Reaching beyond standard textbook logic, this collection explores the impacts of difficult life situations on human development, experience, and functioning, through a phenomenological field-oriented lens.

Each author offers a Gestalt-centered perspective on the circumstances of those whose lives are lived in pain – a situational window, which includes the therapist and avails itself of tools configured to modify the entire experiential field. Through clinical case studies and theoretical reflections, the book examines the experience of children, difficult childhood situations (such as separations, abuse, neurodevelopmental disorders, adolescent social closure), the experience of dependency, couples and family therapy, the condition of the elderly and the end of life, interventions for degenerative diseases, and the trauma of loss and mourning, all of which are considered according to two cardinal points: first, the description of the relational ground experiences of those who are in pain, and second, a field perspective which allows the presence of the therapist to be modulated. Psychopathology of the Situation in Gestalt Therapy: A Field-oriented Approach is essential reading for Gestalt therapists as well as other mental health professionals with an interest in Gestalt approaches and the relationship between individuals and society.