Having just begun to collect references for my second year essay (I am currently studying for the Diploma and Masters Degree in Gestalt Psychotherapy at the Metanoia Institute) I was very interested to see your posting.
Confirmation is one of the theoretical concepts that sings out me. I remember reading Hycner's Between Person and Person and feeling as if I had discovered the holy-grail when I read the line about human beings questioning our human-ness. My personal experience is one of a deep felt desire for confimation - to know that I am enough as I am.
I am interested to know more about the Freidman and Heard references you mention, and to ask for any other references myself. I am also interested in looking at the concept of inclusion. My sense of inclusion and confirmation is that there feels like a fair amount of overlap between the two. What are people's experiences of the similarities and differences between these two?