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Editorial by Phil Brownell The organization of the AAGT is developing, and so are the publications it has created to serve its purposes. With the Newsletter, we talk amongst ourselves, and with our site on the world wide web we communicate largely with a more extensive field. Although each may overlap the other, the two have distinct purposes, look and feel very different, and yield diverse results. In the Newsletter we share financial accountability, the president and vice-president express their perspectives, and we have extensive coverage of the conferences, both the one that previously occurred and the one that is impending. However, treaurer's reports are often boring, and, as an organization, we are more than a bunch of people devoted to an annual conference. On the world wide web we present ourselves to our Gestalt colleagues around the world, and we do so mindful that our message can be observed by people who might otherwise never have suspected Gestalt therapy still had some relevance. However, static pages are not inviting, and the AAGT misses a priceless opportunity as long as it neglects to use the web for more than a glorified billboard. What will the future hold? How aggressively will we appropriate it? Kurt Lewin utilized film, and Fritz Perls the demonstration; they were aggressively creative. Today it's a multimedia world of print, television, film, music, art, and video, and they all meet on the world wide web. The AAGT's Newsletter and Web site must reflect who we are, what we value, and how we manifest ourselves in this new world. We have long been a therapy of the "how," and certainly these new forms of communication provide us more options as to the manner in which we communicate, but more important than our familiar question of "how" is the matter of "what." What will we say about who we are and for what we stand? Will we let go of the past and look to the present, the real world in which we currently live, and with the same social outrage that found articulation when Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman expressed their commitments in books about a new way of doing therapy? The AAGT Newsletter and Web site can help give us our "how," but we each need to find a passion worth defending to articulate our "what."

Got a Passion that Drives You?  Have something to say?  If you can relate it to Gestalt therapy and/or the AAGT, what you say might be worth reading. See the editorial guidelines described elsewhere in this Newsletter, and consider submitting a guest editorial for the AAGT Newsletter. In the near future we will be overhauling the AAGT's site on the world wide web (http://www.aagt.org) If you would like to work on that project, contact Phil Brownell (brownell@europa.com)

Newsletter Staff   Publications Editor: Philip Brownell, M.Div.; M.A. Layout and Design: Judy Robertson Gussie Gestalt: Jan Ruckert, Ph.D.   Contents of Summer '98 Issue * President's Corner * Vice-President's Corner * Editorial * Treasurer's Report * Summary Report of the Cleveland Conference * Information on the 1999 New York Conference * Letters to the Editor * Gussie Gestalt * Updating the AAGT Website * Publication Guidelines for contributors, authors, and advertising. Publication Guidelines General Feature-length articles are accepted (1000-1500 words), if content directly relates to Gestalt therapy or the AAGT. Letters to the Editor should be to the point, and questions for Gussie Gestalt can either pose the ridiculous or seek serious feedback, but will all be available for Gussie's "unique" commentary. Contributions for the Editorials should be 500 words or less and reflect personal conviction and passion, with relevance for Gestalt therapy and/or the AAGT. Cartoons and other art work must be camera-ready, if sent in hard copy, and jpeg, tiff, or gif format if sent electronically. Copyright must be cleared and remains the responsibility of the submitter. Send Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope (SASE) if you want to get anything back, otherwise all material submitted remains the property of the Newsletter staff. Manuscripts should be sent as etext (email) whenever possible. Otherwise, send hardcopy or disc (formatted for MAC, in MS Word). Hard copy must be typed, and the deadline is two weeks prior to posted deadline for each issue. Do not send fax. Deadlines are final. Style can be informal, but should be good writing. All material is subject to editing to fit the parameters and needs of any given issue of the Newsletter. Advertising You can generate publicity for your activities, services, and creations by placing an ad in the AAGT Newslettter, or on the AAGT Website. Use the following fee structure, and send your copy with payment to: Philip Brownell 4610 NE Mason Portland, OR 97218 USA Make checks to the AAGT. 1/4 page =$50.00 1/2 page =$100.00 Full page=$200.00 All artwork must be "camera-ready," (we will scan it in) if in hard copy, or jpeg, tiff, or gif, if sent electronically. Text will be reformatted to conform to our parameters; graphics sized to fit. If you desire a proof, please say so. Let Others Know List yourself in the AAGT Directory Advertise in the AAGT Newsletter Place a notice on the AAGT Website

From Letters to the Editor   "The Morning After...." I just want to say that I - and many other folks here in Cleveland whom I have spoken to - am still humming with the energy and spirit of the Conference. It seems amazing to me that you and your colleagues made the experience exactly what you intended. I can't say that I ever recall any conference living up to its own hopes, but this one certainly did. And in light of the lofty nature of your intent-to create an experience of truly international community, where diversity would be the heart of the event-I am still shaking my head in awe at the power of it all. I just want to extend my congratulations, and even more than that, my gratitude, for creating such a wonderful and transforming experience. Mark McConville Cleveland, Ohio   Post Conference Afterglow and Reflections Our experience of the conference was a dizzying mixture of euphoria, anxiety and relief. It was such a rich heady time! There was the delight of meeting people face to face whom we had known, and become friends with, via the faceless e-mail, as well as meeting so many others for the first time. There was the relief of realizing, after each event that, with a few exceptions, all was going very well. The presentations were received enthusiastically, as we later confirmed in examining the feedback forms from each of them. We were very pleased that the experiment of having members of the program committee act as hosts for first-time presenters and those from abroad was welcomed and worked efficiently. However, there were a myriad number of anxieties as well as pleasures: would the keynoters be understood? would the cameras work as planned? would the dancing group, that was supposed to have been a singing group, work out? And, of course, some did and some did not. We felt a special pleasure in observing how the theme of the conference was expressed so consistently and in so many different ways throughout the weekend - from the challenges described in the opening plenary by the key note speakers in applying Gestalt to their unique cultures, to the number of different countries represented among the participants, to the diversity of the presentations. It culminated in the closing session with the youthful energetic Lebanese dancers, the joyful singing by all of us and the moving chant led by the woman from India that closed the conference. It was an experience of a lifetime and, at that moment, well worth the time and energy we had invested in helping to make it all happen. Isabel and Joseph Program Co-Chairs