Appndix 1

Arnold Beisser, M.D.

Although brief, the “Paradoxical Theory of Change”

is, outside of the works of Frederick Perls, the most
frequently referenced article in the body of Gestalt
therapy literature. Written in 1970, it originally
appeared in Fagan and Shepherd’s Gestalt Therapy
Now, a Harper Colophon Book. It appears here with
the kind permission of the author’s widow.
For nearly a half century, the major part of his professional
life, Frederick Perls was in conflict with the psychiatric
and psychological establishments. He worked uncompromisingly
in his own direction, which often involved fights with
representatives of more conventional views. In the past few
years, however, Perls and his Gestalt therapy have come to find
harmony with an increasingly large segment of mental health
theory and professional practice. The change that has taken
place is not because Perls has modified his position, although
his work has undergone some transformation, but because the
trends and concepts of the field have moved closer to him and
his work.

THE PARADOXICAL THEORY OF CHANGE

Perls’s own conflict with the existing order contains the

seeds of his change theory. He did not explicitly delineate this
change theory, but it underlies much of his work and is
implied in the practice of Gestalt techniques. I will call it the
paradoxical theory of change, for reasons that shall become
obvious. Briefly stated, it is this: that change occurs when one
becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not.
Change does not take place through a coercive attempt by the
individual or by another person to change him, but it does
take place if one takes the time and effort to be what he is —
to be fully invested in his current positions. By rejecting the
role of change agent, we make meaningful and orderly change
possible.
The Gestalt therapist rejects the role of “changer,” for
his strategy is to encourage, even insist, that the patient be
where and what he is. He believes change does not take place
by “trying,” coercion, or persuasion, or by insight, interpretation,
or any other such means. Rather, change can occur when
the patient abandons, at least for the moment, what he would

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like to become and attempts to be what he is. The premise is
that one must stand in one place in order to have firm footing
to move and that it is difficult or impossible to move without
that footing.
The person seeking change by coming to therapy is in
conflict with at least two warring intrapsychic factions. He is
constantly moving between what he “should be” and what he
thinks he “is,” never fully identifying with either. The Gestalt
therapist asks the person to invest himself fully in his roles,
one at a time. Whichever role he begins with, the patient soon
shifts to another. The Gestalt therapist asks simply that he be
what he is at the moment.
The patient comes to the therapist because he wishes
to be changed. Many therapies accept this as a legitimate
objective and set out through various means to try to change
him, establishing what Perls calls the “topdog/under-dog”
dichotomy. A therapist who seeks to help a patient has left the
egalitarian position and become the knowing expert, with the
patient playing the helpless person, yet his goal is that he and
the patient should become equals. The Gestalt therapist
believes that the topdog/under-dog dichotomy already exists
within the patient, with one part trying to change the other,
and that the therapist must avoid becoming locked into one
of these roles. He tries to avoid this trap by encouraging the
patient to accept both of them, one at a time, as his own.
The analytic therapist, by contrast, uses devices such as
dreams, free associations, transference, and interpretation to
achieve insight that, in turn, may lead to change. The behaviorist
therapist rewards or punishes behavior in order to
modify it. The Gestalt therapist believes in encouraging the
patient to enter and become whatever he is experiencing at
the moment. He believes with Proust, “To heal a suffering one
must experience it to the full.”
The Gestalt therapist further believes that the natural
state of man is as a single, whole being — not fragmented into
two or more opposing parts. In the natural state, there is
constant change based on the dynamic transaction between
the self and the environment.
Kardiner has observed that in developing his structural
theory of defense mechanisms, Freud changed processes into
structures (for example, denying into denial). The Gestalt
therapist views change as a possibility when the reverse occurs,
that is, when structures are transformed into processes. When
this occurs, one is open to participant interchange with his
environment.
If alienated, fragmentary selves in an individual take on

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separate, compartmentalized roles, the Gestalt therapist
encourages communication between the roles; he may actually
ask them to talk to one another. If the patient objects to this
or indicates a block, the therapist asks him simply to invest
himself fully in the objection or the block. Experience has
shown that when the patient identifies with the alienated
fragments, integration does occur. Thus, by being what one is
— fully — one can become something else.
The therapist, himself, is one who does not seek
change, but seeks only to be who he is. The patient’s efforts to
fit the therapist into one of his own stereotypes of people, such
as a helper or a top-dog, create conflict between them. The
end point is reached when each can be himself while still
maintaining intimate contact with the other. The therapist,
too, is moved to change as he seeks to be himself with another

person. This kind of mutual interaction leads to the possibility

that a therapist may be most effective when he changes most,
for when he is open to change, he will likely have his greatest
impact on his patient.
What has happened in the past fifty years to make this
change theory, implicit in Perls’s work, acceptable, current,
and valuable? Perls’s assumptions have not changed, but
society has. For the first time in the history of mankind, man
finds himself in a position where, rather than needing to
adapt himself to an existing order, he must be able to adapt
himself to a series of changing orders. For the first time in the
history of mankind, the length of the individual life span is
greater than the length of time necessary for major social and
cultural change to take place. Moreover, the rapidity with
which this change occurs is accelerating.
Those therapies that direct themselves to the past and
to individual history do so under the assumption that if an
individual once resolves the issues around a traumatic
personal event (usually in infancy or childhood), he will be
prepared for all time to deal with the world; for the world is
considered a stable order. Today, however, the problem
becomes one of discerning where one stands in relationship
to a shifting society. Confronted with a pluralistic, multifaceted,
changing system, the individual is left to his own devices
to find stability. He must do this through an approach that
allows him to move dynamically and flexibly with the times
while still maintaining some central gyroscope to guide him.
He can no longer do this with ideologies, which become
obsolete, but must do it with a change theory, whether explicit
or implicit. The goal of therapy becomes not so much to

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develop a good, fixed character but to be able to move with
the times while retaining some individual stability.
In addition to social change, which has brought
contemporary needs into line with his change theory, Perls’s
own stubbornness and unwillingness to be what he was not
allowed him to be ready for society when it was ready for him.
Perls had to be what he was despite, or perhaps even because
of, opposition from society. However, in his own lifetime he
has become integrated with many of the professional forces in
his field in the same way that the individual may become
integrated with alienated parts of himself through effective
therapy.
The field of concern in psychiatry has now expanded
beyond the individual as it has become apparent that the most
crucial issue before us is the development of a society that
supports the individual in his individuality. I believe that the
same change theory outlined here is also applicable to social
systems, that orderly change within social systems is in the
direction of integration and holism; further, that the social
change agent has as his major function to work with and in an
organization so that it can change consistently with the
changing dynamic equilibrium both within and outside the
organization. This requires that the system become conscious
of alienated fragments within and without so it can bring them
into the main functional activities by processes similar to
identification in the individual. First, there is an awareness
within the system that an alienated fragment exists; next that
fragment is accepted as a legitimate outgrowth of a functional
need that is then explicitly and deliberately mobilized and
given power to operate as an explicit force. This, in turn. leads
to communication with other subsystems and facilitates an
integrated, harmonious development of the whole system.
With change accelerating at an exponential pace, it is
crucial for the survival of mankind that an orderly method of
social change be found. The change theory proposed here has
its roots in psychotherapy. It was developed as a result of
dyadic therapeutic relationships. But it is proposed that the
same principles are relevant to social change, that the individual
change process is but a microcosm of the social change
process. Disparate, unintegrated, warring elements present a
major threat to society, just as they do to the individual. The
compartmentalization of old people, young people, rich
people, poor people, black people, white people, academic
people, service people, etc., each separated from the others by
generational, geographical, or social gaps, is a threat to the
survival of mankind. We must find ways of relating these

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compartmentalized fragments to one another as levels of a
participating, integrated system of systems.
The paradoxical social change theory proposed here is
based on the strategies developed by Perls in his Gestalt

therapy. They are applicable, in the judgment of this author,

to community organization, community development and
other change processes consistent with the democratic
political framework.

Appendix 2

Theory of the field and healing – Gestalt approach

Rome,may2006.

We will start this presentation by looking at the terms cure and heal. The word “cure”
usually refers to: restoration of health, remedy something harmful or disturbing, to remove
or to clean and also to preserve. For the word “healing” the meaning refers to : wholeness,
to make something whole, to go against impairment. Also we find in literature that some
use heal as a synonym of cure, while others distinguish between this two. The word “cure”
generally is accepted to mean the transformation from illness to heath and it refers to the
idea that therapy provides something like cure, and when it is finished the person can
expects to be objectively cured. It is in the nature of life to present human beings with
obstacles, sometimes in the form of illness, and these obstacles, if not excessive, provide
us with an opportunity for reflection on inappropriate forms of adjustment so that we have
a chance to discover more adequate attitudes and make more corresponding adjustments.
However, it seems that changes are valid for a limited period of time after which the
problem may again present itself.

Over time, the integration of problematic experiences can be seen as a continuous process
that can lead to continuous unfolding of the human being towards wholeness. Therapist’s
attitude towards cure and healing may assist the patient to accept that neurotic conditions
could be potentially a positive factor in life and human transformation and growth. To cure,
or to be clean of, or to remove, in a medical sense is very difficult in psychotherapy so
we will use for this presentation the word ‘heal’ in the sense that it is mentioned.

Alchemy of healing

One of the working titles for this presentation was ‘alchemy of healing’ .Once it was
introduced we would like to give some ideas about alchemy in our discussion on healing.

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We are using it as a metaphor for what this work is focused on, and this is: the experience
of therapist and client in complexity of the interaction in the client/therapist field. The
Philosophy and practice of alchemy concerns itself with transformation of substance
through holistic approach. It held that for the work to be effective there must be no
separation between soul, spirit, substance and the body. The alchemist also anticipated
what modern physicists have called the principle of determinacy namely that the result of
one’s experiment or laboratory activity are determined by the approach and orientation of
the experimenter and any transformation depends on, and includes, the interaction of body,
soul, spirits of both subjects. From this point of view alchemical transformation and
healing are similar. Healing has as a consequence a restoration and transformation which
enables the process of growth trough aware response in the field.(4,p6). To heal therefore
is to restore “…the function of the contact – boundary in the organism/environment field;
it is by means of creative adjustment, change, and growth

that the complicated organic unities live on in the larger unity of the field.” F.Perls et al.
are mentioning that correspondingly the therapist is focused on “… the interruption,
inhibitions or other accidents in the course of creative adjustment.”

The concept of field

The concept of “field” is central to Gestalt therapy and generates a whole range of
consequences on perspective of Self. Contemporary Gestalt therapy is open to holistic
thinking that derives from the new cosmology , modern physics ,biology and astronomy.
Adopting a concept of field and unitary field means that the ways of thinking about
symptoms, dysfunction, disease , diagnosis and the healing will necessarily have to
integrate manifestation and consequences of the field from which independence is
impossible. The question is : the quality, way and the degree to which self–organisation is
influenced and dependent of the field.
“The therapist with the field perspective operates with the presumption that every observed
phenomenon arises not from one influence that can be singled out, but from an interaction
of many influences working together independently. Some or all of the factors may affect
what is happening; what is certain is that they will be operating together .”(8,p19) Once
the therapist and client find themselves in the therapeutic relationship, the complexity of
the field that they are creating is humbling. We exist each in our local field ,we also have
multiple roles, identification and affiliation and each of these mentioned is necessary
defined in the relational terms. In taking part in the collective effort we are creating some
kind of shared field of overlapping fields and spheres of involvement with others in non-
mechanical way. In this way formed field begins to manifests its own organisation , activity
and property.
One of the main questions is: what is the felt experience of/in the field, created by
client/therapist contacting , in the process of transformation and healing ?How this
experience come about , what it consist of? Haw it can be referred to ,addressed, articulated,
verbally or non-verbally ,and how we inboard on the “vessel” of healing?

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 Answer to these questions runs the risk of not doing the justice to the complexity of
phenomena concerned ,so we will be offering ideas for continuing discussion not answers.
When we speak about field, we usually speak about the qualities of the field which we
all experience.We experience the organisation of the field, the contemporaneity,
singularity, change of process, relevancy, predictability, the complexity, unpredictability.
When therapists/client meet they bring their hierarchically organised fields which
interconnect and form new field which has its own autonomy, dynamic and
phenomenology. All information are present but they are the back ground and we are not
aware of it, but through consequences. The dynamics of the therapist/client field very often
form the figures that bring into awareness an intensified representation of mutual
projection or/and identification of experiences activated by the nature and uniqueness of
the participant’s encounter and their personal similarities and differences . These
projections and identification which are happening in the client-therapist field partly belong
to the new meeting , partly are of the individual past and partly belong to the influences
arriving across both space and time ,from the past (at this point we are using R.Sheldrake’s
hypothesis of morphic resonance*).In this complexity the background of the experience
grow to embrace not only freshness of the new but shadows of the past individual and
collective.
In the healing process of ‘creative awareness’ (4 , p 16) and integration therapist and
client are involved in complex interaction .The general field effect of the therapist denying
this processes is radiated to the client and his recovery. The constant supervision of the
‘work’ is necessary and supportive. While therapists’ personal field cannot be avoided or
excluded in I-Thou relationship, its elements can be used according to the context , identity
and activity of therapist .
Client/therapist experiences provide psychological aspects of similar to previous
experiences, and therefore must be “potentized”,i.e brought to the active force and realize
latent power of. To bring these experiences in the active state and realise latent power of
means to : perceive and articulate them, not necessarily concretely, but in more soulful
state by being in a middle mode, aware, neither active nor passive, spontaneous and
engaged .Therapists will bring the latent power of experience through consciously
retroflecting from his potentially contaminating impulses or emotions brought by being
with client, suffering them, or experiencing them, and thereby incubating their potential
meaning in found context that fits to the experience and makes the new figure for the
client.
Such invisible vibration often not communicated verbally affects the field, trough the
resonance of change and the new organisation of the field. Anger, pain, fear, loss,
helplessness on the therapist’s side need to be processed, held and worked through softly.
In the middle mode of the full contact, in the moments of transforming the event in the
field into experiences, client and therapists are engaged in the situation ,experiencing
similarities and differences organising elements of the field into new mining fool wholes.
The ego and id function are balanced in the client/therapist but also in the corresponding
field .Id of the organisms involved ,and of the field created , moving from unity to
differentiation , emerges trough metaphors, images and phenomena , in the form of poetry
connecting overlapping and distant fields. With receptiveness of the id and simultaneous
presence of the ego aggressiveness in the field , the new may unfold.
_________

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* ” …the term morphic field includes morphogenetic, behavioural, social, cultural, and
mental fields. Morphic fields are shaped and stabilized by morphic resonance from
previous similar morphic units, which were under the influence of fields of the same kind…
Morphic resonance is the influence of previous structures of activity on subsequent similar
structures of activity organized by morphic fields. Trough morphic resonance, formative
causal influences (…the hypothesis that organisms or morphic units at all levels of
complexity are organized by morphic fields, which are themselves influenced and
stabilized by morphic resonance from all previous similar morphic units) pass trough or
across both space and time, and these influences are assumed not to fall off with distance
in space or time, but they come only from the past.In general , morphic units closely
resemble themselves in the past and are subject to self-resonance from their own past.(10,
p 371)

This, most probably is an altered state of consciousness , distinct aspect of self which
partakes of qualities of both id and ego function. Therapist steps back from any needs,
actions, theories, taking the phenomenological posture, does not lose the contact with its
centeredness and experience and observes the client state from within/out himself .

The risk of this process lies in a therapist claiming too much for himself, either from the
sense of genuine caring or because of his need to show his importance. A therapist needs
to be aware of his power and need to heal, his sense of his own woundidnes and pain, and
awareness of his capacity to intrude. If the therapist is identified with the power to heal
it takes from the client’s resources and separates the therapist from hierarchy of the fields
and awareness of ultimate and mysterious field.

Creativity and adjustment

“Creativity and adjustment are polar and mutually necessary.”(4,p 7) We will stop at this
quote to discuss the presence of polar aspects in process of healing and consequences for
the therapy practice .Healing incorporates two polar sides, ‘favourable’ and ‘unfavourable:
“…Spontaneity is seizing on, and glowing and growing with, what is interesting and
nourishing in the environment. (Unfortunately, the ‘adjustment’ of much psychotherapy,
the “conforming to the reality-principle’, is the swallowing of a stereotype.)”.(4,p 7)
So, whenever we are aware of ‘favourable’ side of healing, the opposite is present:
creativity/adjustment , movement/stillness , success/failure… “In order to keep away from
that embarrassing feeling of the inaptitude in the presence of opposite therapists use well-
known action and split them : failure from success.”(11,p 3) Although we declare that the
solution , change , novelty , creativity , transformation is not the aim but the consequence
of assessment/intervention/awareness of therapy, healing is very often ,in expectation of
client/therapist , connected with change, transformation , and ‘favourable’ in polarities. It
is also a matter of becoming. Becoming in turn can be a process of transition, from the
possible to the actual; from actual to the possible.
But what is opposite? Constant, fixed, settled, steady… on the other side of becoming is
being. Heidegger “…describes confrontation and mutual limitation of Being and

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Becoming . What is becoming is not yet; what is, need not to become. What Is, in real
sense, resist any pressure of the Becoming”.(11,p3) This dilemma and conflict are
significant experience of therapeutic process and personality function.
What is the dynamic of Being and Becoming? The old generate the new, being brings
becoming. But this continuity does not happen peacefully, because the Old experiences the
transformation as a treat to which it reacts by, swallowing every new ‘offspring.’
“The new revolutionary forces oppose this reactionary and conservative phase in a
confrontation without compromise”…(11,p4) One of the two must die.
Psychologically speaking, experiences of healing and transformation trough it, are closely
connected with aggression and destruction within client/therapist field and (at this stage)
corresponding function of the ego…”The process of creative adjustment to new material
and circumstances always involves a phase of aggression and destruction ,for it is by
approaching …and altering old structures that the unlike is made like. When a new
configuration comes into being, both the old achieved habit of the contacting organism and
the previous state of what is approached and contacted are destroyed in the interest of the
new contact. Such destruction of the status quo may arouse fear , interruption , and anxiety
, the greater in proportion as one is neurotically inflexible , but the process is accompanied
by the security of the new invention experimentally coming into being. Here as everywhere
the only solution of a human problem is experimental invention…where disturbing energy
flows into the new figure.”(4,p 9)
The split between polar aspects of one phenomenon: new/old, self-preserving/grooving ,
being/becoming… interrupts the figure/ground formation of both , therapist and client in
the process of healing.

What are the consequences of this split for therapeutic processes? The most immediate
problem of this split in psychotherapy is the fact that it is not aware of the other pole but it
is projected outside mostly in an attempt to invalidate what does not belong to the action,
dynamic, creativity, impetus, novelty.
In Gestalt therapy the presence in the now and paradox theory of change can support
therapist to fight polarity of stagnation/ action. We should not lose the sight of the fact that
polar aspects will sabotage and even more, slow down the pace. The central problem is
that mind acts so fast in connection with the gravity that ground cannot be touched easily.
When therapist makes it move too fast , want too much , he is most probably in the
contratransference of splitting being from becoming.

How to reconcile the polarity in our understanding of the healing? How to hold the
polarities in harmony in the therapy process and of the therapy process? This integrative
aspect of the healing seems to require slightly different process from that of aggressing and
destroying old. As examples of progressive integration Perls et al frequently refer to
creative art as”… a spontaneity in it is recognized as central in health; in a successful
therapeutic session the curative insight is marked by its spontaneity…His (artist’s)
awareness is in a kind of middle mode, naider active nor passive, but accepting the
conditions , attending to the job , and growing toward the solution…it is the sensory-motor
integration , the acceptance of the impulse , and attentive contact with new environmental
material that result in valuable work…can the same middle mode of acceptance and growth
operate in adult life in more “serious” concerns? We believe so.”(4,p 23)

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The middle mode, a creative impartiality , underlying self or “soul” contains in itself all
the middles of things and is thus nearest to each.Therefor no psychological problem can be
solved nor can it be made to disappear from scene .Psyche seems more interested in the
movement and integration of its phenomena then in resolution of the problems.

Healing via ego needs to be balanced with a creative impartiality of the soul which can
hold the tension between the two, and continuously integrate logical absurd and
experiential truth.
Only paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life. Both opposites
are equivalent, of the same importance in maintaining integrity of phenomena to which
they both belong.

Self regulation

In the last part of this presentation I would like to refer to the gestalt term of the self-
regulation. The traditional term of gestalt therapy which describes the dynamic of
individuals interacting with environment. Self-regulation implies that we live and attend
to homeostatic balance. Introduced by the American psychologist Cannon ‘homeostasis’
from the Greek for ‘same-state’ is the term for any process that modifies an existing
condition and initiates other processes that function in a regulatory manner to re-establish
the initial condition. So homeostasis is conservative in the nature and maintains the old.
Hunter Beaumont in the British Gestalt Journal proposed that we use instead the term self
organization - term that assumes un evolving – system ,reaching the balance intrapersonal,
interpersonal or transpersonal. Unfolding of an organism, growth and transformation is
not just response to novelty in the organism environment field , but inherent to the
organism itself. There is an inherent trust to become or unfold within self-organizing
systems in the field. There is implicit principle which direct towards manifestation on
explicit level which is visible in biological regulation of the organism. Since this exists
on mental, emotional and spiritual level then organismic self-organization, once
interrupted, or inhibited in the course of creative adjustment, create abnormality and
symptoms. “ Once re-established and achieved a strong gestalt is itself the cure for the
figure of contact is not a sign of, but is itself the created integration of experience.”(4,p 10)

So ,it is as Hunter Beaumont mentioned,(6,p 98) an inherent trust to become and unfold,
thus this is the force which participated equally in: unfolding , but also may upset existing
balances (since they resist becoming) and heal what is disturbed or upset. In the process
of healing and restoring the self-organization, in tune with the growth intent, through
creative adjustment, the organism will be transformed into forms different from pre -
morbid state because there is a tendency towards constant growth. We cannot go back to
what was . We always move to something that is slightly different .

On the other hand if (it is also is in tune with the growth intent ) existing state of health is
not any more in tune with needs to grow the disturbance of existing state of health can

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happen in order to provide growth and transformation. Healing in this case is interruption
of homeostasis.
Gestalt approach loves looking at what really is and it is willing to sacrifice concepts,
preconceptions, and beliefs in order to honour the perception of novelty.

Fritz Perls had a wonderful sentence. “There is no end to integration. The old man until
the end of his life was interested in dealing with: nature, creation and what is.”

Thank you

References:

1.Arthur S Reber((2001)Dictionary of Psychology;Pinguin Reference

2.Bertram Muller (1997)The Total Therapeutic Context; Gestalt Review,1(2) 94-109

3.Edward C Whitmont(1993)The Alchemy of Healing;Nort Atlantic Books

4.F.Perls,R.Hefferline,P.Goodman(1994)Gestalt therapy;The Gestalt Journal Press

5.John C Gunzburg(1997)Heaaling trough Meating;Jessica Kingsley

Publishers,Pensylvania

6.Judith Hemming(1998)In the field of the soul;Hunter Beaumont interviewed by

J.Hemming;British Gestalt Journal

7.Keneth R Evans(1994).Healing Shame: A Gestalt perspective 24.no.2,103-

108;Transaktional Analysis Journal

8.Malcolm Parlet : Creative Adjastment and global field(2000)The British Gestalt Journal

9.Poul Goodman : (1991)Nature Heals;Gestalt Journal Publication

10.Rupert Sheldrake(1995)The presence of the past;Park Street Press

11.Velimir Popovic(2003)Is Change Changeable?Lectures at GPTI Malta

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