Ageism in contact
gestalt therapy and the aging body
Keywords:
Gestalt-Terapia, Etarismo, Envelhecimento, Corporeidade, InterseccionalidadeAbstract
This theoretical essay offers a critical and sensitive reflection on the modes of existence of aging bodies from the perspective of Gestalt Therapy. Grounded in the theory of self, creative adjustments, and organismic self-regulation, the text articulates aging with social markers such as gender, race, and class, while challenging the normative devices that shape, silence, and control older bodies. Through a dialogue with phenomenology, biopolitics, and intersectionality, the essay proposes an embodied clinical listening that recognizes the aging body as a territory of memory, creation, and resistance. The discussion unfolds in three movements: (1) the theory of self as an epistemological and relational basis for Gestalt Therapy; (2) the effects of ageism on the visibility and erasure of the aging body and (3) the intersectional dimensions that complexify the aging experience. Written in poetic language and supported by critical density, the text is guided by an ethics of care attentive to bodily singularity. It concludes that Gestalt Therapy, by reclaiming the aesthetic, ethical, and political value of corporeality, constitutes a counter-hegemonic field capable of affirming aging not as decay, but as relational and existential potency.
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