When we turn to include a primary focus on the context of the larger relational field and explore our interconnection with others, we find that Gestalt theory offers an ethics which is much more than just protecting the rights of our clients – an ethics which enables a full realization of the rich potential of the Gestalt model. In The Values of Connection, Robert G. Lee and other distinguished theorists and practitioners first explore the relational values that derive from Gestalt, many of which have long been implicit in Gestalt practice but not enunciated or related clearly enough to theory.
The book then presents a variety of examples, based on an understanding of these values, including working with troubled/difficult adolescents, working with couples, how touch can be used in therapy, understanding the addict, listening to the mental health and spiritual needs of the new communities in East London, revealing a common set of underlying difficulties in adversarial divorce, treating agents of oppression, and the link between shame and rage from the time of Homer. These examples represent field solutions to modern problems which become apparent and possible when we move from the view of people as isolated individuals to a relational context.
In the review of this book for the International Gestalt Journal (vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 143-149), Sally Denham-Vaughn writes: “just occasionally, I come across a book that I judge as essential for all Gestalt psychotherapy practitioners to read; Robert Lee has managed to produce such a book.”
Robert G. Lee, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in Newton, Massachusetts, USA, has written extensively and presented widely on shame and belonging as regulator processes of the relational field. Robert’s books include The Voice of Shame (1996), The Values of Connection (2004), The Secret Language of Intimacy (2008), and Relational Child, Relational Brain (2011). He is an editor at GestaltPress, a faculty member for the Advanced Child and Adolescent Program at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and an international trainer and visiting faculty member of a number of Gestalt training programs in Australia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, and the USA.
