Fritz Perls Gestalt Therapy Quotes

I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I. And if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.

Fritz Perls, MD, the psychiatrist and founder of Gestalt therapy. He said, “Fear is excitement without the breath.” Here’s what this intriguing statement means: the very same mechanisms that produce excitement also produce fear, and any fear can be transformed into excitement by breathing fully with it. On the other hand, excitement turns into fear quickly if you hold your breath. When scared, most of us have a tendency to try to get rid of the feeling. We think we can get rid of it by denying or ignoring it, and we use holding our breath as a physical tool of denial.

The word ‘emotion’ comes from the Latin e for exit and motio for movement. So emotion is a natural energy, a dynamic experience that needs to move through and out of the body. As children, however, we are often taught not to express our emotions; for example, we might have been told, ‘boys don’t cry’, or ‘don’t be a baby’. Or when we are angry we are taught that it’s not appropriate to express it: ‘Don’t you dare raise your voice to me!’ At some level most of us are taught that emotions are not OK. As healthy adults, we need to let go of the emotional patterns from the past that mess up our lives and no longer serve us. As Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt Therapy, often said, ‘The only way out is through.’ It’s not easy, and the vast majority of people deny the symptoms or anaesthetise themselves through work, TV, food, alcohol or some kind of drug. By discharging negative emotions attached to past memories we become more able to respond spontaneously in any given moment, allowing us to be more present in our relationships and to the gifts of the world around us.

I do my thing and you do yours. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful. If not, it can’t be helped.

We could, as Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy, would have suggested, deal with this in what he called “the here and now.” Perls believed that the dynamic set up in the session between the therapist and patient is the same dynamic the patient sets up between herself and the rest of world.

HISTORICAL TIMELINE OF THE EARLY THEORIES 1886 – Sigmund Freud began therapeutic practice and research in Vienna. 1900 – Sigmund Freud published “Interpretation of Dreams” – beginning of psychoanalytic thought 1911 – Alfred Adler left Freud’s Psychoanalytic Group to form his school of Individual Psychology 1913 – Carl Jung also departed from Freudian views and developed his own school of Analytical Psychology 1936 – Karen Horney published Feminine Psychology as she critiqued Freudian psychoanalytic theory 1951 – Carl Rogers published Client-Centered Therapy 1951 – Gestalt Therapy is published by Fritz Perls, Paul Goodman, & Ralph Hefferline. 1953 – B.F. Skinner outlined Behavioral Therapy 1954 – Abraham Maslow helped found Humanistic Psychology 1955 – Albert Ellis began teaching methods of Rational Emotive Therapy – beginning of cognitive psychology 1959 – Victor Frankl published an overview of Existential Analysis 1965 – William Glasser published Reality Therapy 1967 – Aaron Beck published a Cognitive Model of depression

The gestalt approach to therapy is also an experiential approach and focuses more on the process of therapy rather than the content. It is a way of seeing and knowing that emphasizes action and dynamic awareness rather than introspection (Perls et al., 1951). Fritz Perls is considered the founder of gestalt therapy and he believed humans are oriented toward growth and function holistically while striving to meet needs through contact with their environment. However, this environmental contact can produce anxiety as it can be painful or uncomfortable. The result may be avoidance which leads to unmet needs and even dysfunctional behavior (Passons, 1975). To assist with change the therapists place themselves as fully as possible into the experience of the client while withholding analysis, judgment or interpretation (Perls et al., 1951). At the same time, they look for ways to increase the client’s awareness of what they are doing in the present moment. Another aspect of therapy is to look at the role of unfinished business from the past that may be impacting dysfunctional behavior in the present.

The main premise of gestalt therapy is moving toward who we are rather than who we should be. Fritz Perls (1969) believed that awareness by itself can be curative. In therapy, clients are expected to be active and become aware of their own feelings, sensations, and perceptions rather than looking to the therapist to provide them with interpretations or insights. Some of the key concepts include being in the here-and-now, direct experiencing, self-awareness, along with working on unfinished business (Perls, 1969; Corey, 2017). If a client becomes aware of the situation he is in and lets the situation control his actions, he then learns how to cope with life (Perls, 1969). Becoming aware of blocks to energy and resistance is also important to gestalt therapy. Arnie Yontef and Schulz (2013) indicate that gestalt therapists believe people change and grow when they experience who they really are in the world. The term creative adjustment is used by gestalt counselors to explain the balance of changing the environment to meet the needs or changing the person to fit the environment (Yontef & Jacobs, 2014). The empty chair is also a technique that became the prominent icon for classical gestalt therapy in the 1960s and early 1970s (Konopka, Hermans, & Goncalves, 2019).