losing the personal) Dave:  Close, but not quite … Keep breathing this in (I-It) … I’m going to say this slowly. I … am really impressed … by you. (I return to I-Thou relating) Johan:  (Swallows, his eyes water, he moves to speak but stops and just nods, a tear runs down his face). Dave:  (My eyes water and my heart feels touched by this man).

These last two lines are probably an example of an I-Thou moment as best as the limitations of language can describe, the verbal forms only a part of an I-Thou moment and it can emerge without words. Although the above dialogue is fictitious, I felt a deep stirring in my body as I wrote those closing few lines; my body remembered those rare and magical moments where two hearts touch between self and other in the therapy room, for which I feel a deep gratitude towards all the clients who have stood on the relational precipice of that

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moment with me willing to let go of the certainty of reified ways of being. The above dialogue demonstrates the use of a number of techniques or methods that help move the dialogue towards more immediate relating. Although Buber’s (1958) magnus opus did focus on the relational pole of I-Thou without much evidence of anything resembling a continuum between its opposite relational pole, he did diversify in his later works to pay more attention to I-Thou process (Buber, 1965a, 1965b, 1967), Buber also acknowledged the importance of methods whilst emphasising the human, ‘The deciding reality is the therapist, not the methods. Without methods one is dilettante. I am for methods, but just in order to use them not to believe in them’ (Buber, 1967: 168). Creative experimentation is part of the method of gestalt therapy with the aim of heightening awareness and thereby increasing contact with ‘what is’, likewise I-Thou relating facilitates a deepening of awareness and as demonstrated in my dialogue with Johan an increase in contact. The two are not mutually exclusive, far from it, they are part of an integrated whole known as gestalt therapy. Buber didn’t build his philosophy solely around human to human relationships in common with one of gestalt therapy’s founders, Paul Goodman, he included nature believing that the I-Thou process included, ‘… one’s own feelings into the dynamic structure of an object, a pillar or a crystal or the branch of a tree, or even an animal …’ (Buber, 1965b: 124). I know of many gestalt therapists that bring this philosophy into their work today. Some have diversified to incorporate dogs and horses in their work as well as working outside the therapy room in nature, positive and creative moves that emerged from the pandemic and have continued. Whilst I-It relating is necessary in everyday life there has been a toxic form of I-It that has oppressed minority groups for centuries, harking back to slavery and beyond. The process of this pathological I-It relating, in which the person is never seen as an equal (or even as a person), still plays out today in all forms of prejudice. Black people, people of colour, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities to name a few groups that have been and sadly still are oppressed victims of an I-It attitude. Perhaps there is a groundswell towards change as, to adapt a much cited Buber’s quote, ‘Without It a human being cannot live. But whoever sees a person only as an It de-humanises them,’ the oppressor de-humanises themselves in the process too as they move a step closer to opening the doors to the gates of another Dachau.

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There have been criticisms of Buber’s work in relation to its integration into gestalt therapy, Strawman notes that his ‘… emphasis on the present moment is so sharp that he appears … to lose sight of how individual moments are nested in time’ (2011: 12), though the same can be said of Fritz Perls summed up with his catchphrase describing gestalt therapy as ‘here and now, I and Thou’ (1966: 545). Individual moments are also ‘nested in’ a situation, a field of influencing factors and any meeting will be shaped by the situation in which it takes place, Buber discusses dyadic relationships with people and things intensely focussing on the between at the expense of the wider field. However, I need to reiterate that Buber was not a gestalt psychotherapist or a psychotherapist of any description. He presented gestalt therapy with a wonderful gift for which we owe him a debt of gratitude. ‘When I confront a human being as my [Thou] … then he is no thing among things nor does he consist in things. He is no longer [They] He or She, limited by other [They’s] He’s and She’s, a dot in the world grid of space and time, nor a condition that can be experienced and described, a loose bundle of named qualities …’ (Buber, 1958: 59)

6.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF A DIALOGIC RELATIONSHIP The process of dialogue holds several different characteristics, the shape of which will be determined between client and therapist, these characteristics or elements of the dialogic relationship have been identified differently by different writers, almost all of whom list inclusion, presence, confirmation, and commitment to dialogue with others adding non-exploitation. All were implicitly or explicitly present in Buber’s writing but were made more accessible and integrated into gestalt therapy by Hycner (1993), Yontef (1993) and Hycner and Jacobs (1995) with later texts from authors such as Staemmler (2009, 2012) and others adding to the body of work. Just as phenomenology, field theory and dialogue alongside experimentation weave in and out of each other in creating the tapestry of gestalt therapy, so too do these characteristics of dialogue weave in and out of one another. Again, for clarification purposes, I will engage in a false separation in describing each characteristic separately but remember that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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6.3.1  Commitment to Dialogue If we fully commit to something whether it be running a marathon, training as a craftsperson, as a psychotherapist or eating more healthily, commitment is the starting point and there is a cost to it. In committing to dialogue we commit to what surfaces between you and me, we commit to the between that can be viewed as the hyphen between I-Thou and I-It. In doing so, we need to let go of our certitudes, our interpretations, our theoretical comfort blankets to provide the ground for meaning to emerge between us. We can view this process as a form of bracketing, and as is the case with bracketing in Husserl’s phenomenological method it might not be fully achievable, but if we are to practice as dialogical gestalt therapists we must travel down that road as far as we can. We need to be prepared to surrender to the between of the relationship. This doesn’t mean that we simply agree with the client, that would be confluence, we enter the phenomenological world of the client whilst holding on to our own phenomenological world. As figure and ground cannot exist simultaneously a commitment to dialogue demands a shuttling between the experienced world of the therapist and the client, with our grasp on our own phenomenological world firm enough for us to remain grounded but loose enough to allow for change. The therapist is the steward of the dialogue and as such holds responsibility for establishing and maintaining an atmosphere in which the client’s needs are primary, including holding responsibility for the safe exploration of issues that arise and maintaining focus. Once meaning begins to emerge we may then seek to sharpen the figure and at that point draw upon our theoretical maps but always in relation to the figure/ground dynamic and in service of the dialogue. Years ago in my work as a gestalt therapist in the psychiatric services in the British National Health Service I worked with individuals with radically different views of ‘reality’ from my own. I needed to accept that my perception of the world was no more or less valid than the person facing me, not an easy task when encountering ‘realities’ that were far removed from mine – delusional thinking, ideas of reference, paranoid ideation – often coupled with disturbances of perception such as auditory hallucinations. In order to commit to dialogue with these people I needed to appreciate their view of reality no matter how bizarre it appeared. One man I recall believed he literally had the devil on his back, another that his body contained no

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organs, a young woman believed microphones and cameras were in walls and followed her around. In accepting these individual’s reality without agreeing with it or trying to change it, I simply attempted to understand the meaning for the person, consequently there was often a shift in the so-called ‘thought disorder.’ In many cases it loosened, became less figural, a process that I see as overlapping with the paradoxical theory of change. Most of the people I worked with had rarely, if ever, experienced dialogue in the Buberian sense of the word. In their relationships their ‘symptoms’ were something that needed managing rather than understanding and a prime need for any human is to be understood (Bion, 1962). The therapist committing to dialogue can facilitate that need. 6.3.2  Inclusion and Empathy – Any Dif ference? Fritz Perls (1973) was critical of empathy believing that to empathise was to withhold one’s self and in doing so deprive the field of what was the main agent for change, the therapist herself, he saw no place for empathy in gestalt therapy as it did not facilitate contact, was one-sided and could move into confluence. This was his critique of a traditional view of empathy where the therapist’s presence is subsumed with the starting point being with the client. In contrast Buber’s inclusion’s starting point is distance with the therapist moving towards the client and oscillating back and forth between what is happening for the therapist and what is happening for the client. This movement is not a cognitive exercise but one that involves the therapist’s whole being. ‘The therapist must feel the other side, the patient’s side of the relationship, as a bodily touch to know how the patient feels it’ (Buber, 1967: 173). Friedman, who studied Buber’s work extensively differentiates between a traditional view of empathy and inclusion thus, ‘Empathy literally means to feel into the other. It means you leave your ground and you go over to the other … Inclusion is this bold swinging, through an intense stirring of one’s whole being, through which one can, to some extent, concretely imagine what the other is thinking, feeling and willing’ (Friedman, 1990: 22). Staemmler (2012) discusses an expanded concept of empathy that he describes as a form of social referencing based on intersubjectivity. Viewing the traditional view of empathy in a similar way to Fritz Perls as one-sided, disembodied and individualistic he discusses an expanded concept of empathy that includes mutuality, corporeality

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and the joint situation. This expanded embodied view of empathy that involves, ‘… a referencing of both the experiential world of the other person(s) and also of the joint situation and its emergent characteristics’ (ibid: 214) would probably have rested more easily with Fritz, particularly as it involves a movement between the experienced world of the client and the experienced world of the therapist. Inclusion is an existential stance in which the other’s experience is embodied by the therapist, one cannot practice inclusion without attunement and a sensing, embodied way of being. Hycner acknowledges the influence of Zen in gestalt therapy in the practice of inclusion, … it is only when I empty out my self that the ontological crystal clarity of the other can be truly seen (Hycner & Jacobs, 1995: 49 original italics). Or to put it another way, nothing moves into a space that is taken, if you are mulling over theory or how long there is left of the therapy session you cannot be inclusive with the client at those moments. The practice of inclusion is demanding work and as therapists we cannot expect ourselves to be relentlessly inclusive all of the time, in the same way that as gestalt therapists we hold a dialogic attitude, we need to hold an over-arching inclusive intention. We will get it wrong at times, we will miss our clients and there are likely to be times where we inadvertently shame them, particularly if that is part of their story. What is important is that we notice ruptures in the relationship and work to repair them by restoring an inclusive stance through honouring the client’s experience without letting go of our own experience of the meeting. There is a transcribed dialogue between Buber and the founder of the person-centred approach, Carl Rogers (Anderson & Cissna, 1997) for whom empathy was so central. My reading of this dialogue suggested that Buber had moved from his original one-sided view of empathy as there appeared little, if any, difference between their respective views on empathy and inclusion. In practicing empathy with clients Rogers was also wary of becoming unhealthily confluent. Whether we choose to describe the process of this unique kind of meeting as empathic or inclusive is largely academic, ‘choosing the term inclusion over empathy has become something of an anachronism’ (Strawman, 2011: 7). Although I agree with Strawman, I prefer the term inclusion because of the individualistic nature of the way empathy has been discussed and practiced in the past, but for the client it really doesn’t matter what it is called – what matters is that it is experienced.

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6.3.3 Presence All meeting is meeting at ‘the contact boundary’ (PHG, 1951: xviii), to be available for the client the therapist needs to be responsive to the temperature and flavour of the meeting in sensing what level of the therapist’s presence is called for at this moment, and the next and the next. We calibrate our presence in relation to the other in service of the dialogue – calibrate presence too high and the client may feel overwhelmed or that there is insufficient space for them, too low and they may feel unseen or believe the therapist is disinterested. The active presence of the therapist is gestalt therapy’s chief tool (Yontef, 1993), or rather it is more of a quality or a way of being than a tool as, ‘Presence implies being here fully, with all of one’s body and soul – open to all possibilities’ (Zinker, 1987: 5). It stands at the opposite end of a continuum in relation to the psychoanalyst’s stance of passivity and interpretation and is an essential component of the I-Thou dialogue, ‘The I-Thou dialogue is to Gestalt therapy what the Transference Neurosis is to psychoanalysis’ (op. cit., 1993: 204). Dialogue begins with distance, a simple example being that when I collect my client from the waiting room during the short walk and settling in my therapy room we probably engage in some light conversation, or some therapists might choose to remain silent. Presence then requires a ‘turning toward the other’ (Buber, 1965a) with all one’s being in a stance marked by authenticity and available transparency, when the latter is the call of the between. ‘Energetic availability and fluid responsiveness’ (Denham-Vaughan, 2010: 39) is the mark of embodied presence that requires the engagement of all the therapist’s senses, we are available cognitively, behaviourally, emotionally and spiritually. If we do so it is possible to provide something that the client may never have experienced before and in the process move some way to repairing past relational ruptures, challenge ground introjects around worthiness and being objectified, work with processes of retroflection, adaptions through confluence and shame issues to name a few key areas. However, although these are possible areas that may surface from the ground of the relationship, in line with the paradoxical theory of change the therapist accepts the client where they are whilst also holding their greatest potential. Self-disclosure is one form of presence and this can take numerous forms many of which are non-verbal – touching your heart as you feel touched by the client, frowns, smiles, shrugs of shoulders, loosening or tensing muscles – the list is virtually endless and whilst

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some have obvious intention others, such as some facial gestures, might not be in the therapist’s awareness. We can only be responsive to our client’s subjective experience of our way of being. In doing so, we need to develop what Buber (1958) described as a detached presence, a relational stance where we reflect on what is happening at each passing moment in the relationship whilst being fully present in the relationship. As we cannot be in two places at once (figure and ground) I adapt this idea to a shuttling between being present in the relationship with the client and helicoptering the relationship a movement between being and doing a need that repeatedly presents in the art of practicing presence. Unfortunately there have been poorly trained gestalt therapists who misconstrue presence to give licence to indiscriminate self-disclosure, such practice is abusive, can diminish or shame the client and has no place in gestalt therapy. Presence is not about charisma or the therapist ‘strutting their stuff,’ I use the analogy elsewhere of the boy in ballet to describe support (Mann, 2021) and it fits here for supportive use of presence. The boy in ballet supports from beneath, learns to be alert and attuned to the prima donna’s every movement, to show her off to be the best she can be. If the boy consistently and repeatedly catches and holds the prima donna her confidence to be more than she was will grow, she may take more risks. Even if the boy stumbles, as he will do from time to time, the prima donna will trust that was not his intention. Through continued practice and dedication to their art they appear telepathic in their communication, the prima donna never believed she could perform a grand jete but now performs them at will. The client never believed that she was loveable but the supportive and consistent presence of her therapist has confirmed her for who she is and she performs her own grand jete. We might ‘over-pitch’ with self-disclosure, but we need to track our interventions, noticing that we might have missed the client and respond with a simple direct statement such as, ‘I’m sorry, I think I missed you there.’ This can re-establish the ground for dialogue but if delivered with sincerity and care can be healing in itself. It can contribute to the creation of a safe, holding environment that can facilitate physiological changes as discussed in polyvagal theory (Geller & Porges, 2014), in which connection to others is seen as a biological imperative vital to our survival (Porges, 2015), support being given, ‘in activating the autonomic circuit … while inhibiting the more primitive spontaneous defence circuits …’ (Formosa, 2023: 21), these ‘defence circuits’ being those we associate with acute anxiety – fight,

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flight and shutdown. For me this reinforces the idea that in a sense there is no inside or outside, only relationship between the two. One cannot look at presence without considering its polar opposite, absence, after all that is invariably what we are addressing in our therapeutic work with clients alongside the profound hurt such absences cause. In relation to presence Francesetti, Gecele and Roubal (2022) discuss absences in relation to the field, but I am wondering about absences in the therapist in relation to the wider field – what doesn’t enter the therapy room? Wheeler cites the AfricanAmerican author W.E.B. DuBois with regard to ‘race’ who says that culture does not come up as an awareness or an issue ‘… until we are in the presence of an activated cultural boundary’ (2005: 113) until then we are just living rather than living in a culture. I imagine this must also be the case with ‘sub-cultures’ including gender, sex and relationship diversity (GSRD). There is insufficient space to discuss such a broad topic here but we clinicians have ‘… a duty of care to understand the current discourse on race, racism, cultural differences and ableism in addition to GSRD theory so that clients are protected from further harm due to lack of education’ (Alman, 2023: 127). Buber gave gestalt therapy a great gift but he wrote at a certain time, a time where only two genders were acknowledged, when same sex activity was illegal, when to be black was to be seen as a second class citizen (or worse) and the disabled were invalids. 6.3.4 Conf irmation In the dialogic relationship inclusion, presence and confirmation go hand in hand for they are component parts of a process, Inclusion is the stance of fully taking in the other … confirmation is the act of communicating this … (Cole & Reese, 2018: 24 original italics), I will add that I see presence as the midpoint in this process and is the act of making oneself fully visible. At the heart of holding a dialogical way of being with a client is confirmation, we confirm the other in all their humanness through practicing inclusion and presence. We are born with a need for confirmation, if we are fortunate in where we land when we are thrown into the world we receive sufficient confirmation of our being that lays the foundations from which we are able to build meaningful and trustworthy relationships later in life; our developmental starting point is firm relational ground. Regrettably, many are thrown into a world of chaos, neglect or a de-humanising environment where the

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only option for the infant/child’s survival may be to make themselves wrong. In the absence of any reparative relationship this can leave the child that becomes an adult standing on shaky relational ground. If we think of self-as-process people discover who they are through other people who make them present through contact. Whether the person is ‘made present’ as an It or a Thou will depend on the nature of the relationship and the situation, but if the person receives insufficient I-Thou dialogic relating, is never seen as a Thou, their sense of themselves as a worthwhile human being atrophies. Creative adjustments may follow in developing a ‘false self,’ as to gain an illusion of confirmation for who she appears to be is preferable to no confirmation at all, but this is a hollow pseudo-confirmation that, ‘leaves the individual feeling empty inside and false to her own true self ’ (Hycner & Jacobs, 1995: 23), fertile ground for shame. Unmet desire is a catalyst for shame (Lee, 2004: 22; Robine, 2011) and it is desire that pulls us into the world and towards relationships in the hope of reparation through confirmation, but this is juxtaposed against what we refer to in gestalt therapy as the familiarity boundary, the tendency to seek out what is familiar rather than what is novel. Sadly, I have met with many clients who having experienced an upbringing in which they were objectified in an abusive upbringing, then gravitated towards relationships that repeated a similar pattern galvanising their pathological view of themselves and cementing shame. Confirmation after such experiences cannot re-write history but such a therapeutic experience can facilitate a movement from the person seeing themselves as objects to feeling themselves to be human beings, something they then carry beyond the therapy room. In confirming the other we move to attune to their phenomenological experience of the world as we bracket our own, we step into their world as far as is possible whilst keeping one foot in our own world, metaphorically shifting our weight back and forth, ‘When I reach over into the life experience of the other to make the other present in his or her unique being, I seek to confirm that being as other, as You’ (Orange, 2010: 27). The therapist’s movement back and forth is important and is not always stressed, as without a sense of I there can be no You, leaning too far forwards into the You deprives the relationship just as much as leaning too far in the opposite direction and staying with I, in this sense dialogic gestalt therapy is all a matter of balance. To achieve this balance the therapist needs to be well enough supported – professionally and personally – sufficiently centred and comfortable in their own skin. The therapist may gain confirmation

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from work with their clients but this must be secondary to the needs of the intention to confirm the client. To therapists I supervise I say, ‘Be passionate about therapy, but don’t make therapy your only passion. Do other things, meet other people.’ Therapists need to gain their sense of confirmation from outside the door of their therapy room. Appreciation, acceptance, attunement and Heinz Kohut’s mirroring from self psychology are all terms in the field of psychotherapy that might be equated with Buber’s confirmation but whilst the latter may come closest, none match the fully embodied human to human reach of confirmation, ‘Man wishes to be confirmed in his being by man, and wishes to have a presence in the being of the other. The human person needs confirmation because man as man needs it … secretly and bashfully [he] watches for a Yes which allows him to be and which can come to him only from one human person to another’ (1965a: 16). 6.3.5 Non-Exploitation It is with some embarrassment that I say the dialogic relationship should not exploit the client, it seems so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be stated, but working as a therapist is a privileged and powerful position, from such a position subtle, blatant, in or out of awareness exploitation can and sadly does happen. I’ve already touched on one area of possible therapist abuse of power, that of using the client to gain a form of confirmation for themselves and making that primary. There are many areas of possible exploitation covered in training institutes and organisations ethical codes from financial exploitation to sexual misconduct with clients. I do not intend to cover those areas specifically, here I am focussing upon the need to hold an ethical attitude that forms the ground essential for any dialogic engagement. The cornerstone of Buber’s ethics was the dialogic encounter and this, ‘… excludes exploiting each other, because the other is always also a potential Du [Thou]’ (Orange, 2010: 33). Working as a dialogic relational gestalt therapist is not a coat that we put on as we enter the therapy room only to hang it at the door as we leave, ‘the ethical relation is not grafted on to an antecedent relation to cognition; it is a foundation and not a superstructure’ (Levinas, 1987: 56). As a foundation ‘the ethical relation’ must be a way of living for the therapist in their daily lives with others, with animals and their relationship with our planet. To be an effective therapist we do not need to always find the right intervention, to be

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perfect, we might stumble and stutter. What is needed is an accepting and aesthetic attitude towards the experience of oneself and the client, it means ‘… having a humble and ethical attitude which does not deny limits and places reciprocity of presence in the foreground’ (Spagnuolo-Lobb & Cavaleri, 2023: 8). The recent COVID-19 pandemic put us in touch with our shared fragility and vulnerability as human beings that amidst a universally shared trauma and loss of trust in what we previously ‘knew’ to be safe, the air that we breathed, highlighted the desperate need for an ethical relational attitude not only in a narrow dyadic I and Thou relational sense, but in relation to every aspect of our lives on the planet and our relationship with our planet. In relation to the pandemic Spagnuolo-Lobb and Cavaleri refer to a need for ‘post-traumatic processing’ (ibid: 15) so that psychotherapists can then play their part in heightening awareness of political and social values alongside values of non-exploitation. I simply ask, if we quite literally exploit the very ground that we walk upon, the Earth that supports us, then how can we hope to congruently practice our art ethically and non-exploitatively? We need to embrace a dialogic attitude, an ethical attitude, in relation to our planet, ‘Until we realise that the “other” is “us” and “we” are the “other”, “we” will continue to be righteous, to dehumanise, to exploit and to plunder’ (Resnick, 2002: 65).

6.4  THE BETWEEN Historically gestalt therapy held the view of health, growth and development as being the movement from environmental support to self-support, one of the casualties in this unipolar, one-person psychological view being acknowledgement of any developmental need for healthy dependence in the client. Therapy focussed on the client who was seen in gestalt as interrupting contact with an individual separateness from the therapist and a wider situation, but gestalt was far from alone in this view during its earlier years, it had plenty of company from the fields of sociology, psychology and other psychotherapies. What got missed was that, ‘“I” does not index an origin of action, but a relational achievement’ (Gergen, 2009: 133) that has formed in, and is connected to a ‘you’ and a wider situation that is always in a state of flux just as self is always in process. There followed a paradigm shift in the 1980s and early 1990s with what has become known as the ‘relational turn’ marked by a movement away from a focus on self-support, self-regulation and the need

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to frustrate the client (Bloom, 2010) towards a greater integration of the dialogical into gestalt therapy and consequently a focus on the ‘between’ of the relationship and how this is co-created, gestalt therapy moved to a two-person psychology, ‘Both the client’s perception and the therapists are considered not as isolated phenomena but as individual perceptions … both of them contribute to a shared reality’ (Spagnuolo Lobb, 2023: 23). However, the therapeutic relationship does not exist in a bubble, if the client is suffering then his world is also suffering and although I can bracket myself from my world to some extent, I cannot detach myself from it. The therapeutic relationship and what takes place between client and therapist is situated within a field of relationships all of which impact that relationship differently from moment to moment – what appears on the surface to be a two-person psychology is actually a multi-layered, laminated psychological field of relations. Buber’s intense focus on the nature of dyadic relating and the between of the relationship, ‘… the inmost growth of the self is not accomplished as people like to suppose today, in man’s relation to himself, but in relation between the one and the other’ (Buber, 1965a: 61), does not appear to have viewed the between of the relationship in terms of the wider situation and all field conditions that will inevitably impact the between of the dyad. In the give and take of the therapy session we move between what is happening for the client, what is happening for the therapist and what is happening between us. As stated, the latter is a complex interwoven matrix and we therapists need to allow ourselves time to dwell with what emerges rather than rush to make sense. What emerges in the between needs to be dialogued in the between, although the decision when to do so is crucial and will depend on a number of factors – the level of trust built, the material that has surfaced, the presence of shame, to name a few possibilities – this is likely a time for the therapist to use support in supervision. It is not for me to make sense of my client’s experience, but for me to facilitate my client to make sense of their experience through our dialogue – I am a gestalt therapist not an analyst. 6.4.1  Transference and Enduring Relational Themes There are different ways of conceptualising ‘the between’ and what may happen in that space. A traditional way of viewing the dynamic that harks back to Freud – and in gestalt therapy to Fritz and Laura’s original training in psychoanalysis – is through a transference lens,

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which is essentially a process of projection. A simplified explanation of transference is when a person (usually described as patient or client) projects a quality, trait or whole person onto the other (usually described as the therapist). Therapists talk of mother/father transference, erotic transference, positive transference or negative transference though other types of transference are possible such as sister/ brother/idealised partner. Counter-transference usually describes the therapist’s response to this projection, for instance if in response to a father transference I behave in a ‘fatherly way’ that could be ‘good parent’ or ‘bad parent.’ It is important to note that both processes are two-way and often occur out of awareness. The dividing line between what is considered to be projection and what is transference is arbitrary, if it’s a trait it is usually described as projection, if a whole person or way of being such as erotic, it is usually described as transference. However, the process itself is the same, ‘You are putting your own attitude into the other person and then saying that this person makes you feel thus’ (PHG, 1951: 101 original italics). The projection/transference is invariably from a different time, usually childhood, but the therapeutic significance in gestalt therapy, ‘… is not that it is the same old story, but precisely that it is now differently worked through as a present adventure: the analyst is not the same kind of parent’ (PHG, 1951: 234). The concept of transference is only referred to fleetingly on a few occasions in PHG, surprising perhaps given Fritz and Laura’s background as analysts, less surprising perhaps if we consider they, along with Goodman, were creating a new synthesis with a greater focus on contact in the here and now rather than the archaic. Attempts to integrate transference into gestalt therapy have only met with partial success, Yontef (1991, 1993), Crocker (1999), Philippson (2002), Melnick (2003) and many others have written about transference in gestalt therapy, but for me it is highly questionable whether it can be fully integrated into the approach, despite Yontef ’s assertation that, ‘One cannot do good therapy without dealing competently with transference phenomena’ (1991: 18). However, Yontef wrote that 23 years ago and counting, he also went on to say that in gestalt therapy we deal with transference and developmental issues, ‘… using the dialogic and phenomenological perspectives …’ (ibid: 18), I wholeheartedly agree, but that doesn’t mean that the term ‘transference’ integrates into gestalt therapy. Part of the problem with a transference map that includes projection, is that, ‘it creates a hierarchy of truth … there is an implicit

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establishment of a power imbalance, in which the therapist is claiming to have a more “accurate” view of reality’ (Jacobs, 2012: 60). If I am considered to be projecting there’s nowhere for me to go, if I disagree I’m in denial, if I’m angry at such an objectifying stance it confirms the objectifying ‘diagnosis’ – dialogue dies. I don’t believe that an intervention such as, ‘I think you are projecting’ has any place in gestalt therapy. Jacobs (2017) considers the notion of transference is no longer useable and cites White (2008) in support of this argument whose main points are: • • •

That the term ‘transference’ has become so dissipated and confused that it is increasingly difficult to know what is being talked about. The term has been expanded to the point where it includes everything that happens in the therapy room. The areas that transference are intended to encapsulate – fantasy, memory, physical and emotional responses, facial expressions – are not unique to the therapy situation. I add that:

•

•

•

A traditional view of transference is more focussed on the past and is concerned with past relationships being projected in the present, whereas in gestalt whilst we are interested in how the past might shape the present figure we are more concerned with the now to next. A classic view of transference is not field theoretical in that all experience forms from the immediate situation. If you perceive me as a father figure that is happening now and has been co-created. Transference can be seen as a distortion or a regression, but rather than seeing it in these terms it can also be seen as a way of organising one’s relational field (Orange, Atwood & Stolorow, 1997), the latter view fits with gestalt therapy theory whereas distortion and regression does not. Using the term ‘transference’ leads to confusion in gestalt therapy as what it is describing is unclear.

If we are to deconstruct theory there is invariably a need to find descriptions and theoretical ideas that are a better fit with gestalt

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philosophy rather than simply leaving a void. The term cotransference (ibid) that highlights the co-creation of the dynamic has been suggested but has only rarely been used. Jacobs (op. cit.) remains true to the pillars of gestalt in putting forward Enduring Relational Themes (ERT’s). The lived present holds within it a past and a future (Merleau-Ponty, 1962/2014), hopes and fears are contained within this relationship across time zones and shape the clients being and expectations in the world. I will give an example from my practice: Not surprisingly, I ask what a client would like to gain from coming to therapy when we meet for the first time. People often struggle to answer, so I sometimes follow up this enquiry by asking what a miracle might be, Sam’s reply was “to feel a bit better”, Rachel “to feel less anxious”, Imogen “my mood to improve” – Dave’s reaction, call those miracles!

The above examples are single answers to a single question, but the therapist can be alerted to the possibility of low expectations and a lack of hope, with a wondering what historically might account for such a process that plays out now. We need to track relational themes over time before we establish them to be ‘enduring.’ They will manifest again and again non-verbally and verbally, the therapist needs to attune to the ‘language’ of the ERT that emerges in the between of their relationship with the person, always holding that they will be impacting this relational embodied belief, ‘Hopes and fears, configured in ERT’s, comprise the background of our life choices, passions, ambitions, relationships’ (Jacobs, 2017: 13). I believe that such sedimented beliefs have their roots in ground introjects and they index a relationship. Jacobs (ibid) gives the example of a client who says she’s stupid but for someone to say she’s stupid there needs to be someone ‘smart,’ likewise for such shamebased ground introjects as seeing oneself as unlovable, toxic or unworthy the polar opposite in the way the other views themselves needs to be present or have been present. Historically these outdated creative adjustments formed a function in preserving the few crumbs of relationship that were available for the person, they cannot be dismantled with a few interventions and will be protected by layers of moderations to contact. They were valuable adaptions for the person that may have ensured survival of abusive relationships. It is only by providing a different experience between person and person, holding whenever possible a dialogic attitude that such beliefs can be shaken and perhaps transformed between I and Thou.

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EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE I am wondering about ‘the between’ in relation to you the reader, and me, the writer, right now. Make yourself comfortable, notice your breathing and maybe just deepen it a touch. I would like to invite you to sit back from reading and ponder on the following questions: How would you describe your experience at this moment? Notice whether your description changes as moments pass or stays the same. Have any characters from your life surfaced as you have been reading? If so, what sense do you make of that? If not, what sense do you make of that? Are you able to identify a possible ERT that you have?

6.5 SUMMARY • • • • • • • •

•

Dialogue in gestalt therapy goes beyond the everyday understanding of the term. It includes the co-created, moment-tomoment re-creation of the client and therapist as evolving selves. Dialogue in gestalt therapy often includes language but moves beyond words. ‘I’ cannot exist in isolation, we are always in relationship. I-Thou and I-It represent polarities in human relating. The I-Thou moment is a fleeting, transformative peak moment of meeting that emerges when both parties meet in all their humanness. It cannot be forced but comes about through grace. As soon as I-Thou is aimed for I-Thou is made into a thing, an It. There are five interrelated characteristics of a dialogic relationship: commitment to dialogue, inclusion, presence, confirmation and non-exploitation. The ‘relational turn’ in the 1980s and early 1990s marked by a movement away from a focus on self-support, self-regulation and the need to frustrate the client towards a greater integration of the dialogical into gestalt therapy. Attempts to integrate transference and counter-transference into gestalt therapy have met with only partial success. Jacobs (2017) puts forward an alternative – enduring relational themes.

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7 CREATIVE EXPERIMENTATION

Experimentation has been referred to as the cornerstone of gestalt therapy, clients are invited to try out new ways of being in the holding environment of the therapy room and to adopt an experimental attitude towards therapy and life. If you have read this book chronologically you will already have been invited to take part in a number of experiments and I hope that some have been illuminating, but an experiment is just what it says it is and there are no guarantees it will illuminate what is intended. We don’t blindly go in with experiments, they need to be built on relational ground and emerge in the between of the relationship in the service of the client and extending their familiarity boundary. They often focus on growing edges but can be explorations of dreams. The limits of experimentation are the limits of the combined imagination of client and therapist in each passing moment in the therapy room.

7.1 GESTALT EXPERIMENTATION AND CHALLENGE Growth takes place when we reach beyond our familiarity boundary – our ‘comfort zone.’ A muscle that is not exercised or only moved in a limited number of ways will not reach its full capacity of strength, flexibility and movement. If exercised it also requires the right ‘field conditions’ – sufficient protein and nutrients, stretching after exercise and rest. As hypertrophy results from creating minute tears in muscle fibres, that are then repaired, we need to grade exercise to prevent those minute tears becoming debilitating injury. If we do sustain an injury we need support to heal. Many of these principles apply when we invite a client to experiment in therapy. DOI: 10.4324/9781003312888-8

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Experimentation in gestalt therapy is described as the creation of a safe emergency (PHG, 1951: 65), the therapist aims to create a holding environment to enable the client to ‘try out’ different ways of being that may be alien to them. There is no therapeutic gain for the client in repeatedly doing what is familiar to them, we work towards the assimilation of novelty (ibid). In doing so, we seek to find the person’s growing edge, that place that is enough of a stretch for the client but not so far that they will topple over and collapse into fear, overwhelm or shame. In doing so, we grade any experiment according to our perception of the person’s groundedness, sensitivity, level of connection with the therapist and ability to accept and ‘breathe in’ support, ‘An experiment is only useful for a client if it fits his or her available supports’ (Yontef & Schulz, 2016: 17). Every time we challenge a client we risk a relational rupture, our methodology in focussing on phenomenological enquiry, differentiation and connection, meaningful dialogue with a field perspective together with experimentation can in itself be challenging for a client. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Consider the word ‘challenge’ and notice what immediately surfaces for you. What does the word evoke for you physically, what pictures emerge for you and what would a challenge look like for you right now? Take a few minutes to consider these areas.

If we look back at some of the theory that we have discussed we see that challenge takes many forms. In experimenting with different ways of responding to the situation (Parlett, 2000, 2015) is the developmental call for Yield, Push, Reach, Grasp, Pulland Release? (Frank & La Barre, 2011; Frank, 2023). The ultimate challenge might be to fully accept ourselves as we are (Beisser, 1970). Culturally ‘challenge’ is often associated with confrontation, competition, pushing forwards and in gestalt therapy is spoken about as aggressing on the environment, that may often be needed in given situations but let’s hold in our awareness what is culturally syntonic and what is culturally dystonic. The experimental challenge may be to slow down, to allow space, to yield rather than push, release rather than pull, accept rather than fight against. I spent a period of time working with senior managers in the corporate sector with aims to increase productivity for both themselves and their staff, simply creating a space for us to meet was a change in itself

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and building upon that with unremarkable ‘experiments’ that centred around taking regular breaks and not eating their lunch whilst working at their computers increased motivation and energy. My only aim was to heighten awareness of what might account for these people’s lower energy, once the idea of creating space had been actioned the managers built upon this with team building away days and reward systems. Productivity improved significantly alongside positivity and efficacy. The gestalt therapist does not aim for an outcome in suggesting an experiment, our only aim is to heighten awareness so that the client increases their level of contact with ‘what is’ now, rather than responding to outdated creative adjustments. In setting up and facilitating an experiment the therapist needs to be sensitive to the possible twists and turns that can take place, for example, an experiment may initially be set up to explore the client’s creativity through, say, painting or drawing but turns into an expression of sadness and loss as they remember painting and drawing with a loved one, alternatively the feel of the paint brush could send the experiment in a completely different direction. The therapist needs to attune to the energy flow of the client and any experiment needs to emerge from the therapist/ client dialogue rather than it being preconfigured by the therapist, this might mean noticing what qualities, emotions or ways of being might be absent or avoided or when energy drops as well as noticing when energy increases. An experiment is co-­constructed between therapist and client in relation to the field conditions at the time, that said the therapist carries a degree of expertise and therefore may offer a number of suggestions as possibilities but a point of consensus needs to be reached. The limits to the range of experiments are restricted only by the limits of the therapists and client’s combined creativity, coupled with the ethical and therapeutic boundaries of the relationship. An experiment is just what it says it is, testing out something new with no guarantee that it will lead to anywhere obviously meaningful. In actively engaging in experimentation the client and the therapist together risk possible embarrassment and shame, the experiment might flop but it will not vanish. The experience will fall into the ground of the relationship and can be treated as learning. As therapists we are artists and we practice our art with our clients, as the playwright Samuel Beckett says, ‘To be an artist is to fail …’ (1983: 126) we cannot get it right all of the time, even if that were possible it would not be desirable, it is our attitude to perceived ‘failure’ of an experiment (or any intervention) that is important and can provide healthy modelling for the client. A struggling single-parent author on social security apparently said, ‘We

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speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success,’ the same could be said about building a resilience to embarrassment and shame. That author continued to write whilst on the brink of poverty, her name, J.K. Rowling. Experiential learning will involve trial and error but provides a deeper, more embodied level of learning than simply ‘talking about,’ hence as therapists we encourage clients to actively participate in exploration through living the experience rather than talking about it as though they are some outside spectator. Experimentation can focus on many different areas. We can use graded experimentation to move into exploring those areas that we may habitually avoid an example being our shadow qualities. A favourite story of mine concerns the French writer Guy de Maupassant who lived in Paris and along with many of the Parisian avant-garde despised the Eiffel Tower, yet he regularly dined in the tower’s restaurant. He chose to go into what he despised as that was the only place he could gain an unspoilt view of his beautiful city. Who knows what we may discover if we dine at the table with our shadow qualities? This is but one possible area of experimentation, and quite a high-grade experiment too. I offer a far from exhaustive list of areas for possible reasons to offer experimentation: • • • • • • • • • • •

Heightening awareness in relation to moderations to contact and situations where those moderations are still useful, need adapting or are now outdated. Clarifying and sharpening figures and heightening awareness of their relationship to the ground from which they emerge. Exploring the dialectic between polarities. Working with and exploring dimensions of contact such as introjection-assimilation-rejection (see Section 3.1) in relation to specific situations. Unfinished business can be closed. To stimulate and express creativity, working with the novel. To heighten awareness of enduring relational themes. To promote greater response-ability as the client takes an active role in their therapy. To focus on specific areas of the gestalt cycle, e.g. satisfaction, sensation, etc. To increase the level of contact with ‘what is’ in the here and now and thereby increase immediacy. To face fearful situations in a supportive environment.

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It is easy to focus on ‘the big stuff’ when thinking of experimenting in gestalt therapy but experimentation comes in all shapes and sizes. Simply inviting a client to experiment with using direct ‘I’ language and to make direct statements to counter deflection can be viewed through an experimental lens, just as following that up by inviting them to breathe into the experience, make eye contact, move or feel their feet on the floor can. We can also think in terms of working dialogically or experimentally viewing these dimensions as polarities, but they are not distant cousins, ‘At a certain moment, one polarity can be more in the foreground and the other more in the background, in the next moment they can change their positions within the ongoing process of the therapeutic relationship’ (Roubal, 2019: 227). Any experiment needs to emerge phenomenologically from dialogue in relation to the aspect(s) of the field that are becoming figural for them in their relationship with the therapist, if not it has little to do with gestalt therapy and more to do with the therapists needs. We are not in the business of ‘applying techno-rational, pre-formed “fixes” to what should be a co-emergent, horizontal process’ (Denham-Vaughan, 2010: 37). When we bring in experimentation in sessions, we move away from an I-Thou to an I-It stance, we are relating to an aspect of the person possibly in a given situation rather than the person in their whole being in relation to me now. This reflects the ordinary need for movement along an I-It/I-Thou continuum that plays out in healthy relating in everyday life, we don’t need to be in fully embodied contact with the other when we check out at the till in the supermarket but we do need a capacity to move from that relational position. The dialectic between experiment and dialogue needs to be kept as fluid as the relationship between client and therapist allows.

7.2  TWO CHAIRS AND THE EMPTY CHAIR People’s first association with gestalt therapy is often the empty chair experiment, it is unfortunate that it has become something of an inaccurate caricature of the whole therapy amongst the uninitiated and in the process devalues the intricacies of the approach. Although ‘the empty chair’ and ‘two chair’ experiments have over the years been abused by poorly trained therapists the creation of these experiments were a moment of genius by Fritz Perls and a daringly radical departure from his and Laura’s backgrounds working as psychoanalysts using the couch. The influence of Fritz’s interest in the work of the psycho-dramatist Jacob Moreno (1889–1974) and theatre was

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clearly evident in the drama of these experiments. It is a technique that can bring an aliveness to therapy, moving away from ‘talking about’ towards experiencing in the present, but like any experiment it must emerge from phenomenological dialogue in relation to an emerging figure in therapy rather than being presented as a preconfigured exercise, otherwise it will probably have more to do with amateur dramatics and the therapist’s need rather than therapy. As with any gestalt experiments, ‘the experienced awareness leads to action instead of predetermined directions set by the therapist’ (Melnick & Nevis, 2012). Fritz Perls brilliance in devising the twochair and empty chair experiments was equalled by his capacity to later apply these techniques in a rigid fashion detached from gestalt therapy theory during the late 1960s and early 1970s for which he was widely criticised for distorting gestalt therapy theory, his wife Laura being amongst his many of his critics (Amendt-Lyon, 2016). Any ‘chair experiments’ should be offered as a suggestion by the therapist and consideration needs to be given to the client’s contact style, for example, if they have a confluent style, need to please the therapist, do they move to action quickly and need to spend more time at fore-contact? The therapist also needs to consider whether their growing edge can be better facilitated by other experimental methods or if a more dialogic stance is indicated. These experiments are ‘high grade’ devised to bring archaic influences into the here and now enabling clients to challenge outdated creative adjustments, complete unfinished business, work towards the integration of disparate parts and polarised qualities. There needs to be sufficient ground built between therapist and client and the therapist needs to track the client’s ability to support themselves during the experiment, any signs of fragmentation and the experiment needs to be abandoned in favour of grounding. I may be sounding cautious right now, that is because I have witnessed the ‘and then I did some gestalt brigade’ groundlessly moving into using the ‘chairs’ experiments for their own self-gratification. Movement without sufficient relational ground results in collapse. If delivered with care under the right conditions by therapists with solid grounding in gestalt philosophy these experiments can facilitate the birth of insight for clients and change their self-perception that will then in turn fall into the ground of their experience. Let’s look at different ‘chair experiments.’ When setting up the experiment it is important that the client moves physically as they will be moving to a different psychological and relational space, this also helps in clearly defining the beginning of the experiment. Likewise the end of the experiment needs to be clearly marked to

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avoid boundary confusion, so the therapist would state the obvious in naming that the chair(s) no longer contain the person or quality that was previously projected onto it. The empty chair experiment is used in a number of different ways. Most commonly the client will imagine a person from their life (past or present) sitting in the empty chair, it could be a parent, partner/ ex-partner, sibling, friend, manager or anyone of significance. Prior to setting up the experiment the relational issue will have become figural and the therapist moves into more of a supportive director, I-It relational stance to facilitate a dialogue between the client and the imagined other. Depending on how the experiment unfolds they may encourage the client to be aware of their bodily sensations, breathe more deeply, speak louder, move more, make more direct statements as they address the imagined character in opposite chair. The therapist’s role is to support the client in expressing themselves to the imagined character, paying close attention to fluctuations in expression and the client’s body process, e.g. tightening of muscles, voice breaking slightly. There are many ways in which this experiment can progress including the client taking the place of the imagined other by moving to the other chair and replying to themselves as if they were this imagined other (e.g. father, mother), a dialogue could then ensue with the client moving between chairs, the chair of self and the chair of other – a movement from empty chair work to two-chair work. The empty chair experiment is not limited to speaking to characters from the client’s life, the empty chair is … well, empty! It can represent anything, a quality the client wishes she had or disowns, an organisation, an essay they are writing, Allah, God, the devil and the deep blue sea! Although I was being playful with that last possibility it leads us quite nicely to the two chair experiment. Again the possibilities are virtually endless for two chair experimentation, I’ve already touched on one possibility. Most commonly it will be used for exploring dilemmas or the relationship between polarities. Once the dilemma or polarities have been identified and clarified the client will move between the two chairs speaking from each polarity or each side of the dilemma. To illustrate the methodology of the experiment I’ll give an example of a particular polarity that Fritz Perls worked with, the top dog/underdog split. The top dog is often the voice of shoulds, oughts and responsibility, the underdog is more spontaneous, rebellious and impulsive.

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Top dog:  I need to work as hard as I can to provide for my family. Underdog:  Ohh, but I want to have some fun.

The therapist would invite the client into one of the chairs that might be set up facing each other, let’s say the top dog chair, and invite a dialogue with the underdog with simple questions such as, ‘What would you like to say to this part?’ She would then invite the client into the underdog chair to respond. In enacting this split the therapist needs to be attentive not only to what is being said but also how it is said, – the process of the dialogue. It is the therapist’s task to ensure that there is no blurring of the ‘parts’ for instance with the client talking from underdog in the top dog chair. What can unfold is a fast, dismissive and self-righteous stance by both parts with the therapist needing to mediate between the two or simply highlight the process that maintains the conflict. Whatever polarities a person presents with if unresolved they can serve to maintain a dichotomy in that person. By heightening awareness through two-chair work it can allow the opportunity for integration of previously disparate parts so that they are no longer unattached polarisations but complimentary to each other, in that the presence of one highlights the existence of the other and a relationship between them – love cannot exist without hate, light without dark, kindness without cruelty. When facilitating a two chair or empty chair experiment it is important that the therapist is alert and available to support the client throughout the experiment including monitoring their level of contact and directing to increase awareness by paying attention to the client’s phenomenology and body process – breathing, muscular tension, indirect statements, etc., as outlined earlier. There are suggestions in the field that the empty chair is replaced with the client saying directly to the therapist what they would have said to the empty chair (Muller, 1993), with Spagnuolo-Lobb (2009) supportive of such a move arguing that it brings the relational block into the field of the present relationship. That may be true, but it also removes the support from the present relationship and has the potential for boundary confusion – the therapist may have been on the receiving end of a whole range of emotional responses and then need to, perhaps suddenly, move to support the client having just been addressed as a rejecting parent, a cruel teacher or an abuser (Mann, 2021). I believe that amongst the innumerable creative experimental and dialogic possibilities that exist in the field between therapist and client there are better and safer ways to address relational blocks with immediacy.

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Two chair and empty chair work have influenced or are practiced by a range of different therapies including certain integrative therapy models, schema therapy, transformational chairwork, emotionalfocussed therapy and internal family systems but they are not to be confused with gestalt therapy as all stand on a completely different philosophical ground. From a gestalt perspective two chair and empty chair experiments, whilst having the potential to be memorable, meaningful experiences and key episodes in therapy, are figural experiences that will sink into the ground of the therapeutic relationship along with all other experiences in therapy. It is not the figural experiences in themselves that facilitate lasting change in therapy but the way in which they contribute to a reconfigured ground in the whole therapeutic situation and the field of the person’s life.

7.3  EXPERIMENTAL METHODS All creative experiments share the same aim of heightening awareness and increasing the client’s ability for contact. If the therapeutic relationship is built upon a solid relational foundation of mutual trust experimentation can also repair past relational ruptures in the here and now of the therapy room. A fine example was shared with me by a senior trainee I was supervising who I will call Paul, when discussing his work with his client, Aisha (pseudonym). He had been working with Aisha, who had suffered abuse as a child, for over two years at the time. As a child Aisha had loved art, it gave her a means for expression. She shared with Paul that in an art class in secondary school she had painted an abstract painting that she described as ‘dark and foreboding’. When she looked up from her artwork she saw that she was the only member of the class whose painting was abstract, but she still felt proud of it. That pride was flattened by her teacher whose feedback was simply, “I don’t get it” a casual thoughtless remark that wounded her deeply. Ashamed, Aisha swallowed that comment and gave up art from that point, denying herself what felt like the only vehicle of expression available to her leading her to retroflect through self-harm. Somehow though she had found a gestalt therapist who was not only creative but was also an artist, that’s field theory for you! Having heard her story Paul respectfully asked if she would be interested in joining him in creating a painting together, he was somewhat surprised at the level of enthusiasm this suggestion was met with. He and Aisha took time in planning the session, Paul taking care not to lead. He also stood back during the session the following week to empower Aisha, only stepping forward to contribute to the painting when invited. Aisha poured paint onto the canvas and splodged its dark colours around angrily before the energy changed to something more subdued as

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her breathing stuttered. Leaving space before intervening and noticing Aisha’s changing breathing pattern Paul recalled how in previous sessions she had ‘choked-up’ when trying to discuss her trauma. He suggested using a straw to blow the globules of paint around the canvas. Aisha was mobilised again and blew paint around the canvas whilst Paul gently enquired about her emotional state as she blew through the straw, inviting her to breathe into the emotion before blowing the paint. By blowing through the straw she shifted the paint through breaths of sadness, breaths of hurt, breaths of expression inviting Paul to join her as she creatively undid a twenty-five year old introjectsupported retroflection through gentle catharsis. At the end of the experiment she held an abstract picture of her anger, grief and trauma.

You will note from the above that the therapist developed the experiment over time, on the surface over two sessions, but having formed relational ground over two years. He took time to gain consensus with Aisha and form a plan with her rather than impose his ideas, then during the experiment stood back to a position of unobtrusive director, a relationally sensitive I-It stance in which he was available for support if needed. Paul was sensitive to the twists and turns of the experiment and remained creatively indifferent, allowing space for new figures to emerge between client, therapist and the situation. As ever, there are numerous choice points in the experiment. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Run through the account of the experiment and see what alternative interventions you can come up with, then consider what creative experiment you might have used with Aisha. If you are stuck stay with this impasse a while as this is something we do in gestalt therapy, something might surface, and staying with an impasse is itself an experiment in our ‘doing’ culture.

In the above therapy session Paul demonstrated a respectful compassionate way of facilitating catharsis in an emergent process that journeyed through expression of anger to underlying emotions. This was far removed from my experience when I first entered the field of gestalt therapy via group work in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s. My experience tallied with that shared by Philippson (2018), in that so-called ‘anger work’ consisted of pummelling cushions with fists or tennis rackets accompanied by as much yelling as possible all in the name of therapeutic catharsis, success seemed to be judged on sound volume rather than integration. This was a warped interpretation of

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gestalt therapy far removed from PHG’s view that work with emotions, ‘… must employ a unitary method which concentrates both on the orientation in the environment … and on loosening the motor blocks of the “body”. Undue emphasis on either side can produce only pseudo-cures’ (PHG: 346). Ignoring the original text in favour of an anti-theoretical attitude that has subsequently been referred to as ‘boom-boom-boom’ therapy (Yontef, 1993; Resnick, 1995) resulted in circular addictive patterns of repetition compulsion. Whilst these repetitive acts were performed under the guise of healthily undoing retroflection and challenging the underlying introjected beliefs around non-expression of anger (Krysinska, Roubal & Mann, 2022) it is likely that they did more harm than good as research shows that repeated outpourings of anger and rage strengthen neural pathways that lead to aggressive behaviour (Petzold, 2006; Staemmler, 2009) and ‘… does not produce a cathartic effect: it increases rather than decreases subsequent aggression’ (Bushman et al., 1999: 373). Three experimental methods are outlined by Philippson (2001: 160): enactment with awareness, exaggeration and reversal. Below I will give my own examples of the first two and discuss reversal experimental possibilities. Enactment with Awareness: Jim (client):  (Speaking quickly, with short breathes) You are so direct and straight to the point, not like me, I beat around the bush and go around the houses, it’s just what I do. I know I can go on a bit when I don’t need to and lose the point. That’s just what my Dad used to do, and Mum, in fact my whole family. (voice speeds up, breathing shallow, appears to be holding muscular tension) Dave:  I’m experiencing you talking quickly with lots of words and struggling to follow you. Try sitting back in the chair and create some room in your chest for some air … breathe out a few times and just check those shoulders. Jim:  (Sits back and deepens his breath) Yeah, I’ve got a lot of tension there (moves shoulders) and my stomach is churning and there are sensation going down my arm and … Dave:  So, Jim, what one thing is it that you really want to let me know right now? Take your time and tell me slowly. Jim:  Erm … I guess it’s that I’d like to be direct and get to the point so that I’m understood. Dave:  Mmm … That’s three things. Jim:  (Smiles) Yeah … I noticed as I was saying it … I want to be understood (eyes water slightly) Dave:  Yes Jim, I can see that you do … by? Jim: Mum, Dad … and you

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Reversal possibilities: There are a number of choice points in the above experiment. For example I could have chosen to work with Jim through a projection lens seeing me as ‘direct and straight,’ inviting him to make statements such as, ‘I am direct,’ trying them on for size. This would have been a form of a reversal experiment. I could have invited him to sit in my chair and be me as direct and straight again a reversal experiment. There were openings for possible empty chair work, with Jim speaking to father or mother on the chair and possibly moving chairs and taking on the role of father or mother, another example of a reversal experiment. Other examples of where reversal can be used is when there is a ‘yes, but’ process such as, ‘I’d move away from home, but my mother needs me’ the therapist could intervene with something like, ‘So if your mother didn’t need you, you’d move away from home’ (Crocker, 1999). I’ll illustrate an example of exaggeration with a continuation of the earlier dialogue: Jim:  (Deflecting) Anyhow, that’s where I stand. Dad never understood me as a kid and Mum was the same, I was always on the side lines (waves his arm a little and flicks his wrist as if knocking something away). Dave:  That movement, Jim, can you just try making it bigger. Jim:  What, this? (Repeats the movement). Dave:  Yes, that’s it. Just try making it bigger and see if anything surfaces for you. Jim:  (exaggerates the movement extending his arm fully and flicking his arm and wrist with more force). Dave:  Wow! There’s some energy there. Do any words go with that movement? Jim:  Yes … get off me, stay back, stay away. (I invite Jim to continue with the exaggerated movement) Dave:  Who do you want to say that to? (I copy Jim’s gesture flicking out my arm and wrist, this also gives me an embodied feel of the movement) Jim:  It’s sort of Mum and Dad, but not the whole of them. (briefly places his hand on his heart as he says this) Dave:  I suggest you place your hand on your heart as you did but keep it there, really feel the pressure of your hand (I place my hand on my heart), breathe into your hand and make a statement to Mum and Dad. Take your time. Jim:  I love you Mum and Dad but please stop telling me how to be.

We could cross-reference experimenting with exaggeration with the six developmental movements of yielding, pushing, reaching, grasping, pulling and releasing (Frank, 2001; Frank & La Barre, 2011; Frank, 2023), exaggerate polarities or work with moderations to contact whilst remaining alert to the fact that such experiments make the client very visible and can trigger shame.

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Many gestalt therapists use an array of creative media in their therapy. Paper, paints and crayons are commonplace, alongside modelling clay, sand trays, various toys, hats and too many others to mention – a raid on the local hobby craft store is commonplace amongst gestalt therapists! What is important in having an array of props available is that the therapist does not preconfigure the experiment around the prop rather than what is needed for the next step in therapy. In setting up an experiment the therapist needs to horizontalise the relationship as much as possible and bracket any pulls they have towards a certain experimental technique. Whilst having ready access to creative materials can help facilitate and add novelty to experimentation, I recall a line from early in my training that all that is needed to practice gestalt therapy is two people. 7.3.1  Unremarkable Experiments The big, dramatic experiments tend to grab the headlines in gestalt therapy but a therapist might practice many interventions that they may not even consider to be experiments. Any invitation by the therapist for the client to step out from their everyday habits can be regarded as an experiment, such as those discussed in relation to working with moderations to contact and challenging cultural introjects. Obvious examples can include inviting the use of ‘I’ language and ownership rather than deflective language, use of direct statements rather than generalisations and the use of I and you statements. Encouraging such experimentation with language can create a bridge between an I-It relational stance implicit in suggesting experiments and an I-Thou relational stance, in gestalt therapy we oscillate between the two. Language is only one function of our bodies, we can say the right words but we need music behind them. As discussed clients can habitually armour themselves bodily against the environment by restricting breathing and holding muscular tension, simply asking a client to sit back and feel the support of the chair can be an early step towards healthily leaning into the environment. Regarding breathing therapists might simply say ‘breathe’ or ask ‘are you breathing?’ as an intervention when more is needed. Breathing problems are invariably present when a person is anxious or excited, and breathing patterns can become habitual or chronic – outdated creative adjustments to an archaic field. PHG (1951: 168) offer ‘a respiratory experiment’ to heighten awareness, I suggest you experiment with it. Space does not permit me to share the whole of the experiment but I will offer a precis.

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EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Exhale thoroughly four times. Then breathe softly, making sure you exhale but without forcing. Feel the stream of air in your throat, your mouth. Do you keep your chest expanded even when there is no air coming in? Can you feel the inhalation softly down to the pit of your stomach? Can you feel your ribs expand? Pay attention to any tightness especially in your diaphragm.

PHG then invite you to notice times when you hold your breath and in what situations, for example, when sexually attracted to someone or when confronted with a problem. They ask, what are you restraining by holding back? A breathing exercise I have practiced with clients begins in a similar way to PHG’s experiment in that I invite a strong out breath, an in breath naturally follows. I then invite the client to experiment with breathing from three positions first: placing their hand on their chest and breathing into their hand several times, then to repeat that by placing their hand on their abdomen again breathing in several times so that their hand moves and finally by pacing their hand just above their genitals and attempting to breathe into it. Like PHG I suggest that such an exercise is practiced beyond the therapy room. This last point is important as we can mistakenly think that ‘homework’ is the domain of the behaviourists, we need to invite clients to practice in their situation. I’d like to end this section with an invitation for you and another person to experiment. If you accept my invitation you will each need a fairly large piece of paper, pens and a willingness to try something out without knowing where it will go. EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Sit facing each other with your respective pieces of paper in front of you. Now I’d like you to identify one of you as ‘therapist’ and the other as ‘client’. In silence I’d like the ‘client’ to think of an issue in their lives (it doesn’t have to be major), something they might like to explore, and in their own time start to move their pen around their piece of paper whilst thinking about this ‘issue’. The ‘therapist’ then follows the client on their own piece of paper, tracking them as closely as they can. As therapist see if you can get in touch with any felt sense around this issue. Continue doing this for 10 minutes. After10 minutes first

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let the ‘therapist’ share their impressions, intuitions, felt sense and reflections on the exercise The ‘client’ then share’s their experience, whether they felt met/understood and at what points. When both have shared the ‘therapist’ can, if they wish. Share what they thought the issue was. Feel free to discuss anything else that arises.

7.4 DREAMWORK At the turn of past century Freud (1900/1955) described the dream as ‘the guardian of sleep’ and working with dreams as the royal road to the unconscious through his psychoanalytic methodology interpreted their meaning. The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the dream as a compensation, their function being to maintain a healthy balance between the unconscious and conscious. He agreed with Freud in many areas but Jung looked at dreams in terms of where they may lead rather than where they originate, he considered that every part of the dream represented an aspect of the dreamer. This latter view formed the basis of Fritz Perls theory for working with dreams. Piggy-backing on Freud’s description Perls described dreams as, ‘the royal road to integration’ (Perls, 1969: 66) and sought to increase awareness of their meaning for the client rather than interpret them. Perls viewed dreams primarily as projection seeing them as ‘a condensed reflection of our existence’ (Skotten & Kruger, 2022: 164), hence he considered them to contain existential messages for the dreamer (Perls, op. cit.). In common with Jung, Perls belief was that everything contained in the dream represented some aspect of the dreamer. He would invite ownership of these aspects by inviting the client to talk in the first person from each part of the dream or engage in mutual conversation about the dream elements. This could involve enacting the dream with the focus on what is experienced during the re-enactment in the here and now, rather than at the time of the dream – this method would usually be used in group therapy. We can see the influences of Fritz’s love of theatre and the influence of Moreno’s psychodrama in his methodology. An example of Perls way of working with dreams as projection might look something like this: Client:  (Discussing a recent dream) I’m leaning on a farm gate gazing across a corn field and the gate starts wobbling. Fritz:  So be the gate, speak as if you are the gate. Client:  I’m wobbly, unsteady. I can’t support this weight on me. I’ve been out in all weathers and I’m rusted closed, I can’t be opened.

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It’s possible that Perls might then have moved into enactment particularly when working in a group with members of the group taking on aspects of the dream. Isadore From was critical of Perls’ dreams as projection hypothesis, not because it might be inconsistent with gestalt theory but because such a view, ‘puts the therapist too easily in the stage director’s role; that means he or she has to distance himself/herself from direct contact with the client’ (Muller, 1995: 125 original italics). He argued that the client was directed away from present centred relating being led towards relating through a ‘third party’ – the dream. From saw dreams through a lens of retroflection believing that the process of relating the dream was in itself an undoing of a retroflection as the person shares with the therapist through the vehicle of the dream what they were otherwise unable to share. Let’s look at one of From’s favourite examples to clarify the difference between his and Fritz’s ways of working with a dream, that of a client who has a dream that features a rat: Fritz Perls:  Be that part of the dream, be the rat. Identify yourself with the rat. Isadore From:  How have I been like this rat in your dream?

Fritz’s intervention in viewing the dream as projection has a ‘what’ orientation and shifts the focus towards content, whereas From’s intervention focusses on a ‘how’ orientation and invites immediate relating in the here and now between therapist and client, rather than therapist and dream. However, From’s intervention also contains an assumption that he has been like a rat and appears to lead from his notion of dreams as retroflection shaping any ensuing dialogue from this position, it lacks a ‘maybe’ and could therefore be more phenomenological. In working with dreams From advises that the therapist does not simply look at the clients dream but also at themselves, ‘What you will often find in the retroflections of the patient via a dream is disagreements, criticisms, complaints but also positive feelings (which) the patient could not say directly …’ (From, 1985 in Muller, 1995: 126 original italics). Let’s just step back and take a look at Perls’ existential message idea. Where does this existential message come from? Is it floating around in the ether waiting to be grasped in sleep? ‘Perls did not seem to be concerned with who the sender of these messages are’ (Roberts, 1999: 43), if I send the message to myself, by definition that is a retroflection. It appears to me that Freud’s interpretational dreamwork on the couch and Perls’ dreamwork through a lens of projection and enactment have at least one thing in common – that the dream is a

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self-contained event with meaning for the individual detached from the wider situation. From does move to a more inclusive stance in working with dreams and therefore takes a step closer towards a more field oriented way of working with the dream but the spotlight is still on the individual dreamer. Ultimately the methodology of Perls and From are individualistic to a greater or lesser extent as both focus on the dream holding a personal message for the dreamer either in relation to the therapist or themselves. An alternative and contemporary way of considering a client’s dream is as an emergent field event, ‘it can be seen as a precise reflection of the condition of the entire field as experienced from this particular dreamer’s perspective’ (ibid: 43). Such a view obviously includes a personal perspective but in relation to the whole field rather than in relation to oneself or oneself in relation to only the therapist. The field does talk back and may do so in many ways including through dreams, but I would like to reiterate what I have said earlier in this book and apply it to dreamwork – the field does not only talk back, it can initiate the conversation. From this viewpoint we can perhaps see how in some indigenous cultures it is believed that dreams carry messages not for the individual but for the whole community, the dreamer is merely the receiver of the message. The scaffolding provided by Freud and Jung that supported dreamwork was dramatically reshaped by Perls then by From arguing against and adapting Perls theories. Later generations of gestalt therapists offered the idea of dreams as field events with the realisation that the boundary was, or had become, more porous than Perls and From’s era. If we are considering a field theoretical view of dreamwork we need to view past theories in the context of the time they were created. The trauma of World War II did not end when Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, following the poison of war a communal outlook could be dangerous, so of course individualistic theories were more likely to be created with the gas of Auschwitz still hovering in the air. It is thanks to the creativity of these pioneers that gestalt therapists today are in the fortunate position of having a selection of lenses through which they can view dreamwork and hopefully development will continue. In choosing the best approach for this client at this moment we need to consider their style of relating, what is their growing edge now in relation to this dream? Is there a need to lean more towards the field or the individual? Neither is it necessarily a case of ‘either – or,’ it may be appropriate to change the viewpoint and methodology part way through a session.

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In summary, some ways in which dreamwork can be carried out are as follows: • • • •

• • • • • •

Working with dreams as projection by inviting the client to talk from aspects and characters of the dream in the first person. Setting up a dialogue with the entire dream by placing the whole dream on an empty chair and speaking to it using the methodology discussed earlier in this section. Reversal of the above where the client would take the chair of the dream. Re-enacting the dream, usually in group therapy, with individual group members taking on roles of various aspects and characters in the dream. ‘A re-enactment of a dream can be done in 1:1 therapy using creative media such as shells or sand tray’ (Mann, 2021: 280). Working with the dream as retroflection as discussed above. Suggest that the client express the dream non-verbally, for instance by taking on different body postures, moving around or making a noise (Joyce & Sills, 2018: 159). Creative materials can be used to express the dream – plasticine, clay, paints, sketchpads and art materials. This could also be done non-verbally. Attention can focus on the dreamer’s bodily sensations as they tell the dream in the here and now. Working with the dream as a field event as discussed above. The completion of an unfinished dream by imagining or inventing an ending in the present. This could be viewed through a lens of unfinished business, the therapist could also invite the client to stay with the unfinished dream exploring possible parallels in their waking life.

This is a far from exhaustive list with any experiment, including dreamwork, possibilities will surface between therapist and client. Invariably I would invite the therapist to consider the clients dream in relation to their wider situation with open phenomenological enquiry.

7.5 REMAIN MINDFUL AND COME TO YOUR SENSES The title of this closing mini-section is a play on one of Fritz Perls commonly used slogans during his work in the 1960s, ‘Lose your mind and come to your senses.’ This anti-intellectual proclamation

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taken by itself doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny in relation to the theory he was so central in developing. It could be seen as an attempt to correct Freud’s over-emphasis on thinking (Melnick, 2003), but to function healthily and heighten awareness of sensations one doesn’t need to lose one’s cognitive ability – I would strongly advise against it. That said, in our busy lives we can lose contact with our senses, fluidity between figure and ground can be temporarily lost especially if something unexpected emerges subtly from the field and is out of context with our familiar associations with that field. Let me share a story of a social experiment on perception conducted in January, 2007 in a subway at Washington DC Metro Station to illustrate. On that morning at 7.51am a man in a baseball cap opened his violin case and played six classical pieces including pieces by Bach, Massenet and Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’. The acoustics in the subway were good. Whilst he was playing continuously over a duration of around 43 minutes during the morning rush hour 1,097 people passed him playing his violin. It took 3 minutes before someone slowed their pace to listen briefly and 4 minutes before he received his first dollar, although the woman did not stop to listen. After a further 2 minutes someone did stop to listen for a short while before moving on. At the end of the 43 minutes 7 people had stopped to listen for a short time, a further 20 gave money but continued to walk by – the musician had collected $32.17 in an hour. The busking violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the world’s great virtuosos. His instrument was a Stradivarius from the ‘golden period’ worth an estimated $3.5 million dollars, one of the best violins ever made, and he played one of the most complex pieces of music ever written. Three days prior to this social experiment he had played to a packed audience at the Boston Symphony Hall where the average ticket price was $100. The social experiment on perception was organised by The Washington Post and published in the Sunday edition on 8th April, 2007 under the heading, ‘Pearls Before Breakfast.’

This social experiment raises many questions around perception of beauty in relation to the situational conditions that surround it. Do we need a familiar background to frame the foreground? If we have a need to complete a particular gestalt, as most of those 1,097 people did, do we allow space for a new experience to emerge? In other words do we allow awareness of sensation if we have a competing need to do? There was apparently a queue at a lottery machine nearby and not one person turned around despite the fact they were simply waiting for their turn to spin the numbers of the lottery machine. It also begs the question what else do we miss in our day-to-day lives? I will end by reiterating that the aim of gestalt is awareness, to enable the person to be in the best contact possible given the presenting

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field conditions. To do so we need to move fluidly through our ability to sense, feel, think – always in relation to where we are situated. If we can achieve this, then we might hear the music.

7.6 SUMMARY • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Experimentation allows clients to try out new ways of being and break free from outdated ways of being. A gestalt experiment is referred to as the creation of a ‘safe emergency.’ The aim in formulating an experiment is to find the client’s ‘growing edge,’ a stretch that challenges without overwhelming. Creative experiments in gestalt therapy aim to increase awareness and contact with the present situation. Therapists must assess the client’s groundedness, sensitivity, connection with the therapist and ability to accept support when grading experiments. Experiments are co-constructed between therapist and client. The empty chair experiment is the only experiment in gestalt therapy. It has been victim to misrepresentation and simplification, potentially undermining the approach. Fritz Perls introduced the empty chair and two chair experiment as a radical departure from traditional psychoanalytic technique. Any experiment needs to arise from a phenomenological dialogue based on the emerging figure in therapy, rather than being a preconfigured exercise imposed by the therapist. ‘Chair’ experiments are considered ‘high grade’ and aim to bring archaic influences into the present, allowing clients to challenge outdated creative adjustments and integrate disparate parts of themselves. The effectiveness of chair experiments lies not only in the experiences themselves but in how they contribute to a reconfigured ground in the therapeutic relationship and the client’s broader life. Different experimental methods, such as enactment with awareness, exaggeration and reversal, can be employed to facilitate awareness, contact and expression. Unremarkable experiments, such as language adjustments and paying attention to breathing, can be powerful methods for increasing awareness and contact. The therapist’s role in creative experimentation is to be sensitive to the client’s process and provide support when needed, whilst allowing space for new figures to emerge.

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INDEX

Note: Page numbers in italics refer figures and bold tables in the text. abilities 46–48, 75 action in gestalt cycle of experience 32 anger work 143 awareness: awareness-excitementcontact cycle 30, 31; contact and 23–27; continuum 25; in gestalt cycle of experience 32 Axelsson, L. 67 Beckett, Samuel 136 Being and Time (Heidegger) 90, 92 Beisser, Arnie 92; The Paradoxical Theory of Change 43 Bloom, D. 18, 39, 94 Bloomberg, Ischa 62 bracketing (the rule of epoche) 91 Brentano, Franz 95–96 Buber, Martin 13, 18, 43, 122, 127; description of dialogue 113; detached presence 124; I and Thou 116; magnus opus 118 Carle, Eric 53 Cavaleri, P.A. 128 changing process, principle of 70 chiasm 106 Clemmens, Michael 20, 110

closure, law of 7, 8 co-creation 69; belief in 58; phenomenology 98–101 comfort zone 134 commitment to dialogue 120–121 common fate, law of 7 confirmation in dialogue 125–127 confluence 59–60 contact 25, 37 contact boundary 28–30 contact functions 27–28 contemporaneity, principle of 70 continuity, law of 7, 8 core relatedness 76–77 counter-transference 130 COVID-19 29, 68, 105, 128 Cozolino, L. 82 creative adjustment 13 creative experimentation 134–153; dreamwork 148–151; empty chair 138–142; experimental methods 142–148; gestalt experimentation and challenge 134–138; remaining mindful 151–153; senses 151–153; two chair 138–142; unremarkable experiments 146–148; see also specific types creative indifference 41–42

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creative undifferentiation 42 Crocker, S.F. 130 cultural field, field theory 84–87 culture, defined 84; see also Western culture Damasio, A. 37 deflection 61–62 de Maupassant, Guy 137 Denham-Vaughan, Sally: Liminal Space 106–107 description in phenomenology 91 desensitisation 64 detached presence 124 dialogue 5, 19, 112–133; between 128–133; characteristics of 119– 128; commitment to 120–121; confirmation 125–127; enduring relational themes 129–133; in gestalt therapy 112–115; inclusion and empathy 121–122; I-Thou and I-It moments 115–119; nonexploitation 127–128; presence 123–125; transference 129–133 domains of relatedness: core 76–77; emergent 76; intersubjective 77; verbal 77–80 dreamwork, creative experimentation 148–151 DuBois, W.E.B. 125 Ego, Hunger and Aggression (Perls) 15–16 ego function 38, 96 egotism 62–63 Einstein, Albert 18 embodied field 71–74 embodying 47 emergent relatedness 76 empathy 73; banished from gestalt therapy 60; dialogue 121–122; understanding and 82 empty chair experimentation 138–142 enduring relational themes 129–133

Esalen Institute 16, 17, 110 existentialism 91 existential phenomenology 91–93 experiential exercise 9, 34, 38, 56, 63, 79, 135 experiential learning 137; importance in gestalt therapy 1 experimental methods 142–148 experimentation see specific types experimenting 47–48; see also empty chair experimentation; two chair experimentation familiarity boundary 126, 134 Faraday, Michael 18 Feder, B. 19 field self-organisation 18 field theory/situation 4, 19, 66–87; cultural field 84–87; developmental theory in gestalt 74–80; embodied field 71–74; five principles of 69–71; principles of 17–18; shame and guilt in 80–83; situation in 66–71 figure and ground 10, 10–13, 12 figure formation 11, 12 figure therapy 13 final contact 25, 37; in gestalt cycle of experience 32 five explorations/abilities 46–48 fore-contact 25, 37 Francesetti, G. 17, 20, 37, 125 Frank, Ruella 20, 73, 77, 78, 79, 80 Freud, Sigmund 38, 52, 54, 71, 129, 148, 150; psychoanalysis 74; on suicide 56; understanding of oral aggression 52 Freudian theory 56 Friedlaender, Salamo 42 Friedman, M. 121 From, Isadore 15, 18, 51, 63, 149 Fry, Marianne 62 Gadamer, H.-G. 90 Gecele, M. 20, 125

INDEX

Geertz, C. 84 gender, sex and relationship diversity (GSRD) 125 gestalt concept of self 39 gestalt cycle of experience 30–33, 32, 32–33 gestalt cycle of formation and destruction 31, 31 Gestalt Institute of Cleveland 15, 30 gestalt maps 23–49; awareness and contact 23–27; contact boundary 28–30; five explorations 46–48; gestalt cycle of experience 30–33; here and now 34–36; Paradoxical Theory of Change 42–44; polarities 39, 39–42; self and selfing 36–38; Zeigarnik effect 44–46 gestalt psychology, laws of perception 6–13 gestalt therapy 3–22; described 3–6, 28; developmental theory in 74–80; development of 16–21; dialogue in 112–115; disciplines of 2; experimentation and challenge 134–138; figure and ground 10, 10–13, 12; formation of 13–16; growth in Great Britain and beyond 20–21; importance of experiential learning in 1; phenomenology in 19, 93–98; philosophies of 4–5; see also phenomenology Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in Human Personality (Perls, Hefferline and Goodman) 1–2, 4, 13 Goldstein, Kurt 13 Goodman, Paul 3, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 34, 101, 118; on adulthood 75; Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in Human Personality 1–2, 4, 13; humans of the field and in the field 67; on id of the situation 71

grasp 79 Greenberg, Elinor 20 Griffero, T. 17 guilt in field theory 80–83 healthy functioning 11, 12, 28, 38, 51–52, 73 Hefferline, Ralph 15; Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in Human Personality 1–2, 4, 13 Hegel, G.W.F. 90 Heidegger, Martin 13, 19, 84, 93; Being and Time 90, 92; on existential phenomenology 91–93 Heraclitus 37, 70 here and now 17, 34–36 holism 17; phenomenology 107–110 Holism and Evolution (Smuts) 108 horizontalisation/equalisation 91 Horney, Karen 14 Houston, Gaie 19 humour use in therapy 62 Husserl, Edmund 19, 35, 90, 93, 105; The Philosophy of Arithmetic 90–91 Hycner, Rich 18, 112, 113, 119 I and Thou (Buber) 116 id function 38, 76, 91; of situation 70–71 inclusion 122; dialogue 121–122 inner zone 24 intentionality 95–96 interrelating 47 intersubjective relatedness 77 intersubjectivity, phenomenology 98–101 introjection 52–55 I-Thou and I-It moments: dialogue 115–119 Jacobs, Lynne 18, 43, 54, 85, 100, 113, 119, 131, 132 Joyce, Phil 31, 63, 83 Jung, Carl 148, 150

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INDEX

Kant, Immanuel 90 Kaufman, Gershen 80 Kepner, Elaine 15 Kepner, J. 20 Kitzler, Richard 15 Koffka, Kurt 7 Kohler, Wolfgang 7 Kruger, A. 19 La Barre, F. 20, 80 Latner, J. 17, 26 Leibniz, G.W. 90 Levinas, Emmanuel 90 Lewin, Kurt 14, 45, 70; action research 67–68 Liminal Space (Denham-Vaughan) 106–107 lived body 72, 93, 101, 105 living body 101, 103 Mazur, E. 45 McConville, M. 80 Melnick, J. 130 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 17, 19, 92, 93, 105; on awareness 23; embodied perception 106; The Phenomenology of Perception 90; The World of Perception 106 middle zone 24–25 mind-body-world 72 mindful, creative experimentation 151–153 mobilisation in gestalt cycle of experience 32 moderations to contact 50–65; types of 52–64 Moreno, Jacob 138 Muller, M. 51 natural attitude 89 Nevis, Edwin 15 Nevis, Sonia 15 New York Institute 15 non-exploitation, dialogue 127–128

Oaklander, V. 59 Orange, Donna 30, 106 organisation, principle of 70 organismic self-regulation 44 original experience 90 outer zone 24, 25 Pacific Gestalt Institute 43 Panksepp, J. 82 Paradoxical Theory of Change 42–44 The Paradoxical Theory of Change (Beisser) 43 Parlett, Malcolm 17, 18, 46, 67, 109; five principles of field theory 69–70 perception, law of 6–13 Perls, Frederick (Fritz) 3, 13–16, 17, 20, 21, 24, 26, 34, 36, 40, 42, 46, 50, 62, 92, 110, 119, 121, 139, 140, 148; aversion to confluence 59, 73; developmental sequence 75; disagreed with Freud’s theories 52; Ego, Hunger and Aggression 15–16; Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in Human Personality 1–2, 4, 13; on holism 108; original training in psychoanalysis 129; projection as screen phenomenon 57; psychoanalytic training 33; on suicide 56 Perls, Laura 3, 13–15, 16, 18, 21, 27, 42, 50, 53, 62, 73, 92, 113, 139; developmental sequence 75; history in fleeing Nazi Germany and their death camps 59; on holism 108; original training in psychoanalysis 129; psychoanalytic training 34 personality function 38 phenomena 17 phenomenal field 68 phenomenological attitude 89

INDEX

phenomenological method 90 phenomenological reduction 90 phenomenology 5, 88–110; body and 101–107; described 89; in gestalt therapy 93–98; holism 107–110; intersubjectivity and co-creation 98–101; as philosophy 88–93; roots of the term 89; transcendental 19; see also gestalt therapy The Phenomenology of Perception (Merleau-Ponty) 90 Philippson, Peter 19, 130, 143, 144 Phillips, Gabe 110 philosophy: defined 58; phenomenology as 88–93 The Philosophy of Arithmetic (Husserl) 90–91 Pinderhughes, E. 84 polarities 39, 39–42 Polster, Erving 15, 19, 28, 36, 39–40, 62 Polster, Miriam 15, 19, 28, 39, 62 possible relevance, principle of 70 post-contact 25, 37 post-traumatic stress disorder 12 Pragnanz, law of 7 presence, dialogue 123–125 proflection 56 projection 57–59 proximity, law of 7, 9 psychoanalytic theory 14, 38 pull 79 push 78 Rank, Otto 14 reach 78–79 Reich, Wilhelm 13 release 79 Representations of Interactions that have been Generalised (RIGS) 76 responding to situation 46 retroflection 55–57 Robine, J.M. 17, 18, 71

Rogers, Carl 122 Ronall, R. 19 Roubal, Jan 19, 20, 115, 125 Rowling, J.K. 137 Rubin, Edgar 10–11 safe emergency 19 Sartre, J.-P. 90 satisfaction in gestalt cycle of experience 32 Schöpferische Indifferenz 42 Schore, A. 83 Schulz, F. 19 self-affectivity 76 self-agency 76 self and selfing 36–39 self-as-process 37 self-coherence 76 self-disclosure 123 self-history 76 self-monitoring/egotism 62–63 self-recognising 47 sensation in gestalt cycle of experience 32 senses, creative experimentation 151–153 shame, in field theory 80–83 shame binds 81 shame of shame 81 Shapiro, Elliot 15, 16 Sills, C. 31, 63, 83 similarity, law of 7, 9 singularity, principle of 70 Skotten, G. 19 Smuts, J.C.: Holism and Evolution 108 Spagnuolo-Lobb, M. 128, 141 Spinelli, Ernesto 19 Staemmler, Frank 18, 74, 98, 119, 121 Stern, Daniel 34, 76, 78, 80, 101, 104 Stoehr, T. 35 Strawman, S. 119, 122 symmetry, law of 7, 9

171

172

INDEX

Taoist philosophy 39 Taylor, M. 20, 36 Thompson, E. 35 thought disorder 121 three self structures/functions 38–39 Tillich, Paul 13 transcendental phenomenology 19, 90–91 transference 58; dialogue 129–133; see also counter-transference two chair experimentation 138–142 United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) 21 unremarkable experiments 146–148 verbal relatedness 77–80 virgin experience 91, 94 void in gestalt cycle of experience 32

Wertheimer, Max 7, 13 Western culture 31, 41, 58, 60–61, 64, 75, 84, 95, 102 Wheeler, G. 67, 80, 84 Wheeler, Gordon 17, 18 White, C. 131 withdrawal in gestalt cycle of experience 32 Wollants, G. 17 The World of Perception (Merleau-Ponty) 106 yield 78 yin/yang 39 Yontef, Gary 17, 18, 19, 43, 119, 130 Zahavi, D. 35, 106 Zeigarnik, Bluma 44–46, 62 Zeigarnik effect 44–46 Zinker, Joseph 15, 19, 40, 58 zones of awareness 24