Dialogue: An Overview
By Shea Stevens
The Dialogic Method of Gestalt
“The gestalt therapist works by engaging in dialogue rather than by manipulating the patient toward some therapeutic goal…Such contact is marked by straightforward caring, warmth, acceptance, and self-responsibility… Dialogue is based on experiencing the other person as he or she really is and showing the true self, sharing phenomenological awareness.”
-Gary Yontef
Dialogue is the method of the gestalt therapist. It is deeply intertwined with the phenomenological approach; in gestalt therapy they are bound together into one existential, phenomenological, intersubjective approach. Each person experiences, and shares their experiences with the other. Dialogic relationship resembles the qualities of the I-Thou relationship as described by Martin Buber, which he distinguishes from I-It relating, which I’ll define in the next section.
In the dialogue of gestalt therapy, the therapist engages the client as an “other,” as a “thou,” not just as a “patient.” However, the therapist must bounce back and forth between the immediacy and equality of the I-Thou attitude to take a step back into a more reflective, I-It mode at times for things like: treatment planning, making observations about the client, case conceptualization, selecting therapeutic interventions, engaging in self-reflection. Therapists must engage in I-It relating when they make choices about how they engage with each client according to their individual needs, thinking about what level and kind of dialogic engagement will serve that client.
Martin Buber: I-Thou and I-It
Martin Buber, born in Vienna in 1878, was a philosopher who wrote the famous essay “I and Thou” in 1923. Laura Perls, one of his students and co-founder of gestalt therapy, said that “[Paul] Tillich and Martin Buber, who was another teacher of mine in Frankfurt, had more influence on me than any other psychologists or psychoanalysis. I was impressed with the way they respected people.” Dave Mann writes, “Gestalt is indebted to Buber’s work for its values of presence, confirmation, authenticity, dialogue and inclusion.” Martin Buber’s essay “I and Thou” describes I-Thou relationship as distinct from I-It relationship:
I-Thou:
I-Thou relating is present moment engagement with another person, mutually. I-Thou, in its pure form, is a peak experience of mutual authenticity, equality, and connection, where both subjects are caught up in the moment such that they are not engaging in a self-conscious way. Rather than conscious thought, it is an intuitive kind of experiencing, a state of simply being. Being with. This I-Thou moment is meeting another human in a truly human way. But it is a fleeting kind of experience because life often necessitates being somewhere along the spectrum between I-Thou and I-It relating.
I-It:
I-It relating is part of life. We all must fluctuate between connection and separation. I-It relating concerns itself with an object (or objective). In I-It, there is detachment, a step back from the immediacy and connection that are characteristic of I-Thou; there is awareness of separation. I-It relating allows me space to make conscious observations, engage in my thought process, decision-making, make space for my wants and needs. It is a state of doing (task-oriented) rather than being.
Two Poles on a Spectrum:
“Existence requires both distance and relation” (Buber). There is a spectrum between these two poles; there are varied levels of connection and ways of relating. But the purest kind of I-Thou experience which is what Buber describes in his essay is experienced relatively rarely. Because of the rarity of I-Thou moment, people will use the term dialogic to indicate a way of relating that is close to the I-Thou pole; a kind of relationship that is present-focused, authentic, and a meeting of two people as equals sharing their experience with one another.
If a client is unable to muster the vulnerability of I-Thou relating, “it is through the therapist’s willingness to hold an I-Thou attitude during I-It relating without the expectation of being met that creates the ground for profound relational healing” (Mann).
Quotes from Buber’s “I and Thou:”
“Man becomes an I through a You.”
“[It] is the sublime melancholy of our lot that every You must become an It in our world.”
“Without ‘It’ a human being cannot live. But whoever lives only with that is not human.”
“Relation is reciprocity.”
Yontef’s Five Characteristics of Dialogue
I also want to include in this overview Gary Yontef’s list of five characteristics of dialogue in gestalt therapy: Inclusion, presence, commitment to dialogue, non-exploitation, and living the relationship:
Inclusion
“Putting oneself as fully as possible into the experience of the other without judging, analyzing or interpreting while retaining a sense of one’s separate, autonomous presence.”
Presence
“(The therapist) expresses herself to the patient. Regularly, judiciously, and with discrimination she expresses observations, preferences, feelings, personal experience and thoughts.”
Commitment to Dialogue
“The gestalt therapist surrenders herself to this interpersonal process. This is allowing contact to happen rather than manipulating, making contact, and controlling the outcome.”
Commitment to dialogue means "…allowing the outcome to be determined by The Between and not controlled by either individual. Yielding solitary control means each is affected by the differentness of the other and there is an allowing of and a dedication to the dialogue process” (223).
Non-Exploitation
(More will be added to this section)
Living the Relationship
Dialogue is lived. “Dialogue is something done rather than talked about.” It includes nonverbal expression, and can include any mode of dialogue that communicates between participants, within ethical limits.
References:
Buber, Martin. I and Thou.
Mann, Dave. Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques. section 3.3
Yontef, Gary. Awareness, Dialogue and Process. 1993. Chapters 5 and 7. pg 151-153, 202-237.