Abstract

This article provides Gestalt Global's understanding of Gestalt therapy constructs, with expanded definitions, quotes, and cross references. The constructs are arranged in a nested fashion, with associated terms coming under larger ideas and cover the larger categories from "Q" through "Z.".

Self - the sense of personal existence; the integrator of life

• "Self is process. It does vary as it encounters each new person, remaking itself as each fresh figure of contact emerges in unique response to different aspects/people in the environment. Yet self also encompasses conistent personality, enduring characteristics, habitual styles of contact, learned self functions, self organization and so on. Self as changing process and self as enduring identity and groundedness need not be seen as mutually exclusive but as two poles along a continuum..." Mackewn, 1997, p. 76
• "There is a lack of clarity among Gestalt therapists as to the nature of the self. The primary source of this is the confusion which is found in the PHG text itself. There Goodman moves back and forth between the assertion that the self is nothing more than (A) the system of contacts in a difficult and transitory field, and (B) the agent of growth." Crocker, 1999, p. 167
• Gestalt therapists have traditionaly maintained that self forms at the boundary and is a constantly reforming sense of one's experience. As such, the self has been characterized as '...the figure/background process in contact situations...' (Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman, 1951, p. 374). Still, self as process is not the only way to think about it, for self as concept is also important and present in every contact episode... as life unfolds, a counterpoint develops: self-as-process moves in harmony with self-as-concept. Stop contact with something long enough to name it, and you lose the thing itself, but if you collect a series of such classifications, then you have a greater knowledge of the thing you have named (Polster and Polster, 1999). A person gains understanding of self through contact episodes at the boundary of experience, but until they begin describing their experience and classifying, even defending, their characteristics, they do not assimilate that experience and construct a self concept, that is, an identity they can recognize as themselves." Brownell, 2002, p. 100
• "Does process really exist anywhere apart from particular content, form without substance (to use Aristotle's terms), self without story? What happens to us when we take these wholes apart, and hold them so separately?" Wheeler, 2002, p. 108.
• as process - the continuous forming and experience one has in the flow of contact at the boundary
• as concept - the sense that one abides over time with individually descriptive characteristics

Structured Ground - the residue of experience; the memory of past novel conditions; the results of learning; character

Theory of Change - explanation to explain how growth and development occur

• paradoxical - by fully actualizing what one is at any current moment, one becomes what one is not
  • "People change when they give up trying or struggling to be what they would like to become; when they allow themselves to be currently what they are now at this moment in time; and when they become fully aware of who or what that is. This view of change involves supporting the client's self acceptance and the development of their holistic awareness of themselves and their field and of how they are currently functioning and interacting with other people in the field." Mackewn, 1997, p. 63-4.
  • "To be a Gestalt therapist it is necessary to be willing to work within the context of a set of paradoxes. We set out to achieve change, but we do not aim directly at it. What-is is the very thing which the client wants to change, but in order to change it we first have to let what-is be just as it is - only then will lasting change be possible." Crocker, 1999, p. 231
• intersubjective - contact in relationship shapes development as one is seen and known by another
  • "Both a dialogic approach and intersubjectivity theory view healing as occurring in the "between," or in the intersubjective field. This is in contrast to the often implicit philosophy of many theories that it is occurring intrapsychically in the client alone...Buber refers to this approach as "healing through meeting." The meeting is that of person-with-person. This implies an openness to whatever happens between them." Hycner & Jacobs, 1995, p. 119
• contextual - forces in the field influence and shape values, cognitions, and behavior
  
  • "A patient's progress is a function of the whole field. It is not only determined by the patient's motivation and strength, but by the skill of the therapist, the relationship between the therapist and patient, the factors of organization of the delivery system (clinic, hospital, insurance company, etc.), the family and friends who are part of the patient's lifespace, and so forth." Yontef, 1993, p. 306

Resources:

• Brownell, P. (2002) Psychological Testing - A Place In Gestalt Therapy? The British Gestalt Journal, 11(2), p. 99-107
• Crocker, S. (1999) A Well-Lived Life, Essays in Gestalt Therapy. Cleveland, OH: Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Press.
• Hycner, R., Jacobs, L. (1995) The Healing Relationship in Gestalt Therapy. Highland, NY: The Gestalt Journal Press.
• Mackewn, J. (1997) Developing Gestalt Counselling. London, UK: Sage Pulications.
• Perls, F., Hefferline, R., Goodman, P. (1951) Gestalt Therapy, Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. London, UK: Souvenir Press.
• Polster, E., Polster, M. (1999) From the Radical Center: The Heart of Gestalt Therapy. Cambridge: MA: GIC Press.
• Wheeler, G. (2002) Self Under Siege: An Alzheimer's Case Study. The British Gestalt Journal, 11(2), p. 108-116
• Yontef, G. (1993) Awareness, Dialogue, and Process, Highland, NY: Gestalt Journal Press.

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