What follows are my responses, reflecting on various topics I encountered while reading David Pocock's article.

MAPS OF REALITY, OR TERRITORY

In the dialogic approach inherent in Gestalt therapy, there are two perceivers, the patient/client and the therapist. The therapist is interested in hearing the meanings made by the client and brackets her opinions/reactions/ perceptions off until, and unless, they are relevant to the contact between patient and therapist. Truth and reality are not the stuff of psychotherapy. It does not matter if there is a reality. What only matters is the reality made by the client, which is now being told to a specific therapist, and if necessary, the telling of this story may be repeated, but it will never twice be the same story, for it will be new each time it is told.

Genograms provide information and foster the telling of such stories. Using a genogram in psychotherapy gives a map of the territory within which events occurred and their meanings were constructed. This map, and the stories arising from it, provide insight into the context or field of the client.

In Gestalt therapy, we do not speak of "systems," rather, we speak of process within the field. We are not so much interested in the hydraulics of the family as we are in the HOW of communicating (or not), seeing (or not), speaking (or not), giving (or not), relating (or not). Further, we are interested in HOW meanings were made - what about the context and the observer created the meaning made. For example, in David Pocock's opening story, he suggests that something about the relationship between the brothers caused the brother to describe the accident in a way that exonerated his brother. However, it could just as easily been a description that indicted the brother. So, as a Gestalt therapist, I become interested in the relationship between these brothers. What is the nature of their relationship, and how is the present story reflective of the history of these two? Is this still a viable and useful construction? If so, how and for whom?

CASE EXAMPLE:

I had been seeing a young woman in her 30's for a few months. She had been in a marriage that she experienced as psychologically deadening and somewhat abusive. She had agreed (at her husband's insistence) not to have children, and to "have her tubes tied." In the months that we met she managed to separate from her spouse and to begin living on her own. During this time, I was little by little hearing the story of her family. Her mother died when she was 3 years old. While growing up, she had been very close to her father and brother. She and her father would spend holidays working with charitable organizations feeding the hungry, and the family ethic was definitely about "doing good works". When she was 15 her father went hiking with his favorite dog and never returned. His body was found some days later by searchers who had to battle the dog unwilling to let them near the body. My client was devastated and her brother (in his early 20's) became her care-taker until she left for college.

Over the years, brother and sister became increasingly estranged. He was a very successful stock broker, and she was an accountant in an insurance company. They saw one another once or twice a year although they lived in the same town within a few minutes of one another. I asked her if she would like to invite her brother to join us in a meeting. She was excited and eager, believing that such a meeting would bring them "closer" and enable a more open and heart-felt communication between them. He was invited and agreed and a date was set for our meeting. When he arrived, he appeared a pleasant, somewhat cool and distant person, willing to be there "for her sake". I interviewed him about the story of his family and he reported essentially all the facts, but with little or no affect. His sister listened intently. She observed his demeanor and his good will. The session lasted a bit over an hour.

I met with her the following week. She reported on her observations. That she had "seen" her brother for the first time. That he was unable or unwilling to reveal his feelings at least with her, and that she had been trying desperately to force him to be someone he was not. She thanked me for allowing her to see him in a new light- one that allowed her to love him without demanding something from him in return.

Her therapy continued for some months more, during which she decided she really did want to have children, was not too old to do so, and that she wanted to go to art school and perhaps become a teacher. She eventually had her tubal ligation reversed. My last communication from her was the receipt of an announcement of the birth of her second child. She had indeed completed art school, remarried and was mother to two beautiful children.

As one who has actively practiced Gestalt therapy for some 20 years, I am hard pressed to comprehend the relatively new affection for the likes of Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, and White. My task as a Gestalt therapist has always been to explore the lack of authenticity and to support its development with my clients. To explore with them what they came to believe, how it presently serves them, or how their beliefs might even disable them. I do not necessarily believe there are underlying "deeper issues to be explored," nor would I assume that the problem is "the system of those connected through language who agree to describe a particular situation as problematic." I assume that if my client tells me he has a problem, it is what he describes it to be. My task is to explore how the problem came to be a problem and what disables my client from solving it. (Although, here I must confess that I have been known to be somewhat challenging about how the problem is defined/described - it is my experience that many of us solve and resolve the same problem over and over again with little, if any, relief. If we have mis-identified the problem, no amount of solving will help.)

In Gestalt theoretical language, Foucault's view "that individuals internalize social attitudes" would be described as influences of the field. The field being defined as the ground from within which the individual differentiates. So-called neurotic development being viewed as archaic adaptations to the environment kept out of awareness, leaving the pt./client without choice in her responses to the world. As a Gestalt therapist, I do not feel the need to "assist people to resist succumbing to these dominant stories," rather to highlight and make aware that there IS a dominant story, one that may or may not have value in the present situation. I certainly cannot know whether a particular organization of the field is still relevant. I can only ask the question and believe the answer.

REGARDING REALITY

I assume I virtually NEVER know what someone is talking about when they talk about reality. Certainly, I know they are NOT talking about what I know as my reality, and my task, yet again, is to discover (with them, if necessary) what their reality is! How do they know it - what are its principles - what are its limits and boundaries? If someone is agorophobic, their reality is considerably different from someone who enjoys bungie jumping and sky diving. None of these experiences are familiar to me; so, like a good phenomenologist, I must learn from my client what the experiences mean to them, how they know what they know about them, and what, if anything, they want from them or for themselves.

Knowing this, then, my task is to highlight when descriptions of experience appear closer to or farther from what is desirable, always open to hearing that what, to me, seems distancing might indeed be movement in the direction toward. It may just not be known to me.

When Pocock speaks to the metaphor of a map - our constructed reality and external reality and our power of construction to define, he seems to be ignoring a fundamental truth- that we can only name what we know. Other names are not available to us. Personality is a function of assimilated experience and that we know ourselves by our differences from other.

USES OF THEORY

In regard to Pocock's descriptions of how theory influenced the therapist's seeing/hearing and organizing of the meeting with an anorexic, as a Gestalt therapist, I am interested in what meanings each member of the family attaches to the anorexic, how those meanings influence their engagements with the individual, how the anorexic experiences the others' responses, and so on. All this, while attending to whatever health crises may be ongoing as a result of a "disease" process, is of interest. As a Gestalt therapist, I see that my task includes appropriate referrals to physicians for necessary hospitalizations, medications, etc. I do not believe I "embrace" nor "avoid" my power to effect what is happening. When I meet with a family, I become a part of its process; if I am on my toes, I am aware of the impact individuals are having on me, can maintain my neutrality while speaking my truth, and heighten awareness for others of their effects. I am somewhat constrained by a need to trust the process of the individuals in the room and my belief that each one of them is doing the best they can under the circumstances and given their resources. If I can make available additional resources, influence the circumstances, or support affect, I do.

I think my bottom line as a teacher and practitioner of Gestalt Therapy is that theories of practice are not as important as the integrity and ethics of the practitioner. As therapists (and teachers) we must have done our own work, and continue to do it if necessary. So-called "healing" occurs in authentic meeting between therapist and client, and regardless of my "expertise," it is often my own life experiences and understandings that support authenticity, spontaneity and "healing".

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