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| Enlightening Gestalt: A Meeting with John Enright by John Bernard Harris Most Gestaltists will have heard of John Enright through the articles on Gestalt he wrote for various collections, such as Gestalt Therapy Now [Fagan & Shepherd 1970]. But his most interesting and sustained contribution to Gestalt therapy is contained in a book called Enlightening Gestalt, published by Pro Telos in California in 1980, which almost no-one seems to have read, and which is long since out of print. Peter Philippson has a (much-thumbed) copy, and we both agree that this is, for us both, one of the most interesting and inspiring books about Gestalt therapy we have read. So passionate is our regard for this work, that Peter has corresponded with John Enright with a view to getting it reprinted in the U.K.; but so far nothing has come of this. However, in order that some of Enright's ideas should become better known, I am going to present some of them in this article. Each part will summarise a section of Enright's book, the sections being called 'Ground', 'Emerging' and 'Figure'. Part One: Ground Enright knew, and was profoundly influenced by Fritz Perls, whom he met in California. He worked with Fritz on and off for nine years, and published some early articles on Gestalt. At this time of his life, Perls was interested in Zen, and used ideas from this source on this work. Enright recalls his reaction: " [A] phrase that particularly irritated me was one he used in the paper "Group vs. Individual Psychotherapy" (reprinted in Stevens 1975): "...begin the dance of abandonment and self-fulfillment." I remember thinking, "What's all this nonsense about abandonment; I'm just beginning to get something, and you want me to give it up?". [p. ix] On another occasion, Enright heard someone interviewing Fritz, and asking, "What is the purpose of Gestalt Therapy?". Enright says: "Fritz's answer was the phrase that leapt out; "The purpose of Gestalt Therapy is to wake people from the nightmare." It all fell into place; that cigar-smoking old reprobate was talking about enlightenment." [p. x] Enright distinguishes between three different models to account for 'improvement' or 'getting better' in human life. The first is the pathology model. On this account, if something is wrong, you are 'sick', below par, and need treatment - usually from experts or professionals - to help you get back to normality or 'wellness'. The second model is the growth model, which says that you are already at par, and therefore O.K., but more is possible; you can start from here and go on to something better. (A hint of the pathology model comes in here; it's not quite as O.K. to be at par as above it!). Outside help may be necessary, though self-help is also possible; but there is an implication that effort and work are needed to 'grow'. In the third view, the enlightenment model, there is nothing to be done. There is no par, and no place to go. You are already perfect, always were, and always will be. The form of perfection may change; but a rosebud is a perfect rosebud, not an imperfect rose. A shift of perception, of seeing is all that is necessary. As Perls says, in a successful cure,the neurotic awakens from his trance of delusions, and experiences a number of 'mini-satoris' or awakenings. "In coming to his senses he frequently sees the world brightly and clearly." [F. Perls, in Stevens 1975] In his book, Enright seeks to present this latter theme clearly, but his earlier chapters present Gestalt in ways that hint at the enlightenment theme but do not emphasise it. In this article, I concentrate on those early chapters, and in the second I will return to his development of 'therapy as enlightenment'. One of the joys of Enright's book is that is very personal. He begins in Chapter One by recalling some 'gems' from Perls, who he regarded as a therapeutic genius. I choose just one 'one liner' from the many he records. On one occasion in a workshop, Perls interrupted a man who was giving a long and angst-ridden description of how lonely he was with the comment "Lonely is alone plus bullshit". Enright comments: "The phrase, rather than the man's work, is what has stayed with me. After all, alone is just alone; there are times when we have all been grateful for the opportunity to be alone. Lonely must have something else added...the something else is self-talk; noises you make in your head, interpretations, assignments of meaning to the event." [p. 7] So loneliness is not 'bad' in itself; our believing or feeling it as bad makes it so. The pain of loneliness is ultimately self-caused. Chapter Two is a presentation on Gestalt Enright gave to a class in counselling psychology. Enright tells them that: "...Gestalt doesn't need to be presented additively, so to speak - that is, all the points strung out in order, with integration not possible until all of them are stated. It can be presented as a complete system in 5 minutes, then re-presented completely in 15, then again completely in an hour, and so on - and not be finished in a lifetime, of course!" The five minute version goes something like this: "There are a couple of points absolutely crucial to Gestalt. One is that you already know everything you need to know to live a fully satisfying, happy effective life. You've already got it right now." [p. 17] Simply in being alive, and growing up, we have all had the best course in interpersonal relations around. We were highly motivated when we took it, and we all got 'A''s in it. And, Enright says, we all learned not to use it. Nonetheless, we are all experts in sizing people up, knowing what's important for us about them, where they're at in relation to us in every significant way. The 'problem' is, he adds, "...you don't have access to this. It's not a question of needing to learn where to get it. You've already got it." [p. 17]. In this sense, he tells the students, they already know all there is to know about people, and Gestalt. The teacher's task is to draw this implicit knowledge out. Chapter Three is called 'Observing Awareness'. Here, I confess, I have an axe to grind. Bearing in mind the central importance of the concept and experience of awareness (I once described it as "the beating heart of Gestalt therapy"), our theoretical and experimental phenomenology is still surprisingly unsophisticated. So Enright's contributions are especially important and useful. Enright begins by pointing out one reason why exploring awareness might be difficult; it's rather like trying to use a flashlight in a darkened room to explore the flashlight itself. However, if we look naively at conscious experience what do we see? Enright's answer is: "...a flow of fantasy-imagery and sub-vocal speech (thinking) that is sometimes connected with whatever is going on in the outside world and sometimes not." [p. 42] What, he asks, is awareness in the midst of all this? Is it an experience, a connecting of experiences, an action...? His answer is that awareness does not reside in the varied mental contents we experience; but in the connectedness of all those contents with each other and with the actual situation they are happening in. It is simultaneous knowing-and-doing. It is my experiencing what I am doing as I am doing it. As I finish typing that sentence, I turn away from the computer screen, and become aware through the window that the sun is shining brilliantly on the garden outside. My awareness is a mixture of my seeing the sunlight, and experiencing various elements of my seeing - my turning towards the light, sensing my position relative to the garden, reacting to the brilliance with an intake of breath...and more. Some more phrases from Enright might help to convey the idea: awareness is " a momentary widening out, and expansion of what is seen together and related...it involves seeing more elements simultaneously, and seeing them as related, integrated." [p. 44]. He points out that each awareness is and must be new because it is a new experience (at a different time to any other) - even if the content may be judged to be the same: "Awareness has a mind of its own, so to speak; it is the live quality of the moment, not the content. In the analogy of a stream that flows above ground for a while, then underground, then above again, it is the water, not the channel. The aliveness of awareness can at one moment be in the words...At the next second, it has gone out of them and is in the speaker's concern about what you are thinking of him, and perhaps an eye-glance that expresses concern...Then perhaps it goes to some anger about to be experienced, and the aliveness begins to appear in a muscle tightening in the speaker's arm." [p. 46] This leads Enright onto his formulation that awareness is the zone of intersection of the ever-shifting focus of bodily attention described above with consciousness. [This idea is explored further in Chapter 8 of Gestalt Therapy Now, op. cit.] Enright recommends ongoing exploration of our experience of awareness using tools such as the Awareness Continuum ("Now I am aware..."). In particular he is interested in the structures which underlie awareness. Often what seems like a 'simple' awareness has some kind of a mental act or process underlying it. His own investigations lead him to posit three basic processes underlying awareness: comparison, intention and attribution, which, in conclusion, I now describe. Comparison Suppose I say while doing the awareness continuum: "Now I'm aware of feeling very small...". From the inside I just experience..extreme smallness. But the observer realises that in order to feel small, I must be comparing myself with some other thing or person. "Small, in relation to..." is the question. The comparison which has taken place is very fast, and done totally out of awareness - though it can be brought into it if we backtrack. Enright identifies four kinds of comparison: (i) Those contained in apparent descriptions: "I'm aware of a large tree...". (ii) Those contained in statements of change: "I'm still unhappy" compares my present state with a representation (sometimes distorted) of what has been. (iii) Evaluations, preferences, choices are all based on implicit or explicit acts of comparison. Imagine that I am on a country walk and have enough money for a half-pint at a pub on the way. I can either enjoy the beer and the pub (with the underlying attitude of how lucky I was to have some money!); or not enjoy them (because I haven't brought enough for a whole pint, which I'd like). In both cases, I control my experience of the situation with a comparison to what-might-have-been. (iv) Enright points out that most of what we call feelings are based on implicit comparisons. So I can choose to compare my situation with a less favourable one and feel happy; or with a more favourable one and feel bad. A similar analysis applies to resentment. Let us say that someone has been gossiping nastily about me; what do I feel? If a sworn enemy was the culprit, I shrug, because that's what I'd expect. If it's a close friend, I feel hurt and betrayed. But only if I compare the friend's action with a check-list of 'what friends are likely to do', can I arrive at 'feeling hurt'. Intention Intention - the purpose with which I do things - pervades the whole process of my awareness. My awareness of this on-going process of writing is affected by my aims in writing it - to impress readers, say. So I choose words carefully, hint at myself as being a certain kind of person. My whole process -including my awareness - supports this intention, which I may or may not be aware of. Attribution The last process underlying awareness is attribution, which is the process of discovering or assigning the source of a content of consciousness. Projection is an example of this; I am angry with you; but what I am 'aware' of is you being angry with me. I experience you in the light of that mis-attribution. What is happening is that I am inaccurately locating in an outside source something which more usefully be considered as originating in me. What Enright's analyses of awareness highlight are the complexities of the processes involved. What we experience as simple or unitary (feeling sad or small) is the end result of many mental acts and operations, which are often carried on out of conscious awareness. As therapists, we need to be aware of some of these everyday mechanisms, so that we can help our clients and ourselves to understand how we form and thus largely choose our experience from moment to moment. Part Two: Emerging In the second part of his book, Enright looks at some themes that were touched on by his teacher, Fritz Perls, but which were not of major interest to Fritz. Enright offers us a delightful image for the history of 'Perlsian' Gestalt therapy. He imagines Fritz as a child exploring a vast playground, full of fascinating paraphernalia. Some things he explored in great detail, others he barely glanced at. Enright says, "Not surprisingly, while he was playing with each one, it was the greatest, and it filled his talk and his writing while he was playing with it" [p.68]. Other 'kids' would join Fritz, and begin to play with him. Some were not very imaginative, and whatever Fritz happened to be playing with when they came in was all of Gestalt to them, and they protested when he moved on to other things. Enright continues: "Sometimes when I meet a Gestaltist I can guess what period of time he worked with Fritz by what toys still fascinate him" [p.68]. One of Enright's strongest themes is his focus on experience. What he does is to show that much everyday experience involves non-experiential processes that affect and shape it, often out of awareness (see previous article). What we think of as 'direct experience' is often the end product of judgments, hypothesis and concepts which are habitual, and made very quickly. He says: "The route to knowing is to stay with the experience. If I have a headache, I simply locate and experience as deeply as possible the pain and the exact nature of the sensation there...If I'm angry, I stay with the experience of anger, focused on whomever it is focused on. From that experience, if I stay with it, will emerge all the meaning that is necessary and all the further information that is necessary about it...Everything I need to know will suddenly emerge from deepening the experience." [p.86] Here is an exercise, one of several Enright suggests as a way to explore this further: Get in a comfortable sitting position, on your own or with others. Make sure that your head is not leaning against anything. Close your eyes, and begin to feel your face from the inside - just notice what's going on there. After a while, choose somewhere here you find an area of tension, and increase the tension, even if your face becomes uncomfortable, and you make a 'grimace'. Notice as you do this whether any other part of your body tenses up, or whether images, thoughts, memories come to mind. Particularly notice what feeling or feelings emerge. Don't force anything, or try to figure out what is happening: just let it happen. A number of things may emerge from this experiment; quite frequently people run into an emotion or attitude that they have been carrying around for some time without being aware of it. Our faces, which contain many fine muscles and nerve fibres, mediate and reflect - and 'store' - much of our communication with ourselves and the world: "Much of the subtle and great variety in the experience of emotion is based to feedback to the central nervous system of what is going on in the face" [p.79]. Behind Enright's stress on the value of direct experiencing as a therapeutic tool is his version of the 'Paradoxical Theory of Change' [Beisser 1970]. He believes that: "...concepts become stuck and unchanging, whereas actual experience is always fluid and always changing. The moment people who have been squirming around, trying to avoid their anxiety, finally get down to the actual experience, feel their gut, feel their trembling, feel fully the experience they are feeling, it will change - usually (although not necessarily or immediately) in the direction of reduction of anxiety and feeling better." [p.81] In other words, as long as we avoid experiencing fully, we remain stuck - in an 'impasse', as Fritz Perls would have said. Indeed, Enright believes that neurotic symptoms (and even mental illness) are the results of unfelt experiences, of our frantically trying not to feel or think whatever it is that we actually do feel or think at that moment. Snap-shots of Experience Enright's attempts to chart his own awareness through a series of experiments are unusual and instructive. For example, he became interested in exploring awareness 'cross-sectionally'; in finding a way to get a 'snapshot' of everything that is in awareness at a particular moment. But how to choose a moment? Some external random signal would do: "That possibility came to me one evening when I was thinking about the potential power of this method of looking, and puzzling how to make it operational. We were in the middle of a rainstorm, and the roof of our porch was leaking, with an occasional drop of water going 'plop' in the bucket set to protect the floor. Suddenly it was obvious; use the randomly generated 'plop' as the signal. The results that night were very interesting."[p.103] Since rain and water are not very portable, Enright acquired a device called a 'parking meter timer' to generate the random signal. This had a dial which could be set to any time up to one hour. Finally, Enright had a golden opportunity in the form of a two-day back-pack trip into the mountains. As he walked, he would reach down to the timer hanging on his belt, and set it to go off at random in 15-20 minutes: "At the moment it went off, I would freeze, check into body tension, mood and content of consciousness - what I was noticing perceptually or 'thinking' about." The most profound thing that he noticed during this experiment was that for over half of the 50-60 times he 'checked in' during the two days, he was explaining something to someone 'in his head'. Despite being miles from anyone and anywhere, the constant content of his consciousness was explaining - 'I'm taking this path because...I'm going to rest now because...I'll have a drink now because...'. He records: "This was in many ways an uncomfortable exercise. For one thing, the constant explaining lowered my image in my own eyes. For another, I was shocked to experience the jumpy, driven, out-of-control quality of my everyday moment-to-moment consciousness - the disconnected reverie, chewing over old unfinished business or future fears (and not even important, significant ones at that!). [p.104] After his trip, Enright decided to study this phenomenon of constant explaining more closely. One of his experiments involved deliberately inhibiting all explaining for periods of time and noticing what happened. Giving no 'external' explanations for his actions to others he found: "...unbelievably difficult. Occasionally I slipped; more commonly I would bootleg in a covert implied meta-explanation of why I was not giving an explanation!" [p.105] I remember trying this exercise for a whole working day, with similar results. For example, when I arrived late for a meeting, I would offer no explanation; and when I left early, I would just say "I am going now". Like Enright, I found it extremely difficult to maintain, and I felt afraid and disoriented at times. Enright concludes that: "...for some people the experience of reality is tied together by this constant string of explanations, and their psychological existence depends on constant reaffirming of this tissue of explanation" [p.105]. In other words (my words!), we need to have a satisfactory or acceptable 'cover-story' we can tell ourselves and others about what we are doing as we go about our lives; and more profoundly, who we are. Developing and maintaining this sense of identity is a prime psychological need; of course, it may or may not relate to 'reality', as perceived by others. Emerging...Responsibility Another concept Enright discusses at length is that of responsibility. To be responsible is to acknowledge an action as your own; to say 'I did it'. I was not forced by my parents, boss, partner, the weather or economic circumstances, though these and other pressures will have influenced me. Enright highlights two common pitfalls in understanding this notion. One is to confuse it with fault; this means adding on a moral evaluation of the action that is not intrinsically part of it. So I might shoot my therapist - but if it was in self-defense, I am not at fault. Often people try to avoid taking on responsibility in the former sense (perhaps because they feel it entails the latter). This is often shown by the use of language which subtly shifts responsibility away from ourselves - 'I had to...' or 'I must...'. Enright suggests a simple exercise to explore this: "Write down a list of several things that you feel you have to do in life even though you don't want to, and then plug each of these things into a sentence of the following form: 'If I don't (do this thing I have to do), then...'. In the blank fill in the consequences that you will suffer if you do not do the thing you have to do. Second, make up a sentence that says 'I'd rather (do this thing I have to do) than (experience the consequences). If this latter sentence is true, as it should be most of the time, investigate the question 'Why do you experience this thing as 'have to' instead of recognising that, given the alternatives, you want to?'" [p.97] He suggests that we can use this model to discover that, logically, everything in our life that we have been experiencing as 'have to' is, in fact, given the world as it is (and it is the way it is!), a matter of choice. "Most of life's so-called problems, " he concludes, "turn out to be, like the feeling of 'have to', gimmicks for avoiding the experiencing of responsible choice". I well remember how, under the influence of this suggestion, I tried for a period at work to avoid all use of 'avoiding-responsibility' language - simply saying to colleagues or clients, for example, 'I am doing this' rather than 'I have to do this'. I discovered that the more difficult or unpleasant I imagined what I was doing was, the more I tried to slide out of the way in this manner. The fear of the buck always stopping with me was tremendous - even though it was merely my own actions I was taking responsibility for! Giving reasons for behaviour is one of the clearest areas in which to explore our sense of responsibility for our actions. I'm late, I give an excuse - my car wouldn't start. This sounds fine - until we realise that it is almost always an avoidance of personal responsibility. If I really had wanted not to be late, I would have got up earlier and made sure that my car (which I know is unreliable when it's wet overnight) started. I simply preferred to lie in my warm bed, rather than make sure I was on time. The meeting was not that important to me. If I had been wanting to get to the airport to catch a plane to go on three weeks holiday, would I have been so casual? This leads Enright to formulate two principles about motivation: "If I really want to do something, almost nothing will prevent me", and "If I really don't want to do something, almost anything will stop me" Bearing these principles in mind helps us realise the extent to which we use 'outside forces' as an excuse for our behaviour, when, in most cases, we simply were not motivated sufficiently to do what we did not do, and don't want to come clean about this. Enright applies his views directly to his therapeutic work: "If a person claims not to have understood something I have said, it is pointless for me to repeat it or to try paraphrasing. The person has understood something. What he or she did hear is the clue to exactly what went wrong, why he or she did not hear or understand it completely. So I ask the person to say what they have understood up to that point." [p.97] This is a very useful and practical tip: client's 'mishearings' and 'misunderstandings' offer therapists a real gift by providing a wonderfully precise source of information about 'where they're at' - as opposed to where they or you think they are or should be. Enright concludes: "It has taken me years to appreciate what a truly radical shift in life perspective the Gestalt view is. The thrust of Western civilisation has been to put intellect and cognitive understanding in a primary place in life (Descartes: "I think, therefore I am"; Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living"). This emphasis has led to tremendous benefits and tremendous costs - one of the costs, it seems to me, being a decrease in the sense of vivid, full participation in life. In the Gestalt point of view, rather than understanding or insight, the center of life is experienced choice and action (I choose, therefore I am; the unlived life is not worth examining)." [p.99] Revolutionary, indeed. The Therapy of 'As If'... In the final part of this article, I want to describe a wonderfully useful approach to therapy that Enright calls the 'as-if' frame. He recalls struggling in 1960 with an inarticulate patient, to whom he was administering a Rorschach test. The patient was seemingly unable to say what the ink blots on the cards looked like. In frustration, Enright picked one up and said, "I know this doesn't look like anything to you, but if it did look like something, what would it look like?". Immediately, the patient responded, "Oh, if it did look like something, it would be a butterfly". This phenomenon has, Enright thinks, profound implications about the human make-up and condition. For instance, it can be used to show that people know much more about their future than they think. I remember once saying to a lady who was really unsure about whether to have a risky operation, "Well, I can see that you really can't decide what to do, but if you had decided, what would your decision be?". Without hesitation (and to her own amazement) she said, "I'd decide to have it!". What goes on here? Enright speculates that asking people in a 'context of certainty' means that they leave themselves open to being wrong. But if we answer in a 'context of possibility', we avoid this 'right/wrong' trap. Another explanation is in terms of 'state-specific consciousness'. Thinking of the lady above we might say that, at some level, she had already decided; but was unable to access the part of her than knew this. In other ways, whole ways of thinking and feeling, attitudes and ways of acting are bundled into 'packages' or 'roles' that exist as whole entities. So if I, a habitually mean person, suddenly act generously, we might say that I am accessing one of these bundles - and while I am being generous, an acute observer would notice a host of subtle changes in my feelings, thoughts and behaviour. When we enter the 'as-if' frame, this is what happens. We become, almost literally, a different person. This 'as-if' device has many therapeutic applications. Recently, I was helping a client do some fantasy dialogue work Very quickly, he set up a scenario in which two opposing tendencies in himself were engaged in a long, energy-draining and seemingly unresolvable battle. My heart sank as I watched what appeared to be a complete stalemate; but I suddenly realised that this stuckness was, somehow, the whole point. I stopped the action and invited the client to stand away from the action, and look at it from the point of view of a disinterested observer. Suddenly, all his energy returned, and he began to laugh at the situation he had created. From this 'as-if' position, he was able to make several concrete suggestions as to how the 'adversaries' might resolve the situation and move on. Enright concludes: "At times, using this approach, I get almost carried away by the possibilities. Almost any state that can be imagined can potentially be organized, firmed up, and made accessible. At times I slip into some transpersonal subself that thinks maybe knowing is available to any individual if she can organize and anchor the appropriate state....You can begin to use these ideas and ways of working right now in your current life and practice, if you aren't already. What? You say there isn't any place you could use it? Well, if there were a place, where would it be?" [p.130] Part Three: Waking up from the Nightmare In the third section of this book, Enright talks about the theory and practice of 'therapy as enlightenment'. Enright suggests that there are three different models to account for 'improvement' or 'getting better' in human life. The first is the pathology model. On this account, if something is wrong, you are 'sick', below par, and need treatment, usually from experts or professionals, to help you get back to normality, or 'wellness'. The second model is the growth model, which says that you are already at par, and therefore O.K., but more is possible; you can start from here and go on to something better. (A hint of the pathology model comes in here; it's not quite as O.K. to be at par as above it!). Outside help may be necessary, though self-help is also possible; but there is an implication that effort and work are needed to 'grow'. In the third view, the enlightenment model, there is nothing to be done. There is no par, and no place to go. You are already perfect, always were, and always will be. The form of perfection may change; but a rosebud is a perfect rosebud, not an imperfect rose. A shift of perception, of seeing is all that is necessary. As Perls says, in a successful cure,the neurotic awakens from his trance of delusions, and experiences a number of 'mini-satoris' or awakenings. "In coming to his senses he frequently sees the world brightly and clearly." [F. Perls, in Stevens 1975] Enright describes his early attempts to understand and work in this way: "...I began to hear myself saying in the middle of a group or seminar to a person with regard to some 'bad' symptom, "Back when you developed it I'm sure that it was the best thing you could have done at the time." And when we investigated, it would always turn out to be that way. This fascinated me so much that I became an expert in showing people from their own mouths and experience that every choice they had ever made had been the best possible at the time. I would then say, rather cleverly and triumphantly, "What could a life be that's the sum of a series of perfect choices except perfect?" [Enright 1980 p.153 - all following references are to this book]] Enright developed a way of working which he first called 'renaming the symptom', and later 'validational reframing'. He cites an early illustration of its use. Working with a woman on her 'problem' with jealousy when her husband showed interest in other women he suggested to her that she try to find a new name or description to replace 'jealousy', which had a host of negative connotations for her. After a few minutes the new name emerged: 'early warning against the panic of being left unexpectedly'. "To my surprise, instead of this discovery making therapeutic work possible, it seemed to finish it. She burst into tears, saw immediately that the 'jealousy', far from being an enemy was a friend and protector, and she had no intention of being without it. Not only did the problem shift from 'dealing with her jealousy' to dealing effectively with the life-situation that was threatening her well-being, knew immediately what she had to do, and went home and did it." [p.164] Enright believes that there is a basic process at work here. It is the way in which we describe our 'problem' which literally creates it as such. The condition itself is not really experienced as all that bad; but somehow we acquire an extra belief that it's a problem. The problem is the conviction that there must be a problem. There are many ways in which I may come to see myself as problematic in some way. This may be because of introjects: for example my belief that 'it's bad to be over-weight'. But who defines 'overweight', and who says it's 'bad'? What would I have to give up if I gave up those 'superfluous' pounds? Well, much of the very great pleasure I have in eating things that I like. And what would I gain? A sense of virtuousness, frequent hunger, and a slightly thinner body. No contest. If we look at the ecological function of the condition in this way, Enright says, we will realise that in maintaining my weight at its current level, I am doing exactly what I need to do for myself, at this stage of my life. In other words, my weight is perfect: for me, here, now. Of course that may change; but then so will my weight to fit the new situation. In reframing my perception no new knowledge is added; only a different perspective from which my behaviour looks like a positive, life-enhancing choice. Enright claims that one of the problems with the way we see events and behaviour in our lives is a lack of perspective. We often take a short-sighted view of our situation, failing to recognise that something which seems bad at the time may look different in a wider context. He cites the parable of the Chinese man who owned a horse. This made him fortunate compared with his neighbours who lacked this asset. One day his horse ran away; and he was called unfortunate. Then two days later the horse returned with another, wild horse, and he was congratulated on his luck. Next day, his son was thrown from the wild horse and broke his leg. All commiserated, until the Emperor's troops came press-ganging young men, and he was left behind...In truth, the parable tells us, we never really know what is 'good' or 'bad' at the time. Enright describes this kind of enlightenment as 'segmental'. I can become enlightened about one bit of my life - see its essential perfection - without immediate major shifts in other aspects. Coming to fully take on the enlightenment point of view is not easy. He describes his own journey: "Changes in me are in the direction of more self-acceptance. I am experiencing uncertainty and discomfort no. But in the midst of that or along with it, I am more peaceful, less tense/driven, with less regret and worry; and a sense of ecological rightness permeates my life more and more." [p.157] Enright developed these views into an even more specific way of working with clients, which he calls 'the Velvet Steamroller'. It consists of finding and stating for each utterance of a client a frame of reference in which this utterance, however grim it sounds, can be seen as representing perfection in the client's life. He gives an example: "A young widow with three children came in at the insistence of friends who told her it was ridiculous that after three years she was still caught up in mourning her first husband instead of meeting other people, and perhaps finding another husband and father for her children. I took the position of completely validating this choice to stay at home and mourn her dead husband, commenting that such love was rare these hasty days...When she commented that she visited her husband's grave at least once a week (I think expecting me to challenge this as too often) I questioned her closely to see if this as really enough and wondered out loud is she was beginning to 'slip in her devotion to him. Within a few minutes she was rather irritably saying that enough is enough, and perhaps it was time for her to live a little more, and that looking for another man would not detract from the memory of her husband." [p.172] Enright stresses that he is not using paradox here: "The key difference is that I was completely behind the choice of mourning her husband the rest of her life. I thought that it would be a fine way to live, if that's what she wanted, and I remember getting a little carried away and poetic about the beauty and rarity of it." [p.173] In other words, Enright is not trying to get her to change, and has absolutely no investment in any particular outcome: "Her 'problem' was that she was not quite savoring and appreciating fully the value of her choice, and therefore could not quite finish it." In other words: the client knows what is best for her; the therapist's role is to help her to fully experience her situation, and leave the rest to her. Enright offers four additions and caveats to this perspective: (1) The perfection of the situation must be fully and deeply experienced in enlightenment, not theorized. This means not reluctantly accepting that things have to be this way, but "joyfully and with a sense of finally seeing the truth" embracing and welcoming the hitherto rejected 'symptom' as a true and valid part of myself. (2) Everyone changes all the time, including enlightened people. What happens here, is that change becomes natural, effortless, a spontaneous response to a changing situation, rather than a deliberate, effortful, pre-planned struggle. The enlightened client is indifferent; she is 'perfect' with or without change. (3) It is important that the therapist is genuine and authentic in supporting the client's current way of being. This does not mean actually advocating any life action; but throwing your weight in which ever way they are leaning, so that they can see more clearly what that way is. He adds: "I don't care what people do. I do care that whatever they do further their aliveness." Any notions I have about what would do that are just my notions, just potentially complicating outside stuff. Afterthoughts What I would like to do by way of concluding this article is to make some brief comments on 'enlightenment Gestalt', and its relevance to present Gestalt theory and practice. I agree with Enright that the enlightenment perspective is an important historical strand in Gestalt therapy. Fritz Perls at times indicated his appreciation of the enlightenment view, talking about therapy experiences as 'mini-satoris', describing the goal of therapy as 'waking up from the nightmare', and telling us to 'let the situation determine'. Enright does a valuable service in taking this strand of thought and developing it to its logical conclusions. But can we really believe that everything is perfect just as it is? Enright describes his own difficulties in fully accepting this position, using words that I might echo: "I do not personally at this point have a serene certainty that all is well in the world, which I guess must be the experience of someone who is fully in the perfection point of view. I do have a serene certainty about a lot of specific things that I doubt I could have seen this way even a short time ago. I have a suspicion, a theory you might say, that all is well." [p. 153] One problem I felt in moving along the path Enright indicates, was my initial belief that it implied that we should gradually acquire a kind of sage-like neutrality or detachment about the fate of our clients and the wider world, along the lines of 'to understand all is to forgive all'. This has not turned out to be my own experience. On the one hand, I know that when I take the wider view I recognise that I simply do not know what is good or right for individuals or humankind in the long run. The universe is too large and still to mysterious for me to comprehend it. Yet that does not stop me acting sometimes as though I did know what was going on, in a throughly biased, blinkered and partisan way. Indeed, I believe (and the perfection model would say) that my short-sightedness and my 'failure' to sometimes be disinterested in the way the model seems to demand is itself an essential part of the wider picture. How does the enlightenment approach square with current Gestalt thinking and practice? The broad, ecological, perspective on human actions that the enlightenment model demands seems consistent with a Gestalt field theoretical approach. In order to understand someone's situation fully, we take into account the context in which they live their lives, and this includes social, cultural and environmental influences acting in the here-and-now, as well as historical factors. Thus I help a client to understand their present 'resistance' to a suggestion I make to them by helping them to identify the behaviour pattern involved, and relating it to the field in which it developed. Then we are better equipped to try to understand its current function in their lives in general, and this interaction in particular. Another aspect of present Gestalt thinking that the model illuminates further is our phenomenolofical theory of knowledge. This says that there is no knowable 'objective' way that the world is; each of us has our own point of view and perspective. And it follows that much that seems factual and solidly part of the world out there is the product of our own meaning-making activity - whether this is carried out at an individual level, or at broader social and cultural levels. This applies especially to the activity of valuing aspects of the world and our experiencing, labelling them good or bad. We can illustrate this by returning to a previous example. My experiencing my current weight as a problem arises largely from my describing it as such, and I can indeed dissolve the problem simply by recognising this. However, my attempts to 'reframe' may be discouraged by equally deluded friends, and wider cultural norms favouring 'slimness'. My therapist may also collude in this process of 'problem-creation', by failing to recognise the difference between 'this is a problem for you' and 'I recognise that you experience this as a problem'. Therapists do, after all, have a strong vested interest in client's having problems. Yet the basic point, however hard it may be to grasp, remains: I am response-able for, and therefore create, much of my life-experience. One final point: neither Enright nor myself believe that the enlightment approach is a 'better' approach to therapy that the change model. Both have their uses, and "there is a time and place for each, a time to work hard for change, and a time to focus on the perfection of things-as-they are." [p.180]. The personality of client, the issues they bring, the stage of their therapy or personal development, will all be relevant factors in deciding which approach to favour. Enright says encouragingly: "The therapist who is skilled in both points of view, and has no committment to one over the other will have as easy a life as a therapist can have." [p. 181]. I conclude my encounter with John Enright with his own closing words to Enlightening Gestalt: "...a major, if not central, theme in Gestalt is this realisation that "problems" - symptoms, habits, anxiety, conflict etc. - do not exist in the real world. They are illusions, constructs, figments cast on the real world like images on a screen. To get 'better' we do not have to 'change' reality, but only let go the 'illusion'. We do not have to reject reality and fight it (the change model) but accept reality and p[lay with it. And in the play with reality we find that we made most of it up anyway." [ p.193] John Bernard Harris 30/11/95 References A. Beisser 1970, 'The Paradoxical Theory of Change', in Gestalt Therapy Now, Eds., Fagan & Shepherd (Harper) Enright, J.,[1980] Enlightening Gestalt (Pro Telos) Fagan, J & Shepherd, I.L. [1970] Gestalt Therapy Now (Harper Row) |
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