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A
Gestaltist Visits NPAP
Free Associations
Newsletter of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis
Fall 2003, Volume 9, No. 8
My colleague Frank Bosco
and I were pleased to attend Charlotte Schwartz’s presentation
on "The Artistry of Language" with discussant Martin Schulman.
The subject interested us because of the emphasis placed upon language
at our institute, The
New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy (NYIGT). At the reception
following Charlotte’s presentation, we conversed with Aleksandra
Wagner and revealed to her—with a mixture of glee and shyness—that
we were Gestalt therapists who, drawn by the evening’s topic,
were visiting NPAP.
Aleksandra invited us to write an article
on Gestalt therapy for Free Associations. Glad to have the opportunity,
while also a bit anxious that I be able to limn our modalities’
differences clearly and respectfully, I take up the invitation. I
will use Charlotte’s lively topic, the artistry of language,
as the thread running through this overview.
NYIGT was founded in 1952 by Drs. Fritz and Laura Perls. Our foundational
text, Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality,
was written in 1951 by Fritz Perls, Ralph Hefferline and Paul Goodman,
in conversation with Laura Perls. The book consists of two volumes,
one a setting out of our theory and the other a series of experiments
which the reader may undertake in order to bring his/her phenomenological
experience - in its fullness of thought, emotion, and physical process
- into awareness.
Goodman wrote Volume Two, based on conversations with Fritz and Laura.
Chapter VII is entitled "Verbalizing and Poetry". In it
Goodman writes, "Among the evolutionary developments of mankind,
speech is of special importance...As with other developments, the
neurotic abuse consists of using a form of speech that is ‘instead
of’ rather than ‘along with’...This is isolation
of the verbal personality", one whose "speech is insensitive,
prosy, affectless, monotonous, stereotyped in content, inflexible
in rhetorical attitude, mechanical in syntax, meaningless." Goodman
is talking about the oral/aural language that we as therapists and
clients experience in session - the fully embodied experience of language.
In that chapter, too, Goodman writes a critique of free-association
as a technique of therapy. Here we find one of the sharp contrasts
between Gestalt therapy and psychoanalysis. As Goodman puts it, "The
goal of psychotherapy is not for the therapist to become aware of
something about the patient, but for the patient to become aware of
himself." With regard to free association, he adds, "[The
patient] must of course be made a partner in the interpreting."
I am under the impression that that is in fact the way modern psychoanalysis
works today; and I should think this would be a rich area for discussion
between our two institutes.
The New York Institute recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with
a conference and presentation of papers. In his paper "Gestalt
Therapy as Carrying Forward Psychoanalysis-Radical", Philip Lichtenberg
discussed Gestalt therapy’s roots. He noted that both "Fritz
and Laura were originally psychoanalysts and p ≥racticed for
many years in that mode before founding Gestalt therapy." In
his book "Psychoanalysis: Radical and Conservative" Lichtenberg
points to two distinct historical branches of psychoanalysis; and
it is from the radical branch (Freud’s discussion of ‘the
experience of satisfaction’ in Project for a Scientific Psychology;
Fenichel, Helene Deutsch, Bettelheim, Ferenczi, Rank, and many others
bringing into treatment awareness of the social, political and cultural
environment) that he sees Gestalt therapy emerging, first in the groundbreaking
Ego, Hunger and Aggression by Fritz, with several uncredited chapters
written by Laura, and then in the aforementioned Gestalt Therapy.
One hallmark of our work as gestaltists is our attention to the quality
of contacting in the room, here and now, between client and therapist,
in the co-created space which is the field for that moment. One aspect
of field is the language each of us u }ses as we work, the discourse
we create together. We are aware of our own and our client’s
narrative threads, word choices, syntax, rise and fall of tone, vocal
timbre, length of phrases, and patterns of breathing. All of these
typify our attention to the whole person, whose physical experience
of the moment is as important for us as her/his thoughts and emotions.
Uttering and hearing words are physical acts.
The way we look at it, physical processes ground thoughts and emotions
in the moment, making it possible to work with them rather than only
to talk about them. The way we may include awareness of physical process
in Gestalt therapy varies from therapist to therapist and may be as
quiet as noticing and tracking it or as active as facilitating experiments
with breath, voice, sensing or movement in the session.
In Gestalt therapy we often use experiments as cat Àalysts
for change because they can be experienced here and now. The possible
kinds of experiments are endless and, thinking just about language,
could include the client’s repeating a sentence in a louder/softer/faster/slower
voice tone; saying something again while looking at/away from the
therapist; exaggerating an expression to bring out its underlying
feeling; pausing to breathe between phrases and feeling what goes
on when one does so. The doing of these things is a jumping-off point;
an important part of the work occurs in processing, that is in exploring
what is being felt, thought, imagined in the doing. When we do experiments
in session, there is a chance for new experience to occur and to be
processed within the support of the therapist/client field. This may
lead to what we call new creative adjustments.
In our theory, people creatively adjust to both the opportunities
and constraints in the field. When we cannot do so fluidly, we cal
¿l that ‘interrupting contact’. It is these interruptions,
often fixed and habitual, that we are curious about in our therapeutic
work. With regard to spoken language, interruptions in contacting
may be perceived as frequent repetitions, paucity of vocabulary, squeezed
or under-audible vocal tone, rushed or hesitant speech, statements
is which the voice rises like a question, to name but a few examples.
We may chose to work directly with these manifestations of interrupting,
or we may choose to work in other ways, remaining aware of changes
that occur in speech and language as the whole self changes.
We attend, as well, to our own speech and language use in relation
to each particular client. And it is a hallmark of Gestalt therapy
practice that we may choose to selectively share our experience of
our voice or speech with the client, thereby inviting the client to
become aware of her/his. Our coming forward in this way interrupts
transferen ce; and that is what we want to do. We want to bring experience
into the here and now where it can be changed through action, because in projected fantasies it can
be talked about but never changed, we believe. This is a dramatic
difference between how Gestalt therapists and psychoanalysts work.
Another hallmark of Gestalt therapy
as practiced at the New York Institute (where we have come to call
our approach Foundational Gestalt Therapy) is use of the aesthetic
criterion for diagnosis. Here again our theory diverges markedly from
psychoanalysis. We eschew a medical model of ‘health’
and ‘illness’ because we believe people are more complex
than those polarities can describe. Rather, we are alert to the quality
of contacting in the moment and note whether the experience is bright,
clear, harmonious, flowing, graceful and energetic or less so or the
obverse. In his article "Tiger! Tiger! burning bright - Aesthetic
Values as Clinical Values", recently published in Creative
License - The Art of Gestalt Therapy, Dan Bloom writes, "Gestalt
therapy attends to the forming of the figure rather than to the figure
formed. Content is thus of secondary import. Rather, what is crucial
is the elasticity of how content is found and made. So long as this
fluidity is maintained, discovery is supported and encouraged. This
is Gestalt therapy’s evaluation." We attend to how our
clients, and how we ourselves, creatively adjust with best possibility
for the moment at hand, forming a figure (Gestalt) which, if in full
awareness - our principal job as therapists - will inevitably lead
to change and to awareness of the next felt needs and choices available
in the field. Fully living those ongoing processes, as Philip Lichtenberg
puts it, is to be "thoroughly alive".
I thank you for the opportunity to tell you something about Gestalt
therapy. I welcome your responses and questions and look forward to
seeing many of you at Stuart Feder’s presentation on Gustav
and Alma Mahler in January.
Susan Gregory
sgregory@GestaltSing.com
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