The Paradoxical Theory of Change: a Reprint

As I find myself heading back into private practice (I gave up the private practice I had built in Philadelphia when we headed to Peace Corps in 2004.) I’ve been revisiting the foundations of the work I do. Last week I introduced you to Mariah Fenton Gladis, my mentor and the director of the Pennsylvania Gestalt Center, where I took my first Gestalt training program, and where I got my certification.

 

This week’s contribution is the classic article, aptly titled The Paradoxical Theory of Change, that has influenced my life and my work for the past twenty-five years. I hope you get as much from this reposting as I have.  As indicated below, I’ve taken it directly from the Gestalt Therapy Page.

 

And, since blog posts need images, here’s a fun one to test your perceptions. (Gestalt theory evolved out of the social psych research into perception, way back when.  So, a few “perception” images seem a fun choice.  And no, there’ll be no analysis following.)

 

Thanks to ubuntu.com for the image.
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You are visiting the Gestalt Therapy Page site.
For a complete list of materials included here, see The Contents of the Gestalt Therapy Page.

Although brief, the “Paradoxical Theory of Change” is, outside of the works of Frederick Perls, the most frequently referenced article in the body of Gestalt therapy literature. Written in 1970, it originally appeared in Fagan and Shepherd’s Gestalt Therapy Now, a publication of The Gestalt Journal Press.  For ordering information, visit the Press bookstore at www.gjpstore.com.


The Paradoxical Theory of Change

Arnold Beisser, M.D.

For nearly a half century, the major part of his professional life, Frederick Perls was in conflict with the psychiatric and psychological establishments. He worked uncompromisingly in his own direction, which often involved fights with representatives of more conventional views. In the past few years, however, Perls and his Gestalt therapy have come to find harmony with an increasingly large segment of mental health theory and professional practice. The change that has taken place is not because Perls has modified his position, although his work has undergone some transformation, but because the trends and concepts of the field have moved closer to him and his work.

Perls’s own conflict with the existing order contains the seeds of his change theory. He did not explicitly delineate this change theory, but it underlies much of his work and is implied in the practice of Gestalt techniques. I will call it the paradoxical theory of change, for reasons that shall become obvious. Briefly stated, it is this: that change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not.

Change does not take place through a coercive attempt by the individual or by another person to change him, but it does take place if one takes the time and effort to be what he is — to be fully invested in his current positions. By rejecting the role of change agent, we make meaningful and orderly change possible.

The Gestalt therapist rejects the role of “changer,” for his strategy is to encourage, even insist, that the patient be where and what he is. He believes change does not take place by “trying,” coercion, or persuasion, or by insight, interpretation, or any other such means.

Rather, change can occur when the patient abandons, at least for the moment, what he would like to become and attempts to be what he is. The premise is that one must stand in one place in order to have firm footing to move and that it is difficult or impossible to move without that footing.

The person seeking change by coming to therapy is in conflict with at least two warring intrapsychic factions. He is constantly moving between what he “should be” and what he thinks he “is,” never fully identifying with either. The Gestalt therapist asks the person to invest himself fully in his roles, one at a time. Whichever role he begins with, the patient soon shifts to another.

The Gestalt therapist asks simply that he be what he is at the moment.

The patient comes to the therapist because he wishes to be changed. Many therapies accept this as a legitimate objective and set out through various means to try to change him, establishing what Perls calls the “topdog/under-dog” dichotomy. A therapist who seeks to help a patient has left the egalitarian position and become the knowing expert, with the patient playing the helpless person, yet his goal is that he and the patient should become equals.

The Gestalt therapist believes that the topdog/under-dog dichotomy already exists within the patient, with one part trying to change the other, and that the therapist must avoid becoming locked into one of these roles. He tries to avoid this trap by encouraging the patient to accept both of them, one at a time, as his own.

The analytic therapist, by contrast, uses devices such as dreams, free associations, transference, and interpretation to achieve insight that, in turn, may lead to change. The behaviorist therapist rewards or punishes behavior in order to modify it. The Gestalt therapist believes in encouraging the patient to enter and become whatever he is experiencing at the moment. He believes with Proust, “To heal a suffering one must experience it to the full.”

The Gestalt therapist further believes that the natural state of man is as a single, whole being — not fragmented into two or more opposing parts. In the natural state, there is constant change based on the dynamic transaction between the self and the environment.

Kardiner has observed that in developing his structural theory of defense mechanisms, Freud changed processes into structures (for example, denying into denial). The Gestalt therapist views change as a possibility when the reverse occurs, that is, when structures are transformed into processes. When this occurs, one is open to participant interchange with his environment.

If alienated, fragmentary selves in an individual take on separate, compartmentalized roles, the Gestalt therapist encourages communication between the roles; he may actually ask them to talk to one another. If the patient objects to this or indicates a block, the therapist asks him simply to invest himself fully in the objection or the block. Experience has shown that when the patient identifies with the alienated fragments, integration does occur. Thus, by being what one is–fully–one can become something else.

The therapist, himself, is one who does not seek change, but seeks only to be who he is. The patient’s efforts to fit the therapist into one of his own stereotypes of people, such as a helper or a top-dog, create conflict between them. The end point is reached when each can be himself while still maintaining intimate contact with the other. The therapist, too, is moved to change as he seeks to be himself with another person. This kind of mutual interaction leads to the possibility that a therapist may be most effective when he changes most, for when he is open to change, he will likely have his greatest impact on his patient.

What has happened in the past fifty years to make this change theory, implicit in Perls’s work, acceptable, current, and valuable? Perls’s assumptions have not changed, but society has. For the first time in the history of mankind, man finds himself in a position where, rather than needing to adapt himself to an existing order, he must be able to adapt himself to a series of changing orders.

For the first time in the history of mankind, the length of the individual life span is greater than the length of time necessary for major social and cultural change to take place. Moreover, the rapidity with which this change occurs is accelerating.

Those therapies that direct themselves to the past and to individual history do so under the assumption that if an individual once resolves the issues around a traumatic personal event (usually in infancy or childhood), he will be prepared for all time to deal with the world; for the world is considered a stable order. Today, however, the problem becomes one of discerning where one stands in relationship to a shifting society.

Confronted with a pluralistic, multifaceted, changing system, the individual is left to his own devices to find stability. He must do this through an approach that allows him to move dynamically and flexibly with the times while still maintaining some central gyroscope to guide him. He can no longer do this with ideologies, which become obsolete, but must do it with a change theory, whether explicit or implicit. The goal of therapy becomes not so much to develop a good, fixed character but to be able to move with the times while retaining some individual stability.

In addition to social change, which has brought contemporary needs into line with his change theory, Perls’s own stubbornness and unwillingness to be what he was not allowed him to be ready for society when it was ready for him. Perls had to be what he was despite, or perhaps even because of, opposition from society. However, in his own lifetime he has become integrated with many of the professional forces in his field in the same way that the individual may become integrated with alienated parts of himself through effective therapy.

The field of concern in psychiatry has now expanded beyond the individual as it has become apparent that the most crucial issue before us is the development of a society that supports the individual in his individuality. I believe that the same change theory outlined here is also applicable to social systems, that orderly change within social systems is in the direction of integration and holism; further, that the social-change agent has as his major function to ‘work with and in an organization so that it can change consistently with the changing dynamic equilibrium both within and outside the organization.

This requires that the system become conscious of alienated fragments within and without so it can bring them into the main functional activities by processes similar to identification in the individual. First, there is an awareness within the system that an alienated fragment exists; next that fragment is accepted as a legitimate outgrowth of a functional need that is then explicitly and deliberately mobilized and given power to operate as an explicit force. This, in turn. leads to communication with other subsystems and facilitates an integrated, harmonious development of the whole system.

With change accelerating at an exponential pace, it is crucial for the survival of mankind that an orderly method of social change be found. The change theory proposed here has its roots in psychotherapy. It was developed as a result of dyadic therapeutic relationships. But it is proposed that the same principles are relevant to social change, that the individual change process is but a microcosm of the social change process.

Disparate, unintegrated, warring elements present a major threat to society, just as they do to the individual. The compartmentalization of old people, young people, rich people, poor people, black people, white people, academic people, service people, etc., each separated from the others by generational, geographical, or social gaps, is a threat to the survival of mankind. We must find ways of relating these compartmentalized fragments to one another as levels of a participating, integrated system of systems.

The paradoxical social change theory proposed here is based on the strategies developed by Perls in his Gestalt therapy. They are applicable, in the judgment of this author, to community organization, community development and other change processes consistent with the democratic political framework.


If you enjoyed the “Paradoxical Theory of Change,” you might also enjoy reading Gestalt therapist Ruth Lampert’s award winning essay, “The Case for Going Gentle,” that was inspired by her training with Dr. Beisser.

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Two images are better than one.  Here’s one of my annual bonfires. What do you see? photo credit: Dave Ackerman

How about you? Has your perception of change, uhh, changed? 

Coming up:
August 22: Gestalt’s Cycle of Experience
August 29: Moving Forward, A Look At Seventy


10 Responses

  1. Laurie Buchanan
    | Reply

    Janet —

    I agree with the summation: “We must find ways of relating these compartmentalized fragments to one another as levels of a participating, integrated system of systems.”

    I enjoyed viewing the initial set of graphics. I clearly see two pictures in “one.” (and if you look closely at your bonfire photo, you’ll see a bunny rabbit sitting on its haunches, facing left)…

    And I’m one of those people who enjoy change.

    • Janet Givens
      | Reply

      Hi Laurie. I must say first, I’m touched that you read through the whole post. This one is the longest so far and rather dense. So, thank you; I appreciate the effort. I too love to flip back and forth between the various images, but I wasn’t always able to do that. I’d see one image and stick with it.

      Isn’t that fire grand? My son Dave took that one and others too, each one a variety of images. Good memories too.

      And yes, to find ways to enable people to see past those relatively arbitrary distinctions we make — who’s old, who’s feeble, who’s wealthy. And the newest ones — who’s male and who’s female. And what, really, does it all mean anyway? The times they are indeed a changing.
      Janet Givens recently posted…The Paradoxical Theory of Change: a ReprintMy Profile

  2. Ally Bean
    | Reply

    “The goal of therapy becomes not so much to develop a good, fixed character but to be able to move with the times while retaining some individual stability.”

    This I like the sound of. Being a pragmatic soul I try to adapt to what is, while remembering what makes me whole. Many days this is difficult to do, but I persevere.

    If more people would get over being who they think they should be and allow themselves to become who they are, then all this fussing and whining about change would abate. You know this, I realize– but I just thought I’d say it here.
    Ally Bean recently posted…As College Begins, A Conversation About Time-honored Clichés & Proverbial WisdomMy Profile

    • Janet Givens
      | Reply

      Hi Ally, Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here. I loved how you phrased that “… get over being who they think they should be and allow themselves to become who they are, …” And hasn’t that gotten so much easier as we get older (and wiser? So, it IS true?). I’ve lost more than a few friends because I let out the person I truly was; it’s not always easy. Authenticity is now on my mind, the gift of authenticity — both in ourselves and in those we love. Thanks; you’ve gotten me thinking anew.
      Janet Givens recently posted…The Paradoxical Theory of Change: a ReprintMy Profile

  3. susan scott
    | Reply

    “But it is proposed that the same principles are relevant to social change, that the individual change process is but a microcosm of the social change process”.

    These words stood out for me Janet, implying from the microcosm to the macrocosm. It starts with the individual who hopefully with an open heart, can move out of his/her straightjacket with all its conditionings, into a welcoming of the ‘other’, that resides within and without.

    Thank you,

    • Janet Givens
      | Reply

      Hi, Susan. It’s a provocative article, and timely, even two generations later. From this I got a tag line I used for awhile in the 90s: “Social change through personal empowerment” — until too many people told me they didn’t understand what it meant. 🙁 I’m so glad you liked it.
      Janet Givens recently posted…The Paradoxical Theory of Change: a ReprintMy Profile

  4. Merril Smith
    | Reply

    I like the idea of “changing” to become the person you really are and also to seeing past the superficial distinctions of race, age, etc.
    (Though the editorial me would change all the dated language of he and him, if I could.) 🙂
    That bonfire is amazing!
    Merril Smith recently posted…The Box of Wishes: QuadrilleMy Profile

    • Janet Givens
      | Reply

      Yes. My inner editor balks at the “system of systems.” Every time. And then I remember I couldn’t come up with an alternative the last time I balked.

      That is an amazing photo of the fire! Dave does a great job when he’s here. Thanks for stopping.
      Janet Givens recently posted…The Paradoxical Theory of Change: a ReprintMy Profile

  5. Amelia
    | Reply

    I saw the faces in the white spaces of the first two and the face and man playing the sax? in the third. Neat.

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