IJSP Number 4, 2022

37 opportunities: Unresolved ruptures are associated with poor outcome, but repaired ruptures are associated with good outcome ” [2, p. 516]. They refer to Bordin ’ s conceptualization of the alliance “ as composed of (a) agreement between patient and therapist on the goals of treatment, (b) collaboration between patient and therapist on the tasks of treatment, and (c) an affective bond between the patient and therapist. ” [3, p. 509]. This understanding of “ alliance rupture ” seems to us to imply the notion of a kind of continuum extending from one pole of intense alliance to the other pole of completely “ ruptured ” alliance. We do not deny that such a notion may be helpful for some cases involving fluctuations in the intensity of an existing alliance at different stages or in certain respects of cooperation. However, in our view, the notion is not helpful in those cases where it is not a matter of gradual changes in intensity, but of a more or less sudden turnaround in the quality of the relationship . We are talking about those cases where the alliance turns into the opposite: into an openly hostile and destructive relationship of working against each other or into the less dramatic but no less obstructive form of working past each other . This is no longer a gradual change in the intensity of the relationship, but a flip or switch into a qualitatively different kind of relationship. We think it might be fruitful to look at this turnaround or flip in the relationship analogous to the „ Gestalt switch ” in the “r eversible figures ” known from perceptual research (see a well-known example in fig. 1). In this paper, we will investigate which conditions have to be fulfilled for such a Gestalt switch to occur in therapy and supervision and provide suggestions to prevent this. Fig. 1: reversible image young girl / old woman We try to integrate these aspects in identifying certain field conditions in the overall therapeutic and supervisory encounter and relationship. What constitutes this encounter and relationship, which laws it follows and which framework conditions it is subject to, has always been the focus of the Gestalt theoretical approach to psychotherapy. In this respect, this approach has been based primarily on the specific “c haracteristics of working with living beings and processes ” , elaborated by the German Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Metzger [4].