ABSTRACT
From a situational perspective, support is defined as the conditions that promote, sustain and maintain what is happening in the present. A healthy ground is needed for a healthy figure to arise from that ground, or at least a healthy enough ground. The client and therapist's task is to replace unhealthy outdated supports, that may be self-abusing, for healthy or healthier supports and to increase awareness of the ground from which the figure emerges. At a micro level a teacher returning from work may or may not feel supported at the sight of her three-year-old son depending upon the constellation of her field at that moment. At a macro level certain cultures will be more supportive of an embodied way of being whilst others will support a more cognitive way of being. In the past gestalt has been guilty of failing to build sufficient relational ground to support challenge or catharsis.
