Response to the Review of Emergent Self

Peter Philppson, MSc

Peter Philippson is a UKCP registered gestalt psychotherapist, a teaching and supervising member of the Gestalt Psychotherapy and Training Instittue, UK (www.gpti.org.uk), a founder member of the Manchester Gestalt Centre (www.mgc.org.uk), and a full member of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy (www.newyorkgestalt.org). Peter is the author of numerous books and articles, and he conducts training widely and internationally. He is a past President of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy.

Editorial | Gaffney | Kim | Robine | Greenberg | Philippson | Articles of Interest

Gestalt!
Volume 11; Number 1
Winter, 2011
Published by
The Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy

Edited by

Charles Bowman, MS

Dan Bloom, J.D.; LCSW

Philip Brownell, M.Div.; Psy.D.

Abstract

Peter Philippson responds to the review of his book by Leslie Greenberg and clarifies his position on a number of points. He identifies himself as an "emergent materialist" and calls for respect for such a position. He challenges the "shame" of being identified with Fritz Perls, and challenges empathy if it is conceived of as belonging to a one-person psychology.

I want to thank Leslie Greenberg for his careful reading of my book. His synopsis of my development of the approach is masterly and accurate. I imagine it would not be an easy book to do that with!
Of course I cannot agree with Greenberg’s conclusions, in two ways. What these have in common is that I am not following the usual path in thinking about consciousness or about therapy. I would prefer those who want to hold a more hegemonic view to be willing to be open to something different and not assume that it is inherently worse than what is assumed to be true in their paradigm.

First of all, philosophically: I am an emergent materialist, and would see that as a perfectly respectable approach. From this perspective, the split into ‘high levels’ and ‘lower levels’ is more a pull towards dualism than an avoidance of reductionism. Materialism is not reductionism. It is very natural that we see what is important and unique to us as human beings is in some way ‘higher’ and ontologically separated from mere matter, but it doesn’t make it right. I want to be clear that I am not talking analogy. Emergent complex systems are not separated in any way from the material base that bore them and sustains them. By the way, my first degree was in mathematics and philosophy, I did postgraduate work in philosophy, and I have discussed the book with physicists. I am not alone in this kind of view: putting ‘complexity theory psychology’ into Google produced around 17 million results (some of which I would agree with, some not).

Secondly, there is a curious oedipal process in the Gestalt Therapy world whereby anything that approaches what Fritz Perls wrote, and anything that confronts the client, has to be put aside as shaming. The shame is assumed. I want to challenge this viewpoint. If that was the way clients generally went in therapy with me, and if it was as unproductive a way of working as Greenberg states, I would have abandoned it a long time ago. Yet I find this the most productive way I have ever worked, my clients mostly feel a sense of excitement that new things are possible and make major changes in directions I would not even have imagined.

Maybe the problem is that Greenberg assumes that my responses, far from being my honest experience with the client in the moment, are instrumental, frustration for the sake of frustration. And I am sure that if I did that, clients WOULD feel shame or rage or both. If I am feeling confronted in the same way, and staying open to that place, it is a much more equal encounter, and, in my experience, moves on to something exciting fairly quickly. Clients in general feel supported by me, not in the narrative of how they conventionally see their world, but in their being in the newness of this immediate situation. (In general, clients come with their own frustrations at their being in the world!) I rightly or wrongly would place the ‘particular role’ Greenberg sees a therapist inhabiting as belonging to the world of ‘one-person psychology’ that Stern (2004) sees as no longer defensible. I do not actually see a great deal of difference between Stern’s way (and that of his Boston Change Process Study Group) of doing psychotherapy, as espoused in his book, and mine.

This leads to one bit of my book that Greenberg did not précis. I question the term ‘empathy’ as belonging to the one-person model of therapy, one where ‘where the client is’ is an objective fact to be attuned to, rather than something we are co-creating at each moment. I have discussed this backwards and forwards with Lynn Jacobs, and we came to a terminology ‘attuning to the relationship’.

I am happy with the generality of the feedback I have received, and also with the responses of my clients to my way of working. I know from their responses and development that this way of working is not confused and counterproductive.

Reference

Stern, D.N. (2004) The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life. W.W. Norton, New York.