Say What!?

• Mission Statement by Brian O'Neill, 10/31/96
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    • Gestalt theory is poor! But Not its Philosophical foundation, Actitudes and Culture. by Afonso H Lisboa da Fonseca, 2/26/97
      
      

Afonso finds a stumbling block in what he calls Gestaltherapy theory, but pays homage to a gestalt philosophy. I find a bell going off that warns me, "This is like one of those theological discussions in which people want to decide once and for all just how many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin!" I think we must all realize that we don't live in the days of Fritz Perls, or Mary Henle, or Heidegger, or Buber, or Wertheimer, or Kohler, or even Lewin. We live in our own time. They have come before us, but now we live when Gestalt is BOTH/AND not either/or. We would only shoot ourselves in the foot to polarize against one or the other of the influences that have gotten us all to where we are today. World wide many people, in fact, identify Gestalt with Fritz Perls. It's also a fact that many people identify Gestalt with Wertheimer and Kohler. Frankly, I identify Gestalt more with names like Resnick, Wheeler, Greenberg, Stemberger, Fuchs, From, Yontef, Kepner, Nevis, Ruckert, Jacobs, Melnick, Parlett, Polster, Fuhr, Burley, and Corbeil (among others). So what? It's all part of the same game. Gestalt is a large and rich field. Can we refrain from trying to diminish, and thereby discount or minimalize various portions of it?

• Gestaltherapy Theory Keeps Poor. But not its Philosophical Foundations, History, Actitudes and Culture. by Afonso H Lisboa da Fonseca, 3/1/97