Self: An Overview
By Shea Stevens
Self As Process
Earlier gestalt literature viewed the self as process, primarily. Self as process was an important new idea: The theorists recognized that the self is not simply an isolated, internal reality; self exists in response to the contact boundary, self is fundamentally in-relation to its field, affected by its field in new ways in each moment.
The theorists viewed healthy functioning as awareness of how we interact with our environment, and that awareness leading to creative adjustment rather than being stuck. All of these ideas have remained central to the Gestalt theoretical approach today. But there were developments that were added later to balance this understanding of self as process.
Later Developments on Self
Later development in the theory have elaborated on self as both process and structure. The idea of a personality structure was included in the early theory writings, but it was unclear or limited in its conceptualizing of how personality could exist in a healthy way. It focused more on pathology as being “stuck” in a fixed personality and the goal of of healthy functioning as “creative adjustment.” It was not as clear how the gestalt therapist was to conceptualize a client’s relatively consistent personality other than in a context of pathology.
Stephan Tobin and Gary Yontef have helped to add some clarity and balance to this topic, in a way that balances the flux of self according to field theory with the stability of self that is experienced phenomenologically.
In Yontef’s essay, “The Self in Gestalt Therapy: Reply to Tobin”, he describes self as both process and structure. As process: the self is always contacting, the self is in relation to its boundaries, the self is inseparable from its field. As structure: the self is structural, rhythmic, continual, and has internal consistency. It has an organizing system, a sense of self. I experience life as an “I.”
These thinkers remind us to balance the field theory perspective of self as process by also recognizing the phenomenological experience of self as an “I”. The individual experiences life as an “I” in a relatively stable way. In an I-Thou relationship each one experiences reality as an “I,” and experiences the other person as a “Thou”.
For more reading on these later developments on the Gestalt concept of self, I recommend the essay by Yontef, mentioned above. For more on phenomenology, I have a post here. For more about I-Thou and dialogic relationship, I have a post here.
References:
Awareness, Dialogue and Process: Essays on Gestalt Therapy, written by Gary Yontef. Chapter 11: The Self in Gestalt Therapy: Reply to Tobin, (written in 1983 as a response to a 1982 article by Tobin in The Gestalt Journal)
Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques, written by Dave Mann. 2010. Numbers 6 and 7, pp 18-22.
Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, written by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman. 1951. Part 3: Theory of Self, particularly Chapter 10: Self, Ego, Id, and Personality.