Gestalt Therapy
June 6th 2007 17:58
Gestalt psychology concentrates on interaction and process, observations, and conclusions, and its insistence that a psychology about humans include human experience.
Gestalt therapy emerged from the clinical work of two German psychotherapists, Frederick Salomon Perls, M.D., and Lore Perls, Ph.D in the 1940s. With the end of the war, the Perlses emigrated to the United States. They settled in New York City, in a community of artists and intellectuals versed in philosophy, psychology, medicine, and education.
In its theory, is methodology, its practice, and its applications, Gestalt therapy is a present-centered approach. Both of the central concepts upon which Gestalt therapy is based--awareness, and the field--have meaning only in terms of the present moment.
What does this mean, "present centered"? In essence, it means that what is important is what is actual, not what is potential or what is past, but what is here, now. What is actual is, in terms of time, always the present; in terms of location, it is what is here, in front of us. Hence this familiar phrase: the here and now. Behind this idea is the conviction that studying, describing, and observing what is available to us now will allow us to comprehend it satisfactorily. In Kierkegaard's famous phrase, "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced." A present-centered approach is distinguished from a historical one, in which the present is seen as a consequence of past causes. The historical point of view stands inevitably in the present, looking backward to the past. A present-centered approach stands in the present and looks at it, here and now.
A present-centered approach raises different questions: How? What? What is this? What is the experience of this? Of what does it consist? How is this for me? How is this organized? From this point of view, the past is here, now. It is embedded in the present. The present contains everything. Memo-ties, dreams, reflections are all present activities. They take place in the now. They concern events which occurred at some other time, as do anticipating, planning, preparing. But remembering is done in the present, planning is done in the present, reflecting is done in the present. It cannot be otherwise.
In the Gestalt present-centered approach, our interest is as much or more in the experience and awareness of remembering as it is in what is remembered. A present-centered approach leads more to attempts to embrace the present, to encompass it, and to appreciate it than it does to questions about the past (even the past in the present). A present-centered psychotherapy almost inevitably becomes a way of making it possible to better embrace the present moment, as well as a way of illuminating how we manage to miss so much of the present.
Awareness has five distinct qualities. They are contact, sensing, excitement, figure formation, and wholeness.
Contact is the meeting of differences. For us--that is, from the point of view of our own experience--it is coming up against the other, what is different from what we think of, or feel, or experience as us. (This is discussed in the next section.)
Sensing determines the nature of awareness. Close sensing is sensate, touching or feeling; far sensing is visual and auditory perception. Although these last two are functions of our organs, they are experienced at a distance. Although most close and far sensing occurs outside us, sensing can also occur within us, where it is called "proprioception." Thoughts and dreams are included here, as well as body sensations and emotions.
Excitement covers the range of emotional and physiological excitation from the most diffuse hum of well-being through the sharper alertness and interest to the most shrill and concentrated. If we turn to see someone on the street who reminds us of a close friend, our awareness includes contacting the person we see, the stranger in the environment. It also includes our memories, the proprioceptive contacting of ideas and feelings. Our interest, a form of excitement, might be just a mild murmur of attentiveness or it might be an arresting swell, felt as deep breathing or pleasure, tingling or flushing, or an impulse toward action. When we speak of our experience, it is usually these qualities, awareness, sensing, and excitement, and figure formation to which we are referring.
Figure formation refers to the way awareness is shaped and developed. In this example of seeing a stranger, a central focus of interest has emerged. This is characteristic of the second phase of figure formation. Figure formation will be discussed in the section after contact.
The final fundamental quality of awareness is wholeness. The statement for which Gestalt psychology is perhaps best known, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts," embodies holistic principles. The word "greater" is meant qualitatively, not quantitatively. The whole is different from, more encompassing than what you can conclude by adding the parts together. Looking at the functioning of the components of our hands--the five digits, the palm, the back--is not sufficient to tell us what the totality is. A hand is a unity, a whole, which, while composed of elements, can be understood fully only in its entirety. In fact, it cannot be understood essentially at all except as a whole.
Contacting is the way we change and grow. It is how we come to grips with our lives, organizing the field to make possible the best achievements and solutions it will support. At the same time, contacting is the way in which the environment, the rest of the field, adjusts us to it. We call this interplay, all of it, creative adjustment, because the result is assimilation and growth and because the process of adjustment is mutual. In creative adjustment, our achievements and solutions are made by us and given to us both in the give and take of our creative partnership with the rest of the field. Adjustment is creative as well because it cannot follow a formula. It must be accomplished uniquely, according to each opportunity. Our achievements and solutions must be novel if they are to be the best each situation can produce.
Painting by Paul Goodman
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Comment by DuskDevi
Rugby World Cup 2007
"Life is not a problem to be solved...but a complex formula with a simple answer..."
An amazing read. Brilliant.
Enlightening, confirming...the here and now...
Much warmth and respect Mis
Dusk
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
"Life is not a problem to be solved...but a complex formula with a simple answer..."
Boy you can say that again sister!
From one Blasphmer to another....
To quote John Lennon...
"Life happens when you are busy making other plans"
Gestalt theory says...
Fuck the plans..... live for now! (OK so I paraphrased)
I am so glad you enjoyed this post. I am getting a kick out of this "higher brow" blog of mine.
Mis
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
Mis
Comment by charliesgirl_992000
Histeries, Mysteries and what not
Lifes little slices
Mystical Creativity
"I LIKE that!!!" What a great phrase to live by! Tammy
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
Me too!
Mis