Frederick S. Perls (1893–1970)

Gestalt Therapy In A Nutshell -- As Seen By Its Founder and Most Flamboyant Practitioner

From Fritz Perls himself comes this deceptively "simple," breezy, and brashly personal account in later life on how his work and thinking developed over time.

He sketches a broad-stroke portrait from his childhood in Berlin, Bar Mitzvah and puberty crisis ("I am a very bad boy and cause my parents plenty of trouble"), on through his military service in World War I, into the period that followed in Frankfurt during the time when the Institute for Social Research was being founded (sharing the same intellectual ethos of the neurological clinic in which Gestalt psychology was begun in earnest), up to his actual break in both theory and practice with Freud's traditional psychoanalytic method and circle, followed by his own subsequent individual development of Gestalt Therapy, starting in South Africa and then later carrying it to the United States, eventually landing him at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California -- which became the closest thing to a spiritual home he ever found.

Part autobiography, part theoretical elaboration and summing up, part off-the-cuff philosophizing and qualifying commentary, part painful personal admission, true confession, and a clearing of the air, part playful peacock parading and pleasurable pontificating of an iconic figure and public paragon, this work is woefully misunderstood and seriously distorted if it is either taken too lightly or made too much of. It must be seen in the context of all his other writings and serious work with clients, workshops led and lectures given, and ever-animated and sometimes slightly animalistic encounters (and he would be the first to admit when this was true -- as, indeed, he does in these pages) -- with the actual acquaintances, close friends, and yes, the enemies too, that made up the unusually rambunctious life that was his.

A member of my doctoral committee, Dr. Vincent F. O'Connell, then also teaching on the Psychiatric Faculty of the Medical School at the University of Florida, had heard Perls deliver the very first lecture on Gestalt Therapy ever given in the United States (attended by three people!). The two became close friends and collaborating colleagues from that point on until Perls's eventual death, March 14, 1970. "Vinnie" is referred to by Perls at a few places in this book. Among the many elaborations he shared with me about Perls's specific views on select topics -- which were always original, provocative, and enlightening -- was an intriguing one about Perls's having once written a paper entitled, "Interpretation is a hostile act." He was given to making such remarks. When working with the Human Development Institute in Atlanta, we filmed both Perls and Eric Berne in action before the American Psychological Association's convention in San Francisco, near the end of their lives. Lamentably, these rich and revealing films on the two colorful figures were both withdrawn from circulation as part of a legal dispute and are no longer available for public or even private viewing. -G.R.

(Cover painting: One of Perls's own entitled "Eyeglass in Gaza." If you look closely in the top right corner of this painting, you can plainly make out the famous face of Sigmund Freud. -G.R.)… (more)