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Laura Perls, born Lore Posner, 1905 in Pforzheim
Pforzheim

Pforzheim is a town of nearly 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-W?rttemberg, southwest Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. It is world-famous for its jewelry and watch-making industry....
, Germany
Germany

Germany , 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, and the Netherlands....
; died 13 July 1990 in Pforzheim, was a noted German-born psychologist and psychotherapist who helped establish the gestalt
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 of the overall situation....
 school of psychotherapy
Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a wiktionary:Client in problems of living. It aims to increase the individual's sense of health and reduce their subjective sense of discomfort....
.

She became interested in psychology when she was 16 (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). Like many before and after her, her interest began after reading Freud's 1899 The Interpretation of Dreams
The Interpretation of Dreams

The Interpretation of Dreams is a book by Sigmund Freud. The first edition was first published in German language in November 1899 as Die Traumdeutung ....
 (Fadiman & Frager, 2002).

In 1930 she married Frederick Perls.






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Laura Perls, born Lore Posner, 1905 in Pforzheim
Pforzheim

Pforzheim is a town of nearly 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-W?rttemberg, southwest Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. It is world-famous for its jewelry and watch-making industry....
, Germany
Germany

Germany , 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, and the Netherlands....
; died 13 July 1990 in Pforzheim, was a noted German-born psychologist and psychotherapist who helped establish the gestalt
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 of the overall situation....
 school of psychotherapy
Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a wiktionary:Client in problems of living. It aims to increase the individual's sense of health and reduce their subjective sense of discomfort....
.

She became interested in psychology when she was 16 (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). Like many before and after her, her interest began after reading Freud's 1899 The Interpretation of Dreams
The Interpretation of Dreams

The Interpretation of Dreams is a book by Sigmund Freud. The first edition was first published in German language in November 1899 as Die Traumdeutung ....
 (Fadiman & Frager, 2002).

In 1930 she married Frederick Perls. They had met while working at the Frankfurt Psychological Institute. In 1933 the Perls had to flee Germany during the rise of Nazi power. They then spent ten years in South Africa. It was there that the Perls wrote their first book together, Ego, Hunger and Aggression, published in 1942. This work held the beginnings for their new theory of psychotherapy, Gestalt Therapy, which consisted of facing the client to notice his or her postures and gestures (Fadiman & Frager, 2002).

In 1951, having moved to New York, the Perls, together with Paul Goodman
Paul Goodman

Paul Goodman may refer to:*Paul Goodman , British politician*Paul Goodman , American ice hockey player*Paul Goodman , Grammy Award-winning sound engineer...
 and Ralph Hefferline
Ralph Hefferline

'Ralph Franklin Hefferline' was a psychology professor at Columbia University.Hefferline became a patient of Fritz Perls around 1946. He joined a small training group led by Perls in 1948 in New York, and went on to contribute a chapter to the book which defined Gestalt Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Excitement and Growth in the Human Persona...
 published Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. By 1952, with the help of Paul Goodman, they had established The New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy (Fadiman & Frager, 2002).

When Frederick Perls started travelling more often to the Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute

Esalen Institute is a center in Big Sur, California, in the United States, for humanism alternative education and a nonprofit organization devoted to multidisciplinary studies ordinarily neglected or unfavoured by traditional academia....
 in California in the early 60s, Laura stayed on in New York to continue running the original institute.

Laura Perls died in 1990, at the age of 85.

External links

  • , founded by Fritz and Laura Perls, 1952