Supplemental Gestalt Therapy Resources

Erv Polster

Erving Polster received his Ph.D. in 1950. In 1953, he began learning Gestalt therapy, as it was being formed by the Perls, and their circle in New York.

In 1956 he began to conduct Gestalt workshops. In 1958 he became first faculty Chairman of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and remained in that position until 1973, when he and his wife, Miriam, moved to San Diego. There they formed the Gestalt Training Center-San Diego, where for 25 years they taught Gestalt therapy. People came to San Diego from all over the world to attend their training programs. They traveled internationally since 1968, giving lectures and workshops and presenting at conferences. One of Erv’s unique offerings is to demonstrate the principles and procedures through live therapy sessions in front of professional audiences. Erv and Miriam authored a widely read text, Gestalt Therapy Integrated, published in 1973. He also wrote Every Person’s Life Is Worth a Novel, spelling out the kinship between the novelist and the psychotherapist. One of the book’s perspectives is that the stories created by novelists are extracted from a background of ordinary humanity. This source of storyline and revelation has much in common with the personal background, from which therapists evoke stories from their patients. By the evocation of these stories, people are led to rediscover the importance of neglected events and overlooked characteristics, restoring self-value. His next book was A Population of Selves, published in 1995, in which he explores the means for establishing personal identity. His portrayal of a variety of selves provides a base for people to experience their internal range of characteristics while joining these characteristics together to feel a dependable identity. Another book, From the Radical Center, is an anthology that traces the evolution of ideas that he and Miriam presented over a 45-year period. In 2006, he authored Uncommon Ground: Harmonizing Psychotherapy and Community, transposing the medical model of office therapy into large group formats. The book envisions the creation of lifetime assemblages of people, guided by designed exercises targeted to enhance attention to the common aspects of how people may best live their lives.

At 102 Erv is still writing and teaching, having published several more books.

I studied with Erv and Miriam in 1997; that was a precious experience, which gave me fuel on both a personal and professional level. Both of them were very gracious, very knowledgeable, and both had a great sense of humour.

Here is an interview with Erv when he was 95:
https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/article/erv-polster-how-aging-changes-therapy/

Here is an interview with him on Humans of Gestalt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PVG9JgpTQQ

Here are 44 videos with Erv, available for monthly subscription on the Zeig website:
https://catalog.erickson-foundation.org/topicarea/gestalt

Discussion with Erv Polster on Gestalt

Chris Campbell

Dr. Chris Campbell has been developing his work and teaching in the field of Relationship and Body Oriented Psychotherapy since 1978. He has led training groups throughout Europe, the USA and Australia. He has an extensive background in Bio-dynamic body work, a subtle grasp of Neo-Reichian character frameworks, and is a leading exponent of dialogical therapy. He trained with the Boyensens in England, and in Reichian and Gestalt modalities in Los Angeles in the 1970’s.

I first worked with him in 1985, and learned from him over many decades. His approach to the I-Thou is solidly grounded in his own presence, and his ability to be consistently authentic, whether in or out of therapy.

Introduction video:

The Biofield with Dr Peter Nelson

Dr Peter L Nelson is a psychologist and social scientist who has 50+ years experience in personal and business coaching, transpersonal counseling, psychological assessment and research into behavior and consciousness.

As a scientist, he studied the psychophysiology and the psycho-phenomenology of attention, perception and consciousness. His ongoing research continues his earlier explorations of how people experience and understand reality—whether seen through the visions of mystics or the daily perceptions of ordinary people.

He has published original research on perception and, including articles that show a connection between cannabis use and aspects of personality, attention and transpersonal knowing.

He is an expert on the nature of direct attention, and has demonstrated that the results of expanded awareness are increased perception, which can help in both personal life and professions such as therapy.

Dr Peter Nelson interview Part 1 • Personal context

Science teenage geek, grants on brain research 1959
Start of computing
Psychophysiology. Haight Ashbury
What are we doing with consciousness. Deploying attention
First meeting of consciousness studies. ‘The hard problem’, not interested.
Phenomenological basis of our knowing: the how of consciousness
Walk into a room, pay attention to what you dont normally notice
Assumptions about people
Fundamental attribution error
Bottom up processors
Perceptual experiences in India
People projecting their own realities
True skeptic
Ontological neutralism
Experiences on Audsley LSD 1960’s
Intuitive knowledge

Dr Peter Nelson interview Part 2 • The rustle in the bush - a question of perception

Living with open questions
Learning to deploy attention, without psychedelics
People see what they want to see
Learn to use attention differently to see who they are
Teach people how to do it
Coaching how to change how they deploy awarenes
People basically paranoid
Rustle in the brush
Paranoid tilt - completing the story
They think they are intuitive, but just fast thinking
If dont know how to use attention, just filling in the gaps
Written off phenomenological abstractions
Phenomenogical reduction simplistic
Tell me something about myself I dont know
Declare philosophy dead
Who are you, before look at you
Anyone could open that door
You dont know how to do it, talking is not it
To deepen perception more is necessary

Dr Peter Nelson interview Part 3 • The biofield

Biofield
Examples
Friend thinking about suicide, leaves a field after image
Perceive footprints, markers
Appointment with cardiologist cancelled
Know they are deeply unhappy
Not super natural
Not a theist not athiest not agnostic, respond to what is as it is
People build ego selves on this
Differentiate own projections, Plato’s cave
Witnessed Perls
Listen to the background sounds
Notice the inbetween, the reach Epoche
Hypnogogic, but more difficult
Everything seems more three dimensional
Emergent ground

Dr Peter Nelson interview Part 4 • They rang your bell

Stan Grof turbulence
Dreamwork, get the dream, as a picture, left out the table, in the dream with her
The problem with ‘intuition’
Like seeing a chair in the room
Feelings in your body, self referencing
Mistaking feelings about it for who that person is
Have to say what dont know, just perception
They want to be entertained
TV entertainment show in Sweden
Deploy attention to get to their field from an object
His younger brother going insane
North German TV, he was going through divorce
Paying attention, intended direction of intentionality
Attempt to draw people in
Women perceive me as rescuer
Some males want to dominate, dont get swept up
Interviewing surgeons
Why am I always getting into this mess
They rang your bell, top down programming, they are looking for something
I see what you are looking for, and it never works

Dr Peter Nelson interview Part 5 • People dont like ambiguity

Personality disorders, hard to get them to question it
People dont want to change
See the drive and what its trying to create
Overweight woman cure
Worlding and worldview
People dont like ambiguity, attached to their ideas
A theory of the real, obstacle to noticing something else
Jungian rigid worldview, constantly reality testing worldview
Willingness to deal with fear, ruthlessness to examine own story
Skeptics would be skeptical about themslelves
William James empirical thinker

Dr Peter Nelson interview Part 6 • The first black psychoanalyst and the unconscious

Own existential psychoanalysis
Some is inferential
What to do more than solving problems in therapy
First black psychoanalyst
What does the unconscious mean
You’ve been talking to my sister…
I am going to say what I perceive
I dont want to do therapy - help them solve a problem
Applying to therapy - building a picture, but missing information streams
Top down bottomup
Limitations of therapy
Coach, get someone functioning to the best of their attention, to my level
Psychological healing is a slow progress
EMDR about shifting attention
I like to perceive, and map out my perceptions
The problems with closure
Coming to rest, not finishing, about self management
Thats my bitch about closure

Cherie McCoy

I first studied with Cherie after completing my Gestalt training in 1987. What I learned from her back then still stays with me - a truly embodied form of Gestalt work, working at a level of depth which touches on the spiritual. Cherie worked with Dick Olney from 1969, integrating bioenergetics, shamanism, eidetic imagery, Ericksonian hypnosis, Gestalt, and somatic awareness in a form they called Self Acceptance Training. Cherie taught and facilitated with Dick for 15 years, and went on to create her own form of this work, based on a profound loving acceptance.

In Gestalt this references what we call the Paradoxical Theory of Change: fully accepting oneself, in the moment, leads to spontaneous change. This allows people to experience and accept themselves more completely on every level - emotional, cellular, and interpersonal. Cherie works towards spiritual integration through a somatic route - reminiscent of the teachings and works of Bethel Phaig (Gestalt and the Wisdom of the Kahunas).

Cherie still works with individuals and runs weekends, and it’s an opportunity to work with someone I consider a master. Find her at http://www.selfacceptance.us

Tools for Dealing with Stress

Self Acceptance Training – Interview with Karen Adler

Moving from Pain to Pleasure in Mental Health

Frank Farrelly

Frank was not a Gestalt therapist. But he combined several essential elements of Gestalt in a completely unique way. His legacy is his book, Provocative Therapy (in our library), and a few of these videos left for posterity.

The features of his work that are important are these:

Very skillful confrontation - using non-shaming, relational playfulness
Paradoxical exaggeration - by going much further than the client’s pathology, he ends up being ‘the crazy one’
Therapeutic use of humour - being outrageous, saying ‘the unsayable’, using sarcasm and irony to undermine fixed positions, yet done with love and an open heart
Refusing to be hypnotised by the tragedy of the client’s story - addressing underlying process, using phenomenological clues in the present.

Most of these are translated sessions, but even then his humour and style and affection shine through. Gestalt therapy was originally characterised by confrontation, as that was often Fritz Perls’ style, which included an emphasis on self support and taking responsibility. Although this style was copied for several decades, it is no longer a core part of the identity of the practice or theory of Gestalt therapy. Using confrontation in a skilled way is very difficult in therapy, and there are few schools of therapy which promote that anymore.

These include Radical Honesty, based on the work of Brad Blanton, which is a contemporary version of classical Gestalt group encounter; and the school of Strategic Family Therapy, which uses vertical power-based strategic interventions to disrupt fixed family systems.

There is also the skillful work of David Schnarch, who emphasised differentiation and self support, in a systemic context.

However, as Schnarch pointed out, Attachment Theory is now dominant in how we perceive trauma, and thus confrontative type of therapy has been intentionally blunted and slowed down, in order that clients are not retraumatised in therapy.

This could be an ongoing dialogue, but the literature tends to have moved away from the possibilities of a more differentiated, skillful provocative approach to therapy. Hence my posting these videos as an example of an alternative to current therapies, albeit a unique approach somewhat connected to the personality of Farrelly.

Frank Farrelly - post session discussion with client

Frank and Judy session

Frank Farrelly and Dave session

Frank Farrelly in Germany - I cant say no

Frank Farrelly in Russia - baby blue innocent eyes

Frank Farrelly in Russia - because you are slow and stupid

Frank Farrelly in Russia - I pretend to be a leader

Frank Farrelly in Russia - I want multiple women

Frank Farrelly 2005 - Talking about Provocative Therapy

Frank Farrelly interview 2011

Jaap Hollander interviews Frank Farrelly

Frank Farrelly workshop in Russia

Frank Farrelly talks to Nick Kemp

Bob Resnick

https://acoupleofindividuals.com

Robert W. Resnick, Ph.D., was a Gestalt and Couples Therapist and international trainer for 50 years. Trained (1965-1970) and personally certified (1969) by Drs. Fritz Perls and James Simkin, he is the youngest of the “old timers”. Bob was chosen by Fritz Perls to be the first Gestalt Therapist to introduce Gestalt Therapy to Europe in the summer of 1969 where he presented both a lecture and a training workshop. He continued presenting GATLA European Summer Residential Training workshops in Europe until his death in 2023. He is author of many articles, and created a high quality series of demonstration films. In 2019 he was winner of the APA Distinguished Award for the International Advancement of Psychotherapy.

Interview with Bob Resnick

Bob Resnick on Gestalt Therapy And Homeorhesis, keynote speech

Bob Resnick - introduction to Gestalt therapy

Eva Gold

Dr. Eva Gold is the founding co-director of Gestalt Therapy Training Center—Northwest in Portland, Oregon (https://www.gttcnw.org), with her partner Dr. Steve Zahm, who passed away recently. They have written hundreds of Gestalt related articles, and published a book on Buddhist Psychology and Gestalt Therapy. Eva has practiced Gestalt for over 40 years, and has been a student of Buddhist psychology and an Insight meditation practitioner for twenty years.

I first met both of them at the Polsters’ training - they attended every year for several decades.

Eva Gold about Gestalt therapy & Buddhist Psychology

Humans of Gestalt — Eva Gold, Steve Zahm

Violet Oakalander

Violet Oaklander was born in 1927, and lived to the age of 94. She was the foremost exponent of the Gestalt approach to working with children. She leaves behind a legacy of books and training (https://vsof.org and https://www.oaklandertraining.org). She herself suffered some childhood trauma, which she recognises as a motivation to work with children. For 27 years she conducted training in child play therapy in California. She attended a Gestalt workshop with Jim Simkin in 1969, when her son was dying of lupus. Her classic book Windows to Our Children is in the library. she often said, ‘I don't fix kids.’ Her focus was on the authentic relationship between client and therapist, the I-thou, cultivating genuineness and openness, and working in the present.