Critical realism as an ontology for Gestalt therapy research

My starting position in this chapter is that complexity theory constitutes a valuable substance of the science of our times. Complexity theory, which includes self-organization and chaos theory, is also concerned with the themes of continuity and change and the possibility of transformation. Perls demonstrates that he, as one of the founders, had already recognised some of the themes that link Gestalt theory with complexity theory: flux, diversity of processes (my italics) and organizing principles. At times I will refer to a discontinued doctoral research project. The setting for the research was a Gestalt oriented personal development group, with myself as facilitator and thus a participant-researcher. The methodology was an iterative case study approach to theory building consistent with critical realism. The method utilised qualitative and quantitative analyses, but where the quantitative analysis was a non-linear technique, called time series embedding, which graphically displayed patterns of coded language allowing the identification of shifts in patterns (attractors) over time. A key feature of the conception of the group was that of nested systems. The intrapsychic level was differentiated into subsystems such as thoughts, feelings and body sensations and tracked through language. The same tracking was applied to interpersonal, subgroup, group as a whole and interactions with the context. Such a model is consistent with an emergentist ontology and is supported by Burlingname et al. who list similar multiple levels, each potentially being connected and influencing each other, claiming that it is impossible to analyse a single part in isolation when seeking to describe the embeddedness that is present. The intention was to match pattern shifts to events in a real time description of group interactions and facilitator action, with a descriptive rather than predictive focus, leading to potential identification of what tended to promote or inhibit revolutionary change. The proposed outcome was a process based theory for the facilitation of groups grounded in Gestalt and complexity theory, and within a critical realist framework.