Identity House and a Gestalt Experiment Revisited

Abstract

What I learned from readings and studies on the Gestalt approach has framed my way of working with individuals and in groups struggling to change the society around us. The need for that struggle began early in life.From my father and mother I received messages of social justice: how the world is, and how the world should be. My first remembered political action was when I must have been around 14 years old. I went down to Washington, DC, for the Youth March for Integration. Forward to other marches for civil rights, against the Vietnam War. I picketed our Bronx White Castle and demonstrated in Times Square against the resumption of nuclear weapons testing. When I was attacked by mounted police, my dad comforted me, and related his stories of police hitting hard on union strikers. He advised me it was always good to carry a pin to stab the horses.In college student government, I believed we had a right to comment on the world around us, not just confine ourselves to campus matters. And a duty to act. Paul Goodman’s two works, Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life (1947) and Growing Up Absurd (1960) were part of my being. My social justice DNA propelled me to become a city planner. This was my way to make a better world. Then Chile, the Peace Corps. We saw our mission of bringing “power to the people” by helping our communities forcefully participate in the decisions shaping their lives.I returned to the US post–Stonewall riots (a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community June 28–July 3, 1969). Through personal relationships, I became involved with the LGBT peer counseling center Identity House. Unbeknownst to me, this organization was Gestalt informed. Created by people believing in consensus decision-making, gender equality, and letting emerge from the group what was important, many of these founders were part of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy (NYIGT), trained by the first generation of Gestalt practitioners. Here was my conjuncture of the personal and the political. With each person I counseled, I modeled a publicly out gay man. To present that was revolutionary; to support others in becoming that was a change in the wider world. To work in this way felt liberating and enlivening. The bait was out there. I wanted more of this Gestalt teaching, and so I entered into theory groups and practica of the NYIGT.Using what we were learning at the NYIGT, several of us helped organize a community-based group, the Chelsea Gay Association. We brought people together along expressed needs and created gatherings in small groups followed by larger groups connecting all. Small step on small step, we built a visible organization establishing a presence in the neighborhood, moving anti-violence measures forward, promoting theatrical endeavors, and creating alliances with other local groups pushing forward gay rights legislation in the City Council.Eventually, I became a psychotherapist. Simultaneously, I found work with a firm representing labor unions. My connection with labor is now of many years. I try to bring to my union work what I have learned in the Gestalt approach: listening; helping people to find their voice, to speak to one another; supporting others to assume leadership. Using my Gestalt perspective to strengthen unions creates a more effective fight for social equity and justice.