Gestalt Therapy as an Emancipatory Psychology for a Transmodern World

Abstract

Abstract The article discusses the unprecedented levels of social turbulence facing people at the dawn of the 21st century that stem from macrolevel economic, technological, demographic, and cultural shifts. The case is made that the effects of this turbulence can be felt in both private and public life and are manifested by rising levels of individual and social anxiety and dysfunction. If they are to survive, societies and individuals are forced to find mechanisms to cope with, adapt to, or transform this anxiety. The alternative is nihilism and chaos. All cultures invest efforts to raise individuals with self-structures adapted to life in that culture. The constructivist argument is made that premodern cultures have produced premodern selves and modern cultures have produced the modern selves that are the focus of most 20th-century psychology and psychotherapy. As cultures shift to become postmodernist, a new model self-structure will be required if we are to avoid a future that is either repressive or chaotic. Gestalt therapy in particular, and humanistic psychology in general are examined as potential transformational psychologies that could serve emancipatory ends for individuals and groups by helping them achieve the higher orders of mind and the more adaptable forms of organizational structures demanded by the postmodern world. The article ends by enumerating suggested requisite components of a postmodern psychology.