The things I have to say, and the audience I wish to speak to, cover a wide range, from the psychotherapeutic to the mystical. It’s not easy for me to say things that appeal to such a wide range. Sometimes it’s better to speak to one subset of this range and let the others off the hook.

This blog post is directed to my Gestalt therapy community and may not have much appeal to friends who are more interested in hearing from my mystical side.

For my non-Gestalt readers, I promise, I’ll return to those passions soon. In the meantime, if you are here because of my writing on energy and spirit, I have a suggestion. I think you’d enjoy reading one of my favorite blogs about my instruction from a wise old horse named Thunderheart— it’s a favorite of mine and I’m particularly proud of writing it!

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Now in my 70’s, I thought I had finished saying what I needed to say about Gestalt therapy. But something keeps asking for one more conversation. Or maybe it’s just me and my big mouth…

Recently, a colleague referenced Laura Perls’ understanding of grounding as self-support and breathing in response to my blog on grounding, implying that these early formulations were sufficient. Certainly, I deeply value Laura’s contribution. Her concept of support for contact serves as a starting point for my work on embodiment. I credit her in my teaching (see my presentation video from the AIGT Taormina conference).

At the same time, it tapped the frustration I’ve had for years with the tendency to cling to early formulations in Gestalt. as if the ground has already been covered. Are we allowing Gestalt therapy to evolve?

Our founders did brilliant work with the knowledge available to them at the time. But today, to name only a few things, we know far more about psychology, the nervous system, trauma physiology, the body’s role in relational regulation, and the body’s energy systems. If we rely primarily on our early formulations without integrating contemporary research and practice from the larger field, we risk limiting an approach that was originally radical and experimental.

My best example has stemmed from Stephen Porges’ work on the vagus nerve and social engagement. I met Porges in 1996 and immediately began to apply his insights to my work. His Polyvagal theory details the neurobiological mechanisms for understanding what in Gestalt, Laura Perls referred to as “support for contact.”

For a body-oriented therapist like me, Stephen’s work has been crucial for understanding the bodily basis of contact and mutual regulation, as well as my work with trauma. You can hear more in a video of my conference presentation, titled “The relational nervous system in Gestalt Body Process,” where I outline how Porges’ work connects to our ideas of support for contact (the slides for this talk are accessible here). This knowledge does not replace Gestalt principles, but it deepens them and gives us precision in understanding how contact works as a bodily process.

Crucially, Porges’ emphasis on safety as an underpinning connection and learning directly contradicts our Gestalt founders’ notion that contact and growth are about excitement and novelty. I’ve noted elsewhere that, except within certain limits, the conditions of activation (i.e., excitement) actually erode our capacity for relational contact, gearing us toward survival rather than growth and learning.

All this is to say that we can’t keep explaining complicated things by referring to simple historical, albeit familiar, Gestalt notions.

For Gestalt to remain vital and relevant, we must be able to incorporate new and evolving understanding. We have to be honest about what is outmoded in our approach and not idealize our founders. We can’t be inside our own silo, arguing about notions that haven’t been held up against modern developments and knowledge. We are only relevant to the degree that we are connected to a wider field.

While my current life interests and my writing center around what are, to most, esoteric topics, I continue to hold stewardship of a tradition I care deeply about.

Enough said?