Paul Goodman and the Gestalt theory of self

Feminist Utopias, Queerness and Paul Goodman

“…As anticipated previously, Goodman’s conceptualisation of the self, and consequently of the creativity and destruction he envisaged in leading a ‘queer life’, was drawn from Gestalt theory, contributing to the originality of his views and providing him with the ‘beautiful mixture of ongoingness and changeability’ (Philippson, 2016, p. 329) that lies at the basis of the (queer) relationality he proposed. He deemed that the ‘organised system’ imposed demands on citizens to such an extent that they isolated themselves in a numbing, endless repetition of its systems of belief, repressive (psychic) structures and institutions, beginning with capitalism and the war complex.…”

“…These studies have also highlighted the ways his public intellectualism (Redding, 2015) contributed to contemporary anarchism (Honeywell, 2011), to critical pedagogies (Holowchak, 2010) and more broadly to radical theories of sexuality (Nyong’o, 2009; Loftin, 2016). A crucial role in this renewed interest is played by Goodman’s writings on psychotherapy and the Gestalt theory of the self (Philippson, 2016).…”

“…42–43). His theory of the Gestalt reworked Fritz Perl’s ‘field-relational approach’, where self and other emerge in tandem to emphasise the role of past and present ‘contact[s]’ for individual self-formation (Philippson, 2016, pp. 328–329).…”

Intentionality: The fabric of relationality.

“…Aggression, then, is essential to the figure/background process of contacting. Fundamentally, aggression is intrinsic in contacting as the power that enables differentiation of self from other aspects of the environment (Philippson, 2001; Spagnuolo Lobb, 2007) and makes initiative itself possible (Lichtenberg, 2012). Yet formulating contacting solely in terms of aggression is deficient.…”