Mary Henle
Gestalt Psychology and Gestalt Therapy
The purpose of this paper is to try to set
the historical record straight while the
history in question is still in the making.
lt seeks to clarify the relations between
gestalt therapy and Gestalt psychology, from
which the therapy claims to derive. In considering
gestalt therapy, I will confine myself to
the work of Fritz Perls, the finder, as he
calls himself, of this therapy (Perls 1969/1971:16),
with emphasis on his later books. Perls himself
writes, in his introduction to the 1969 reprint
of Ego, Hunger and Aggression, that much
of the material in it is obsolete. About
this first book of his he remarks in another
place that he wrote it because he wanted
to learn typewriting and was bored with exercises
(1969/1972:39). About the next book, Gestalt
Therapy, by Perls, Ralph E. Hefferline, and
Paul Goodman (1951/n. d.), his editor states
that Perls regarded it, too, as outdated
(Perls 1973: ix). Perls' own comment is in
reply to a student who finds its language
too technical: 'When did I write that book?
In 1951. No, I am much more in favor now
of making films and so on to bring this across,
and I believe I have found a more simple
language' (Perls 1969/1971:233). (In light
of this statement, no objection can reasonably
be made to the use of transcripts of films
and of therapy sessions for an analysis of
Perls' work.) My major sources will therefore
be Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, In and Out the
Garbage Pail, and The Gestalt Approach and
Eye Witness to Therapy. In and Out the Garbage
Pail might seem somewhat frivolous to the
scholar, but Perls, in a conversation with
himself, describes it as a serious scientific
book (1969/1972:172), which means at the
very least, I think, that he would not object
to its use as a source in an analysis of
his work. (It should be added that one side
of the author questions the seriousness of
his book.)
Now one more point about the limits of my
topic. I will not be concerned with the merits
of gestalt therapy as practice, but only
with what Perls has written. And I will be
concerned with it only insofar as it relates
to Gestalt psychology. I will omit discussion
of its relations to psychoanalysis, to existentialism,
and to other systems of thought, although
there is much to say about these too.
lt seems fair at the outset to identify my
own point of view, which is that of Gestalt
psychology. I do not presume to represent
my remarks as what Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang
Köhler, or Kurt Koffka would have said about
gestalt therapy. The only Gestalt psychologist
who, to my knowledge, has written about this
therapy is Rudolf Arnheim. His one-paragraph
letter to Contemporary Psychology, of course,
had no room for analysis (Arnheim 1974: 570).
lf the others have maintained silence, why
do I now break it? I do so because there
are today psychologists and students of psychology
- I suspect there are many of them - who
believe that gestalt therapy is Gestalt psychology,
or, more moderately, that it is an extension
of Gestalt psychology. I hope to disabuse
them of this belief.
I was astonished to read the statement of
Perts' biographer, Martin Shepard (1975:
198), that traditional Gestaltists claim
him. Certainly Arnheim does not claim him
when he writes, 'I can see Max Wertheimer
fly into one of his magnificent rages, had
he lived to see one of the more influential
tracts of the therapeutic group in question
dedicated to him as though he were the father
of it all' (1974:570). Perls himself is at
times clearer than his biographer about his
relation to Gestalt psychology. 'The academic
Gestaltists of course never accepted me,'
he wrote. 'I certainly was not a pure Gestaltist'
(1969/1972:62). He admits not having read
any of their textbooks, only some papers
of Kurt Lewin, Wertheimer, and Köhler (ibid).
Nevertheless, he claims that his perspective
comes 'from a science which is neatly tucked
away in our colleges; it comes from an approach
called Gestalt psychology' (1969/1972:61).
He continues by saying that he admired a
lot of the work of the Gestalt psychologists,
'especially the early work of Kurt Lewin'
(1969/1972:62).
First may I state the hard facts about his
relation to Gestalt psychology. Perls tells
us that he was Kurt Goldstein's assistant
in Frankfurt in 1926 (1969/1972:4); he apparently
also heard lectures by Adhemar Gelb (1969/1972:62).
In this connection it may be pointed out
that, while Goldstein did not view most of
his differences with Gestalt psychology as
'insurmountable discrepancies,' he did not
regard himself as a Gestalt psychologist
but, rather, a holist or organismic psychologist.
And now the issues. Gestalt psychology arose
in Germany around 1910 out of what was called
the Crisis of Science. Not only science,
but academic knowledge in general, was losing
the confidence of more and more people, intellectuals
included, because it could not deal with
major human concerns, for example such problems
as value or meaning, and, indeed, seemed
uninterested in them. In psychology, in opposition
to the traditional experimental psychology,
there arose a speculative psychology whose
goal was to understand rather than to explain.
Let the experimental psychologists find causal
laws in their narrow domain, so the argument
went. The really central human issues must
be dealt with outside the natural science
tradition, in the tradition called Geisteswissenschaft
- a word for which we have no contemporary
English counterpart, although it is itself
a translation of John Stuart Mill's expression,
the mental and moral sciences.
Gestalt psychologists did not accept this
split within their discipline. They believed
that the shortcomings of the traditional
psychology arose, not because it was scientific,
but because it misconceived science. Scientific
analysis, it was simply taken for granted
at the time, was atomistic. The model of
the traditional psychology was an atomistic,
mechanistic conception of the physical sciences.
Gestalt psychologists held that scientific
analysis need not be atomistic. Using physical
field theory as their model, they worked
to develop a nonatomistic psychology within
the tradition of natural science.
Here is a first issue: natural science vs.
Geisteswissenschaft, explaining vs. understanding.
Gestalt psychology is clearly an explanatory
natural science. What about gestalt therapy?
Perls equally clearly supports an understanding
psychology. Here are a few quotations:
In scientific explanation, you usually go
around and around and never touch the heart
of the matter. (1969/1971:16)
Aboutism is science, description, gossiping,
avoidance of involvement, round and round
the mulberry bush. (1969/1972:210)
If we explain, interpret, this might be a
very interesting intellectual game, but it's
a dummy activity, and a dummy activity is
worse than doing nothing. If you do nothing,
at least you know you do nothing. (1969/1971:70)
I reject any explanatoriness as being a means
of intellectualizing and preventing understanding.
(1969/1972:169)
This theme appears again and again in Perls'
books.
It might be supposed that he is talking here
about technique, about avoiding interpretations
in therapy. He is, of course, also talking
about technique, but some of these quotations
go much farther. There are other indications
of Perls' rejection of scientific psychology.
He regards his approach as existential and
asserts: 'Existentialism wants to do away
with concepts, and to work on the awareness
principle, on phenomenology' (1969/1971:16).
Again, his approach is described as 'an ontic
orientation where Dasein - the fact and means
of our existence - manifests itself, understandable
without explanatoriness; a way to see the
world not through the bias of any concept'
(1969/1972:61).
Science, of course, is conceptual.
In other connections, too, we see that Perls
is operating outside the sphere of natural
science. The structure of our lifescript,
he says, is often called karma or fate
(1973:120), by no means a scientific concept.
Nor is satori (1970/1973.-13), nor 'mini-satori'
(1973:131). Hints of vitalism appear in his
writing. For example, Perls identifies his
'excitement' with Henri Bergson's élan vital
(1970/1973:38). Again, he describes a tree
whose roots grow in the direction of fertilizer
and shift if the fertilizer is shifted; he
comments: 'We cannot possibly explain / By
calling this 'mechanics'' (1969/ 1972:28).
In this connection, it is interesting to
recall a remark by Koffka, 'I believe that
the mechanist has no better friend than the
vitalist' (1938:226). Perls, unable to account
mechanistically for the phenomena of growth
and regulation, resorts to vitalism. But
science, as the Gestalt psychologists in
particular have pointed out, need not be
mechanistic; thus the failure of mechanism
does not exclude a scientific approach.
In short, we find that Gestalt psychology
is a natural science, while Perls - whether
he knows it or not - stands in the Tradition
of Geisteswissenschaft. It would be interesting
to know what science he has in mind when
he modestly acknowledges, 'The crazy Fritz
Perls is becoming one of the heroes in the
history of science, as someone called me
at the convention, and it is happening in
my lifetime' (1969/1972:265). Gestalt psychology
is an explanatory science, while Perls chooses
understanding psychology. The difference
is so crucial that I could conclude at this
point that there is no substantive relation
between Gestalt Psychology ind gestalt therapy.
Other important issues remain, however.
A related point is the anti-intellectualism
that pervades gestalt therapy. 'Intellect,'
says Perls, 'is the whore of intelligence
- the computer, the fitting game' (1969/1971:24).
'It might sound a bit peculiar,' he concedes,
'that I disesteem thinking, making it just
a part of role-playing' (1969/1971:37). 'The
intellect . . . [is] a drag on your life'
1969/1971:76). 'Each time you use the question
why, you diminish in stature. You bother
yourself with false, unnecessary information'
(ibid). I could multiply quotations. Gestalt
psychologists, on the contrary, have the
highest respect for disciplined thinking,
one of whose finest achievements is science.
Let us now consider the mind-body problem.
Gestalt psychology has formulated the hypothesis
of psychophysical isomorphism, both as a
position on the mind-body question and as
a heuristic. Isomorhism starts from the prima
facie dualism of mind and matter but hypothesizes
that molar events in experience are structurally
identical to the corresponding molar physiological
events in the brain. This is a kind of parallelism,
but more specific than mere parallelism;
it is this specificity that has made isomorphism
a powerful heuristic. Parallelism of any
kind is, of course, a dualistic hypothesis.
How does Perls stand on this issue? He dismisses
the mind-body dichotomy as a superstition
(1969/1972:8) and comes out for monism: we
do not have a body, he maintains, 'we are
a body, we are somebody' (1969/1971:6). 'Thoughts
and actions are made of the same stuff' (1973:14).
Again, 'If mental and physical activity are
of the same order, we can observe both as
manifestations of the same thing: man's being'
(1973:15). On the whole, he seems to adopt
a double aspect theory, though at times his
formulation sounds idealistic:
Reality is nothing but The sum of all awareness
As you experience here and now. (1969/1972:30)
'Philosophizing is a drag,' Perls asserts
(ibid). Of course it is if you do it so badly.
But the present point is that, with regard
to their positions on the relation of the
mind and body, Gestalt psychology and gestalt
therapy have nothing in common.
'Figure/ground, unfinished situation and
Gestalt are the terms which we have borrowed
from Gestalt psychology,' say Perls, Hefferline,
and Goodman (1951/n. d.: ix-x). lt is time
to examine the meanings of these terms in
the two contexts.
For the meaning of Gestalt, I quote Köhler:
In the German language ... the noun 'Gestalt'
has two meanings: besides the connotation
of shape or form as an attribtite of things,
it has the meaning of a concrete entity per
se, which has, or may have, a shape as one
of its characteristics. Since Ehrenfels'
time the emphasis has shifted from the Ehrenfels
qualities to the facts of organization, and
thus to the problem of specific entities
in sensory fields. (1947:177-178)
Perls' use of the term Gestalt is much vaguer.
His attitude toward it he describes as an
article of faith (1969/1972- 35). A gestalt
is an essence, he says (1969/1972-63). Again,
he describes it as 'the irreducible phenomenon
of all awareness' (1969/1972:30). Perls recognizes
that a gestalt is a unit of experience, that
'as soon as you break up a gestalt, it is
not a gestalt any more' (1969/1971:16). But
he does not go any farther into the description
of its properties. Neither Perls' Gestalt
Manifesto (1969/1972:213) nor his old Gestalt
Prayer has any relation to any known meaning
of the word Gestalt.
A segregated entity possesses figural characteristics:
shape and the substantiality of a thing by
contrast with its background, which usually
has no shape and is less compact. It owes
its shape to the one-sided function of the
contour, which ordinarily belongs to the
figure, but not to the ground. There are
other functional differences, too, between
figure and ground. Although perceptual figures
may be reversible under certain circumstances,
this is not the rule.
Edgar Rubin's terms "figure" and
"ground" were eagerly adopted by
Perls. For example, "The dorminant need
of the organism, at any time, becomes the
foreground figure, and the other needs recede,
at least temporarily, into the background"
(1973-8). lt may be that needs possess the
characteristics of shaped figures, but if
so, this must be shown, not simply assumed.
(More likely, it is the need-object organization
that should be subjected to such analysis;
the goal, as end, is comparable to the edge
of a closed figure, as Köhler [1939:79] has
pointed out.) Without any analysis, Perls
seems simply to be using the distinction
between figure and ground as equivalent to
that between important and unimportant. While
the figure is important in the perceptual
field, it has its own specific properties
that are lost in the equation. And why do
you need figure-ground terminology to say
that something is important?
' To change a habit involves pulling that
habit out of the background again and investing
energy . . . to disintegrate or to reorganize
the habit' (1969/1972:66). This time Perls
apparently means - focus attention on the
activity usually performed automatically.
I have no doubt that it is possible to conceptualize
an activity sequence in Gestalt terms, but
Perls has not done it - he has merely used
the words. lf his expression is equivalent
to Rubin's distinction, this remains to be
shown.
Perls asserts that ritual 'makes the gestalt
clearer, makes, the figure stand out more
sharply' (1973:29). The meaning is apparently
once more that the special importance of
something is being emphasized. I need not
repeat my remarks about importance. But what
is the figure that is made to stand out by
a handshake or a toast? Perhaps the handshake
emphasizes the beginning or the end of an
encounter, but what is the structure of the
encounter? The use of figure-ground terminology
is no substitute for specifying the characteristics
of a social event.
At one point Perls tells us that he is bogged
down in his writing and remarks, 'I would
not be a Gestaltist if I could not enter
the experience of being bogged down with
confidence that some figure will emerge from
the chaotic background' (1969/1972:37-38).
What he means, it would seem, is that he
is sure he will find something to say. Again,
what is gained by speaking of figure? What
is lost, I repeat, is the specific meaning
of figure and ground. Incidentally, a chaotic
background is hardly conducive to the segregation
of a figure.
Perls finds it important that figure and
background be easily interchangeable. 'Otherwise
we get a disturbance in the attention system-confusion,
loss of being in touch, inability to concentrate
and to get involved' (1969/1972:93). lt has
been pointed out earlier that in perception
reversible figures are the exception. From
the context it appears the Perls means that,
for optimal functioning, there must be an
alternation between what he calls coping
and withdrawal, there must be flexibility
of the personality, and the like; but what
these have in common with figure and ground
in the sense of Rubin and the Gestalt psychologists
is never made clear.
In all these examples, and many others that
might be discussed, it seems to me that the
figure-ground terminology is used so loosely
by Perls that it conceals problems rather
than clarifies them.
Since Gestalt psychologists emphasize organization,
let us turn to that problem. As Köhler puts
it, organization 'refers to the fact that
sensory fields have in a way their own social
psychology' (1947:120). That is, certain
units or groups exist which are relatively
segregated from their environment: certain
parts of, say, the visual field belong together
and are segregated from others. Wertheimer
investigated the factors that govern perceptual
organization: similarity, proximity, good
continuation, closure, etc.
Of Wertheimers factors of orginization, the
only one in which Perls shows any interest
is closure and lack of closure. The latter
term he uses interchangeably with 'unfinished
situation' - a technique, not a concept,
derived from Lewin. Let us consider some
examples of unclosed gestalts as they are
used in gestalt therapy.
'Our life is basically practically nothing
but an infinite number of unfinished situations-incomplete
gestalts.' writes Perls. 'No sooner have
we finished one situation than another comes
up' (1969/1971:15). The neurotic 'indivual
somehow interrupts the ongoing processes
of life and saddles himself with so many
unfinished situations that he cannot satisfactorily
get on with the process of living' (1973:23).
These unfinished situations from the past
compel him to repeat them in everyday life
(1973:91). (Incidentally, Freud's repetition
compulsion is here made a matter of unclosed
gestalts without, so far as I can see, shedding
any light on it.) If we find a certain plausibility,
along with a disdain for specific analysis,
in the treatment of unsatisfied needs as
unclosed gestalts, this plausibility is lost
in further examples. In the case of one patient,
Perls remarks, that he was unable in one
session to 'achieve full closure, milk the
symptom dry' (1969/1972: 139). War, with
its frustrations, is apparently an incomplete
gestalt; at any rate, peace is the possible
closure (1969/1972:87).
Here is a final example of the many Perls
provides: 'We . . . have to fill in the holes
in the personality to make the person whole
and complete again' (1969/1971:2). I happen
to believe that the phenomenal personality,
like other percepts, can he conceptualized
as an organized whole, though the theoretical
problems involved are extraordinarily difficult
and only the most primitive beginnings have
been made - not, by the way, by gestalt therapists.
Until we can say something specific about
this organization, it does not add to our
knowledge to say that 'the neurotic man of
our time' is an 'incomplete, insipid personality
with holes' (Perls 1969/1972:294). As I have
indicated, in some of these instances there
is a certain vague plausibility about Perls'
use of complete and incomplete situations,
closed and unclosed gestalts. But vague plausibility
is not enough for a theory of neurosis or
therapy or personality - or of anything.
lt is necessary to be clear about the specific
characteristics of the structure we are calling
neurosis or personality, about the nature
of the processes involved, and the nature
of the closure demanded by that structure.
Such questions are never found in the material
I am considering, and we are left with a
terminology so vague as to defy any specific
use. A concept loosely applied to a perceived
figure, to a neurotic personality, and to
war does not shed any specific light on any
of these phenomena. For a theory, we must
also be able to say in what ways the perceived
figure, the personality, and the war are
different, not merely stretch the same term
to include them all.
The following is a passage from Köhler on
the extension of the concept of Gestalt:
The concept 'Gestalt' may be applied far
beyond the limits of sensory experience.
According to the most general functional
definition of the term, the processes of
learning, of recall, of striving, of emotional
attitude, of thinking, acting, and so forth,
may have to be included.... By no means is
it believed, however, that any of those larger
problems can actually be solved by the application
merely of general principles. On the contrary,
whenever the principles seem to apply, the
concrete task of research is only beginning;
because we want to know in precisely what
manner processes distribute and regulate
themselves in all specific instances. (1947:178-179).
lt is this crucial step - the working out
of the Gestalt concept in connection with
specific problems - that Perls has omitted.
He does have some things to say - at times,
it seems, almost inadvertently - about how
organization occurs, and it is interesting
to compare these remarks, with the forrnulations
of the Gestalt psychologists. The conditions
of organization suggest to the Gestalt psychologist
what processes must be responsible for them.
In accordance with the principle of isomorphism,
the demonstrated relational properties of
perception (and of other psychological phenomena
which I will not discuss here) suggest corresponding
physical interactions in the nervous system,
particularly in the cerebral cortex. These
interactions depend on the properties of
the cortical events in relation to each other
(Köhler 1940:55); and these properties, in
turn, are ultimately largely a consequence
of the nature of the stimulation that starts
the chain of events leading to perception.
For Perls, interest, cathexis, motivation,
or attention produces organization. This
view appears in his first book (1947/1969:53)
and is more explicit in Gestalt Therapy.
We read, 'The figure/ ground contrast . .
. is . . . the work of spontaneous attention
and mounting excitement' (Perls, Hefferline,
and Goodman 1951/n. d.:73). Again,''Objects'
of sight and hearing exist by interest, confrontation,
discrimination, practical concern' (1951/n.
d.: 372n). What would seem to be a motor
theory of perception is, at times, assumed:
'The eyes and fingers cooperate in drawing
outlines, so that the animal learns to see
more shapes and to differentiate objects
in his field. By outlining one differentiates
experience into objects' (1951/n. d.:312).
In another place Perls suggests that 'we
start with the impossible assumption that
whatever we believe we see in another person
or in the world is nothing but a projection.
Might be far out, but it's just unbelievable
how much we project and how blind and deaf
we are to what is really going on' (1969/1971:72).
Although he does not hold with it completely,
Perls seems to be saying that this assumption
has something to it. The statement is less
radical, but the meaning essentially unchanged,
when he tells us that cathected objects become
figure (1973:19). Once more, it is asserted
that things-by which I assume he means phenomenal
things - 'come about, more or less, by man's
need for security' (1970/1973:20).
It is difficult to discuss Perls' theory
because we are not told on what the interest,
attention, and cathexis are acting to produce
percepts. lt is certainly not on organized
entities, since they do the organizing. Presumably,
therefore, they are acting on sensory data.
If this is the case, Perls' (partially implicit)
theory is not only not Gestalt psychology;
it is formally similar to the theories that
Gestalt psychologists have criticized again
and again, ever since Köhler's paper of 1913,
'On Unnoticed Sensations and Errors of Judgment'
(1913/1971). lndeed, Perls' theory, if it
were spelled out, would seem to be very similar
to those put forth by G. E. Müller and Eugenio
Rignano in the
1920s, both of which were criticized by Köhler.
About such theories it may be said that neither
attention nor interest creates form; rather,
a form must be perceived before it can be
attended to or cathected. In both cases,
the directional process presupposes the organization;
the argument is thus circular. A similar
problem arises if a motor theory is really
meant: if visual organization comes from
kinaesthesis, then that kinaesthetic organization
remains to be explained. All the theory has
succeeded in doing has been to push the problem
into another sensory modality.
lt is not necessary, so far as I can see,
that a theory of therapy include a theory
of perception. But if the author insists
on such a theory, there are certain known
pitfalls he would do well to avoid. If he
believes that his theory is a Gestalt theory,
he would be well advised to look into what
the Gestalt psychologists have to say.
Gestalt psychology is most developed in perception
and cognition, while gestalt therapy is concerned
with personality, psychopathology, and psychotherapy.
Comparison of approaches to such different
areas is often difficult. Nevertheless, in
the present case, additional issues invite
comparison. As it happens, none of them is
trivial.
Gestalt psychology has, from its inception,
been interested in value. Challenging the
widely held view of ethical relativism, the
view that what is right and wrong changes
with time and place, it has tried to understand
values in terms of relations within happenings
themselves. The value of an action is seen
as depending on its appropriateness to the
demands of the given situation. Thus, Gestalt
psychologists have held that values are not
arbitrarily attached to objects or actions,
depending on subjective evaluation or on
the individual's history of rewards and punishments.
An analogy of Wertheimer's will perhaps be
helpful:
Someone in adding makes seven plus seven
equal fifteen. ... And he says, I call it
good because I love the number fifteen....
The determination of the fifteen is ... in
violation of that which is demanded by the
structure of the objective situation. If
I prefer the fifteen in this case ... this
is irrelevant to the fact that the fifteen
is wrong. 1935:360-361)
What about Perls? In Ego, Hunqer andAggression,
ethical relativism is simply taken for granted,
and good and bad are derived from feelings
of comfort and discomfort
(1947/1969:59). The next book, Gestalt Therapy,
describes two ingredients of moral evaluations:
' (a) On the one hand, they are simply technical
skills that one has learned, guesses as to
what leads to success' and '(b) On the other
hand, they are group-loyalties . . . : one
acts in a certain way because it is the social
expectation, including the expectation of
one's formed personality' (Perls, Hefferline,
and Goodman 1951/n. d.:424). Here values
are obviously regarded as external to the
events in question. They might just as well
be reversed if the individual's personal
history had been different or if he belonged
to a different group.
The same relativism, more baldly and more
cynically expressed, is to be found in Gestalt
Therapy Verbatim: 'The whole idea of good
and bad, right and wrong, is always a matter
of boundary, of which side of the fence I
am on' (1969/1971:9). Perls distinguishes
three kinds of philosophy: in addition to
existentialism, which includes gestalt therapy,
we have already encountered aboutism, encompassing
science, gossiping and other futile activities,
and then there is shouldism or moralism,
in which we find topdog and underdog engaged
in self-torture games (1969/1971:16-18).
Shoulds are internalized external controls,
and they interfere with the healthy functioning
of the organism (1969/1971:20).
It would be difficult to find a view of values
farther from that of the Gestalt psychologists
than Perl's view. The Gestalt psychologists
have shown that '"value-sitiuations
fall under the category of gestalt' (Köhler
1938:86). Perls has treated them without
regard for this category, indeed without
regard for values.
A word about truth. Apart from calling it
one of the fitting games, Perls says that
'by 'truth' I mean nothing but the assertion
that a statement we make fits the observable
reality' (1970/ 1973:13). This conception
is precisely the one that Wertheimer has
shown to be inadequate. For the same statement
may, in one context, be true, in another
false, in a third unintelligible. Nor does
Wertheimer regard truth as a game: 'Science
is rooted in the will to truth. With the
will to truth it stands or falls. Lower the
standard even slightly and science becomes
diseased at the core. Not only science, but
man' (1934:135).
I have allready mentioned the relation between
mechanism and vitalism. Gestalt psychology
has consistently rejected both. Machine theories
of the nervous system have been its particular
target: Gestalt psychology has emphasized
free dynamics within the limits imposed by
anatomical constraints. Perls, quite the
contrary, refers to the organism as a machine
(1969/1971:15), and to the 'thinking system,'
as he calls it, as a computer (1970/1973:28-29).
I would now like to say a word about phenomenology
as it figures in Gestalt psychology and in
gestalt therapy. (I am using the term 'phenomenology'
as psychologists generally do, to refer to
the unbiased description of the phenomenal
world, not to refer to Edmund Husserl's theory
of intentionality.) For Gestalt psychology,
phenomenology is a first step, a propaedeutic
to experimental research and to a science
of functional relations that transcends phenomenology.
Perls calls himself a phenomenologist
(1969/1972:37)-, for him this method plays
a different role than in Gestalt psychology.
Phenomenology, he says, 'is the primary and
indispensable step towards knowing all there
is to know' (1969/1972:69).
I have by no means exhausted my material.
For example, Perls' misuse of the equilibrium
concept might be discussed. His understanding
of heredity and of evolution might be culled
from his writings and contrasted with that
of Gestalt psychology. His view of person
perception, like that of object perception,
could be shown to differ from that of the
Gestalt psychologists. His mostly implicit
conception of the thinking process might
be examined, and so on.
From the material already discussed, it is
not difficult to reach a conclucion. What
Perls has done has been to take a few terms
from Gestalt psychology, stretch their meaning
beyond recognition, mix them with notions-often
unclear and often incompatibible - from the
depth psychologies, existentialism, and common
sense, and he has called the whole mixture
gestalt therapy. His work has no substantive
relation to scientific Gestalt psychology.
To use his own language, Fritz Perls has
done 'his thing'; whatever it is, it is not
Gestalt psychology.
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