Friedrich (Frederick) Salomon Perls (July 8
1893, Berlin – March 14 1970, Chicago), better known as
Fritz Perls, was a noted
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
-born
psychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry and is certified in treating mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
and
psychotherapistPsychotherapy or personal counseling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.It aims to increase the individual's sense of their own well-being...
of Jewish descent.
He coined the term '
Gestalt TherapyGestalt therapy is an existential and experiential psychotherapy that focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts in which these things take place, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result...
' for the approach to therapy he developed with his wife
Laura PerlsLaura Perls in Pforzheim, was a noted German-born psychologist and psychotherapist who helped establish the gestalt school of psychotherapy....
from the 1940s, and he became associated with the
Esalen InstituteEsalen Institute is a retreat center in Big Sur, California, United States, for humanistic alternative education and a nonprofit organization devoted to multidisciplinary studies ordinarily neglected or unfavored by traditional academia "in subjects ranging from meditation to massage, yoga,...
in California in 1964. His approach is related but not identical to
Gestalt psychologyGestalt psychology or gestaltism of the Berlin School is a theory of mind and brain positing that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies, or that the whole is different from the sum of its parts...
and the
Gestalt Theoretical PsychotherapyGestalt theoretical psychotherapy is a method of psychotherapy based strictly on Gestalt psychology. It was developed by the German Gestalt psychologist and psychotherapist Hans-Jürgen P...
of Hans-Jürgen Walter.
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
psychotherapyPsychotherapy or personal counseling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.It aims to increase the individual's sense of their own well-being...
for a quotation often described as the "
Gestalt prayerThe "Gestalt prayer" is a 56-word statement by psychotherapist Fritz Perls that is taken as a classic expression of Gestalt therapy as way of life model of which Dr. Perls was a founder....
". This was especially true in the 1960s, when the version of
individualismIndividualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses independence and self-reliance. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires, while opposing most external interference upon one's choices, whether by society, or any other group or...
it expresses received great attention.
Life
Fritz Perls was born in Berlin, Germany, 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
FreudSigmund Freud , Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology...
and the early
Wilhelm ReichWilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
.
In 1930 he married Laura Perls (born Lore Posner), 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 rank of captain until 1946.
The Perls moved to New York in 1946, where Fritz Perls first worked briefly with
Karen HorneyKaren Horney born Danielsen was a German psychoanalyst and psychiatrist of Norwegian and Dutch descent. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views, particularly his theory of sexuality, as well as the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis and its genetic psychology...
, and then with
Wilhelm ReichWilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
. Around 1947, Perls asked author
Paul GoodmanPaul Goodman was an American sociologist, poet, writer, anarchist, and public intellectual. Goodman is now mainly remembered as the author of Growing Up Absurd and an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and an inspiration to that era's student movement...
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, where he continued to offer his workshops as a member of the Esalen Institute in
Big SurBig Sur is a sparsely populated region of the central California coast where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big country...
, until he left the United States to start a Gestalt community at Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island, Canada, in 1969. Fritz Perls died almost a year later on 14 March 1970 in Chicago of heart failure, after surgery at the Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
About Fritz Perls
- Petruska Clarkson, Jennifer Mackewn: "Fritz Perls", 1993, SAGE Publications.
See also
- Existentialism
Like “rationalism” and “empiricism,” “existentialism” is a term that belongs to intellectual history. Its definition is thus to some extent one of historical convenience...
- Gestalt therapy
Gestalt therapy is an existential and experiential psychotherapy that focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts in which these things take place, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result...
- Paul Goodman (writer)
Paul Goodman was an American sociologist, poet, writer, anarchist, and public intellectual. Goodman is now mainly remembered as the author of Growing Up Absurd and an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and an inspiration to that era's student movement...
- Phenomenology
- Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
- Brian J. Mistler
Brian J. Mistler, B.A., B.S., M.A. , is an American born philosopher and writer. His work suggests strong influence by Ludwig Wittgenstein, William James, Fritz Perls, and Hazrat Inayat Khan. He is most well known for his writing at the intersection of psychology and international relations. He...
- Kurt Lewin
Kurt Zadek Lewin , a German-American psychologist, is one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology....
Influenced by Laura and Fritz Perls (students)
- Jack Lee Rosenberg
- IBP Integrative Body Psychotherapy
Integrative body psychotherapy was founded by Dr. Jack Lee Rosenberg, further developed with Diana Asay, a Jungian Analyst, and Dr. Marjorie Rand, and formally presented to the public as a new therapeutic approach in their book, Body, Self and Soul - Sustaining Integration...
- Claudio Naranjo
Claudio Naranjo is a renowned Chilean psychiatrist and considered a pioneer in his work as an integrator between psychotherapy and the spiritual traditions...
- Pat Korb
- Gordon Wheeler
- Richard Bandler
Richard Wayne Bandler is an American author on personal development. He is best known as the co-inventor of Neuro-linguistic programming , a collection of concepts and techniques -- collectively referred to by Bandler as technologies -- intended to understand and change human behavior patterns...
- co-founder of Neuro-Linguistic ProgrammingNeuro-linguistic programming is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "a model of interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective experiences Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is defined in the Oxford English...
- John Grinder
John Grinder Ph.D. is an American linguist, author, management consultant, trainer and speaker. Grinder is credited with the co-creation with Richard Bandler of the field of Neuro-linguistic programming. He is co-director of Quantum Leap Inc., a management consulting firm founded by his partner...
- co-founder of Neuro-Linguistic Programming
- Stella Resnick
External links
Biographical:
Writings and lectures by Fritz Perls:
- Psychiatry in a New Key from the Unpublished Manuscripts of Fritz Perls
- Finding Self Through Gestalt Therapy, a transcript of a talk given at the Cooper Union by Frederick Perls in 1957
- 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."
Interview with Fritz Perls: