Dear Sylvia,

Perhaps you can clarify some tings for me here. The only way I really
understand Gestalt is through my own experience of it. I can read all the
books, all the theory... it is only when I experience that I really learn
and comprehend. I have been very interested in 'field' and my experience of
it appears to me to be somewhat different from what I read on this list. I
accept that I am a field as an individual and that as I make contact,
engage with other individuals, I enter another field; that the number of
fields can grow exponentially as my awareness of the contexts shifts
outward. I am alone; I am with another; we are part of a group; the group
is part of a socio-economic field; on and on til we are all part of the
field that comprises all and nothing.

The notion that I am struggling with in my own experience of myself is that
"I am a field." More directly that I am fields. In the here-and-now I am
only one field. However depending on the context I am in, that can shift. I
have worked with 'schizophrenics' and agree that there is hidden world that
may not be available to those outside... I don't see where I am any
different. I share what parts of my world I am aware of as part of my
journey, often I am sharing what is new about me with another, what I have
discovered. I sometimes get the feeling that this is not true for others on
the list.

I once spent a night, Halloween,  with a person diagnosed with MPD, DID. In
this 'extraordinary' encounter that lasted nine hours, I experienced many
fields, figure and ground constantly shifting as different alters/parts of
the person emerged.  On one level the field consisted of me and the 34
personalities this person had mapped. In this field, I had responsibility
to contain and protect  and support the person as the shifts took place.
One moment a clear and lucid person, then a frightened child, then a
warrior, then Golum, then a prostitute; never a dull moment. Internally, I
too shifted from field to field within the field of my duty of care to the
client. What I experience was very remeniscent of the LSD experiences I had
had in another part of my life. Reality and my perception  in constant
flux. During this experience, I was not thinking of theory, my only agenda
was to support the person and be there as a 'safe' person and link to
'this' world as s/he was 'psychically assaulted by dark forces'.

My personal experience is that I am a plurality, my belief is that this is
true of all humans. The degree to which we develop these parts varies with
each individual. There is the Me-with-God, the Me-without-God, the
Angry-Me, the Calm-and serene me... each a different field as I see it. As
each separate field, I present differently in my environment, in each
larger-than-me-field I engage with.

So my eternal-beginner-student-seeker field humbly seeks to engage your
field of Gestalt theory and personal wisdom for some clarity on my
thoughts. I like your use of 'warmly'.

One  teacher, Edo Roshi used to say, "Things are not always what they seem
to be, nor are they otherwise."

Best Regards,
Ron