The lost self changes: Gestalt and Christian concepts of rebirth

Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 15, No. 4, 1976

The Lost Self Changes: Gestalt and Christian Concepts of Rebirth

BARRIE RYAN

It is not for me to speak in general terms of the inner reality of him who refuses to believe in a transcendent being with whom he can communicate. I have only this to report: that I have met many men in the course of my life who have told me how, acting from the con- science of men who had become guilty, they experienced themselves as seized by a higher power. These men grew into an existential state to which the name of rebirth is due. 1

I went through a "menta l breakdown," a personal collapse, a great period of complete upheaval: I was an agnostic before it; I am a newly spiritual Christ ian since it. I experienced conversion; I experienced rebirth. It has happened to many under many different circumstances, and many, I imagine, under my circumstances. I won' t say it is not worth remarking because it has happened to many. A miracle is always worth remarking, no mat te r how many times it happens. I speak of it because of what I could not unders tand during the change.

I took two parallel actions during this t ime of breakdown: I prayed to God to help me and started going to church; and I went into Gestalt therapy. Nei ther was familiar to me. I did them both because I was desperate. ! had a little more faith in the first than in the second, but I was determined to commit myself to anything tha t would help me be responsible for myself, so I threw myself into therapy, too.

During therapy I often became confused as to what ! was experiencing. Sometimes I felt tha t my growth in therapy (which I could feel was occurring) was responsible for my increasing spiritual sensitivity; sometimes I felt tha t my growth in therapy was because of my faith; sometimes I felt that the two growths were mutual ly opposed. I wanted to see how these t ruths were related, as I felt tha t in some significant way they were.

Yet I could not bring my spiritual concerns directly into my work in therapy. I did not know how to make them valid there. This bothered me deeply. I am sure tha t some of my resistance to specific work was a result of feeling that Gestalt was taking me in a wrong direction.

For instance, the expression of anger was one area of difficulty; the effort to end relationships was another. These areas were difficult because of my personal fear

Barrie Ryan, M.A., has taught English at the University of Arizona and children of varying ages in several experimental schools in Tucson. She is currently teaching extension courses for the University and a class in Ivan Illich for the Free University also in Tucson.

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of taking risks, as Gestal t made clear to me; bu t they were problemat ic because they were also critical areas in the testing of my newly awakening spiritual values. I did not know how to make any distinctions at this t ime; neither did I have sufficient faith. So ! often simply hung back in dumb resistance.

Yet in the end I knew I could no longer s tand living as I had. Therefore, I would commit myself to the risk of my personal feelings in therapy regardless of the simultaneous despair I experienced in predicting tha t this would also probably mean the death of certain spiritual values within me. Thus I cont inued to progress, with the two most impor tan t experiences in my increasing hope of recovery remaining individually significant bu t somehow unrelated and maybe even (but how could t h e y be?) mutual ly hostile at certain points.

After I concluded therapy, my most impor tan t personal decision was still to be made. I was able to make it only with the help of intense prayer, which finally, by the grace of God, led me out to the other side of darkness.

Following this I read whatever I could find to help me unders tand the relation between the two most powerful helps to my recovery. This paper is the result of tha t search.

I began by examining the concept of rebirth, from both a Christian and a Gestal t s tandpoint . T h a t led me to see the essential similarities and a significant difference between their views. But tha t in turn raised questions tha t I also had to pursue. They brought me, in the end, to a consideration of how Gestal t therapy could be a hindrance as well as a help to someone struggling to be spiri tually reborn.

Finally, I must note tha t al though my own spiritual journey took on Christian form, so tha t I was initially looking for the Christian unders tanding of rebir th in this search, many of the most rewarding insights regarding spiritual rebir th I found were not l imited specifically to a Christian point of view. Therefore, I have used the term Christ ian-Spir i tual through much of the paper to leave the meaning of rebir th in the spirit as open as possible.

Psychotherapists who see the relevance of spiritual disciplines to their field of endeavor (like Fromm, Benoit or Nicoll) or religious thinkers interested in psychotherapy (like Watts) are a minority, and their number diminishes when we look for those who have deft- nite notions as to how the ideas and procedures of these different domains are related and not just divided interest. 2

The essence of the Christ ian message is the need for man to change himself, to be reborn. It calls for us to become "new persons" in Christ. Exac t ly what this means may differ from interpreter to interpreter . I shall a t t e m p t to avoid doctrinal issues and concentra te on the experience of change itself. In his book, The New Man, Maurice Nicoll discussed what this change process involves, a

He who would love God is told he must die to the outer man, the man of appearances, and be reborn to the innermost man in himself ( "The kingdom of God is within you") . He must die to his ego, his pride, and all the love of s tatus in the world tha t issues from it. He must be born to a whole new sense of what goodness is, and he must be able to act from it. To become this new person, he

The Lost Self Changes: Gestalt and Christian Concepts of Rebirth 249

mus t b reak his feeling of complacency or self-sat isfact ion and come to feel t h a t he is a lmos t nothing. 4

Since it is by no means easy to die to one's self in the worldly sense, res is tance to this process will be strong and will come from the very forces within a m a n tha t are threa tened:

The conception of the Gospels is that man is continually being dragged down by evil forces which are in him, not outside him, and to which he consents. By man's consent to these forces in himself, progress in human life is prevented. The evil powers a r e . . . [in ] his self- love, his egoism, his ignorance, his stupidity, his malice, his vanity, and also his thinking only from his senses and taking the seen world, the outer appearances of life as the only reality. These defects are collectively called the devil, which is the name for the terrible power of misunderstanding everything that undeveloped man possesses. ~

S i n c e he is going to resist, and since the change required is so radical , if it is to t ake place a m a n mus t be led into bewi lderment , into a wilderness. Eve ry th ing in h im mus t be subjected to t e m p t a t i o n so t ha t all t h a t is useless for his new growth will be burned away and all t h a t is essential evolution will be left. He mus t gradual ly be t r ans formed from the lower aspects of appea rances to the higher or inner k ingdom of the t ru th of love by this process. The process is difficult and often painful .

One of Nicoll 's most strongly held points is t ha t a l though goodness is first in impor tance and the real end of all knowledge, a m a n can come to act f rom it only by first undergoing a change in his unders tand ing of t ru th . In short, he sees t h a t t ru th mus t grow in h im before his feeling of wha t is good can change:

Now whatever a man loves he regards as good, and what he regards as good he wills and acts from. If he only loves himself then he is a man to whom Good means only his own good, and anything that does not apply to his own good he will regard as bad. The development of the will is through the development of the love, and the development of the love is at the expense of the self love. e

Unti l a m a n ' s unders tand ing of wha t good is changes, he cannot really be a new person. The u l t ima te result of rebi r th should be a change in motive, a change in behavior , a new person. But the process involves dying to an old t ru th and discovering the new before his act ions and behavior will change.

To s u m m a r i z e Nicoll 's main points, then, reb i r th involves: the dea th of appearances ; the loss of complacency and coming to feel t ha t one is nothing; being dragged down by evil forces in oneself; becoming bewildered and t e m p t e d so t ha t one can be t r ans fo rmed f rom lower to higher; willingness to suffer in this process; growth of t ru th in a man before his feeling of what is good can change.

To be led into a wilderness or a s ta te of bewi lde rment involves men t a l distress and confusion. Although Nicoll sees this as an essential pa r t of suffering toward being spir i tual ly t ransformed, it is p robab ly more c o m m o n in our t ime to see confusion as a separa te s ta te and to t rea t it separa te ly . To flesh out our unders tand ing of the possibil i ty of spir i tual t r ans fo rma t ion coming out of such a s ta te , we can look a t a s tudy done by P i t i r im Sorokin presented in The Ways and

250 Journal of Religion and Health

Power o[ Love. 7 Sorokin investigated more than 3,000 great, known altruists in the course of history to see how they had evolved. He did not limit his study to Christians, but included people of any belief or religion who had become known for their loving powers, however manifested. He found that these people fell into three categories, which he designated as: the Early Fortunate Altruists, the Intermediary, and the Late-Converted or Late-Catastrophic Altruists. The categories rest on a continuum of increasing difficulty and pain involved in the rebirth. 8 Since my concern in this paper is with understanding the relation between psychological and spiritual senses of rebirth, I will concentrate on the Late-Catastrophic Altruists, who were originally the most worldly, having experienced the most mental difficulty, having gone through dramatic crises in which their whole lives were turned upside down before they became capable of radiating love.

The people in the Late-Catastrophic group were often basically hedonists or primarily logical-minded. If they had a spiritual bent at all, they did not fully realize it; it was at loggerheads with other parts of themselves. They became great, unselfish, and dedicated souls ultimately, i.e., they accomplished a complete change in their behavior.

At the beginning of the period of change, they were experiencing "an increasingly painful discord in their lives," a sense of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Sorokin refers to them as "sick souls." Thus, Sorokin hypothesized, they were in a sense ready to look for some "way out" of their lives at that time. At this point they had what Sorokin terms a precipitant, some experience that exploded what remained of their former way of looking at things, something that had a shock effect, something that broke down appearances completely. Precipitants were different: the death of a loved one, extreme sickness or nearness to death oneself, betrayal, or sometimes great, unexpected kindness or forgiveness, are some examples. But the effect of the precipitant was the same for all. Sorokin explains that its value was "to expose and make explicit the hidden contradictions in them whether in their mind and conduct, social group or institution."1~

What had originally been stressful but perhaps vaguely felt, then by means of the precipitant became open stress, consciously and fully revealed. Sorokin feels that at this point they could have taken innumerable means to deal with their pain and bewilderment. They could have lapsed, he thinks, into official mental disorder, moral or mental regression to the level of a brute, semianimal submission, cynical sensualism or suicide. 11 These are the chief escapes that Sorokin feels most people seek at such times of extreme stress. Since the temptation to go these routes is great, he feels that this is why so few are able to complete conversion from these circumstances. But the Late-Catastrophic altruists instead passed through a "dark night of the soul with its loneliness, drift, and absence of any divine or other inspiring force." 12

The crucial factor in their conversion experience begins here. At or during this time they come to identify with the Supraconscious. Sorokin uses Supracon- scious instead of God because he is dealing with people from so many different


beliefs and religions and he feels that this term allows for more flexibility. What he means by this word is the ultimate power as felt to be above or beyond or outside us but also in some paradoxical sense the most real part of us. They had, he says, "a progressively growing awareness . . . that their true self is neither their body, nor their unconscious, sub-conscious, or pre-conscious e n e r g y . . , but rather the supraconscious, whatever name and properties they give to i t . . . "13 He makes it clear that identification cannot be merely ideological. It must be a real matter of life and death, real emotional commitment. It is the identification of themselves with this power that carries them through the time of confusion and pain. Then, " . . . after a short or long, sharp or mild, bu~ always painful stage of depression, disillusionment, hesitation, inner struggle and dark hours �9 . . ,,14 they reintegrated themselves, their egos, values, and group affiliations around their newly emerged sense of a transcendent reality with which they identified�9 Some were able to accomplish this reintegration in the world, but many had to leave the "world" for a time for solitude or semisolitude of retreats, monasteries, etc., to effect the complete change�9 Sorokin sees the immediate time after the precipitant and during the identification with the Supraconscious as a "sensitive" time in which these people "need a careful helping hand in guiding them toward the creative [altruistic] first deeds and self-identification" with the Supraconscious because it is a time when they could go either backward or forward. "If the first self identification is made with creative love or some other great value, and if the intentional or unintentional first deeds are altruistic or creative, the consequences of such ideas and deeds help to break the unstable equilibrium in favor of a creative life course�9 If both factors are negative, they tend to send the respective person along one of the noncreative highways. ''1~ Some of the people Sorokin discusses in this category of Late-Catastrophic altruists are: St. Francis, Buddha, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Sri Ramakrishna.

Sorokin speculates that the Late-Catastrophic altruists are a minority of the great altruists probably because it is so difficult, so painful and wasteful to go through such upheavals to change that most people cannot do it. The other altruists have more advantages of love in their lives to help effect the growth of rebirth. Still, it must be clear that the Late-Catastrophics do represent the extreme of Nicoll's points of the process. They went through a very difficult time of mental distress�9 Through their willingness to endure the pain and confusion, through their identification of themselves with the power of love that is outside and beyond, they were slowly transformed from the lower appearances of things to the higher principle of love and were ultimately enabled to live and act from it completely�9 They were, in the spiritual sense, truly reborn�9

Here I would like to stress Sorokin's understanding of mental difficulty�9 He discovered that the Late-Catastrophics were experiencing mental disturbance and dissatisfaction originally, which is why he felt they were ready to seek another solution. However, he saw outright "official mental breakdown" as one of the possible escapes from dealing with that stress or the stress intensified and clarified by the precipitant.

252 Journal of Relig!o n and Health

Anton Boisen, who himself could be classified as a Late-Catastrophic altruist, also came to a conclusion about a connection between conversion experience and mental difficulty, but his understanding was different.

Boisen was hospitalized as the result of a sudden mental collapse during a time when he was studying for the ministry. It occurred to him during his hospitaliza- tion that there was a definite similarity between mental illness and conversion experience. After he was released, he devoted the rest of his life to working with hospitalized patients in order to understand what that relation was and to work toward the recovery of patients. In his book The Exploration of the Inner World: A Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience he presents the results of his efforts with 173 mental patients.1~

Boisen observed hospitalized patients' mental disturbances as being characterized by three different kinds of basic responses: acute onset, where the person experiences a sudden crisis of disorientation accompanied by panic and self-blame; drifting or indifference, where the person is extremely passive and lacks concern for anything; delusional misinterpretation, where the person attributes blame to various forces or people outside himself, is extremely defensive and paranoid.17 But Boisen felt that only the first kind of breakdown was similar to what was experienced during religious conversion. The other two responses, drifting and delusional misinterpretation, he saw quite definitely as escapes from facing difficulty (in the same way as Sorokin saw the whole category of "official mental illness" as an escape). But Boisen concluded that hospitalized persons suffering breakdowns of the acute type were attempting necessary conversions, is

Instead of looking only at the behavior of these patients as had previously been done, or assuming that the problem was organic, Boisen became interested particularly in their thinking. He found a "rehgious content" in their thinking: they had a sense of the mysterious, a sense of peril about themselves a n d the world, and an increased and intense sense of responsibility. He felt that it was this "religious content" in their thinking that was trying to help them face their difficulties, that the acute panic reaction was "Nature's way" of trying to heal their disharmony and inner conflicts by throwing them openly into duress. He explains this in the same way Sorokin explains the effect of the precipitant for the Late-Catastrophics: it exposes the conflict clearly to the person, it helps him see what he needs to face. ~9

In examining these patients' backgrounds, Boisen also found a common denominator: unassimilated experience or experiences of high emotional intensity, usually of a sexual nature. 2~ Boisen explains that the patients, feeling they could not relate these experiences to people they loved and needed to be loved by, for fear of rejection had kept themselves bound to an instinctual or lower level in themselves. At the same time, they also kept the loyalty toward the values of the person or persons they loved. Thus, they developed a serious conflict within themselves. Again, for Boisen, the acute panic is a way of trying to force the person to get rid of these sets and attitudes that are blocking his development, to help him resolve his conflict once and for all on a more comprehensive and total


level--or, to put it another way, to help him reach an ultimate loyalty in something more inclusive than the original loyalty, i.e., to integrate in Supracon- scious identification. The terrifying fact is, however, that this sudden thrust into increased awareness, this crisis, either makes or breaks. That is to say, the person undergoing this response is much more likely either to recover or to collapse completely and end up in the back wards of the hospital forever. ~1

Boisen examines in depth the experiences of several Christians who have been considered to have had successful conversion after difficult personal trials. It is interesting that only one of the people he examines, Paul, overlaps with any of the people Sorokin picks out to focus on in detail. However, some others that he discusses, like George Fox and John Bunyan, also fit into the Late-Catastrophic category. In addition, he discusses two of the biblical prophets, Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Looking at all of these people in their times of disturbance, he finds that the same kind of "religious content" appeared in their thinking at these times as appeared in the thinking of the hospitalized acute-onset people: a sense of the mysterious, a sense of world or personal catastrophe, and an increased and intense sense of responsibility. The religious conversion people felt their experiences to be coming to them from God, and later people called their states of mind "visionary"; but whatever they were called, these people spent a certain significant amount of time being disoriented or "strange," hearing voices, receiving visions and/or acting contrary to their usual behaviors, particularly spending a lot of time in solitude. ~2 These disturbed periods were so tremendous to them that they "destroyed the structure upon which their previous judgments had been based and compelled a revaluation of values. ''~3 Boisen sees these as times of problem-solving experiences involving questions of personal destiny and ultimate loyalties, as was the case with the acute-onset patients. Questions such as "Who am I? .... Why am I in this world? .... How can I bring about a realization of the possibilities that ought to be?" become urgent matters of life and death at these times. 24

What the acute type had in common with those undergoing the change of character called conversion was that both arose out of inner conflict and disharmony accompanied by a keen awareness of ultimate loyalties and unattained possibilities. They are both attempts at reorganizing the basis for their life. 2~

The difference for people like Fox and Bunyan is that they eventually came out of their periods of disturbance with greater inner unity and self-discipline, enabled to act toward others on a universal basis of love or at least "with socially valuable insights and a new purpose in life. T M Through the problem-solving nature of these experiences they were able to become what was best and highest in themselves.

But the hospitalized patients did not succeed in that kind of rebirth. Of the 173 patients Boisen worked with in this study, onIy 15 recovered enough to leave the hospital, and none attained the kind of rebirth in their lives that he felt they were striving for. Before I consider Boisen's understanding of why that was so, I would


like to review briefly what evidence Sorokin and Boisen have given that supports and illuminates Nicoll's points about Christian-Spiritual rebirth.

Both the Late-Catastrophics and the acute-onset patients lost their complacency and were brought to feel they were nothing by some kind of extreme situation (a precipitant).

Both groups were being dragged down by destructive forces in themselves. Sorokin does not go into this in detail, but from the examples he cites in his book, it is clear that the Late-Catastrophics' early dissatisfaction came from not being happy with certain aspects of themselves, such as sexual jealousy, drink, possessiveness or greed of one form or another--in short, dissatisfaction came from their vanity, their egos, instincts they couldn't control, etc.

For the acute hospitalized patients, Boisen sees the evil as their isolation and consequent bondage to instincts caused originally by their not being able to relate incidents of high emotional intensity to the persons whose love and esteem was necessary to them. It might appear that the evil here is the social evil (not caused by the individual himself) of failure of charity and understanding--failure to generate an atmosphere of trust and openness. In a real sense this is true. But the key factor is that even though the acute patients experienced others as judging them, and therefore they judged themselves, unacceptable by the standards of those they loved, when they were actually undergoing their crises they experienced the sense of their own responsibility toward their own conflicts. At that time, they felt the problem was their own and they must take responsibility for it. The locus in the crisis was in them.

Both groups were willing to undergo the suffering necessary to endure the wilderness of temptation and travail as they were swept along in a new sense of truth. They did not try to evade or escape what was happening to them.

But the Late-Catastrophics found a strong identification with the Supracon- scious and managed finally to reintegrate their lives totally in harmony with this and thus be reborn in love. Boisen's patients never achieved such a complete change. At this point, let us consider Boisen's explanation for this failure.

Boisen says that one of the reasons for the extremely low recovery figure is that the particular group of patients he was able to work with had been chosen originally in order to study possible physiological factors in mental illness. The choices were made on the basis of health factors. It just happened that over one-third of these patients had been in the hospital over six years. Boisen says if he had worked with all recently admitted patients, the recovery figures would have been higher. 2~ But of the 15 who did recover enough to leave the hospital and make a satisfactory adjustment in the world, all but one was an acute-onset type. Only willingness to face oneself opens the door for real possibilities of change Boisen pointed out, and the drifters and those with delusions are unable or unwilling to make that kind of effort. Acute onset either makes or breaks; many of those with acute onset were broken by this extreme effort. It seems disheartening, to say the least, that only 15 out of 173 could recover. But Boisen is saddened even more by the fact that none of them was able to be reborn in the fullest sense, as Sorokin's Late-Catastrophic altruists had been, as Boisen


himsel f obviously had been, and as Boisen felt the acute-onset pa t i en t s ' own experiences were t rying to lead t h e m to be. This is Boisen 's t en ta t ive reasoning:

With such courage and faith and loyalty, why these prophets of our hospital wards did not attain to something of greater value is a question which suggests a further consideration of no little importance. Their fatal mistake, as I see it, has lain in the failure to recognize and heed that old injunction of true religious insight which requires that we walk humbly with God. This my hospital prophets had failed to do. They had brought the divine down to their own level. They had indeed found inner unification and they succeeded in maintaining it against great odds but only at a very great cost. The universe had become no bigger than themselves. They had not learned with Paul to think of the divine as something that lived within them as a future possibility to be achieved at the cost of sacrifice and struggle. It was for them something already attained. In dealing with such persons I never try to shake their faith in themselves or in the value of their experience. I try rather to help them to take the next step of freeing the divine from their idea of themselves so as to make possible a larger universe. 28

W h a t Boisen is referring to could be spoken of in Sorokin 's t e rms as failure to find full and c o m m i t t e d ident i f icat ion with the Supraconscious .

Boisen's thesis was presented in 1936. I t m a y be difficult to realize how radica l a thesis it m u s t have been then. Bu t i f in our t ime there is more accep tance of the poss ib i l i t y of a connection between men ta l b reakdown and spir i tual seeking (as recognized in the work of people like R. D. Laing), it m u s t be made clear t h a t Boisen paved the way in a t ime when men ta l illness had a real s t igma and people in such a s ta te were usual ly isolated and feared.

For the t ime being, however, I a m going to leave the whole discussion of men t a l difficulty as seen in the context of a Chr is t ian-Spi r i tua l sense of rebi r th and move to a discussion of the Ges ta l t equivalent of rebir th.

Whose God are you looking for? asked the priest. I replied: A starving man doesn ' t ask what the meal is.

- - A n n e Sexton*

Fritz Perls 's f amous s t a t e m e n t in regard to Ges ta l t t he r apy is: " T o suffer one 's dea th and be reborn is not easy. ''~9 But what does the dea th involve; and what the new bir th?

W h a t needs to die, according to Perls, is all t ha t is keeping us f rom becoming our au then t ic selves, i.e., our social roles, our concept ion of ourselves in t e rms of a controlling image, our man ipu la t ion of the world (and others) in t e rms of t ha t controll ing image, our fear of let t ing go of our control and jus t being, our fear of being rejected if we feel wha t we t ruly feel. All this m u s t die if we are to allow what we t ruly are to emerge, if we are to be born again to our real potential . Perls says, "every individual , every plant , every an imal has only one inborn g o a l - - t o

* "Is It True?" In Sexton, A., The Awful Rowing toward God. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1975. Used with permission of Houghton Mifflin.


actualize itself as it is. ''~~ And further, '!the fact tha t we live only on such a small percentage of our potent ia l is due to the fact t ha t we're not w i l l i n g . . , to accept myself, yourself, as the organism which you are by birth, const i tut ion and so on."al

How is this rebir th to be accomplished? It would be hard to say tha t first one's feeling of complacency must be broken, since it would be unlikely tha t any person coming for the rapy would really be complacent . But a person must come to feel he is nothing before change can o c c u r - - a n d this would be difficult for the person coming for therapy, since undoubted ly he would feel a need to shore up his self-image, which seems to be failing him somehow. So he must be pushed toward confronting his anx ie ty everywhere he experiences it; he must be pushed toward the impasse in which he feels he cannot support himself.

To unders tand what this means exact ly , it is necessary to explain Perls 's unders tanding of the movement of confrontat ion within the s t ructure of neurotic personali ty. Perls sees five layers of experience: 1) the clich~ layer, where we exchange polite bu t fundamenta l ly meaningless data, 2) the social roles layer, where we try to be an image of ourselves--usual ly more of whatever we " th ink" we are e.g., more good, more tough, etc., 3) the ant iexistence layer. When the social-roles layer is inoperative for whatever reason, what we feel is no existence, an impasse point, a point tha t we feel we cannot go beyond. This impasse point is where we begin to experience avoidance. We don ' t want to g0 into it, we don ' t want to become aware of it, because we are afraid of our d e a t h - - t h e dea th of our constructed identity. But if we are pushed into the impasse, then we do initially experience death. Perls calls this 4) the implosion layer. It is a fertile void, though, if we will stick with it, because ul t imate ly out of our " d e a t h " comes 5) the explosive level, where our real and strong feelings of our au thent ic selves li terally explode back to life (feelings of grief, orgasm, anger, or joy).35

If in therapy every t ime we sense avoidance we are made to seek awareness of it and in it, we will go through this process. And as we do, we will gain back what of ourselves we have disowned because it did not fit our social-role identi ty. As we gain back "ourselves" we will lose the need for a controlling image of ourselves, we will become alive and self-regulated and enabled at last to live out of our authent ic selves.

It seems impor tan t to discuss the method by which the aforement ioned awareness is achieved, since it is the method itself tha t distinguishes Gestal t from other therapies.

The process in Gestal t the rapy is phenomenological . One does not proceed by explanat ion of past experiences; one proceeds by an awareness con t inuum in the present. There are various procedures tha t can be used by the therapis t to help the pa t ien t (client?) main ta in an awareness cont inuum, but I do not think it necessary to go into them in this paper. Roughly the idea is for the pa t ien t to keep reporting out loud what he is aware of now, both inside and outside his body. As he approaches an area of avoidance, his awareness becomes more difficult and the therapis t can help him choose to focus on his blanking awareness and go into the impasse2 3

The Lost Self Changes: Gestalt and Christian Concepts o[ Rebirth 257

I

Taking his basic ideas of perception from Gestal t psychologists, Perls contends tha t our awareness is composed of figure and background in a shift ing configuration. The needs tha t have not been met, the awareness tha t is unfinished because it has not been acted on, will emerge from background into figure in the order of greatest urgency. In a heal thi ly functioning individual, needs can arise natural ly into foreground (figure), be recognized, and then be met by the individual (acted upon) in any number of ways. In the malfunct ioning individual, needs thought to be dangerous have often been blocked from awareness-- therefore , they remain unfinished. But it is necessary for the organism to keep blocking them instead of recognizing them. (Perls says needs

themselves can never be b locked--only awareness of them). If a person does this long enough, he no longer has any idea how he is doing it. If he can again concentrate on awareness, these blocked needs can emerge into the foreground where they now have a chance to be acted upon so tha t they can be finished or completed. It is when we can really allow the need we have blocked for so long to come fully into awareness tha t we experience our dea th (whatever tha t need is, obviously it was not something we could allow ourselves for fear of some kind; to allow it now is to die) and when our true response to tha t need emerges for the first time, it is an explosion of feeling.

When this process is repeated often enough, we feel we can allow our needs to come up spontaneously. We no longer need to block our awareness of cer ta in needs because we feel we can handle them (i.e., we feel we can express our feelings in response without dying). We then become what Perls calls "se l f regulating," we simply learn to a t tend to our awareness instead of t rying to control it.

But why do we construct controlling images of ourselves in the first place, ideas tha t only must be broken down if we are to be reborn to our authent ic selves? Perls feels tha t matura t ion is " learning to suppor t ourselves," a progressive growing away from the need for envi ronmenta l support . 34 He does not mean by this tha t we don' t always have or need a relat ionship with our envi ronment , simply that we need to grow so that we don ' t th ink we have to depend on cer ta in specific outside supports in order to be what we are. If in growing up the child does not learn by sufficient frustrat ion to find his own resources in himself, if he is given too much support, instead of learning to find and develop his own potential , he begins to develop ways to manipu la te himself and others so as to remain safe. His fear of not being safe, his desire to main ta in the s ta tus quo is really based on his ignorance of his own abil i ty to find ways of meet ing his needs.

Out of this fear, which comes from ignorance, he develops a controlling image of himself and a sense tha t if it is to be mainta ined , he must in general .be controlled by something outside himself. Therefore, he spends his t ime ne i ther in true contact with himself nor with his envi ronment , bu t mostly in an in te rmedi - ate zone (which Perls calls maya) where he predicts the future and pro tec ts himself from the t rue data, which would lead him to real contac t and thus real, responsible action for his feelings and needs. In short, he lets his mind take over the business of living. His mind is the place where he can analyze, sort out, f ind

258 Journal o[ Religion and Health

the proper generalized concepts to keep his awareness and his behavior going along the t rack of greates t safety, he thinks.

There is a big area of fantasy activity that takes up so much of our excitement, of our energy, of our life force, that there is very little energy left to be in touch with reality, and very often if we work and we empty out this middle zone of fantasy, this maya, then there is the experience of satori, of waking up. Suddenly the world is there. 35

I t would appear , then, t ha t according to Gestal t , the evil t ha t drags us down is basical ly our own fear and cowardice, refusal to let go of our controlling ideas of life and ourselves and take risks in living, unwillingness to take responsibi l i ty for what we t ruly feel and are. Our ego, our vani ty , Perls sees as constructs produced by this basic fear.

An appa ren t difference between Ges ta l t and the Chris t ian view on this ma t t e r of the source of t rouble is tha t Ges ta l t sees the beginning of the answer to inauthent ic i ty in "coming to your senses," in allowing your senses to make you aware of wha t is really happening to you. Senses are the da ta of awareness, and:

Awareness per se--by and of itself can be curative because with full awareness you become aware of this organismic self-regulation--you can let the organism take over without interfering . . . and the contrast to this is the whole pathology of self-manipulation, environmental control, etc. ~6

On the surface, the Chris t ian view is much more suspicious of sensory da ta as illusory, bu t I th ink for the same reason tha t Perls is wary of the workings of the mind: fear of lett ing one aspect of experience control us ins tead of achieving honest total awareness. The Christ ian and the Gesta l t views see the dangers of illusion in different places, bu t they share an unders tand ing of the h a r m tha t can come from using someth ing to avoid the whole t ruth .

The ethic of taking final responsibil i ty for yourself is s u m m e d up in Perls 's now famous words:

Take responsibility for yourself and shed it for anybody else. The world is not there for your expectation, nor do you have to live for the expectation of the world. We touch each other by honestly being what we are, not by intentionally making contact.8~

Although everything pas t the first sentence of the above quotat ion would be compat ib le with the Chris t ian view, the first sentence does indicate a real point of difference. While the Chris t ian view also would ma in t a in tha t the secret of t ru th begins in being responsible for yoursel f , it would not end there by any means . W h a t about loving your neighbor? The question is: " Is taking responsibil- i ty for someone else really loving h im?" Both Chr is t iani ty and Ges ta l t would say no, tha t the desired end is to help people to be responsible for themselves, tha t somet imes loving involves taking a s t and against what another is doing. But Ges ta l t would say if loving " h a p p e n s " while you are being responsible for yourself, good and wonderful, bu t you cannot make it happen . Chris t iani ty, on


the other hand, would say that we must enable ourselves to have a loving atti tude toward others regardless of how they personally affect us. We must have a value for their personhood that is not dependent on what we do or do not get from them. The ultimate result of Gestalt therapy may be that a person will be capable of just such an attitude toward others (once having dealt with his own conflicts, fears, needs, and distortions) but there is no implicit ethic indicating that this is where we should arrive.

Like Sorokin and Boisen, Perls, too, feels that the greatest single obstacle to being reborn is unwillingness to suffer the pain of confusion and difficulty involved in the change process. Perls has based most of his theory on this observation. His most basic contention is that without experiencing frustration, we do not grow. People must be pushed toward what they avoid, since it is precisely by this means that they will develop the awareness that will allow them to experience their own support and become their authentic, mature selves.

One of Nicoll's points about rebirth in the Christian sense was the experience of "the drawing of the lower by a series of transformations to the higher." This was valid for the Late-Catastrophics who, once they had come to real identification with the Supraconscious, still had to be transformed (in a long or short period) by a series of experiences in which they eventually totally lost their previous egocentric way of looking at the world and became capable of a unity of being in which they could generate love and kindness in all their actions toward others. The "lower" was their initial state of dissatisfaction in which their egos, values, and group affiliations were not unified, they manifested erratic behavior, and often felt they were the victims of their instinctual drives or their ego satisfactions.

Boisen felt certain that what his acute-onset patients were experiencing was an urgent need to reach a more comprehensive or higher level of integration--not to be victimized by their instinctual drives any longer, to rise to a sense of their unattained possibilities: in short, to be transformed to the "something higher in themselves." They could not attain this level completely, but Boisen's hypothesis about what they were in fact attempting definitely assumes the idea of a transformation from lower to higher.

It is on this point that the Gestalt understanding of what it is to be reborn really differs from the Christian-Spiritual understanding. In the Gestalt understanding, a person must undergo a series of transformations to be sure, but they are along a continuum of incompleteness-completeness. One becomes more integrated, more completely his authentic self by re-experiencing disowned parts of himself, but there is no question of the values "lower" or "higher" being placed on any of them or on anything. All is equal. The self is just more or less integrated. Much of therapy actually may have to do with re-experiencing what one may have originally labelled as "lower" and, therefore, rejected as unacceptable to awareness. Perls would recoil at a "lower-higher" concept of value, which he would see as an underlying cause of so much inauthentic behavior and blanking of awareness.

Claudio Naranjo, another Gestalt therapist, has put it this way: "Psychother- apy stresses the balance of right and left; mysticism the harmony of above and


below. ''aS The significant difference between the Chris t ian-Spir i tual unders tanding of rebirth and the Gestal t sense then lies here, in the idea of the ul t imate t ransformation to be expected. According to the Christ ian-Spir i tual unders tanding, u l t imately a person should be lifted into something larger and higher than himself, thus changing the basis for his unders tanding and action. Those who hold the Gestalt view believe in the healing of the person within himself, in restoring his authent ic i ty . This difference is really what is responsible for the difference in the ethic of each. Obviously if the u l t imate goal is to be healed within yourself, then being responsible for yoursel f only follows. However, if the goal is t ransformation to a higher level of yourself, then being responsible somehow for others and/or other forms of life is going to become the ethic.

The question now arises "of whether these two exper iences - - tha t of healing and tha t of mystical union ( t ransformat ion) - -a re different in the sense of belonging to separate domains of experience or are just different stages in a single-change process." 39

Naranjo has given this mat te r a great deal of a t ten t ion and has done some work on it with patients. Although he says the answer is not completely certain yet, his own view is tha t healing probably must precede mystical awareness and tha t they are probably different stages in a single-change process:

Just as in Dante's journey, only after reaching the fullness of the ordinary human condition can he (man) soar above the earth, so most spiritual traditions recognize the need for a via purgativa before the via unitiva, the need for a man to realize his true nature as a human being before he can aspire to realize his divine nature, for him to establish order and harmony in his life before his soul can become receptive to the supernatural. 4~

An exper iment by Stanislaus Grof in Czechoslovakia provides some evidence along these lines. Grof adminis tered LSD-25 to three groups of people in therapy sessions over a long period (60 to 90 weekly sessions}. There was a psychotic group, a neurotic group, and a so-called normal group. He was trying to see what responses he would get in the different groups when therapy was carried "beyond the moment when the change-process satisfied the ordinary s tandards of mental health. ''41 Two conclusions bear on the question about the order of healing and transformation. One is that the normal group responded much faster to t r ea tmen t than did either of the others (and the neurotics did faster than the psychotics); the other is tha t the nature of their experiences became increasingly mystical so tha t Grof. who was a Freudian analyst, had to change his language to adap t to the changes, and in their final stage of t r ea tmen t "his pat ients entered a domain of experience which only the language and symbolism of mystical t radi t ions could express. ''4~

But here is the rub: even if healing and t ransformat ion are in fact different stages in a single-change process, Naranjo has also keenly observed in his pat ients under drug experiments that these two stages are not clear cut in practical reality. For "ecstat ic and visionary experiences can take place before the human personal- i ty is ready to live up to or even to unders tand their content ." 43

For this paper, the question is: If healing and t ransformat ion are indeed


different stages (in that order), but practically speaking they are not clear cut in actual experience, how do we allow for the truth of the two in conjunction with one another in actual therapy situations (remembering that Gestalt therapy is concerned only with the integration of the person within himself)? Does the therapist simply discourage anything seeming mystical as irrelevant, or can he somehow allow for its validity (recognizing its possibly even greater significance in the future) without losing his sense for his own primary purpose?

Naranjo did much experimenting with synthetic drugs on some of his patients for some time. It was voluntary on the part of the patients. He observed the properties of each drug as well as the responses of patients to it. Certain drugs induced visionary experiences. Naranjo concluded that mystical insights received by persons under these conditions have both positive and negative potential. The positive value he described thus:

An artificially induced peak may act as a momentary release from the prison of ordinary personality and its built in conflicts . . . such an experience will contribute to his permanent liberations by reinforcing his incentive, shattering his idealizations of prison life, giving him valuable orientation and information from outside sources as to what to do to gain his freedom. 44

According to Naranjo, if the therapist chooses, he may go along with this awareness and temporarily bypass the blocks in order to develop the sane and strong aspects of the individual. If he does this, he must realize that he is not essentially changing the situation "on earth," i.e., he is not yet dealing with the patient's ability to deal differently with his life, but he is strengthening the larger perspective. 45

The negative aspect of the mystical experience received under therapeutic conditions is that the person can imagine he has greater powers than he in fact has yet .

Most religions give a warning about this--they stress the need for "personal development" without which the way of mysticism becomes that of "magic": a quest of the supernatural in the service of the ego rather than one for a supernatural order to which the ego may become subservient, the living understanding of a greater whole in which the individual may find his true purpose. *e

So the therapist may choose to bypass the mystical experience in order to push the patient into facing his blocks and "plunging into distressful feelings." If he does so, he will be dealing with "earthly difficulties, with only slight chances of being able to rise above them, but with more chances o f effecting change. ''47

It seems to me that the important thing here is Naranjo's understanding of both the value and the danger in visionary experiences coming out of their probable significant order (after the patient has been healed). Further, I think that this understanding enables the therapist to see what going with them or resisting them can achieve in actual therapy situations.

The fact that Naranjo was working with drug-induced states does not seem to me to invalidate his understanding of the meaning of these states, however they


may occur. He himself is aware that a question can be raised about the difference between drug-induced and non-drug-induced visionary experiences. They are both valid as far as he is concerned, though he indicates that if these states have to be induced, the person is simply less ready to receive them and they will probably not have as profound or far-reaching effects as those that are received uninduced.

Now I would like to reconsider Boisen in the light of Naranjo's understanding. Coming from a much earlier time and dealing with hospitalized patients, Boisen shares with Naranjo a sense of the significance of what he calls "religious content" in mental breakdown states--at least those characterized by acute insight. (We should not become distracted by the difference in terminology. Boi- sen says "religious content" and Naranjo says "mystical insights," but their description of these states is extremely close, whatever they term it. The states they both speak of are characterized by cosmic awareness, sense of the mysterious, sense of oneness, sense of responsibility--though not necessarily all at once). What disappointed Boisen was the apparent failure of the 15 patients who recovered to keep a larger perspective and to be healed by it. His explanation for this failure was that the patients lacked sufficient humility in their conception of the Divine. Having some conception of the Divine helped them to recover, but not having a sufficient regard in their conception of the Divine kept them from being transformed, he thought.

Naranjo corroborates Boisen by revealing that this is indeed the danger in visionary states in the patient whose self (the Gestalt completeness-incompleteness sense of self) has not been healed first. It suggests that Boisen's patients may simply not have received sufficient therapy to enable them to entertain a larger conception of the Divine.

Even though I am specifically concerned here with the danger of not allowing for an understanding of the meaning and value of mystic (Christian, Spiritual) experiences in therapy, I find it also extremely instructive to ponder the implications of the opposite condition, not allowing for sufficient healing of the self in order to receive mystical awareness without mishandling it. The danger goes both ways.

Following Naranjo, we can wonder also how the Late-Catastrophics were able to avoid the danger of bringing the Divine down to their own level and go on to be truly reborn. The Late-Catastrophics did not have the benefit of anything structural to help integrate themselves. They were never so disturbed as to be hospitalized, of course, but they could be said to be sufficiently disturbed so that seeking therapy could have been an option at such a time of breakdown of their lives. What allowed them to bypass therapy and yet not bring the Divine down to their own level in the process of change?

First, for many of them, because of the time and place in which they lived, therapy was not available. Then we must remember that, as Sorokin points out, these people were a minority of the great altruists. What they underwent was so difficult that few could achieve it. So we are dealing with a small group of exceptional people. Nevertheless, the question remains.


The key factor for their rebirth, according to Sorokin, was their identification with the Supraconscious. It is one thing to have "religious content" or "mystical insights"; it is another to identify one's true self with what is given in such an experience. The first is simply an experience or set of experiences. The other seems to be a commitment to the reality revealed. Sorokin does not suggest that the change was easy, but rather that the identification was the crucial factor in the change becoming possible and complete. All we can conclude is that there seems to have been a commitment or surrendering to the Divine power so complete that these people were carried past the danger of bringing it down to their own level. Sorokin points out that they went through a sensitive period when they could have been thrown either way, and that many of them were able to complete their integration of themselves only on the basis of their ultimate faith in the Supraconscious after long periods of solitude or semisolitude in which they were removed from the temptations of the world for a time.

Even if the Late-Catastrophics had had the option of therapy, Sorokin feels that psychoanalysis would definitely not have been a constructive option. He believes that "the supreme value must be positive and contain sublime love. Ideologies and therapies which try to identify man mainly with id, body, sex, etc., are therefore dangerous and harmful and rarely, if ever, are altruistic or creative results produced." 48 People who so identify end up trying to use the world "as a mere means for their ego," he says. 49

Sorokin's criticism leads to the concern of this paper: We have seen the value of the identification with the Supraconscious for the Late-Catastrophics. We have seen the need for successful identification of these people with certain types of hospitalized patients under Boisen's care. We can draw the conclusion from both men's work that when conditions of stress within people interfere with their feeling integrated, a precipitant of some kind can bring that divisiveness into the open and make the need for transformation urgent. The need for transformation may be experienced in different ways, but one manifestation for some people is the receiving of mystical experiences or experiences of religious content. The problem appears to be their integration within themselves, yet the content of these insights appears to be attempting to draw them into a transformation beyond themselves or above themselves into a new relation with life, into rebirth of the spiritual type. What transformation they are actually able to make, if they are fortunate enough to make any, will depend on the strength of their ability to face the confusion and difficulty and also on the k ind of guidance available for the transformation.

We also know that psychotherapists in general and Gestalt therapists in particular take it to be within their province to effect the healing of the individual within himself, and that religionists in general consider it within their province to bring this transformation into a new relation with life. But even though Naranjo may be right that healing must come before enlightenment, we know that unfortunately the two kinds of experience in some people under great stress are interwoven. So the question comes down to this: If a person experiencing the urgent need for unity and integration in this interconnected way takes the option


of going into therapy, which is not only avai lable today bu t acceptable in a worldly sense, will he be obs t ruc ted f rom also gaining en l igh tenment (or t r ans format ion to a higher level)? Will he adjust his idea of t rans format ion to only integrat ion of himself? This is not to quest ion the absolute need for healing the self from its divisiveness, bu t to ask whether it m u s t be done a t the cost of ano ther kind of growth. We al ready know Sorokin 's position�9 He feels t ha t t he rapy will reduce. But he was speaking of psychiatry�9

Obviously not everyone who goes into the rapy will experience myst ica l states. I am concerned with those who do. I am concerned with those who are receiving or undergoing experiences tha t are a imed at bringing t hem to a t rans format ion of themselves to another level of being, to rebi r th in the spir i tual sense�9 So I pose the question: Does Gesta l t t he rapy ' s or ienta t ion toward integrat ion within the individual in any way theoret ical ly hinder or obs t ruc t the possibil i ty for any given individual to experience the val idi ty of t ranscendence as a desirable end beyond the rapy itself?. Not if the the rap i s t is Naranjo. Bu t how typical is Naran jo? We need to look at Ges ta l t again�9

On the surface of m u c h discussion of Ges ta l t there is often actual hosti l i ty toward religion or toward some concept ion of God. I t would be constructive, I think, to take a closer look at a representa t ive passage or two to see what they ac tual ly involve. Here are two from Irving and Mir i am Pols ter ' s book Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of Theory and Practice:

Each person is the center of gravity in his universe�9 The fact that, yes, Virginia, there is a real world out there, does not diminish one's powers to sense, interpret, and manipulate that world so that its ultimate nature is determined by one's own experience�9 Science not- withstanding, the universe then becomes his own creation just as we have heretofore fanta- sied that it was God's creation�9 This fantasy was mustered out of our own humility, giving away our power, or, more cynically, copping out on our own responsibility for the troubles we have created�9 Perhaps we don't want to believe that we ourselves could cause such self- pain and explain it by the intervention of mysterious god-forces. 50

T h e y also write

�9 trading faith in God for faith in ourselves seems like a fair trade�9 No guarantees but then where has God been lately either? 51

There are two points in these passages t ha t represent a t t i tudes often found in Ges ta l t discussion, a t t i tudes tha t could be a hindrance or obstruct ion to the person struggling toward t ranscendence.

The first is the idea t ha t God or religion is a cop-out for failing to be responsible for ourselves. Since the emphas i s in Ges ta l t is on taking responsibi l i ty for oneself, anywhere else we are inclined to look for s t rength is suspect�9 However, this idea of religion as the means of avoiding responsibi l i ty for self is not at all consistent with the findings of Sorokin, Boisen, or Naranjo . It was precisely the myst ica l experiences received in distress by Boisen 's acute pa t i en t s and Naran jo ' s


drugged clients (we cannot compare Sorokin 's La te -Catas t rophics here precisely, because Sorokin was looking at behavior ra ther than exper ience- -exper ience is impl ied more t han discussed in detail) t ha t allowed and encouraged t h e m to face themselves. ("Religious concern and religious consciousness tend to appea r whenever men are facing the issue of life and are seeking to become bet ter . ''52) I t seems tha t the view of religion as a cop-out is a shallow unders tanding. I t migh t character ize some religion, but it is direct ly cont rary to the evidence I have presented in this paper about people in distress who are concerned with changing. This opinion about religion could be an obst ruct ion to the person a t t emp t ing t ransformat ion . I t possibly could, if it were expressed explici t ly enough, cause a person to shut off a source of help.

The second a t t i tude represented in the passages from the Polsters is i l lus t ra ted par t icular ly in the first three sentences of the passage quoted above. To determine the u l t imate nature of the world by one's own experience is, I am afraid, a p re t ty clear-cut example of Sorokin 's worst fear of using the world "as a mere means for their own ego."

I t mus t be obvious tha t such a sense for what reali ty u l t imate ly is is essent ia l ly hostile to any religious view of the u l t ima te na ture of real i ty and could cer ta in ly be an obst ruct ion to a person a t t e m p t i n g t r ans fo rmat ion in en l igh tenment .

I t might seem as if the whole Ges ta l t concept of the desirabi l i ty of self-regula- t ion would run counter to the effort toward t ranscendence , bu t I don ' t th ink so. The effort to get back to self-regulation is the effort to get away from manipu la t ion of self and others. No love of the Supraconscious based on control or avoidance of what one is will lead to real t ranscendence anyway. Actual ly this dying to the self- image on which our control is set up is one of the fac tors in Ges ta l t t ha t p robab ly encourages the very possibi l i ty of living in a new relat ion. As we have a l ready seen, it is one of the points t ha t Ges ta l t t he rapy and the Chr is t ian-Spi r i tua l concept of rebi r th have in common. However, there is a shor t dialogue between Perls and a s tuden t on this subject tha t i l lustrates ano the r danger:

Question: When the organism can take care of itself once the integration is complete and self-regulation is available for the total organism, then control no longer becomes a factor? Perls: That 's right and then the essence of control is that you begin to control the means- whereby to get satisfaction. 53

Satis fact ion is a dis turbing word, f rom a mys t ica l - sp i r i tua l s tandpoin t . I t suggests a natura l is t ic concept ion of man . I t suggests t ha t Perls may " iden t i fy m a n main ly with . . . body . . . " or bodily needs. This could definitely be an obstruct ion to the m a n trying to achieve t r ans fo rmat ion in t ranscendence . However, the word m a y be a pract ical necessi ty. I t seems tha t one could only say this was a bias in Perls. I t is never clear cut t h a t t h a t is his orientat ion. I t a p p e a r s in various examples , bu t not as an explici t s t a t emen t . Perls was in te res ted in doing away with concepts and concent ra t ing on awareness, and, therefore, his


final s t a t e m e n t about needs is quite open-ended:

Human beings have thousands of . . . needs on the purely physiological level. And on the social levels there are other thousands of needs. The more intensely they are felt to be essential to continued life, the more closely we identify ourselves with them, the more intensely we will direct our activities toward satisfying them. Formulating this principle in terms of Gestalt Psychology, we can say that the dominant need of the organism at any time becomes the foreground figure, the other needs recede at least temporarily into the background. The foreground is that need which presses most sharply for satisfaction, whether that need is, as in our example, the need to preserve life itself, or whether it is related to less physically vital areas--whether it is physiological or psychological. 5 4

i

These s t a t emen t s should steer us back to the point tha t the essential process of Ges ta l t is neutral ; es tabl ishing and main ta in ing an awareness con t inuum and whatever comes up as foreground for any given individual in t ha t process will be the ma t t e r t ha t he and his the rap i s t address themselves to. Gesta l t is not a normat ive therapy. I t is a the rapy de te rmined by the individual ' s own awareness. Therefore, regardless of the par t icu lar bias of the therapis t , it is not, as a therapeut ic method, s t ruc tured by a definit ion of m a n ' s essence. I t is an existential therapy.

I think, however, it would be a fair general izat ion to say tha t most psychologists writing abou t Gesta l t see the goal of wholeness or au thent ic i ty not just as their specific area of concern but as m a n ' s u l t imate goal, as Perls h imsel f feels. Naranjo seems one of the very few exceptions in h i s a b i l i t y to see different senses of rebi r th in connection. Bu t it is interest ing t h a t he claims tha t "psychology has moved more and more in the direction of seeing an a im beyond tha t of healing. ''s5

Even though the process of gestal t is open-ended and therefore should not be a hindrance to the person seeking t rans format ion in t ranscendence, the possible obstruct ions and difficulties lie in the potent ia l biases of some therapists . To summarize , these biases can be: 1) the concept ion of au then t ic i ty as the only true goal of man; 2) seeing the desire for t ranscendence as a cop-out to avoid responsibil i ty; 3) reducing the world to one's ego; 4) identifying needs only with body.

However, in my opinion there are also some impor t an t ways in which Gesta l t the rapy can be a definite encouragement to the person whose u l t imate goal may be spiritual enl ightenment . Naranjo has already spoken of the largest sense in which therapy can be necessary. He has suggested tha t wi thout being healed one is likely to misuse whatever deeper spir i tual insights one receives, or at best be unable to realize t hem fully within oneself. Bu t I would like to end this paper with a consideration of some specific ways in which aspects of Gestal t can either encourage or reinforce a spiri tual direction in a person.

1) The act of going into therapy. The basic fact of going into therapy can open one up to a re -examinat ion of oneself in relat ion to life itself, to growth of any kind. Naranjo says there is "an intense urge for self t ransformat ion in the thera-


peutic process which alone permi t s a person to open up to both ' the bes t ' and 'wors t ' in himself ." 56 And Boisen has shown us tha t trouble and ex t reme personal distress can be the very t imes in one's life when a religious or ienta t ion appears to help us face ourselves. Not everyone will be so opened, undoubtedly , but the potent ia l is there in the very act of c o m m i t m e n t to change, in going to therapy.

2) The experience of nothingness. I have a l ready pointed out t ha t this is a key experience in both the Chris t ian and Ges ta l t concepts of rebir th. To die to your "se l f - image" in Gesta l t can certainly open you to dea th of your self-love in the Christ ian sense. I t is the same necessary step whether it leads only to au thent ic i ty or also to " t r ans fo rmat ion from lower to higher ." I t is a profound experience.

3) Being able to take risks. This is how Polster speaks of the experience of learning to take risks:

Disaster does not come so easily, though, for those people who are willing to move through the transition from what looks like the catastrophic dissolution of the familiar into the in- choate. One's future welfare often travels in disguise and its blessings are frequently recognized only after extensive turmoil . . . . What is hard to appreciate, when terror shapes a catastrophic gap, is that this blankness can be a fertile void. The fertile void is the existential metaphor for giving up the familiar supports of the present and trusting the momen- tum of life to produce new opportunities and vistas, s~

Lines like "one ' s future welfare often t ravels in disguise and its blessings are frequently recognized after extensive tu rmoi l " and " t rus t ing the m o m e n t u m of life to produce new oppor tuni t ies and v i s tas" are clear expressions of the necessity for faith. The experience of learning to t rus t and have fa i th is essent ial to spiri tual growth, too, and the connect ion between learning to risk oneself and fai th in the inherent goodness of tha t effort is paral lel in Chr is t ian rebi r th also. The point in both is not to act for a reward (or for support) , but out of the t ru th of the feelings, whatever the consequences.

4) Ascent by descent. A person m a y discover through the awareness contin- u u m process tha t he has avoided becoming aware of certain feelings (not tha t these feelings haven ' t had a par t in his life, but tha t he has blocked awareness of them). He discovers tha t he has blocked them because he feels he can ' t control them. (Take anger, for instance. He m a y feel tha t he cannot express anger a t all for fear of going into uncontrol lable rage.) However, if he will t ruly allow himsel f to become aware of the previously blocked feeling and enter into it, descend into it, become it, he can paradoxical ly find tha t he has a choice abou t it, i.e., t ha t it no longer controls him, tha t he can choose and thus rise above it. 58

Just as knowledge of the external world gives him power, self-knowledge, in the form of direct experience of his processes, gives him control. And so he identifies with his being, enters into his processes, and at the same time, rises above himself, feels free from his processes, detached as the master is from the horse. What seems to be a way of descent into the body and his senses ends up by being a way of ascent to the spiritual domain of consciousness and freedom. 59 And the final conclusion, the most effective way of rising above the senses and emotions is inseparable from the descent into direct contact with the immediacy of feeling. 6~


It seems to me that being willing to give oneself over to a negative feeling might be one of the most difficult risks for someone groping toward t ransformation in transcendence. As Naranjo explains elsewhere, there are two basic approaches in the domain of difficult feelings:

moving against the tendencies of the moment--where the aim is to uproot negative feelings by denying them in order to get to the most real and basic feelings of sacredness and love moving with the tendencies of the moment in all their imperfections in order to have a ca- tharsis to get rid of psychological debris (the ascent by descent way). 81

Naranjo says they are both aims to achieve the same ends, just different means. But for many people of spiritual inclination, the cathart ic method might not seem "r ight ." For one reason, there might be fear of taking a personal risk. Love of love and regard for the sacredness of life could be other real considerations. Therapists with the biases I spoke of previously are probably not going to be sensitive to the fear of contributing to the negative or evil in the world; they would not unders tand such a fear for what it is. But if a prospective pat ient or a pat ient undergoing therapy could unders tand how ascent by descent works, maybe this cathart ic way would not seem such a threat to one who needs to transcend.

5) Gratitude for life itself. This means joyousness or blessedness or grace experienced when one is capable of self-support.

Perls' contention that maturation is in the development of self-support instead of external support refers not only to a freedom from interpersonal dependencies, but to a psychological process not unlike Buddhistic "extinction of desires".., the experience of desire- lessness does not imply the cessation of life functions, but, rather, a joy in the given with no craving for what is not. The essence of such experience lies not in a cessation of impulses but in a different stance of the individual's consciousness toward such impulses, e2

6) The sense of wonder in attending to experience itself. This is closely related to No. 5. Perhaps it is the opposite side of the same coin. In an article in Gestalt Therapy Now, Naranjo points out a similarity between Gestalt awareness cont inuum and certain ascetic practices:

The practice of attention to the stream Of life relates to asceticism in that it not only entails a voluntary suspension of ego-gratification, but also presents the person with the difficulty of functioning in a way that runs counter to habit. Since the only action allowed the exer- cise is that of communicating the contents of awareness, this precludes the operation of "character" in Perls's sense of the word and even doing as such. The practice of the Now is one of ego-loss, as emphasized by Buddha . . . . 8s

T h a t present-centeredness is essentially connected with transcendence would also be at tested by:

The whole practice of meditation is essentially based upon the situation of this present moment, here and now, and means working with this situation, this present state of mind.


Any meditation practice concerned with transcending ego is focused in the present moment. 64

T h e exper ience of a t t e n d i n g to Now, s ince we t ry no t to " l ay a n y t h i n g on i t " b u t

s i m p l y a t t e n d to it, can lead us no t on ly to d i scover ing w h a t we feel, b u t also to a

s imple b u t powerfu l sense of wonder a b o u t exper ience per se. I t can lead to a

sense of the sac redness of wha t is.

. . . we may end by reasserting that the end state sought by the various traditions, schools, or systems under discussion is one that is characterized by the experience of openness to the reality of every moment, freedom from mechanical ties to the past, and surrender to the laws of man's being, one of living in the body and yet in control of the body, in the world and yet in control of circumstances by means of the power of both awareness and independ- ence. It is also an experience of self-acceptance, where "self" does not stand for a precon- ceived notion or image but is the experiential self-reality moment after moment. Above all, it is an experience of experience. For this is what consciousness means, what openness means, what surrendering leads into, what remains after the veils of conditioned perception are raised, and what the aim of acceptance is. 6s

References

1. Buber, Martin, "Guilt and Guilt Feelings," Psychiatry, 1957, 20 (2), 129. 2. Naranjo, C., The Healing Journey: New Approaches to Consciousness. New York, Pantheon,

1973, pp. 17-18. 3. Nicoll, M., The New Man: An Interpretation of Some Parables and Miracles of Christ. London,

Stuart and Watkins, 1967. 4. Ibid., p. 3. 5. Ibid., p. 5. 6. Ibid., p. 25. 7. Sorokin, P., The Ways and Power of Love. Chicago, Henry Regnery Co., 1967. 8. Ibid., p. 147. 9. Ibid., pp. 206-207.

10. Ibid., p. 213. 11. Ibid., pp. 211-213. 12. Ibid., p. 208. 13. Ibid., p. 146. 14. Ibid., p. 265. 15. Ibid., p. 231. 16. Boisen, A., The Exploration of the Inner World: A Study of Mental Disorder and Religious

Experience. Philadelphia, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1936. 17. Ibid., pp. 28-30. 18. Ibid. p, 53. 19. Ibid. pp. 30-34. 20. Ibid. p, 149. 21. Ibid. p, 160. 22. Ibid. pp. 58-82. 23. Ibid. p. 81. 24. Ibid. p. 80. 25. Ibid. p. 147. 26. Ibid. p. 69. 27. Ibid. p. 18. 28. Ibid., p. 200. 29. Perls, F., Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. Moab, Utah, Real People's Press, 1969, v. 30. Ibid., p. 11. 31. Ibid., p. 11.


32. Ibid., pp. 55-57. 33. Ibid., pp. 51-52. 34. Ibid., p. 28. 35. Ibid., p. 50. 36. Ibid., p. 17. 37. Ibid., p. 65. 38. Naranjo, The One Quest. New York, Ballantine, 1972, p. 20. 39. Ibid., p. 134. 40. - - - , The Healing Journey, o19. cit., pp. 17-18. 41. - - - , The One Quest, o19. cit., p. 137. 42. Ibid., p. 138. 43. - - - , The Healing Journey, op. cit., p. 19. 44. Ibid., p. 20. 45. - - - , The One Quest, op. cit., p. 23, 46. - - - , The Healing Journey, op. cit., p. 18. 47. Ibid., p. 23. 48. Sorokin, op. cit., p. 177. 49. Ibid., p. 177. 50. Polster, I. and M., Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of Theory and Practice. New York,

Vintage Books, 1974, p. 38. 51. Ibid., p. 101. 52. Boisen, op. cit., p. 82. 53. Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, op. cit., p. 23. 54. - - - , The Gestalt Approach and Eyewitness to Therapy. Ben Lomond, California, Science and

Behavior Books, 1973, p. 7. 55. Naranjo, The One Quest, op. cit., p. 33. 56. Ibid., p. 202. 57. Polster, op. cit., pp. 120-121. 58. Naranjo, The One Quest, o19. cit., pp. 177-181. 59. Ibid., p. 178. 60. Ibid., p. 181. 61. Ibid., p. 73. 62. Ibid., pp. 194-195. 63. , "Present-Centeredness: Technique, Prescription, and Ideal," In Fagan, J., and Shep-

herd, I. L., eds., Gestalt Therapy Now. Palo Alto, California, Science and Behavior Books, 1970, p. 61.

64. Trungpa, C., Cutting through Spiritual Materialism. Berkeley, California, Shambala Publica- tions, 1973, p. 155.

65. Naranjo, The One Quest, op. cit., p. 225.

U s e f u l M a t e r i a l N o t Q u o t e d

Berdayev, N., The Destiny of Man. New York, Harper Torchbooks, 1960. Brown, G., "The Farther Reaches of Gestalt Therapy: A Conversation with George Brown," Synthesis,

1974, 1 (1), 25-41. Perls, F., et al., Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. New ~ork, Dell

Publishing Co., 1951. Salzman, L., "Types of Religious Conversion," Pastoral Psychology, 1966 (Sept.), 8-20. Walker, J. L., Body and Soul: Gestalt Therapy and ReligioUs Experience. Nashville, Tennessee,

Abingdon Press, 1971

The lost self changes: Gestalt and Christian concepts of rebirth

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