The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt

Therapy: A Suggestion for a New

Configuration of Theory
Kathleen Höll, MA
[email protected]

abstract | The concept of the “self” in Gestalt therapy has not, to the
author’s mind, been fully developed, making it a “heterogenous introject,” an
amalgam of theoretical concepts from different scientific sources. This may
explain why some therapists of the first generation have not even attempted
to define “self” at all, while others have tried to develop this concept in vari-
ous directions. As a consequence, to date no concise gestalt of the “self” has
emerged. The author explores some current philosophical approaches to the
self as well as recent scientific research to have a more precise idea of how
this concept can be understood. By taking into account the central concept of
“gestalt,” we can gain more clarity regarding the fundamental characteristics of
Gestalt therapy. The author concludes with a basic structure for a new config-
uration of theory.

keywords | self, Gestalt theory, image of woman/man, Gestalt therapy

theory

Gestalt Review, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2020

DOI: 10.5325/gestaltreview.24.1.0033
Copyright © 2020 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
34 | Gestalt Review

Starting Point

The concept of “self ” is a core concept of Gestalt therapy, conveying

the essence of its understanding of human nature. Obviously, we have
not yet managed conclusively to arrive at a valid definition of “self ” that
is generally accepted by the Gestalt therapy community. The existing
definitions seem to be as numerous as the authors who have dealt with
the concept and to be drawn from different theoretical or philosophi-
cal contexts. Ginger () informs us that, already in the early days of
Gestalt therapy, several of the “great” Gestalt therapists—for example,
Miriam Polster, Erving Polster, Claudio Naranjo—ignored this concept,
while others, for example, Jim Simkin, explicitly called it into question
(). Thus, it is not so clear as is often maintained in the Gestalt therapy
literature what the definition of “self ” as a process could mean. “Self ” is
also interpreted differently in psychology as a whole; in psychoanalysis,
it is defined as the ego’s ideas about itself.
Linguistically, “self ” is a particle added to the word to which it is refer-
ring, underlining that only this word or person is meant and nothing
else. In the German language, we always have this notion in mind. This is
why the term “self ” produces a cognitive dissonance which, at best, can
be diminished but not dissolved by frequent use; it is not self-explana-
tory. According to Kepner’s () “diagnosis,” the self is a complex and
confusing concept that is of central importance for our self-regulation
in interaction with the environment. Moreover, it is an element of the
organism, difficult to define. Writing as a neuroscientist, Damasio ()
points out that the “self ” is a theoretical construct, which will remain
imperfect for time to come. It may therefore be beneficial to re-examine
the use of the concept of “self ” within Gestalt therapy. It has not been
operationalized to date and thus lacks any psychological evidence for
scientific substantiation.
The variety of examples of basic definitions inherited from our found-
ers reveals different linguistic styles. I do not agree with the “postmodern”
approach to Gestalt therapy (see Spagnuolo Lobb ; Höll ). In my
view, the special and enduring quality of Gestalt therapy comes from the
peculiarity of being part of a specific cultural development. A broad cul-
tural movement in the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth
century enriched the modern age with revolutionary contributions from
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 35

physics, psychology, philosophy, and the arts. Thus, Gestalt therapy can-
not be reduced to its “postmodern” aspects. Frederick Perls’s (b)
reminder that “there is no end to integration” () must be first applied
to the competing styles of today’s Gestalt therapy. Indeed, integration
should neither be confused with a pure addition of parts, nor with an
introjection of new elements. We may need to consult or develop con-
cepts on a level of higher complexity in Wertheimer’s () sense.
The Gestalt therapy concepts of the self are an amalgam of terminolo-
gies from at least three sources: psychoanalysis, Gestalt psychology/field
theory, and functionalism and pragmatism. There is little coherence. In
fact, we find a wide range of views expressed in a collection of articles
edited by Robine (), in which leading Gestalt therapists reveal that
we are currently witnessing the flourishing of a still greater range of con-
ceptual variations. A coherent conceptualization of subjectivity is there-
fore not yet in sight. Consequently, we still have not reached a “holistic
foundational theory of human nature,” as Kroschel () has pointed
out. The splitting of the human being into mind and body underlies this
theoretical deficit and is characteristic of Western culture. Descartes is
erroneously considered to be its originator, though what he implicitly
meant with his “cogito, ergo sum” was “I think, and that is why I know
that I exist.” His goal was to reassure himself; thus, as a philosophical
topic, he established self-awareness as the ultimate and indisputable
certainty (Gabriel ). He was trying to capture the prevailing reli-
gious view of the earthly Leib [body] and the transcendent soul or mind
by defining them as two different substances, matter and mind, which
interact. Many thinkers have since been troubled by this dualism.
The central theoretical question is: “How does the interaction between
mind and body work?” Regarded in a historical context, one finds the
European reflection on the “I” and finally on the “self ” embedded in a
struggle—between Greek philosophy, Christian dogmatics, philosophy
since the Enlightenment and, finally, scientific explanations—to develop
a valid view of human nature. The “self ” denotes a phenomenon that
mediates between the mental/psychological and the physical.
Freud () argues:

We have often heard it maintained that sciences should be built

up on clear and sharply defined basic concepts. In actual fact no
36 | Gestalt Review

science, not even the most exact, begins with such definitions. The
true beginning of scientific activity consists rather in describing
phenomena and then in proceeding to group, classify, and cor-
relate them. Even at the stage of description it is not possible to
avoid applying certain abstract ideas to the material in hand, ideas
derived from somewhere or other but certainly not from the new
observations alone. ()

Freud’s argument here can also be applied to Gestalt therapy. Today,

of course, we must also take the standards of the philosophy of sci-
ence into consideration. It makes sense to look at the circumstances
under which the concepts of the self were developed, and on which
theories they drew. Perls (b) urged writing “self ” with lower-case
letters; that “self ” simply means you yourself, and he indicated that
acceptance and rejection were the most important functions of
the self.
References to “self ” in Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman (, Chapter
) are also complicated. The self is described variously as follows:

• “the system of present contacts and the agent of growth” ();

• “the complex system of the contacts necessary for adjustment in
the difficult field” ();
• “self may be regarded as the ‘boundary’ of the organism, but the
boundary itself is not isolated from the environment; it contacts
the environment, it belongs to both, environment and organism”
();
• as “the system of contacts” the self always integrates perceptive–
proprioceptive functions, motor-muscular functions, and organic
needs ();
• “in contact situations the self is the power that forms the gestalt
in the field; or better, the self is the figure/background process in
contact-situations” ();
• “self ” is defined as an “actualization of the potential” ();
• “the self experiences itself as identifying with some of the
possibilities and alienating others” ()—here, the “self itself ”
may be looked at as a tautology.
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 37

These descriptions and definitions are often highly abstract. In cases

where the field concept is involved, we find definitions of the self as a
pure function of physiology, a function of the field, or the way the field
encloses the organism. In formulations like these, the aspect of subjec-
tivity has faded into insignificance.

Overall Assessment

We find a confusing collection of definitions with differing empha-

ses. It becomes clear that the noun “self ” suggests a reification—“the
self is . . .”—while the definitions describe “functions” and “processes.”
The term “function” is derived from the Chicago functionalist school.
In functionalism, mental processes fulfill certain functions for the
whole system. The material medium of these functions is consid-
ered negligible. Thus, it remains unclear whether these are mental or
material events. The concepts of the “id functions,” “ego functions,”
and “personality functions” are derived from both psychoanalytic
and functionalist theory. The following issues therefore need to be
reconsidered:

() The self when described as function(s) is not sufficiently

comprehensible. It has no medium. Both the word “soul” and the word
“psyche” are avoided. This is an indication of the unexplained relationship
between the mind/psyche and the body.
() The concept of the “field” is understood spatially. Lewin (),
however, defines it structurally: the respective interests/concerns of a
person in interaction with the environment define and structure his/her
current field of perception and action.
() The term “contact boundary” is misleading, since “boundary”
rather expresses a line which interrupts contact. Sometimes the phrase
“contact zone” is used, which seems to be a more valid name of what
allows the actual contact to take place. Overall, the most fruitful
combination appears to be that of structural and field theory together
with the pragmatic influence. This should be more clearly elaborated
and brought up to date.
38 | Gestalt Review

“Consciousness” as an Alternative to the “Self”

“Self ” and “consciousness” are also used in parallel: “Consciousness

and self are part of self-regulation: a problem occurs in contact, and
consciousness (or the self ) is activated in order to solve it” (Perls
a, ). This is a far more comprehensible definition than most
of those above, and is indicative of a pragmatic understanding as
formulated by Mead (; see below). Perls (a) also speaks of
“awareness”—direct contact with one’s own consciousness—as “the
only foundation of knowledge, of communication” (). It is useful to
take a closer look at the concept of “consciousness”; this will be my
focus in what follows.

The “Self” in Gestalt Therapy Today

Robine () notes that in many countries this concept is treated in

teaching but rarely used in practice, concluding that its roots remain
obscure. He mentions that “Isadore From liked to recall with a smile,
‘No one has ever seen a self!’” (; see also Höll ). Robine also con-
siders it problematic that, in most languages, the reflexive component is
“amputated” (). The authors gathered in his  book refer to various
sources such as psychoanalysis, pragmatism, phenomenology, object
relations theory, spirituality, and aesthetics. Miller (), for example,
is bothered that nowadays a whole psychotherapeutic industry is doing
business with concepts such as the “self,” “self-realization,” “self-object,”
and so on. He also warns against using a linguistic concept by treating
it as a thing, while pointing to psychoanalysts who talk of “the uncon-
scious,” “the id,” and “object relationships.” The basic ideas of Gestalt
therapy could also be in danger of a similar reification if suggestive terms
such as “contact boundary” and the “self ” are used, risking “intoxication”
by weighty proclamations.
Robine () understands the “self ” as the organizer of con-
tact, the catalyst of experience and the artist of life, as defined in
Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman (). He adds an aesthetic func-
tion based on the form and quality of sensory experience. Wollants
() defines the situation in which the client and the environment
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 39

are connected as the actual focus, adding that essential information

can be gained from the “id” of this situation. Noteworthy is that the
definitions of some authors lack references to Gestalt psychology
and Gestalt theory. It is not only the name “Gestalt therapy” that
points toward the “Gestalt” concept; both Gestalt psychology and
Gestalt theory contributed key concepts to Gestalt therapy theory.
Nowadays, “dialogue” and “contact” are the most important concepts
for many therapists, both of which narrow the focus to the commu-
nication between two individuals. Those therapists seem to super-
impose the “in-between” (whatever this may be) on the individual
experience. Buber, however, did not develop his concept of dialogue
as an alternative to organismic self-regulation; rather, he saw that
it could serve to avoid reifying patients in psychoanalysis. He even
spoke, in English translation, of the “relentless otherness of the other”
(Schmidt-Lellek ).

Corollary

My conclusion is the following: if we take the concept of “self ” as a

criterion, there are grounds to doubt the stringency and coherence
of Gestalt therapy theory. If we take into account the history of its
development, which has been both conflict-laden and avant-garde,
this seems understandable, especially if we consider the differences
between the founders’ contributions in terms of their education, basic
interests, own therapy, and experience as practicing therapists. The
current unclear status is likely to tempt us to “introject” new concepts
into the existing theory, for example, the concept of Leib or felt body.
Gutjahr () has written a revealing commentary on this proposal.
However, the more the theory of Gestalt therapy risks becoming a kind
of “Esperanto,” the more it loses coherence. Following are reviews of
some sources of Gestalt therapy and some scientific research findings
which offer well-founded and future-oriented contributions. These
could provide a new, expanded basis for rethinking the concept of
“self ” in Gestalt therapy. Finally, a proposal is offered, as to how the
basis of Gestalt therapy theory could be improved by structuring it as
a “holistic theory of human experience.”
40 | Gestalt Review

Sources

Philosophy: Thinking about the Thinking “I”

Consulting philosophy on the subject of “self” allows us to look at a long

tradition of reflection. Gabriel (, –) emphasizes that concepts
such as “mind” or the “I” are often used without knowledge of their
origin. In his view, the “I” has been seen as a concept vaguely used as the
name for “the control centre of thinking, feeling, and wanting.” When
we say “I,” for thousands of years we have been describing ourselves as
rational creatures. The Christian church interrupted this method by
introducing a split between transcendent “soul” and sinful “body.” Since
the Renaissance, the mind has been considered to be beyond nature and
therefore consciousness is a great mystery. Fichte was the first philosopher
to establish a link between the autonomy of the I and its recognition
by others, and thus became the inventor of “social interactionism” (see
Gabriel , ). His notion of “universalism of reason” claims that we
are all endowed with reason; a basic assumption of the Enlightenment.
To be an “I” means to know something and to be able to communicate
it; this is not a reference to a homunculus. Natural philosophy asked how
nature must be constituted if, at some point, creatures who are able to
comprehend their development are to arise. Nowadays, this is known as
the “anthropic principle.”
Finally, modernity split philosophy into individual disciplines and
established the scientific worldview as the only valid one. Currently,
the neurosciences are regarded as the guiding discipline of human self-
discovery. Materialistic determinism, which is regarded as universally
valid, leaves no space in philosophy for the subject of freedom. Gabriel
() sees this turn as an attempt to abolish what is essentially human,
adding that it seems to vary from epoch to epoch. As astonishing as
this statement may appear, it seems to be appropriate in regard to some
postmodern theses. Foucault (), for example, claimed that the idea
of “man” was first constructed in modernity and he would “be erased,
like a face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea” (). Lately, there
have been a growing number of critical voices that consider modernity
as deficient as long as it adheres to a basic materialistic conviction
(Nagel ). Gabriel (, ) argues for continuing to work on our
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 41

self-portrait in a historically and socially relevant way in the light of

conceptual and ethical requirements. And the question as to what the
ominous “I” may really be is ultimately also of political importance and
affects us on an everyday level. This question needs to be underlined,
especially for psychotherapy.

Psychoanalysis: A Versatile Giant Built on Sand?

Freud’s concepts of ego, id, and superego are, like the “self,”
reifications and, as such, confusing. Their history is confusing, too.
Nitzschke (), referring to Freud (), researched the history
of the concept of the “id”; what follows is a summary of what he
discovered. Psychoanalysts claim as a fact that Freud introduced
the concept of the “id” in , along with the concepts of “ego” and
“superego,” and they attribute the evolution of the “id” to Nietzsche.
Inspired by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche () speaks of the “self ” in
Zarathustra: “Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is
a mighty lord, an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy
body, it is thy body” (). Groddeck (/) attributed the “It”
in the title of his book, The Book of the It, to the body, describing
it in a psychophysical sense as something wonderful that regulates
everything the body does and what happens to it. He sent that book
to Freud, who never cited him but published his own book, The
Ego and the Id, in the same year (Freud /), describing the
“id” as a continuation of the ego into the instinctual. I agree with
Nitzschke’s (, ) argument that Freud took his concept from
the philosopher Hartmann (), who reformulated Nietzsche and
radically abbreviated Schopenhauer’s notion of “It is thinking in
us,” calling it the “id,” which he thought lay in the unconscious. This
concept is far from Nietzsche’s concept in Zarathustra of “mighty
lord, an unknown sage,” referred to above. This is confirmed by Jeron
(, ff.), for example, who describes the Freudian concept of
“the id” as “blind (!) instinct,” with drive energy and physiochemical
processes as its basis; and “the ego” as an “adaptive apparatus” (my
translation). This view of the nature of the human being dates back
to the nineteenth century; the sharpest criticism of such concepts
has come from within psychoanalysis’s own ranks. Pohlen and
42 | Gestalt Review

Bautz-Holzherr () plead for overcoming the ignorance of the

conditions under which Freud’s constructs originated.
Bocian () considers both paradigms, psychoanalysis and Gestalt/
systems theory, as possible background for the figure of Gestalt therapy.
To understand them as a “reversible figure” makes the two paradigms
appear to be equivalent. Bocian argues that in Frankfurt there was once
a personal connection between psychoanalysts, Marxist social scientists,
and Gestalt psychologists, which could have led to a “dialectical
synthesis” of these three disciplines. How might that have happened?
The representatives of psychoanalysis were “dissenters,” applying
completely different scientific standards. Both Frederick and Laura Perls
had explicitly distanced themselves from Marxism (Höll ). Why
should Gestalt therapy theory continue to maintain the balancing act
between amalgams of psychoanalytic theory and the future-oriented
Gestalt and field theories, with their pragmatic stances toward reality?
Bocian writes that Perls () increasingly worked from within a
systemic paradigm. So why do we not reformulate the concepts we have
inherited from psychoanalysis in terms of Gestalt theory, particularly in
view of the fact that so many psychoanalysts have long been moving in
the direction of the humanistic and systemic psychotherapies? Such a
reformulation would contribute significantly to sharpening the contours
of Gestalt therapy theory.

American Functionalism and Pragmatism

In the United States, Paul Goodman decisively influenced the

development of Gestalt therapy in the direction of pragmatism (Blankertz
). Kurt Lewin, however, also had a similarly important impact on
Gestalt therapy theory and practice (Yontef ). His approach was
highly pragmatic. With his group dynamics, the systemic aspect of the
psyche could be experienced. The view that a theory must be evaluated
on the basis of how it actually functions in everyday life, and how it
contributes to the actualization of experiences during therapy, are only
keywords for the relevance of this aspect. Action is considered to be
the most concrete step in becoming involved (feeling included), more
so than thinking and speaking. This can provide the explanation for the
importance of experiments in Gestalt therapy.
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 43

The philosopher William James (–), one of the most

important pioneers of pragmatism, founded American psychology
based on evolutionary biology, everyday observation, introspection, and
clinical psychology. To summarize an essay by Heil (, ): With his
concepts of the “Me” and the “I,” James was one of the first psychologists
to try to clarify this “Me,” which he saw as being directly and empirically
connected with the experience of the self. He saw maturity of the
personality as being characterized as follows: “to believe in free will . . .
Hitherto, when I have felt like taking a free initiative, like daring to act
originally, without carefully waiting for contemplation of the external
world to determine all for me” (James , –; my translation). Like
so many others, James was influenced by Schopenhauer, and he put forth
the human will with its forward-striving power as an “anthropological
postulate.” This aspect is often neglected in today’s Gestalt therapy
theory.
It must be emphasized that James understood states of consciousness
as realities per se, and thus as facts. He defined the psyche as a biologically
based process of self-regulation of the individual in its environment,
and conceived of it as a “stream of consciousness” with the properties
of personality, variability, continuity, intentionality, and selectivity. Here,
once more, we find the definition of “self” as a process; however, it is
seen as being embedded in an understanding of the subjective flow of
consciousness. It is also important to see that arriving at a reflective
synthesis is not the first step in establishing relations between objects.
Both the relations and the logical connections are part of the immediate
stream of consciousness and not of the conceptual reason based on it.
This enables us to experience how we “automatically” form gestalts, in
the very moment that we are “recognizing” a gestalt. The better we are
trained, the better we are able to do this. For James, the relations that
connect experiences are as real as the experiences themselves. They are an
independent kind of information and are of a higher degree of abstraction
than the individual experiences. Here, the concept of Gestalt is already
not far away. James is considered to be among those philosophers
who partly anticipated Gestalt psychology. He, too, was searching for
wholeness in the sciences. For him, the “true” science would not arise
before the prerequisites of the prevailing scientific perspective had been
elucidated. For him only one “science of everything” was possible, and
44 | Gestalt Review

that was philosophy. He considered psychology as a merely provisional

step on the way to the “full truth about states of mind.” For him the search
for the common basis of mind and matter was not finished. He postulated
that a common primal substance of mind and material things must exist.
James called this primal substance the “pure experience”; “the materia
prima of everything” (Heil , ). Like Kant, who influenced him, he
was a trailblazer of our current attempts to solve this problem.
Mead (, ) introduced sociological criteria, emphasizing that
what the psyche contains is intelligible to everybody and is embedded
in a common world. The development of consciousness stands for
a certain stage of evolution. We find parallels to how Gestalt therapy
defines the “self ” in Mead’s works, as well as in Dewey’s () view of
the “self.” Pertinent here is Dewey’s concept of an “organic circuit of
experience,” which does not adopt a pattern of “sensation-followed-
by-idea-followed-by movement” but a coordination of all three in one
total organic experience: “It is the coordination which unifies that
which the reflex arc concept gives us only in disjointed fragments. It
is the circuit within which fall distinctions of stimulus and response as
functional phases of its own mediation or completion” (). One can
say that the basic idea of the contact cycle in Gestalt therapy is already
formulated here. Mead followed Dewey in understanding the psychic
as awareness in the very “moment” of an action that must be fully
cognitively fathomed in order to be completed. This is the pragmatic
aspect: the individual elements of an action only become aware if the
performance of the action is disturbed. Mead understood the “stream
of consciousness” as a constant readiness to “liquefy” findings that have
previously been experienced as “objective.” Here objectivity means
confirmed by successful actions. “Liquefying” helps us to find better
solutions when we encounter obstacles. In Gestalt therapy, we work
with such interruptions of contact.
Mead () increasingly distanced himself from the functionalist
school as such, because it understood psyche and reality as parallel but
separate areas. For him this was a relapse into psychophysical parallelism,
of which he also accused Gestalt psychology. Mead’s great concern was
not to interpret subjectivity as being the property of a philosophical or
phenomenological psychology, with its own methodology and a priori
claim, but rather to explore it within the framework of the empirical
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 45

and sociological sciences. In today’s biology, we find subjectivity as a

necessary aspect of life, and it is a future-oriented topic of research.
Mead’s importance is also underlined by his emphasizing sensory
experience as the basis of all sciences. It establishes the relationship to
the organism and human needs. On the other hand, Mead was surprised
to note that, in his lifetime, the psychic played no role in either the
natural sciences or the social sciences, because they passed over it in
their abstraction processes.

Gestalt Psychology and Field Theory

It is bitter, but true: in contrast to Lewin’s contributions, Hutterer ()

cites Gestalt psychology as a negative example of the permanent influ-
ence of sources on humanistic psychology, while pointing out that it
did not exert a specific effect (even on psychology itself ). This must
be accepted, although as Metz-Göckel () argues, the concepts of
Gestalt theory are the basis of many recent developments in psychology,
without being named as such. This may be due to the fact that it lacks
pragmatic consistency.
It would appear logical that less and less attention is being paid to
Gestalt psychology in current discussions of Gestalt therapy theory.
And neither theory manages to claim for itself the effect that it exerts
on other approaches. It has frequently been commented that Perls did
not understand Gestalt psychology. He adopted only the concept of the
“open gestalt,” with its tendency toward closure, into Gestalt therapy.
This very concept, however, exemplifies the pragmatic implications of
Gestalt psychology. Thus seen, the open gestalt which is to be completed
is the structural, functional, and pragmatic core of Gestalt therapy. This
is the focus of my reflections.
Wertheimer () and other Gestalt psychologists developed the
central thesis of the holistic organization of mental activity. Today, this
hypothesis is particularly fruitful in connection with self-organization
and complexity. We do not experience “perceptual atoms” that first need
to be assembled, but rather meaningful wholes that result from auton-
omous gestalt formation processes. In these processes, the individual’s
states and motivations interact with the conditions in his or her respec-
tive environment, including both the human and the nonhuman aspects
46 | Gestalt Review

of the environment. While Gestalt theory speaks of “mental processes,”

Gestalt therapy is oriented toward the organism as a whole as defined
by Goldstein (). This influences its conception of psychosomatics,
a topic often neglected in Gestalt therapy. According to Einstein’s work
and that of Lewin (), the concept of the “field” is to be understood
in the “strict” sense, neither symbolically nor spatially, but as a unified
whole of interdependent facts and forces. The perspective from which it
is defined must be included in the definition. The holistic self-organiza-
tion in interaction with the environmental factors is determined by the
tendency to form a “good Gestalt” with the aim of promoting life and
social well-being. The term “law of Prägnanz” refers to this tendency in
a general manner.

Future-Oriented Developments in the Sciences

Damasio () states: “Last, naturalizing the mind may solve one mys-
tery but only to raise the curtain on other mysteries quietly awaiting
their turn. Placing the construction of conscious minds in the history
of biology and culture opens the way to reconciling traditional human-
ism and modern science” (). The philosopher Nagel () considers
it urgently necessary to solve the body–mind problem by adopting a
new worldview. Many approaches have already been developed since
Ehrenfels (), a precursor of Gestalt psychology, Einstein, and James.
Nagel repeats one of Kant’s theses, namely that the intelligibility of this
world (as a basis for all sciences) is not an accident. The characteris-
tics of nature lead to the development of beings who are endowed with
reason and can therefore understand (see the “anthropic principle” in
the section on philosophy, above). Descriptions of the world as a whole
must contain a description of ourselves and must also be examined by
the natural sciences. During the “postmodern revolution,” there was the
risk that this connection to the sciences might be lost. As Milich ()
has shown, early postmodernism emerged from a European-American
cultural conflict in New York in the s. The exaggerated opposing
of culture and technological progress later led to the development of a
front between cultural studies and the natural sciences. This obscured
the possibility of an integrative concept.
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 47

Contributions from Biology, Medicine, and Brain Research

Biology: Theses from the Life Sciences

Andreas Weber () gives a vivid description of life as a unity and

underlines the kinship between humans, animals, and plants. All of
nature arises out of the desire to live. The “most human” attributes also
grow out of an organic ground; many of them are already organizing the
development of the cells. Weber defines subjectivity as a physical quan-
tity which is a feature of all living creatures. The desire to live determines
the specific gestalts in their specific environments. Cells appear as atoms
of the will. They constantly renew themselves and create all of their own
parts. In his memoirs, Perls (b) stated that to be alive always means
having an awareness of needs, and that our cells know more than we
may suspect in our arrogant calculations. Weber adds that the biolo-
gist Baer (–) had formulated the idea that living beings can
be understood as the thoughts of nature. Here all symbolic—meaning-
bearing—forces are taken as real forces. Does the symbolic, which moves
living beings, therefore already lie hidden in the gestalt of matter? Weber
asks this question, thus bringing the Gestalt concept into play. Like so
many others, he leaves it at that.

Brain Research: Self-Control and Subjectivity

The philosopher Metzinger (, ) argues that the concept of subjec-
tive experience has replaced the concept of the self. He notes that con-
sciousness became a recognized goal of research only in the last decade
of the twentieth century, and that the natural sciences and philosophy
are trying to work together on this issue. He finds this remarkable,
because there is a fear of reductionism in the humanities, and a fear of
insoluble mysteries in the natural sciences. In brain research, conscious-
ness is defined as the cooperation between the brain and the whole body.
Damasio () addresses feelings, so often broadly neglected in
theories: “[T]he first and most elementary product of the proto-self
is primordial feelings, which occur spontaneously and continuously
whenever one is awake. They provide a direct experience of one’s own
living body, wordless, unadorned, and connected to nothing but sheer
48 | Gestalt Review

existence. . . . [T]hey originate at the level of the brain stem rather than
the cerebral cortex” (). Furthermore: “These feelings accomplish a
distinction between self and non-self. They are, in a nutshell, feelings
of knowing. We shall see that the construction of a conscious mind
depends, at several stages, on the generation of such feelings” (; empha-
sis in original). Damasio also emphasizes the importance of subjectivity:
“A knower, by whatever name one may want to call it—self, experiencer,
protagonist—needs to be generated in the brain if the mind is to become
conscious. When the brain manages to introduce a knower in the mind,
subjectivity follows” (). These points lead directly back to the results
described above, in the section on philosophy.
Awareness means that we observe ourselves as we observe. We
observe and reflect on what we feel physically and emotionally, and what
we think in the same moment. The prefrontal cortex strives to find fixed
“patterns”—here again we are talking about a “gestalt”—and to develop
plans. The prefrontal cortex reconciles motivations and is involved in the
learned control of congenital behaviors. It subordinates limbic behav-
ioral programs to specific overarching goals, for example, adaptive social
behavior. This is a clear indication of the top-down effect of wholes on
their parts (see the section below, on “Levels of Complexity”). The activ-
ities of the brain are, according to Damasio, shaped by the brain itself,
the body, the natural world, and human culture. When they change, new
neural structures are created.
Perhaps it is time to formulate a clear idea of what “psyche” can mean,
namely the stream of individual consciousness, the control of all the
life processes of the entire organism, and the creative adaptation to the
physical and social conditions of the surrounding environment. At any
given point in time, this environment must be understood as a hierarchy
of levels as illustrated in Uexküll’s () integrative model (see below).
Even in regard to plants, the environment cannot be viewed as purely
“biologistic,” that is, physiological. Even at this basic level, information
plays an important role. For example, certain plants use scents to warn
conspecifics about their natural enemies. This potential is even more
evident in animals that live in communities, and in humans who are
highly cooperative and have developed complex social structures. The
complex laws of society, which regulate cooperation and define priori-
ties for the collective, apply not only at the human level but also at the
level of living beings.
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 49

Medicine and Psychosomatics: The Theory of Complexity

T. Uexküll and Wesiack () state that hardly anything in the history
of science has proved to be as tenacious as mechanistic or machine-
oriented thinking (see Höll ). In psychology, that way of thinking
seemed to have been overcome by Gestalt theory, but it returned all the
more powerfully in the form of computer metaphors. It still plays an
important role in this kind of science. Uexküll and Wesiack advocate a
holistic perspective for psychosomatics, considering that only this per-
spective can render it possible to understand such phenomena as order
and regularity in nature. Incidentally, it was a concern of Fritz Perls that
Gestalt therapy should be understood as the basis of a holistic world-
view. He therefore considered that the humanities and the natural sci-
ences should be integrated. This view was partly motivated by Smuts’s
() volume, Holism and Evolution.
If there were only matter and energy, these phenomena could only
have arisen by chance. This, however, stands in contradiction to all prob-
ability. Building on the work of J. Uexküll (a Baltic German biologist who
worked in the fields of muscular physiology, animal behavior studies,
and the cybernetics of life), T. Uexküll and Wesiack () worked to
overcome the division of the Western worldview into the arts and lit-
erature on the one hand, and technology and the natural sciences on
the other. They suggest that this fruitless dualism be replaced by levels
of complexity, that is, the complexity of the specific laws of a certain
level. Soma, psyche, group, society, and culture are seen as a hierarchy
of levels in which each level is the influencing and integrating environ-
ment for the wholes of the less complex level. Thus, there are top-down
and bottom-up influences. The levels of human complexity according to
Uexküll and Wesiack are as follows:

culture
society
group
psyche
soma

The sciences can be classified in analogy to these levels, beginning

with physics (the simplest relations) and continuing upward through
50 | Gestalt Review

chemistry, biology, natural sciences in general, psychology, social sci-

ences, historical sciences, and cultural sciences; and ending with the
most comprehensive and complex scientific theories, that is, those of
evolution, cosmology, philosophy of science, and philosophy. These
levels can also be used to rank the many subtheories of Gestalt ther-
apy theory. The most interesting detail of this conceptualization is the
demonstration that sociological models obey rules and laws that also
exist on the simpler levels of integration. As a result, influences that
arise on more complex levels become recognizable on simpler ones.
This makes it possible for us to arrive at a more exact formulation
than “The whole is more/something other than the sum of its parts.” It
becomes clear that causal connections cannot be reduced to the addi-
tion of simpler elements, because the whole influences the elements and
determines their characteristics, to a greater or lesser extent. In other
words, every whole has its own life purpose, and its parts subordinate
themselves to it; this is especially so in the case of living beings, but it
is also true for collectives. Interesting in this context is Weber’s ()
description of how more complex creatures developed through the
cooperation between simpler forms of life. For Uexküll and Wesiack,
the concept of the “environment,” which in Gestalt therapy takes the
form of the “organism / environment field,” contains two levels of inte-
gration: the integration of elements of a certain level into a whole, and
the integration of that whole as an element into a next higher level.
Thus, it is possible to explore the relations in both directions from each
level. In general, when a level is integrated into the next one of com-
plexity, certain characteristics of the individual vanish, while others
remain. Living entities at each level are considered “subjects” because
they choose and thus make decisions. In order to be able to do so, they
process information. Information complements matter and energy:
the transcendence of the materialistic worldview appears on the hori-
zon. The German physicist Heisenberg () once wrote: “[A] genuine
new territory in some science can only be reached when at the decisive
moment there is a readiness to abandon the description on which the
earlier science rested, and in a certain sense to perform a leap into the
void” (cited in Kobzarev and Manin , ).
What is really revolutionarily new in this concept is the transcen-
dence of the materialistic worldview because information, as a third part
of reality, is added alongside matter and energy. It cannot be deduced
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 51

from them. From the theory of data transmission, J. Uexküll, who is seen
as the “father of psychosomatics,” concluded together with the German
physician, V. Weizsaecker (–), that information theory prom-
ised in “a subtle way” to reinterpret the life processes which J. Uexküll
captured in his “situation circle” model. The meaning of a message as
its intrinsic quality cannot be reduced to its material base. Once one
has followed this line of thought, one can only wonder not to have seen
it before (under the influence of the materialistic worldview). In our
thoughts, we are always moving in this immaterial sphere. Ehrenfels
() demonstrated the same phenomenon in the transposition of
melodies, which he then used to introduce the concept of the gestalt.
Thinking means building structures and creating connections to reduce
redundancy and thus also the amount of information. This is dealt with
by information theory. The more disordered a message, the more bits
one needs to represent it.

Excursus on Quantum Information Theory

Perls () remarked that if we consider “the three dimensions of extent,

duration, and consciousness, we can say that everything is a process of
consciousness. But we are still reluctant to attribute consciousness to
matter, for we are so accustomed to believe that consciousness is located
in the brain. So it is very difficult in the beginning to imagine that the
whole world . . . always has consciousness” (; my translation). Pertinent
here is a contribution from quantum information theory, formulated by
Goernitz and Goernitz () and based on the concept of information
as deployed by J. Uexküll. Suffice it to say now that the theory conveys
an idea of what a cosmic base for matter, energy, and information might
look like. That theory is developed by mathematical computations,
and so at first seems very abstract. A level of the cosmos is postulated
which can be understood as a level of relations and possibilities; thus, an
abstract, “mental” level. It provides the conditions for elementary parti-
cles to connect with each other, and for everything else which emerges
from these connections. Does this mean a step in the direction of “true
science” in the sense that James (), as well as Perls (, ) were
talking about, which could throw light on the basic assumptions of the
natural sciences? (See above Perls’s remarks about the difficulty of imag-
ining that “the whole world . . . always has consciousness.”)
52 | Gestalt Review

Positing a New Structuring of Gestalt Therapy Theory on

the Basis of Gestalt Psychology

The increasing tendency to identify Gestalt therapy with the concepts

of (interpersonal) contact and dialogue has led, mostly on the basis of
phenomenology, to considerable clarifications, especially with regard to
the aspect of co-humanity and sensory issues, referred to as “aesthet-
ics” in Dewey’s () understanding (see also Francesetti, Gecele, and
Roubal ). Both concepts have hitherto been neglected in most forms
of psychotherapy. Regrettably, the—other—cognitive and systemic pole
is often neglected by dialogue-oriented Gestalt therapists. To base the
theory of Gestalt therapy as a whole on the natural sciences would not
mean reducing it to the smallest particles. The aspiration of Gestalt ther-
apy theory to build a holistic “basic theory of humanity” that bridges
the differences between the humanities and the natural sciences—not
ignoring the social sciences—can be fulfilled by making the quantum
theory of information a keystone in its general theory but not without
requiring a high degree of abstraction.
From a philosophical standpoint, the simplest element of information,
the bit (binary digit)—meaningless in itself and only two-dimensional
in the sense that only two alternatives are possible (zero or one, yes or
no)—can be understood as the possibility of a difference. Without dis-
tinction, nothing can be discerned, as Perls’s “guru” Friedlaender ()
argued. This is the logical foundation of Gestalt theory, the figure/ground
configuration. It is also the logical basis of Gestalt therapy theory. But
is that not a simple, banal fact? No, because it builds the foundation on
which the theory of Gestalt therapy, as applied perception theory and per-
ception training, rests. To recognize open Gestalts that demand closure
is one thing. To recognize connections between phenomena altogether,
on whatever level of reality, is another. The principles that govern rela-
tionships and possibilities are fundamental everywhere. The outstanding
importance of the social, historical, and cultural levels of human life must
also be recognized in psychological and psychotherapeutic explanations.
Becoming clear, too, is the fact that the relationship between form
(gestalt) and content is mediated by the symbolic meaning of the
form. Sensory perception and aesthetics as a condensing experience
of meaning are thus given a central role in the concept of awareness.
Phenomenology also plays a role here, because it first described a kind of
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 53

undistorted perception guided by the senses. What becomes conscious,

and can be verbalized in this process, follows the laws of the formation
of gestalts: on all levels, including the social, cultural, artistic, and vision-
ary levels. If this process underlines and confirms the importance of
aesthetics in Gestalt therapy (Francesetti, Gecele, and Roubal ), it
also shows that there is no reason simply to define it as a style of Gestalt
therapy which should replace the original. There is a general risk of abso-
lutizing cultural or sociological theories currently in vogue and therefore
well-known, thus declaring individual component parts of Gestalt ther-
apy theory to be central. Such a path has long been followed by the main-
stream of psychoanalysis, because that field has no theoretical “core”
which has retained its validity from the beginning. Gestalt therapy, how-
ever, has such a “core.” It is my hope that it will be possible to recognize
and acknowledge this core in the abstract, overarching concept of the
gestalt. If we accept this Gestalt concept as the central one, the different
styles of Gestalt therapy can be seen as according different weights to the
many different elements of the theory, which can be arranged as levels in
line with the degree of their complexity. Below is description of Gestalt
therapy theory by means of a stratification of its theoretical elements.

      

• Formation of Gestalts on all levels.
 , 
• Smuts: holism; Quantum information theory.
//  
• Korzybski; Whitehead; Logic: Friedlaender, thinking
in polarities; Tao: middle mode; Existentialism;
Phenomenology; Buber: dialogue; Tillich: boundary;
Aesthetics: Dewey.
 
• Dance, drama, poetry: authentic expression.
 / 
• Goodman: criticism of the system; Anarchism;
Communitarianism; Landauer: philosophical anarchism.

• Pragmatism: stream of consciousness, contact cycle,
emphasis on action; Field theory; Gestalt theory: forming of
Gestalts as a basic principle of nature.
54 | Gestalt Review


• Psychoanalysis: sexuality, talking cure, defense mechanisms;
Reich: muscular resistance; Gindler/Selver: sensory
awareness; Rogers: empathy; Moreno: role-playing through
chair work.
    
• Figure–ground-formation; Self-organization; Contact
cycle; Organism–environment field; Awareness; Here and
now; Theory of feelings; Polarity conscious/unconscious;
Polarity of motivations; Dialogical therapeutic relationship;
Pathology as creative adjustment; Understanding through
identification; Artistic media as a holistic mode of
expression.
/ 
• Theory of levels of complexity; Psyche and soma obey
overarching laws.
/
• Subjectivity of the cells; Hierarchy of the levels; Goldstein:
organism–environment field, self-actualization.

• Laws of Newtonian physics.
()  
• As a possible complement? The long sought for foundation
of a theory of consciousness?

A Proposal for the Revision of the Concept of “Self”

Perls (b) once remarked: “I have made awareness the hub of my

approach, recognizing that phenomenology is the primary and indis-
pensable step towards knowing all there is to know. Without awareness
there is nothing. Without awareness there is emptiness” (). The pres-
ent proposal consists of the following three theses:

Thesis : This involves further elaboration of the concept of “subjective

consciousness,” rather than that of “self.” In my view, it is not enough to
speak of a “process between” human beings or between human beings
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 55

and the environment that cannot be defined in a concrete way. We are

dealing with the multilevel activities of individuals who are oriented
toward exchange with the environment and interactions with others.
We are talking about the inner systems of living beings which have to
be kept stable, and their external relations maintained with the physical
and social environments. These active processes need to be constantly
coordinated with each other. This cannot be done without a regulating
center. In the human sphere, Perls calls this response-ability.

Thesis : If we combine the above with the concept of the Gestalt, the
result is as follows: “Gestalt” is synonymous with information that is
sorted and thus reduced. Because of the necessity to bring order into
complexity, understood here as a disordered profusion of information,
our brains make a lot of processes work. They do so by using innate
information processing structures, which are continually further devel-
oped over the course of the lifespan, to create order and connections. In
other words, they create gestalts. In this context, we can give the gestalt
concept a new, fundamental meaning, since “gestalt” is synonymous
with sorted information. “Gestalt” denotes a perceived arrangement of
material elements or waves in the form of sounds, colors, or any other
elements of perceiving, feeling, and thinking, to which the brain auton-
omously tries to give meaning.
At present, to give this concept public recognition requires a major
revolution in thinking. Perhaps without the digital revolution, it would
hardly have a chance even today. Floods of information, however, are
now being sent around the globe, with the respective media playing
only a subordinate role. From there it is only a small step to abandon
the fiction of the smallest particles as the basic principle of the cosmos.
Nowadays, we can even read on the web that information is the raw
material of the future.

Thesis : At its core, Gestalt therapy is a way to restore or improve

autonomous gestalt formation at all levels. The basis for this is the
therapeutic, dialogical relationship. The main way to achieve change
is to open up one’s own consciousness, under the guidance of the
therapist, for all aspects of experiencing, acting, and interacting with
other humans, and with the environment in general. In the constant
56 | Gestalt Review

work on awareness, which is directed like a “spotlight” onto every

aspect of that experience, including body processes, body parts, and
individual organs (conclusions regarding a Gestalt therapy theory of
psychosomatics would merit an essay of its own), it turns out that, if
there are no purely mental phenomena, there are no purely material
ones either.

kathleen höll , MA (Magister Artium), studied sociology and political sci-

ence in Germany and was employed for some years as a programmer for the
Information Technology department of an industrial company. She has been
working for nearly forty years as a Gestalt therapist in private practice, includ-
ing several years as a teaching therapist in the Gestalt Therapy department of
the Austrian Association for Group Therapy and Group Dynamics, and in the
Academy for Psychosocial Medicine in Vienna. She is currently a board member
of the Austrian Association for Gestalt Therapy.

acknowledgments
An alternate version of this article appeared in German as “Die Gestalt des ‘Selbst’ in
der Gestalttherapie” (Gestalttherapie: Forum für Gestaltperspektiven : –), .
The English translation is by the author, who is grateful to Deirdre Winter and Nancy
Amendt-Lyon for their support. The author is also obliged to Susan L. Fischer for her
careful attention to details of clarity and reference attribution in the present article.

references
Blankertz, Stefan. . Kritischer Pragmatismus. Zur Soziologie Paul Goodmans
[Critical Pragmatism. Paul Goodman’s Sociology]. Wetzlar: Büchse der Pandora.
Bocian, Bernd. . “Von der Revision der Freudschen Theorie und Methode zum
Entwurf der Gestalttherapie: Grundlegendes zu einem Figur-Hintergrund-
Verhältnis” [“From the Revision of Freud’s Theory and Method to the Design
of Gestalt Therapy: Understanding a Figure-Background Relationship”]. In
Gestalttherapie und Psychoanalyse, edited by Bernd Bocian and Frank-M.
Staemmler, –. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht.
Damasio, Antonio R. . Self Comes to Mind. Constructing the Conscious Brain. New
York: Pantheon Books.
Dewey, John. . “Art as Experience.” In John Dewey: The Later Works, –. Vol.
, edited by Jo Ann Boydston. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
original work published .
———. . “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology.” Psychological Review  (): –.
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 57

Ehrenfels, Christian von. . “Über Gestaltqualitäten” [“On the Qualities of Form”].
In Christian von Ehrenfels: Leben und Werk, edited by Reinhard Fabian, –.
Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, original work published .
Foucault, Michel. . The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de
France –. London: Picador-Macmillan.
Francesetti, Gianni, Micela Gecele, and Jan Roubal, eds. . Gestalt Therapy in
Clinical Practice. From Psychopathology to the Aesthetics of Contact. Milan:
FrancoAngeli.
Freud, Sigmund. . Instincts and their Vicissitudes (The Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud). Vol.  (–): On the
History of the Psycho-Analytic Moment, Papers on Metapsychology and Other
Works. New York: W.W. Norton, –.
———. . The Ego and the Id (The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud), edited by James Strachey. New York: W.W. Norton,
original work published .
Friedlaender, Salomo. . Schöpferische Indifferenz [Creative Indifference]. Munich:
Müller.
Gabriel, Markus. . Ich ist nicht Gehirn. Philosophie des Geistes für das .
Jahrhundert [“I” Is Not Synonymous with Brain. Philosophy of the Mind for the
st Century]. Berlin: Ullstein.
Ginger, Serge. . Gestalt Therapy: The Art of Contact. London: Carnac.
Goernitz, Brigitte, and Thomas Goernitz. . Von der Quantenphysik zum
Bewusstsein. Kosmos, Geist und Materie [From Quantum Physics to
Consciousness: Cosmos, Spirit, and Matter]. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
Goldstein, Kurt. . The Organism. New York: Zone Books.
Groddeck, Georg. . The Book of the It. Cambridge: Ravenio Books, original work
published .
Gutjahr, Lothar. . “Corporal Concernedness or Contact? Gestalt Therapy and the ‘New
Phenomenology.’” Gestalt Journal of Australia and New Zealand  (): –.
Hartmann, Eduard von. . Philosophie des Unbewussten [Philosophy of the
Unconscious]. Berlin: Carl Dunker’s Verlag.
Heil, Joachim. . “Philosophie und Psychologie im Denken von William James”
[“We Live Forward, We Understand Backward: Philosophy and Psychology in
the Thinking of William James”]. Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie und
Psychosomatik : –.
Heisenberg, Werner. . Physics and Beyond; Encounters and Conversations. New
York: Harper & Row.
Höll, Kathleen. . “Philosophical Anarchism as a Source of Gestalt Therapy: Its
Importance for Therapeutic Practice and for Orientation in the Political Field.”
International Gestalt Journal  (): –.
———. . “The Socio-Political Dimension of Gestalt: Springboard into a Complex
Theory of Human Health and Diseases.” Keynote lecture at the European
Association of Gestalt Therapy, Prague, September –, .
58 | Gestalt Review

———. . “Dialogizität und dialogischer Ansatz. Eine kritische Betrachtung

postmoderner Ansaetze” [“Dialogicity and Dialogical Approach: A Critical
Examination of Postmodern Approaches”]. Gestalttherapie : –.
Hutterer, Robert. . Das Paradigma der Humanistischen Psychologie [The Paradigm
of Humanistic Psychology]. Vienna and New York: Springer.
James, William. . The Letters of William James. Vol. , edited by Henry James.
Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press.
Jeron, Michael. . “Das Ich” [“The Ego”]. In Schlüsselbegriffe der Psychoanalyse [Key
Concepts of Psychoanalysis], edited by Wolfgang Mertens, –. Stuttgart:
Verlag Internationale Psychoanalyse.
Kepner, James. . Body Process: A Gestalt Approach to Working with the Body in
Psychotherapy. New York: Gardner Press.
Kobzarev, I. Yu, and Yu. I. Manin. . Elementary Particles: Mathematics, Physics, and
Philosophy. New York: Springer.
Kroschel, Eveline. . “Entwurf einer Gestalttherapeutischen Motivationstheorie”
[“Draft of a Gestalt Therapeutic Motivational Theory”]. Gestalttherapie : –.
Lewin, Kurt. . Field Theory of Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers, edited by
Dorwin Cartright. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Mead, George Herbert. . Mind, Self and Society, edited by Charles W. Morris, annotated
by Daniel R. Huebner and Hans Joas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Metz-Göckel, Helmut, ed. . Gestalttheorie aktuell. Handbuch zur Gestalttheorie
[Current Gestalt Theory: Manual for Gestalt Theory]. Vol. . Vienna: Krammer.
Metzinger, Thomas. . Der Ego Tunnel. Eine neue Philosophie des Selbst: Von der
Hirnforschung zur Bewusstseinsethik [The Ego Tunnel: A New Philosophy of the
Self: From Brain Research to Awareness Ethics]. Berlin: Bloomsbury.
Milich, Klaus J. . Die frühe Postmoderne [The Early Postmodernism]. Frankfurt:
Nordamerikastudien Campus.
Miller, Michael Vincent. . “The Self and Other Errors: A Mediation on Reflexivity
and Beyond.” In Self: A Polyphony of Contemporary Gestalt Therapists, edited by
Jean-Marie Robine, –. St. Romain la Vivrée: Editions L’Exprimerie.
Nagel, Thomas. . Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian
Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. . Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, edited
by Guillermo Hernández, translated by Thomas Common. Wroclaw: Amazon
Fulfillment.
Nitzschke, Bernd. . “Zur Herkunft des Es” [“Contribution to the Origin of the Id”].
Psyche : –.
Perls, Frederick. a. Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. New York: Lafayette.
———. b. In and Out the Garbage Pail. New York: Lafayette.
———. . Grundlagen der Gestalttherapie. München: Pfeiffer, original work published
as The Gestalt Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy, Palo Alto: Science and
Behavior Books, .
 The Gestalt of the “Self” in Gestalt Therapy | 59

———. . “Gestalttherapie und Kybernetik” [“Gestalt Therapy and Cybernetics”]. In

Gestalt, Wachstum, Integration [Gestalt, Growth, Integration], edited by Hilarion
Petzold, –. Paderborn: Junfermann.
Perls, Frederick, Ralph Hefferline, and Paul Goodman. . Gestalt Therapy:
Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. Gouldsboro, Maine: The
Gestalt Journal Press.
Pohlen, Manfred, and Margarethe Bautz-Holzherr. . Psychoanalyse: Das Ende einer
Deutungsmacht [Psychoanalysis: The End of a Power of Interpretation]. Reinbek,
Germany: Rowohlt.
Robine, Jean-Marie, ed. . Self: A Polyphony of Contemporary Gestalt Therapists. St.
Romain la Vivrée: Editions L’Exprimerie.
Schmidt-Lellek, Christoph J. . “Gestalttherapie als dialogisches Verfahren”
[“Gestalt Therapy as a Dialogical Method”]. In Gestalttherapie, edited by Markus
Hochgerner, Herta Hoffmann-Widhalm, and Liselotte Nausner, –. Vienna:
Facultas.
Smuts, Jan Christian. . Holism and Evolution. New York: Macmillan.
Spagnuolo Lobb, Margarita. . “Fundamentals and Development of Gestalt Therapy
in the Contemporary Context.” In Gestalt Therapy in Clinical Practice: From
Psychopathology to the Aesthetics of Contact, edited by Gianni Francesetti,
Micela Gecele, and Jan Roubal, –. Milan: FrancoAngeli.
Uexküll, Thure von, and Wolfgang Wesiack. . Theorie der Humanmedizin [Theory of
Human Medicine]. Vienna: Urban & Schwarzenberg.
Weber, Andreas. . Alles fühlt. Mensch, Natur und die Revolution der
Lebenswissenschaften [Everything Feels: Man, Nature and the Revolution of the
Life Sciences]. Berlin: Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag.
Wertheimer, Max. . Productive Thinking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wollants, Georges. . “Self of the Situation.” In Self: A Polyphony of Contemporary
Gestalt Therapists, edited by Jean-Marie Robine, –. St. Romain la Vivrée:
Editions L’Exprimerie.
Yontef, Gary. . Awareness, Dialogue & Process: Essays in Gestalt Therapy.
Gouldsboro, Maine: The Gestalt Journal Press.