Response to Bloom, Fodor, and Brownell

Scott Kellogg

New York University

Gestalt!
Volume 10; Number 1
2009
Published by
Gestalt Global Corporation and the Gestalt Training Institute of Bermuda

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Contents of 10(1)

Home

Schema Therapy: A Gestalt-Oriented Overview

Response to Schema Therapy... from Dan Bloom

Response to Schema Therapy from Iris Fodor

Response to Schema Therapy from Philip Brownell

Kellogg Response to Bloom, Fodor, and Brownell

GO TO DISCUSSION BOARD FOR THE CONTINUED DIALOGUE AND TO JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION YOURSELVES

Working Corner

Initial information about Continuity and Change: Gestalt Therapy Now

ABSTRACT

This is a response by Jeffrey Kellogg to the comments of Dan Bloom, Iris Fodor, and Philip Brownell on his article about the integration of gestalt therapy and schema therapy.

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To start, I would like to thank Dr. Philip Brownell for inviting me to submit an article on schema therapy and its connection to gestalt therapy for Gestalt!  I would also like to thank Dr. Iris Fodor, Mr. Dan Bloom, and Dr. Brownell for taking the time to comment on my article.

After reading the comments of my colleagues, I felt perplexed and dismayed as I sensed that, after all this work, we had missed an opportunity to do something useful.  Many issues were raised in the three commentaries, and I will address several that I feel are most germane to my original intent.

The core area of disagreement or misconnection centers on the two versions of gestalt therapy that were discussed in the paper – the 1951 model and the 1969 model.  Wheeler (1991) has named the 1951 version as the Goodman/Perls model.  This perspective was the first full version of gestalt therapy and, following Perls’ death, there was an eventual return to this model.  Many contemporary developments in gestalt therapy have grown or developed from it.

As has been noted by a number of observers, Perls was unhappy with the 1951 book (Gaines, 1979; Naranjo, 1993), and would eventually develop his therapy in new and unique ways.  What has not been fully acknowledged is that the 1969 model is actually a psychodramatic therapy that embodies Perls’ extremely creative re-working of Moreno’s therapeutic approach.  While the details of the story are not completely clear, it appears that Perls began to work with Moreno in New York City around the time of the publication of the Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman (1965) text, and that he attended Moreno’s Psychodrama Institute in New York City until his departure for California in the early ‘60’s (Leveton, 2001; Zerka Moreno, Personal Communication).  Given this, his central emphasis on chairwork (a technique that he adapted from psychodrama), imagery, and dreamwork (also adapted from psychodrama) helps make the case that the 1969 model is fundamentally an integration of psychodrama and gestalt therapy.  Following Wheeler’s example, it could well be called the Moreno/Perls model – a model that integrates awareness and enactment.  This approach is so different from the 1951 version, that it is probably fair to say that Perls had actually created a second therapy.

The work of Perls during the Esalen years, the apogee of this second gestalt therapy, is certainly a story of light and shadow (Gaines, 1979).  However, the extraordinary psychotherapeutic creativity that he demonstrated, especially in his actions, would eventually inspire practitioners all over the world.  As Naranjo (1993) has said, “many of us believe that Fritz’s California years were his ripest” (xix).

This, then, is the model that has spoken to integrative psychotherapists from a range of traditions – not the 1951 model with its emphasis on the contact boundary.  This 1969 model is also the one that has most influenced schema therapy.

Given this history, it seems ironic that, despite their repeated emphasis on contact and relationship, Bloom, Fodor, and Brownell each anchor their comments from the perspective of a contemporary gestalt therapy that is a further development of the Perls/Goodman model, but which has little in common with the 1969 work.  I had expected that they would have seen the psychodramatic techniques as the point of encounter, as the place of meeting from which to begin our conversation.  Instead, they focused their attention on awareness and contact and miss an opportunity for a true dialogue, a dialogue that could help advance the clinical treatment of those suffering from various forms of pathology.

Moving onto a second point, I sense that they, along with other gestalt therapists, do not fully appreciate the nature of psychotherapeutic technique – especially as a manifestation of the creative process.  Awareness, imagery, and chairwork each have the potential to be powerful healing interventions when used with skill and creativity.  To call them “techniques” (and I have done this myself) is to fail to respect their power to transform.  I think that it would be much better to see them as psychotherapeutic art forms – forms that deserve intense study and practice in order to be able to use them wisely and proficiently.

Many gestalt therapists, including both Fritz and Laura Perls (Perls, 1969; Rosenfeld, n.d.) have emphasized the role of spontaneity in the use of these and other therapy forms, as if a deep grounding in theory alone would enable one to use them in effective ways.  This emphasis on spontaneity and theory reflects only one side of the polarity.  Using music as a parallel, there are rock, new age, and jazz musicians who improvise throughout many of their performances.  It is important to understand that these musicians each “practice” their improvisations; that is, they spend hours developing ideas and perfecting their ability to perform them.  In concert, there is an interaction between these efforts and the spontaneous mystery of the moment that lead to results that are sometimes good and, occasionally, magical.  Looking at awareness, imagery, and chairwork as serious art forms invites us to come together to celebrate their beauty and to engage in mutual explorations to discover more effective ways of using them. 

Surprisingly, Bloom seems to have a very limited view of the utility of these methods.  He writes, “The techniques of the 1969 model are relevant to the method only insofar as they serve to facilitate contacting.”  However, the clinical utility of these techniques is much broader than this.  For example, they can be used for exposure work, cognitive restructuring, polarity integration, the rescripting of traumas and nightmares, the elucidation of multiple aspects of self, existential choice, working through grief, confrontations with the inner critic, making decisions, and assertiveness training.  Clearly, these are all central tasks in our work with depression, anxiety, trauma, addictions, and personality disorders,

One of the reasons for writing a paper on schema therapy in a gestalt journal was to invite gestalt therapists to consider integrating the model or parts of the model into their own work.  Given that schema therapy incorporates so much of the 1969 model, it would seem to be a naturally-attractive option for gestalt therapists.  As noted in the main article, the evidence is beginning to demonstrate that schema therapy is an effective treatment for borderline personality disorder.  This is an extraordinary accomplishment and one that should draw the interest of psychotherapists everywhere; curiously, this was not even mentioned by Bloom, Fodor, or Brownell in their commentaries.

It is also my belief that the language of schemas and modes is an enormously helpful tool for gaining perspective on and control over various forms of clinical disturbance.  While the map is not the territory and there is always a possibility of reification, a good map can help you go to wonderful places; in my experiences, the schemas and (even more so) the modes can make our work far more effective.

In an example from the Young and Klosko (1993) book, they spoke about a patient who had been in Gestalt therapy and who had been unhappy that he did not have a better cognitive conceptualization of what was going on.  This echoes the observations of Robert Goulding, a colleague and friend of Fritz Perls, who wrote, “I believe…that both the Gestalt experience and the cognitive material are important and that the individual will do better with both than with either (Goulding, 1983, p. 618).

Lastly, Brownell writes, “The bi-polar split between east and west coast gestalt is dead”.  I think that this is simply not true; in fact, I believe it is at work in the commentaries and this discussion.  For example, this split can be see in Woldt and Toman’s (2005) recently published Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory, and Practice.  This is a seminal volume with contributions from leading gestalt therapists from the United States and Europe.  The 1969 model, however, is barely mentioned at all.  As he affirmed in Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, Fritz Perls (1969) felt that dreamwork was the most important vehicle for personal healing; however, in a 392-page text, it only merited one page of discussion.  Similarly, chairwork is just mentioned twice.  In turn, Moreno’s name only appears in a table and “psychodrama” is not even listed in the Subject Index.

Perls’ work in the 1960’s, despite its many flaws and shortcomings, has inspired psychotherapists from a wide range of traditions – including schema therapists. In particular, it was his psychodramatic work that so many have found to be compelling ways of alleviating suffering and promoting growth.  It is with these, and not contemporary gestalt theory and therapy, that our dialogue and encounter should have begun.

References
Gaines, J. (1979).  Fritz Perls: Here and now.  Millbrae, CA: Celestial Arts.

Goulding, R.L. (1983).  Gestalt therapy and Transactional Analysis.  In C. Hatcher and P. Himelstein (Eds.) The handbook of Gestalt therapy (pp. 615-634).  New York: Jason Aronson.

Leveton, E. (2001).  A clinician’s guide to psychodrama (3rd ed.).  New York: Springer Publishing Company.

Naranjo, C. (1993).  Gestalt therapy: The attitude and practice of an atheoretical experientialism. Gateways City, NV: Gateways/IDHHB.

Perls, F. S. (1969).  Gestalt therapy verbatim.  Lafayette, California: Real People Press.

Perls, F., Hefferline, R. F., & Goodman, P. (1965).  Gestalt therapy: Excitement and growth in the human personality.  New York: Dell Publishing.

Rosenfeld, E. (n.d.).  An oral history of Gestalt therapy: Part one: A conversation with Laura Perls. Downloaded on July 14, 2009 from http://www.gestalt.org/perlsint.htm

Wheeler, G. (1991).  Gestalt reconsidered.  New York: The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Press.
Woldt, A. L., & Toman, S. M. (2005).  Gestalt therapy: History, theory, and practice.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Young, J. E., & Klosko, J. S. (1993).  Reinventing