Concept
Field
Field theory dates back to Lewin (1936/1969) and was adapted for use in Gestalt therapy by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/2019). […] The relational field, understood as the space between two people, represents the site of the encounter.
Excerpted verbatim from the thesis · Ch. 3.2 — 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
Related concepts
Contact boundaryIntercorporealitythe in-between5E cognition
Occurrences in the text
- Ch. 1.3 1.3 Objective
… ther than reject outright: it determines what AI can achieve as a tool in the therapeutic field and derives recommendations for responsible use from this.
- Ch. 1.3 1.3 Objective
… Gestalt therapeutic concepts such as bodily awareness, working within the intersubjective field at the boundary of contact, and immediate presence in the ‘here and now’ cultivate precis …
- Ch. 2.3 2.3 Inter-corporeality and intersubjectivity: the bodily realisation of the encounter (as the core of the therapeutic relationship)
… the basis for transference and countertransference. The regulation of the intersubjective field takes place, for the most par , implicitly, non-verbally and unconsciously (Stern, 2005, …
- Ch. 2.3 2.3 Inter-corporeality and intersubjectivity: the bodily realisation of the encounter (as the core of the therapeutic relationship)
It is within this implicit field that the decisive turning points occur. Stern calls them ’Now Moments’: sudden moments of …
- Ch. 3 3 Gestalt therapy as relational medicine in practice
… ounds to investigate what constitutes the specific identity of Gestalt therapy within the field of psychotherapy and to what extent its therapeutic approach can be distinguished from ot …
- Ch. 3 3 Gestalt therapy as relational medicine in practice
The remaining five key concepts (phenomenological approach, working with embodiment, field sensitivity, contact processes and the experimental attitude) are summarised in three gui …
- Ch. 3 3 Gestalt therapy as relational medicine in practice
… is being worked with: body and feeling (Chapter 3.1) Where does the encounter take place: field and contact boundary (Chapter 3.2) How does it unfold: the concrete execution (Chapter 3. …
- Ch. 3.1 3.1 Embodied & Emotive: Awareness and bodily self-resonance
… perceives their own bodily processes during the session and thus co-creates an ’embodied field’ together with the client (Fogarty et al., 2016, p. 38). By calibrating their bodily pres …
- Ch. 3.1 3.1 Embodied & Emotive: Awareness and bodily self-resonance
… thing in and out in unison, two hearts beating in unison, four feet within the co-created field. The two bodies communicate on a level beneath language, and the therapist becomes a seis …
- Ch. 3.1 3.1 Embodied & Emotive: Awareness and bodily self-resonance
… ot as an inner world, but as an embodied process that manifests itself in the “phenomenal field” of the I-You encounter. […]” (Fuchs, 2023, p. 182, abridged)
- Ch. 3.1 3.1 Embodied & Emotive: Awareness and bodily self-resonance
Gestalt therapy understands the person as an organism within a field and, following Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951/2019), assumes that this organism poss …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
The boundary of contact is always situated within a broader context: the field.
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
Field theory dates back to Lewin (1936/1969) and was adapted for use in Gestalt therapy by Perls, Heff …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
The consensus divides what this field encompasses into three aspects: the experiential, the relational and the wider, socio-his …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
This field is not a state, but a process. Votsmeier-Röhr and Wulf (2024, p. 61) note that the effect …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
… 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 th …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
Five principles describe how this field functions. They originate with Parlett (1991), are discussed by Wegscheider (2020, pp. 14 …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
The principle of organisation (the field has a structure that has evolved from the history of interactions) means that an encounte …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
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, th …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
Finally, the principle of potential relevance states that everything in the field can become significant. Its phenomenological counterpart is Fuchs’s ’living space’ (2023, …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
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 …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
… ions 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 acc …
- Ch. 3.2 3.2 Embedded & Extended: The Contact Boundary and the Field
Those who belong to the field shape it through their actions. With every intervention, the therapist influences the fie …
- Ch. 3.3 3.3 Enacted: Presence in the Here and Now
… and how the therapist, through their own bodily presence (Chapter 3.1) within the shared field (Chapter 3.2), can gently make this point accessible again.
- Ch. 3.3 3.3 Enacted: Presence in the Here and Now
… erated, for example through the trusting therapeutic relationship itself’. In this way, a field grows between the therapist and the client that becomes deeper and more sustainable. The …
- Ch. 3.3 3.3 Enacted: Presence in the Here and Now
Body (Chapter 3.1), field (Chapter 3.2) and presence (Chapter 3.3) are three perspectives on one and the same proce …
- Ch. 4.2 4.2 The missing contact boundary: simulation instead of encounter
… o the ‘empty chair’, even though the chair has not encountered the client. The relational field is maintained by the therapist who is present, and the encounter takes place between huma …
- Ch. 4.2 4.2 The missing contact boundary: simulation instead of encounter
… t experiment, asks how a therapist would have to behave in order to create as confluent a field as possible: explaining to the client how everything works and exactly what she can do to …
- Ch. 5.1 5.1 Effectiveness, Areas of Application and the Concept of a Tool
Alongside clinical symptom management, AI is opening up a second, less controversial field: the administrative and organisational support of therapeutic practice. The technology-or …
- Ch. 5.1 5.1 Effectiveness, Areas of Application and the Concept of a Tool
… projects a relational ‘other’ onto it and because the therapist maintains the relational field around the chair work. Anyone who is moved in such a moment is in inner contact with them …
- Ch. 6 6 Conclusion and Outlook
… r 3 demonstrated what, where and how Gestalt therapy heals: through the body, through the field between the participants, and through the here and now. Chapter 4 explained why AI fails …
- Ch. 6.1 6.1 Interpretation of the results
… uchs (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 (3.3); and it is precisely these th …
- Ch. 6.3 6.3 Outlook
This brings this work full circle. Therapy requires a body, a field and a present-moment process. Healing occurs where two people subject themselves to what …