ABSTRACT

The development and application of any theory or practice is influenced greatly by the cultural milieu in which it takes place. Indeed, it can be said that a theoretical model is grounded in the time and setting from which it emerges. Gestalt therapy was created and grew in a moment when forces for democracy, individual expression, and an anti­ bourgeois movement were prominent. It took root in the Unites States in the 1 950s as a radical, powerful approach to self-actualization and self­ expression, in the context of a fairly unified country full of itself as a victor in World War II and as an economic and military giant. And as Western Europe began to develop in similar directions, Gestalt therapy was exported back to the area of its origins with a carry forward of the drive for individualism.