GESTALT THERAPIST, NLP EXEMPLAR
Fritz Perls
German-American psychiatrist and founder of Gestalt therapy. His confrontational therapeutic style was one of NLP's original models.
PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTION
Gestalt therapy; the empty chair technique; here-and-now therapeutic focus.
Fritz Perls co-founded Gestalt therapy with his wife Laura Perls and Paul Goodman in the 1940s and 1950s. The Gestalt approach emphasized awareness, the here-and-now, and direct experience over analysis. Perls's therapeutic style was famously confrontational - he believed in pushing through the polite social filters that kept clients from contact with their actual experience.
Bandler and Grinder modeled Perls in the early 1970s, partly through transcripts and partly by attending his workshops at Esalen. Much of NLP's questioning style and its emphasis on present-moment sensory experience trace to Perls. The Gestalt empty-chair technique evolved into NLP's parts integration work.
Key works
- 1942
Ego, Hunger and Aggression
- 1951
Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality
With Goodman and Hefferline
- 1969
Gestalt Therapy Verbatim
- 1973
The Gestalt Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy
Posthumous
LEGACY
Gestalt therapy remains a significant clinical modality. Perls's questioning style and present-focused stance live on in NLP and in modern coaching generally.