ABSTRACT
Gestalt therapy, developed in South Africa and America, countries with wildernesses, emphasises the freedom, unpredictability, and risks of the open country. Between the village and the open country there was a relationship. People from the village went out through the countryside to hunt, or to go into the next village, or to join the outlaws. The outlaws in the countryside often had family links with the people in the village, although people risked their lives if they came visiting. People usually come to therapy when they are living in a village where the harvest has failed. They need support to face the challenge of open country as they seek their new home. They need to be encouraged to contact the reality of the failed harvest, and of the actuality of possibilities and risks in their new decisions.
