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 boundary between the organism and the environment – the contact boundary. This boundary is both physical and psychological. Physically, it refers to the organs involved in interaction with the world: the skin, the senses, breathing and movement. Psychologically, it refers to the realm in which the self and the external world come into contact, distinguish themselves from one another and influence one another.
This never takes place within a person alone: the contact style arises from the encounter; it is ‘not a one-person event’, ‘emergent from the dyad, not from the client’ (Fogarty et al., 2016, p. 39). Bloom (2022, pp. 72–73) elaborates on this idea: the contact boundary is not a line separating two pre-existing individuals from one another, but rather the place where contact and the self arise in the first place. Both participants ‘are emergent processes of the contact boundary’ (Bloom, 2022, p. 73): They emerge from it, rather than creating it. Spagnuolo Lobb sums this up in a single sentence: ‘the sense of self is built in contact with another’ (Spagnuolo Lobb, 2022, p. 20). Buber puts it as follows:
‘Man becomes an “I” through the “You”.’ (Buber, 2017, p. 34)
‘I become an “I” through the “You” […] All real life is encounter’ (Buber, 2017, p. 17)
Staemmler describes the same idea: in contrast to the ‘isolated, clearly defined and highly individualised self’, the self emerges ‘within a pre-existing relationality, that is, in relation to others’ (Staemmler, 2015, cited in Fuchs & Schmidsberger, 2024, p. 114).
Contact and relationship are two distinct concepts. ‘Relationship’, in the sense of alliance research, refers to the lasting bond between therapist and client, a prerequisite shared by all humanistic approaches (Bordin, 1979; Wampold, 2015). Contact, by contrast, refers to the event at the boundary of contact: the act in the here and now in which the self encounters the other as something different and embraces the new. Contact is the primary element here, and the lasting relationship only develops from repeated contact.
Contact presupposes two separate beings who remain distinct (Perls, Hefferline & Goodman, 1951/2019). Yontef defines contact accordingly as the experience of the boundary between ‘self’ and ’non-self’: engaging with the non-self whilst simultaneously maintaining a separate sense of self (Yontef, 1993). It is only this awareness of separateness that makes contact possible.
The boundary of contact is always situated within a broader context: the field.
Field theory dates back to Lewin (1936/1969) and was adapted for use in Gestalt therapy by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/2019). It is regarded as an important scientific foundation of Gestalt therapy (Fogarty et al., 2016, p. 38). Fuchs (2023, p. 115) explicitly classifies the Gestalt therapeutic concept of the field within the concepts of the ‘extended mind’ and ’embedded cognition’. An encounter is always embedded within an organism-environment field and, at the same time, extends beyond the skin boundary into a shared field (extended).
The consensus divides what this field encompasses into three aspects: the experiential, the relational and the wider, socio-historical-cultural field (wider field; Fogarty et al., 2016, p. 38). The relational field, understood as the space between two people, represents the site of the encounter. This space always exists as soon as two people face one another. Whether an encounter actually takes place within it, however, remains uncertain. This is precisely what Buber refers to as the ‘in-between’ (chapter 2.2): not the space itself, but the event that may or may not occur within it. The field is therefore always there. The ‘in-between’ must come about.
This field is not a state, but a process. Votsmeier-Röhr and Wulf (2024, p. 61) note that the effect does not arise unilaterally from the therapist to the client, but is reciprocal. This requires the therapist’s willingness to allow themselves and their own preconceptions to be transformed through dialogue. Fuchs (2023, p. 177) describes this reciprocity as horizontal circularity: the participants find themselves ‘in a self-generating dynamic of interaction that cannot be deduced from the behaviour of the individual partners’.
According to this understanding, suffering does not take place within the individual either: ‘The patient is ill; that is to say, their world is ill’ (van den Berg, 1972, p. 46, cited in Fuchs & Schmidsberger, 2024, p. 114). This alters the status of the therapeutic relationship: it is not merely a means of therapy, but also its purpose (Votsmeier-Röhr & Wulf, 2024, p. 58). It is not the therapist who treats the client, but rather both are participants in a shared ‘we-field’ that makes their encounter possible in the first place. The therapist thus recognises themselves as a ‘function of a field’ and interprets their bodily awareness as information about the current field constellation (Fogarty et al., 2016, p. 39).
Five principles describe how this field functions. They originate with Parlett (1991), are discussed by Wegscheider (2020, pp. 144–148) and are reflected in the international consensus (Fogarty et al., 2016, p. 38). Four of the five find a phenomenological counterpart in Fuchs’s work.
The principle of organisation (the field has a structure that has evolved from the history of interactions) means that an encounter never starts from scratch. In every encounter, a unique pattern forms between two people, one that depends on the system’s history: Fuchs (2023, pp. 109–110) describes this as the path dependence of bodily-embodied patterns. Even after years apart, one immediately resumes a familiar way of interacting with a good friend. The field ‘remembers’ bodily.
The principle of simultaneity: all aspects operate simultaneously. Within the emotional circle, the expression and impression of both parties are continuously and reciprocally modified. A circular process emerges in which even the mere contact of their gazes changes both of them (Fuchs, 2023, p. 112; cf. Chapter 2.3).
The principle of uniqueness states that every interaction generates a one-off, non-repeatable pattern. Who the client is at that very moment is recreated anew in this encounter: the question ‘Who am I now?’ has no fixed answer, but is a process of co-creation.
The principle of the changing process: the ‘we-field’ is recreated from moment to moment: it is not only the client who changes. Over time, the circular processes become spirals. Fuchs (2023, p. 178) speaks of a spiral dynamic in which both bodies change in response to one another (discussed in detail in Chapter 3.3).
Finally, the principle of potential relevance states that everything in the field can become significant. Its phenomenological counterpart is Fuchs’s ’living space’ (2023, p. 115): the space between two people is not measured in centimetres, but is physically felt: the same distance can feel close or far, narrow or wide, depending on what is happening between them. Every clearing of the throat, every exchange of glances, every sitting posture can carry weight and activate the emotional circle.
Whether this ‘in-between’ comes into being depends on two things: a field that responds, and a person who, in turn, responds. Fuchs (2023, p. 117) calls the former the ‘resonance space’ and the latter ‘responsiveness’.
The ‘resonance space’ is an environment that responds to a person’s expressions and provides appropriate opportunities in line with their potential: an ongoing circular feedback loop between a person’s expressions and the reactions of their environment, a ‘reciprocated interaction’. In practice, this means that the field is not a neutral container in which communication takes place. It responds of its own accord, underpinned by the therapist’s physical presence. The therapist shapes this space not only through what they say, but through the physical quality of their being. This becomes palpable as a bodily atmosphere. What Fuchs describes as a ’circle of feeling’ between two bodies (cf. Chapter 2.3) manifests itself in the therapy room as ‘tension in the air’, ‘subdued tension’ or ‘charged silence’ (Fuchs & Schmidsberger, 2024, p. 114).
Fuchs (2023, p. 117) adopts the second concept, responsiveness, from Waldenfels (1998): a person’s ability to respond to the demands of their environment without falling into conformism or dependence and without losing their ‘own stamp’. Responsiveness means a response in one’s own voice, not conformity and not mirroring. Bloom (2022, p. 78) has elaborated this responsive phenomenology within the context of Gestalt therapy as the ’responsivity of contacting’, distinguishing between two aspects: ‘responsivity’ – the allowing oneself to be touched that precedes every response – and ’responding’ – responding in one’s own voice. Contact only arises where both come together. This provides the phenomenological counterpart to the distinction ’resonance ≠ echo’ developed in section 2.2. The consensus also confirms this: dialogical work explicitly does not mean that the therapist mirrors or agrees with everything. On the contrary, genuine moments of dissonance are part of the process and must be made transparent (Fogarty et al., 2016, p. 36). One’s ‘own stamp’ is the condition that makes an encounter possible: without otherness, there is no ’in-between’.
If the boundary loses this ‘own stamp’, it becomes dysfunctional. To this end, Gestalt therapy, through Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/2019), has introduced the following terms to describe contact disturbances—that is, disturbances of the contact boundary itself:Footnote 1 The classical catalogue identifies, in an expanded form, seven contact styles (desensitisation, deflection, egotism, introjection, retroflection, projection, confluence), which the consensus reformulates as paired continua (Fogarty et al., 2016, pp. 38–39). This paper focuses on the four classical disorders that illustrate the axis of confluence and differentiation.
In confluence, the boundary dissolves: there is no longer a ‘distinctive mark’; in the terms of Fuchs (2023, p. 117), this is the loss of responsiveness, the slide into conformism. Where no one is any longer distinguished from the other, contact can no longer take place.
In retroflection, the boundary becomes rigid; the impulse to push outwards is turned against one’s own self: one’s living space narrows (following Fuchs, 2023, p. 115).
In projection, one’s own experiences (e.g. a feeling, an impulse, an intention) are attributed to the other rather than being recognised as one’s own.
In introjection, the boundary loses its filtering function: external norms are ‘swallowed’ uncritically. Fuchs (2023, p. 117) refers to this as the dependency ’that no longer allows one’s own stamp to be recognised’.
These patterns were once meaningful solutions, creative adaptations to a situation that allowed for nothing better (Fogarty et al., 2016, pp. 38–39). They manifest as relational patterns in our interactions with others, that is, in the ‘in-between space’ (Fuchs & Schmidsberger, 2024, p. 114).
All four patterns are underpinned by the same question: how much of one’s own identity is preserved in the interaction? The consensus describes this tension as a continuum of confluence and differentiation (Fogarty et al., 2016, pp. 38–39). Differentiation does not here imply distance, but rather that there are two entities at the boundary between whom something new can emerge. Buber described this as a dual movement: one can only enter into a relationship with a counterpart who has become autonomous (Buber, 1962, p. 412, cited in Votsmeier-Röhr & Wulf, 2024, p. 58). This primordial distance makes it possible to acknowledge the Other in their otherness, rather than reifying them (Votsmeier-Röhr & Wulf, 2024, p. 61; cf. Chapter 4.2). The Other exists as an ‘external Other’ independent of me, recognisable by the fact that they cannot be brought under control, repeatedly take me by surprise and do not always live up to my own expectations. ‘Otherness is not a consumable difference’ (Votsmeier-Röhr & Wulf, 2024, p. 88).
Those who belong to the field shape it through their actions. With every intervention, the therapist influences the field. This gives rise to a sense of responsibility (Wegscheider, 2020, p. 163 ff., following Yontef). The English term ‘response-able’ captures this precisely: being capable of responding means both taking responsibility for one’s own actions and remaining conscious of the fact that one is always helping to shape the field. The other person is ‘never merely an object of study’, but a fellow human being in distress, whose suffering is shared and acknowledged (Fuchs & Schmidsberger, 2024, p. 114).
How encounters take place at this boundary is the subject of the following chapter.