The Contact and Withdrawal Cycle in Research and Scholarly Writing: A Model for Self-Improvement
In the book Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy, Joseph Zinker describes the art of applying Gestalt Theory in individuals, relationships, groups, and society. In Chapter 5, Zinker describes the Contact – Withdrawal cycle, a natural process for all living organisms.
My dogs, for example, have no trouble navigating the CW cycle. Ranger sleeps 20 hours per day, but he is always ready to go for a walk or to receive affectionate pets whenever Erica and I are willing to indulge him. When Erica wakes up before her alarm at 5:56, Ranger can hear the high-pitched whine that the phone must be emitting. He’s up and sitting in the doorway waiting for five seconds of head scratches. He goes from complete withdrawal (unconscious and sleeping) to contact (available for interaction with mom).
Ranger makes the whole process look easy and effortless. It’s hard to see that he is aroused by a sensation (whine of the phone) and his heart rate starts beating faster. He is aware of the change that has happened. Then he is able to mobilize his body to get up and go down the hallway where he sits in anticipation.
You and I have the capacity to follow the same cycle, but we often get blocked at various points along the way. We encounter blockages between withdrawal and contact, which means that we get stuck and are unable to mobilize the energy in our systems. For instance, we find ourselves unable to completely withdraw at night and, instead, we toss and turn with insomnia.
As Zinker has drawn it, there are six stages in the cycle, which means that there are six blockages that can occur. The stages include:
1. Withdrawal
2. Sensation
3. Awareness
4. Mobilization of energy
5. Action
6. Contact
7. (Back to withdrawal)
I’ve noticed that others since Zinker have added a 7th stage, “Integration – Assimilation.” Zinker saw that this step was necessarily contained within the Contact stage, but I haven’t examined it more carefully to decide if it’s necessary as a standalone. More on that to come.
Zinker and other Gestalt therapists argue that these blockages are responsible for depression (inability to mobilize energy) and anxiety (inability to withdraw), and they may even help us understand severe disturbances such as schizophrenia (blockage between sensation and awareness or between withdrawal and sensation).
I am confident that the CW cycle will also help us understand problems that scholars encounter with their research and writing. In other words, it is possible for us to be like Ranger, always ready to give ourselves to our work and taking real strides towards achieving our goals. But we’re all too familiar with blockages. We have an idea and even sit down to work on it, but then we end up staring at a blank page. We turn on the tap and nothing happens but the groaning of old pipes somewhere off in the distance.
In this series of posts, I will explore how these blockages can and do manifest during the research and writing processes and what you can do about it if you find yourself stuck.
The first blockage doesn’t really deserve its own separate post, because I think it’s unlikely that anybody would find themselves there. It’s the interruption between withdrawal and sensation.
- Interruption between Withdrawal and Sensation
- Interruption between Sensation and Awareness
- Interruption between Awareness and Mobilization of Energy
- Interruption between Mobilization of Energy and Action
- Interruption between Action and Contact
- Interruption between Contact and Withdrawal
Interruption between Withdrawal and Sensation
It is possible for a person to have trouble recovering their senses after a period of withdrawal. I have never experienced this myself, and I’m not sure I’ve witnessed it or encountered in colleagues. The experience would be one of zoning out completely and being unable to recover sensory or cognitive awareness. This would be like going on complete autopilot, unable to respond to the changing environment. It may include giving lectures, but there would be no sensitivity towards students or if what is written on the board corresponds to what one is trying to say. It would be rather bizarre.
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