Fritz Perls

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, and he became associated with the Esalen Institute in California in 1964. His approach is related but not identical to Gestalt psychology and the Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy 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 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 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 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, where he 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 14th 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.

Influenced by Laura and Fritz Perls (students)

 * Jack Lee Rosenberg
 * IBP Integrative Body Psychotherapy
 * Claudio Naranjo
 * Pat Korb
 * Gordon Wheeler
 * Richard Bandler - co-founder of Neuro-Linguistic Programming
 * John Grinder - co-founder of Neuro-Linguistic Programming
 * Music Therapy: Fritz Hegi (Switzerland) "Improvisation und Musiktherapie", Junfermann, 1997
 * Movement / Dance Therapy: Gindl, Barbara (Switzerland) ; Anklang. Die Resonanz der Seele - Über ein Grundprinzip therapeutischer Beziehung; Junfermann, 1. Auflage, 2002 ; ISBN 13: 978-3-87387-515-9; 304
 * Massage: Anna Maurer, Integrative Gestalt Massage (IGM) in Germany and Switzerland
 * Massage: Margret ELKE, Sensitive Gestalt Massage (SGM) / Massage Sensitif ®
 * Gestalt Bodywork: James I. Kepner, Body Process: Working With the Body in Psychotherapy, 1993
 * Gestalt Leadership: Timothy H. Warneka, Leading People the Black Belt Way: Conquering the Five Core Problems Facing Leaders Today, 2005. http://www.asogomi.com
 * Gestalt Leadership: Patrick J. Warneka & Timothy H. Warneka, The Way of Leading People: Unlocking Your Integral Leadership Skills with the Tao Te Ching, 2007. http://www.wayofleadingpeople.com