justdrew wrote:is there any relationship between Gestalt therapy and
est? I don't think Erhard thought he was doing a from of Gestalt, but are similar psychological processes perhaps involved?
well, I'm not seeing and direct inter-relationship, though it seems they did get close after Fritz went to Esalen and took his branch into the lifestyle phase, still it's clear Gestalt therapy is a much larger body of work and has many contributors before, beyond and after that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_prayer
There are some similarities between some parts of the est/landmark cirriculum and gestalt psychology. The similarities probably derive from the Zen background to est.
I actually took the first three day course of the Landmark Forum. This was maybe 10 years ago or so. I did it on the advice of a coworker and the company I worked for paid for it. I respected the person who suggested I try it and was curious enough that I went. I'm glad I did because it really was sort of fascinating. The cirriculum itself was not all that interesting or novel, but observing the group psychology was, as well as seeing firsthand how the techniques of cult mind control operate. Landmark has all the hallmarks of a cult, although let's call it cult-lite. The edges are softened and participants are more gently coaxed. The forum leader marked me early as someone to watch as I might work counter to his purposes. Early on he discerned my discomfort with speaking
in front of a group and used that to his advantage a couple of times. When I would challange him he would bring me up in front of the group where he had all the power and I had none. This lead to a showdown on the final day at the last hour. He waited until then to throw out an ultimatum, either we got the point he was making or in not so many words we didn't and we had wasted three days of our lives. I think he expected that no one at that late hour, especially after having just spent a couple of hours with people sharing their warm and fuzzy insights and breakthroughs (some of which were very real and substantial, like people contacting friends and relatives they hadn't spoken to for years), would challenge him on that point. I knew there was no way anyone
Got it. It wasn't possible and just as he was about to go into wrap up mode I raised my hand. He actually looked slightly perturbed, but as I was sitting in front and everyone could see my raised hand he called on me and I explained that I didn't
get it. I don't recall now the landmark verbiage (one of the cult aspects is that you have to learn their lingo. creates a shared sense of understanding and insiderness) but the idea was that by the end of a three day course, 15 hours a day, we should have learned how to reinvent our mental lives and shed a lifetime of indoctrination. He pulled me up on stage, this time in front of a much larger crowd and expertly manipulated me so that my only choices were to call him out in front of everyone or accede to his premise that I had experienced transformation, that I did
get it. I wasn't prepared to go all the way and let it drop.
By way of contrast Gestalt Therapy doesn't even require a therapist (let alone a cult) and Fritz says as much. For the price of a used paperback and the time it takes to earnestly perform the thought experiments in the book you can reintegrate portions of your personality and perceptual life that have become fractured and compartmentalized. You become your own therapist/guru. The only goal is to become authentically you again.
I haven't actually read Gestalt Therapy in years. I think it's time I dug it out and worked through it again.
Interesting. If I were to draw any comparisons I think "I-it" corresponds to the initial stages of reintegrating authentic contact with reality and the "I-thou" corresponds with the experience of having an authentic realtionship with reality. When we recognize our needs and they are being met and we are no longer fighting ourselves we can free our energy (there is a limited amount of this energy) to form whole, unfractured gestalts and the aha of understanding that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts becomes a normal mode a being. We are authentically ourselves again. We have spit out the foreign "introjects" we long ago swallowed without knowing it. We no longer project because the I is thou and the thou is I. We no longer retroflect because there is no longer any need to be other than who we are in each and every moment. But you can't get there until you have taken a thorough and unflinching look at the broken, cobbled together creature you are today (scotoma are the hardest to suss out, by their nature). Gestalt Therapy is a method for doing that, by yourself. It's probably not for everyone.
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
