Reply to Afonso

• Prayer of Gestalt Therapy by Dakin, 5/7/97
  • Gestalt Prayer and other perspectives by Brian O'Neill, 5/8/97
    • Gestaltherapy Prayer by Afonso H Lisboa da Fonseca, 5/21/97
      
      

Afonso,

You'll note that I did not say "just" a product of the times but that the "prayer" needs to be considered contextually. Further I have not said to disregard the prayer but have expressed a preference for another piece of writing from the same time.

From our discussion on the AAGT email list, I would argue that there as much a problem in colleagues using the prayer to justify "doing your own thing" without reference to the other person, as there is in colleagues disregarding it. My post is an attempt to contextualise the prayer to a time in gestalt therapy where a number of authors (such as Kempler) have argued that Perls tended to over emphasis the seperateness of contact and not the union. Without disregarding the essence of the prayer, I believe it is contextually important to note that the prayer also became a "sound bite" for "do your own thing" in an era of "do your own thing", and can lend itself to the misinterpretation of gestalt therapy as "do your own thing"... and now I seem to be travelling back to the sixties and seventies myself as I can hear the strains of "You can go your own way.....You can call it another rainy day...You can go your own way..."

• Union is Encouter of Alterities. Reply to Brian by Afonso H Lisboa da Fonseca, 5/21/97
  • Repy Back by Brian O'Neill, 5/21/97
    • Overdose of Beauty by Afonso H Lisboa da Fonseca, 5/21/97