by Timothy Root

Created on: October 10, 2010

INTRODUCTION

            In the last 20 or 30 years society has changed. Society has seen new wars emerge between countries, and society has seen the collapse of the American economy, and society has seen record breaking unemployment and layoffs, and people who have lost their pensions to the point that many Americans are facing things that they never thought they would. Things like foreclosure and a record number of Americans are facing depression, “Understanding Gestalt” is the name of this essay and Gestalt therapy is about staying in the present moment.

            The focus of this paper is to help people understand Gestalt therapy better and to introduce readers to its creator Fritz Perls, and the goals of Gestalt therapy, and the weaknesses and strengths and the “I Can Attitude” that Gestalt therapy is designed to teach the individual.

UNDERSTANDING GESTALT

            In order to understand Gestalt therapy, we need to look at its founder Fritz Perls. Fritz Perls was born in 1893 in Berlin into a middle class family, and he saw himself as mostly trouble for his parents. Fritz Perls failed the seventh grade twice, and he was expelled from school because of difficulty with authority. The German school system use to have strict guidelines, at the start of every class they use to lock the classroom doors and if you were late to class you would not be allowed into the class until after their first break. Germany does not have this policy anymore because of a fire in one of the schools that prevented the students from getting out of the classrooms because of the locked doors. 

          Fritz Perls despite his lack for authority managed to receive his medical degree, and in 1916, he joined the German army where he served as a medic during WW1. After the war, he decided to work with brain damaged soldiers in Frankfurt Germany “It was through this association that he came to see the importance of viewing humans as a whole rather than as a sum of discretely functioning parts” (Gerald Corey). Fritz Perls decided to go to Vienna and start his psychoanalytical training but when he came to the United States, he moved away from psychoanalytical traditions, and in 1952, he established the institute for Gestalt therapy

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