Research question

RQ 3

What makes Gestalt therapy particularly valuable in the age of artificial intelligence?

Verbatim from Ch. 1.4 — Research Questions

The thesis’ answer

The thesis answers this question in Ch. 6.1.3 — FF3 – The special value of Gestalt therapy.

Key passages

1. Ch. 3.1 3.1 Embodied & Emotive: Awareness and bodily self-resonance

   In Gestalt therapy, ever since Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/2019), ‘awareness’ has not meant reflecting on oneself, but rather the alert, bodily anchored attention to the present experience at the boundary of contact. The difference …

2. Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field

   Gestalt therapy breaks with the idea of an isolated inner space in which the ‘psyche’ takes place. In its place, Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/2019) propose the Self: it does not take place within, but occurs as a process at the …

3. Ch. 3.3 3.3 Enacted: Presence in the Here and Now

   Since its inception, Gestalt therapy has taken a clear stance: change does not occur through insight into past events, but through their tangible unfolding in the present moment (Perls, Hefferline & Goodman, 1951/2019). The reason lies in …

4. Ch. 6.1 6.1 Interpretation of the results

   As a method, Gestalt therapy is a form of relational medicine in the sense described by Fuchs (Chapter 3). It works with bodily enactment (3.1), with the contact boundary and the field (3.2), and with what is happening in the here and now …

5. Ch. 6.3 6.3 Outlook

   This is the Embodied Cure: healing as a physically present encounter between two people who endure one another. This work is written out of the conviction that, particularly in the age of machines, this counts not less but more.

Chapters addressing this question