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Gestalt Therapy and Social JusticeWhat a fantastic proposal, when a society creates emotional tensions, to reorient not the society but the people! As if indeed it were possible to change the people without changing the daily pattern and therefore both the economic relations and the nature of work.Paul Goodman, 1945/1977, p. 44In a keynote presentation at the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy’s 14th Biennial Conference in 2018 Miriam Taylor put forth the concept of “ground trauma,” referencing the underlying and unaware current driving much of the angst gestalt therapists are witnessing in their consulting rooms today (Taylor, 2018). There are a number of developments in the 21st Century that account for or contribute to this generalized angst that often tips the scales into panic or full-blown neurosis and mental illness - for example, social media, the 24/7 news cycle, electronic connectivity, and significantly, the political tensions in the world today. As this chapter sheds a spotlight on gestalt therapy and social justice, the contribution of current-day politics to this ground trauma will be considered in the context of the development of the political nature of gestalt therapy in general. The zeitgeist of the years following the 2016 American elections reflects a larger movement towards conservatism, isolation and fascism worldwide.The zeitgeist has changed dramatically since the advent of gestalt therapy in the 1960’s, when liberalism held sway. The concept of historic recurrence, considered and discussed since the time of the early Greeks, applies directly to patterns of liberalism and conservatism throughout history (Bowman & Nevis, 2005, E. Nevis personal communication, 2005). In this chapter we will examine the development of gestalt therapy against a background of changing political climates since the time of its commencement and the role of gestalt therapy and gestalt therapy theory in the ebb and flow of recurring political climates. A discussion of the impact of politics and how changing societal norms and mores influence gestalt therapy praxis ensues as does a discussion of the practical contribution that gestalt therapy offers society in the service of inclusion, dialogue and understanding conflict.Roots: Family, Politics and PsychoanalysisFrom an early age Fritz Perls questioned the authority of his Jewish faith where he found no solace or authority (Perls, 1977). He similarly rebelled when his Father, Nathan, “deemed him worthy of acceptance into his Freemason lodge at age 18” (Bocian, 2010, p. 52). This rejection of repressive authority – the super ego in Freudian theory or unacceptable introjection in gestalt therapy theory – was substantial in the development of gestalt therapy and in a broader context “played a significant role in the theory formation of virtually all Berlin character analysts” (ibid., p. 53). The most famous of this group was Wilhelm Reich. Other members included Erich Fromm, Otto Fenichel, and Otto Gross. Otto Gross is perhaps the most influential of the group in terms of this discussion of Perls’ politics and attitude towards authority. Gross was a leader in the bohemian counter-culture setting in Berlin at the turn of the 20th century. He was a psychoanalyst, a maverick disciple of Freud, an anarchist, and catalyst for 20th century counter-culture. He challenged sexual identity and was considered a proto-feminist (Hayman, 2002). According to Bocian (2010):Gross advocated the utopia of a community that was to organize itself in free unions of love and where the patriarchally derived domination of men over women would be abolished. The revolution was viewed not only in terms of economic or social change, but also extended to an upheaval of the subject’s inner world and their private relationships with one another. (Bocian, 2010, p. 137)The key figure in this clutch of avant-gard psychoanalysts, architects, philosophers, artists and others – known as the Bauhaus in Berlin – was the philosopher Salomo Friedlander. He led this rowdy group of leftist intellectuals and played a central role in the Perls’ thinking, introducing such concepts as “creative indifference” and “zero point” (Wulf, 1996). The Bauhaus was shut-down in 1933 by the Nazi Gestapo. The anarchistic philosophy of Friedlander, directly applicable to Perls’ early brand of autonomy and individualism in gestalt therapy, is summarized by the expressionist philosopher himself:Both the left and the right are in agreement over the enslavement of the individual in favor of the whole. In this respect, Stalin and the Pope (in principle, the man who murdered autonomy and Kant) are noble competitors. What we need, however, is autonomous individualism with social outcomes. Matters won’t be resolved until then. (Friedlander quoted in Bocian, 2010, p. 199)Fritz and Laura Perls fled the Nazis and settled in South Africa with the help of Ernest Jones, Freud’s biographer. They took with them an anarchistic bent. In South Africa they were attracted to the holistic philosophy of Jan Christian Smuts (see Chapter 1). The significance of this development in gestalt therapy theory for this discussion is the contrast between the anarchistic individualism of Friedlander and the holism that became a fixture of the Nazi philosophy and the “holism” of the volk – perhaps the most devastating philosophical underpin of the Nazi scourge in Germany (see Harrington, 2009). While distinctions can be made between methodological and metaphysical holism, given the devastation and loss the Perls’ survived in Germany it is remarkable they embraced the concept at all.The result of this combination of Bauhaus anarchy/individualism and the holistic philosophies of Gestalt psychology, Goldstein and Smuts would travel across the Atlantic and meld with the quintessential American anarchistic, Paul Goodman, where gestalt therapy theory would congeal and become a movement in and of itself. Goodman, Gestalt, and GovernmentFritz Perls arrived on the shores of America in 1946, where he almost immediately met several women connected to the anarchist magazine Retort and to another, Politics. Perls had picked up a copy of Politics in Capetown just before he left for New York. He was most interested in an article he read titled “The Political Meaning of Some Recent Revisions of Freud” written by Paul Goodman. The story was a commentary on Wilhelm Reich and the neo-Freudians. Perls was eager to meet Goodman. Like any left-leaning New Yorkers at that time, the ladies knew Paul Goodman. They took him to Goodman’s apartment on 9th Avenue in Manhattan where that first meeting was said to last into the wee hours of the morning ( Stoehr, 1994). The two men had many things in common. Goodman was a patient of Alexander Lowen, a student of Wilhelm Reich’s. Perls had been in Analysis with Reich. They shared an affinity for Otto Rank’s Art and Artists and his “here and now” focus. The two had liberal, anarchist political leanings in common as well. They stayed connected through the writing and publication in 1951 of Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. Whereas Perls was dedicated to growing his fledgling new form of psychotherapy and would go on to promote it across the United States, Goodman had a broader goal in mind. In fact, he was well on his way to becoming the quintessential anarchist on the liberal campuses of American Universities. In an interview with Studs Terkle in 19162 Goodman had this to say about his work:I might seem to have a number of divergent interests—community planning, psychotherapy, education, politics—but they are all one concern: how to make it possible to grow up as a human being into a culture without losing nature. I simply refuse to acknowledge that a sensible and honorable community does not exist." (Lee, 2011)Professor, sociologist, poet, writer,?anarchist, gestalt therapist and?intellectual, Goodman’s contributions number more for his theory of anarchism, political activism, and as the author of?Growing Up Absurd?(Goodman, 1960/2012) than as co-founder of gestalt therapy. Goodman’s sociocultural commentary is eloquent and solidly based in gestalt therapy theory. A sample of the breadth and scope of Goodman’s enterprise:People believe that the great background conditions of modern life are beyond our power to influence. The proliferation of technology is autonomous and cannot be checked. The galloping urbanization is going to gallop on. Our overcentralized administration, both of things and men, is impossibly cumbersome and costly, but we cannot cut it down to size. More dramatic inevitabilities are the explosions, the scientific explosion and the population explosion. … Our psychology, in brief, is that history is out of control. It is no longer something that we make but something that happens to us. (Goodman, p. 101)Jack Aylward (2012) carries the lantern of Goodman’s political psychotherapy forward in Gestalt Therapy and the American Experience in both his resurrection of Goodman’s politics and in his praise for his contributions to gestalt therapy and to society. “Goodman’s insights into the ways American society vulgarizes and perverts its institutions, especially its schools, and subverts human growth are even more valid today than when he published his ideas. Meanwhile, the resulting damage has grown more widespread and more profound” (Aylward, 2012, p. 31). Goodman himself is a bit more poetic:Schultz, the neighbors big black dog,Used to shit on our scraggly lawn,But we feed him marrow bonesAnd he treats his lawn like our own home.The kids of Fulton Houses in New YorkSmashed windows on our pretty block for spite;We gave them hockey sticks to play withAnd they smashed more windows.The dog is an anarchist like me,He has a careless dignity- that is, we never think about it,which comes to the same thing.The kids are political like you,They want to win their dignity. They won’t.But maybe their children will be friendly dogsAnd wag their tails with my grandchildren.(Goodman, P., 1972/1994, pgs. 73-74)Politics in Gestalt Therapy In the world of gestalt therapy “politics” is multifaceted. There are the political dimensions of the praxis, the politics of theoretical differences, and the politics of power between organizations and institutes. Theoretical differences – for instance, the East coast/West coast debates of the 1980s and 1990s – have been explored and at least partially resolved in the era of globalization and electronic media (see Resnick, 1984; Bowman & Nevis, 2005 for further discussion). Likewise, the sturm and drang of organizational politics in gestalt therapy has been elucidated elsewhere. Perhaps more important in today’s polarized political climate is what gestalt therapy theory offers in terms of expressing, exploring and assimilating differences. Gestalt therapy has a contribution to make on a sociological level and no one was clearer about that contribution than Paul Goodman. Taylor Stoehr identified Goodman’s most famous work, Growing Up Absurd, as a sequel to Gestalt Therapy. Whereas Gestalt Therapy focused on abnormal psychology and contact disturbances, Growing Up Absurd was a discourse on abnormal sociology (Stoehr, 1993). Goodman saw therapeutic interventions as political acts, a view informed by his communitarian and anarchistic philosophies. He further developed these ideas in Growing Up Absurd and would expand the concept of contact disturbances beyond the individual to include social processes (Aylward, 1999). Aylward captures the interplay of psychotherapy and social activism:Given this admixture of individual psychological dynamics and social as well as political phenomena that serves as contributors to self formation, an anarchistic perspective is indeed an appropriate orientation when defining matters of an individual's connections to the world. Thus, any interactions oriented towards taking down the walls of social restriction and dogma will often occur simultaneously when working therapeutically in confronting personal inhibitions that serve as obstacles to growth. In such encounters, ?the therapist plays a dual role in directing awareness to both the healing of personal and social disruption, thereby momentarily taking on the role of social activist, in the service of restoring an individual's innate self-regulative potential. (Aylward, 2018, p. 12-13).The extreme toxicity of today’s sociopolitical climate on a global scale brings politics and social upheaval into sharp relief. Understanding these dynamics on a sociological level informs psychotherapeutic intervention as well as social activism. We turn our attention to the toxic phenomena of American politics and finally to a discussion of dialogical intervention.Politics in the Consulting Room TodayOnly history will tell the magnitude of the impact of the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and the surprising election of Donald Trump. In the Spring of 2017 Psychology Today began a series titled “The Trump Effect” to address the increase in bullying in schools caused by the rhetoric used in the presidential campaign (Sword & Zimbardo, 2017). “The Trump effect” was subsequently expanded to include religious harassment, racial discrimination, misogyny, sexual assault, and a host of other socially unacceptable behaviors. In fact, “The Trump Effect” is expanding to include a host of experiences not solely attributable to Donald Trump! Earlier research (see Messing & Westwood, 2014) clearly demonstrates that selective exposure of logarithmic social media content increases polarization and exacerbates fragmentation of the citizenry. This has changed the social landscape on a global scale. These are the ways and means of a bifurcated, bitter and grossly antagonistic culture in America and abroad.Most certainly there has been an impact upon psychotherapists and their patients. The ongoing news feeds that include insults, accusations, and denials of every sort fuel the recollection of trauma experiences, significant anxiety, and other disruptions in contacting. Inger Burnett-Zeigler, Ph.D. Assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, offered this summary to Time magazine after the 2016 election: Several patients with histories of sexual abuse and self-image concerns told me that they experienced significant increases in anxiety. One reported that the constant news coverage triggered memories of her past sexual abuse, and another suffered frequent crying spells and difficulty sleeping.In the weeks since the election, many of my patients have come to therapy with anxiety, fear and worry. One patient said she felt a high level of “uncertainty” around what a Trump presidency would mean for her due to limited information about his policies. Another person reported days of often crying uncontrollably. (Burnett-Zeigler, 2016, NP). These are not isolated incidents. Both popular and professional psychology media (for instance, Psychology Today, Psychotherapy Networker, or APA Monitor) have carried such stories regularly since the 2016 election. Dr. Burnett-Zeigler’s patient’s and many others enter psychotherapy partially as a result of the field conditions created by the media reports of the bad behavior of government officials, celebrities, and other members of the elite or “ruling class.” These become background for the figural concerns brought for consultation such as unfinished business, current relationship issues, dysfunctional stress responses and the like. The field conditions created by the 24/7-news cycle and the animus of political polarization creates a condition that can be subsumed in the term “ground trauma.” When trauma is a part of the ground (in other words, background) the figures that emerge will have particular qualities since meaning is defined by the relationship of foreground to background (Perls et al., 1951/1994). Consistent exposure to political vitriol and violent images and language throughout the media configures the relational ground from which the self emerges. This becomes what Miriam Taylor refers to as the “traumatized field” (Taylor, in The Aesthetic of Otherness).The notion of ground trauma is a derivative of the work by Robert Lee and Gordon Wheeler. The original conception is that of ground shame (see Wheeler, 1997; Lee, 2004). The field in this sense (and in our lived experience, we would argue) is an essential and integral part of my self, as essential a realm of experience and connectedness as my own inner world. The field, that is, is "my world," in the same sense that my inner world is "mine;" and a break in identification,in this sense of ownership and self-identity on the "outer" level is actuallyas disturbing and potentially damaging as we know a break in thatkind of self-identity is when it is felt in relation to the "inner self" (seediscussion in Kohut, 1977). Of course, it goes without saying that such asense of break or alienation (literally, "otherness") in identification withthe "outer" world is one of the hallmarks of modem Western culture andidentity. Under this field model of the self, this is seen not as the"existential truth" of the human condition, but as the clinical pathologyof our times. (Wheeler, 1997, p. 234)And also: “This is a condition which the older, individualistic model doesn’t sufficiently stress and often ignores or deines: in particular, the development and growth of any healthy self in the field requires a field that includes other healthy (enough) selves” (Lee, 2004, p. 24)And also: Thus our constructivistic/intersubjective Gestalt field theory places a strong value not only on support for the individual but also on support for the environmental field. Hence Gestalt field theory provides not only a foundation for the previously mentioned guiding adage, “It takes a village to raise a child,” but also for an important modification of that adage: “It takes a healthy village to raise a healthy child.” Thus for healthy process to exist, there must be enough support for the environment” (Lee, 2004, p. 25).Difference, Dialogue & DissentLichtenberg (2009) attributes the consciousness-raising work of the 1970s Feminist movement and the 1960’s work of Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire with enhancing awareness so critical to social activism and to empowering the dialogical approach inherent in gestalt therapy as a mechanism for social change. Freire takes an astute and practical approach to dialogue, free from the argot of gestalt therapy theory:“Dialogue further requires an intense faith in humankind, faith in the power to make and remake, to create and recreate, faith in their vocation to be more fully human (which is a privileged of an elite, but the birthright of all)” (Freire & Macedo, 1968/2018, p. 88). ................
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