(This interview was conducted in July 2020, before the American Presidential election of November 2020.) I was drawn to Gestalt particularly because of its core philosophy of holism. To the strong sense of social responsibility I was born with, as I mentioned earlier, I also came in with a driving motivation to be as a whole a human being as I could be. Of course, my understanding of what it means to be a whole human being has changed over time as a result of my life experience. But the fundamental drive to learn and grow was innate from the start. So, the holism of Gestalt theory and methodology felt like home to me. I believe this theory reflects how people develop over time, and how people can be comfortable in their skin and comfortable in their social environment. Gestalt is a systems theory of behavior. We recognize the organism, the environment, and the boundary in between and treat all three as equally important in a person’s growth and development. So, as a psychological theory, it is based on an understanding of systems. Understanding how that operates on a practical basis has stood me in good stead in terms of my analysis of situations and my ability to design strategies to impact change in organizations and large social systems. Another profound element, which may be the most important in terms of how I inspire other people to take action, is the concept of presence. My time and experience at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland supported and enabled me to do the personal work necessary to cultivate the capacity to be as fully present in the moment as possible. I choose to do that in pretty much all circumstances. Many, many people spend most of their lives not fully present. When they encounter someone who is, they feel the difference. So, I think that both my understanding of the importance of a grounded and authentic presence, and my committing to that use of myself in teaching other people how to become more present, are core to all the work I have done. Another primary aspect of Gestalt theory is the figure-ground principle. An excellent example of this principle in my work is when, as the Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD), I was interviewed on NPR about the hyper-partisanship and deep divides in the country. At the end of the interview, I could almost see the reporter take off her professional hat when she said to me, “Carolyn, can I ask you a personal question?” I said, “Of course.” She said, “You’ve been at this a long time and I am just really curious. How do you really feel about this? Are you optimistic or are you pessimistic about this situation?” This interview took place long before COVID-19. We were talking about incivility, disrespect, how people were treating each other, and partisanship in politics. My response to her question came immediately and spontaneously. I certainly was not thinking about the figure/ground principle! I said, “You know, Stephanie, it all depends on where I put my attention. If I focus my attention on the president’s tweets, the dysfunction in Congress, the 24-7 headlines on cable news, and social media, I am very pessimistic about our ability to get out of this mess. But my feelings change completely if I focus my attention on what I see happening as we work in communities all across the country. We discover incredible activity and creativity in every community where ordinary people are stepping up to take action in their families, places of worship, and places of work.” These folks know how wrong it is to demonize and vilify someone just because they vote for the other party or hold a different view on an important policy issue. They know we have to reestablish respect and civility in how we treat each other if we are going to be able to live together. This is a wonderful example of the figure-ground principle in Gestalt theory. Of course, in my work, I do not talk about figure-ground. I help people understand what they are paying attention to, and how that impacts them and limits or supports their options for action. The NICD worked closely with the American Psychological Association when they were getting so many calls from their members regarding what to do about the numbers of people coming into their counseling sessions anxious or angry about the political situation in the country. One of the strategies we recommended was to ask clients to sign a contract to limit the amount of time they were watching TV or streaming news on their device. People were not sleeping well; they were emotionally upset, and yet they were constantly stimulating themselves by paying attention to news that was very disturbing. By reducing the amount of time we pay attention to news information that upsets us drastically, we can return to a more neutral internal space. The counselors also worked with their clients to identify where they could turn their attention that would be more positive; for example, taking a walk outdoors, or spending time with a friend. By the way, Gloria, I want to mention one other reason that I was so attracted to Gestalt as a theory of human behavior. That was discovering Paul Goodman’s work. He wrote about and emphasized the social activist roots of Gestalt from its earliest research work in Germany, as well as writing eloquently about the challenging issues of his time in this country. The fact that Gestalt has roots in social activism has always mattered to me. Given what I told you about how I believe social change happens, the advice I give to young people always has at least two elements. One is to be authentic. Be sure to have a discipline in your life that enables you to know your own interior well enough to stay in touch with who you really are. That, of course, will change and grow over time, but you need a discipline to understand how to stay in touch with your own core. You also need to be clear that committing to be a whole person is a lifelong process. As is so often said: it is a journey, not a destination. The second is that you need to be open and able to reflect on the possibility that you may have outgrown your combination of strengths and strategies, or that your context may have changed significantly enough to require new thinking and new strategies to continue to make a difference. Thus, we are back to personal awareness and behavior and paying attention to and understanding the systems you are operating to be a social activist who contributes positively and keeps the negative, unintended consequences of your actions to a minimum. One significant change in our society for young activists today compared to our society when I was a young activist is how women are treated. When we look back at the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement, we see how the men who were leaders in those movements were very disrespectful of and behaved oppressively toward women. Our society has evolved, and there is recognition that women have as much leadership capability as men do and should be supported to take equal leadership. This interview took place in July 2020 and made reference to current circumstances and social phenomena. Carolyn Lukensmeyer asked to add the following, given the dramatic changes we have gone through since July 2020.Since then, I have been asked many times whether President Biden can carry out that intention. The divides in the country have grown even deeper postelection, as former President Trump and his enablers continued to claim that the election was fraudulent and that Biden did not really win. This lie is a threat to our democracy going forward, and President Biden cannot heal the divides and unite the country on his own. It will take all of us dedicated to listening to one another and to showing respect to one another, as well as committing to defending the truth and defeating the lies. In words taken from President Biden’s Inaugural Address: “We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural against urban, conservative against liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. If we show a little tolerance and humility. If we are willing to stand in the other person’s shoes just for a moment.”For decades, my nonpartisan activism has been focused on strengthening American democracy. We came very close to losing it on January 6, 2021. For all of us who were fortunate enough to be born in this country or who chose it as our adopted home, now is a time when enough of us must come together so that we can all move forward to take on the multiple crises facing our people and our country. We did that after the Civil War, through the Great Depression and two World Wars, and after 9/11. For the sake of our democracy and the freedoms we all cherish, we must do it again now.