Gestalt and the Wholeness of Life

By Howard Adams and Cort Curtis, Ph.D.

At its core, this book is not just a philosophical treatise, but a testament to the life-altering power of awareness and understanding. It invites you to look beyond the superficialities of life to embrace a sense of unity with the world around you. Readers will find themselves not just learning, but experiencing a shift in their own perception, forging a connection with the sublime beauty of existence.

 

Written in a language that is as poetic as it is instructive, this book strives to be more indicative than definitive, capturing the ever-evolving quality of reality. Utilizing accessible analogies and vivid descriptions, the authors aim to make the reader an active participant in exploring complex themes—inviting us to question, reflect, and ultimately, understand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cort Curtis, Ph.D.
• Release date: Aug 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223421047

Howard Adams

As Head of the Gestalt Institute of Australia, Howard's influence on his students was profound. Those closest to him held him in awe for his extraordinary insights which he attributed to "just keeping my eyes wide open".

Book preview

Foreword I

This book is the transcription of monthly seminars given by Howard Adams at the Gestalt Institute of Australia in Springwood, NSW, during 1990 and 1991. From first meeting Howard in 1989 it was clear that the information he presented was unique. It was the distillation of wisdom over the eighty-year lifetime of a man, who from the age of fifteen, gave his total commitment to exploring the life process, and who was determined to understand that process in its wholeness.

Howard had run many groups on Gestalt Psychology in the past, and again agreed to share his perceptions and quite singular contribution to the field. A mature group of people who were searching for a deeper understanding of their lives made up the later seminar. They were individuals who already had considerable experience in different professions and occupations and had resolved some of the personal and relationship issues which might otherwise dominate discussions and limit the scope of Howard's information.

The core group of ten or so met for two years, with a few members leaving and being replaced by others. Over that period the group was unequivocal about the quality of the material being generated and shared. Here was no petty analysis of the travail of the psyche, but a journey of cosmic significance in which the challenges and difficulties of life were the very stuff of increasing awareness within the individual, and the physical universe.

The group welcomed the transcriptions of each seminar and distributed them more widely. Calls for more information reinforced the decision to publish the seminars, together with previous transcriptions of workshops in 1987, and some sections of a book written by Howard thirty years ago. The information chosen for publication gives a reasonable sample of Howard's work although the seminar format was naturally geared to meeting the needs of the members of the group rather than a strictly sequential presentation of material.

Nevertheless, it was obvious that, unlike the multitude of different therapies and mystical experiences offered by the Human Potential Movement overall, Gestalt Psychology presented a coherent framework which emphasized the inherent growth dynamic towards wholeness which could be mapped through identifiable stages of human development. It gave some useful signposts to those on the journey of self-exploration and psychological growth, and fine-tuned the rather hit and miss approach to understanding, which left many wandering in confusion among the maze of ‘new age' techniques, which usually assumed everyone was aware of some general blueprint, and had enough information to find their own way accurately and efficiently. For many, this was clearly far from the truth.

As Head of the Gestalt Institute of Australia, Howard's influence on his various groups of students, as well as on those seeking personal help with crises in their own lives, was profound. Those closest to him held him in awe for his extraordinary insights - insights which he strongly denied attributing to any psychic powers, but to just keeping my eyes wide open. This, he insisted, was the basis of Gestalt Psychology. Whereas civilizations in the past had relied on the wisdom set out in various sacred texts as revealing the principles by which individuals should conduct their lives and organize their societies, people were, to a quite unprecedented extent, now beginning to take charge of their own lives, and were placing increasing reliance on understanding their own psychological process. They were achieving this inner revolution by indeed keeping their eyes wide open and directly observing their own behavior and that of others. No longer were people looking for revelation from some outside authority but were taking responsibility for accurately perceiving what was really happening and then deciding the criteria by which to make personal and social choices.

All religions had long hinted at those few individuals who had understood the Wisdom Teachings hidden in the sacred texts which revealed the deepest mysteries of life. From the earliest civilizations these teachings have been passed on through secret schools to those who were considered to have the ears to hear and the eyes to see the sacred mysteries - individuals who could be entrusted to take the pure teachings forward, beyond any reliance on outward forms and rituals.

The emergence of holistic psychologies, particularly those developed from the rigorous scientific traditions of the Gestalt School in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century, removed the understanding of human process from the elite and esoteric traditions, and deposited them fairly and squarely into the public domain, where, in both scholarly and popular forms the agonies and the ecstasies of the human process have become the personal responsibility of each individual.

Howard Adams studied the Wisdom Teachings of the Christian and Eastern traditions, and reframed them into the modem psychological idiom, attempting to make them accessible to ordinary women and men seriously interested in penetrating and understanding human process. His own studies were at first informal, starting in 1924 when he was fifteen by using the resources of Melbourne City Library to search out the psychological publications from

European schools. When he was in his early twenties, he joined the Theosophical Society and underwent the studies and training it offered. Later, after war service in the Pacific as a Camouflage Officer, Howard was engaged by the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) as a member of a team researching the Ionosphere, where his love of physics and electronics was the foundation of many of the analogues he uses in his elaboration of a holistic understanding of human process.

In particular, Howard had experienced what he described as a psychological quantum leap in awareness, while he and his wife and family were living an idyllic life in the unspoiled natural setting of a tropical island off the Queensland coast. He describes this experience as one which completely changed the way I used my brain, from conceptualizing to a direct perception of reality. A new sense of freedom and effortless understanding pervaded my whole being, and a sense of integration with the material order and beauty of creation became dominant. He felt that he had at last reached the source of the quest he had started when he was fifteen.

This book attempts to describe a unitary understanding of nature and humankind from the perspective of direct perception. The language used is necessarily, at times, more indicative than definitive, aiming to convey a sense of the dynamic quality of the reality he perceived. At the same time, Howard has labored hard to give analogies with which we are all familiar, and give us a sense that we are at all times active participants in the process under examination. As one quite senior woman remarked during discussion of The Unity of Death and Incarnation chapter, It is wonderful when you come on something and instinctively know it is the truth.

Since the book is a radically different expression of Gestalt Psychology from that in any other text, early reference to the glossary of terms will help the reader to be aware of very specific ways many words are used.

The collation and enunciation of the Principles of Gestalt Psychology listed separately in the book, have been developed by Howard. They provide a very condensed overview of the area and are worthy of meditation and contemplation.

The contributions of Eva John, who transcribed the 1987 Workshops, of Dr John Alexander, who assisted the editing, and of Margaret Pridham and Lyn Whale who have more recently helped with the transcribing and typing are acknowledged and much appreciated.

Frances Milne, Editor.

May, 1992.

Foreword II

It is both an honor and a privilege to present to you Gestalt and the Wholeness of Life an edited rendition of a masterpiece originally titled, The Search for Wholeness conceived by Howard, a mentor and friend whose impact on my life and work as a psychologist cannot be overstated. My relationship with Howard began in 1974 when I emigrated to Australia in my twenties. It was a pivotal time in my life, a period during which my interest in Gestalt Psychology was blossoming. An ad for the Gestalt Institute of Australia led me to Howard, and I soon became his student.

Howard was not just an ordinary teacher; he had a way of articulating complex psychological principles that had a transformative effect on my life. We met on a monthly basis to discuss the principles of Gestalt Psychology, a field he profoundly understood and could articulate with immense clarity. His unique interpretation of what he termed the wholeness dynamic forever changed the way I viewed human behavior and thought. It was through Howard that I gained a deeper appreciation for the works of the original Gestalt psychologists and how they encapsulated the complexities of human behavior.

In 1976, life led me back to the States, but our relationship did not end. Despite the physical distance, Howard and I maintained a dialogue that continued until his untimely passing in 1998 at the age of 89. During the years up until the printing of his original book, Howard formulated this manuscript, parts of which were based on his talks and dialogues with others. Before his passing, he granted me generous permission to modify and edit his manuscript as I saw fit, thereby entrusting me with the task of making his seminal work more accessible to a broader audience.

For the last 25 years, I have taken on the mantle of editing and refining Howard's original text. The book you hold in your hands today is the culmination of this lengthy, but deeply rewarding process. While I have made contributions in terms of clarity, structure, and additional perspectives, the essence of this work—Howard's original articulation of Gestalt Psychology—remains untouched.

As you delve into this intellectual and experiential journey, know that the ideas and concepts presented here are deeply rooted in Howard's original brilliance. Any enhancements or clarifications you encounter are my contributions, aimed at amplifying the impact and reach of his groundbreaking work.

In closing, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Howard for entrusting me with this monumental responsibility. His open-heartedness and unwavering encouragement have been nothing short of inspirational, motivating me through this decades-long journey.

May the ideas and concepts in this book challenge, inspire, and lead you toward new horizons, just as Howard's original teachings did for me.

Sincerely,

Cort Curtis, Ph.D.

October 2023

Introduction

Since the dawn of civilization , humankind has sought a unitary understanding of the human condition, nature, and the cosmos. Because this has not been realized, human understanding of life as a whole was divided into many parts, each dealing with a particular aspect of discovery and thought. The development of Physics, Philosophy, Religion, Psychology, Biology, and other disciplines is the attempt to arrive at a synthesis of some or all of these.

The Wisdom, gives rise to the tradition of enlightenment, so that throughout the ages there have been individuals with insight beyond the level of the culture in which they lived.

The essence of a unitary understanding is the recognition that we have a potential that is actual, inherent in the nature of life itself. Human potential and the process of its activation become the central concern of every individual. The biosphere, the planet, and the cosmos become the field essential to this process. This is the foundation on which a unitary understanding is based.

Gestalt Psychology is based upon pure holistic observation and experiment. Gestalt is not a theoretical construct or hypothesis but a description of what is actually occurring as it occurs. This requires a high order of accurate observation together with an ability to understand the structure and function of both the situation in which an event occurs, and the inner or subjective processes which govern the responses of the individual concerned.

The immediacy and eagerness of the responses indicate the state of health or wholeness of the person. The dominant fact of life is the reality of existence itself, and all functions and processes of the person are consequent upon this. Secondly, our state or quality of experience is, at any time, transient since continuous motion is a condition of our ongoing conscious life.

This book attempts to describe the process of human life from birth to death as an integrated and continuous whole, and to demonstrate that a gestalt is the unit of activation of human potential.

It is also a description of our movement towards wholeness. Although we cannot conceive what the potential of the human individual actually is, we can understand and facilitate its activation knowing every step will be beneficial and reveal new perspectives of those things that enrich our appreciation and competence and generate wonder and enjoyment in our lives.

I hope you will enjoy this journey of discovery with me and find it as exciting as I have found it over my life span of eighty or so years.

Howard Adams

1.  The Fundamentals of Gestalt

There is the Wisdom that has always been in the world. It is the teachings of the various religious and philosophical traditions of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism that exist in an effort to understand the nature of humankind and the processes of nature and the cosmos. Modern Gestalt enables us to understand these teachings in their highest form through direct perception and awareness of the here-and-now situation. 

The Self

The Self, distinguished by an uppercase 'S,' represents the complete union between the persona and a more universal or archetypal entity, alternatively termed as God. It is the dimension of Being that is whole, encompassing the persona—the observable form or body marked by specific traits such as a name, historical background, identifiable attitudes, behaviors, and predictable responses. The persona functions as the I that you perceive to be your own self, and that you convey to others as your individual identity. This I embodies the 'human' facet of your entire existence.

The I is your unique character and character structure. In theater terms, it represents the image that you hold of yourself and which you act out in your everyday roles and relationships. Your persona is a relatively fixed structure that changes over time and development. Indeed, your persona is that part of the total you that is continuously disappearing into the past and developing into the future of your potential. The future is a vision that represents an expression and manifestation of your human potential which is continuously being revealed to you as you change and grow.

When you identify yourself only with the persona, you are making a mistake. Your true identity rests in the whole of your interaction between yourself as a body and the totality which is God. God represents your full potential as a human being.

My One Self is the harmonious union of my human persona and the infinite potential represented by the divine.

The Past

A memory serves as a visual representation of a past occurrence. When you verbalize a memory, you're narrating an account of a bygone event. You're delineating the mental image you hold. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, you often employ a similar volume of words to recount a past event, even though the memory itself is merely a snapshot or a succession of snapshots that portray a specific chain of happenings. However, your visual and verbal rendition of what transpired is never the absolute reality, as it's shaped by your singular perspective. Others present during the actual event might narrate the situation differently and could observe details you overlooked. Your perception of the past is exclusively your own.

Obsession with past events signifies that something remains unsettled, uncompleted, or unfinished in your current state. The perpetual flow of life consistently presents you with chances to finalize those incomplete past situations, by revisiting them in varying circumstances until they achieve resolution.

The perpetual flow of life consistently presents me with opportunities to resolve past situations, by revisiting them in varying circumstances until they achieve resolution.

Personal and Spiritual Growth

The pace at which you resolve past experiences serves as a gauge for your advancement into higher states of consciousness. The more swiftly you close the chapter on a specific experience, the more rapidly you evolve, since you're not burdened by past remnants. Your vitality is fully focused on the present, unsplit between unresolved past events and current demands. Freed from past imprints, your energy is optimally deployed to unlock your ever-present potential. However, growth obeys its intrinsic rhythm; it cannot be hurried or forced. Much like you can't push the river or expedite a plant's growth, every entity has its inherent pace for development and flow. Removing resistance is the key to activating your innate potential for growth.

Each situation, each encounter, has its natural conclusion. Upon interacting with someone, an internal sense informs you when it's appropriate to disengage and bring the encounter to an end. As the interaction concludes, both parties proceed on their individual paths. If the experience remains only partially digested, you'll find your thoughts returning to it; it lingers as an unfinished matter that hampers your growth speed. Achieving closure on such experiences transforms you and opens you up to new horizons for growth, visible as your future unfolds.

Observing these event dynamics is immensely freeing. You begin to value your current circumstances as platforms for enhanced growth, proficiency, and contentment. Life's continuous process operates in a unified manner, revealing its essence over time. While potential may exist beyond the confines of temporality, it manifests in time through your engagement with the present moment. Heightened awareness and capabilities, along with the skill to structure your life and relationships, start to come into fruition. The past morphs into the present as it becomes today. And tomorrow transitions into the present as you progress, unshackling yourself from the past.

Resolving past experiences amplifies my growth, unlocking my potential as I flow with life's natural rhythm.

The Transient Persona

At every moment, you exist as a composite of persona, latent potential, and the surrounding environment where your persona/body functions. Your persona/body serves as the conduit through which your untapped potential is realized. The Self emerges at the intersection of interaction between your persona and the encompassing environmental field. When you declare I am, you are articulating this interplay among these three dimensions.

The persona/body is a manifestation, not an independent entity.