Gestalt Therapy: Now and for Tomorrow

Abstract

AbstractGestalt therapy introduced an epistemology to psychology that challenges the mechanistic, technical, and outcome-oriented approaches of scientism and globalization. Gestalt therapy is ready to articulate this epistemological and ontological shift from heroic utilitarianism to reverent hospitality. The Gestalt therapy concept of growth includes the ability of the organism to co-create (together with its environment) a place where organismic needs and the resources for life converge to provide a place of human habitation. By invoking a place of habitation or, in some instances, rehabilitation, Gestalt therapy offers more than mere cure. It is concerned with healing. Rehabilitation appeals to and summons up a place of belonging, a place to inhabit that represents home to each of us. There cannot be healing without rehabilitation, and there cannot be rehabilitation without healing. This process of journeying and dwelling, which is the activity of psychotherapy, is an invitation to sacred ground. A sick environment and community is just as debilitating for the person as a suffering soul. A healer for our times is required to care for the environment and the community by addressing a range of political and socio-economic issues such as globalization, as well as the transpersonal and spiritual interiority of people's souls.