This is the first book published in English of Staemmler’s writings. It includes five of his most important papers that have had a strong influence on the evolution of Gestalt therapy in the last fifteen years.
The book is divided into three sections. In the first section, Staemmler comprehensively explores and questions the traditional Gestalt therapy theory of aggression. The usefulness of aggression as a meta-theoretical notion as well as the cathartic practice are thoroughly analyzed both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. A new approach to working with anger and hostility is proposed and illustrated with case examples.
The second section includes in-depth examinations of the topic of time. In a first paper, the “Here and Now” is investigated from philosophical, psychological and neuroscientific perspectives. The second paper refers to “Regressive Processes” and the underlying developmental theory. A new understanding of these processes is proposed that is based on Daniel Stern’s “realms of relatedness.”
The last section offers two papers on the hermeneutic dimension of Gestalt therapy. The author argues that interpretation is intrinsic to human communication and cannot be avoided, but should be practiced in accordance with the basic tenets of Gestalt therapy. In a first paper, the process of understanding between clients and therapists is described as a dialogical co-construction of meaning. The transcript of a therapeutic session is used to illustrate the interpretive steps that take place. The second paper of this section, “Cultivated Uncertainty,” characterizes an attitude for Gestalt therapists that makes it possible for them to share the power of interpretation with their clients, to welcome their fallibility, an to see the uncertainty that goes along with this attitude as a positive experience.
Frank-M. Staemmler, Ph.D., Dipl.-Psych., is a psychologist and gestalt therapist, who lives in Würzburg, Germany. He has been working as a gestalt therapist in private practice since 1976, and as a supervisor and trainer since 1981. He has written more than seventy articles and book chapters and six books and has (co-) edited five other books. His latest, prize-winning book, Empathy in Psychotherapy, was published in December 2011 by Springer Publications, New York. Frank teaches internationally and is a frequent presenter on conferences in Germany and abroad. He was editor of the International Gestalt Journal from 2001 to 2006 and co-editor of the Studies in Gestalt Therapy: Dialogical Bridges from 2007 to 2009.
