Abstract
Abstract The literature on the influence of phenomenology and existentialism on Gestalt therapy is controversial because its founders did not clarify its philosophical and epistemological foundations. However, we understand that various influences exerted on Perls and his collaborators during the development of the Gestalt therapy led to a phenomenological-existential approach. The possible influences of phenomenology and existentialism on Gestalt therapy are discussed based on literature review focusing on the influence of Gestalt psychology, through Goldstein, Laura Perls, and Goodman, and the approaches to the phenomenological ideas of Brentano, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. Similarly, with regard to existentialism, we address the combination of Gestalt concepts with the philosophies of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Buber, and Sartre. It was concluded that the influence of phenomenology and existentialism on Gestalt therapy resulted in the conception of man as a being-in-the-world and an emphasis on past experiences.
Highlights
The literature on the influence of phenomenology and existentialism on Gestalt therapy is controversial because its founders did not clarify its philosophical and epistemological foundations
A literatura sobre a influência da fenomenologia e do existencialismo na Gestalt-terapia é controversa, pois seus fundadores não se ocuparam em esclarecer seus fundamentos filosófico-epistemológicos
Conclui-se que a influência da Fenomenologia e do Existencialismo na Gestalt-terapia proporciona uma concepção de homem como ser-no-mundo e uma ênfase na experiência vivida
Summary
Some possible phenomenological influences on Gestalt therapy based on different approaches were identified: The Influence of Goldstein, Laura Perls, and Goodman. Müller-Granzotto and Müller-Granzotto consider that the phenomenology described in “Gestalt Therapy”, a masterpiece by Perls et al (1951/1997), is not similar to that found in Husserl’s (1900-1901/1980) work since the work of the Gestalt therapists is imbued with the influence of Goldstein’s ideas of organismic self-regulation: The clinical cases and Goldstein’s ideas give Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, as well as Merleau-Ponty, almost contemporaneously, basis to understand a pre-objective significance which is modified or compromised in the patients and about which the explanatory models in the natural sciences and philosophical subjectivism remain silent The phenomenology inferred from the Gestalt therapy is no longer the eidetic phenomenology of the transcendental quest for the essences of the first Husserl’s work (1900-1901/1980) but rather the phenomenology which, based on Kurt Goldstein’s concept of the organism/environment, is similar to the mundane phenomenology of MerleauPonty (1945; 1960; 1964/1984): “instead of being a rigorous science, phenomenology has become, according to Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman, a description of the radical irreducibility of the experience of coexistence”
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