A Well-Lived Life: Essays in Gestalt Therapy

by Fleming rocker Sylvia

Sylvia Crocker's A Well-Lived Life is a work of a daring and creative thinker, offering a bold reconceptualization of Gestalt therapy that extends all the way from its philosophical foundation to the nuances of its clinical application. In prose that is clear as a bell, Crocker fully exposes the depth and power of Gestalt therapy's field theoretical model, deftly moving from individual to larger systems work and back again, and capturing the full range of human psychological phenomena as she goes.


From the acquisition and maintenance of simple behavioral habits, to the construction of personal narrative and myth, Crocker's Gestalt therapy model is equally at home and applicable. Her vision of Gestalt therapy is at the same time startingly unique and comfortably familiar. She is firmly rooted in Gestalt Therapy's 'phenomenological behaviorism, but at the same time offers us a model for assessing and working with self functions which is remarkably creative, and represents an important new contribution to the field.


And throughout the text, interpolated between her provocative theoretical formulations, we encounter Crocker the clinician - moving straight ahead, getting right at the issue, making sense, and all the while, concretely instructive regarding the nature of the work. This is a book that will make a difference, challenging the way we think about the practice, the craft of psychotherapy.

400 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 1991

Reviews

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read. This book is a collection of essays about Gestalt theory. Essays II and III were the most noteworthy for me. I really appreciated how Crocker gave voice to how "resistances" can be healthy. These two essays are must reads for anyone who wants to learn more about gestalt theory