The Age of Complexity: Paul Goodman in the 21st Century—A Critical Assessment

Abstract

Abstract When Paul Goodman articulated a radically new understanding of human functioning and a new vision of psychotherapy (Gestalt Therapy, 1951), he was writing in an immediate post-War period, conditioned by the disastrous history of the first half of the 20th Century, and the horrifying challenges that lay ahead. The world political/cultural crisis of those times was at least as complex and dire as the one facing us today, and the model he offered cannot be understood or developed further today, apart from its context of half a century and more ago. This article outlines Goodman's creative response to the crisis of his day, with emphasis on the sources of his integral vision as well as the particular legacy of past cultural distortions and dead ends he was so concerned to avoid. This critical examination will emphasis both certain limitations the context placed on his vision, and the creative potential inherent in the model he gave us, for further development today.

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