From the Radical Center The Heart of Gestalt Therapy [Paperback]

This remarkable collection traces central themes in the work of Erving and Miriam Polster, two of the best-known and best loved Gestalt therapists in the world. The writings herein span 4 decades in the history of psychotherapy, bringing together practical, theoretical and aesthetic dimensions of the Polsters' work in a single book. Ranging across diverse subjects and distinct historical periods, the work collected in this volume will educate, provoke, inspire and nourish Gestalt therapists for years to come.Introduction - Arthur Roberts 
Prologue 
I. Setting the Stage
- A Contemporary Psychotherapy 
- The Language of Experience 
- Sensory Functioning in Psychotherapy 
- Women in Therapy: A Gestalt Therapist's View
- Gestalt Therapy: Evolution and Application
II. Transformation of Principles
- Therapy Without Resistance: Gestalt Therapy
- Escape from the Present
- Tight Therapeutic Sequences
- Every Person's Life is Worth a Novel
- The Therapeutic Power of Attention
- The Self in Action: A Gestalt Outlook
- Translating Theory into Practice: Martin Heidegger and Gestalt Therapy
- Commonality and Diversity in Gestalt Therapy
- In Memory of Carl Rogers: Great Men Cast Great Shadows
III. The Role of Community
- Encounter in Community
- Eve's Daughters: The Forbidden Heroism of Women 
- Individuality and Communality
- Beyond One to One
- It's Only the Most Recent Year of the Woman
- Coda
- What's New?

The Polsters have put forth an original body of work which distinguishes itself not only by its theoretical bravado, but by its intention to include and acknowledge a great variety of dissonant perspectives within Gestalt therapy.  The energy resulting from their effort leaps off the page.

- Arthur Roberts, Ph.D.