Gestalt, a philosophy for change
By Dr Trevor Bentley (September 2005 Issue)
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When I bought the house that I now live in, in the garden there was a pond that was fed by a stream. There was an outflow from the pond that ran under the road through a culvert. This pond was not a natural pond, but instead had been created by the previous owners, by changing the way that the stream flowed. Every year the pond became filled with silt and had to be cleared by a large digger. Then the culvert collapsed.
By this stage, I had had enough of the pond and decided to return the stream to its natural course and create a bog garden. The result has been a great success; a very happy stream that sparkles and burbles with contentment and a lovely shady bog garden.
Change is always like this. If we change something, and we have the awareness to notice what is happening, we can choose to live with that change or to change something else until we have something that works for us moving forward. Change initiatives in organisations often fail because the consequences or outcomes are not what we expect so we try to make them happen, like digging silt out every year, rather than accept what is happening and to move on and change something else.
Gestalt offers an approach to change that is holistic, i.e. it embraces everything and everyone involved. It is field sensitive, meaning it allows for the context in which events are occurring. It is phenomenological, i.e. notices what is actually going on, and it is people focused. A part of its theoretical base is the paradoxical theory of change, which states that by focusing on our awareness in the present moment and responding accordingly.
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