ABSTRACT
In gestalt assessment and diagnosis need to be fluid, descriptive, phenomenological and acknowledge that any hypothesis will say as much about the therapist as it does about the client. Clients seek therapy because they are experiencing a problem with their relationship with their world, their problem exists between them and their world where they make and break contact, at the contact boundary. Although assessment needs to be an on-going process an initial assessment does differ from on-going assessment. Certain ground needs to be covered during the first few meetings and a greater degree of structure is needed particularly if there are field constraints such as a limited number of sessions available. Any process diagnosis involves looking at the figural aspects that are impacting upon that person’s world from that person’s perspective whilst holding that any number of different figures may surface from the ground of their experience rendering the original diagnosis redundant.
