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Vera Felicidade

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Vera Felicidade
Vera.7.jpg Vera.7.jpg
Vera Felicidade, psychologist
Born (1942-08-18) August 18, 1942 (age 82)
Brazil
🏳️ NationalityBrazilian
💼 Occupation
Psychotherapist
🌐 Websitehttp://www.verafelicidade.com.br

Vera Felicidade (Vera Felicidade de Almeida Campos, Irará, Bahia, August 18, 1942) is a Brazilian psychologist, creator of Gestalt Psychotherapy (Psicoterapia Gestaltista), a psychotherapeutic theory based on Gestalt Psychology. She developed a clinical practice and a theory that supports it, based on gestalt and phenomenology.[1], breaking with psychoanalytic concepts that influence virtually all clinical psychology approaches, even gestalt approaches. Gestalt Psychotherapy (a term coined by Vera Felicidade to designate her theory) is different from Gestalt Therapy (Fritz Perls), both in the methodology and in the theoretical basis, especially regarding the unconscious, accepted by F. Perls and denied by Vera Felicidade[2]. The clinical practice is individual and based on the dialogue between the psychotherapist and the client. Her eleven books expose the development of the theory’s concepts, such as: to perceive is to know[3]; psychological life is perceptive life; the human being is a possibility of relationship[4]; non-acceptance; autoreferencing[5] etc.

Biography[edit]

First years[edit]

Vera Felicidade was born in Irará, a city near Salvador (Bahia), on August 18, 1942. She is the eldest daughter of Aristeu Nogueira Campos and Odete de Almeida Campos, who had three other children: Diógenes de Almeida Campos, Antônia Tereza A. Campos (deceased at 9 months of age), and Mariana Campos Meira. In 1945, the family moved to Salvador, where Vera remained until 1961.

From an early age, she became interested in philosophy and its general and fundamental problems (epistemology, ontology, materialism, existentialism etc.), and in psychology, coming to work (for 2 years) at the Juliano Moreira Psychiatric Hospital in Salvador, where, aged 19, with the supervision of physicians, she was responsible for the sector of praxitherapy and for the confrontation of clinical diagnoses through the Rorschach test, free drawing etc. In the same hospital, she also applied several tests of intelligence (determination of psychological problems) and cooperated with the Social Welfare sector.

Following her experience at the Juliano Moreira Hospital, continuing her interest in working and studying in psychiatric hospitals, Vera went to the Patrice Lumumba Russian University of Friendship of Peoples in Moscow (1962), where she remained for half a year in courses at the Department of Medicine.

In 1963, she moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she worked in a test application service for selection in ​​Industrial Psychology at General-Electric; at “Instituto Técnico de Orientação e Seleção” (ITOS) (Technical Institute of Orientation and Selection); at TED courses etc. (from 1962 to 1966). In 1968, she graduated in Psychology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). In Rio, she was also the founder and a teacher of the Kafka Pre-Vestibular Course (1965 to 1968), which prepared students for the Psychology entrance exam. She carried out a research on perception, with blinds, at “Museu do Indio”[6] (research cataloged at The Library of Congress, Washington) and participated in several researches and works in the ​​elaboration and application of psychological tests: SENAC, Juliano Moreira Colony of Rio de Janeiro, Pestalozzi Society of Brazil, and 6th District of Psychological Orientation from Rio de Janeiro. She was responsible for the selection of personnel for the Rio-Niteroi Building Consortium (Rio-Niteroi Bridge). Furthermore, she structured and organized the Psychology Service of the Bela Vista Clinic, one of the first private clinics to offer this service. She was also responsible for the Psychology Department of the School of Medicine and Surgery of Rio de Janeiro at the Gaffrée and Guinle University Hospital.

She began her clinical work in her own office in 1968, still in Rio de Janeiro, and moved to Salvador in 1974, continuing the psychotherapeutic work. At the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), she taught extension courses in Gestalt Psychotherapy in the early eighties. In 1998, the discipline Vera Felicidade’s Gestalt Psychotherapy (approved by the MEC) was created at the UFBA’s psychology department.[7]

Creation of Gestalt Psychotherapy[edit]

During the course of Psychology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Vera felt dissatisfied with the existing theories in the field of Clinical Psychology[8]. She already knew the work of the researchers and theorists of Gestalt Psychology, Koffka, Koehler and Wertheimer, and their research on perception and sensation, laws of perception, isomorphism[9] etc. She also already knew Kurt Lewin and his Field Theory[10] and had a criticism to the dualistic approach and the approach based on Class Theory, which are characteristic of psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and other functionalist schools in Psychology.

The German Gestaltists did not develop psychotherapy, this work had to be done. Thus, Vera Felicidade, benefited by both the Gestalt concepts and the Phenomenology - Edmund Husserl -, began to develop Gestalt Psychotherapy, which is a term coined by her[11]. It should be noted that his theory is based exclusively on Gestaltism, phenomenology, and dialectical materialism. At no time does she uses psychoanalytic concepts, as Fritz Perls’ Gestalt Therapy does, for example. One of the ideas most fought by Vera Felicidade, for being the most widespread not only in Psychology but also in several areas of knowledge, is the idea of ​​the existence of the unconscious. The concept of the unconscious in Freud’s work is the heart of Psychoanalysis; it is a fundamental concept with implications in the human’s approach and way of thinking, his/her psyche and behavior. With the great spread of Psychoanalysis after World War II, this was one of the most publicized concepts not only in the humanities but for the lay public, the common sense. Vera, from her first book, expresses her denial of the unconscious in a chapter titled O Mito do Inconsciente (“The Myth of the Unconscious”).[12]

Vera Felicidade has always had an epistemological concern and makes clear in her work the inconsistencies and contradictions of authors who intend to develop a psychotherapy based on Gestalt Psychology, but who continue to assume concepts from the psychoanalytical theoretical matrix. For her, views implicit in psychoanalysis (Freud) and in Gestalt Psychology are incompatible.

Book
Psicoterapia Gestaltista Conceituações

In 1972, Vera published her first book with the basic concepts of Gestalt Psychotherapy:

This book results from a unitary global view of the human phenomenon. In this sense, it is inserted and based on Gestaltism as a theory about human behavior, and on phenomenology and dialectical materialism (which should not be confused with Marxism, as ideology) as methodological approach. This global and unitary vision goes beyond its fundamental constituents - Gestaltism, phenomenology, dialectical materialism -, as it synchronizes them in their totalizing mediating unities. We reach this synchronization starting from a phenomenological attitude - to know the phenomenon, in this case, the man, without a priori, by means of its evidence, by the apprehension of its essence. This starting point has revealed a whole – the man-in-the-world. The perception of this fact has led us to questioning what is perceived or not, how it is perceived, that is, the laws of perception, their meaning and organization, intrinsic to the process of being-in-the-world, contextualized in time and space.

Vera Felicidade has been working in clinical psychology since the late 1960’s and has been consistently developing her theory in her many books, articles, and research reports for decades, from the first book published in 1972 to the most recent ones published in 2015 and 2017, respectively (Linguagem e Psicoterapia Gestaltista - Como se Aprende a Falar, Ideias & Letras, São Paulo; Como Perceber e Transformar a Neurose, Simplíssimo, Porto Alegre), several of them cataloged in the Library of Congress in Washington (USA)[13] and other public libraries. Her books are also found in Libraries of American Universities (Yale and Harvard)[14], as well as in Libraries of Brazilian Universities (University of Brasilia - UnB and others) and in the National Library (Rio de Janeiro). In addition to books, she regularly publishes articles in magazines and journals, like E-PSI Psychology Magazine[15], Wall Street International Magazine[16] and SBEM (Boletim da Sociedade Brasileira de Endocrinologia e Metabologia)[17] (several article compiled here)[18]

Vera Felicidade
Vera Felicidade, psychotherapist

Published Book[edit]

  • Psicoterapia Gestaltista - Conceituações, Edição da Autora, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, 1972
  • Mudança e Psicoterapia Gestaltista, Zahar Editores, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, 1978
  • Individualidade, Questionamento e Psicoterapia Gestaltista, Editora Alhambra, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, 1983
  • Relacionamento - Trajetória do Humano, Edição da Autora, Salvador-BA, 1988
  • Terra e Ouro são Iguais - Percepção em Psicoterapia Gestaltista, Jorge Zahar Editor, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, 1993
  • Desespero e Maldade - Estudos Perceptivos - Relação Figura/Fundo, Edição da Autora, Salvador-BA, 1999
  • A Questão do Ser, do Si Mesmo e do Eu, Relume Dumará, Rio de Janeiro - RJ, 2002
  • Mãe Stella de Oxóssi – Perfil de uma Liderança Religiosa, Jorge Zahar Editor, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, 2003
  • A realidade da ilusão, a ilusão da realidade, Relume Dumará, Rio de Janeiro – RJ, 2004
  • Linguagem e Psicoterapia Gestaltista - Como se Aprende a Falar, Ideias & Letras, São Paulo - SP, 2015
  • Como Perceber e Transformar a Neurose - Psicoterapia Gestaltista, Simplíssimo (eBook), Porto Alegre-RS, 2017

External Links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. But to what extent the psychic can be considered, in fact, inwardly? Watson, the great initiator of Behaviorism, who advocates for a psychology totally reduced to the organic, which for that very reason would no longer be called Psychology, but Behaviorism - study of the behavior -, said: “within man there are only organs, tissues, liquids, there is nothing like ideas, feelings, thoughts”. We consider this placement of Watson as definitive, although we do not advocate in favor of the psychology he has created. What non-phenomenal mental properties, then, would these be? When we think of internal psychological processes - and the word “mental” essentially refers to this -, we are once again in the realm of the most elemental Cartesian dualism. Idea and matter, inside and outside, internal and external. The currents derived from Husserl's Phenomenology have avoided or even entirely abandoned this kind of division. See, especially, the whole approach given to the question by the Gestalt psychologist Vera Felicidade de Almeida Campos, creator of Gestalt Psychotherapy. By the way, we indicate here some of her books, although the question, being basic, pervades all her work: Psicoterapia Gestaltista – Conceituações, Rio de Janeiro, Author's Edition, 1973; Individualidade, Questionamento e Psicoterapia Gestaltista, Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Alhambra, 1984; Terra e Ouro: são iguais, Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Jorge Zahar, 1994; A questão do ser, do si mesmo e do eu, Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Relume Dumará, 2002 – see also her website Psicoterapia Gestaltista - This quote is from the article: Por que Fisicalismo?, Betty Malin, Litteris Magazine, Number 4, March 2010.
  2. see the report of the journal A Tarde, June 19, 2002, where journalist Iza Calbo says: “Vera Felicidade decided to develop a theory of her own because she did not agree with the explanation of human behavior from the unconscious”. In the preface from her book “A Questão do Ser, do Si Mesmo e do Eu”, made by José Planells Puchades, PhD in Psychology from the University of Valencia (Spain) and Professor of Philosophy at the Romanian-Spanish Lyceum, we read an observation about the theory of Vera Felicidade that deserves to be highlighted: “(...) the vertigo that its reading produces also has to do with the possibility, offered by the text, of ‘glimpsing’ the human behavioral totality, with a view of the disquieting nature regarding its destabilizing character, but in which the attentive reader will hardly fail to recognize himself, as in a mirror”.
  3. “to perceive is to know” is a concept coined in her first book, and developed in the book Desespero e Maldade, chapter: Estruturação do Processo Perceptivo, page 15, Vera Felicidade de Almeida Campos, 1ª Edition, Salvador, 1999 & 2º edition eBook, 2018.
  4. “psychological life is perceptive life” and “the human being is a possibility of relationship” are concepts developed throughout her books, but especially unfolded in the work A Questão do Ser, do Si Mesmo e do Eu, chapter: Vida Psicológica é Vida Perceptiva, page 23, Ed. Relume Dumará, Rio de Janeiro, 2002.   
  5. “non-acceptance” and “autoreferencing” are concepts that are explained throughout the author's books, since the first one: Psicoterapia Gestaltista Conceituações, chapter V, page 90, Rio de Janeiro, 1972.
  6. Research cataloged in the Library of Congress, Washington, see: Library of Congress Catalog Record - A study on the equivalence between visual and tactile perception; experience with the blind in the Museu do Indio-GB [by] Vera Felicidade de Almeida Campos, Marília Duarte Nunes, F. dos Santos Trigueiros.   
  7. Institute of Psychology of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Elective Disciplines of the Psychology course: Code: FCH397 Discipline: Gestalt Psychotherapy of Vera Felicidade - Pre-requisite: FCH046   
  8. see Vera Felicidade’s interview for the journal A Tarde of May 16, 1988, given to journalist Rosane Santana, where she states: “When I studied Psychology, in 64, Psychoanalysis did not respond and did not satisfy the questions about the human, in the insofar as it seemed to me to be a totally literary thing, which was based on the constructum of the unconscious, being a hypothesis, with nothing scientific about it. The question of the unconscious allowed no proof except through itself. On that matter, my philosophical foundations of Materialism, Dialectic Materialism, and my large preoccupation with Epistemology had a great influence. This was also linked to my idea that Psychology had to know man rather than to help, as that generation of psychologists used to think. Then, I tried to answer what the human being is, until, in 1970, I was able to answer that question and made a book. It was as if all the knowledge of Gestalt made it clear to me that to understand the human, it had to be in terms of what he/she is in the world, that is, how he/she perceives reality. I tried to transpose all the laws of perception, given by experiments, and perform a dynamic activity.”   
  9. for these topics and other issues under study by Gestalt therapists, see the classics of Gestalt Psychology, A Source Book of Gestalt Psychology, various articles on the topic Special Problems - Perception and Organization, pages 71 to 136, prepared by Willis D. Ellis, Routledge and Kegan Paul LTDA, London, 1969; see also the book Readings in Perception, chapter Principles of Perceptual Organization, written by Max Wertheimer, organized by David C. Beardslee and Michael Wertheimer, D.Van Nostrand Company Inc. New York, 1964; and the book Thinking: from Association to Gestalt, chapter: The Unity of Thought, p. 222, organized by Jean Matter Mandler and George Mandler, John Wiley and Sons Inc., New York, 1964.   
  10. see the book Field Theory in Social Science, Kurt Lewin, Livraria Pioneira, São Paulo, 1965.   
  11. In a report of the Journal A Tarde, May 16, 1988, Vera Felicidade says: “There were a series of concepts of Psychoanalysis, ‘Freudian slip’, for instance, which was explained by the unconscious, that the Law of Proximity can explain; association of ideas, which Freud and Jung have been doing for a long time, can be explained by Proximity, Good Form, Continuity - laws of perception. But my biggest concern was to conceptualize it. From that background, I wrote my first book, which is the foundation of all work, where I define what is the human being, taking the problem of temporality, showing that the past does not influence, because if it influences, it is present, and that the future does not exist, if it exists, it is a goal, and as a goal, it is destructuring. In this sense, my view is quite phenomenological, but with a divergence from Phenomenology, since it considers the structure. Another question that needed to be answered was that of affective lack, since it was considered a bad thing, a disease. I showed that the lack is intrinsic to the human being, but when I realized this, I realized levels of human structuring, what I call needs and possibilities”.
  12. see the book Psicoterapia Gestaltista Conceptuações, O Mito do Inconsciente, page 71, Vera Felicidade de Almeida Campos, Rio de Janeiro, 1972, and the report of the Journal A Tarde, May 16, 1988, “Graduated in Psychology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Gestalt psychologist Vera Felicidade, 45 years old, born in Bahia, launches her fourth book, entitled Relacionamento-Trajetória do Humano. Twenty years ago, she revolutionized Psychology by denying the idea of ​​the unconscious in the book Psicoterapia Gestaltista-Conceituações (now re-launched), and created her own psychotherapeutic method, based on the foundations of the German Gestalt and the Husserl's Phenomenology. In her most recent work, she develops the concept that “every relationship generates positions, creating new relationships that, in turn, generate new positions, indefinitely”, in addition to conceptualizing what is desire, doubt, choice, anguish, availability, illusion and reality, and love. In an exclusive interview to the journal A Tarde, she speaks of her theory and makes antithesis to several concepts of current psychology.
  13. see list of books and research by Vera Felicidade in the Catalog of the Library of Congress, Washington.   
  14. see Vera Felicidade's books cataloged at the Yale University Library Catalog and at the Harvard University Libraries.   
  15. Campos, Vera Felicidade de Almeida (2012). "Criação, Questões e Soluções da Psicoterapia Gestaltista". E-PSI Revista de Psicologia Educação e Saúde. Vol.I: 35–54.
  16. Campos, Vera Felicidade de Almeida (2018). "List of articles about Psychology, by Dra. Vera Felicidade de Almeida Campos". Wall Street International Magazine.
  17. Campos, Vera Felicidade de Almeida (1999). "List of articles about Psychology, published at SBEM Medical Magazine". SBEM - Sociedade Brasileira de Endocrinologia e Metabologia.
  18. Campos, Vera Felicidade de Almeida (2018). "Articles about Psychology, by Vera Felicidade de Almeida Campos". SBEM etc.


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