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Experiment: A Creative Phenomenon of the Field
Article · January 2009
DOI: 10.5325/gestaltreview.13.3.0263
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Experiment: A Creative Phenomenon of the Field
JAN ROUBAL, M.D.
published: Roubal, J. (2009). Experiment: A Creative Phenomenon of the Field. Gestalt Review,
13/3, 263-276.
Jan Roubal, M.D. is a Gestalt therapist, a psychiatrist, and is both the co-ordinator and
member of the training staff from the Institute for Gestalt Therapy in Prague, Czech Republic.
Jan teaches psychotherapy, psychiatry and Gestalt Therapy at Masaryk University in Brno.
Largely, Jan writes articles about Gestalt Therapy in clinical practice (especially with
depression), and is also interested in diagnostics within psychotherapy, creativity, and qualitative
research within psychotherapy.
contact: janroubal@centrum.cz , http://psych.fss.muni.cz/roubal/
ABSTRACT
Gestalt Therapy creatively balances the emphasis on the genuine and honest therapeutic
relationship with the task-oriented style. In this article, dialogical and experimental principles
are depicted as mutually-connected polarities; one is in the foreground at a certain moment,
and the other is in the background. These principles change their positions fluidly during the
process of therapy.
This article also deals with the experimental dimension of Gestalt
therapy, which represents the task-oriented component of the Gestalt therapeutic approach.
The text highlights the fundamental difference between experiment and technique in therapy;
experiment is depicted as a creative adventure co-created by both the therapist and the client.
A case study is used to describe experimentation as a phenomenon of the field and attempts to
illustrate how a therapist can work with his/her own awareness when experimenting.
Introduction
In this article I want to focus upon some specific aspects of experimental work rather then
trying to provide a comprehensive summary. My specific focus is on the therapist’s awareness
during the experimental work as I will illustrate within the case study. When recounting this, I
recall a statement of Laura Perls. She would say, that psychotherapy is as much an art as it is a
science and therefore the intuition and immediacy of the artitst are as necessary for the good
1
therapist as a scientific education (Perls, 1978). In this article, I want to share my enthusiasm
for the artistic, innovative creativity that an experiment can bring into Gestalt Therapy. At the
same time, I realise that an experiment is both based upon doing and direct experience instead
of thinking about and giving descriptions. Thus, to a certain extent, it is contradictory to write
about an experiment on a piece of paper; in this sense the process of description becomes a
little like pinning down a butterfly.
Primarily, I want to distinguish the experimental dimension of the Gestalt approach from
experimentation as a part of a methodology. The experimental dimension is built into the
very foundations of Gestalt therapy.
According to Laura Pearls, Gestalt therapists may
include a tremendous variety of therapeutic interventions in their work, as long as these are
existential-phenomenological, experiential and experimental (L. Perls in Amendt-Lyon,
2003). Miriam Polster (Polster, 2005) perceives awareness, contact, and experiment as the
three fundamental therapeutic instruments of Gestalt. Malcolm Parlett describes five creative
abilities (Parlet, 2003): responding, inter-relating, self-recognising, embodying, and
experimenting. One could cite many others. Ultimately, the experimental dimension of the
Gestalt approach provides a useful theoretical background for a specific part of our
methodology – an experiment. The experiment is both a fascinating and tricky tool of Gestalt
therapists. There is already a wide literature base focusing upon the potentials, limits, and
general rules of the experiment as a unique aspect of the Gestalt approach (e.g. Zinker, 1977;
Melnick, 1980; Mackewn 1999; Phillipson, 2001; Amendt-Lyon, 2003; Melnick, Nevis,
Shub, 2005; Joyce, Sills, 2006; and others), and other research which deals explicitly with
two-chair work. (e.g. Greenberg, 1998, 2006; Kellogg, 2004)
Experiment versus Technique
The Experiment in Gestalt Therapy is a therapeutic intervention where the therapist actively
transforms the therapeutic situation in an effort to help the client enhance his/her awareness
(Mackewn, 1999) and get in touch with his/her heretofore unseen potential. The therapist
suggests a specific change of expression or behavior, and in a dialogue with the client they cocreate an experimental situation. In such a situation the client can step out of his/her rigid,
accustomed patterns through which he/she perceives and relates to him/herself and his/her
surroundings. It is a suitable method to be used when we work with a fixed Gestalt as it can
unblock rigid processes and enhance the client’s sense of choice (Joyce, Sills, 2006). The aim
of an experiment is to create a safe place where the client can accept his anxiety around
2
moving out of the familiar and risk acting differently (Philippson, 2001). The basic starting
point when creating an experiment is to be process-oriented; the basic procedure is learning
through doing.
From the perspective of other psychotherapeutic approaches, Gestalt Therapy (unfortunately)
still has the reputation of a therapeutic approach based, to a substantial degree, on the use of
techniques.
This is a misunderstanding as creative experiments are mistaken for rigid
techniques.
What has led to the false impression that Gestalt Therapy is a system of
techniques? During the sixties and seventies, when Gestalt was becoming popularised and
codified, the original creative expression of Fritz Perls’ momentary insight (e.g. hot or empty
chair, top dog-under dog) became frozen into techniques (Melnick, 1980). This is a danger
with any experiment, if the experiment is seen as a cure in itself, i.e. that the experiment is
larger than therapy. (Stevens, 2004) Fritz Perls is criticized in modern Gestalt literature for
his contribution to this distortion of Gestalt approach (Yontef, 1993; Greenber, 1997;
Spagnuolo Lobb, Amendt-Lyon, 2003; Bowman, Nevis, 2005; and others). However, a
substantial component of Gestalt Therapy’s misrepresented reputation was a consequence of
the fact that observers from other psychotherapeutic approaches did not know the theory of
Gestalt Therapy well enough: to focus upon the phenomenological observation of a process
here and now, to interpret the observed phenomena not as characteristics of the client, but
rather as functions of a shared field; to ask questions such as, “How do things happen?”
instead of, “Why do things happen?”; to see the self not as a structure, but rather as a process
of continual mutual definition in contact with the other – all of these are concepts that require
a change of general approach. These are not only theoretical concepts, but primarily practical
skills that one absorbs through practice, and cannot be learned just from books.
Therapists from other psychotherapeutic approaches are perceptive of other aspects of
psychotherapy, and hence the process of creating an experiment may be difficult for them to
understand. They may view Gestalt therapeutic sessions through the lenses of the Medical
Model, in which a technique is prescribed to cure a symptom.
For example, a Gestalt
Therapist offers a client the empty chair technique to help resolve the difficulties with his
childhood experiences of not having been accepted by his father. The client puts the father in
the chair and then works with his anger.
Another client suffering from antagonistic
tendencies is prescribed the two-chair technique. The competing tendencies are seated in the
chairs and the internal psychological process gets externalized. This technique, when applied
3
to symptoms, is easy to describe in the textbooks of psychotherapy, but it represents a crucial
misunderstanding of the Gestalt way; a kind of caricature of Gestalt experimental approach.
The essential thing is to distinguish between a technique and an experiment, or, more
precisely, an experimental methodological approach (Melnick, 1980). A technique is an
exercise prepared in advance that the therapist can employ if he/she wants to induce a
particular state, or to direct the client to a particular aim. For example, a relaxation exercise at
the beginning of a group therapeutic session aiming to physically relax the client and focus on
the present experience.
Contrary to this, an experiment is born out of the process of the therapeutic relationship
(Amendt-Lyon, 2003), and is not controlled by either the client or the therapist (Mackewn,
1999). The mutual relationship becomes a laboratory in which experiments form organically.
A fundamental ability of the therapist is to abandon efforts to bring the experiment to a
particular outcome, because the experiment essentially aims at process goals (Joyce, Sills,
2006) that cannot be planned. An experiment is a journey without a goal known in advance.
In an experiment we investigate what has already been partly present in the awareness of both
the client and the therapist. We search for a way to make the client more aware.
An
experiment highlights the outline of the figure that is arising in the shared field of the therapist
and the client (Roubal, 2007). In an experiment, the therapist suggests to the client, “Do this,
to see what you experience,” not, “Do this in order to change.” (Greenberg, 1997)
There is an another substantial feature that differentiates an experiment form technique.
Technique is prepared by a therapist, whereas an experiment is co-created by both a therapist
and the client. The therapist actively structures the course of the therapy, offers the client a
particular task, and he/she takes his/her responsibility for this. But he/she does not apply it as
a healing procedure to the client. The process of creating an experiment is a relational
interaction in which not only the therapist but also the client takes a part.
Experiment as a creative event
I would like to now illustrate the process of the creation of an experiment in one particular
therapeutic session to show how an experiment emerged. The case study presented here
shows both the power and pitfalls of the use of experiment. Then, I shall focus on the
consequences of the experiment for the therapeutic relationship and on the experiment as a
4
phenomenon of the field. Before I start with the case study - which is focused on the use of
an experiment - I would like to stress the value of the dialogical dimension of Gestalt
Therapy. It is an ever present component of the Gestalt therapeutic approach. The dialogical
and experimental atittudes are, for me, like two hands working together. I use low graded
experiments quite often, but I find myself using high graded experiments, like the one
described below, quite rarely. I can observe that it happened with this particular client, and it
had its place in the process of our therapeutic relationship, as I will show later.
A 50-year-old Hana entered therapy because of the sudden and unexpected death of her
husband two years previously. Six months of therapy gave Hana a place for mourning and
sharing of her pain and sadness. The dialogical aspect of therapy was in the foreground, the
experimental one was in the background. The actual session occurred after Hana came back
after more than a month-long holiday break. We spent some time talking about the holiday,
what happened during the time we did not see each other, and looked at how this was for her.
She said that, within the period without the therapy, she could cope well. There had been a
couple of difficult moments, but all in all she felt competent, “I can manage even without it
[therapy],” she says. Hana glances up and then continues staring on the floor. At that
moment, I rationalise that our relationship can withstand a more intensive intervention, and I
offer her an experiment that would help us get more awareness of the process going on in our
relationship here and now. I offered Hana the opportunity to say to me, “I can manage even
without you.” Through the experiment I want to highlight the outline of the figure arising
from the contact between the client and the therapist. The figure was not clear yet, but it
seemed to be characterized by moving towards a more equal relationship and less dependency
from the client on the therapist.
Hana agreed to try it. She leant forward and firmly grasped the arm rests. She was silent for
a while concentrating on her thoughts, then uttered the words. She looked on the floor and I
point to it. Then she tried again and looked into my eyes, “I can manage even without you.”
Her faces colours. We remained with the present experience for a while, and talked about
feelings accompanying the pronounced sentence. There was a mixture of strong feelings: joy,
sadness, helplessness, and competency. A hypothesis came into my mind that all the strong
feelings did not belong solely to the relationship between the two of us, but that this
experience revealed unfinished matters concerning other relationships too. I looked at Hana
and wondered if I dared to carry on with the experiment. I said to her, “Who else would you
5
like tell it to?“ Hana replied, “To my mother who feels sorry for me all the time and treats
me like a little girl, and, in fact, to my husband, as well.“ Hana seemed captivated by this
discovery, but, on the other hand, she did not express any strong emotions. I aske her if she
wanted to try one more experiment, and I suggested she could imagine her husband sitting in
the empty chair in front of her and she could say the sentence directly to him. Hana hesitated,
considered the proposal, and eventually agreed. She imagined her husband and said, “I can
manage without you … yes, it’s true. I can manage without you!“ She smiled through her
tears, nodding. She turned back to myself. We talked about her new awareness. She had
actually known she was coping without him, but saying it directly to the image of her husband
was a new experience for her. The knowledge of her competence grew to an emotional and
bodily-experienced sense of her own competence.
One thing that must be illustrated in this case study is the process of how the experiment
creatively grows out of the actual figure-ground formation. In this case, the process of the
experiment formation was unfolding gradually, beginning with the sentence, “I can manage
without it,“ through to the use of the empty chair. I also want to use this case study to show
how the position of the therapist changes when immersed within an experiment with a client.
Creative integration of dialogic and experimental polarities
I shall begin this from a broader perspective. The important feature of the Gestalt approach is
a delicate, creative balance of polarities. For the purpose of this article, I have chosen one of
the dimensions of this balance, the task-oriented polarity.
Gestalt Therapy maintains a
creative tension between the emphasis on an honest, unique human therapeutic relationship,
and the more active, task-oriented style through which the therapist influences the process
more directly, and thus helps deepen the clients’ experience. Gestalt Therapy is not alone in
adopting this approach. Currently, an entire group of experiential therapies are being
characterized this way (Elliott, Greenberg, Lietaer, 2004).
Gestalt Therapy builds upon
Martin Buber’s synthetic thesis of dialogical existence (Buber, 1923, 1990), and uses Buber’s
principle of the dialogical relationship within therapy. (e.g. Yontef, 1993, Jacobs, 1995) At
the same time, Gestalt works with more directive interventions, such as experiments. Gestalt
Therapists creatively balance the dialogical and the task-oriented poles. When I say taskoriented, I mean a therapeutic approach offering the client a particular structured task and
leaving the outcome open. If we as Gestalt Therapists focus solely on the dialogical principle,
we find ourselves in close proximity to the Rogerian person-centered approach. If we focus
6
only on the task-oriented principle, we get very close to the cognitive-behavioral approach.
The contribution of the Gestalt approach is the therapist´s flexibility in the differentiated use
of both of these polarities, the continuous creative movement between them, depending on the
situation here and now in the therapeutic relationship.
Together, the polarities constitute and characterise the Gestalt approach. The risk-taking
component is of course present in every meeting and dialogue, but in Gestalt Therapy we
sometimes accentuate it on purpose.
The Gestalt Therapeutic approach is a mixture of
dialogic and experimental principles, helpfully seen as two polarities. At a certain moment,
one can be more in a foreground, the other more in the background, and in the next moment
they can gradually change their positions. Both polarities are ever present, and there is a
creative tension between ‘is-ness‘ and doing (Greenberg, 1997), between the Eastern focus on
awareness, being in the here and now, and the Western emphasis on action and doing
(Melnick, 2005).
Let‘s take an example of an individual therapeutic session within a larger piece of group
work. After some experience of a dialogical being together without aiming (Yontef, 1993), a
specific figure starts to appear. The client says to the therapist, “I can now feel good with you
and I do not have to feel like I deserve it.“ The therapist may suggest, “Try to look around. Is
there somebody to whom you would like to say a similar sentence?“ In the moment, the
therapist suggests an experiment, the dialogical dimension of the meeting moves more to the
background, and the experimental, risk-taking dimension, comes more to the foreground. The
position of the therapist changes in this moment. He/she takes more responsibility for the
active structuring of the present field. The asymmetry of the roles of therapist and client
becomes more visible for the moment. The task of the therapist is to be aware when this
change happens during the therapeutic process and how it influences the therapeutic
relationship.
Experiment as a phenomenon of the field
Let us return to the case study. At the end of the therapeutic session with Hana, we focused
on her awareness during and after the experiment. Because the end of the session was
approaching, it was necessary to finish the experiment, and to make the symbolically
occupied chair empty again. However, Hana seemed unable to take this step. She still saw
her husband sitting in the chair in front of her, and did not want to say this symbolic goodbye.
7
I was in a concerning predicament. It was clear for me that Hana needed more time and
support, but I was expecting another client to come within a couple of minutes. We discussed
it together and finally, being under the pressure of time, we arrived at a provisional solution:
Hana imagined taking her husband from the chair with her, and she did that symbolically with
her hands. She was satisfied, as this was the way she had lived – always in his company, in a
way. We thus closed the session in haste, and I was left with a feeling of dissatifaction,
incompleteness. What happened?
How was it that the experiment that had so fluently
emerged from a situation in the here and now did not make it to a complete Gestalt? There
were many doubts and questions in my mind after the session.
If we take a more detailed look at the therapeutic process, we can recognize two levels. First
one concerns the methodological process of the experiment. The problem was the timing and
grading of the intensity of the experiment (Zinker, 2004), and to some degree I neglected the
relational aspect of gradual co-creation of the experiment. I was not monitoring the risk
carefully enough and the experiment was graded too high for the client (Joyce, Sills, 2006).
The mere experience of telling her therapist, “I can manage even without you,“ might have
been fruitful enough for Hana. The rest of the session could have been dedicated to making
the experience more awareness raising leading to a greater integration of self. And perhaps
during some other sessions, or in the time between, Hana would have made another step. I
am afraid that at that moment I had overestimated Hana’s capacity for self management. I
became over-involved in the experiment and I was fascinated with its dramatic progress.
Maybe I even anticipated that I would use this experiment as an illustration of a theoretical
paradigm at some imagined future occasion. I was gratifying my own needs without being
aware of it, and thus I ceased to be adequately perceptive to the needs of my client. I was too
demanding towards Hana, and now, in my thoughts, I apologise to her for doing so.
In the above paragraph I finished by retroflectively punishing myself. Using my own selfawareness, I move to yet another very interesting characteristic of an experiment.
An
experiment is always an adventure with an unclear ending, so it inherently cannot come off
badly!
We do not evaluate the result of an experiment, but we inquisitively and
phenomenologically observe where we meet the client. If we manage to make the result of
the experiment greater awareness and integration of self, the experiment can be fruitful. We
can give ourselves permission to use any creative intervention which meets the following
8
conditions: it aims to enhance awareness, it arises from both dialogue and phenomenological
work, and remains within the ethical boundaries (Yontef, 1993).
Furthermore, if we take a look at the end of the session, when Hana was not able to
symbolically part with her husband, we can discover valuable information. Firstly, it is
evident that Hana is still actively processing her husband’s death, and her mourning has not
yet arrived at a stage where she would be able to both bury him on an emotional level and live
independently. She still needs her husband in her life and therefore she cannot send him
away, even symbolically, in the therapy. And maybe she will decide not to send him away at
all. Ultimately, Gestalt Therapy should not decide for her, but if she does want to make a
decision, then to support her with this in as much awareness as possible. However, this
hypothesis about her presents only a smaller part of the information we can get. There is one
further aspect of the process with Hana and I, that I want to focus on more carefully.
This second level of evaluating the therapeutic process is considering an experiment as a
phenomenon of the field. Every outcome of an experiment, including the ‘mistakes‘ of the
therapist, are functions of the shared field of the client and the therapist. The ‘mistakes‘ are
phenomenons of the field and offer information about the relational pattern of the client.
Obviously, they also point to the relational patterns of the therapist. That is, however, not the
purpose of psychotherapy, and the therapist has instruments to take care of him/her self
elsewhere. I want to look closely at the process of my relationship with Hana from this field
perspective. What was my awareness? How did I contribute to the field organisation? After
the session I was disappointed with myself and maybe also a little angry at Hana.
I
considered myself too demanding towards her, and I had burdened her with a task that was
beyond her strength. My impression was that she could manage, hence I was too pushy, too
fast. It was the first session after some holidays, and Hana evidently needed more time to
settle down, and instead of that I was offering too powerful an experiment, too soon. I am
retroflecting a lot right now, and I meet my introjects head on. And I also contact my anger
towards Hana. I wanted the best for her and I was working hard for her. I felt angry and
unappreciated.
Not to follow my immediate impulse to criticize myself is still a challenging skill for me. It is
important to observe my awareness curiously as a phenomenon of the field, because the
therapist within the therapy is a function of the field, and the words and interventions she/he
uses are also functions of the field (Roubal, 2007). The way the therapist intervenes always
9
represents a valuable source of information about patterns that organize the field, and also
about how both the client and the therapist contribute to it.
I even believe that those
situations, when therapy somehow does not proceed exactly the way we would prefer, and the
process does not correspond with therapeutic introjects, provides especially valuable
information. In these moments the fixed Gestalts dominate the organization of the field. The
therapist uses him/her self as a tool, everything the therapist experiences and does is a
function of the field and can be used as a diagnostic information. For example, within my
intervention I asked, “Who else would you like tell it to?“ Why did not I ask a more openended question like, “Is there maybe someone else you would like to tell it to?” clearly, I
supposed I knew what was best for her; I worked instead of her. When I look at my
awareness as a phenonemon of the field, this was my contribution to the fixed Gestalt. I was
pushing a hidden agenda, and I assumed I knew how Hana would complete her Gestalt.
Again, I try not to criticise myself for that, but observe my awareness curiously. What was
the complete Gestalt in my opinion? That she says goodbye to her husband and starts to live
an independent life, and become prepared to meet someone else. But she did not meet my
expectations, she managed the end of the session her way and at her speed.
During the next session, we returned to the process of the previous session. Hana said she felt
like not being able to be totally responsible for her life, like not being an adult. I shared with
her my awareness, that I described above. Hana realised this is the way her mother treats her
now after the death of Hana´s husband. Her mother treats her like a child, she implicitly
pushes her to another partnership, she is too demanding, and does not provide enough support
to Hana. This corresponds with my awareness well, where the fields of the therapeutic
relationship and of her relationship with her mother are organized by a similar fixed pattern.
Thankfully, within our therapeutic relationship, Hana later became aware of the way she
contributes to the fixed Gestalt with me – and with her mother. She realised she resists
passively, and finally, as it happened also at the end of the session described here, she
manages to not fulfill the expectations of her mother. The result was that Hana did not feel
adult, resulting in a sense of incompetence. Her mother felt unappreciated, and at times
became irate because she wanted the best for Hana, and also worked extremely hard for her.
Gradually Hana become aware of different ways she contributes to this fixed Gestalt, and she
then had a chance to change it.
Conclusion
10
For the therapist the use of an experiment is a creative adventure. There are two basic
characteristics of an experiment. First, an experiment is creative. It is a piece of art in which
the therapist creatively uses what is available at a present moment in contact with the client.
Creativity is what grows from their encounter. Creativity is a relational process (Zinker,
2003). When experimenting, the therapist works with the therapeutic relationship similarly to
a sculptor who uses a particular piece of wood or a particular stone he has in his hands, and
respects its structure, potentials, and limits. He does not say that the piece of wood should be
different, so that the work gets easier. He is creating a dialogue with the matter he is
encountering. I would like to remind you here that the focus of this article is on the taskoriented polarity of the Gestalt approach. However, the therapist does not only offer his/her
artistic attitude to the client, but also opens the possibility of a human encounter. The dialogic
dimension is always present as the other polarity of our approach. When using an experiment,
the therapist stays in the relationship with the client, although he actually moves to a more
task-oriented polarity. Therefore it is important to reflect together with the client afterwards,
how the experiment influenced the therapeutic relationship. The therapist has to constantly
reflect his position, because even when experimenting, his/her experience, impulses and
behaviour are still part of the field and they carry useful information.
Secondly, an experiment is adventurous. We set out together with the client on an expedition,
and we do not know where it is going, as the ending is open. On this common expedition
with our client, we could sing together with George Harrison, “If you don’t know where
you’re going, any road will take you there.” When experimenting we are not heading towards
a particular, specific result, we cannot prepare it in advance. Also, we cannot determine the
result in advance. An experiment is a common adventurous expedition with an open end. We
cannot fail if we keep the necessary non-judgmental attitude (Joyce, Sills,2006), as we do not
evaluate the result of the experiment, but we phenomenologically observe it with
inquisitiveness. We cannot say whether the experiment was successful or unsuccessful,
because we do not think within these evaluative categories. It is like watching a sculpture or a
painting when we do not evaluate them according to some pre-set criteria, but we ask
ourselves what we can experience and realise whilst perceiving them.
When experimenting, the therapist takes a more active, more directive position.
experiment is a kind of therapist-imposed structure. (Melnick, 1980)
An
An experiment is
characterised by explicit or implicit therapeutic suggestions to the client, such as ‘try‘ and
11
‘discover‘ - as it is already described in PHG (Perls et al., 1951/1990). Or, to put it less
directively, by a creative question, “What would happen if?” (Melnick, 1980). The therapist
actively focuses on the risk-taking component of therapy, suggesting,“Try something new,
when you have the support for it.” (Greenberg, 1997) However, the therapist is not an
experiment director.
He is responsible for his more active attitude and experimental
suggestions, but the experiment remains a collaborative event co-created within the dialogic
relationship.
The experiment is a phenomenon of the field. It emerges from the actual field and influences
it in return. The therapist continuously turns his/her attention back to his/her awareness
during the experiment, and explores it with respect to the therapeutic relationship – as it was
described in the case above. The therapists also reflects when and for what purpose he
suggests the experiment, and asks about the function of the experiment in the dynamics of the
therapeutic relationship. It can happen that, by suggesting an experiment, the therapist takes
care of his/her own needs, e.g. he is avoiding his/her deeper personal involvment in the
relationship with the client. And again – this is not wrong, it is just important to be aware of
it and take it as phenomena of the field, or as information about a pattern by which the actual
field is organising.
In previous decades there has been a focus upon the dialogical approach in Gestalt Therapy,
and I consider it a very acurate pendulum reaction to the risk of ‘Perlsism‘. However, maybe
the pendulum has already swung too far. The dialogical approach becomes honoured and the
experimental approach is sometimes shrugged off by saying that everything is an experiment.
This is why in this article I wanted to accentuate the importance of the experimental approach
and elaborate further its mutual interconnectedness with the dialogic principle.
As I
suggested earlier in the text, I see the dialogic and experimental dimensions as polarities of
the Gestalt approach. They alternate their positions, one becomes more figural for a moment,
with the other moving to the ground within the ongoing process of the therapeutic
relationship. Their mutual relationship is the same as the one between the polarities of
personality. When we accept and honour the neglected polarity, it enables to explore fully
also the other one. The two tasks of the therapist do not rule out one another, on the contrary,
they strengthen each other.
An honest interest in the client as a unique human being,
combined with the building of authentic contact with him/her creates the necessary foundation
for experimenting that directs the therapeutic process towards deeper experience. And deeper
12
experience offers yet another opportunity for a personal encounter within the relationship
between the therapist and the client.
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Acknowledgement
I want to thank Andrew Smith for his kind help with amending the English spelling,
grammatical, and syntax errors.
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