Abstract
Resolutely inscribed into a sensitive and dynamic approach that emphasizes feelings and the perception of the body, Gestalt therapy focuses on the processes of contact between the organism and the environment, during which the forms (gestalten) are shaped and reshaped. This approach departs from the usual description of a subject in his/her environment to shed light the processes of interrelation between the subject and his/her environment. It abandons the classical and static pattern of separation between the inside and the outside, between the self and the other to focus on the modalities of contact, to its dysfunctions, to the mechanisms of regulation that arise, and to the permanent adjustment between one person and his/her environment. This premise that organism and environment are inseparable is innovative because it challenges the individualist and solipsistic view of the self. The Gestaltist innovation lies less in the libertarian minds of its founding fathers, who favored the expression of the body and of the emotions in normative societies than in its invitation to convert our usual way of thinking. The perspective of an “organism-environment” field invites us to escape from dualism by taking into account, in one situation, all the different elements that assemble to coexist, to leave the binary dynamic (“either you, or me”) to consider the dynamic of a co-construction (“and you, and me”). Therefore, this innovative paradigm has effects on the conception of health and/or care: health is an unstable equilibrium, and disease is not reduced to organic deterioration but defines a way of living, an integral part of the human existence.
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Notes
- 1.
Frederick S. Perls, Paul Goodman, and Ralph Hefferline (2001, first re ed. 1951).
- 2.
“Gestalt,” which can be translated as “shape,” is the substantive of the German verb “gestalten,” which means “take shape, create itself, and organize itself” and contains this idea of movement and process, which the translation does not fully capture.
- 3.
The choice of the term to designate this line of thinking and its therapeutic practices was the subject of debate and hesitation within the “group of 7” who participated in the institution and development of Gestalt therapy in the United States. F. Perls, who was more in the tradition of W. Reich, favored “concentration therapy,” while Laura Perls preferred the term “existential therapy.” R. Hefferline suggested “integrative psychotherapy” or “experiential therapy.” Finally, the expression “Gestalt therapy” was adopted, referring to Gestalt theory. The vagaries of this denomination show that Gestalt therapy is the result of a collective co-construction, and not of a single theoretician, and testify to the hybridization of different practices and the assimilation of various traditions.
- 4.
Chantal Masquelier-Savatier 2015, p. 3.
- 5.
Perls et al. 1951, 2001, p. 58.
- 6.
David Abram 1996 (2013, for the French edition).
- 7.
David Abram occupied the “Arne Naess Chair in Global justice and the Environment” at the University of Oslo in 2014.
- 8.
Abram 1996, p. 130.
- 9.
Abram 1996, p. 261.
- 10.
For David Abram, this break between us and the environment constitutes a break that is of the order of a brutal ecological transformation.
- 11.
Abram 1996, p. 262.
- 12.
Abram 1996, p. 262.
- 13.
Fritz Perls, Paul Goodman, and Ralph Hefferline, 2001 (1st ed. 1951).
- 14.
C. Masquelier-Savatier 2015, p. 3.
- 15.
F. Perls 1942 (1978 for the French edition).
- 16.
The concept of introjection was introduced by S. Ferenczi, a Hungarian psychoanalyst, in Introjection and Transfer (1909).
- 17.
The practice of Gestalt theory (or psychology of form), which developed research on perceptual organization (notably by elaborating Wertheimer’s laws), brings together the works of Wolfgang Khöler, Kurt Koffka, and Max Wertheimer who founded the Berlin school before being forced to flee and emigrated to the United States.
- 18.
C. Masquelier-Savatier 2015.
- 19.
F. Perls 1942, p. 49.
- 20.
Jean-Marie Robine 1998.
- 21.
J.-M. Robine (2010), p. 3.
- 22.
F. Perls et al. 1951, p. 235.
- 23.
C. Masquelier-Savatier 2015, p. 66.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
F. Perls et al. 1951, p. 58.
- 26.
F. Perls et al. 1951, p. 217.
- 27.
G. Masquelier 2004, p. 54.
- 28.
Berque developed this approach in various works and in particular: Ecoumène. Introduction à l’étude des milieux humains, Belin, Paris, 2000.
- 29.
F. Perls et al. 1951, p. 50.
- 30.
The founders of Gestalt therapy were inspired by field theory, developed by Kurt Lewin.
- 31.
In the therapeutic approach, one often considers the environment as the other, and of course it is often a question of going and looking at the quality of the contact, the ability to be in contact with the other, and the possible alterations of this contact. However the meaning of the environment proposed by the Gestalt reading of our relationship to the world does not reduce the environment to the other and to the human and encompasses a much broader meaning of the environment: contact, the encounter between the organism and the environment covers a spectrum that goes from the biophysical environment to the other human.
- 32.
C. Masquelier, p. 37.
- 33.
Frederick Salomon Perls 1942.
References
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Masquelier, Gonzague. 2004. Vouloir sa vie. La Gestalt aujourd’hui. Paris: Retz.
Masquelier-Savatier, Chantal. 2015. La Gestalt-Thérapie. Paris: QSJ, PUF.
Perls, Frederick S., Ralph E. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman. 1951. Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. London: Souvenir Press.
Perls, Frederick S. 1942. Ego, Hunger and Aggression: A Revision of Freud’s Theory and Method. (Le Moi, la faim et l’agressivité, Tchou, 1978 for the French edition).
Robine, Jean-Marie. 1998. Le contact, expérience première. In Gestalt-thérapie, la construction du soi. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Robine, Jean-Marie. 2010. Le contact, aux sources de l’expérience. In Le changement social commence à deux, vol. 25. Bordeaux: L’Exprimerie.
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Michon, P. (2019). Gestalt Therapy and Its Contribution to the Understanding of the Link Between Health and the Environment. In: Bretelle-Establet, F., Gaille, M., Katouzian-Safadi, M. (eds) Making Sense of Health, Disease, and the Environment in Cross-Cultural History: The Arabic-Islamic World, China, Europe, and North America. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 333. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19082-8_15
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