Certification, Training & Research in Gestalt Psychology
BY THE ANIL THOMAS FELLOWSHIP
Fritz Perls
“Lose your mind and come to your senses.”
Fritz Perls was a German psychologist who later immigrated to the United States. He was the originator of the term “Gestalt therapy,” meaning a specific type of psychotherapy that he invented in conjunction with Laura, his wife. Perls spent several years living at the Esalen Institute towards the end of his life.
His view of psychotherapy involves an enhanced sense of perception, emotion, physical behavior and feelings. Perls is fairly well-known in the wider community for his “Gestalt prayer,” an individualistic quotation which was particularly popular in the 1960s (Perls 1969). Perls was born into a Jewish family in Berlin on July 8, 1893. Although he received a fairly conventional education and childhood, he spent a considerable amount of time indulging in the city’s booming bohemian life. He made artistic experiments with new movements of the time, especially Dadaism and Expressionism (Goodman 1972). When World War One broke out in 1914, Perls signed up to serve in the German Army. He found it a traumatic experience, especially during the period he served in the trenches at the front line. Nevertheless, he survived the war and obtained his degree to qualify as a doctor.
What I learned from Fritz Perls
“To suffer one’s death and to be reborn is not easy”
Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy both offer great insight into guilt. In Gestalt Therapy Verbatim - a book of collected transcripts- Perls says, "We see guilt as projected resentment. Whenever you feel guilty, find out what you resent and the guilt will vanish and you will try to make the other person feel guilty." The key to resolving resentment, according to Perls, was expressing one's anger.
His first book, Ego, Hunger, and Aggression, explains more of his idea of guilt as projected resentment. Projection, Perls explains that parents, in his system of understanding, often reappear as a patients' conscience. Fritz Perls’s quotes are like luminous strokes of human knowledge, theoretical essences that encourage our awakening. Whether we have an affinity with Gestalt Therapy or not, books such as “Dreams and Existence” or “The Practical Approach to Gestalt Therapy” are part of the history of psychology. Therefore, it’s always interesting to immerse ourselves in them in order to reflect.
Fritz Perls Journey
Perls was impressed by the idea of character analysis that informed much of Reich’s work. in 1930 And he married his wife laura and they had a son and daughter. Perls also set up an institute for the training of psychoanalysts and when World War Two began in 1939 Perls published 'Ego, Hunger, and Aggression', his first book.
He wrote a second book with Paul Goodman, which was published in 1951. This book, Gestalt Therapy, is generally considered to have been his most important work.
Fritz Perls co-founded the first Gestalt Institute in New York City in 1952. It was a small underground group of radical therapists, going against the grain of American psychiatry and society. In the 1960s Perls became infamous for his public workshops at Esalen Institute in Big Sur. When Fritz Perls left New York City for California, there began to be a split between those who saw Gestalt Therapy as a therapeutic approach with great potential and those who saw Gestalt Therapy not just as a therapeutic modality but as a way of life. The East Coast, New York-Cleveland axis was often appalled by the notion of Gestalt Therapy leaving the consulting room and becoming a way-of-life in the West Coast of the 1960s.
“The only difference between a wise man and a fool is that the wise man knows he's playing.”
Collaboration of Perls and Goodman led to the compilation of a basic text for the theory and method of Gestalt Therapy. This significant work gives the basic groundwork for a revolutionary new method of therapy. The idea of gestalt therapy is to cure the problems that are hampering the growth and productivity that is coming in the success and prosperity of an individual’s life. Everyone has a right to live a fulfilled and satisfied life and gestalt therapy is the way of adopting the lifestyle and reforming the lives of individuals to make them ambitious and prosperous in order to get more out of their lives and due to this factor gestalt therapy is also known as a humanistic type of psychotherapy.
Gestalt approach has evolved and become even more firmly established. We’re undoubtedly dealing with an integrative psychological model capable of helping many people who focus on their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in order to thereby stimulate sufficient self-awareness and broaden new perspectives so as to initiate more positive changes.
Principles on Gestalt Concepts
Without further ado, here are some of the learnings I hold close from Fritz, some ideas that continue to shape my practice, my teaching, and my own self-work. These aren’t just quotes or theories. For me, they’re invitations. Reminders. Anchors. Ways to come back to presence.
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1. Everything flows when you find mental well-being.
When we find that point of subtle balance in our existence, when we stop seeing obstacles and start seeing the path, we feel free. Our life begins to flow again. Gestalt, in that way, extends far beyond the therapy room. It becomes a life stance.
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2. To be present now is to unite our attention and our consciousness.
One of the most fundamental Gestalt ideas- “Awareness.” The ability to arrive, fully. To bring attention and consciousness together in the now. That’s where growth begins.
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3. The body knows everything. We know very little. Intuition is the body’s intelligence.
So much of life is disembodied. We think too much. We forget that our body already holds answers. When we trust what we sense, what we feel in the bones, in the breath we begin to return to wisdom.
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4. The therapist is constantly looking for ways to be in contact with the ‘how’ of the events that occur in the present.
Not the story. Not the label. But the “how.” How is this being experienced right now? That’s what we look for. That’s where the work is.
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5. I’m not in this world to live up to others’ expectations, nor do I feel that the world should match mine.
Radical honesty. Radical integrity. Gestalt is not about performing or conforming. It’s about presence, ownership, and clarity of self.
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6. To mature means to take responsibility for your life, to be alone.
Not loneliness, but solitude. Standing with yourself, not running from yourself. Maturity is a beautiful responsibility.
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7. Learning is discovering that something is possible.
And that discovery can happen in the smallest shift, in a breath, in a boundary, in an insight. Possibility is always here.
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8. The person most in control is the person who can give up control.
Repression isn’t control. Real control is awareness. It’s when you know your edges and can choose with clarity not out of fear.
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9. Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you’re a good person is the same as expecting a bull not to attack you because you’re vegetarian.
Brutally honest. But liberating. Responsibility lies within. The world owes us nothing. And that truth can free us.
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10. Friend, don’t be a perfectionist. Perfectionism is a curse.
It disconnects us from life. From people. From ourselves. Gestalt reminds us: be real, not perfect.
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11. It’s very rare for people to be able to talk and listen. Very few listen without speaking.
And that’s the real invitation. To listen. To ourselves. To the other. To what isn’t being said. Deep listening is an act of love.
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12. Anxiety is excitement without breathing.
A classic. So simple, so powerful. Just breathe. Return to breath. Return to now.
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13. Be yourself, express yourself freely and without fear. After all, those who truly love you won’t mind what you say or do.
That’s authenticity. When we stop editing ourselves to fit into others’ expectations, we find those who meet us as we are.
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14. Don’t think so much… Feel.
Thinking creates distance. Feeling creates contact. And Gestalt is all about contact.
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15. We must learn to tolerate the truth, even if it wounds our pride.
Truth doesn’t flatter. But it heals. Pride might sting but awareness awakens.
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16. Nothing has meaning without its context. Meaning doesn’t exist.
Emotion, thought, response -all of it arises in context. That’s why we focus on the present field.
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17. The fact that we live our lives using such a low percentage of our potentialities is because we’re not willing to accept ourselves as we are.
Acceptance is the gateway to growth. Denial keeps us small. Gestalt teaches us to see ourselves fully.
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18. We don’t allow ourselves or we’re not allowed by others — to be entirely ourselves.
Wholeness starts with allowing. Giving yourself permission. Dropping the mask.
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19. If you refuse to recall your dreams, what you’re really doing is denying your own existence.
Our inner life matters. Dreams, desires, intuitions are parts of us trying to speak. Gestalt invites us to listen.
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20. Change is an opportunity.
Always. Not easy but always possible.
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21. Solitude is actually the place where you can connect with the feeling of belonging.
In solitude, we return to ourselves. In doing so, we learn how to truly belong to our lives, to our purpose.
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22. Getting reacquainted with our emotions and learning to embrace them is healing.
Not fixing, not bypassing but being with. That’s healing.
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23. Distractions are also part of our life journey.
Sometimes the detour is the path. Gestalt doesn’t reject experience. It embraces all of it.
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Fritz’s work was a revelation for me. Not just as a therapist, but as a human being. He gave us tools not only to understand others, but to stand with ourselves.
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For Perls, it wasn’t enough to bridge the unconscious and the conscious, what Freud had begun. The task, instead, was to become whole. To find the missing pieces. To fill the gaps in our own being.
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And that’s the journey I continue on, with every session, every circle, every quiet moment of reflection.
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You don’t “arrive” at Gestalt.
You live into it.
BY THE ANIL THOMAS FELLOWSHIP
joelcferns@anilthomas.co | +91 9930748410
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