This remarkable collection traces central themes in the work of Erving and Miriam Polster, two of the best-known and best loved Gestalt therapists in the world. The writings span 4 decades in the history of psychotherapy, bringing together practical, theoretical and aesthetic dimensions of the Polsters’ work in a single book. Ranging across diverse subjects and distinct historical periods, the work collected in this volume will educate, provoke, inspire and nourish Gestalt therapists for years to come.
Erving Polster, Ph.D., is Director of the Gestalt Training Center – San Diego. He is also Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego. Erv is co-author, with his wife Miriam, of an important text in Gestalt therapy, Gestalt Therapy Integrated (Vintage, 1973). He also has written Every Person’s Life is Worth a Novel (W. W. Norton, 1987), in which he spells out the therapeutic applicability of the kinship between the novelist and the psychotherapist. His most recent book, A Population of Selves (Jossey-Bass, 1995) presents a theory of the self which coordinates the concept of wholeness with the concept of personal splitting, and narrows the gap between theoretical principles and therapeutic practice. Erv conducted the first locally led workshops at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland in 1956, and was its first faculty chairman until 1973, when he and Miriam moved to San Diego.
Miriam Polster (1924-2001) was co-Director of the Gestalt Training Center – San Diego. She was also Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California,San Diego. She taught psychology at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University.
Miriam co-authored, with Erv, Gestalt Therapy Integrated . She also wrote Eve’s Daughters: The Forbidden Heroism of Women (Jossey-Bass, 1992), in which she enunciated some general characteristics of heroism, showing how cultural perspectives have excluded the particular kinds of heroism which women have commonly exercised. She examined prospects for cultural change should the personal qualities evident in the excluded examples of women’s heroism be expanded to include the neglected heroism of women.
Together, the Polsters formed the Gestalt Training Center – San Diego, where for many years they taught Gestalt therapy together. Their work is widely known, and people from all over the world came to San Diego to work with them in their training programs.
