This is a chapter I was asked to write for a book to be published in Ukraine on the ‘active principle’ in a number of different psychotherapies. The book is now not going to be published, so I am publishing it myself. I would like to thank Larysa Didkovska and the Ukrainian Psychotherapy University for the inspiration to write this.

I really like the question: what is the ‘active principle’ in Gestalt Therapy: what is the engine of change that I offer clients who come to me because their lives have got stuck in a path that is frustrating and painful?

The answer that I give to this question comes from my ‘foundational’ perspective based on the original writings of the founders of the therapy. That approach seems to me to answer the question of ‘active principle’ in a radical way that has supported my work with a wide variety of clients, and has generated a lot of excitement when I teach it in Ukraine and elsewhere. For me, the field-relational perspective is the active principle in therapy.

What does this perspective offer as an active principle, and how does it differ from other therapies?