Understanding Salomo Friedlaender’s Creative Indifference: A Psychotherapy Case-Study.
Abstract
Salomo Friedlaender’s Creative Indifference, or Schöpferische Indifferenz, first published in 1918, is a founding philosophy of Gestalt therapy that has invaluable implications in the process of psychopathology in the psychotherapeutic process. This article features a psychotherapy case study of a client who has been diagnosed with Major Depression and Atypical Anorexia Nervosa. The case story is written by the therapist using Therapeutic Autoethnography, a method of inquiry into the psychotherapeutic process. Writing this case study in an evocative aesthetic form, the understanding of Creative Indifference is fleshed out and enriched. Story and theory are interwoven reflexively to illuminate how aspects and meanings of Friedlaender’s philosophy of Creative Indifference, the centering in the here-and-now, the fertile void and zero point, apply to the real-life, naturalistic situation of psychotherapy practice. Though the case study details but a portion of the client’s work, one can grasp the atmosphere from which the client’s pathos is made visible. Creative Indifference facilitates this process of psychopathology in a powerful way, expanding our understanding of suffering beyond the traditional attitude of clinical diagnosis.
Keywords: autoethnography, psychotherapy case studies, psychotherapy process research, gestalt therapy, aesthetic inquiry
Excerpt from the Case Study: “Stuck”
The leather armchair seems massive as she slumps into it. Min looks almost childlike, dangling her chunky Dr. Martens covered feet. “I just feel hopeless and devastated,” she says. “It’s my birthday today, and I thought I bought myself a gift.” That “gift” , she explains is the “gift of therapy”. I would have mistaken her for another cosplay preteen, wearing a head of neon green dreadlocks, had she not revealed that today she turns 29.
“What do you do here in Vienna?”
“I work at a Konditorei.”
“Are you studying here as well?”
“Not any more. I actually moved to Vienna for study at a university. The exams were too hard and I got stuck.” Min explains that she’s been living in Vienna for three years, shares an apartment with 3 Russian-speaking housemates and has few friends here.
This is our first moments together and I find myself mesmerized by the girl looking back at me. The small body, the square shaped face, the big head that tilts to the left as she smiles reminds me of someone familiar. Very familiar.
I ask her if there is anything that she needs to know about therapy at this point.
“Uh. This is my very first time doing therapy, and I don’t know what I want.”
“How did you choose to contact me?”
“Oh… I saw in your profile that you are social, with group therapy and all… and that you were doing something cultural.”
[…]
“I had to think for myself,” she says, “but now, as an adult, I feel dependent.”
Chew-Helbig-2022-creative-Indifference
Reference
Chew-Helbig, N. (2022). Understanding Salomo Friedlaender’s Creative Indifference: A Psychotherapy Case-Study. Geštalt Zbornik. 9, pp. 5-15 https://www.ceeol.com/content-files/document-1127011.pdf
Find this Journal here: https://www.ceeol.com/content-files/document-1127011.pdf or request a copy from me.
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