International Gestalt Journal 2003, 26/1, 47-70 Kathleen Höll Philosophical Anarchism as a Source of Gestalt Therapy: Its Importance for Therapeutic Practice and for Orientation in the Political Field Existential philosophy and anarchism are important roots of gestalt therapy and shed light on its central concepts. Landauer’s and Buber’s philosophical anarchism aims at profound social change through individual growth. Consciousness raising is considered a precondition for political work. This was enriched by Perls, who contributed Friedlaender’s teachings on creative indifference. Goodman’s critique of the political structure of the US-American society is, in anarchistic philosophical tradition, fundamental: He regards the Western democracy as a society built on constraints. Philosophical anarchism offers some orientation in respect to a possible critical macro theory of the Western societies in the times of globalization. This is of high importance, as psychotherapy needs socio-political background theories. To understand the concept of gestalt therapy in a profound way it is helpful to get an insight in the historical and philosophical patterns of the very time when it was created. At the beginning of the 20 th century a change of central paradigms started. This was the second such change during modern times. The first change — the enlightenment — propelled a break down of the rigid structures of the feudal system and the Catholic Church. Both institutions legitimated and supported each other; both were monopolistic and centralist systems based upon one truth: God as the only legitimacy. They were organized as steep social pyramids. The Pope — as God’s 1