Customer Reviews

Gestalt Reconsidered: A New Approach to Contact and Resistance

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Wheeler takes Gestalt therapy in a whole new direction in this book, bridging the gap between Fritz Perls' biologistic thinking and Husserlian phenomenology. The so-called "resistances to caontact" become "styles of contact" in Wheeler's vision. For the philosophicaly minded, this is reminiscent of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. For the clinically minded, Wheeler takes Gestalt therapy from its unfortunate preoccupation with 'technique' toward a thoroughly practical assessment and intervention of the total clinical field. The extraordinary thing is how he bridges between the foundational theoretical precepts of Gestalt theory and the concrete praxis of the practicing clinician. This book will change the the way you practice your craft on a day to day basis.

One of the few really impressive Gestalt therapy texts out there. The author has the smarts, the skills and the patience to bring Gestalt therapy out of the quagmire of showy charlatanism and to place it on solid theoretical ground. This book is controverisal in that it challenges many of the nearest and dearest assumptions of Fritz Perls' ideas and practice--but it's encouraging in that it draws on Perls' (and others) insights to point toward a more complete, more radical and more fully humanistic Gestalt therapy.