The concept of boundary-contact is A fundamental concept in Gestalt therapy. After all, the boundary on which a person contacts his environment (contact boundary) is very resourceful, since it is in the process of contacting that we satisfy those physiological and mental needs that allow us to survive and develop throughout life. As a result of contact, we gain experience that assimilates and contributes to our further growth. For example, when you are hungry, you first feel discomfort, then realize your need for food, perform certain actions to get it, then eat, contact with food, food assimilates and you are satiated. There is a satisfaction of physiological needs, after which you can start other activities in which there is already another need, e.g. to work.

All the events that happen to us take place at the boundary of our body’s contact with its environment. The contact boundary, on the one hand, separates us from this environment, and on the other — provides an opportunity to interact with it, to become for a while one whole, something more than we are in a separate state before the process of contact, thanks to which our growth is ensured.

In Gestalt therapy, the human skin is considered to be an example and metaphor of the contact boundary. It simultaneously separates a person from the outside world and at the same time connects with it, it is a kind of conductor. As you know, a variety of allergic skin reactions are often an evidence of unhealthy human contact with food, for example, when aggressive elements invade the boundaries of the body. Often allergies are psychosomatic in nature, when there is a problem of psychological boundaries of a person, he does not feel them in the process of contacting and interacting with people around him. The boundary is blurred, the person falls into a merger, unconsciously inviting others too close to their boundaries with the subsequent inability to feel the real needs, his separateness, and as a consequence — the contact does not occur. By adapting the psyche often reproduces this mechanism as a pattern of behavior and, by automating, uses it in other areas, for example, in the habit of eating foods that are not suitable for this specific body, which causes allergic reactions as a self-regulating natural aggressive protest to protect the body from the harmful influence affecting it. At the emotional level, an allergic reaction is a background irritation which does not develop into self-awareness as an indicator of the presence of another need. In the normal process of contact, this irritation precedes disgust with the further possibility of defining and defending one’s boundaries in order to separate and become aware of the real need.

Fritz Perls wrote: “The study of the way the human being functions in his environment is the study of what goes on at the contact boundary between the individual and his environment. It is at this contact boundary that the psychological events take place. Our thoughts, our actions, our behaviour, and our emotions are our way of experiencing and meeting these boundary events.”

In the same way human speech can be considered as the contact boundary. The word can be nominally divided into two parts, one of which belongs to the one who speaks, and the other – to the one who listens. On the one hand, words separate us, with their help we declare ourselves as an individual, outlining our border, and on the other – with their help we establish contact with people, as at the same time we carry a message about certain needs, acceptance, being heard and understood, about the need for help, etc. In this context the meaning of the difference between listening and hearing becomes very important: if the other listens to our words, but does not respond to our and his need, there is no contact at the boundary, but if the other can hear, he responds to the need hidden in our words, and at the same time s aware of his own, thanks to the inner sensual response to our words, then contact occurs, dialogue mutually enriches us both, contributing to growth and development. Here it is appropriate to talk about the nonlinear perception of speech.

I will provide an example of a case from my practice. According to one of my clients, his father often reproached the children for working a lot for them, making money, getting tired, and they do not appreciate his efforts and use the money for other purposes. The client suffered a strong sense of guilt from childhood. He earned well, but often spent money spontaneously and recklessly, impulsively, on things that he did not need in principle, and always did it alone, but while being in the stores with loved ones – on the contrary, did not even buy what he really needed. As a consequence, in addition to the introject that for a good income you need to work very hard, to the point of fatigue, he was very much bothered by the anxiety because of guilt that he had a fairly easy and interesting job, which brought him decent income. When I asked him during our session to imagine his father and to explain the feelings that worried him, as well as to ask his father for forgiveness for the guilt that accompanied him all his life, he was very surprised to realize that in fact, behind those words of blame and accusations there were words of love and caring, and behind the guilt of the client and his anger at his father, there were words of gratitude and mutual love. As it turned out, this notorious sense of guilt, which accompanied the client all his life, was a kind of indicator of incomplete gestalt — a sense of gratitude for the care and love of his father as a regret for the fact that he had to work so hard and be so tired, which was not taken to the contact boundary.

As we can see, incomplete gestalts often involve the ability of nonlinear speech perception.

So we came to another topic — money and our relationship with it. I see money as a metaphor and example of the contact boundary, like skin and speech, because on the one hand, in today’s market economy, they make us separate, allowing us to meet many needs (food, comfort, self-realization, cognition and many others, even self-expression), and on the other hand — provide an opportunity to interact with the environment. Referring once again to the words of Fritz Perls that all psychological phenomena occur precisely at the boundary-contact, and “our thoughts, our actions, our behaviors, and our emotions are our way of experiencing and meeting these boundary events”, so by working with thoughts and actions, considering behavior and engaging with emotions in relation to money as a metaphor for the contact boundary, we can determine how we interact with the environment, how we feel our boundaries.

Once a woman in my therapy complained that she had no relationship with money, because she could not get people to her seminars even when she had all the material for the work, I suggested her to materialize her boundaries, as she felt them, in any form that she liked. She modeled the boundaries in clay – this was a fortress with a high and wide walls, which indicated to very stiff boundaries that did not allow people to be allowed to approach it, an so to allow to make money through work that required the ability to be in contact with others.

I had another example of blurred boundaries while working with another woman who came with the issue that she was unable to raise the price for her services and that she had stress associated with a very small income despite heavy workload. As it turned out in the process of therapy, due to loneliness in her personal life, she had a very strong need for love and care, which she excessively showed towards her clients even in cases that did not directly relate to her services. A mechanism of contact interruption was activated, as proflexion when we give others what we want ourselves. In this case, changing the situation in the direction of increasing the price of services and their appreciation was impossible until she realized the blurring of her own boundaries, as well as merging with the need for love and care, with the further possibility of separating this need from her workflow and customers.

So, all these psychological components are to some extent inherent in our interaction on the contact boundary with the environment, and sensitivity and care for this boundary determines the quality of our development from individuality into a person worthy of a free life, a life for which the fabulist Aesop fought, with the right to cognize ourselves and the world, to grow and develop, while making your choices.