Perls, Fritz
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'''Fritz Perls''' was born in [[Berlin]] in 1893. He was expected to go into [[law]] like his distinguished uncle Herman Staub, but instead studied [[medicine]]. After a time spent in the German Army in the [[World War I]] trenches, he graduated as a doctor. Perls gravitated to [[psychiatry]] and the work of [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]] and the early [[Wilhelm Reich]]. | '''Fritz Perls''' was born in [[Berlin]] in 1893. He was expected to go into [[law]] like his distinguished uncle Herman Staub, but instead studied [[medicine]]. After a time spent in the German Army in the [[World War I]] trenches, he graduated as a doctor. Perls gravitated to [[psychiatry]] and the work of [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]] and the early [[Wilhelm Reich]]. | ||
| − | In 1930 he married Lore Posner, and they had two children together, Renate and Stephen. | + | In 1930 he married Lore (later Laura) Posner, and they had two children together, Renate and Stephen. |
In 1933, soon after the [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] regime came into power, Fritz Perls, Laura and their eldest child Renate fled to the [[Netherlands]], and one year later they emigrated to [[South Africa]], where Fritz Perls wrote ''Ego, Hunger, and Aggression'' in 1941 (published 1942). His wife Laura contributed to the book, but she is usually not mentioned. In 1942 Fritz went into the South African army where he served as an army psychiatrist with the rank of captain until 1946. | In 1933, soon after the [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] regime came into power, Fritz Perls, Laura and their eldest child Renate fled to the [[Netherlands]], and one year later they emigrated to [[South Africa]], where Fritz Perls wrote ''Ego, Hunger, and Aggression'' in 1941 (published 1942). His wife Laura contributed to the book, but she is usually not mentioned. In 1942 Fritz went into the South African army where he served as an army psychiatrist with the rank of captain until 1946. | ||
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The Perls moved to [[New York City]] in 1946, where Fritz Perls first worked briefly with [[Karen Horney]], and then with [[Wilhelm Reich]]. Around 1947, Perls asked author [[Paul Goodman (writer)|Paul Goodman]] to write up some hand-written notes, which together with contributions from Ralph Hefferline and Goodman, were published as ''Gestalt Therapy''. | The Perls moved to [[New York City]] in 1946, where Fritz Perls first worked briefly with [[Karen Horney]], and then with [[Wilhelm Reich]]. Around 1947, Perls asked author [[Paul Goodman (writer)|Paul Goodman]] to write up some hand-written notes, which together with contributions from Ralph Hefferline and Goodman, were published as ''Gestalt Therapy''. | ||
| − | Perls moved to [[California]] in 1960. In 1964 | + | Fritz Perls moved to [[California]] in 1960. In 1964 he started a long-term residency at [[Esalen]] and became a major and lasting influence there. Perls led numerous seminars at Esalen, and he and [[Jim Simkin]] led Gestalt Therapy training courses there. Dick Price became one of Perls' closest students during this time. Perls continued to offer his workshops as a member of the Esalen Institute in [[Big Sur]], until he left the USA to start a Gestalt community at Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island, [[Canada]], in 1969. |
Fritz Perls died almost a year later on March 14, 1970 in Chicago of heart failure after surgery at the Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago. | Fritz Perls died almost a year later on March 14, 1970 in Chicago of heart failure after surgery at the Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago. | ||
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Fritz Perls together with his wife Laura founded the first institute for their new therapy, "[[Gestalt therapy]]," in [[New York City]] in 1952. The practice was based on the seminal work ''Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality'', published in 1951, co-authored by Fritz Perls, [[Paul Goodman]], and [[Ralph Hefferline]] (a university psychology professor, and sometime patient of Fritz Perls). | Fritz Perls together with his wife Laura founded the first institute for their new therapy, "[[Gestalt therapy]]," in [[New York City]] in 1952. The practice was based on the seminal work ''Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality'', published in 1951, co-authored by Fritz Perls, [[Paul Goodman]], and [[Ralph Hefferline]] (a university psychology professor, and sometime patient of Fritz Perls). | ||
| − | [[Isadore From]] became | + | [[Isadore From]] became an early patient, first of Fritz and then of Laura. Fritz Perls soon anointed From as a trainer and gave him some patients. From lived in New York until his death, at 75 in 1993, and was known world-wide for his philosophical and intellectually rigorous take on Gestalt Therapy. A brilliant, witty, and sometimes caustic man, From was very much the philosopher of the first-generation Gestalt therapists. Acknowledged as a supremely gifted clinician, he was unfortunately phobic of writing and the few things committed to paper are transcriptions of interviews (Rosenfeld, Edward. 1978). |
| − | + | Another client who became a co-trainer with Perls was [[psycholgist]] [[Jim Simkin]]. Simkin was responsible for Perls moving to California where he attempted to begin a [[psychotherapy]] practice. Ultimately, being a peripatetic trainer and workshop leader was a better fit for Perls' personality. Simkin and Perls co-led some of the early (for California) training groups at Esalen. | |
| − | In the 1960s Perls became infamous for his public workshops at [[Esalen Institute]] in [[Big Sur]]. Isadore From referred to some of Fritz' several day workshops as "hit-and-run" therapy because of its emphasis on showmanship with little or no follow-through, but Perls never considered these workshops to be true therapy. Simkin went from co-leading training groups with Perls to purchasing a property next to Esalen and starting his own training center, which he ran until his death in 1984. Here he refined his | + | In the 1960s Perls became infamous for his public workshops at [[Esalen Institute]] in [[Big Sur]]. Isadore From referred to some of Fritz' several day workshops as "hit-and-run" therapy because of its emphasis on showmanship with little or no follow-through, but Perls never considered these workshops to be true therapy. Simkin went from co-leading training groups with Perls to purchasing a property next to Esalen and starting his own training center, which he ran until his death in 1984. Here he refined his version of Gestalt Therapy, training psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and [[social worker]]s within a very rigorous residential training model. |
When Fritz Perls left New York City for California, there began to be a split between those who saw Gestalt Therapy as a therapeutic approach with great potential (this view was best represented by Isadore From, who practiced and taught mainly in New York, and by the members of the Cleveland Institute, co-founded by From) and those who saw Gestalt Therapy not just as a therapeutic modality but as a way of life. The East Coast, New York-Cleveland axis was often appalled by the notion of Gestalt Therapy leaving the consulting room and becoming a way-of-life, as characterized in the "Gestalt prayer" authored by Perls. | When Fritz Perls left New York City for California, there began to be a split between those who saw Gestalt Therapy as a therapeutic approach with great potential (this view was best represented by Isadore From, who practiced and taught mainly in New York, and by the members of the Cleveland Institute, co-founded by From) and those who saw Gestalt Therapy not just as a therapeutic modality but as a way of life. The East Coast, New York-Cleveland axis was often appalled by the notion of Gestalt Therapy leaving the consulting room and becoming a way-of-life, as characterized in the "Gestalt prayer" authored by Perls. | ||
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:(Fritz Perls, 1969) | :(Fritz Perls, 1969) | ||
| − | == | + | ==Legacy== |
| − | + | Gestalt therapy rose from its beginnings with Fritz and Laura Perls in the middle of the twentieth century to rapid and widespread popularity during the decade of the 1960s and early 1970s. During the 1970s and 1980s Gestalt therapy training centers spread globally, but they were, for the most part, not aligned with formal academic settings. As the cognitive revolution eclipsed [[Gestalt psychology|gestalt theory]] in psychology, many came to believe gestalt was an anachronism. In the hands of gestalt practitioners gestalt therapy became an applied discipline in the fields of psychotherapy, organizational development, social action, and eventually coaching. | |
| − | + | The objective of Gestalt Therapy, in addition to helping the client overcome symptoms, is to enable him or her to become more fully and creatively alive and to be free from the blocks and unfinished issues that may diminish optimum satisfaction, fulfillment, and growth. Thus, it falls in the category of [[humanistic psychology|humanistic psychotherapies]]. | |
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| − | + | Perl's Gestalt therapy is still functioning in Esalen at Big Sur. Although reaching its zenith in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has since waning in popularity, its contributions have become assimilated into current schools of therapy, sometimes in unlikely places. | |
| − | + | Many of Fritz and Laura Perls' students continued the development and application of Gestalt Therapy. Among the more notable are included [[Richard Bandler]] and [[John Grinder]], co-founders of [[Neuro-Linguistic Programming]], and [[Claudio Naranjo]], Fritz Perls' apprentice and one of [[Carlos Castaneda]]'s closest friends, who integrated the work at Esalen and became an active education reformist. | |
| − | Many of Fritz and Laura Perls students continued the development and application of Gestalt Therapy | ||
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| − | + | Ernest Becker, an internationally known author and lecturer in the fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, said of Fritz Perls: <blockquote>But if you peel away your lie, you can start looking at things a little more pristinely; you're no longer so driven. And then there might be a possibility for more authentic awareness at that point, and I think this is Perls' great idea and lasting contribution.(Becker 1970)</blockquote> | |
==Major publications== | ==Major publications== | ||
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==References== | ==References== | ||
| − | * Bandler, R. | + | * Bandler, R. and J. Grinder. 1979. ''Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming''. Real People Press. ISBN 0911226192. |
| − | * Clarkson, Petruska and Mackewn, Jennifer. | + | * Becker, Ernest. 1970. [http://www.gestalt.org/becker.htm Growing Up Rugged] University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, November 13, 1970. Retrieved November 16, 2007. This talk was first published in ''The Gestalt Journal'', Volume XVI, Number 2 (Fall, 1993). |
| − | *Latner, J. | + | * Clarkson, Petruska and Mackewn, Jennifer. 1993. ''Fritz Perls''. SAGE Publications. ISBN 0803984537 ISBN 978-0803984530. |
| − | *Mackewn, J. | + | *Latner, J. 1996. "The theory of gestalt therapy," in ''Gestalt therapy: Perspectives and Applications.'' Edwin Nevis (ed.) The Analytic Press. ISBN 0881632473 ISBN 978-0881632477. |
| − | *Melnick, J. | + | *Mackewn, J. 1997. ''Developing gestalt counselling''. London, UK: Sage publications. ISBN 0803978618 ISBN 978-0803978614. |
| + | *Melnick, J and S. March Nevis. 2005. "Gestalt therapy methodology" in ''Gestalt Therapy, History, Theory, and Practice''. Ansel Woldt & Sarah Toman (eds). London, UK: Sage Publications. ISBN 0761927913 ISBN 978-0761927914. | ||
*Nevis, E. (2000) Introduction, in ''Gestalt therapy: Perspectives and Applications.'' Edwin Nevis (ed.). Cambridge, MA: Gestalt Press. ISBN 0881632473 ISBN 978-0881632477. | *Nevis, E. (2000) Introduction, in ''Gestalt therapy: Perspectives and Applications.'' Edwin Nevis (ed.). Cambridge, MA: Gestalt Press. ISBN 0881632473 ISBN 978-0881632477. | ||
*Rosenfeld, Edward. 1978. "A Converstaion with Isadore From" ''The Gestalt Journal'', Volume I, Number 2, Fall, 1978. Retrieved November 16, 2007. | *Rosenfeld, Edward. 1978. "A Converstaion with Isadore From" ''The Gestalt Journal'', Volume I, Number 2, Fall, 1978. Retrieved November 16, 2007. | ||
Revision as of 19:37, 16 November 2007
Friedrich (Frederick) Salomon Perls (July 8 1893, Berlin – March 14 1970, Chicago), better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent.
He coined the term "Gestalt Therapy" for the approach to therapy he developed with his wife Laura Perls from the 1940s. His approach is related but not identical to Gestalt psychology and the Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy of Hans-Jürgen Walter. He became associated with the Esalen Institute in California in 1964.
At Gestalt Therapy's core is the promotion of awareness, the awareness of the unity of all present feelings and behaviors, and the contact between the self and its environment. Perls has been widely evoked outside the realm of psychotherapy for a quotation often described as the "Gestalt prayer." This was especially true in the 1960s, when the version of individualism it expresses received great attention.
Life
Fritz Perls was born in Berlin in 1893. He was expected to go into law like his distinguished uncle Herman Staub, but instead studied medicine. After a time spent in the German Army in the World War I trenches, he graduated as a doctor. Perls gravitated to psychiatry and the work of Freud and the early Wilhelm Reich.
In 1930 he married Lore (later Laura) Posner, and they had two children together, Renate and Stephen.
In 1933, soon after the Hitler regime came into power, Fritz Perls, Laura and their eldest child Renate fled to the Netherlands, and one year later they emigrated to South Africa, where Fritz Perls wrote Ego, Hunger, and Aggression in 1941 (published 1942). His wife Laura contributed to the book, but she is usually not mentioned. In 1942 Fritz went into the South African army where he served as an army psychiatrist with the rank of captain until 1946.
The Perls moved to New York City in 1946, where Fritz Perls first worked briefly with Karen Horney, and then with Wilhelm Reich. Around 1947, Perls asked author Paul Goodman to write up some hand-written notes, which together with contributions from Ralph Hefferline and Goodman, were published as Gestalt Therapy.
Fritz Perls moved to California in 1960. In 1964 he started a long-term residency at Esalen and became a major and lasting influence there. Perls led numerous seminars at Esalen, and he and Jim Simkin led Gestalt Therapy training courses there. Dick Price became one of Perls' closest students during this time. Perls continued to offer his workshops as a member of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, until he left the USA to start a Gestalt community at Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island, Canada, in 1969.
Fritz Perls died almost a year later on March 14, 1970 in Chicago of heart failure after surgery at the Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Work
Fritz Perls together with his wife Laura founded the first institute for their new therapy, "Gestalt therapy," in New York City in 1952. The practice was based on the seminal work Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, published in 1951, co-authored by Fritz Perls, Paul Goodman, and Ralph Hefferline (a university psychology professor, and sometime patient of Fritz Perls).
Isadore From became an early patient, first of Fritz and then of Laura. Fritz Perls soon anointed From as a trainer and gave him some patients. From lived in New York until his death, at 75 in 1993, and was known world-wide for his philosophical and intellectually rigorous take on Gestalt Therapy. A brilliant, witty, and sometimes caustic man, From was very much the philosopher of the first-generation Gestalt therapists. Acknowledged as a supremely gifted clinician, he was unfortunately phobic of writing and the few things committed to paper are transcriptions of interviews (Rosenfeld, Edward. 1978).
Another client who became a co-trainer with Perls was psycholgist Jim Simkin. Simkin was responsible for Perls moving to California where he attempted to begin a psychotherapy practice. Ultimately, being a peripatetic trainer and workshop leader was a better fit for Perls' personality. Simkin and Perls co-led some of the early (for California) training groups at Esalen.
In the 1960s Perls became infamous for his public workshops at Esalen Institute in Big Sur. Isadore From referred to some of Fritz' several day workshops as "hit-and-run" therapy because of its emphasis on showmanship with little or no follow-through, but Perls never considered these workshops to be true therapy. Simkin went from co-leading training groups with Perls to purchasing a property next to Esalen and starting his own training center, which he ran until his death in 1984. Here he refined his version of Gestalt Therapy, training psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and social workers within a very rigorous residential training model.
When Fritz Perls left New York City for California, there began to be a split between those who saw Gestalt Therapy as a therapeutic approach with great potential (this view was best represented by Isadore From, who practiced and taught mainly in New York, and by the members of the Cleveland Institute, co-founded by From) and those who saw Gestalt Therapy not just as a therapeutic modality but as a way of life. The East Coast, New York-Cleveland axis was often appalled by the notion of Gestalt Therapy leaving the consulting room and becoming a way-of-life, as characterized in the "Gestalt prayer" authored by Perls.
The key idea of the Gestalt prayer is the focus on living in response to one's own needs, without projecting onto or taking introjects from others. It also expresses the idea that it is by fulfilling their own needs that people can help others do the same and create space for genuine contact; that is, when they "find each other, it's beautiful".
- Gestalt Prayer
- I do my thing and you do your thing.
- I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
- And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
- You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
- If not, it can't be helped.
- (Fritz Perls, 1969)
Legacy
Gestalt therapy rose from its beginnings with Fritz and Laura Perls in the middle of the twentieth century to rapid and widespread popularity during the decade of the 1960s and early 1970s. During the 1970s and 1980s Gestalt therapy training centers spread globally, but they were, for the most part, not aligned with formal academic settings. As the cognitive revolution eclipsed gestalt theory in psychology, many came to believe gestalt was an anachronism. In the hands of gestalt practitioners gestalt therapy became an applied discipline in the fields of psychotherapy, organizational development, social action, and eventually coaching.
The objective of Gestalt Therapy, in addition to helping the client overcome symptoms, is to enable him or her to become more fully and creatively alive and to be free from the blocks and unfinished issues that may diminish optimum satisfaction, fulfillment, and growth. Thus, it falls in the category of humanistic psychotherapies.
Perl's Gestalt therapy is still functioning in Esalen at Big Sur. Although reaching its zenith in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has since waning in popularity, its contributions have become assimilated into current schools of therapy, sometimes in unlikely places.
Many of Fritz and Laura Perls' students continued the development and application of Gestalt Therapy. Among the more notable are included Richard Bandler and John Grinder, co-founders of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and Claudio Naranjo, Fritz Perls' apprentice and one of Carlos Castaneda's closest friends, who integrated the work at Esalen and became an active education reformist.
Ernest Becker, an internationally known author and lecturer in the fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, said of Fritz Perls:
But if you peel away your lie, you can start looking at things a little more pristinely; you're no longer so driven. And then there might be a possibility for more authentic awareness at that point, and I think this is Perls' great idea and lasting contribution.(Becker 1970)
Major publications
- Ego, Hunger and Aggression. [1942] 1992. Gestalt Journal Press; New Ed. ISBN 0939266180 ISBN 978-0939266180.
- Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality [1951] 1977. New York, NY: Julian. ISBN 0-939266-24-5.
- Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (1968). Real People Press. ISBN 0911226028 ISBN 978-0911226027.
- The Gestalt Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy (1973) ISBN 0-8314-0034-X.
- In and Out the Garbage Pail (1981) ISBN 0-553-20253-7
- Perls, F., Hefferline, R., & Goodman, P. [1951] 1977. Gestalt therapy: Excitement and growth in the human personality. Gestalt Journal Press; New Ed edition. ISBN 0939266245 ISBN 978-0939266241.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Bandler, R. and J. Grinder. 1979. Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming. Real People Press. ISBN 0911226192.
- Becker, Ernest. 1970. Growing Up Rugged University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, November 13, 1970. Retrieved November 16, 2007. This talk was first published in The Gestalt Journal, Volume XVI, Number 2 (Fall, 1993).
- Clarkson, Petruska and Mackewn, Jennifer. 1993. Fritz Perls. SAGE Publications. ISBN 0803984537 ISBN 978-0803984530.
- Latner, J. 1996. "The theory of gestalt therapy," in Gestalt therapy: Perspectives and Applications. Edwin Nevis (ed.) The Analytic Press. ISBN 0881632473 ISBN 978-0881632477.
- Mackewn, J. 1997. Developing gestalt counselling. London, UK: Sage publications. ISBN 0803978618 ISBN 978-0803978614.
- Melnick, J and S. March Nevis. 2005. "Gestalt therapy methodology" in Gestalt Therapy, History, Theory, and Practice. Ansel Woldt & Sarah Toman (eds). London, UK: Sage Publications. ISBN 0761927913 ISBN 978-0761927914.
- Nevis, E. (2000) Introduction, in Gestalt therapy: Perspectives and Applications. Edwin Nevis (ed.). Cambridge, MA: Gestalt Press. ISBN 0881632473 ISBN 978-0881632477.
- Rosenfeld, Edward. 1978. "A Converstaion with Isadore From" The Gestalt Journal, Volume I, Number 2, Fall, 1978. Retrieved November 16, 2007.
- Woldt, A. (2005) Pre-text: Gestalt pedagogy: Creating the field for teaching and learning, in Ansel Woldt & Sarah Toman (eds), Gestalt Therapy, History, Theory, and Practice. London, UK: Sage Publications. ISBN 0761927913 ISBN 978-0761927914.
External links
- A Life Chronology, by Frederick Perls. Retrieved November 16, 2007.
- Frederick Perls: A Son's Reflections, by Stephen Perls. Retrieved November 16, 2007.
- Growing Up Rugged: Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy by National Book Award winner Ernest Becker. Delivered as a talk shortly after Perls's death in 1970. Retrieved November 16, 2007.
- Psychiatry in a New Key from the Unpublished Manuscripts of Fritz Perls. Retrieved November 16, 2007.
- Finding Self Through Gestalt Therapy, a transcript of a talk given at the Cooper Union by Frederick Perls in 1957. Retrieved November 16, 2007.
- Planned Psychotherapy by Frederick Perls. A talk given in the late 1940s at the William Alanson White Institute in New York City, "Planned Psychotherapy" predates the articulation of Gestalt therapy by a few years. Perls discusses in detail his developing use of focusing on the "here and now." Retrieved November 16, 2007.
- Fritz Perls: Gestalt Therapy A nearly forgotten interview with Fritz Perls (the co-founder of Gestalt Therapy) by Adelaide Bry. Retrieved November 16, 2007.
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