This book is a collection of articles written in the period 1985-2011. The articles form a background for perspectives that concern the foundations of Gestalt therapy: foundations in philosophy and foundations in psychoanalysis and connections with other therapeutic theories.

Autorentext

Philippson, Peter

Klappentext

There has been a renewed interest in the last ten years in the underpinnings - theoretical, philosophical, and historical - of the Gestalt approach. Often in the past, these have been lost in oversimplified versions of the therapy. The author's aim in his writings has been to provide a full and coherent account of Gestalt theory, and to emphasise our links to our therapeutic and philosophical heritage, particularly psychoanalysis and existentialism. His theme is a field-relational theory of self as the centrepiece of the approach, and how this has been placed within a structure that is still recognisably psychoanalytic. In this approach, self is understood as meaningful only in relation to what is taken as other, and how that other is contacted. The formation of a relatively coherent self-concept is a task, not a given, and can be problematic as well as helpful (when it no longer supports the person's life-situation).

Inhalt

Introduction -- Roots in Philosophy -- The world according to Gestalt therapy -- "Let's work seriously about having fun!" Psychotherapists' systemic countertransferences -- Commitment -- Zen and the art of pinball -- Gestalt therapy and the culture of narcissism -- Requiem for the earth -- Cultural action for freedom: Paulo Freire as Gestaltist -- Response to "Intercultural aspects of psychotherapy" -- Roots in Psychoanalysis and Connections with Other Theories -- Gestalt and drive theory -- A Gestalt approach to transference -- Gestalt and regression -- Notes for a book on the id -- On yelling and bashing cushions -- Gestalt therapy and Morita therapy -- Roots in Gestalt Foundational Theory -- Gestalt in Britain: a polemic -- Awareness, the contact boundary, and the field -- Introjection revisited -- Pseudo-introjection -- The paradoxical theory of change: strategic, naïve, and Gestalt -- The experience of shame -- Field theory: mirrors and reflections -- Two theories of five layers -- Body and character as a field event -- The mind and the senses: thinking in Gestalt therapy -- I, thou, and us -- Individual therapy as group therapy -- Why shouldn't we interrupt? *