Fritz Perls, An Interesting Figure In The History Of Psychology

Friedrich Salomon Perls, better known as Fritz Perls, was a German physician, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst.  He was the father of gestalt therapy. He was a contradictory and fascinating man who spent all his time between intellectual circles, theoretical debates and world travels.

Perls was born in Berlin on July 8, 1893, in a Jewish ghetto. He had two older sisters, Elsa and Grete. His father, Nathan, sold wine and was often away. His mother, Amalia, came from a lower middle-class family. She gave him a deep interest in art, which he retained throughout his life.

In an interview, Grete, Perls’ sister, described their childhood as a bit “wild”. He was a difficult child, but a diligent student. He completed his upper secondary education at  Mommsen High School  in Berlin. This was an incredibly strict school where anti-Semitism was widespread. Perls was expelled when he was 13 years old. As punishment, his father forced him to work as an apprentice in a candy store.

Perls’ relationship with his father was always quite messy. In his diaries, he described his father as a hypocritical man with a double moral standard. He believed that his father hated his mother and was unfaithful to her with other women. The rejection Perls felt towards his father was so strong that he did not go to his funeral.

Fritz Perls and his encounter with philosophy and psychoanalysis

Fritz Perls chose to return to school at a humanist-oriented school,  Askaniches Gymnas . That was when he met Max Reinhardt, a theater director who cultivated his love of art. This lasted until he died.

Later he began to study medicine. Not long after that, World War I began. Then Perls registered as a volunteer in the Red Cross.  This had a great effect on him. He only talked about it several years later in his autobiography, “In and Out the Garbage Pail.”

In 1920, Fritz Perls received his legal license from the Humboldt University in Berlin. Then he specialized in neuropsychiatry. Later he met the philosopher Friedlander, who influenced much of Perls’ work. In 1923, he decided to move to New York. But he came back very frustrated after they would not validate his license because he could not speak English. This led him to begin psychoanalysis with Karen Horney. This changed his life.

Fritz Perls’ change of career

Perls was fascinated by psychoanalysis. He decided he wanted to become an analyst. But he had to move to Frankfurt to be an assistant to a psychiatrist named Kurt Goldstein. He worked on the theory of gestalt psychology. It was here that Perls met Laura Possner, the student who two years later became his wife. This was despite the fact that his family and Clara Happel, his psychoanalyst, were against the relationship. Perls was 36 years old and Laura was only 24.

A year later, he began working as an analyst in Vienna. In 1928 he became a full-time therapist in Berlin. Between then and 1930,  Perls worked on psychoanalysis with Eugen Harnick and then Wilheim Reich. The other man was one of Freud’s followers. But he had strayed from Freud’s theories. Many of the theories that Perls later developed were inspired by Reich.

The birth of gestal therapy

After Hitler came to power, Frits Perls traveled to the Netherlands, but could not get a work permit. After going through difficult times with his wife and newborn daughter, Ernst Jones helped him get a job in Johannesburg, South Africa. There he was to learn psychoanalysis. Together with his wife, Laura, they founded the South African Psychoanalytic Association. In 1936 he was invited to a conference in Prague and the ideas he mentioned led to an uproar. He ended up in a bad place again and went away from traditional psychoanalysis.

With the help of his wife, Perls began to create his own ideas. In 1942 he moved to New York and published his first book. “Ego, Hunger and Aggression: A Revision of Freud’s Theory and Method” . Four years later he started a group of seven with other intellectuals. In 1951 he published what some people consider the bible of this new method: “Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality” .

The book was born thanks to the help of the poet Paul Goodman, who brought his writing skills into it. It is a complex book that uses ideas from gestal psychology, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, existentialism, and American pragmatism. Later, Perls added some Buddhist concepts after a trip to Japan.

The fate of the theory behind gestalt therapy was complicated. In 1956, Laura and Perls divorced and they both took the theory in different directions. While Laura and Paul Goodman were completely faithful to the original principles, Perls moved from that point of view. He brought in Zen principles, he even had things from the Israeli kibbutzim. At the end of his life, he behaved more like a guru than a therapist. He died of a heart attack after a long journey.

Gestalt therapeutic approach

We can say that gestalt therapy is a trend  that focuses more on the way the patient experiences their reality than what they experience. It’s not about what happens to a person. It’s about how the person sees those things. It emphasizes the processes and not the content. This focus is part of humanist psychology and presents three basic principles:

The three principles of gestalt therapy

• An emphasis on the here and now. According to gestalt therapy, people do not perceive the past, present, and future as individual realities. The three time periods are part of a unit that only exists in the present. Both the past and the future are just predictions of this present. So it tries to work with “here and now.” And this is how it tries to help people find a way to solve problems and to achieve a more self-actualized life.
• Awareness. To achieve a better level of well-being, you need to take a better look at yourself. This is the basis for creating new ways to shape your experience “here and now.” It’s a way to put yourself in a position to refocus the way you look at things that are not really happening. And it shows you that you need to find a new way to look at your personal experiences.

• Take responsibility. The process of becoming more aware should lead you to a place where you can take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. If you accept your mistakes and form ideas about the risks that come with a certain action, you will achieve independence. This is how you can give your life a direction. One with more freedom and meaning.

Fritz Perls’ gestal therapy proposes a process of intervention  to help someone rework their representation of reality. It should also help them reorient themselves towards a more independent life. They should be able to focus on their own potential. People have used it in many different fields: the clinical, the social, and even in the work environment.