The Awareness-Consciousness Continuum and the Environment as Lifeworld. Gestalt Ther-apy Takes Another Phenomenological Turn

Journal title QUADERNI DI GESTALT
Author/s Dan Bloom
Publishing Year 2017 Issue 2017/1
Language Italian Pages 19 P. 34-52 File size 227 KB
DOI 10.3280/GEST2017-001004
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The awareness continuum and the organism/environment field have been the unexamined foundations for Gestalt therapy’s theory and practice since its beginning in 1951. This paper questions their adequacy. It argues that "awareness" is too broad a concept to describe the rich and complex experience of being human. The "awareness-consciousness continuum" and "environment-lifeworld" are proposed. Persons, as animal organism as well as meaning-making existential human beings, can then be fully considered with the language of our modality. The terms by which we consider our work express our attitude towards our patients.

Keywords: Contact-boundary, field, creative-adjusting, consciousness, phenomenology, lifeworld, self functions, awareness-consciousness continuum, organism/environment-lifeworld field.

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Dan Bloom, Il continuum consapevolezza-coscienza e l’ambiente come mondo-della-vita. La terapia della Gestalt compie una nuova svolta fenomenologica in "QUADERNI DI GESTALT" 1/2017, pp 34-52, DOI: 10.3280/GEST2017-001004