1st Edition
From the Radical Center The Heart of Gestalt Therapy
This remarkable collection traces central themes in the work of Erving and Miriam Polster, two of the best-known and best loved Gestalt therapists in the world. The writings herein span 4 decades in the history of psychotherapy, bringing together practical, theoretical and aesthetic dimensions of the Polsters' work in a single book. Ranging across diverse subjects and distinct historical periods, the work collected in this volume will educate, provoke, inspire and nourish Gestalt therapists for years to come.
Prologue
I. Setting the Stage
- A Contemporary Psychotherapy
- The Language of Experience
- Sensory Functioning in Psychotherapy
- Women in Therapy: A Gestalt Therapist's View
- Gestalt Therapy: Evolution and Application
II. Transformation of Principles
- Therapy Without Resistance: Gestalt Therapy
- Escape from the Present
- Tight Therapeutic Sequences
- Every Person's Life is Worth a Novel
- The Therapeutic Power of Attention
- The Self in Action: A Gestalt Outlook
- Translating Theory into Practice: Martin Heidegger and Gestalt Therapy
- Commonality and Diversity in Gestalt Therapy
- In Memory of Carl Rogers: Great Men Cast Great Shadows
III. The Role of Community
- Encounter in Community
- Eve's Daughters: The Forbidden Heroism of Women
- Individuality and Communality
- Beyond One to One
- It's Only the Most Recent Year of the Woman
- Coda
- What's New?
Biography
Erving Polster, Miriam Polster
"The Polsters have put forth an original body of work which distinguishes itself not only by its theoretical bravado, but by its intention to include and acknowledge a great variety of dissonant perspectives within Gestalt therapy. The energy resulting from their effort leaps off the page."
- Arthur Roberts, Ph.D.
