Customer Reviews

Gestalt therapy verbatim

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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.

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.

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.

Fritz Perls walks you through the process of Gestalt Therapy. The book is filled with numerous different sessions he had with a group of clients. The book provides case examples for how Gestalt Therapy can be implemented in a group setting. However, although the book primarily involves Perls working with groups the approaches can be used in individual practice.

Transcripts of Fritz teaching and working - simple, direct. The exact technique wouldn't work for me, but the underlying principles are brilliant - probably for their simplicity and directness.

the idea of gestalt therapy is very healing and the use of it in interpersonal relationships relieves many people of hang-ups that accompany the usual expectations that causes problems in day-to-day communications.