Book Review: Handbook for Theory, Research, and Practice in Gestalt Therapy

Having recently completed the near-impossible task of attempting to identify and relate for the 3^rd edition of the Handbook of Counselling Psychology the major therapeutic orientations which might be said to fit meaningfully into the 'humanistic approaches' category rather than any other, I found myself entranced by this elegant little hardback book. Creating the counselling psychology chapter reminded me that there is often more which links those of us within this broad humanistic frame than there is that divides us. At this point in the development of therapy, when we can so readily (and with good reason) feel our work is unappreciated and undervalued in the politically driven demand for evidence-based research, it is heartening to see how an international group of gestalt theorists and clinicians have found it possible to band together to make a strong case for their approach – and make it on their own terms and from a deepening of their own philosophy.

It may seem perverse to refer to a 351-page long Handbook as 'small', but the diminutive reflects both its pleasing compact size and also the affection which I felt for it as I carried it around with me. Good books, by which I mean books which in some sense 'feed' us, can come to feel remarkably familiar, and I quickly discovered my resonance with this particular text. It is worth saying (since aesthetics have a role to play in the way we relate to books as anything else) that the production quality of this text make it a delight to hold. It is beautifully constructed and formatted on thick paper. Still more importantly, it is intellectually weighty and provides that rare thing – both a sound and engaging commentary on gestalt psychology (contributors are well-respected figures within the gestalt community) and an exploration of the contribution of this approach to psychotherapy research. It is sometimes said, often in the course of that discussion of the need for evidence-based practice which seems, like white noise, to constitute the background to all our activities at present, that gestalt therapy (along with existential therapy and person-centred therapy) does not lend itself to rigorous research, does not promote research mindedness, or even is antagonistic to research. Each of these orientations has made inroads to counter such ill-informed contentions, and in doing so has begun to set out its stall with regard to the distinctive contribution it can make to our understanding of 'research'. Person-centred therapists have, arguably, been quickest off the mark in this respect. This new text provides a powerful corrective to misconceptions of the relationship between gestalt therapy and research and is, I believe, very successful in formulating what Ervin Polster refers to as 'creating the third leg of a tripod composed of theory, practice and research, promising increased balance and support for gestalt therapy's theoretical and procedural positions'.

This certainly feel like the right time for this book, and a positive response to the felt-need to stake out the ground by which to think about research in gestalt therapy may provide inspiration for existential therapists travelling a similar journey. I found Brownwell et al.'s discussion of the need for gestalt therapy to have a 'warrant' – be seen as warranted – an engaging way to begin this journey, though personally I didn't travel very far down the theological/spiritual road with them. They state that they advocate an organized systematic approach to the evaluation of gestalt therapy that includes theory and research as means by which warrant is achieved. What follows, and constitutes the ground or case for gestalt therapy, is structured as three related sections: a discussion of science and research, a description of the method of gestalt therapy, and a vision for the establishment of a gestalt therapy research tradition.

A considerable strength of the book throughout is the case contributors make for recognition of the wider significance of concepts, chief among them 'relational thinking' for psychology and therapy generally. It is also interesting to note how, in practice, the contributors, while drawn from an international gestalt community, compliment and enhance rather than conflict with each other. As examples of this, and indicative of that material which might be of most relevance to existential-phenomenological readers, in Part One, A Ground by Which to Think About Research in Gestalt Therapy, Eva Gold and Stephen Zahn contextualize what follows by showing clearly how gestalt therapy has engaged with research, and how it needs to 'creatively adjust' to the current zeitgeist if it is to survive and flourish. They argue that gestalt therapists need to go beyond playing the 'empirically validated' game in order to conduct real world research which is of relevance to the problems of living faced by clients. Paul Barber and Philip Brownwell, in their chapter on Qualitative Research build on this foundation to 'illuminate a journey of qualitative inquiry through the imaginative study of a team of gestalt trainers'. In so doing, they also provide a concise guide to qualitative research methodologies, and the philosophy which informs each. Part Two, A Method Worth Investigating, presents contributions by, among others, Gary Yontef and Talia Levine Bar-Yoseph on Dialogical Relationship, and Tod Burnley and Dan Bloom on Phenomenological Method. It is always refreshing to see our chosen way of working as it is used by therapists from a different orientation, particularly when, as in the case of gestalt therapy, it is its cornerstone. At some points while reading Burnley and Bloom I felt the similarities far outweighed the differences; I could quite easily see the following quote, for instance, as a description of working with aspects of self construct and sedimentation:

The phenomenological method in Gestalt therapy involves a process that seeks to discover how the client's beliefs, and her understanding of the events and persons in her life, function in the client's own organization of experience, and therefore how they function as the ground of her cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses to current and ongoing situations. As these things come more clearly into the client's awareness during the therapeutic process, and as she experiments with and explores aspects of life that had seem fixed (though, in fact, they were intrinsically dynamic and mutable), her initial organization begins to "loosen", to become less stuck and more fluid as she begins to rethink old beliefs and try new behaviours. (Crocker and Philippson 2005, 69)

This serves to remind me (as Yontef and Bar-Yoseph point out) that 'the practice of gestalt therapy is systematized around interpersonal contact – relational processes – rather than around techniques'…and in this respect it shares a common heritage with existential-phenomenological therapy. As to the challenge of establishing and pursuing research congruent with and utilizing the insights of gestalt therapy, it is possible to question the extent to which the contributors, having described their way of working therapeutically, and having made explicit their concerns about how research is conducted, have been able to go on to present specific ways of doing research which honour the best of gestalt theory and gestalt therapy. In some respects this book closes in the midst of this very important debate. Having said this, the positive aspect is that it closes in an energized place in which the possibilities and opportunities themselves are highlighted and the journey has begun.

Simon du Plock

Reference

Crocker, S., and Philippson, P. (2005). Phenomenology, existentialism, and eastern thought in gestalt therapy. In Wold, A. and Toman, S. (eds) Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory and Practice. London: Sage.