ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the feminist revolution that took place at the institute in 1990. At the end of the 1980s, a group of women organized into a caucus and questioned what they perceived to be a male-dominated culture of the large monthly meetings. They were meeting regularly over a couple years and explored alternative group processes where women would feel comfortable. They combined feminist perspectives and gestalt therapy theory in their explorations and presented their findings to the membership in form of two gestalt experiments. These experiments had a profound and lasting effect on the institute’s culture which then became more inclusive and welcoming. Three women who participated in the caucus give direct and vivid accounts of what it was like for them to organize the caucus and challenge the prevailing culture at the institute. The theoretical discussion raises the point that the feminist perspective in general and the efforts of the Women’s Caucus in particular represent a direct challenge to gestalt therapy’s individualistic heritage.
