Essentials of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy (eBook)

Overview and Introduction

Gerhard Stemberger

This is not a "How to..." book. Its focus is not on any particular therapeutic techniques or special new suggestions, which mental illnesses could be hidden here and there, and how to deal with them. Instead, it introduces basic ideas and concepts that theoretically "underlie" a particular understanding and method of psychotherapy - that is, ideas that are "behind" how Gestalt-theoretical psychotherapists see themselves and their clients, their problems in life, and how to face these problems together. This thorough reflection on what ideas of man and his life are behind this method of therapy is perhaps somewhat unusual, and for some readers, perhaps challenging. But we think it is necessary to come to more than a quick but superficial understanding, and it is worth the effort.

The reader for whom English is the native tongue may forgive the weaknesses of the language in this book. With one exception (Ed Ragsdale), English is a foreign language for all the other authors of this book, and they themselves suffer from the fact that here they lack the more sophisticated and beautiful expressive possibilities of their mother tongue. Nevertheless, they have tried to make their ideas understandable to people who are not native speakers of German or Italian, and they hope for the patience and linguistic sensitivity of their readers.

The current volume builds on the first-time introduction of basic concepts of GTP in English, as presented at the 21st Scientific Conference of the GTA “Motion – Spaces of Human Experience,” 13th–15th June 2019, Warsaw, Poland, and subsequently published by Sciendo (a De Gruyter company) in a thematic issue of the Open Access e-journal Gestalt Theory (vol. 43, issue 1/2021: https://sciendo.com/issue/GTH/43/1). To promote and facilitate communication and exchange with colleagues from the psychotherapeutic field who do not speak German, ÖAGP has decided to present this collection - somewhat revised and expanded by additional contributions - now in the form of this printed workbook.1

The current volume presents some essential basic concepts of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy in a coherent compilation2. A side effect of such a systematic presentation might be that it also helps to avoid the frequent confusion with Gestalt therapy, which has a similar sounding name, but in most of its forms – there are exceptions – differs substantially in its basic concepts. (A brief note on the history of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy is given in the annex to this introduction.)

Ten contributions by authors from Austria, Italy, Germany, and the United States:

1. The papers on various core concepts of GTP and related subjects are preceded by a rationale and discussion of the importance of consistency in the substantive orientation of a psychotherapy method: “The power and challenge of consistency”, by Gerhard Stemberger. Such consistency is not a mere theoretical-scientific matter, but a requirement of the nature of man and his life.

2. Because of the elementary role of cognitive processes for human experience and behavior, the second paper in the current volume highlights the epistemological orientation of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy, which underlies all sub-concepts of the method from personality theory to praxeology: "Critical Realism: The Epistemic Position of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy", by Katharina Sternek.

3. Psychotherapy is an intentional, planned, interactional process that implies that the therapist has assumptions about the human person and its functioning and about the nature and functioning of such an interactional process. Bernadette Lindorfer's third contribution in this volume deals with a core piece of personality theory in Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy: "Personality Theory in Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy: Kurt Lewin's Field Theory and his Theory of Systems in Tension Revisited".

4. Lindorfer’s contribution on personality theory is complemented by a critical synopsis and further development of the views on ego and self in Gestalt psychology and their heuristic potential for psychotherapy: "Ego and Self in Gestalt theory" (G. Stemberger).

5. The frame of reference in which the practical procedures in psychotherapy acquire their meaning and develop their effectiveness is the relationship between therapist and client in the particular therapeutic situation. This is the focus of Angelika Böhm’s contribution which outlines the understanding of the therapeutic relationship and praxeology in Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy and explains the main features of its therapeutic practice: "Basic Principles for Therapeutic Relationship and Practice in Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy".

6. “The way you make me feel” – Feeling-causality in language communication by Andrzej Zuczkowski and Gerhard Stemberger sheds light on the role of phenomenal causality of feelings, as experienced by people and expressed linguistically. In many situations, it determines their experience and behavior in interpersonal relationships. Thus, the great importance of language in life and psychotherapy is demonstrated by the example of emotional life.

7. Doris Beneder and Bernadette Lindorfer present the basic ideas of diagnostics in Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy as a process that primarily aims to enable the client to become a constructive diagnostician of her situation, the possibilities it offers, and the resources available for coping with it.

8. Taking the example of specific Gestalt theoretical approaches to understand anorexia using the multiple-field approach, Thomas Fuchs explains some aspects of Gestalt theoretical psychotherapeutic practice: "Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy - A Clinical Example".

9. Psychoanalyst and Gestalt psychologist Giancarlo Trombini (in collaboration with Elena Trombini and Gerhard Stemberger) presents possibilities of a Gestalt theoretical analysis of the progression of psychotherapies, offering central criteria for the decision on the completion of therapies based on Gestalt psychological concepts: "Reconciliation of Time Perspectives as a Criterion for Therapy Completion".

10. Edward Ragsdale concludes the thematic focus of the current volume with an exposition and discussion of one of the most fundamental principles of any Gestalt-theory based psychotherapy: "Relational Determination in Interpersonal and Intrapsychic Experience."

The reader may feel invited to send the editor and the authors her/his critical objections and own ideas on the topics touched upon in the contributions to this volume:

c/o Dr. Gerhard Stemberger

Email: gst@gestalttheory.net

Annex:

A brief note on the history of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy

The history of the clinical-psychotherapeutic application of Gestalt theory cannot be adequately presented within the narrow confines of this introduction. I must limit myself to some necessarily highly abbreviated remarks.3

In the now more than 100-year history of Gestalt theory, this approach has radiated from its beginnings to a multitude of people working in clinical psychotherapy and the "schools of therapy" developed or represented by them. It did so in interaction with similarly directed scientific developments and new orientations of its time, which above all had in common the aim of overcoming mechanistic conceptions of life and man and the search for more appropriate holistic-dynamic alternatives (cf. Ash 1995, Harrington 1996, King & Wertheimer 2005). For example, people trained and inspired by Gestalt theory significantly influenced the development of group psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and catathym imaginative psychotherapy, various methods associated with humanistic psychology from Rogers' client-centered approach to Gestalt therapy and Moreno's psychodrama, to name a few. In this broader sense, then, psychotherapy based on or inspired by Gestalt theory has been around for more than 100 years. However, this early history of Gestalt theory in psychotherapy consisted, on the one hand, in the insertion of certain ideas and concepts, procedures, and research findings from Gestalt theory into other ideas, whereby these adoptions were often not insignificantly distant from their origin; on the other hand, in the personal integration of Gestalt theoretical thought into therapeutic practice by individual clinically active Gestalt psychologists who never set themselves the task of systematically formulating the basic concepts of their Gestalt theory based psychotherapeutic work. (e.g. Levy, Luchins, Harrower).

The impetus for such a formulation and thus for a Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy in the narrower sense was given a little more than 40 years ago by a small group of psychotherapists in Germany around Hans-Jürgen P. Walter and Rainer Kästl within the framework of the GTA, which they co-founded in 1979. Walter had previously presented a first outline of a Gestalt theoretical rationale for the integrative application of Gestalt therapy, psychodrama, talk therapy, depth psychology, behavior therapy, and group dynamics in 1977. Since then, the focus of further development and application of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy has increasingly shifted to Austria, the motherland of so many psychotherapy methods in history. It is...