Erving Polster, Ph.D., is Director of the Gestalt Training Center - San Diego. Established by him and his wife, Miriam Polster, in 1973, the center has attracted international attention. Dr. Polster is also Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Widely published, he co-authored with Miriam the essential Gestalt Therapy Integrated (Vintage, 1974). He also wrote Every Person’s Life Is Worth a Novel (W.W. Norton, 1986) and A Population of Selves (Jossey-Bass, 1995). The GIC Press published From the Radical Center: The Heart of Gestalt Therapy in 1999, a book tracing the evolution of ideas that he and Miriam presented over a 45-year period in their lectures, papers, and anthology pieces. Praise: “What Dr. Polster had done in his groundbreaking new book is first tie together and give meaning and coherence to the disparate groupings that already exist in our lives, whether newcomers welcoming committees, cancer survivors, book clubs, senior’s associations, or other groups focusing on specific interests of various kinds. Then Polster proposes that everyone should have the opportunity to join a group in which he or she could feel connected and thus avoid alienation. On some level, it is what religion or therapy attempt, but Polster’s ‘life-focus communities’ would function outside of these dimensions. I believe that such groups would reduce the crime rate and promote emotional balance in participants. I, for one, would be ready to join.” -- Natasha Josefowitz, Ph.D., Professor of management (retired), Author of 17 books, including Retirement: Making It the Next Great Adventure |