This year the Los Angeles Gestalt Training Institute’s European Residential took place in Switzerland in a place called Rorschach of Rorschach blob fame. GTILA has been coming to Europe running workshops for 22 years. Next year they intend to go to a place in the new Czech republic near Prague. So far they have not worked in Scotland.
I first heard of them through a friend who suggested I might be interested. I applied to go and received a lot of forms to fill in and a request for three references. At first I was somewhat daunted by all this paperwork but it forced me to think through my reasons for applying answer my questions along lines of learning goals and objectives. GTILA’s ostensible reason was to obtain “as good a fit as possible.” Previous experience had shown them that this paid off. Their interest in “good fits” is, I later learned, a characteristic of their style of administration and touches on their philosophy as an institute. Of this more later - suffice to say now that for my money I was not disappointed.
It may be of interest to say a little about the structure of the workshop as a whole. For me it was novel and lively. GTILA have bridge the gap between, on the one hand, the well-known investment Gestaltists have been in creativity and spontaneity, and on the other, creating a structure in which the business gets done. Partly of course this is due to the professionalism of the staff, also of course it is because we who were there wanted to learn - and so there was a meeting, but the particular structure of the course that made this meeting possible is very interesting.
It consisted of four layers of trainees: basic, advanced, clinical and senior - eighty people in all. The year before I believe there had been no clinical of senior practicums, but the institute responded to the demand with a commensurate request that people in these two groupings also take some responsibility for providing supervision and therapy to members in the advanced and basic with a fifteen minute community meeting in which information from the administration was passed on and requests or complaints the living accommodation, food, etc. was heard and, where needed, debated. This meeting acted as a buffer between us and the hostel staff - which was at times necessary as the food in particular, was not brilliant, though it had the advantage of people not putting on weight very easily!
Why am I so appreciative of all this? Perhaps it sounds fairly day-to-day for frequent workshop attendees, but for myself it was unusual for the reason I have mentioned, but also for several others that seem to exemplify some of the important changes in emphasis in the practice of Gestalt in the last ten years or so.
Essentially these are that Gestalt as has been practiced, and unfortunately sometimes still is, is hierarchical, relying on charismatic and mysterious forms of leadership and methods of facilitation. The main shift has been away from this to a flattening of the pyramid and a more accountable leadership. Where before emergence of the strong figure was practically and philosophically emphasized, now the emphasis is more clearly on the figure in relation to its ground and the field.
It is ironic that Goodman (in Gestalt Therapy by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman) over and over states the inseparable unity of the figure and ground.
The process of figure/background formation is a dynamic one in which
the urgencies and resources of the field progressively lend their power
to the interest, brightness and force the dominant figure. It is pointless
therefore to deal with any psychological behaviour out of its
sociological, biological and physical context. (p231)
But he nevertheless over-emphasized figure formation. To quote Gordon Wheeler from his book Gestalt Reconsidered:
Certainly the ability to form passionate figures of contact (to use Goodman’s elegant phrase) whether sexual, aggressive, altruistic, aesthetic, productive, playful or otherwise, is essential to gain full functioning. But the achievement of powerfully energized urges, however important, does not by itself produce “self realized” life - as examples all around us today amply demonstrate. By concentrating on the urge in isolation, by ignoring the configuration of the structured ground, Goodman fails to realize the full anti reductionist, anti isolationist potential of the Gestalt model itself. (p.66)
In other words, Gestalt, which focuses primarily on figure formation in isolation from the context, cannot be called truly holistic. In ignoring the whole field and only attending to the figure emerging or being inhibited, the therapist creates a Gestalt ideal and can leave the client more isolated than before.
It may be understandable, this overemphasis on the individual, from the point of view of our own increasing sense of powerlessness in society. To quote Wheeler again, referring to this process in Goodman, who was a passionate philosopher, reformer and anarchist.
This, as we have seen, Goodman hoped to have found in the spontaneous organismic process of Gestalt formation itself, safely located within the individual, away from the corrupt bond of social authority. (p69)
Wheeler is referring here to Goodman’s need for what Wheeler calls “an autonomous criterion of value” to set against the society of Goodman’s time, with it’s obsession with militarism and conformity. Our problem is different, but needs the structured ground just as much. If many of our clients lack a sense of meaning and purpose, lack commitment and passion, then in our context the emphasis is shared between the developing capacity to focus but also to know what is of interest. This moves Gestalt into the realm of values.
Fritz Perls himself was of course enormously charismatic and despite
his own polemical style and his own theory (it was his draft that Goodman expanded into the second half of Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality) much of what he said was introjected, “swallowed whole”, by people unable to see the man separate from the theory.
It has been unfortunate for Gestalt that Perls’ prayer, “I do my thing, you do yours...” etc. has been taken out of context, feeding individualistic, uncaring trends in the Gestalt community and society.
In the GTILA workshop, there was a new paradigm that, while still concerned with the emerging figure, we are equally concerned with the other. As therapist the emerging other is my primary concern, but “the height of respect”, to quote a workshop facilitator, “is to share myself with the other.” We moved towards John Donn’s poetic vision that no man is an island; we move closer to the idea that we find ourselves in community, or, to use Gestalt terminology, that the self is found at the contact boundary.
Here is a small piece of my feed back about Summer Residential Program.
This year it was 5-th time I was in Summer Residential of GATLA. First time it was in 1996 - for me it was the year of big changes - I took the risk of creating our own Institute - for myself, my wife Olga and my trainees that became already my colleagues... I tried to get used to call myself Director of Moscow Institute of Gestalt and Psychodrama and was full of interest how other psychotherapeutic organizations look like.
So the first time I got in this strange international community gathered from different countries all over the world I was mostly interested how this "Zoo-World" lives. I lived in the room together with one guy from Brazil and the other from ex- socialistic Czechoslovakia. One was always silent, the other almost every minute talked about his love to me. I was scared, excited and tried to pretend (first of all inside myself) that I am O.K. But really I was overwhelmed and scared - too much polarities, too much choices, too much emotions. The most surprising for me was Training Team- in this storm of interactions Trainers and their Assistants looked calm, friendly and quite clear about their tasks and mutual goals. This Mutuality and Correlation of Team surprised me greatly. I began to torture myself with envy but mostly was falling in love with this strange world and this strange team- Bob and Rita Resnick, Todd and Ginny Burley, Liv Estrup and others...
Every summer since that I tried to find some money for the road and for living and was grateful for receiving scholarship that allowed me and Olga to come again to this amazing community. My envy transformed to my own attempts to create some similar summer communities in Russia, and I know that my colleagues from other Gestalt Institutes also try to organize summer residentials. Now every year in gestalt community in Russia there are about ten summer residentials led by different Institutes and Centers. And I like many of them - our Institute supports one Residential in Siberia, one in Crimea and organizes one Residential outside of Russia - in Latvia, or Kazahkstan, or Turkey. But every summertime like a traveling bird I am waiting return to "alma mater"of GATLA's Residential and admire it's clear structure, stable but never boring community, brilliant work of trainers, growth of assistants and smiles of "old" and "young" friends from Australia, Europe, America, Africa and ... Russia ."
