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Section I

Healing Shame: A Gestalt Perspective

Pages 103-108
Published online: 28 Dec 2017
 
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A case example is used to describe the phenomenology of shame, its origin in early childhood, and its maintenance in adulthood. Shame is viewed as a defense against an abuse of power in the original infant-caretaker relationship. Healing may be realized through an emotionally corrective relationship based on dialogical Gestalt therapy which emphasizes a horizontal (equal) relationship between therapist and client. Gestalt and dialogic encounter are described in terms of three major characteristics: inclusion, presence, and commitment to the “between.”

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Kenneth R. Evans

Kenneth Evans, B.Sc., Dip. Soc. Admin., Dip. G.P.T.I, is director of the Sherwood Psychotherapy Training Institute, Nottingham, England, an associate of the Institute for Integrative Psychotherapy in New York City, and President of the European Association for Psychotherapy.
 

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