Gestalt therapy was first formulated in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s primarily by Frederick Perls, M.D., Ph.D., and Lore Perls, Ph.D. The approach grew out of a dis-satisfaction with the “deadening intellectualism” of traditional psychoanalysis, as well as an appreciation of the existentialists’ focus on experience in the present moment. Although trained in traditional psychoanalysis, “Fritz” thought that the exclusive focus on the past, and the avoidance of the immediacy of living in the present, took people in the direction of “living in their heads” rather than living in the world.

Utilizing a framework of the inseparability of the human being from his context (“field theory”), Fritz and Lore, along with several of their students and colleagues, constructed an approach which sought to heighten awareness of living in the present, using inquiry, experimentation, and an interest in how we create our experience both in and out of the therapeutic hour.