Variations on I and Thou

P E T R U S K A C L A R K S O N , PhB.

This paper considers that thw five identifiable, interweaving but

potentialIy distinct kinds of thempeutic relationships to be found in
Gestalt t h e ~ l yand practice. These a= the working alliance' the "unfin-
ished" (or ~sference/c~untertmnsfmce) relationship, the nzparative
(and/or developmental) relationship, the I-You (or dialogic relationship),
and the transpersmtll relationship. Each and a11 of these modalities are
available forconstructive use in Gestalt clinical work and its supervision
to nuance theoretical understanding, refine conscientious researrh, and
mtribute to the development of our discipline.

L
AURA WAS PROE13UNI3LY INFLUENCED BY A PERSONAL hlEIiTING
with Martin Buber and has said that the true m c e of Gestalt
therapy was the relationship f o m d between therapist and client
(Hycner, 1985). Relationship can be defined as "the state of being reIated;
a condition or character based upon this kinship" (Onions, 1973,p. 1786).
Relationship is the fitst condition of being human. It circuntscrik two
or more individuals and e a t s a bond in the space between them that is
more than the sum of the parts. It is so obvious it is frequentIy taken for
granted and so mysterious that many of She wodd's greatest psychole
gists, novelists, and philosophers have made it a lifetime's preoccupying
passion. Research has shown that statistically you are more likely to be
killed by a relation than by a stranger. Results of studis also consistently
show that the choice of a particular psychotherapeutic method appem
to have much less k m i b l e influence on the effectivenessof psycho-
therapy than the relationship between the therapist and the client
(Noruoss, 1986). Gestaltists such as Polster m d Polster (1973)and the

-
existential psychotherapist May (1969)have also focus& extmsively on
the existential nature of therapeutic relationship.The I-Thou relationship

B.aarkxm is cwrsulw C- m c a~PWW, tad^

dmt Centre for Qualibfive Researrh at PHYSIS, London; Honorary Reader, Psychology d
Supmhion. Universityof Surrey; mfmmder, Gestalt Psydmtkapy Training Institute, UK.

56 01997The Analytic h s s
VARIATIONS ON I AND THOU 57

has been given serious aftentiom in Gestalt psychotherapy. Another

peqective may claim that I-You1 incorporates other relationship m h .
It doesn't matter how we think about it; it matters fhnf we think about it.
Some commentators believe that psychotherapy will disappear if
people "take care of each other" (Srnail, 1987) and some feel that it should
disappear because of the abuses inherent in the very activity of psycho-
therapy. Jeffrey Masson (1989) in his book Against Thff~pyprofoundly
questions and criticizes all appmaches to psychotherapy and demon-
strates with a series of appalling examples how psychotherapists from
Freud to Rosen have sexually used or abused their patients. Frih Perls
certainly did. Mason's criticisms represent a very important polarity to
be consided by any practicing psychotherapist and deserve to be taken
very seriously. This is particularly important for Gestalt therapists for
whom authentic relationship is so vital, since interpersona1 intimacy is
often confused with sexual intimacy in many cultures.

Five Kttds ofTherapeutic Relatiomhip

There is no single, simple dividing line between the infinitely different

ways of king with "an other" in pwthful or healing encounter. There
are many different ways of thinking about and experiencing the nature of
the therapeutic relationship. At any time one aspect of a relationship may
be in particular focus, but other modes of therapeutic relationship may
dm be present in the background of being.
A qualitative research project spanning some 20 years and some 1,000
texts led to the differentiating framework of five h d s of therapeutic
relationship potentially available for constructive use in psychotherapy
(Clarkson, 1996).
Illustrations from Gestalt theory and practice formed the primary
matrix for its development (Clarkson,1989) and the first presentation of
this work was as a keynote talk at a UK national Gestalt canfemceJ
In the following section the five kinds of therapeutic ichtionships
(the working alliance, the mfirtkhed [tranferential] relationship, the
reparative/dwelopmental relationship, the I-Thou relationship, and the
~p~ relationship) are made temporary figures for our attention
in order to contribute to the enhancement of therapy, training, and super-
vision in Gestalt.

%author with the B u k trartslator, Kaufm- that I-Thou more accurately

v t a d the lack of fmahty raadePed in German DII
s the ~ t o r p m r m i n t c d a n
and which is laof captured in Enghh by t)te more formal Thou ( K a u f m m in Buber, 1970,
p. 14).
2 ~ d y ~ f m C t a r k s o n { 1 9 9 SChaptw
), 1.
'I)be working alliance is probably the must m t i a l relationship m d t y
operative in psychothmapy. Without such an agreement psychotherapy
is limited in its goals and restricted in its scope. This working alliance is
represend by the clienvs or patient's willin- to engage in the here
and-now of the psychotherapeutic relatiomhip wen when heishe is
projecting the past. The dient may h terrible mh%ution if he/she
shares his/her anger at the therapist since this was the way that it uaed
to happen in the &ldhood home. In part, the war- alliiance =fern to
the awareness lwel of the client. For instance, the dent may be project-
ing old material onto the therapist wen h u g h in reality, the therapist
does not fit that pnjectim. For example, the client can remain (or is
willing to b m e ) aware that thia current *erapist person mayfeel like
the old one, but based on b / h e r o m past experience d the ament
therapeutic relatiomhip, the h a p i s t does not physically abuse hirn/her
(e.g, as Dad used t~ do) when they ane angry. The working alEiance can
be trm1atd as therapist and dient sharrng a similar existential project: a
mutual engagement, whether dangerous or delicious, with a common
figure of interest-the client's desire.
When past relationship pattern or archaic unfmished business
intrude on a client's awareness field, it may push the authentidly d
here-and-now relationship with the h a p i s t out of awarenes for
moments or wen extended periods of h e . Dealing with these unre-
solved gestalten as they impede, distorl, or limit current potential for
authentic relationship can be seen as the very stuff of p s y c h o ~ p yIn .
order to actElalize this, however, a shred working relationship needs to
be maintained. Which aspect of the encounter is brought into figure, or
foeus, depends on the nature of the p s y c h o h a p t i c task at a particular
time with each unigue patient.
The working alliance is the crucial and ncasmy r e l a t i d p for
effective therapy. It certainly is h e nec:e3sary cooperation that evm a
physician requires in order to effkctive1y work with patients, be it simply
at tfie Iwd that the patient takes the medication as p b b e d . Anecdotal
evidence and research (Becker and haaiman, 1975; Francis, Korsch, and
Morris, 1%9) )rave shown h a t this working alliance is frequently missing
in generd medical practice.

TZle therapeutic alliance is the powerful joining of force3 whidr

enr- and supports the long, difficult, and frequently painful
work of l h d m g m g psychotherapy. The conception of tfie thera-
pist here is not of a disinterested observetechnician but of a fully
alive human companion for the dient. In this regard my view is in
m W contrast to the traditional notion af the psychotherapist as
VARIATIONS ON 1 AND THOU 59

a skiited but objective director of therapeutic processes [hgental,

1987, p. 491.

The "unfinjshd r e l a t i d p " is another way in which k t a l t therapists

may name the phenomena that psycheanal~tsrefer to as " t r m f e m "
in order to deal with it differently.
Now of course we know that relating is always a mixture of contact
and transferme, but we deal phenomenologically and dialogically
with transference. We r e c o p k it, neither forbid it nor encourage
it. We know md use alferturtiws to i n t v e f a t i o n of the frmfmence
[Yontef, 1988, p. 23; italics adcEed].

Many Gestalt psychotherapists have had extensive psythanalytic

training and experience and use the tram- relationship as a living
and growthfuZ matrix for therapy. Even those without such training have
appreciatd the dynamic of people attempting to "finishRexperiences
with childhood figures in current adult elations ships as being one of the
most compelling sources of frustration and unhappiness. Ebth the
philosophy and techn010gy of the Gestalt approah can be used to
engage the person more M y in a u h t i c contact with self and other in
the hereand-now.
Freud went so far at one point as to suggest that the analyst d e l
Mmself on the surgeon, put aside his human sympathy, and adopt an
attitude of emotional coldness (1 912b, p. 115). At times Freud advocated
that the analyst refrain from intruding his personality into treatment, and
introduced the simile of the "mirror" for the analysand (Freud, 1912b, p.
118). This position is a stereotype of analysis md an anathema to Gestalt.
Actually, the populist interp~tationof Freud's work may not Be an
accurate picture of Freud. Like Perls he was, and is, subject to much
misunderstanding.Perhaps Freud emphasized certain of the "unnatural"
aspects of psychoanalytic tdmique because they were so foreig and
artificial to the usual doctor-patient relationship and the customary
psychotherapy ofhis day. He did not exclude other f o m of therapeutic
relating. For example, at the time when he was recommending emotional
coldness and a mirrorlike attitude, Freud (1912a) states:
Thus the solution ofthe puzzle is that trmfermce ta the doctor is
suitable for mistance to the treatment only in so kr as it is a nega-
tive transference or a positive transference of repressed erotic
impulses. If we "remove" t h hmsfmce by making it conscious,
w e are detaching only tkme two components of the emotional act
from the p m n of the doctor; the other component, which is
 admisible to CDnSeiousnessand unobjectionable, persists and is the
vehicle of succw in psycho-analysis exactly as it is in other
methds of heatmmt [p.1051.

The reparative relationship is another r e l a t i d p made that can oeca-

sionally be differentiated from the others. This is the intmtional provi-
sion by the psychotherapist of a comtive/qarative or replenishing
parental or educational or spiritual relationship (or action). This would
apply where the original fixed Gestalt was incomplete and therefore
fixed due to conditions such as abuse or ovqmtmtion. It can dso be
seen as the &tionship in the therapeutic encounter which provides the
atmosphere wherein the client is able to connect with the innate p r m
of growth and self-support. Gestalt theory and practice usually empha-
size the therapist's task as the reinstatement of growth. However, t h a
are many example3 of Gestalt therapy K i
n gexperiertced as mpamtive of
earlier relationship damage as is s b w n , for example, in the following
excerpt from Polster (1985) discussing a young colleague's work with a
client:

For reasons I thought were good, what she [the Gestalt therapisq
did was spend considerable time giving her patient instructions in
communicating with her friends; simple like helping her to
realize when she had not compIetecf a sentence and so on. She was
ma~~dously kindly in t&g her how to talk to these people. Her
conversationaf, instructive mode is what she thought might not be
G ~ t d therapy.
t She thought it wasn't present oriented; she didn't
use the empty chair to have her actually talk to her friends; she
didn't ask mything about the patient's aw-, Her work did
r e p m t a faithfulnessto the contact between her atld her patient, a
very sensitive contact in which she was very giving;,giving exactly
what she believed this particular patient, at this particdm moment,
needed most or was most d e d for by the dynamics of their inter-
a d o n [p. 61.

The therapist was gwing the patient what was needed at that
moment-what was interpreted as "needed" in the context of a repara-
tiw developmental pnocess. Korb, Gumll, and Van De Riet (1989) write:
"Whenworking with clients who are committed to completing the matu-
: rational process, the G t a l t therapist some& works as an educator as
well as a therapist,. ,. [sometimd provides necessary and appropriate
support'' (pp. 114, 18). This dimmsion of the therapeutic relatiomhip
refers to those aspects of relationship that may have b absent or
VAKIATIONS ON I AND THOU 61

traumatic for the client at particular periods of his or her past (aschild or
adult) and that are supplied by the psychotherapist-even to the "safety
provided" (Ciomai, 1995, p. 8). This is usually done on q u e s t by or with
agreement from the patient during the psychotherapy through "teaching
patients how to become more aware, make better contact, achiwe
grounding, undo fixed Gestalts and increase chronically missing sup
port" (Melnick, 1995, personal communication). Often it is the unavoid-
able corrective experimce concomitant with a patient's subjective
experience that for the first time in his or her life, someone values, listens,
confirms, includes, concenhates, pays attention, is fully p m t for him
or her.
Sandor Ferenczi (1926) {one of Freud%early followers) also attempted
to give people what they needed for their growth or development early
in the history of psychoanalysis. H e departed from neutrality and impas-
sivity in favor of giving nursery care, friendly hug? or management of
regression to very sick patients, including one whom he saw anytime,
day or night, and took with him on his holidays. Sechehaye (1951)
worked in a similar fashion holding and feeding her patient and crying
over her. Fmrnm-Reichman (1974)too interacted with her patients in
ways that were direct, interventionist, and active. For example, when a
psychotic patient soiled her clothes with feces, she simpIy wore a white
coat next t i m e t o protect herself while at the same time giving the
patient the Toom for her expressiveness in the redity of the relationship.
Ferenczi held that there needed to be a contrast between the original
trauma in infancy m d the analytic situation so that remembering rather
than retraumatizing the patient cart be facilitated.
Here follows a brief transcript of a moment in Gestalt therapy where
the client asks the therapist to provide permission and affection that was
missing for him as a child, as he relives being that child in the present rela-
tionship with the psychotherapist.

- I want to be energetic about i t . . .it's been with m e for some time.

.
- Help me to see where it goes, more into m a t i o n . . .I want to run at
something.
- Do you want to run at the couch against the wall?
- Feeling lips puckering up, making a fist-what a size that is.
- Hmhm.
- Make a noise to go with it.
- What's going on?
- I'm wondering whether I stood up to you or not? I don*twant to see
you crumble.
- You need to be able to resist me.
- Is it OK that I got angry?
- It's h e , it's good.
- Pm feelinga bit small now,
- In what way s d .
- Like a little boy-I need you to tell me ips dl right.
- It's fine. It's great that you got angry. You"rea capabIe man
- Do you still love me?
- Yes, I do.
- I found it a bit scary, but great.
- I liked being with you while you were doing that.
The advocacy relationship proposed by Alice Miller (1981, 1986),
which has h e m adapted by a number of Gestalt therapists, can be seen to
be the provision of a developmental:pfocess in a child's life which should
have been providd by a p a m t or other si@cant caretakers. In many
cases the psychotheraptst ultimately provides this. In view of the regms-
give nature of this Ecinat d work and the likely length of time involvd in
working with people who have keen severely damaged, the professional
and ethical responsibilities of the psychohrapists are also concomi-
tantly greaw*

The therapeutic A t i d p modality that shows most continuity with

the healing relationships of o d h m y life is what Buber caIIed the I-You
relationship to differentiate it from the I-It relatiomhip. It is very like
those osdsnary relationsftips that hwnan bangs have experienced as
particularlyhding over the qp (Buber, 1970).
With Freud's discovery of the importance of the transference reIatiom
ship came deep suspicion of the real refationship-the therapeutic rela-
tiomhip most similar to ordinary human relationships. Object relations
theorists have offered psychotherapy profoundly useful concepts and
theoretical understandings. However, the I-You relationship, which is
the core of Gestalt, is the opposite of an object relationship. Fot Buber
(1 970), the other is a person, not an o w .

Whower says You does not have something for his ow&. For
wherwer there is something h is also mother something every
It borders on other Its; It is only by virtue of bodering on others.
But where You is said there is no somehqg* You has no borders.
Whoever says You does not haw something;he has nothing- But he
stands in relation [p. 551.

The emotional invoIvement in this relatianship betwem psycholhma-

pist and patient is that between perm and persoln in the existential
VARIATIONS ON I AND THOU 63

dilemma where both stand in a kind of mutuality t~ each other. It is a

kind of mutuality because the psychotherapist is also in role.

Healing like educa- r e q that ~ one lives in confrontation and

..
is yet removed. . Every I-You relationship in a situation defined
by the attempt of one parlner to act on the other one sa as to
accompIish some goal depends on a mutuality that is condemned
never to be complete (Buber, 1970, p. 1791.

However in the immediacy of the existential encounter, the mutuality

is almost complete and the Self of the psychotherapist becomes the
instrument through which the healing evolves. Such self-disclosure
needs to be done with extreme care and in its most abusive form is an
excuse fot inauthentic eruptions or leakage of the therapist's need for
display, hostility, or seducti-. Genuine, well-judgd use of the I-
You relationship is probably one of the most difficult forms af therapw-
tic relating. Doubtless this was the reason behind fie early psycsloana-
lysts regarding it with extreme suspicion. Many personal encounters
have been destructive under the guise of ?-You r e l a t i d i p . It probably
requires the most skill, the most self-howledge, and the great& care
because its potential for carelss or destructive use is so great However,
it is the one form that Gestalt therapists in particular use and celebrate,
perhaps more than any other. It is also exemplified in papers in the
Gestalt Journal devoted to this subject (Hyener, 1990; Korb, 1988).
"There can be no psychoanalysis without an existential bond between
the analyst and the analysand," writes Boss (1963).

This means that to imagine there can be analysis without counter

transference, without involvement and response on the part of the
analyst, is an illusion. The analyst can deny but cannot avoid
having an cmotimd relationship with the analysand: wen the
objectifymg attitude ofindifference is a mode of emotional relating
[Ftidman, 1985, pp. 79-w.

The I-You relationship is dGaraderh3 by a here-nnd-now existmEia2

encounter between the two people. It involves muhtal participation In the
proc- and the recognition that each is changed by the other. The real
person of the psychotherapist can never be totally excluded from an
interactional matrix of therapy. Existential psychotherapy {Boss, 1963;
Bulswanger 1958; May, 1969) specifically jncluds the I-You genuine
encounter as a major therapeutic modality, and it has dways been a
central, if not the central, concern in GestaEt therapy.
 The basic word I-You can be spoken only with one's whole being.
The concemtration and fusion into a whole being can nwer be
accomplished by me, can nwer be accomplished without me.. ..
No purpose intervenes between I and You, no gred and no antici-
pation. ... Every means is an obstacle. M y where dl means have
.
disintegrated encounters occur. .. The actual and fulfilled p m t
exists only insofar as preen-, encounter, and relation exist.
Only as the You becomes present does presence come into being
IBuber, 1970,pp. 62631.
What is therapeutic, when it is achieved, is "the moment of real
meeting" according to Guntrip (2961). This experience is transforming
for both psychotherapist and patient because it is not what happened
before (i.e., unfinished business from the past) but what has never h a p
pened before, a genuine experience of relationship tented in the here-
and-now.
Of course, the humanistidy and existentidy orientated psychotherc
apies, such as Gestalt, which emphasize relationship based on hereand-
now contact and phenomenological focusing as contrast4 with a rela-
tionship based on transference and interpretation, have greatly amplifid
the value and use of the person-tu-person encounter in psychotherapy.
This has been our gift to psychotherapy in general-perhaps more than
any other.

The details of technique vary, but the strategy is always to keep a

steady, gentle pressure toward the direct and respmible I-Thou
orientation, keeping the focus of awareness on the difficulties the
patients experience in doing this, and helping them find their own
ways through these difficulties. [Faganand Shepherd, 1971,p. 11q.

According to MalcoZm (1981)honesty and spontaneity can eorrsct.the

patient's transference miqmqtions and make the psychotherapist's
responses unpredictable and therefore less likely to he manipuIated by
the patient. Sudr authenticity on the psychotherapisfs part m y mean
that the therapeutic relationship chan&es the therapist as much as the
patient. Both Jourard(1971) and Jung (1966) held this as a central truth in
all healing endeavors. SearIes (1975) also beliwed that the patient has a
powerful innate striving to heal the therapist (as he or she may have
b i r d to heal the parents), which can and d c e contribute to greater
individuation and growth for the psychotherapist as they are both tram-
formed in the therapeutic dialogue. This is, of courseI consistent with the
Gestalt notion of s e l f - a d k i t i o n bound up with the organism/envi-
ronment field unity.
VARIATIONS ON I AND TEIOU 65

In the best cases the person-to-person relationship is usually honored

by truthfulnss or authenticityqot at the expense of the client but in the
spirit of mutuality. According to Buber (1970),the genuine psychothera-
pist can only accomplish the hue task of regenerating the stunted growth
of a personal center by entering as "a partner into a person-to-pewon
rehtianship, but never through the observation and investigation of an
objeck" (p. 179). Significantly though this does not mean hjuclicious
honesty or belaboring clients with personal details, sorrows, or frustra-
tions that do not belong to them and which the therapist had b e e r work
out in his or her own psychotherapy. Buber (1970) further acknowledgs
the limited nature of the psychotherapeutic person-to-person rela-
lionship: "Every I-You relatiwhip in a situation defined by the atternpt
of one partner to act an the other one so as to accomplish some goal
depends on a mutuality that is condemned never to become complete"
(p. 179).

Tbe Trrrtupmod Relatiomhip

The tmnspersunal relationship is the spiritual dimension of relationship
in psychotherapy. There is surprisingly little documentd a b u t the
transpersonaP relationship in psychotherapy. Buber mentiom the concept
of grace as the ultimate factor that operates in the person-to-person
encounter and that may make the differencebetween whether a patient
gets better or not. lfJele pensay, et Dieu le guarit" [we treat them, but it is
G d who cures t h e 4 (Agnew, 1963, p. 75). Or according to Perk,
Hefferline, and Godman (1951, p. 2481, "mtura sanat non medicus"
[natureheals]. Naranjo (1982) wriM about i t It is about a kind of s a d -
ness in the therapeutic relationship that 1 am appreciating more and
more as the elan uifd (or life force, Physis), as I engage with my life or
enter client situations (Clarkson, 1991,1993). ' W e are in a numinous state
of contad and confluence that is lifegiving and healvlg for us both"
(Korb, 1988, p. 101). Z i r (1977)calls it the "expressionof the preen=
ofGod in my hands, eyes, brain, in all of me" (p.3) .
The nature ofthis transpersonal dimension is therefore quite difficult
to desm'be, because it is both rare and also not easily accessible to the
kind of descriptions that can easily be Ysed in discussing the other forms
of therapeutic relationships. "The numinosum is either a quality belonging
to a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a
p d a r alteration of consciousness" urn& 1969, p. 7). It is also possible
that there may be a certain amount of embarrassment in psychohera-
pists who have to admit that after all the years of training and personal
analysis and supervision, uItimately w e still don't know precisely what it
is that w e ace doingor whether it makes any difference at all.
 Thisis the kind of statement one can d y be sum of being understood
correctly by experiwced pychotherapists who have been faced repeat-
edly with incomprehensible and unpdictable outcomes-the person of
whom you despaired suddenly and sometimes apparently kexplicably
gets well, t h r i v ~ ,and actualizes beyond all expectation. At the other
polarity, the client for whom the psychotherapist had made an optimistic
propsis reaches plateaux from which in effed he/she nwet moves and
the therapy is abandoned with a lingering sense of potential glimpsed,
but never to be reached.
The p personal &tionship is o h characterized by its lack of
person-@person c o n r i b . It is rather as if the ego of even the
personal unconscious of the therapist is "emptied out" of the therapeutic
space, leaving the mom for something numinous to emerge in the
'%etween" of the reIatio&p. This space can then become the t m e m s or
"the z~asberte clausum h i d e which the transmutation takes place" (Adler,
f 979, p. 21). It implies a letting go ofskills, ofknowledge, ofexperience,
of precmceptions, even of the desire to M, to be present. It is essm-
tially allowing passivity, receptiveness for which preparation is always
inadequate since it c m o t be made to happen; it can only be encouraged
in the same way that the inspirational muse of aerttivity cannot be
forred, but needs to have the ground p ~ p ordseized in the serendipi-
tous moment of r e a d k . What a n be prepared are the conditions
conducive ko the spontammus or spiritual act.
The essence of the communiation is in the heart of the s h a d silence
of being together in a dimension that is impossible to articulate exactly,
too delicate to analyze and yet too pervasively present in Gestalt
psychotherapy to ignore.

When the fun irnp1icatim of Gestalt therapy are Iivd through

from the perspective of the I-Thou relation, then I think it is impos-
sible to divorce t r a n s c e n d w d therefore spirituality-from
me's view of the nature of pcmms, and from the therapy process
. . . and perhaps (&talk therapy) can reenter & world ofmutual-
ity, with the potential and t r d e n c e that exists when two
individuab, fully responsible, allow their innetmost selves to m e t
hcobs, 1978, pp. 132-1331.

True tn Gesdt"s paradodd iheory of change, we may need to relin-

quish the desire for o w climb to be different ar wen wanting them to
want to change because the therapist needs this in order to feel worth-
while. %ahnosphew is more a tsaricelike d t a t i o n , the q d i t y that
is conveyed by the '*kg with" of master therapists with patients who
are in acute psychosis (such as Gendlin, 1967) who affirm the spiritual
dimension in psychotherapy. It is of course quite possible that psycho-
VARIATIONS ON I AND THOU 67

therapists may be deluding themselves in ways thaZ may be dangerous

for themselves and their climb if they mistakenly, prematurely, or
naively focus on the transpersod and, for example, overlook or distort
unfinished projections of transfermtial or persona1 phenomena.
"I believe that the spirit and the spiritual has k e n p m t in Gestalt
therapeutic pme6s from the beginning, Perhaps now we may affirm it
and articulate some aspects with a degree of cogency and darity" (Korb,
1988,p. 104).
The Gestalt notion of the -less Self in contact with the other resem-
bles the archetype of the Self which Jungrefers to as the person's inher-
ent and psychic disposition to experience centeredness and meaning in
life, sometimes conceived of as the God within ourselves. Buber was
m t i a l l y concerned with the close association of the relation to God
with the relation to one's fellow men, with the I-Thou that issues from
the olcounte~with the 0 t h in ~ relationskip. This dimension in the psycho-
therapeutic selatimship cannot be proved and can hardly be d d M .
"Nothing remains to me in the end but an appeal to the Wtimony of
your own mysteries" Puber, 1970, p, 174).

In summary; the working alliance concerns the love of the work; the
unfinished (trafl~fmce/mtertrafl~ference) relationship cancems the
love of the truth (the authentic); the reparative/developmenta1 refa-
tionship concerns love for the mfhkhed issues in the person (more in
line with process rather than structure); the I-Thouiperson-teperson
relationship cancems the love of the o h ; a d the hmpet30nal rela-
tionship concerns the love of God-whatever w e may conceive It to be,
A Gestalt approach to psychotherapy training experience, and super-
vision requires the ability to distinguish between different forms of thec-
apeutic relationship and to assess and evaluate the usefuhess of each at
different stages of therapy or for individuals with different characteristic
ways of relating, so that there is not a slipshod vacillation prompted by
the therapist's own mfinkhed business. It is equaI1y important that
Gestalt therapists do not participate in or collude with abuse by not
confronting it in their clients, themseIws, or their colleagues.

In the past decade Gestalt therapy has been true to its existential
heritage by inueasing amtion to human relations, an increasing
respect for the phenomenology ofthe patient, and beginning to deal
with issus of continuity. This more mature existential attitude has
been the basis for a more sophisticated clinical methodology and a
framework for assimilating new psychoanalytic insights [Yontef,
1987, p. 511.
 This maturing of Gestalt theary and practices brings with it: i n d
responsibility as well as h a e a s d range and expanded understadkgs.
F d o m d m not mean that we forgo discipline. Courage in actively
embraring the fullst range of potentials of Gestalt, the self or the hm-
d e n t ,d s to be accompanied by the s w e W form of testing and
forged anew with each client from moment to moment. Of course, this
can never truly be d d b e d , since as soon as the word is uttered or the
thought captused on paper, its most authentic moment of truth has
already scaped.
This paper has briefly demiidl five kinds oftherapeutic relationship
available as potential avenues for constructive use in Gestalt therapy and
indicated some characteristics of each in an effort to clarify, speafy, and
differentiate more acutely in theory and practice the nature and intm-
tiom of the mdtipliaty of therapeutic wlationships available and used
by GestaItists throughout the world. It is a rich tapetry w e weave when
we enter into relationship with another. I also do not believe that any
amount of serious study, comparison with other approaches, question-
ing, or scrutiny of our own experience can wer destroy the spontaneous
liveliness of the encountet and the idiniteIy varied treasures of the
Gestait itself.

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