Memorials to Our Dear Departed Friends and Colleagues from EGS

In Memoriam of Herbert Eberhart (7. 12. 1933 – 12. 12. 2023)

Co-founder of EGIS European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies, the former funding body
of the European Graduate School EGS

I love the ‘flow of the creative’.
I love to let myself be carried by this flow.
I love the full presence which it requires and takes you into ‘a timeless and spaceless
realm of being’.
I love the interaction between people who surrender to this flow.

—Herbert Eberhart in Rückspiegel (2019), translation by MFK

Herbert was a great collaborator and contributed so much to our field. Also a fine person
full of “appreciative curiosity.”

—Ellen Levine

Dr. Herbert Eberhart: The Rock-Solid Grounding Guide

​

Ten years ago—

​

EGS celebrated Dr. Herbert Eberhart's 80th birthday. He was the first Chairman of the Founding
Organization EGIS 1990 and stayed in the Board of Trustees for 32 years until his retirement.
Herbert has been teaching for the Division Arts, Health and Society AHS since the inception of
its Summer Schools. He was a clinical psychologist, supervisor, coach BSO, consultant, author
of numerous textbooks and expert of the solution – and resource -oriented approach.

​

EGS founding Rector Paolo Knill honored Herbert with a Laudatio (from the Latin for commendation
or praise) entitled: Dr. Herbert Eberhart: The Rock Solid Grounding Guide, writing:

​

"We could list endlessly his achievements, from being a child psychologist to become a
Professor at a College of Social Work, from building houses to building organizations,
from leading projects to leading and consulting colleges--- and we still would miss the
essential exquisite attributes he incorporates.

He is a master of building foundations that hold and are well anchored on solid grounds.

He is also an exceptional master in challenging our convictions while trusting our
resources to reveal him or herself. He believes firmly in the power of imagination and
loves to be involved in the arts. One can learn from him to ask the quite right questions
that rise our curiosity more than the need for a simple answer.”

​

Dr. Herbert Eberhart was all the time and still is an exemplary practitioner and educator. He was
instrumental in defining with Paolo Knill the expressive arts methodology of ”intermodal

decentering" at EGS. Many participative and collaborative learning structures, that are practiced

now world wide, in our Network, were developed by Herbert. At the same time he is the one who

takes visions very seriously while being clear and pointed about the understanding of the real.

I would say he understands the principle of artistic shaping, the dialogue with what is shaped,

perfectly well. He is a Master of shaping relationships between people and organizations.

He is the one who said “It is not only about shaping it is also about nourishing the soul,

that’s what Art is.”

​

Let’s remember one of his Masterpieces; how he gave the last touches to the Campus Building
Project Steinmatte so it could be realized as the honoring bronze plaque at the entrance of the
plenum hall, for his 70th birthday, recognizes.”

​

The last time we spoke: With death, this notion suddenly hits us.

​

Dear Herbert—
In retrospective, the conversation we had in spring 2022 turned into our last one.

I told you that the textbook Lösungskunst you co-authored together with Paolo Knill will be
translated to English (Solution Art). "Ah, good", you said. However you had, it seemed to me,
more important things going on in your life. You were in love again after some years of being a
widower. With excitement in your voice, you told me about your engagement party and your
plan to remarry soon. This is Herbert, I thought, always turning, as sunflowers do, towards the
sunny side of life.

You lived fully. Curiosity was your guiding star. You gave us more than tools, you were a role
model in living the theory you co-created, always looking for options, for the 'what else', and for
the enrichment, the 'there is more to it', asking 'how should I imagine this'.

Now, it is up to us to ask the questions - how do we keep going with an attitude of curiosity,
taking risks and challenging our categorizing and judgmental minds?

Thank you, dear Herbert, for showing us how different views can enrich each other and lead to a
third - the Lösungskunst, a riddle you and Paolo opened up for further research. I take it to guide
my own research now.

You and Paolo gave me the inner drive to stay with the concept of Intermodal Decentering
(registered as Intermodal Decentering IDEC®), always keeping friendship and the arts at the
center.

​

May you rest in peace.

December 30, 2023

EGS, Division Arts, Health and Society AHS

Margo Fuchs Knill, Founding Dean AHS and Core Faculty Member

​

References:

Andreas Bürgi und Herbert Eberhart (2019). IM RÜCKSPIEGEL. Erfahrungen zweier
Psychologen zum Welt-, Zeit-, und Selbsterleben. Münsterverlag

Paolo Knill / Herbert Eberhart (2023). SOLUTION ART. A textbook of art and resourceoriented
work. Jessica Kingsley

Herbert Eberhart / Paolo Knill ( 2014). LÖSUNGSKUNST. Lehrbuch der kunst- und
ressourcenorientierten Arbeit. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Herbert Eberhart (author) and Sally Atkins (contributor) (2014). PRESENCE AND
PROCESS IN EXPRESSIVE ARTS WORK: At the Edge of Wonder. Jessica Kingsley
Publishers

​