How do we understand such behavior in an adolescent? Is it biological--perhaps some version of the bad seed theory? Perhaps a learning disability--his teachers had always said that he was smart enough but that he just wouldn't apply himself. Is it contextual or relational? How important are family dynamics? Is it developmental? Gestalt field theory with its constructivist, intersubjective foundation offers a unique lens with which to examine this puzzle. Gestalt field theory focuses on the combination of inner and outer components of life that intluence behavior and development. In this sense, the field is one's mapping (one's construction) of inner needs, temperament, attributes, desires, skills, limitations, etc. in "''mbination with the outer environmental set of resources and limitations. From a Gestalt perspective, these two elements of the field, inner and outer, are always con-

Heart of Development

nected; they are a unit. Our mapping or knowing of "self' is always linked to our mapping or knowing of"other." Both are created simultaneously from the same intersubjective, experiential data. Goodman (1951) saw that the site of self-process lay at the boundary between "self' and "other." A sense of "self' does not exist a priori to a sense of "other." Goodman called the meeting of "self' and "other," from which our experience and knowledge of each emerges, contact.