Following my last post a friend asked me what I mean by contact. I mean it here in the Perlsian sense, from the psychological perspective. As described by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman in “Gestalt Therapy, Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality.” The point at which two things touch describing the interaction of contact boundaries. When two people meet, that boundary can be quite some distance, the distance of a shout for example. Your voice makes contact with my ear drum and my brain recognises it to be yours, then I will react with excitement, either to run or to draw closer. The contact may be physical but there will always be a psychological response to contact. It is this response I am primarily interested in.

The I-thou I mentioned in my previous post describes a rarefied contact, where two beings meet and know each other utterly. It requires we accept the other as they are, no imposition of expectations, no need for the other to be like us or for us to be like them. No requirement to meet the others need or for them to meet ours.

We might also call contact a bright figure arising from the field of our experience. That figure might be internal, a rush of joy, a need to pee, a hunger. Or the figure may arise from outside. Whilst walking a butterfly bursts from a bush I pass, momentarily it takes my full attention, it has become the bright figure in my awareness and I am oblivious to all else. In short I make contact with otherness and I observe myself and other in the same moment.