title: Fragmentation and re-integration of experience.
abstract: Secular and religious counselors require a model of psychotherapy that conceptualizes human beings as conscious, goal-seeking entities. Such a model, based on the construct "being in one's own world," is sketched in broad outline in this essay. The building blocks for the model are the "intentional modes" that lie at the heart of the self-world dialectic in which we live our lives. It is demonstrated how these "intentional modes" are organized into a gestalt-like whole referred to as the "existential gestalt." From the diagram of the existential gestalt the concepts of "intentional clarity" and "modal congruence" are derived. These concepts enable us to understand the processes of the fragmentation and re-integration of experience that lie at the heart of psychotherapy. Inclusiveness and purposefulness, two additional factors that are important for assessing the adequacy of the existential gestalt, are also briefly touched upon.
authors.affiliation: Community Health and Counseling Center in Lincoln, Maine.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hunter