Gestalt therapy envisions a radical conception of the self as temporal and emergent. This means it is a fluid self, continually changing through creative adjustment to its changing contacts with the world. One could think of the self in Gestalt therapy as an unending aesthetic project: Like all experience, it has to be made and remade as it navigates the passing of time. And it is reflexive, being both creator and created.

Learning Objectives

1. To discover the unique meaning of contact as the most basic principle in Gestalt therapy and how it differs from the usual meaning of relationship.
2. To learn the extent to which Gestalt therapy explores the human condition, including the idea of self, in terms of the passage of time.
3. Understanding the sense in which Gestalt therapy is founded on an aesthetic rather than scientific basis.