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Gestalt
GestaltReview,
Review,13(2):000-200,
13(1):114-118, 2009
Editorial
SUSAN L. FISCHER, PH.D.
On Creativity
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
William Shakespeare
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 5.1.12-17)
If, as the Shakespearean scholar Jonathan Bate (2008, 1998) tells us, these
verses spoken by Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are “a critique of the
imagination’s delusive power” (p. 179), in the second part of the eighteenth
century they were treated as Shakespeare’s own viewpoint (as opposed to that
of a particular character) and therefore “the authoritative, definition of poetic
creativity” (p. 179). But as critic Marjorie Garber (2004) explains, this passage
when not taken out of context implies the opposite: “That the imagination
cannot be trusted. That poets are crazy. That art is an illusion. That lovers and
madmen. . . are given to unrealistic fantasies that ‘apprehend / More than cool
reason ever comprehends’” (5.1.6).
Susan L. Fischer, Ph.D., is professor emerita of Spanish and Comparative
Literature at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. She graduated from the
Gestalt Institute of Cleveland’s Intensive Post-Graduate Program in Gestalt
Methods in 1982 and later completed workshops organized by the Gestalt
International Study Center. She has incorporated Gestalt perspectives into
her teaching, as well as into some of her publications on seventeenthcentury Spanish theatre. She is fluent in Spanish and French and now lives in
Brookline (Boston), Massachusetts.
©2009 Gestalt Intl Study Center
SUSAN FISCHER
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In the language of Gestalt psychology, Shakespeare’s ambidextrous—
aspectual—formula for (poetic) creativity arguably evokes Ludwig
Wittgenstein’s meditation on both aspects of the familiar “duck – rabbit”
drawing. It reminds us, too, that creativity “may be used in the service of either
positive or negative ends” (p. 125, below), as Frank Rubenfeld observes in his
present-centered ruminations on writing “Gestalt Creativity” for this specialtopics issue of Gestalt Review. The creative process is, as Joseph C. Zinker remarked in the interview he granted to Joseph Melnick for this issue, “often
paradoxical to the status quo of daily life,” involving “a commitment to risk
and uncertainty” and a break with full confluence with another person (p. 120,
below). But at the same time, Gestalt therapy, as Zinker asserted some 35 years
ago in a “sermon in praise of the use of experiment,” also reproduced below,
is by nature “permission to be creative”; if it is to survive, “it must stand for
this kind of integrating growth process, this kind of creative generosity” that
“moves to the heart of resistance” (p. 123, below).
The power of the experiment – which for Zinker “does not have to be
heavy, serious, or even precisely fitting” (p. 124, below) – may be viewed, too,
through what Saybrook Graduate School professor Ruth Richards denominates “everyday creativity.” This is creativity as it manifests itself, not in the
specific domain of the arts and the sciences, but in “everyday creative learning” (pp. 154ff., below). Prolific author on the subject of the hidden potential of “everyday creativity,” Richards is one of two invited respondents to
Ansel L. Woldt’s insightful essay on Gestalt pedagogy and creativity in teaching, which appears below as part of a four-article cluster born of a conference
on creativity held at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland (GIC) in 2007. Woldt’s
piece is commented upon, too, by Rogerian-oriented psychologist, M. Willson
Williams, also on the faculty at Saybrook. In accepting Gestalt Review’s invitation to respond to Woldt’s article, Williams, like Richards, expands Gestalt
therapy’s boundaries of context and continuity. She tells us that, although she
did not identify as a Gestalt therapist when she was in private practice, she recognizes that some early training in that perspective reveals itself in her current
work with doctoral learners. Woldt’s article, as well as three other pieces from
the GIC gathering, are introduced below by Sarah Toman, one of the conference co-chairs. The reader will find therein a plethora of definitions of creativity
by the conference participants; manifestations of creativity in the process and
practice of writing, and in an approach to the Gestalt of curiosity; and reflective
thoughts on the creative process of conference leadership.
In Reviews and Reflections, in addition to a thought-provoking critique of
Serge Ginger’s book, Gestalt Therapy: The Art of Contact, by Susan E. Partridge,
we provide three examples of the ways in which, as Shakespeare put it above,
the “poet’s pen turns forms of things unknown into shapes.” In addressing the
challenge of writing about creativity by putting it into action, the poems in
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EDITORIAL
this section, penned by Cynthia Hogue, Susan Roos, and Jenny Doughty,
remind us further that the phenomenon of creativity is a process, an experience, a cerebral event, and, above all, not something to which we can
point. In a conversation with the editor, Hogue related the three poems in
the following way:
The first two poems track the act of writing to illustrate how creativity
is experienced – the writer “huddles” and “hovers,” while “words like
cats” brush against “the mind.” Such images verbalize precisely, playfully, inventively, what it means to find words for something. Creativity
characterizes that which makes us most human, and as the third poem
contemplates beautifully, art goes back to the very roots of humanity.
With prehistoric communities, the “records” we have are creative: we
have their art. And like the first two poems, the third poem contemplates the process, the experience, and the caring labor that materializes that which is imagined, what the mind creates: “line after line of
circles blown/ sharply through pursed lips/ dead thirty thousand years.”
The poems in this section capture that moment in which breath creates
the “lines” – both of the bison and of the poems – which is to say,
inspiration. (C. Hogue, personal communication, August 17, 2009).
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SUSAN FISCHER
BLOCK
DEFINITION
I. Fear of Failure
Not taking risks; setting easy targets, drawing back
when confronted with risky tasks. Settling for less in order to avoid the possible pain of failing; seeing failure as
shameful; giving up quickly when faced with obstacles.
Does not see the difference between “good” and “bad”
errors. More focused on outcome than learning.
II. Reluctance to Play Literal, overly serious problem-solving style; not “playing around” with stuff. Fear of seeming foolish or silly by
experimenting with the unusual; ignoring or mistrusting
inner images or fantasies of self or others. Over-valuing
of the so-called “objective” world. Distaste for “let’s
pretend” or “what if.”
III. Resource Myopia Narrow vision; limited appreciation of possibilities. Failure to see one’s strengths; lack of appreciation for resources in one’s environment – people or things. Inability to let things happen naturally; lack of trust in human
capacities and work styles different from your own.
*
It is often stated that the methods of Gestalt therapy were created to
help individuals heighten their awareness of the ways in which 1) obstacles
prevent them from leading a fulfilling life, and 2) working at the boundary urges them to pay attention to where they may be stuck in the process and to what keeps them from moving on. This Gestalt Review issue
on creativity would not reach its due “closure,” in the view of the editor,
without invoking the polarity of creativity – its shadow side – and mentioning, however briefly and schematically, certain identifiable ways in which
people may effectively block themselves from using their potential fully,
and therefore from being fully creative. Almost 40 years ago, Sonia M.
and Edwin C. Nevis, along with Elliott R. Danzig, designed and developed a
program in which they defined 14 blocks to creativity, formulated from an
assimilation of the literature and offered along with corresponding learning exercises. An organizational variation was later created as “Managing
through Innovation.” Reproduced below, for your considered chewing, are
the 7 blocks that S. Nevis and E. Nevis believe are found most often among
helping professionals and managers.
IV. Overcertainty
Rigidity of problem-solving responses; not checking
assumptions. Persistence in behavior that is no longer
functional. Polarizing things into opposites (“it is either
black or white”) rather than knowing how to integrate
different aspects of an issue. Rely heavily on past experience in dealing with current situations.
V. Custom-Bound
Over-emphasis on tradition; much reverence for the past.
Tendency to conform rather than to stand out as being
different. Over-weighting what is known vs. what is not
known; need to know the future before going forward.
“If it was good enough for my father, it is good enough
for me.”
VI. Reluctance To
Exert Influence
Fear of appearing too aggressive or pushing in trying to
convince someone of something. Hesitancy in standing
up for what you believe in the face of opposition. Difficulty in making yourself heard, or in standing up for
what you believe. Give priority to the needs of others
before satisfying your needs. Conflict avoidant: avoid
expressing unpopular opinions.
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EDITORIAL
VII. Need for Balance Inability to tolerate disorder, confusion, or ambiguity;
tend to keep things simple rather than complex. Excessive need for symmetry. Strong reliance on rules and regulations. Uncomfortable with emotion, especially with
negative feelings. Lack appreciation for the importance
of feelings in achieving commitment and results.
Copyright © 2009. Edwin C. and Sonia M. Nevis, Gestalt International Study
Center. Reproduced by permission of the authors.
Gestalt Review, 13(2):119-122, 2009
119
Interview on Creativity
with Joseph C. Zinker, Ph.D.
JOSEPH MELNICK, PH.D.
Susan L. Fischer, Ph.D.
sfi[email protected]
Background
RE FE RE NCE S
Bate, J. (2008, 1998). The genius of Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Garber, M. (2004). Shakespeare after all. New York: Random House.
When I was a graduate student, one of my supervisors was receiving his Gestalt education at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. He started telling me about
a man named Zinker. He shared stories of Joseph’s creative work with dreams
and experiments. He talked about how his lectures and demonstrations left
him sometimes laughing uncontrollably, and at other times filled with tears.
What was also true was that his experiences were always filled with profound
learnings. Upon graduation I followed my supervisor’s path to Cleveland and
got to know Joseph, first as a teacher and supervisor, and later as a colleague
and a friend.
Joseph is many things. He is a marvelous teacher, able to translate complex
concepts into understandable bites. He is a fabuous performer, captivating his
audiences with his playfulness and passion. He is an important writer. Two of
his books, The Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy (1977) and In Search of Good
Form: Gestalt Therapy with Couples and Families (1998) are classics in the field.
Above all, he is the embodiment of creativity not just in his work but also in
how he lives his life.
Sadly, he has spent most of the past two years recovering from surgery. He
has faced this challenge with his usual mixture of courage, humor, and creativity. It seems appropriate that this issue of Gestalt Review begins with an
interview with Joseph, followed by a short piece that he crafted over thirty
years ago.
Joseph Melnick, Ph.D., founding editor of Gestalt Review, has been
practicing, teaching, and writing about Gestalt therapy for some thirty-five
years. He has recently co-edited a book (with Edwin C. Nevis), Mending
the World: Social Healing Interventions by Gestalt Practitioners Worldwide
(GISC Press 2009).
©2009 Gestalt Intl Study Center