Enlightening Gestalt: Waking Up from the Nightmare

by John Enright, John Harris (Preface)

John Enright is one of the "first generation" of Gestalt therapists who worked and studied with Fritz for the last ten years of his life, during the middle and later years of the development of Gestalt Therapy. All along in this study he felt there was something about Gestalt that was different from the way it was usually understood and presented. This book is about that "something different". At its very heart, Gestalt is not a cure for problems in the real world, but a path to enlightenment; to seeing that the problems are not real, but illusions projected on the world. His view is refreshing, personal, occasionally humorous, and very practical. In addition to people professionally interested in Gestalt, people interested in their own processes of awareness and experience will find this book useful.

"The person committed to effortful change rejects reality and fights it. The purpose of Gestalt is to accept reality and play with it. And in the play, you will discover you made most of it up anyway."
John Enright

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

361 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Olena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Apart from finding out what is gestalt, you will actually have a gestalt sessions for yourself while reading this book. It helped me to overcome difficult moments in my life and to obtain an calmness inside.

[egelantier · Rating 3 out of 5]

(enlightening gestalt: waking up from the nightmare), one of the recommended textbooks for the gestalt course, wherein john enright extrapolates a lot on how fritz perls wasn't a cult leader (which i believe into, actually), and belies himself a bit with his adoration. a lot of useful techniques and some new age-ish mumbo-jumbo, so i'm not sure how i feel about it yet. probably need to dig deeper into the sources.