Reflections on Field

I was speaking with a co-worker, and we were discussing how our different cultures effected the way we came to see various issues in the organization in which we both worked, how those issues were set up for us by our starting points. She grew up in England, where there was a more socialized culture, and I grew up in the western United States, where there was more of an emphasis on the individual. She starts by contemplating the community and then moves to the individual, and I start with the individual and then move to the community. In the course of our discussion she mentioned the work of Paulo Freire, and I was reminded of a workshop I attended at the 1998 AAGT conference; it was called "Cultural Action for Freedom: Paulo Freire as Gestaltist," and the workshop leader was Peter Philippson of the Manchester Gestalt Centre < http://www.mgestaltc.force9.co.uk/index.htm >. I had enjoyed Peter very much, I usually do enjoy listening to him, and I began to sense something of why that is; he expresses a different perspective and seems to me more adept than I in starting with the group, of understanding the individual already contextualized. I began to wonder if my esteem for Peter was more a fascination with his position in the field than with his power as an individual thinker. I am now looking forward to investigating that question when I see him again at the 1999 AAGT conference in New York < http://www.g-g.org/aagt >, where he is presenting once more on a different subject.

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