I found myself a bit uneasy as I read Purcell-Lee’s essay, even though I find nothing to argue with in much of what he says. I am in agreement that ordinary modes of understanding, such as categorical thinking, schemas and operational perspectives, cannot get at the existential meanings in Martin Buber’s ontology. I too, do not want gestalt trainees to have a facile understanding of I-Thou. In fact, I caution gestalt therapists not to ask, when reflecting on their work, “was such-and-such an I-Thou moment?” I find such a question reductive to the point of meaninglessness. I suggest they ask of themselves instead, “in what way am I impeding the possibility of I-Thou?”.

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The first question, aside from being reductive, is full of hubris, implying that the therapist made something happen. But such moments cannot be willed, or planned, as Purcell-Lee so eloquently writes. The second question encourages the therapist to be responsible only for his or her side of the dialogue, and to do only what can be done, which is to prepare the ground (which, by the way, is an on-going process).

Although it sounds funny as I say it, what concerns me about Purcell-Lee’s article is his reverence for I-Thou. In his hands, I-Thou is reserved for only the most enlightened and courageous of souls. He champions the necessity for lived experience, he also seems to want to insist that only a rare person can attain such an experience. Buber, on the other hand, asserted vehemently that I-Thou was a necessary and attainable experience for all humans. It may not be impossible to fully describe and teach what it is, but the lived experience of it is accessible to us all if we are open to it, and we are graced.

I-Thou moments, in themselves, are not much of a concern to me as a therapist. But I am very much concerned with how the I-Thou interpenetrates the I-It realm. And Buber had some ideas for educators and therapists about a discipline that could help us to meet the whole person of the patient. His idea was that patients were troubled because they had turned their backs on I-Thou, that their I-It worlds were too far alienated from the ground of a latent and possible I-Thou. And a therapist or an educator could, by attending to what he called the “elements of the interhuman” (inclusion, confirmation, presence, commitment to dialogue), help create a ground in which the possibility of I-Thou could then live.

Unlike Purcell-Lee, I do believe that a practice, or discipline, can be part of the praxis of therapy, a particular discipline which, when not practiced, militates against the possibility of I-Thou, and which when practiced, enhances the possibility of I-Thou. Buber was preaching a practice, which is of course, an I-It experience. But that practice builds on itself continually, with greater and greater interpenetration by I-Thou. That is, if one would surrender, with full presence, to the dialogue, then I-Thou could be present as a possibility, even if a particular I-Thou moment did not occur. So the practice, for the therapist, is to attend to how one interferes with these elements of the interhuman. I cannot will I-Thou, I cannot even will my surrender to presence, to inclusion, to dialogue. But I certainly can use my awareness to attend to my inhibitions, interruptions, retreats, etc., and in so doing, prepare the ground, meet the patient (however imperfectly), and be open to the grace of the next-coming-moment.