Fritz Perls

Fritz Perls, born Friedrich Salomon Perls in Berlin in 1893, was a German psychiatrist and psychotherapist who, with his wife Laura Perls, created and named Gestalt therapy in the 1940s and 1950s. The method focuses on increasing awareness of sensations, perceptions, bodily feelings, emotions, and behavior in the present moment, stressing relationships and contact between the self, its surroundings, and others.

Perls grew up in Berlin’s bohemian scene, involved with Expressionism and Dadaism as the avant-garde turned toward revolutionary leftist politics. He was expected to become a lawyer like his uncle Herman Staub but chose medicine instead. During World War I, he served in the German Army in the trenches. After the war, he completed his medical studies in 1920, specializing in neuropsychiatry, and became an assistant to Kurt Goldstein, who worked with brain-injured soldiers. Perls then moved toward psychoanalysis. In 1927, he joined Wilhelm Reich’s technical seminars in Vienna, and Reich’s concept of character analysis strongly influenced him; Reich became his supervising senior analyst in Berlin in 1930.

That same year, Perls married Lore Posner (Laura Perls), and they had two children, Renate and Stephen. In 1933, after Hitler came to power, the family—being Jewish and involved in anti-fascist activities—fled to the Netherlands, then emigrated to South Africa a year later. There, Perls founded a psychoanalytic training institute. In 1936, he had a brief, unsatisfying meeting with Sigmund Freud. During World War II, Perls joined the South African army as a psychiatrist, serving as a captain until 1946. In South Africa, Jan Smuts’ concept of “holism” influenced him. He co-wrote his first book, *Ego, Hunger, and Aggression*, published in 1942 and reissued in 1947. Laura Perls contributed two chapters, but when the book was republished in the United States, she received no credit.

The Perls family left South Africa in 1946 and settled in New York City, where Fritz briefly worked with Karen Horney and Wilhelm Reich. After a period of moving—including living in Montreal and working as a cruise ship psychiatrist—he settled in Manhattan. His second book, *Gestalt Therapy* (1951), was written with Paul Goodman, who drafted the theoretical section from Perls’ notes, and Ralph Hefferline, who contributed the experiential part. The work was influenced by Kurt Lewin and Otto Rank. Fritz and Laura then started the first Gestalt Institute in their Manhattan apartment, and Fritz began traveling across the U.S. to lead workshops.

In 1960, Perls left Laura in Manhattan and moved to Los Angeles, working with Jim Simkin. He began offering workshops at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, in 1963. During this time, he became interested in Zen and incorporated the idea of mini-satori (brief awakening) into his practice. He traveled to Japan and stayed in a Zen monastery. Eventually, he settled at Esalen, building a house on the grounds. One of his students there, Dick Price, developed Gestalt Practice based largely on what he learned from Perls. At Esalen, Perls also collaborated with Ida Rolf, founder of Rolfing, to explore the mind-body connection. Perls is widely known outside therapy for a quote often called the “Gestalt prayer.”

In 1969, he left Esalen to start a Gestalt community at Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island, Canada. There, he hosted eight educational films on his therapy, directed by Stanley Fox for Aquarian Productions, a company started by associate Norman Hirt. Perls died of heart failure on March 14, 1970, in Chicago, after heart surgery at Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital.

Perls was a heavy smoker, having started at age eight and becoming a chain smoker due to his World War II experiences. He also used LSD recreationally in the 1960s. He practiced non-monogamy, having many sexual and romantic encounters outside his marriage, which he described as a partnership of shared goals with episodes of love.

Perls’ approach drew criticism from psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson, who claimed Perls was sexist and physically and emotionally abusive toward women in his private life. Masson cited Perls’ autobiography, *In and Out the Garbage Pail*, where Perls wrote about being called to calm a girl who physically attacked group members, describing how she charged with her head.