David Forrest: Gestaltuk

The domain becomes, for us, the experiential realm relative to a certain capability of contact. In other words, the being confluent, introjecting, projecting, etc. cannot be phases of development, but are modalities of contact of which the child is capable and which continue to be developed throughout life. The therapist asks, not to what phase of development the patient’s block refers, but how the patient’s present capabilities of projecting, retroflecting etc. (developed through time) are combined in a Gestalt represented now by the patient’s being-in-therapy. The domains are competences of an intersubjective experience, of modalities of contact that become more evident at a certain point of the child’s development and which are developed throughout the course of life, as autonomous-in-mutual-interaction capabilities.