Gestalt therapy verbatim [Hardcover]

Frederick S Perls (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1969

Compiled and edited from transcriptions of three workshop/demonstrations that took place at the Esalen Institute in 1968, the first section of this book includes four lectures wherein Perls presents a clear explanation in simple terms of the basic ideas he believed underlie the philosophy and methodology of Gestalt therapy. The lectures are followed by verbatim transcripts of work Perls did with workshop participants. This Gestalt Journal Press edition includes an introduction by Michael Vincent Miller that explores the political and cultural milieu when Gestalt therapy leapt to the "theatrical forefront" of the human potential movement.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 279 pages
• Publisher: Real People Press (1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0911226028
• ISBN-13: 978-0911226027
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,243,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Action!, May 28, 2000

By 

Lee Sutherland (Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (Paperback)

I've read many books by the great psychological theorists like Jung, Adler, Horney etc., but none of them cut to the heart of becoming like Fritz does. Even the other third wave analysts like Rogers and Maslow still take a more abstract approach: they suggest ideas on how to function optimally in interpesonal relationships, but don't dig very deep into the application, or the how. This book uses practices that have parallels in Zen buddhism and other sorts of experience-oriented disciplines, but doesn't praise any particular system or thinker. The presentation of the material is very simple and informal--taken from live lectures. Thus, nothing is academically obscure. Rather, its as though one is listening to a very integrated human being who is beyond the need to aggrandize himself through helping others. This is a very good book for people that wish to open themselves up to the full experience of living.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Showing What Gestalt Therapy is through Action, February 17, 2008

By 

William Bagley (Ashland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (Mass Market Paperback)

Fritz Perls was very masterful at working with people. The book contains transcripts of how he interacted with others in a therapeutic context. He was able to effect changes very rapidly. The book has the theory, too, but it would not have made as much sense without the transcripts. I felt I got what Gestalt was about from this book. I have since prefered the Focusing approach, even as an explanation of how Fritz Perls worked, but this book inspired me and gave me the courage to confront my own challenges and then work with others. The key is that our organism is trying to meet a challenge and find closure, to integrate a gestalt, come to a kind of wholeness. We block ourselves from this, partly by not giving ourselves permission to feel our anger.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly Insightful Probings into the Human Psyche, February 14, 2009

By 

Henry H. Knapp "henry.knapp" (Rural California) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (Mass Market Paperback)

Fritz was a genius, and this book proves it. The therapeutic method he developed helped his clients get beneath the surface features of their difficulties and see and deal with the existential issues that underlay them. The transcripts the book contains reveal the dramatic results that his masterly application of the method could produce.