Gestalt and the Wisdom of the Kahunas

'This book is written mainly to those with whom I have worked as a gestaltist. It is a resouce book for them and any others who may find it valuable. All that I write will have been profoundly influenced by my shaman friends and by
Findhorn in Scotland. What I have experienced from them has not

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contradicted, but has been an extension to, and a corroboration of what I learned from Fritz Perls in 1969. I owe a considerable debt of clarification to the work of Max Freedom Long and his translations from the original Huna language of the Hawaiian kahunas (healers). As I studied Long's perceptions of Huna healing, I recognized patterns I leaned form Fritz Perls. This book is a synthesis, bringing together Gestalt and Kahuna theories form the point of view of my own training, experience, and application as a therapist.'-Bethal Phaigh

Ms. Phaigh spends summers in her home in the Kootenay muntains of British Columbia (in a log cabin which she abuit herself), and winters in Hawaii near where Max Freedom Long taught school. Since training with Fritz Perls, she has worked with groups up and down the west coast and into the interior of Canada giving lectures and workshops. She interprets the gestalt process as an experience that opens the self to higher psychological and spiritual dimensions of growth. From a workshop description: 'Gestalt via Bethal's style. she is a warm and compassionate lady, with many years of experience, and brings to the work a special flavor and an insistence on clear communication.'

Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1 Synthesis: The wisdom of the kahunas, Gestalt, and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming)
Similarity in the parts of the subconscious: Perls: Topdog, underdog
The kahunas: High, middle and low selves and their work
The introduction by NLP of the high self to Gestalt
Exercises for the chapter
Chapter 2 Our emotions and what we do with them
Exploring the effects of suppression, explosion and choice
How we can develop choice of expression rather than being run by our emotions
How the findings of Manfred Clynes and the Simontons correspond to my experience as a gestaltist
Exercises for the chapter
Chapter 3 Powerlessness and aggresssion
A pattern; helplessness related to powerlessness and aggression, moving to rebellion, also related to powerlessness and agresssion, moving further to self-actualization
Recognizing the parts and how they work facilitates the movement to maturity
Exercises for the chapter
Chapter 4 The hole or bottomless well
The missing potential
How we have become stuck in our powerlessness
Exercises for the chapter
Chapter 5 Communciation
Warning signals we can use to discover when and how communication breaks down
Prescriptions for clearer communication
Chapter 6 Fantasy
How we take our beliefs about reality as everyone's truth, and how this affects our communications
Exercises for the chapter
Chapter 7 The relation between power and guilt
How guilt affects our power
Special insights from the Kahunas
Exercises for the chapter
Chapter 8 Future is not now
How we manipulate with promises and build guilt through unkept promises
Chapter 9 children
How we lay our power trips on children and what we could do instead
Chapter 10 dreams and other roads
A royal road to the subconscious and how to make use of it
Suggested study books and films
Chapter 11 Breathing and voice
Breathing-another road to the subconscious
Its relation to voice, to emotions
Exercises and study books
Bibliogarphy and suggested reading

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