Dancing with the Present Moment

To set the stage for the McGilchrist Manoeuvre

“It seems to me that we face very grave crises indeed and that, if we are to survive, we need not just a few new measures, but a complete change of heart and mind.”

Iain McGilchrist in ‘The Master and His Emissary’

I believe that midwifing the McGilchrist Manoeuvre¹ may be one of the most important personal endeavors we can engage in right now. The challenge lies in cultivating a way of relating to ourselves so that our impact on the world aligns with reality as it is, rather than as we wish it to be. I see the principles of Gestalt therapy² as illuminating a path toward achieving this kind of immediacy³.

In the following series of articles, I will explore Gestalt therapy from my perspective as a psychotherapist, a client, and a woman acutely aware of the natural cycles of existence. In a few weeks, I hope to host a live online event with my collaborators, John Stokdijk, Jochen Weber, Dan VanderBijl and Kevin Triplett, where we will explore the relationship in our brains between right and left hemispheric attention and how it shapes our reality. I'll provide more details as they become available. In the meantime, if you have any questions or are interested in participating, feel free to let me know.

Please note: I've included extensive footnotes because this topic is complex, and I want to expound without diluting my main proposal. Thank you for staying with me through this.

Self as Process

I invite you to bring your attention to the present moment:  What are you aware of?  What’s your most obvious concern? Check inside yourself for sensations and feelings as well as thoughts about past, present and future. Also, check outside yourself by contacting the world through your five senses.

What you notice is referred to as figure, and figures are identified using left-hemispheric, narrow-focused attention (LH)⁴. In other words, you likely observe how you hone in on various manifestations of being, using an either/or perspective.

These figures arise from your particular background which is an accumulation of your experiences, embedded in the potential of the given moment. This background consciousness is referred to as ground and it arises from right-hemispheric, broad-based attention (RH), comprised of a both/and perspective.

Figure and ground hang together to form a Gestalt⁵ or a configuration that is greater than the sum of its parts. Gestalten (which is plural for ‘Gestalt’ in German) are essentially how we organize our experiences and make sense of the world. In The Matter with Things, Iain McGilchrist describes this process as:

“all that is to be known must initially ‘presence’ to the right hemisphere (we have no other access); then be transferred to the left hemisphere so as to gain expression through re-presentation; and that re-presentation returned to the right hemisphere where it is either recognised for its consonance with the initial presencing and subsumed into a new Gestalt, or rejected.”

To put it more simply, figures emerge from the background, undergo reality testing and analysis, and then return to the background where they are either accepted into a new Gestalt or are rejected altogether.

For example, if we encounter a young child alone on the sidewalk, we may move forward to protect the child. However, if the mother suddenly comes out of a nearby house and runs over to the child, we may step back to allow mother and child to reunite. In other words, the context (ground) within which we encounter the child (figure) changes the meaning (Gestalt) we attribute to the situation and, therefore, how we respond to the child. Essentially, we have ‘presenced’ (RH) the new information (LH) and ‘subsumed’ it into a new Gestalt (RH).

There's an imperceptible but crucial process that takes place between acceptance and rejection of figures that I believe needs to be acknowledged and engaged with. This process occurs within broad-based attention that is associated with the right hemisphere of the brain, where growth seems to occur or at least, where growth seems to be integrated and then held to be enacted upon in the future.⁶

Therefore, I suggest that the more agency we have over this growth process, the more likely our actions are aligned with what the situation requires. When our actions are in harmony with our environment, we experience immediacy. When we are present,⁷ we recognize what is true and good and when we do, we fall in love with reality - we fall in love with the Sacred.⁸ In this time of great uncertainty, falling in love with the Sacred is our hope. Thus, midwifing our ability to presence what is emerging and discern what is needed to create new, generative Gestalten seems like a worthy endeavor.

Midwifing ‘The McGilchrist Manoeuvre’

If we pay close attention, we realize that all of our experiences have a beginning, middle, and end. This process is known as the contact completion cycle.

Gestalt therapy is based on the present moment. It acknowledges that all life is cyclic and is organized around need, as is evident, for example, by the seasons in nature or the journey of human life.

As a Gestalt therapist, I essentially help people become aware of how they create their moments in order to give them a sense of how life is a continuous string of experiences or Gestalten that happen now.

If we stay with our moments long enough, tracking the patterns or Gestalten, we are able to identify our conditioning and the symptoms that they create.  By ‘conditioning’ I mean that we have all adjusted to an imperfect world early on. Many of these solutions or creative adjustments established long ago in childhood are now codified, rigid, and outdated. Our conditioned ways of reacting to the world are the interruptions to contact and they create symptoms which are observable. These symptoms are useful because they point to the problem of feeling stuck which is essentially our being hung up somewhere in the cycle of life.

Gestalt therapy attempts to analyze the most recent manifestation of these rigid or conditioned patterns, shift them, and thereby, integrate new (or lost) capacities. This therapeutic change is achieved through experience (as a way to be grounded in what is real), experiment (as a way of shifting it), and existentialism (as a way of ‘thought-framing’ our arisings or theme of the work being organized toward). 

In this process we pay attention to the amount of support currently available and find ways of increasing it because support is necessary for completion, that is, for integration and growth.

A Growth Model of Psychological Change

Because Gestalt therapy is grounded in completing what is unfinished both within us and between us and the world, it is considered an inner growth model. It is a move away from psychoanalysis that is linear and causal to one that is relational and process-oriented - where the therapist is actively involved in dialogue with their client. While the primary focus of relating is centered on the client's growth, the therapist is inevitably transformed by the therapeutic interactions as well due to their shared humanity.

In this way, Gestalt therapy is not only a powerful psychotechnology but it also points to very natural, existential process, and as such, is useful to anyone who is interested in living more harmoniously in the world as they were meant to be. With its application of I/Thou relating⁹ and the cultivation of immediacy, I believe the principles of Gestalt therapy are foundational for midwifing¹⁰ the McGilchrist Manoeuvre. In essence, I propose ‘right-hemispheric midwifery’ is an antidote for the ‘left-hemispheric chavunisim’¹¹ that has come to dominate our minds and our lives.

I’ll be exploring other aspects required for cultivating a fluid dance between right and left hemispheric attention in subsequent articles. If this subject interests you, I hope you will return.

1. In Introducing The McGilchrist Manoeuvre Jonathan Rowson coined the term ‘The McGilchrist Manoeuvre’ to refer to “the hemispheric hypothesis developed in (Iain McGilchrist’s) The Master and his Emissary expressed as the ‘right, left, right’ functioning of our brains as we move (sequentially but imperceptibly) from the presencing of a particular lived context (right hemisphere) to the re-presentation of that context into elements for analysis (left hemisphere) and then back into a perception of context that is changed by the hemispheric interaction (the right hemisphere’s initial perception of context is enriched and enhanced by the left hemisphere’s analysis and includes but transcends it) (my emphasis).” Rowson goes on to say, “I mean ‘manoeuvre’ in the simple rather than strategic sense, as a movement or series of moves requiring skill and care.”

2. Gestalt therapy is based on Gestalt psychology and was developed by Fritz and Laura Perls in the mid-20th century. Its basic premise is that life is comprised of a series of Gestalten that occur in the present moment. The better we are at maintaining ‘good contact’ as human beings, that is, our ability to appreciate differences, the healthier we are. By recognizing and appreciating what is 'me' and what is 'not me,' we can respond appropriately to the situation rather than projecting our desires onto it.

3. The word ‘immediacy’ ( /ɪˈmiː.di.ə.si/ ) is a noun. It means “the quality or state of being immediate.” In other words, we experience immediacy when something seems real and important, so that we feel directly involved with it…here & now.

4. In The Matter With Things, Iain McGilchrist suggests, “In humans the left hemisphere is designed for grasping, controls the right hand with which we grasp . . .and helps us manipulate, rather than understand, the world. It sees little, but what it does see seems clear. It is confident, tends to be black and white in its judgments, and jumps to conclusions. Since it is serving the predator in us, it has to if it is to succeed. It sees a linear relationship between the doer and the ‘done to’, between arrow and target. By contrast, the wide-open, vigilant, sustained attention of the right hemisphere, without preconception as to what it may find, is designed to look out for all the rest – whatever else might be going on in the world while we are busy grasping. Its purpose is to help us understand, rather than manipulate the world: to see the whole and how we relate to it. It is more exploratory, less certain: it is more interested in making discriminations, in shades of meaning.”

5. According to Wikipedia, Gestalt psychology states that “figure-ground organization structures the perceptual field into a figure (standing out at the front of the perceptual field) and a background (receding behind the figure).”

6. In Introducing The McGilchrist Manoeuvre Rowson makes a very important distinction. When we experience something real and true, that is, as sacred, it is neither “either/or’ or “both/and” but “either/or” and “both/and.” He uses McGilchrist’s observation as an example: “the more intimately they are united, the more, not the less, they are differentiated.” I might add that appreciating differences leads to 'good contact,' and 'good contact' fosters the emergence of a complete Gestalt, which, in turn, leads to growth. In essence, it is the process of knowing and being known that is love and love is a precursor for growth. We now see how love and sacredness are two sides of the same coin. Interestingly, it seems that this entire process unfolds within the right hemispheric broad-based attention with the help of the left hemisphere’s ability to focus on particular aspects of existence.

7. ‘To be present’ is ‘to presence’ which means to embody non-judgmental awareness.

8. In the Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis, John Vervaeke suggests that falling in love with reality is essentially falling in love with ‘the Sacred.’

9. ‘I/Thou’ is a concept developed by Martin Buber in the early 20th century. In its purest form it means our sacred relationship to God or something greater than ourselves. However, despite being able to use this concept with other human beings, we tend to react to each other as I/It which means we treat others and the world around us as objects to be acted upon, rather than related to. Gestalt therapy is centered around responsiblity - the ability to respond to what our life asks of us which requires relatedness.

10. In my recent article, The Queen and her Knight, I make the proposal that right-hemispheric, broad-based attention is inherently feminine in spirit while the left-hemispheric, narrow focus is inherently masculine in spirit. I go on to rewrite the fable of ‘The Master and His Emissary’ to illustrate how the feminine and the masculine both within and between us dances to create a beautiful way to being that enables us to recognize what is real and true and then align ourselves with the present moment so that our actions are in accordance with what the situation requires. When we do, we are in touch with the Sacred. Therefore, I conclude that addressing the metacrisis requires our ability to shift our orientation towards valuing a broad-based, inherently feminine, orientation at least as much as our usual narrow focused, inherently masculine, approach. Finally, I take the liberty to point out that this relational aspect of the right hemisphere is inherently found in, but not limited to, the female body. Because we are human, we have the ability to develop capacities beyond our biology. Therefore, relatedness is both biological and psychological and thus, can be cultivated by both women and men, alike.

11. In The Master and His Emissary, McGilchrist suggests that many of the problems our society faces stem from the fact that the left hemisphere of our brains has come to dominate our minds and lives. The left-hemispheric, narrow attention has "a way of thinking which is reductive and mechanistic. [It] treats the world as a simple resource to be exploited. It's made us enormously powerful. It's enabled us to become wealthy, but it's also meant that we've lost the means to understand the world, to make sense of it, to feel satisfaction and fulfillment through our place in the world." He describes this dominant yet reductive mode of attention as ‘left-hemispheric chauvinism.’ I propose we need ‘right hemispheric midwifery’ to bring us back into balance and the principles of Gestalt therapy show us how.