On the Good Use ofIncohérence

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe author relates his encounter with different concepts from the theory of gestalt therapy, both during his own training and also much later. He shows how difficult it seemed to him to reconcile some of these concepts with his own worldview, his own theoretical or methodological choices, and his personality. He also reveals how this incoherence drove him to explore other avenues in this direction and thereby build for himself a coherence of a different type, all the while striving to remain true to the basic principles of foundational gestalt therapy. He insists on the experiential character of the feeling of coherence or incoherence.1 He indicates how the creation of a new coherence leads to the emergence of new inconsistencies, and how this movement both avoids death-inducing fixations and turns out to be the expression of the vitality of reflection.