When I began clinical training in Gestalt therapy, I started looking into the Gestalt theoretical literature to balance the practice-oriented learning of the training. We were asked to keep a “Gestalt Notebook” and I used mine to clarify for myself the meanings of various Gestalt terms. I soon had the beginnings of a list of Gestalt definitions.    

Later, as a field instructor for USC social work students, I realized that these definitions could inform my interns’ understanding of Gestalt clinical concepts. I wrote easily understandable handouts on each topic and added illustrative quotations from the relevant Gestalt practitioners. One student, now a new field instructor herself, has kept those handouts to this day and plans to use them with her own interns.

When I have shared these definitions at writers’ workshops, I received positive feedback from the participants, who found them clear and useful for their own understanding, as well as for introducing new concepts when teaching or training others.           

When I retired in 2005 I decided to devote my time to making theoretical resources available to a larger audience by creating a website. Aside from the Gestalt Definitions, it now includes my five articles and a book review, as well as an extensive Gestalt Therapy Bibliography. It also has a section on my special interest, bereavement, grief, and mourning, which includes my article on bereavement counseling from a Gestalt perspective, handouts, poems, and readings related to loss, and a comprehensive bereavement bibliography.

What’s New?

 -  “What’s a Gestalt?,” my latest article, has been published in the Gestalt Review (17)1, and is now available on this website. It has already become recommended reading for Gestalt trainees and students at a number of institutes and universities across the country.

  -  I am now in the process of creating extensive bibliographies of the Gestalt literature, by author and by subject. This is a long-term project. 
In the meantime if anyone needs a list of the writings of a particular author or particular subject, I would be glad to email them what I have listed so far.

 
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If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about these resources, please feel free to contact me at: s_sabar@yahoo.com.