the thing she said was most important to write about with gestalt therapy was Janie Rhyne so lets start at least w/ her.

Gestalt therapy focuses on process (what is actually happening) as well as on content (what is being talked about). The emphasis is on what is being done, thought, and felt at the present moment (the phenomenology of both client and therapist), rather than on what was, might be, could be, or should have been. Gestalt therapy is a method of awareness practice. It is sometimes called and is similar to the Mindfulness meditation used by Theravada/Hinayana Buddhism. In other words, there is a notable distinction between direct experience and indirect or secondary interpretation and this is developed in the process of therapy. The client learns to become aware of what he or she is doing and that triggers the ability to risk a shift or change. As I previously stated, because so much more emphasis in this therapy is placed on empirical experience Gestalt Theory seems to be very similar to Buddhism as Buddhist Meditater's typically view direct experience as the ultimate determinant in understanding the nature of reality in contrast to the typical western scientific method which relies more on measurable calculable data when trying to arrive at something kind of philosophical truth or a plan for action.

The objective of Gestalt therapy is to enable the client to become more fully and creatively alive and to become free from the blocks and unfinished business that may diminish satisfaction, fulfillment, and growth, and to experiment with new ways of being. (you know that also sounds tantamount to Buddhism) For this reason Gestalt therapy falls within the category of humanistic psychotherapies similar to Abraham Maslow's Humanistic Psychology. Because Gestalt therapy includes perception and the meaning-making processes by which experience forms, it can also be considered a cognitive approach. Because Gestalt therapy relies on the contact between therapist and client, and because a relationship can be considered to be contact over time, Gestalt therapy can be considered a relational or interpersonal approach. Because Gestalt therapy appreciates the larger picture which is the complex situation involving multiple influences in a complex situation, it can be considered a multi-systemic approach. Because the processes of Gestalt therapy are experimental, involving action, Gestalt therapy can be considered both a paradoxical and an experiential/experimental approach.

Gestalt Art Therapy was developed by Janie Rhyne, a pioneer Art Therapist, who was trained by Perls, and worked with him in the human potential movement. Rhyne combined the Gestalt experimental approach, which focused on sensations and perceptions with the work of Rudolf Arnhem. In Gestalt Art Therapy a wide diversity of conventional and non-conventional art materials are used to express
feelings and experiences and it is the client who does the interpreting w/ the assistance of the therapist. This is quite a different from the eclectic approach which involves selections based on the beliefs and values of the therapist or the psycho-dynamic approach w/ follow a more formal structure and where the interpretations are made by the art therapist.

Gestalt Therapy is an experiential approach that, like other humanistic approaches, emerged in reaction to psychoanalysis. The word "Gestalt" refers to the whole form or configuration which is greater than the sum of it's parts. The aim of a Gestalt
approach is to encourage and insist on responsible, honest, direct, and authentic communication between the person and the therapist. As in existential and person-centered approaches, therapy is a mutual exploration of feelings and thoughts between client and therapist. The therapist is also part of the overall "Gestalt" and is considered part of the whole configuration.

Martin Buber and Gestalt therapy
The esteemed 20th century Jewish Philosopher Martin Buber's writings had and continue to have a seminal impact on the theory and practice of Gestalt therapy. Perls was the first to describe the
relevance of Buber’s Jewish theological concept of an I and Thou relationship to G-d and explained that it can be compared to what the ideal relationship between patient and therapist in Gestalt therapy should be.

By “relation with God” Buber means an immediate and direct (I-Thou) relationship that
is spontaneous and in the moment. The immediate and direct relationship also
involves dialogue.
Buber refers to God as the eternal Thou and, while the I-Thou relationship is a possibility
in one’s relationship with another, the I-Thou relationship “always applies to a person’s
relationship to God” (Telushkin, 1991). According to Buber one’s relationship with God
is not a one way relationship. God, too, enters into a relationship with us - through God’s
acts.
God…him who—whatever else he** may be—enters into a direct
6
relation with us men in creative, revealing and redeeming ***
acts, and thus makes it possible for us to enter into a direct
relation with him. (Buber,1958, p.124)

According to Buber, human beings may adopt two attitudes toward the world: I-Thou or I-It. I-Thou is a relation of subject-to-subject, while I-It is a relation of subject-to-object. In the I-Thou relationship, human beings are aware of each oher as having a unity of being. In the I-Thou relationship, human beings do not perceive each other as consisting of specific, isolated qualities, but engage in a dialogue involving each other's whole being. In the I-It relationship, on the other hand, human beings perceive each other as consisting of specific, isolated qualities, and view themselves as part of a world which consists of things. I-Thou is a relationship of mutuality and reciprocity, while I-It is a relationship of separateness and detachment.

Love, as a relation between I and Thou, is a subject-to-subject relation. Buber claims that love is not a relation of subject-to-object. In the I-Thou relation, subjects do not perceive each other as objects, but perceive each other’s unity of being. Love is an I-Thou relation in which subjects share this unity of being. Love is also a relation in which I and Thou share a sense of caring, respect, commitment, and responsibility.

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/buber.html
http://www.g-gej.org/4-2/crocker.html

I-Thou relationships are a special kind of contact, a meeting of two Others

These are relationships of I-It, where practicality is the leading characteristic.

I-Thou relationships, on the other hand, are different, being essentially "contemplative" rather than practical. Here we meet an Other in such a manner that nothing beyond the meeting is desired or sought: the experience is one of something/someone which/who is seen and felt as an end-in-itself.

Now Joseph Campbell mentioned Buber's concept in his power of myth series, you can address something as an it or you could address it as a thou and you feel the transformation in your psychology he told Bill Moyers when you say that. When you see something as an it you see it as just something that can be manipulated to serve your purposes whereas a thou is something you show respect and compassion to.

http://www.g-gej.org/4-2/crocker.html

Buber differentiated I-Thou relationships from I-It relationships

The second is to be manipulated, the first is not.

^-presumably the paper is trying to explain that Martin Buber explains that one's I-Thou relationship to G-d is comparable to the relationship between patient and therapist. Man's relationship to G-d is not a one way relationship. It to some degree must have some type of interdependence or else it's just another form of isolation.

then at the end list the different types of gestalt therapy including the empty chair technique.

->then continue to copy and paste what u need too from the book.

ask the people in the writing center how important it is to paraphrase what
the book says.


http://www.scribd.com/doc/28102621/Gestalt-Art-Therapy-for-people-with-Dementia-Margaret-Muir

-from Wikipedia

Principal influences: A summary list Otto Rank's invention of "here-and-now" therapy and Rank's post-Freudian book Art and Artist (1932), both of which strongly influenced Paul Goodman.
Wilhelm Reich's psychoanalytic developments, especially the concept of character armor and its focus on the body.
Jacob Moreno's Psychodrama, principally the development of enactment techniques for the resolution of psychological conflicts.
Kurt Goldstein's holistic theory of the organism, based on Gestalt theory.
Martin Buber's philosophy of relationship and dialogue ("I - Thou").
Kurt Lewin's field theory as applied to the social sciences and group dynamics.
European phenomenology of Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
The existentialism of Kierkegaard over that of Sartre, rejecting nihilism.
Carl Jung's psychology, particularly the polarities concept.
Some elements from Zen Buddhism.
Differentiation between thing and concept from Zen and the works of Alfred Korzybski.
The American pragmatism of William James, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey.

I-Thou
relationship between time & eternity?
eternity loves the forms of time because eternity is not biased it is non-dual.

basically what your saying is you think that it's important in a relationship to be responsible to one another but it's not important to not hurt one another emotionally most notably in the form of verbal abuse.
I don't agree with you I think both are equally important and if one is violated then in my mine that justifies me to violate the other.