Dalla Prefazione di Leslie Greenberg al testo Gestalt Therapy in Clinical Practice. From Psychopathology to Aesthetic of Contact
Edited By Gianni Francesetti, Michela Gecele and Jean Roubal
There has until recently been a lack of development of theory and research in Gestalt therapy that has greatly hampered the recognition of what Gestalt therapy has to offer. Being an experiential therapy, training was based strongly on promoting personal experience as a way of learning. This led to the denigration of intellectual and scientific pursuits, to the elevation of learning by doing, and to only valuing “knowledge of acquaintance”. You had to experience it to know it. This was in line with Gestalt phenomenological theory of practice, but this approach had its problems in promoting theory and research. This approach exposed Gestalt to the danger of becoming an esoteric practice and of losing any recognition as a serious academic, professional and scientifically valid approach. The theoretical and clinical writing that appears in this book is an antidote to this trend.
With the advent of the worldwide call for evidence based practice Gestalt has begun to shift its focus and has begun to develop and encourage more theoretical and research efforts. A sophisticated treatment of psychopathology as offered in these chapters fits into, and points the way, along this new path. In my view it can be thought of as helping to set a new frame for a third generation of Gestalt therapists, one that is more holistic, integrating theory research and practice in a phenomenological, relational and empirical framework.
Leslie Greenberg
Toronto, December 2012
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Ricordiamo oggi il pensiero di D. Stern attraverso le parole di Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, direttore dell’Istituto di Gestalt HCC Italy, tratte da Il contributo di Daniel Stern alla psicoterapia della Gestalt di Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, in Quaderni di Gestalt, Volume XXVI, 2013/2
