From the Radical Center

The Heart of Gestalt Therapy

Erving Polster, Miriam Polster

• Publisher: Gestalt Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135061562
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This remarkable collection traces central themes in the work of Erving and Miriam Polster, two of the best-known and best loved Gestalt therapists in the world. The writings herein span 4 decades in the history of psychotherapy, bringing together practical, theoretical and aesthetic dimensions of the Polsters' work in a single book. Ranging across diverse subjects and distinct historical periods, the work collected in this volume will educate, provoke, inspire and nourish Gestalt therapists for years to come.

PART I:

SETTING THE STAGE

A CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOTHERAPY

ERVING POLSTER

This paper will describe some of the considerations which underlie contemporaneity and which have led me to Gestalt therapy (Perls, 1947; Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, 1951) as an orienting system for my work.

Usually, words like “contemporary” or “modem” are applied only to the arts, such as architecture, painting, and music, rather than to science. Yet science, and certainly psychotherapy, must also think in terms of the contemporary. Even truths which weave in and out of the generations make new marks every time.

Where new discoveries are made, or old ones reformulated, there is a cultural lag during which the discovery is understood only by a few and seems relevant only to a small portion of the population. Thus, the application of the new principles is delayed. During the time of lag the innovators of the new position, painfully confronted with the resistant or disbelieving society, need to devote considerable energy to managing this resistance so that the principles may become realized. During this period the protagonists become enamored of their own positions, and what begins as a justifiable manipulation on its own merit is inflated and labeled ultimate or universal. This exaggerated impact provides the adherents of the new view with the time, support, and continuity they need to gather acceptance for the application of their ideas. Then, however, more new discoveries are made, which in turn, face difficulties in becoming understood and in having their appropriate effect. At this point battles begin between the old-new and the new-new because the old has not had its chance to go all the way with its program.

Freudian psychoanalysis has been in this position for a good many years. Now that society has begun to understand its principles, many professionals have moved on, learning from the early masters, but changing according to the contemporary challenge and new discoveries. These facts of change and lag have especially confused those who see their work to be only a science, and thus presumably to have universal beliefs, which must be defended against others. These workers forget that we view nature from only one perspective at a time. Only as long as we retain that perspective do we see nature as we do. If we shift, we see the world differently. Such shifting is necessary and lively and lies at the heart of contemporaneity.

Today, the psychotherapist must integrate old insights into these new perspectives. He must distill a system unique for himself, consistent with prior formulations, yet not merely a static reenactment of what has gone before.

Theoretical Changes

Since we creatively advance processes begun in the past, the first requirement for contemporaneity is that we allow past accomplishments to illuminate our path. Only sometimes do we proceed from scientific discovery. More often, we make artful choices based on having been touched by a huge range of effectors. Some of our greatest contributors have offered us only intuitive judgements. There were no proofs from Freud, nor from Jung or Adler, yet obviously, many of our great methodological and philosophical riches come from them.

Looking further, since Freud there have been some great procedural inventors. Ferenczi required patients to do that which they feared, thereby bringing action into rhythm with the previous exclusively introspective methods in psychoanalysis. His work was a forerunner of the techniques of experimenting with life now so prominent, for example, in psychodrama and operant conditioning. Wilhelm Reich, going deeper than Ferenczi and meeting greater resistance, developed character analysis. His techniques concerning the body and his interpretation of details of the patient’s behavior were important precursors to the contemporary interest among existential therapists in phenomenology and the deep self-experience.

Franz Alexander and Otto Rank were also important proceduralists, each in his own way making deep alterations in the core concept of transference. Alexander emphasized the importance of non-therapy experiences and broadened the interpretation of the transference phenomenon to include relationships outside the analytic office. This broadening was a tacit recognition of the therapeutic efficacy of day to day human relationships. Rank brought the human relationship directly into his office. He influenced analysts to take seriously the actual present interaction between therapist and patient, rather than to maintain the fixed, distant, “as though” relationship which had given previous analysts an emotional buffer for examining the intensities of therapeutic sensation and wish. Rank’s contributions opened the way for encounter to become accepted as a deep therapeutic agent.

Also important historically is the advent of the here-and-now experience in psychotherapy. The here-and-now became important in four distinct movements before it was given crucial emphasis by the existentialists. These movements were: 1) psychodrama, which fostered growth through action, placing the individual into experimental scenes where he could face with relative safety those aspects of the world which would not ordinarily be so safely available; 2) the general semantics movement, which treated language as a culminating life event, taken seriously for its own characterological nature; 3) Rogerian psychotherapy, whose techniques of reflection and clarification served to accentuate presently existing conditions in the patient; 4) group dynamics activities emerging from Lewin’s theories about how people perceive and communicate with each other in groups. Thus existentialism and existential psychotherapy had the road already paved when they came to prominence in the United States in the early 1950’s. The new view of the primacy of preset events in therapy was and is being assimilated by a constantly more receptive profession and public. In addition, these pre-existentialists expanded the relevance of therapy beyond those who were sick to people interested in their own growth and fulfillment, and they broadened professional practice beyond the limits of the psychoanalytic or psychiatric fraternities. In the light of obvious social need, these may prove to be two of the most energizing innovations.

The existentialist philosophers supported a change in tone. They owed less to the Freudian system and could offer a new configuration for the splinters shooting off the Freudian mass. New bases for holism appeared.

First, cause and effect were no longer broken into two separate pieces. They came to have an interactive unity, not the disunity brought on by blaming the present effect on the past cause.

Second, symbols were no longer mere fronts for specific referents, but appreciated for their impact as creative representations. It was recognized that symbols do not hide a separated referent but bring it into unity now, an indissoluble ingredient of the manifest moment.

A third holistic factor was the union of therapist and patient as participants in a two-way encounter, not in the separations previously enunciated by special dispensations to the therapist. By now, the verity of each actual experience can be taken seriously for its own sake, not just as an intermediate circumstance standing between now and cure. The implicit faith is that good present experience has intrinsic healing power and need not be explained away.

Social Needs

The second requirement for contemporaneity in a psychotherapy is that it face the social needs of the day. There are many social needs, for example those reflected in such present issues as interracial tension, delinquency, international mistrust, the poor quality of sexuality, psychologically sterile education, and the concern for authenticity in religious experience. The implications of psychotherapy theory for the solution of these social problems are profound and must be explored much further than they have been.

Let me consider one of these issues: the social need for new religious experience. By religious, I mean not what is conventionally intended by that word, but rather man’s concern with his self-experience, and his quest for coherence, unity, support, direction, creativity, microcosm. Man has always sought for these. In our time this search is impelled by the psychotherapeutic process, discovered through work with patients, but too relevant beyond pathological need to remain isolated from public concern.

Psychotherapy has often been described as a counterforce emerging from repressive religious principles. Freud denied the reality of God and described the obsessional nature of religious practices. He propelled man into a new view of his own true nature and rejuvenated his potency for facing it head-on. But the Judeo-Christian society, thus threatened, tried to isolate the new force he represented. Nevertheless, Freud raided the grand social unit and enfolded many of its members, one by one, in the most painstaking, prolonged, and devoted explorations of individual people in history.

But his early methods were not suitable as a community-wide process. First, the rituals, such as free association and lying on a couch were too private. Second, the generation was preoccupied with explanations, and although Freud and psychoanalysts generally knew the dangers of over-intellectualizing, their attitudes, times and techniques were over-susceptible to it. Third, the theory and methods were socially non-activist and unconcerned with fostering good encounter among members of a group.

The need for arranged opportunities for this encounter is widespread. Witness the current expansion of group psychotherapy and related group processes as indicated in the reports of Hunt, Mowrer, and Corsini. Hunt traces therapeutic progress from the early one-to-one transference of psychoanalysis to concern for “enrichment” in interpersonal relations, and ultimately to an authentic place for group psychotherapy in the concerns of social psychology (Hunt, 1964). Corsini documents the increasing impact of group psychotherapy by reporting that the number of publications on the subject has increased from 15 in the decade of the 1920’s, to 1,879 in the decade of the 1950’s (Corsini, 1957). Mowrer in his recent book The New Group Psychotherapy, reports a proliferation of so-called self-help groups, another sign of the undercurrent needs of the day (Mowrer, 1964). Although his views suffer from an overemphasis on confession, he is, nevertheless, an eloquent spokesman for psychotherapy in communion with others rather than only as a private, professional engagement.

The need for microcosm, a world set apart, which is basic to religion, exists also in psychotherapy. What cannot be done in the large society may be done in small communities. One seeks opportunities for new encounters unburdened by the anachronistic demands of a production system geared to achievements and leaving little room for simple being and growth. One needs to step off the conveyor belt where indiscriminate obedience, secrecy, stereotyped language, and currying favor may be given up, without inviting loss of job or friendship. As one patient said of her group meetings, “It is a time out of the week.” Indeed, the therapy group provides an opportunity to say, “Stop the world. I want to get on.”

Thus a group therapy with a unifying and liberating view can be a strong force for the development of good community, creating opportunities for self-renewal as well as chances to try out a new morality, permitting new ways of being together which are currently unsafe in the large society. Community, self-renewal and morality are and always have been fundamental human concerns. In our culture, these factors have been most fully appreciated by the Judeo-Christian system, but they are now growing in relevance for the psychotherapy process.

Psychotherapy also offers the possibility of satisfying the important human need to symbolize. Symbolizing, inherent in religious experience, is fundamental in the psychotherapeutic process. Symbolizing serves man’s need to condense and synthesize his inner processes by means of expressing, in one stroke, related, diverse details of his existence.

Community, self-renewal, morality, microcosm, and symbolizing are such lasting and compelling human needs that a respect for them permits even fruitless religious anachronisms to exist beyond their rightful day. Psychotherapy’s rightful day is now. It must satisfy these lasting needs in today’s way.

Language

What language is most useful and best understood? The early psychoanalysts had a language of their own which was impactful in its day. They had to create new words because their concepts were new. Some of them are: oedipus complex, libido, ego, id, superego, etc. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether the concepts were symbolic or concrete. There were arguments, for example, as to whether the id, ego, and superego were actual parts of the body or whether they were only abstracted convenient pictorial representations. Such arguments were no accident, since Freud used words which bridged the gap between science and religion and had both literal and symbolic qualities. Confusion was inevitable.

There are no longer the same demands for a language of psychotherapy. First, it is now possible to be less figurative and more concrete in descriptions of personality. Second, psychotherapists are beyond communicating only to the technically and theoretically sophisticated. They are moving into the society and want to be understood by a greatly widened range of interested people. While Freud’s words were classificatory, albeit dynamic, the current words tend to be more descriptive of process. The existential mode of therapy looks less for essence and tries to deal more with each individual actuality as it occurs. In Gestalt therapy, which emerges from the existential scene, some of the key words are: awareness, contact, experience, excitement, encounter, emergency, clarity, present, etc. These words are closer to everyday language and deal with those aspects of living which are the foreground concerns of people. This kind of language invites experience rather than explanation to be the core of living.

Pinning our nature down to categorical words such as neurosis, diagnosis, profession, repression, cause, patient, etc., results in deification of transitory lingual conveniences. All of these have an indispensable place in history, but they are only scaffolds. When we say someone has a neurosis or someone is a psychologist, we do say something important, but such technical terms usually communicate too readily, leading frequently to smugness and semi-understanding.

Common words are bothersome because they are not inherently or reliably “understood.” Nevertheless, psychotherapy is composed of commonalities, and technical language all too often obscures real meaning. A person wants to tell about how softly his mother stroked his hair when he was crying, not about his oedipus complex. He searches for joy, perspective, effervescence, faith, vigor, scintillation, flexibility, delight, etc., not greater ego strength. Descriptions of process, appreciation of function, and awareness of self offer a framework for new sensitivity to that which is uniquely immediate.

Style and Repertoire

The fourth requirement is freedom for the psychotherapist to function in a manner suitable to himself using formulations which will permit him to develop a personal style and a ranging repertoire of procedures.

By style is meant the therapist’s organization of personal characteristics, behavior, and taste which identify him as a unique practitioner. For one to have a desirable style is to be predictable in general character and also consistently surprising and fresh, both to one’s patients and oneself.

Some people are more kind than others, some more verbal, some more permissive. Some make broad strokes, describing grand life processes and stimulating patients to awareness of large sections of their natures such as fear of death, gross lechery, noble generosity. Others may face tiny details of existence such as the way a patient uses the word “wish” rather than “want” in asking for a promotion or the way a particular position of his musculature affects his expressiveness. Clearly, variations in style must exist, theory notwithstanding.

A person must find a theory which is sympathetic to his best talents, whether they be interpretive, poetic, directive or such. If he doesn’t do so, he will be inept, or more likely, phony. Each style has its advantages and disadvantages, and one must learn what particular problems are the consequences of his own style. One may know, for example, under what circumstances one is likely to make speeches to patients or laugh with them or refuse to answer questions. If one makes speeches, one may have to deal with resulting awe or fear or dependence. If one laughs readily, one must face possibilities of the patient’s taking the process too lightly or making inconvenient buddy-buddy demands. If one refuses to answer questions, one may face resentments or feelings of abandonment. The primary question about the “rightness” of a style is whether one accepts responsibility for the consequences he evokes and is skillful in facing them.

Style and repertoire are closely related. Repertoire is the range of procedures from which the therapist may draw, depending for his choice on his sense of the immediate need and his intuitive guess as to the procedure most likely to be effective. Thus, the psychotherapist may at one time use such techniques as interpretation of dreams, productions of fantasies, free association, various introspective exercises. On other occasions alternative possibilities are available: use of body language, role-playing, visual contact, voice integration, reports of experience, directed behavior, and patient-therapist contact.

Certainly, psychotherapists should be aware of the unlikelihood of discovering the single technique of psychotherapy. There are no such purified factors as “rationalism” in therapy or “operant conditioning” or “interpretation of dreams”. These methods and others have been successful, but to put them on a competitive basis in terms of which is the right one is absurd.

Psychotherapists are people trying to find a way to work and some do better with some styles or procedures than with others. Systems of therapy which forget this become travesties. For instance, there is the story of the two psychoanalysts who were discussing a failure and saying that it happened because the patient was not required to lie on the couch in the first session. Such totemic sterility is widespread, and it is especially pronounced when the repertoire is so rigidly circumscribed as to prevent individual expression. Carl Rogers’ early work was filled with such restrictive procedures, although his later existential orientation has expanded the range. His own depth of inner experience and sensitivity to his patients flowed within his early system of procedures, and this has been true also for many of his followers, certainly the effective ones. For many, though, such restrictions would have interfered with the fruitfulness of function.

However, the alternative to such limitations is not a dilettante eclecticism. The former is absurdly competitive and doomed to stereotypy; the latter is an empty shell, sterile even in knowledge. Variations in style and repert...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction by Arthur Roberts
• Prologue
• Part I: Setting the Stage
• A Contemporary Psychotherapy
• The Language of Experience
• Sensory Functioning in Psychotherapy
• Women in Therapy: A Gestalt Therapist's View
• Gestalt Therapy: Evolution and Application
• Part II: Transformation or Principles
• Therapy without Resistance: Gestalt Therapy
• Escape from the Present
• Tight Therapeutic Sequences
• Every Person's Life is Worth a Novel
• The Therapeutic Power of Attention
• The Self in Action: A Gestalt Outlook
• Translating Theory into Practice: Martin Heidegger and Gestalt Therapy
• Commonality and Diversity in Gestalt Therapy
• In Memory of Carl Rogers: Great Men Cast Great Shadows
• Part III: The Role of Community
• Encounter in Community
• Eve's Daughters: The Forbidden Heroism of Women
• Individuality and Communality
• Beyond One to One
• It's Only the Most Recent Year of the Woman
• Coda
• What's New?
• Reference
• contributors