Concept network
Concepts of the thesis
27 key concepts, each with a verbatim short definition from the thesis, all occurrences and related concepts. Also accessible via the graph view.
5E cognition
Human experience is always simultaneously embodied, that is, bound to the living organism (the body). It is enactive, arising in action …
Awareness
In Gestalt therapy, ever since Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/2019), ‘awareness’ has not meant reflecting on oneself, but rather the …
Confluence
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 …
Contact boundary
Gestalt therapy breaks with the idea of an isolated inner space in which the ‘psyche’ takes place. In its place, Perls, Hefferline and …
Contact cycle
a need arises, takes shape, becomes a figure and finds its form in successful contact before receding back into the background. Originally, …
Digital animism
Our tendency to animate and imbue lifeless AI with a soul is evidently powerful — one might speak of a form of digital animism.
Embodied Cure
This is the Embodied Cure: healing as a physically present encounter between two people who endure one another.
Experiment
This quality finds its clinical expression in the Gestalt therapeutic experiment. It emerges from the material that arises in the encounter …
Extended empathy
Extended empathy is built upon this foundation: the conscious imagination of what it is like to be in that person’s life situation.
Field
Field theory dates back to Lewin (1936/1969) and was adapted for use in Gestalt therapy by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/2019). […] …
I-Thou / I-It
The I-It attitude is one of observation, analysis and categorisation. The other becomes an object that I can experience, assess, classify …
Implicit relational knowledge
Stern, to whom Fuchs also refers (Fuchs, 2023, p. 178), speaks of implicit relational knowledge: ’ ’ The deepest knowledge of how a person …
Intercorporeality
According to Fuchs (2023, p. 107), when two people meet, an overarching system emerges that is characterised by ‘intercorporeality’. …
Iterated empathy
The third stage is iterative empathy: mutual awareness. ‘I feel that you are feeling with me, and you feel that I sense this.’ Both know …
Leib / lived body
Thomas Fuchs, to whom the following chapter is devoted, stays with the same image and provides the answer: he describes the body as a …
McTherapy
Ultimately, there is the danger of what might be termed ’McTherapy’: a standardised, readily available, off-the-shelf form of relationship …
Moment of Meeting
If such a moment leads to a genuine encounter, a ’moment of meeting’ arises, and within it the implicit relational knowledge of both …
Now Moment
Stern calls them ’Now Moments’: sudden moments of heightened affective tension that shake the familiar relational context and demand an …
Primary empathy
The first and most fundamental level is primary empathy: the involuntary, bodily resonance with the other. The facial and gestural …
Resonance
This mode of relationship is characterised by four elements: mutual contact (affection), influence (self-efficacy), transformation and …
Resonance ≠ echo
expressly emphasise that resonance is not to be understood as an echo-like relationship, but as a responsive relationship: an echo merely …
Second-person perspective
Finally, the second-person perspective describes how the client presents themselves physically, in the encounter in the here and now. In …
Self-resonance
One’s own physicality is an important diagnostic tool in the therapeutic process. This ‘self-resonance’ refers to the awareness of one’s …
Sycophancy
Sycophancy’ refers to the tendency of language models to agree with the user and confirm their viewpoint, even if it is inaccurate or …
the in-between
According to Buber, healing does not take place in the therapist’s mind or in the client’s mind, but in the intersubjective space between …
Therapeutic triad
The therapeutic triad clearly defines the roles: the AI is the tool, the therapist is the ‘you’, and the encounter takes place exclusively …
Unavailability
Resonance can neither be forced nor prevented: no method and no step-by-step guide can guarantee that a person will enter into resonance.