Cultural Field Conditions: A Hermeneutic Study of Consistency

Abstract

"Editor's Note: At the last seminar in November 2N4, organised for the benefit of the Friends of the British Gestalt Jourrwl, one of our distinguished guests was Frank-M. Staemmler, editor of the International Gestalt Journal, and himseH a long-term Friend of the BGJ in more senses than one. The paper he gave was much appreciated by those attending, and we invited Frank-M. Staemmler to gve us a written version (of necessity somewhat truncated). The paper (which appears below) is a reflection on the cultural field conditions that influence, even govern, the actual experiences of human beings, and which Gestalt therapists can ill afford to ignore. Before developing - in the second half - an extended example of the (usually) taken-for-granted influences of culture, he offers an overview of field theory as generally understood in the Gestalt therapy community, and argues that philosophical hermeneutics needs to supplement field theory and usefully provides a short introduction to hermeneutics. He then turns to developing his example, which is to show how the 'the appearance of consistency' is a powerfrrl and taken-for-granted social norm about how people should be and act within Westem culture, including within most schools of psychotherapy. Gestalt therapy with its theory of the 'mutable self', he suggests, takes up a 'hybrid position'. In the last section, Staemmler provides a penetrating and amusing survey of a number of 'discursive ploys... to create a credible impression of internal consistency'. In concluding, hs strggests that 'acceptance of inconsistencies provides the chance to live more creatively' and that, more generally, therapy cannot be comprehensive without 'hermeneutic investigation of the culture in which therapy takes place'. Key words: culture, field theory philosophical hermeneutics, life space, Gestalt therapy, consistency, unifi ed personality, splitting."