Joseph Zinker

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Joseph Chaim Zinker is a therapist who has contributed to the growth and development of Gestalt theory and also Gestalt methodology. He co-founded the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.

Contents

Early life

Joseph Zinker was born in Central Europe (Łuck) in 1934 in a Jewish family. He was raised in Poland.

He lost part of his family during Second World War and lived with his parents in refugee camps in Austria and Germany. In 1949, they came to New York. [1] [2] When Joseph Zinker was young, he spoke Russian, Polish, English, Yiddish, some German and a little Hebrew. [3]

Education and work

Joseph Zinker started his studies in Russian Literature, Psychology, Philosophy and Art at Queens College and New York University. Then he earned a Master of Science and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland (in 1963). His doctoral dissertation, Rosa Lee: Motivation and the Crisis of Dying (1966) became his first publication. [4]

In the 1960s, he trained with Fritz Perls, a German-born who was one of the founders of Gestalt therapy, and other psychiatrists and psychotherapists. He became a Gestalt therapist and was a co-founder of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, [5] where he spent many years as a member of the teaching faculty, the head of the postgraduate faculty, and as a member of the Center for the Study of Intimate Systems. [6] Together with Sonia Nevis, he headed this center which has taken a role in the application of the Gestalt model to work with families and couples. [4]

In the 1970s, Miriam Polster, Bill Warner and Joseph Zinker developed Gestalt theory with the formulation of the contact cycle and also the awareness-excitement-contact cycle. [7] Joseph Zinker is known for refining the clinical concepts of complementarity and middle ground in couple work and for the application of Gestalt therapy. He helped grow the principles of Gestalt group process [8] and the place of the Gestalt experiment in therapeutic work. [9]

In 1980, Zinker continued to develop the cycle of experience: he applied it to groups and group development. [10] With his wife, Gestalt therapist Sandra Cardosa-Zinker, he published several articles about couples therapy. [11]

As a Gestalt therapist, he has a private practice since 1962. He's also a teacher of therapists, a painter and a sculptor. [3]

Books

Joseph Zinker is the author of several books like Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy, In Search of Good Form, Motivation and the Crisis of Dying, Sketches... He has also published numerous articles in journals (about psychotherapy, arts, the phenomenology of love...) and has served on the editorial board of different journals. [12]

Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy was judged "Book of the year" by the magazine Psychology Today in 1977. It is now a classic, [13] [9] and a best-seller. [6] It has been translated into several languages. [4]

Related Research Articles

Gestalt psychology Theory of mind examining human perception, structures and organizing principles in sensory impressions

Gestalt psychology, gestaltism or configurationism is a school of psychology that emerged in the early twentieth century in Austria and Germany as a theory of perception that was a rejection of basic principles of Wilhelm Wundt's and Edward Titchener's elementalist and structuralist psychology.

Otto Rank Austrian psychologist

Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, and philosopher. Born in Vienna, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, editor of the two leading analytic journals of the era, managing director of Freud's publishing house, and a creative theorist and therapist. In 1926, Rank left Vienna for Paris and, for the remainder of his life, led a successful career as a lecturer, writer, and therapist in France and the United States.

Fritz Perls German-born psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist

Friedrich (Frederick) Salomon Perls, better known as Fritz Perls, was a German-born psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist. Perls coined the term 'Gestalt therapy' to identify the form of psychotherapy that he developed with his wife, Laura Perls, in the 1940s and 1950s. Perls became associated with the Esalen Institute in 1964, and he lived there until 1969.

Gestalt theoretical psychotherapy is a method of psychotherapy based strictly on Gestalt psychology. Its origins go back to the 1920s when Gestalt psychology founder Max Wertheimer, Kurt Lewin and their colleagues and students started to apply the holistic and systems theoretical Gestalt psychology concepts in the field of psychopathology and clinical psychology Many developments in psychotherapy in the following decades drew from these early beginnings, like e.g. group psychoanalysis, Gestalt therapy, or Katathym-imaginative Psychotherapy. In Europe Gestalt theoretical psychotherapy in its own right has been initiated and formulated on this basis by the German Gestalt psychologist and psychotherapist Hans-Jürgen P. Walter and his colleagues in Germany and Austria. Walter, a student of Gestalt psychologist Friedrich Hoeth, was influenced to form the core of his theoretical concept on the basis of the work of Gestalt theorists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka, Kurt Lewin, and Wolfgang Metzger. Walter's first publication on Gestalt theoretical psychotherapy came out in 1977 Gestalttheorie und Psychotherapie, which is now on its third edition (1994). The majority of the extensive literature on Gestalt theoretical psychotherapy which has been published in the decades since then is in the German language. However, in 2021, the international multidisciplinary journal "Gestalt Theory" published an issue focusing on Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy, offering a series of articles in English on the essentials of this method.

Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy which emphasizes personal responsibility and focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist–client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result of their overall situation. It was developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman in the 1940s and 1950s, and was first described in the 1951 book Gestalt Therapy.

Clinical psychology Branch of psychology

Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment, clinical formulation, and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration. In many countries, clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession.

Barry Stevens (1902–1985) was a writer and Gestalt therapist. She developed her own form of Gestalt therapy body work, based on the awareness of body processes. For the Human Potential Movement of the 1970s, she became a kind of "star", but she always refused to accept that role.

Introjection is a psychology term that describes the human tendency to imitate others. It refers specifically to the subconscious adoption of the thoughts or personality traits of others who seem more capable.

Laura Perls was a noted German-born psychologist and psychotherapist who helped establish the Gestalt school of psychotherapy. She was the wife of Friedrich (Frederick) Perls, also a renowned psychotherapist and psychiatrist.

Ralph Franklin Hefferline was a psychology professor at Columbia University.

Self-actualization, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is the highest level of psychological development, where personal potential is fully realized after basic bodily and ego needs have been fulfilled.

Jim Simkin

James Solomon Simkin (1919–1984) was an early seminal figure in the history of Gestalt Therapy.

Edwin C. Nevis was a gestalt therapist who identified Maslow's hierarchy of needs as culturally relative and formulated a hierarchy of needs for Chinese culture and a mode of classifying hierarchies of needs in different cultures. He co-founded the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and founded the Gestalt International Study Center, and was a faculty member in management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Organismic theory

Organismic theories in psychology are a family of holistic psychological theories which tend to stress the organization, unity, and integration of human beings expressed through each individual's inherent growth or developmental tendency. The idea of an explicitly "organismic theory" dates at least back to the publication of Kurt Goldstein's The organism: A holistic approach to biology derived from pathological data in man in 1934. Organismic theories and the "organic" metaphor were inspired by organicist approaches in biology. The most direct influence from inside psychology comes from gestalt psychology. This approach is often contrasted with mechanistic and reductionist perspectives in psychology.

Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) are a family of related approaches to psychotherapy with individuals, couples, or families. EFT approaches include elements of experiential therapy, systemic therapy, and attachment theory. EFT is usually a short-term treatment. EFT approaches are based on the premise that human emotions are connected to human needs, and therefore emotions have an innately adaptive potential that, if activated and worked through, can help people change problematic emotional states and interpersonal relationships. Emotion-focused therapy for individuals was originally known as process-experiential therapy, and it is still sometimes called by that name.

Gestalt Practice

Gestalt Practice is a contemporary form of personal exploration and integration developed by Dick Price at the Esalen Institute. The objective of the practice is to become more fully aware of the process of living within a unified field of body, mind, relationship, earth and spirit.

The Psychogenetic System is a collection of theories about how our romantic relationship styles are influenced by our observations in early childhood of our own parents' relationship processes with each other. It also includes the procedures for discovering and rewriting these scripts, to evolve people's perceptions and behaviors in their present romantic relationships.

Janie Lee Rhyne was a pioneer in art therapy who used art as expression and communication. She was also a pioneer of Gestalt art therapy, which integrated Gestalt therapy and art therapy. She encouraged clients themselves to interpret and express their feelings and emotions from art works.

Mary Henle American university teacher and psychologist (1913-2007)

Mary Henle was an American psychologist who's known most notably for her contributions to Gestalt Psychology and for her involvement in the American Psychological Association. Henle also taught at the New School of Social Research in New York; she was involved in the writing of eight book publications and also helped develop the first psychology laboratory manual in 1948 based on the famous works of Kurt Lewin.

Miriam Polster was a clinical psychologist who was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America. Polster had an interest in music, which happened to be her undergraduate major and a subject she integrated into her work. Once reaching graduate school, she became an advocate for Gestalt therapy; a therapy aimed towards self-awareness. Polster was the co-founder of The Gestalt Training Centre. Polster was the co-author of two novels, and the sole author of Eve’s Daughters. Miriam Polster died due to cancer, in 2001.

References

  1. "Gestalt - SP " Joseph Zinker (EUA)". gestaltsp.com.br (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2018-08-18.
  2. "Joseph Zinker - CV - Gestalt International Study Center, Cape Code, USA - Istituto di Gestalt HCC Italy". Istituto di Gestalt HCC Italy (in Italian). Retrieved 2018-08-18.
  3. 1 2 Zinker, Joseph (2001). Sketches: An Anthology of Essays, Art, and Poetry. Cambridge, MA (USA): The GestaltPress. ISBN   978-0-88163-339-9.
  4. 1 2 3 Zinker, Joseph (1994). In Search of Good Form. Massachusetts: Gestalt Press. ISBN   978-0881632934.
  5. Brownell, Philip (2010). Gestalt Therapy: A Guide to Contemporary Practice. Springer Publishing Co Inc. ISBN   978-0826104540.
  6. 1 2 Gordon Wheeler and Stephanie Backman, ed. (1997). On Intimate Ground: A Gestalt Approach to Working with Couples. Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. ISBN   978-0881632644.
  7. Polster, Erving & Miriam (1974). Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of Theory & Practice. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN   978-0394710068.
  8. Clarkson, Petruska; Mackewn, Jennifer (1993). Fritz Perls. California: Sage Publications Inc. ISBN   978-0803984523.
  9. 1 2 L. Woldt, Ansel; M. Toman, Sarah (2005). Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory, and Practice. Sage Publications Inc. ISBN   978-0761927914.
  10. "Cleveland Consulting Group".
  11. Gestalt Review. Vol. 5, n°1. Gestalt International Study Center. 2001.
  12. "Joseph Zinker | Penguin Random House Canada". Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved 2018-08-18.
  13. Eleanor O'Leary, ed. (2013). Gestalt Therapy Around the World. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN   978-0470699379.