1st Edition

Sketches An Anthology of Essays

By Joseph C. Zinker Copyright 2001
    216 Pages
    by Gestalt Press

    216 Pages
    by Gestalt Press

    To all of those familiar with the Gestalt model and its many creative extensions and applications, the name Joseph Zinker needs no introduction. A master Gestalt therapist and a cofounder of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, Joseph trained with Fritz Perls in the 1960's and has been influential in the growth and development of Gestalt theory and methodology for over three decades.

    His groundbreaking 1976 book, Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy, remains a best-seller and classic. It eloquently presents his unique contributions to the Gestalt method including dreamwork as theater, the choreography of expressive movement, experiment, and application of the arts to psychotherapy. In his most recent book, In Search of Good Form: Gestalt Therapy with Couples and Families, (Analytic Press, 1998) Joseph inspires a return to Gestalt therapy with couples and families, Joseph inspires a return to Gestalt therapy's roots in humanism, holism, and faith in the creative power of growth and integration that resides in each of us.

    Aside from his books, he has published many articles on psychotherapy, the arts, and the phenomenology of love. In recent years his focus has been on the development of couple and family therapy. He now leads workshops around the world and is well know as an engaging teacher, helping and inspiring therapists and lay people alike. Joseph has experienced drama and struggle in his rich life, resulting in a deep compassion for his fellow man. He is seen as lively and creative, at times funny, at others deeply moving as he lovingly reaches out to workshop participants.

    Forword - Paul Shane
    Preface - Joseph Zinker
    I. There and Then 
    1. Apperceptive Mass: My Grounding
    2. Searching for Clarity 
    II. On Being a Therapists 
    3. The Therapist As Artist
    4. Presence as Evocative Power in Therapy
    5. Notes to a Student
    6. Synthetic Thinking
    7. Phenomenology of the Here and Now
    8. On Grandparently Love
    9. Polemics, Systems and the Nature of Interventions
    III. On Being a Client 
    10. Excerpts from Rosa Lee
    11. Entitlement: A Meditation for the Psychotherapy Client
    12. In Search of a Therapeutic Eclecticism (with Irving Bailin) 
    IV. In Dialogue
    13. Discussions with the Masters (with Robert Harman)
    14. Interview with Joseph C. Zinker
    15. Lies in Intimate Systems (with Sonia Nevis)
    16. Why Children? (with Sonia Nevis and Edwin Nevis)
    17. Marriage: The Impossible Relationship (with Sonia Nevis)

    Biography

    Joseph C. Zinker, Ph.D., is a founding fellow of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, where he served as chair of the postgraduate training faculty. He teaches the Gestalt model of couple and family therapy in workshops and training programs throughout the world. A previous book, Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy (1976) remains a classic work in the field.

    "This is a rich and generous book, humane without being maudlin, instructive without being dull, clear without oversimplification.  Zinker's discussion of the theory and practice of working with couples and families is itself an embodiment of good form.  Both neophyte and seasoned professional will enlarge their appreciation of the beautiful drama of working with couples and families as a consequence of reading it."

    - Ira S. Rosenbaum, Ph.D., Walden University

    "I've never heard a Gestalt therapist so clearly articulate aesthetic principles, while at the same time embedding these principles in concrete examples and practical suggestions. In Search of Good Form is extremely practical for practicing therapists, while also being philosophically interesting and original."

    - Ilene Serlin, Ph.D., Saybrook Institute Graduate School and Research Center

    "In this age of 'managed' care, when therapy is being thought of more as a business than a profession, Zinker brings a fresh artistics perspective to couple and family therapy. Not only does he provide a useful, down-to-earth theoretical method, but he tells us how and when to intervent."

    - Joseph Melnick, Ph.D., Editor, Gestalt Review