An introduction to Triple Foundations of Contemporary Gestalt therapy

Fredrick Perls founded his new modality of psychotherapy on increasing awareness, being here and now, responsibility and relaying on the organismic self-regulating process for passing from environmental support to self-support. He and his followers (the West Coast Gestalt therapists) viewed the Gestalt approach as a lifestyle first and then as a method of psychotherapy but his wife, Lura (the most prominent figure of the West Coast) and her associates (East Coast) tried to keep Gestalt therapy as much as possible in counseling sessions and brought it into professional discipline, like other forms of psychotherapy. Besides, they had different views on frustration and relationship in the course of psychotherapy. Contemporary Gestalt therapy was based on the three pillars of Husserl's phenomenology, Levine's field theory, and Buber's dialogical approach. In this paper, while explaining these three foundations and the "Alterity" of Emmanuel Levinas, the four principles of the contemporary Gestalt therapy (Alterity, presence, acceptance and commitment) were introduced.