Growth, Originality and Creativeness

• Divergence in Gestalt therapy? by Timothy C. McNamara, 3/8/97
  • I'll Start With This... by Philip Brownell, 3/12/97
    
    

Of course Gestalt Psychology and Psychologist deserve a deep respect of Gestaltherapists, historically and as an actual source. Neverthless I can’t agree with the meaning of this trend to minimize in one hand the work of Fritz Perls (even if it is seen and read critically in the historical perspective), and overenphasize in the other hand Gestalt Psychology as a root of Gestaltherapy. Maybe in the future this could be true... This expression "THEORETICAL Gestalt Psychotherapy", doesn’t it seems a joke from the point of view of the so pragmatic, phenomenologic and existential Gestaltherapy?. (although I respect the persons and professional who use it). Gestaltherapy would be something very different without the deep jump in phenomenolgy and in existentialism of Fritz, tempered with the pragmatic actitude he learnt in the States. Also it sems to me intresting to reafirm that Gestaltherapy is dialogic since its very beginnings, not just now. Dialoguicity was a fundamental part of Fritz’s actitude. He knew quite well Buber’s conceptions, and he was married to someone who personally studied with Buber, and was also, as we know, his partener – Laura – in the original generation of the dialogic Gestaltherapy. "Radical individualism"? I think this is a deep misunderstanding. It is necessary to understand, I think, the fight in a time when the respect for original, singular and punctual phenomenological subjectivity was very low, and this subjectivity was met with distrust... Brownell speaks about "phenomenological process" but he says nothing about what he understands for that. More than this, says something like: "... phenomenological process," (black box, my observation) "which includes the neurophysiological base from which a construction of meaning out of experience can take place..." Whose phenomenological process Brownell speaks about??? If the client, for instance, isn’t a neurophysiologist, the "neurophysiological base" makes no sense at all in his phenomenal and existential punctual actuality!! If it is a neurophysiologist there is maybe a remote chance... I respect empiricism in its specificity, but its marriage with phenomenology seems to be something unintrestingly problematic. Another important issue to consider is that what seems precious to us, with an enormous potential for paradoxical change and liberation, is the meaning that experience IS intrinsically, pre-reflexively, pre-conceptually as gestalt. Not exactly the meaning constructed "out of experience"... "Dialogical Relationship" is so much more and indeed something different of "an understanding of the difference between I-Thou and I-It"... "apreciation for the manner in which people suport themselves in contact", "cycles of experience", "context for the formation and satisfaction of figures". These belongs to Gestaltherapy theory, and isn’t exactly "dialogical relationship" or Dialogical Philosophy of Relationship. I think that it is always rich to us to come back to Buber‘s philosophy. Of course not as a body of truths, but as source of inspiration. It don’t seems intresting to me to abandon the originality and specificity of his points of view without adequately understanding and consider them. As sourece of inspiration, I mean. "... the use of experiment, which accepts a behavioristc aspect into the therapy". This aproach of Gestaltherapy ‘experiment’ almost killed Gestaltherapy, and maybe it keeps still sick and recovering, I hope... Gestaltherapy experiments are for me specifically FENOMENACTIVE, not behavioristic. What seems misunderstood as behavioristic is the phenomenactive-existential dialogic attention to the expression of the other punctually in the actuality of the relation. I don’t need to think in behaviorism to understand and live that... We need to understand also, I think, as the experimental nature of Gestaltherapy an actitude that values AN EXPERIMENTAL STYLE OF LIVING... that comes from existentialism and phenomenology. Also we can’t forget or forget to value the highly experimental and intrinsic natural aspects, in the real phenomenactive and existential sense, of the situation of psychotherapy and group works. In this sense, other phenomenological and existential approaches, like the Person-Centered Approach don’t lack thee experimental... And, just to finish, it would be an ironic disaster if Gestaltherapy was "to grow by virtue assimilation". Of course we learn by assimilation, also. But we can’t forget the worth exactly of the experimental and of the creation of the unexpectdly new in the invention of our groth. "Dialetic"... I would be carefull with dialetic ways, as they depart from negation, regard as worthless the particular man and subjectivity, have truth as a theorethical product, and values the "sad passions". I’m sorry for so many words, but...

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