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 Prof Paul Barber (PhD; MSc; BA; UKCP; EAGT; BACP; RNT; SRN; RMN; RNMS;)
Personal & Professional Signposts
I was born in the small salt-mining town of Middlewich, Cheshire, Northern England to a working-class family with few aspirations and fewer answers to the mysteries of life - so I was driven to search elsewhere. Canals and smokey factory chimneys against a backdrop of horse-drawn ploughs and canal barges, black and white cows, freezing fog, cold bedrooms and outside loos populate my images of this time! As family life was difficult I drew upon Nature and wildlife for my inspiration - and still do. After a thorny childhood - in my 20th year I escaped to London, after a spell exercising my rebelliousness by a 3 year period at art college and 2 years as a deck-hand on the Manchester Ship Canal. Having become 'an artist', I felt a need after reading Hemmingway and Steinbeck to re-claim my man-hood and working-class roots through manual labour! Art and creative expression still inform the intuitive base of my life and work.
In the 1970’s I trained in psychiatric nursing at Epsom (St Ebbas & Long Grove Hospitals) and the Henderson Hospital before establishing a Therapeutic Community in acute mental health within Belmont Hospital. I also began training in martial arts (Karate). Having undertaken a Social Science and Arts Degree with the Open University, a social model of psychiatry focussed upon 'the community as client' greatly appealed to me. When I became a Nurse Tutor this drive towards socio-cultural change inspired me to initiate experiential learning in psychiatric nursing - which eventually infiltrated the National Curriculum. During this period I undertook an MSc in Education and Administration at Edinburgh University, married and became a father. I developed immensely watching my son Marc, grow, re-living through him my own childhood and earlier life challenges. I also attended encounter-groups within the Human Potential Research Group at the University of Surrey with John Heron and James Kilty and trained in Humanistic Psychology. Humanism and Therapeutic Community principles of Reality Confrontation, Democratic Process, Community and Permissiveness inform me still.
In the 1980’s I applied Humanism and Therapeutic Community practice to education and the Public sector. After being recruited to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to develop nurse tutors, I joined with the Association of Therapeutic Communities (ATC) and group analysts from the Tavistock and Institute of Group Analysis (IGA) to initiate a programme in Therapeutic Community Practice for medics, social workers and nurses. Squaring Humanism and Gestalt with Group Analysis was not easy. During this time I travelled throughout the UK as an educational consultant validating Project 2000 courses for the United Kingdom's Central Counsel (UKCC). I trained to black-belt in Aikido and Iaido (Japanese sword-work) in this period. Having become 'respectible' quite surprised me, but I realised to foster lasting cultural change you had first to be accepted, then facilitate from the inside. In my 40th year an old birth injury flared-up and my diaphragm split - I spent 6 months recuperating and completed my doctorate in group facilitation. On the research and change agent front I co-authored the first text on supervision for nurses helping spear-head supervision and reflective practice in the nursing profession, and edited the first text applying holistic care to Mental Handicap. In this decade I trained at the Metanoia Institute with Professor Petruska Clarkson (a great teacher) and Sue Fish (a great therapist), before leaving to train further at Gestalt Southwest with Professor Malcolm Parlett (a lively explorer) and Marianne Fry (an uncompromising and loving soul). Marrianne was heavily transpersonal, intuitive and fiercely compassionate - in a Zen warrior way. I also divorced during this period. I guess I was moving very quickly and repeated my 'family leaving pattern' of earlier, though I stayed close to my son who I didn't want to be fatherless like myself - my father having died a month prior to my birth. I learnt to be a change agent during this time and tailored my facilitative arts to express my intrinsic humanistic and counter-cultural stance. I still put myself and everything to question, but thankfully temper this with compassion.
In the 1990’s I applied Humanism, Gestalt and Group Analysis to education, being recruited by the Human Potential Research Group (HPRG) at the University of Surrey to design and co-deliver an MSc in Change Agent Skills and Strategies (CASS) - the first programme of its kind. My facilitation of the ‘Developing Group and Teams’ strand drew attention from industry, which in turn led to an academic-commercial partnership to deliver this MSc in a commercial setting as a vehicle for organisational learning and cultural renewal. This academic-commercial partnership subsequently sired the UK’s first MSc in Management Consultancy. In terms of research, I conducted action research and collaborative inquiry into Gestalt therapy, co-authored with my client, which was celebrated in two consecutive editions of the British Gestalt Journal. Professionally, my creativity was and is still directed towards making the organisation a fit home for the human spirit. Sadly, my son died in the mid 90's; he was 24 and we had become best friends; his death was the last great adventure we shared together. Witnessing him die openned my heart and renewed my commitment to spirit. He is with me still.
More recently within the 21st Century I have acquired an international audience and been propelled into illuminating the potential of Gestalt to resolve conflict and to build communities - through the holistic process of its phenomenological inquiry. I have also authored a text dovetailing Humanism, Spirituality and Gestalt to qualitative inquiry (Barber 2006 see below). So who am I and what is my Dharma? I am at core a Gestalt practitioner informed by Humanism, Group Analysis and Taoism, who seeks to help individuals, groups, communities and the wider Society heal themselves though facilitative inquiry into the influences we draw together to co-construct our world view. I have found that when we awake to where we are now - options open before us and we are changed! Gestalt and compassionate awareness in service of experiential inquiry is my spiritual discipline.
In the middle of nowhere
Restless spirits.
Should we meet each other
In this place of nowhere
Perhaps we begin to be
Becoming someone in this somewhere.
We catch glimpses of ourselves
Through the eyes of the other.
Our reflections-
Glistening black-
Coal and diamonds
Deep in the infinity of our soul-
Waiting for light
Presenced by the other (Amy Barnes 2010).
Current Appointments
Academic Advisor and Academic Consultant for the Metanoia Institue's Doctrate in Psychotherapy and Doctorate in Public Works programmes, where as a Principle Leacturer I teach qualitative research methods.
Visiting Professor (Gestalt in research and organisations) within the School of Lifelong Development at Middlesex University.
Fellow of The Roffey Park Institute where I contribute to MSc's addressing group facilitation and organisational consultancy and coach senior staff.
Associate Editor British Gestalt Journal.
Recent Books
(2006) Becoming a Practitioner-Researcher - A Gestalt Approach to Holistic Inquiry. Middlesex University Press. London. (This text may be purchased from the author at £24 - including postage (RRP £30) (see book review below)
Recent Chapters in Books
Barber, P & Brownell, P. (2009) Qualitative Research. Chapter 3 in Brownell (ed) Handbook for Theory, Research and Practice in Gestalt Therapy. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, New York & London
Barber, P. (2008) Facilitating High Achievers to tell their Stories of Professional Entrepreneurialism: Lessons from the Doctorate in Public Works. In Young, D. & Garnett, J (eds) Work-Based Learning Futures. Bolton: University Awards Counsel
Recent Refereed Journals
Barber, P. (2008) The British Gestalt Conference: A Reflective Inquiry. British Gestalt Journal, vol 17, no 1.
(2006) Keeping Psychotherapy Trainees in Their Place: How Psychotherapy Institutions can Stifle Love & Breed Compliance. International Gestalt Journal. (Available as download below)
(2006) Group as Teacher: The Gestalt Informed Peer-Learning Community as a Transpersonal Vehicle for Organizational Healing. Gestalt Review, Vol 10, no 1. USA.
(2005) The Shadow-Side of Leadership – The Stifling of Creativity & the Fostering of Collusion in Training Organisations. Organisations & People – Special Leaders & Values Edition, Vol 12, No 1
(2004) Are We the True Freudians? Humanistic Psychology and Gestalt’s Honouring of Freud’s Philosophical Legacy. International Gestalt Journal 27/2/05 & Bates, A. (2004) Towards more Humanistic & Transpersonal Gestalt – A Challenge to the Gestalt Community. British Gestalt Journal.
(2003) Gestalt: A Prime Medium for Holistic Research and Whole Person Education. British Gestalt Journal. Vol 11, No 2
(2003a) Group as Teacher. ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career and Vocational Education, Ohio State University E-Press, USA
(2002) Self Development within Experiential Groups - a Gestalt Perspective. Self & Society, Vol 30, no 2.
(2002a) Coaching & Consulting: A Dialogue with Holism & the Soul. Organisations & People, Vol 9, no 1
A Review of:
Becoming a Practitioner-Researcher -
A Gestalt Approach to Holistic Research
Paul Barber
Review in ‘Therapy Today’ – the Magazine for Counselling & Psychotherapy Professionals (journal of British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy)
“Within the current (evidence-based) climate and the corresponding tendency to equate research with positivist methodology, the inspirational book is a breath of fresh air.
Barber does not deny the usefulness of traditional scientific research methods, but suggests they can ‘co-exist’ with Gestalt-influenced ‘holistic’ types of inquiry. Thus he builds on the work of such writers as Reason, Rowan, Heron, and Moustakas, who stress the importance of placing the researcher ‘in the centre’ rather than aiming for an objective stance.
Written in an easy-to-read, personal style, the book is attractively laid out with many examples and reflections.
Readers of the book are encouraged to be active rather than passive and take time to reflect, both on the material in the book and on their own relevant experience.
Chapter one provides an introduction to Gestalt and holistic inquiry.
The next chapter focuses on ‘Whole field analysis’ or the analysis of a team or an organisation as an integrated whole.
Chapter three contains a useful overview of methods of qualitative inquiry as well as a discussion of relevant skills.
Chapter four’s focus is on ‘Exploring experience and illuminating data’, and includes a discussion of the shadow side of this type of inquiry as well as various types of bias (unconscious, perceptive and methodological).
The last chapter focuses on research design as well as analysis of generated information.
At the end of chapters three, four and five there is an extended study, which helps to illustrate the application of each step of inquiry.
Overall the book shows that research does not have to be dry, but can include the spiritual and use a variety of creative methods, including art and poetry, making it a rich resource.
The reference to a ‘Gestalt Approach’ in the title may seem limiting, but it will be useful to both the novice and the seasoned researcher (of any therapeutic orientation) who is engaged in organisational consultancy or contemplating researching his or her own practice or organisation.
It would therefore be a welcome addition to the libraries of training organisations as well as those of colleges or university departments within the health/social care/counselling and psychotherapy sector.”
Els van Ooijen (psychotherapist, counsellor, trainer and supervisor)
Free downloads - An Invitation to read about Gestalt
Gestalt in Coaching & Consulting: A Dialogue with Holism & the Soul (Paul Barber 2002).
Click here to read - PDF format
Other Papers by Paul
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