Gestalt Therapy and Psychoanalysis of Fritz

Psychologists and therapists Frederick S. Perls (better known as Fritz Perls) and Laura Perls believed that their contribution to the individual psychology lies in the practice of psychotherapy, rather than a theory. In fact, the lack of rigorous theoretical focus many works of Perls reflect the direction in which they tried to follow in psychology. Fritz Perls, as a psychologist, made a theoretical model beyond the therapy room, turning it into the mainstream of the movement for human development. His aggressive, confrontational style and his decision to work with people to a large audience made known and accessible to psychotherapy. Later gestalt therapy was less dramatic in its execution, but is more widely understood and used by psychotherapists of all persuasions.

Fritz meets Laura and psychoanalysis

Fritz Perls was born in 1893 in Berlin by Jewish parents who belonged to lower middle-class. Despite the fact that he had difficulty with his adolescence, he managed to get a medical degree, specializing in psychiatry and mastering the treatment of neurosis and treatment of depression. Completing his medial training, he served as a doctor in World War II. After the war, Fritz worked in Frankfurt, where he met Laura. Both of them, along with many of his friends, were analyzing psychoanalysis with Freud’s first disciples.

Laura Perls was born in 1905. She was fascinated by psychoanalysis in the early period of her life, after reading “The Interpretation of Dreams”, by Freud. Later she studied with theologians Paul Tilich and Martin Buber (Humphrey, 1986).

Perls on Psychoanalysis

“None of us with the exception Freud, did not realize the premature of using psychoanalysis in the treatment of neurosis and depression. We have not seen what it really was: a research project” (Fritz Perls, 1969, p. 142).

Laura Fritz and Psychotherapy

In 1927 Perls moved to Vienna, where he began to run psychoanalytic training. He was engaged in an analysis of Wilhelm Reich and worked under the mentoring of other leading psychoanalysts: Karen Horney, Otto Fenichel and Helen Deutsch. In 1930, Fritz and Laura became husband and wife. The threat of Hitler made Perls to run in 1933 in Holland and then – is South Africa. Making element of innovation, Laura began to sit during the session face to her customers and pay attention to their posture and gestures, using her knowledge about psychotherapy and modern dance (Serlin, 1992).

In 1946, Fritz and Laura have emigrated to the United States of America where they continued to develop what was then Gestalt therapy. In 1952 they founded the first department in their New York Institute of gestalt therapy. Later Fritz  Perls and Laura moved to Los Angeles and then in the early 1960s. They began to work at the Institute of Isale (Esalen Institute) in Big Sur, California. There, he conducted seminars, lectured and became known as the speaker of the new philosophy of life and method of psychotherapy. He died in 1970 on Vancouver Island, the place of the first Gestalt therapeutic community (Gaines, 1979: Shepard, 1975). While Fritz was alive, his disciples found it difficult to reconcile his personal style, often distinguished with Gestalt therapy, which it is confrontational offers individual support.

Laura broke up with Fritz and stayed in New York, heading for many years New York Institute and training therapists. Her views are often contrasted with the fact that Fritz set the forth his recent writings (Rosenfeld, 1978). Laura died in 1990 in Germany during a visit to her hometown.

“The practical emphasis on the awareness of the body became a part of Gestalt therapy not only due to Reich, but also my life-long passion for modern dance… and my familiarity with the system of Alexander and Feldenkrais and other types of therapeutic exercises”.

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