A Poetics of Practice: Organization Consulting from a Gestalt Perspective

Abstract

This paper explores organisation consulting from a Gestalt perspective. It draws on the Gestalt psychologists and their contemporaries as resources to inquire into the consultant's subjective experience and also what might be said more objectively about complex systems. This inquiry is supported by a case from the British National Health Service. The paper supports and develops the idea of practitioner presence by setting it alongside systemic openness and the vulnerability this requires of the practitioner. It also explores how creative expression might open up the possibility in the present situation. Running through the paper is an inquiry into consulting method based on a model of immersion, symbolisation, and expression. The paper provokes inquiry about the practice of organisation consulting and offers suggestions for practice.