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Abstract
This article, based largely on a discussion during one of the presentations at the 1998 AAGT conference, explores the nature of on-line process and the growth in its sophistication, also providing a look to the future in Gestalt-oriented telehealth, training, and web publication. The role of the internet in presenting Gestalt philosophy and practice to the world, the character of the Gestalt on-line community, and the tension within Gestalt circles regarding the nature of internet contact, as well as the ubiquitous encroachment of on-line culture, are also discussed.
 In the time span between the first appearance on-line of Gestalt therapists in 1995 to the writing of an article appearing in Gestalt Review discussing field effects associated with internet technology (Brownell, 1998) there was at least a 500% growth in the quantity of Gestalt sites on the world wide web. That took place in approximately a two-year span. In the two years following that, the growth has continued so that now the increase measures approximately 1000%.
At the 1998 conference of the AAGT a presentation had been scheduled to address this continuing presence of Gestalt therapists on the internet and various associated issues. It evolved into an open discussion. In attendance were Philip Brownell, Brian O'Neill, Morgan Goodlander, Edwin Nevis, Sonia March Nevis, Joel Latner, John Carter, and Carol Swanson, among others.
Quality, Sophistication, and Utility
The sophistication among on-line Gestalt practitioners and the quality of their products have paralleled the quantitative increases mentioned above. On-line Gestalt therapists have come to perceive value in having their own web sites, but they continue to assess the nature of that value and what they're doing with respect to participation on the internet.
During the discussion, Morgan Goodlander, Director of the Gestalt Institute of Santa Cruz, noted that for him the internet was a tool for marketing, as a way to reach out to people and let them know what his Gestalt institute was doing. He discovered that half the people in his program contacted his institute through the internet. He began sharing something about his program through linking with other web sites to identify himself with a larger Gestalt community; those interested could see not only what he was offering, but also the context of his colleagues. He stated that prospective trainees "...want to see that you're not just an organization stuck isolated in the middle of nowhere, but, in fact, you're involved with other colleagues and you're developing your work in a broader spectrum."
Major Gestalt training centers have begun to register their own domain names and create their own web sites. Individual Gestalt therapists consistently interact in email discussion lists such as Gstalt-L, meeting others from around the globe, and contribute to bulletin-boards such as the Gestalt Therapy Forum at Behavior Online. Over the last four years the infrastructure of the on-line Gestalt community has become robust.
In addition, the possibility of extending Gestalt therapy into new territory remains one of the internet's most promising potentialities. For example, Marlene Maheu, Ph.D., a trained Gestalt therapist, is working closely with the American Psychological Association to help define the field of telehealth as it relates to clinical psychology. She moderates an email discussion group - "Telehealth (Professional discussion forum for all aspects of Telehealth)" - that focuses on the development and utility of the internet for doing consultation, supervision, and therapy on-line. Telehealth networks already exist for the purpose of bringing competent medical care to remote, rural areas, and these networks now include psychological services as well. As Gestalt practitioners become increasingly comfortable with the virtual environment, they can be expected to enter the new world of telehealth, to which they can make a decided contribution.
Perhaps the most significant contemporary development in the progress of Gestalt on the internet is that key people in Gestalt centers have begun to grapple with questions of design and functionality for their web pages. Noting, for instance, that having a mere duplication of an institute's hard copy brochure would lack interest, John Carter wondered how to make the web site for the The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland more compelling. He viewed the mere placing of a poster on the web as only the first level of possible development.
Letting himself expand, he was also curious about what he called "the functionality and dysfunctionality" of the whole internet phenomena. He noted that for well over 12 years he had participated in an on-line bulletin board and enjoyed more freedom and utility than what he experiences now after companies like AOL and Compuserv have taken over and limited choice and flexibility in services. He stated that he's interested in capacity beyond "putting the brochure up. It's boring content in print and it's gunna be boring content on the web page." How does one make essentially promotional material, which John considered lackluster to begin with, interesting? "It's very easy to get seduced into the technology, because it's flashy or whatever, when in reality, if I take a look at it, it's taking me more time with less return, and in some instances isn't even able to do what I was able to do without it. So, how do I keep myself grounded in a way that is functional for me?"
Self Regulation
Indeed, one of the key figures of interest during this discussion became how to limit the invasive effects of on-line culture. Ed Nevis confessed that he had gotten on-line at first as a result of Sonia's to be able to interact with others at Gestalt Review. He discovered, however, that as he gave out his email address, he began getting back more mail than he wanted, and he began to see email as an encroachment on his time. He expressed a bind in which he often found himself. For instance, although he has great personal interest in relating to his grandson, who lives in cyberculture, his main concern at present remains how to be available without having more stimulation than feels good.
Resonating with this concern, the discussion turned to issues of self regulation. The problem with overstimulation on the internet is a matter of limit setting and sorting. Being on-line can be addicting, and there is a great deal available that is exciting. One must find one's limit, and that is an individual judgment. Like all self regulation, it turns on one's contact with the environment, which includes not only the virtual community but also the "real" world, and one's ability to form clear figures of interest. With regard to email, there are practical strategies one can take to limit the messages a person will accept, read, or to which one will respond, and many participants in the discussion admitted they have found ways to dump unread mail in bulk in order to find balance.
Contact and Process
Although some people want less stimulation, others clearly enjoy the kind of contact that virtual community can bring. Morgan Goodlander noted, "There are significant relationships that develop over the internet with people that I've never met, that continue over time and that develop into significant pieces of work in connection."
John responded, "When we say that virtual interactions are going to increase contact, the question becomes, 'What kind of contact?' The fact is that cybersex is not sex. My sending you an email is not the same as speaking to you on the phone. My speaking to you on the phone is not the same as sitting here and being able to experience your energy. My seeing you on a video screen, even though it's live and in the moment, is not the same as us being in the room."
"We have a system, though, " said Morgan, "that does center itself around creative adjustment, and...we've begun to shape our communications electronically in a way we've never had to do before, so that there are possibilities out there that we don't think about, because we've never had to address ourselves that way."
Brian O'Neill, moderator of the Gestalt Forum at Behvior On-line, stated that each way of responding to someone - letter, phone, email - have pros and cons. "So it's important to me to understand what those pros and cons are and to use these means accordingly."
He began to reflect on his own experiences of interacting on-line.
Brian hadn't been outside Australia for 30 years when he came to the first AAGT conference, which was held in 1995 in New Orleans. He had become used to multi-media and extended education through video conferencing, which had been developed in Australia to support the university programs, but he was surprised to learn that he could keep up with the new friends he met in New Orleans through the AAGT email discussion list that had been started by Brian O'Hara. So, he began using the internet to stay in touch.
The more he participated, the more he became interested in the nature of the contact taking place. "We started out not only talking about theoretical Gestalt issues, but eventually when people started talking about very playful issues, someone got annoyed. And someone else responded. And then someone posted a Haiku poem. And so we all started posting haikus - a continuous one that developed and grew." He realized that this was more than just like mail or faxes; this was a new ability, "...a new way of making contact, which keeps people relating to each other."
He recalled "amazing feuds" that took place and became part of the AAGT's on-line history. "I'd get up in the morning and go to switch on the computer, and I'd be nervous, and I'd switch it on, and there'd be a message; so I'd look, and I'd see the name, and I'd go, 'Oh, shit!'" He realized that he had great emotional investment in the various names of people who sent him email, and that signaled a connection beyond what he had expected.
Noting a difference between on-line process and face-to-face contact, he recalled that there would be the message from someone, very strong, but he would have the space to go away, contemplate it, and create his response. He experienced interacting with someone on-line, and building a relationship with them without ever having actually met face-to-face, only to find a different kind of excitement, an informed excitement, when the face-to-face encounter finally occurred. "We've had very engaging contact, and when I met Sylvia (Crocker) here the other day, there was some sort of bond there, which is beyond the physicality, and that's what interests me."
There are two kinds of experience in the AAGT of on-line community. In the early phases of virtual community in general people met and interacted with others they never actually met face to face. A person often adopted a community persona and essentially operated in a make-believe world with others given to such play. Very large communities developed and useful information about the dynamics of real-world political and systemic interactions became available through examining such virtual communities. However, something changed as the internet became more popular. In her Master's thesis, Robin Hamman noted:
- On-line communities are communities which are formed in cyberspace and, many times, these on-line communities consist entirely of people who have never met each other off-line. In the fourteen years I have spent on-line, I have been a member of dozens of on-line communities of this type and have met hundreds of users who use computer networks primarily to meet other users and to build new on-line relationships with them. However, the research presented in this article suggests that many AOL users first obtain an AOL account to conduct research and to communicate with people from their pre-existing network communities. This breaking down of the boarders between on-line and off-line communities stands in contrast to most existing notions of on-line communities and points to wider changes important to our understanding of the term "community".
Members of the AAGT experience both these kinds of community. For some, those who cannot fly around the world migrating from one conference, workshop, or training intensive to another, there is the experience of never meeting most of the people they have come to know in the virtual community. Yet, to say that these people do not have a real relationship would be false. As in Brian's case, the virtual contact is often just as compelling, because the text-based medium often pulls for disclosure that would be held back in the face-to-face environment. For others, those who from time to time come into the physical presence of colleagues at AAGT conferences, there is the exciting moment when someone a person has shared him or herself with on-line stands close enough to touch with a hand. That is when the established relationship takes on new dimensions.
The down side of on-line relationship is easy conflict. Harsh and provocative language is often not self-moderated as it would be in person. People do not censor themselves as they would in another's physical presence. The usual social customs appear for a time to vanish, and people interact asynchronously with one another from remote physical positions, often with a sense of insulation. Indeed, people often sit alone at a keyboard feeling "safe" to say the first thing that pops into their heads. Either that, or they take on needless offense and retreat. Cut off from the kind of contextual cues that physical proximity affords - sight, sound, energy, posture, and body mechanics, the member of a virtual community is left to the immediate text of the current message and the history of interactions with others on-line. Projection and retroflection abound. People routinely misunderstand one another and respond with emotion in ways that exaggerate their differences.
Participating in virtual community takes an effort to learn the culture, the syntax, and the idiom of the context. "Newbies," people new to the internet, must mature to learn how to manage the particular demands of a text-based environment. Those who remain in contact in such environments develop understanding of "how it works." What is common, however, is the need to work through a period of adjustment in which contact interruptions abound. At the Gstalt-L discussion list, only about 10% of those subscribed interact regularly. The rest are "lurkers," those who read only. Occasionally students will ask about the Gestalt jargon used and inquire if all Gestalt therapists glory in their esoteric theory, or they will express anxiety over contributing, saying that they worry over looking stupid among such competent contributors. These, of course, are projections, for virtually every subscriber came to the list wanting contact. It is true that passionate and well-reasoned exchange occurs on the list, and that from time to time people who have come to know one another speak candidly, but in each case it is also true that there is respect for one another and an open space in the middle where anyone is welcome.
One of the greatest benefits of participation in on-line community is the support it can provide in dealing with the stress of doing therapy.
- Positive peer social support and supervision - perhaps the best method to deal with the consequences of exposure to other's traumas - are crucial elements in preventing or at least blunting Secondary Traumatic Stress...Consulting with colleagues yields other benefits - namely access to information, whether through direct links to the colleague or indirect through databases containing colleague's work. This contact can increase competency, offer opportunities for direct control, or enhance the professional's ability to understand and interpret their feelings about the situation. Difficult situations become easier to manage wen one is well-informed; informed decision-making strengthens control and sustains competency. Therefore, issues of competency, as well as control, hinge to some degree on direct and indirect access to collegial information. (1995, Stamm. B. and Pearce, F.)
Indeed, for the AAGT, an organization created to support the associating of Gestalt therapists, on-line interaction would seem to be a natural fit. Already the majority of their collaborative work is accomplished through on-line working groups. Without the use of email, effective planning of their conferences would take a prohibitive amount of time, but it remains the sense of connectedness that internet participation affords Gestalt therapists, including those in the AAGT.
What's Next?
Rivers flow in one direction. Patterns in history may repeat, but they are never exactly the same.
The internet has changed our world, and it will change it even more as it expands into multimedia entertainment, commerce, and common life. Already the average on-line computer user in the United States spends six hours a week on the internet, not including email. Almost two-thirds of on-line users sent or received e-mail 10% more in February of 1999 than they did in September of 1998. Research for school work was up twenty-four per cent. Thirty-one percent of on-line users used the internet for shopping, and the most popular item purchased was books.
In 1998 one of the authors wrote, "The internet has changed the objective world, which in turn introduces change in the boundary, creating a force for change in the individual who is of the field." (Brownell, 1998, p. 146)
The obvious use of the net, in the form of on-line shopping and investment, misses the impact of subtle, but important ways in which on-line culture and experience have moved into society. Recently, the American Psychological Association stated that networks have overtaken markets and heirarchies as preferable organizing principles. Russ Newman, Ph.D., the APA's executive director for practice, stated, "Networks - organizations or individuals who work together on a shared goal - are better suited for addressing health care reform than are traditional heirarchical organizations or marketplace forces." (Rabasca, 1999, p. 16) The APA further recognized that the life of such networks has been computer technology in the form of email and email discussion groups, or listservs. While networking existed long before the internet, it was cumbersome and inefficient until electronic communication made it easy and compelling. Now, professional networks exist for every conceivable purpose, and the insights they have provided for organizational development have begun to usher in a new paradigm in thinking about organizations themselves.
Fundamental communication changes have occurred in the past, and the great innovators became noteworthy largely because they took advantage of those new developments. Kurt Lewin made films. Fritz Perls developed the live demonstration.
Perls has been described as a genius because he was uniquely able to take what had originated with others and package it in a way that communicated to a generation. Although there was undoubtedly more to his genius and contribution than that, at least that much should be obvious.
Gestalt therapy has come to a new time. The vehicle of communication is electronic. It already speaks to this next and most current generation. Consequently, Gestalt therapists need to continue developing their capacity to utilize the internet.
Some in the Gestalt community do not see it that way. They wonder where all this technology is headed. Who needs live audio and video feeds into the living room via one's television; why the mad rush to do it? They become easily frustrated by the limitations of text-based environments, even with the additions of graphics and sound on the web. The technological "feel" of computer screens turns them off. For every one of them, however, there are countless people who grew up with compters and to whom the internet has become a dependable tool that facilitates the fulfillment of their interests.
The future of Gestalt therapy is not in the writing of many more books, as important as good writing about Gestalt therapy actually is. It's not in the expansion of Gestalt training institutes, because students are more interested in obtaining degrees from established university systems. Rather, if Gestalt therapy is to obtain a new generation of therapists, it must contact people beyond its current population (a population rapidly aging) and infect young people with the potential and excitement inherent in Gestalt's comprehensive and integrative theory. The internet, and in particular the world wide web, is the vehicle of communication and information transfer for young people. Electronic networks are the means by which professionals remain connected, organized, and relevant to the daily current of their professional communities. The future of Gestalt therapy is in the hands of those established Gestalt therapists who are currently pushing the growing edge of their own net literacy and finding ways to communicate with the world.
Resources
Brownell, P. (1998) "Condensing the field: Internet communication and Gestalt community." Gestalt Review (2(2), p. 143-153.
Hamman, R.B. (personal communication, January, 1999) "Computer Networks Linking Network Communities: A Study of the Effects of Computer Network Use Upon Pre-existing Communities"
Rabasca, L. (1999) "State leaders network toward goals" APA Monitor, 30(5), p.17.
Stamm, B.H. & Pearce, F.W. (1995). "Creating Virtual Community: Telemedicine and Self Care." In B.H. Stamm (Ed.) Secondary Traumatic Stress: Self-Care Issues for Clinicians, Researchers, and Educators. Lutherville, MD: Sidran Press. |
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Field in Flux:
