Paul Barber: Becoming a Practitioner Researcher – Chapter 1

This chapter is designed to orientate you with the aims, style and content of this text. To encourage your reflection upon how Gestalt and holistic facilitation may be integrated in an approach to research, you will be invited to consider how what is on offer here compliments the world view that is gaining ascendance in the twenty-first century, which is suggested to be rapidly moving towards an ecologically informed holistic position. I also attempt to illuminate the core concepts that underpin this work. The definitions provided should not be taken to be truly definitive but rather as starting-points of your own research. We will also survey what holistic inquiry might focus upon, along with poetic aspects of inquiry in this vein. Hopefully, by the close of this chapter you will have begun to reflect upon
your own world-view plus the bias and values you operate by.