Mudança e Psicoterapia Gestaltista
(Change and Gestalt Psychotherapy)

Vera Felicidade de Almeida Campos - Zahar Editores - Rio de Janeiro -1977

[This book is out of print]
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Extract

Chapter I - Change - Dynamical Discontext

Change is maladaptation, because change is an antithetical movement to estabilization, to inertia. Change is transformation of quantity into quality, it is to perceive the world, the others and oneself in a new way. All processes of human behaviour can be approached under the aspect of change, admiting that human behaviour is always movement, convergent or divergent, towards structure or dis-structure, comes that the human constant is the change while being-in-the-world temporally present, without a priori or goals. To-be-in-the-world implicates change, movement, situate oneself in the present, in the here-and-now of the perceptive relation which one establishes with the others, the world and with one's ownself. When this occurs, we are always affected, it comes dynamism from what happened, we are thesis open to antithesis which unleash synthesis. Thereupon human beings have motivations, they apprehend, develop, relate. (All chapters of the traditional psychology can be unifyied under these concepts. The unknown, the new, is antithesis which unleashes synthesis; a child overcomes an obstacle, discovers the unknown, apprehend; to have motivation is to feel oneself questioned, to face solicitation etc., always an antithesis, dynamism, movement).

The continuity of the change is fundamental: the perception of the movement is the only way to stop dualisms like permanence versus change, very much liked by the idealistic philosophy as well as the elementaristic psychology. To-be-in-the-world open to all possibilities, not being anchored in the inertia of the necessities, is the living of the structured man, the free man.

Human Behaviour

Any behaviour can be understood through the basic concept of movement if we consider behaviour as being always realized in a time and in a space; the trajectory of being-in-the-world, that is, the behaviour of man, is always resultant of thesis and antithesis, which are simultaneous, anachronous, partial, continuous, descontinuous, dynamics or static experiencied. To consider human behaviour as synonimous of movement creates a very abstract conceptualization to the basic objective of scientific psychology - the study of human behaviour. Nevertheless, this sense of abstraction, symplified generalization, subsists only if we do not consider the referentials of the movement, of the human behaviour.

Having a biological structure, a organism, the man exists in the world (space), in a determinate period (time), society, culture and family (social, religious, economic, philosophical context,etc.). His existence begins when, finding this space and time, these contexts, he creates relations, initially of survival. The differentiation caused by these relationships in his organism, is just the evolutionary maturation, his process of development, to what correspond a context, familiarity, the living in society with other human beings who are represented specially by parents, familly, society and culture filtered by the carachteristic conditions of every human context [1].

Behaviour is movement of man. The understanding of this movement is possible only through the study of its trajectory, the discover of the space, of the man in the world, personalized space which we now call context. His cradle, his home, his parents, his brothers, his toys, his nursing bottle etc constitute points which by succession generate relationship.

Human development is change, a continuity of negated thesis, confirmed antithesis, synthesis which constitute new thesis, antithesis, etc; a composition of various trajectories, movements, an infinite discontext and context.

Development is Change

Change is the overcoming of the established, of the context of adjustment, the past reality. To change is to actualize oneself, it is discontext, it is to answer to the questioning, to the stimulus of being-in-the-world, generating development, evolution, growth, change. Not always change has the sense of evolution, disposability, some times it may generates estabilization of behaviour. In spite of always be a discontext, change may cause maintenance, a rigid organization of encasement. If we think that, if the structure is divided, fragmented or pulverized in situations and symptoms, the change of a region, part, point or position may correspond to neutralization of possibilities. For exemple: change on the familiar atmosphere - the death of the father, creating economic and other discontexts; the status of the family is reduced as it has to live from periodical allowance. This discontext, this change, changes the way of perceiving the world, society, the other one and one's ownself, in the children as well as in the mother. It raises estabilization as, because of a divided structure, mother and children adjust themselves to the new pattern, justifying, covering the problems of the lack of capacity to survive, the lack of autonomy. When the problem is transformed in justificative, it covers the human possibilities of development and professional capacitation, estabilization is created, inertia, stagnation; the individuals do not develop, do not evolve, do not educate themselves, do not react to the economic system as the head of the family is lacking. The same situation could be taken in a dynamic manner in case there would exist a unified structure on the individuals in the sense of facing the changes. Obviously this do not depend only of the individual determination but of a series of forces which acts on the situation: social-economical condition, age of the children, motivation and professional capacity of the mother, etc. In any case, the determination before the change, before the discontext, death of the head of the family in this exemple, is what will determinate the level of dynamism or stabilization of the change. [pgs 16 to 18].

FOOTNOTES:

1. Detailed concepts over this issue can be found at the book "Psicoterapia Gestaltista - Conceituações" (Gestalt Psychotherapy - Conceptualizations), with explanations of genesis formation and structure of the hunan behaviour and personality.
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Chapter II
Change - Stagnating Discontext

Shame, Rejection, Depression

Not be accepted for what one is but for what one should or have to be, structures division, partialization, fragmentation. The other one is always perceived as accusation witness, judge or salvation, protector; the human relationship structured in this manner oscillates between these two basic poles. The experiences are taken as confirmation of these aspects. The preoccupation with approvation, with not be abandoned, rejected, creates dependence, points of support-oppression, entails fears, guilties, timidity, aggressivity, omnipotence, impotence, shame etc. The existential meaning begins to be formed through attestations taken as positives when represented by the valorized status of the one who accepted by tolerance, complacency, comprehension, help, and taken as negative when implicates in discordance, questioning, affective openess not guaranted by appearances and socially accepted values. Valorization and desvalorization are constant experiences, always centralized at adherent and contingent criterions. Not accepting oneself, the individual who is accepted, desvalorizes who accepts him, thinking: "I'm not good, So-and-So accepts me, whence he is worse than myself". >From this primary syllogism distorted by the auto-referential, it comes alienated positions: submission to authority, despersonalization in front of what is valorized, venerated, imitation of what is socially valorized by the group, family (it is interesting to think of this issue in social alienation in the sense of leaders, charismatic heros, superstars etc., as well as in the despersonalized identifications with parents), the preoccupation with not be taken for what one desvalorize, do not be out of fashion, do not show out one's suburban address, do not demonstrate that he / she imitates, disguise the inauthenticity etc., constitute the day-to-day experience of non acceptance.

To be ashamed is to be caught in flagrant, that means, to demonstrate, to expose that one does not accept what one does not accept. The non acceptance of non acceptance shakes the divided, fragmented and partialized structures. It is the break of the false continuity, it is the fall of the acceptable mask, of the pseudofunctionality and of the aparent disposability. It is an intensely mobilizing experience, instantaneous and quick. It is a change, a discontext, which soon stabilizes itself, becomes omission, guilty, aggressivity, impotence, omnipotence, etc. The perception of having been ashamed amplifies the constatation of the non acceptable situations, of the desvalorized situations. It is necessary to justify them, to explain, to hide, to cover them, to fear, control, adapt them to the world, to one's ownself, to others.

As all perceptions, shame has levels: social, biological (sexual) and existential (relational). There are rules and methods to domesticate, control and hide the shame; sometimes the results are resonable, but at the existential level the maximum the individual can do is to negate it alienating himself from his perception; the price for this is very high, it can be translated by the increase of non acceptance, therefore, increase of the necessity of being accepted. It raises the perception of being rejected, of being always dislocated, always trying to affect, maintain, please, help others. It is despersonalization used to reach aims, it is an obstinated effort, a constant swallow of sticks and stones to conquer one's place under the sun, to be someone special, to have relationship, to have a status valorized economically. In the perception of rejection it is frequent all types of despersonalization which intention is to attain or to maintain what one has got. It is the alienation itself, it is revolt, it is aggressivity, which depending on the perceptive contexts, would structure omnipotence, opportunism, affirmation, illusory auto-image, envy, tedium, repression, etc. To be depressed is to feel oneself flatten, crushed by the circunstancies, it is to lose the relation with the contingencies responsible for the maintenance of the patterns of situatedness. Depression is the response to the illusion, to the transactional mercantilism of buying and selling. It is the exhaustion of the magics, it is not-knowing-where-to-go. It is the shame before one's ownself, the flagrant of the constatation of the existential emptiness, of the nothingness, the stagnant mediocrity, of the non-exit of the adaptation, objectification. It is almost the discover that the support oppresses, that what holds sinks, that what is negated is established. To be depressed is to perceive the inconsistency, the descontinuity of being-in-the-world, it is a valid existential moment, it is dynamic, discontext,it is change, but as it is taken as a tool by the fragmentation, it becomes a context, a way of being-in-the-world: the victim, the unsuccessful, the impotent, the one who has no condition of changing in spite of desire it, who gets depressed by his constatation as well as takes those experiences to use them avoiding repetition of situations disastrous to him, the one who immobilizes oneself in one's own referentials.

Compromise and Autophagy
(opportunism - emptiness)

The movement is a constant, the demands, the variants are enumerable. There are limits, tensions, oppressions, norms, rules, laws. It is necessary to survive and exist. Contingencies and transcendencies. Necessities and possibilities. Time and space. Wholiness or unilateralizations, unification or division. Society humanized or consumist. The existential impasses of perceiving the world, the other as figure and take oneself as ground of this perception, this auto-referential compromises the human existence. It transforms the human being in a machine, in a sector, generating immoderated running after maintenance, after being something valid, be accepted, recognized, socially considered. This fight-search, this alienation, compromises. The patterns, norms and models of behaviour raise: the aims. Compeled to these attainments, the man renders inhuman, he begins to be recognized by what he represents, by his symbols: car, clothes, status, victories, unsuccess, success. The compromise with the lebels creates autophagy or despersonalization, the emptiness. The behaviour starts to be oriented by signals, symptoms. The capacity to cover incapacities, dislocating, creating illusions, deluding, lying, it is opportunism, it is socially valorized as wit, to gain advantage always, do not demonstrate weakness, win the frenetic running after the hierarchies, to attain, to conquer. One lives to the future - aims. The present is empty: it is omission, the fear of losing the job, the fear of becoming alone, sick, rejected, not recognized, the fear of death. The more one swallows oneself (autophagy), the more one despersonalizes oneself, perceives the mediocrity, the monotony of his being-in-the-world; this perception becomes fuel to movement new goals: of salvation, solution, necessity of changing. There araises the transcendent ideals: religions, ideologies, mysticism, the search of psychotherapy, as attempt of personalization, redention therefore salvation. The perceptions are confuse due to the divided and fragmented structures. The motivations are hedonic - the compromise contaminates everything - the anxiety is a constant which des-structure. Panic, dislocation: alcohol, sex, drugs, myths, goals, beliefs, illusions. Consumism of what one consums, existential pointing - emptiness, stagnation through the alternative dispair, the alienate madness, the functional and productive neurosis. His be-in-the-world is carachterized by performances, sexual insatisfactions, compromising of intelligence, stereotyped reasoning, copied knowledge, discontinuous memory, tautological thinking, immobilizing discontext, unsecurity, expectation, unsuccess, sensation of lost of time.

Anxiety - Bureaucratization - Anguish

To be anxious is to make the future, present, through the negation of the present, by the imposition of the past.

The expectation, the non acceptance of continuity, the homogeinizing necessity of the reality, creates a state of perceptive indifferentiation. There exist just the necessity to attain. This existential pointing, this goal to attain, congest the be-in-the-world, negating participation, negating being-here-and-now. This non perception of the present, this disvalorization of the experienced, creates dis-structuration, division, emptiness. For this individual anything must be caught, held, any support point must raise. Expectations, goals, turns towards the future, follow schemes, methods rules to the great tomorow that will come. Nothing happens, the tomorow becomes today. It is necessary to continue, to fight; it comes more methods, more rules, search of relaxation, palliatives: consumism, other people, objects, drugs, psychotherapy, sex, etc. Bureaucratization. Everything begins to have a way of being done, a recipe. It is necessary to aquire know-how, prepers oneself to the future; anxiety, negation of the present, future to come. The continue perception of this situation makes it clear; it emerges the sensation of repetition, monotony. The individual perceives the circle, the limit. Anguish. Perception of his present through his narrow perception. Emprisioned by patterns, lebels, rules, the desire to maintain, to preserve, the human being discovers barriers from where he cannot affect the other, the world, reality, the present, one's ownself. Do not feel one's ownself, do not find oneself, he is emprisioned in his own defenses, protections, fears, impotencies, omnipotencies, guilties, anxieties, opportunisms, shames. He is closed, immobilized by restrictions, crushed, anguished. Even here, at this existential moment of total constatation of non liberty, compromising, at this discontext, he is stagnated, held by what gives him anguish, he is immobilized.

Grounds of the Stagnant Discontext

The stagnat discontexts, the changes which stabilize, divide, fragment and partialize the continue dynamic reversibility of be-in-the-world-with-the-others, configurate, as level of personality, sexual problems, social problems and existencial problems. We shall not imagine those levels as stratums, independent layers of personality. Personality is a whole which is not the sum of parts, it is a dynamic interaction; therefore there exist no problems which are exclusively sexual, exclusively social or exclusively existenctial - this should be considered, for the didatism of the exposition do not prejudice the aprehension of the human whole. [pgs. 41 to 45].