Fritz Perls and Gestalt

Friedrich Salomon Perls was born on July 8, 1893 in Berlin. Better known as the Fritz Perls, neuro physician and psychoanalyst, was the creator, along with his wife, Laura Perls, the Gestalt therapy.

After fleeing Nazi Germany and settled in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Perls develop a form of therapy later, with his move to the U.S., establish and Gestalt therapy. In 1952 opened the first Gestalt Institute in New York apartment.

By late 1950 and early 1960's, Fritz Perls moved to California to teach Gestalt Therapy as a way of life rather than as a model of therapy, leaving the New York Institute under the direction of Laura Perls. In 1964 proceeds to associate the Esalen Institute in California.

Gestalt Therapy rather than a theory with an effective therapeutic approach and a philosophy of life that raw consciousness (awareness, awareness), self-responsibility of the ongoing processes and belief in the intrinsic wisdom of the body (the whole person we are) to self-regulate properly with a changing environment.

Spontaneity puts the control, the experience, the avoidance of the uncomfortable and painful feeling, to rationalize; overall understanding of the processes, the apparent dichotomy of opposites ... and requires the therapist's self-use as a tool (emotional, physical, intellectual) to convey a certain attitude to life rather than practicing a technique useful only against neurosis.
There are three assumptions that underlie the Gestalt therapy as their applications in the field of Clinical Psychology.

• The realization: only when the individual becomes aware of what it does and how it does it will change their behavior.
• Homeostasis: the process by which the organism interacts with the environment to maintain balance.
• Contact: it is essential for growth and human development.

Gestalt and dreams

Dreams have a special place in Gestalt therapy by the immediacy with which they can be lived and experienced by the dreamer. The technique is used to working with dreams and come to realize its significance to the dreamer, is to first ask the dreamer to relate the dream in first person present tense, ie they relate as if passing at this very moment. Through this simple mechanism, the person most intimately pervades his dream if he speaks simply. Then trying to locate sleep in space, dividing the different parts making up as if it were performed on a stage. Thus, the dream becomes a new and living experience that makes the person acquires a greater commitment to what is happening in your sleep.

This is the person becomes aware of those parts of yourself that are designed either for people, objects or concepts. Alienation occurs when the person denies the existence in it of parts belonging to it. "That's not me" we say when some aspects of us do not like. This impoverishes the individual and his exchanges with the world become smaller and misshapen. But dreams are not mere projections, but also can be seen through it, the type of contact that is setting the patient with others, activation of their anxieties and fears and all the features you can take in each individual contact and every time.

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