Fritz Perls advises: the secrets of work

For a transcript (written summary) of these sessions by Fritz Perls, see →

Fritz Perls is a brilliant psychotherapist. Everyone will see the secrets of his work in his own way, we give our own, technological vision.

What does a psychologist actually do is a tricky question. Often it seems to us one thing, while we do something else, others see the third thing in this. What can be done to understand all this better? — Share visions. Here we offer our vision.

So, Perls is sitting on the stage, women with problems come up to him. How can you describe his clients (more precisely, clients), in what condition, status and position are they? As you can see, these women are lethargic, in suffering and in a regime of complaints, the position of the Victim is natural for them, the position of the Author is not typical. What is the nature of their problems? It is difficult to call them deep, hard-won, and all the more deliberate. Rather, the problems come across as random, empty, suggesting that many may have come up with them on the fly just to get on stage.

Interestingly, when complaining about the problem, women do not indicate their goals — what they actually want, for which they went up on stage. Even more interesting, and perhaps most significant, is that Perls doesn’t ask them about it.

Why? Doesn’t it matter to him? Does he know for them what they need? They still won’t formulate it, and he has to decide it for them?

We dare to suggest that clarifying the client’s request, setting goals in the process of psychotherapy, in principle, for Perls (and, it seems, for Gestalt therapy in general) is not a mandatory thing. The client’s request is from the head, and in Perls’ ideology, addressing the head is not a good move. “To give the answer that the client wants, her body should, not her head. We must ask the body, not the head. — in our opinion, this is the internal setting of F. Perls.

On the other side. From the outside it seems to us that there is no big mystery in the requests of women. They are lethargic, they suffer, they naturally would like more energy, vigor and life. If the therapist can bring them out of the negative congestion into themselves and revive them, they will be pleased and grateful.

Now the question is — how? How to achieve this?

The easiest option is to arrange something for them where they can move around and dance: the desired result is likely to be. The profession of an animator is in demand, women love it and it helps women.

Why doesn’t Perls do it? One can only guess. In any case, to go this way is to kill the sacrament of psychotherapy and reduce the status of a psychotherapist from a magician to an animator.

Perhaps Perls was afraid of possible resistance: if a woman is determined to suffer, she may not like cheerful animation, and in this regard, he gives an aikido-style solution — we will do what our women want, but a little differently, in a more cheerful and lively style.

Perls refers to the basic technique of gestalt — over and over again, returns their experiences to the state of «here and now». What is the meaning of this, why does it have a positive impact?

In itself, “here and now” is not always joy and good. During medical procedures, when it hurts and is very painful, the patient, together with the doctor, is looking for an opportunity to leave the patient “here and now”, either into pleasant memories, or into dreams — into anything that can distract from the “here and now pain” .

But obviously, in this situation, “here and now” is better than “there and then” of our suffering women, and Perls is trying to get them to unload from the negative experiences (from the negative Fairy Tale) into reality.

Perls asks them about their feelings, but from unexpected angles — “Tell it to the camera”, “Be a camera” — this distracts from the negative experiences, distracts them to a neutral reality and unloads them from inner experiences. This is the first technique — attention control, switching attention, distracting attention, switching from Fairy Tale to Reality. Negative experiences are reduced.

The second thing that Perls organizes imperceptibly and naturally is animation: the revival and strengthening of the internal activity of women.

Perls is active himself, turns women on with his own activity. On the one hand, he gives women patterns of behavior and infects them with his own activity, on the other hand, he energetically commands: “Sit down!” «Say something strong!» «Increase the sound — inhale-exhale» «Scream, express your pain!» «Scream!» As a result, women are involved in motor activity, they begin energetic actions and increased breathing. Perls provokes active actions of women, here and in other consultations he sometimes says directly: “I don’t believe!”, He demands energy “More! One more time!” teases. Women start up and become more vigorous and alive.

Interspersed with this is the relaxation of chatter.

Women love to talk, it makes them feel better, and Perls gives them this opportunity, but without immersing themselves in negativity. He invites women to talk about their feelings, turning their internal chatter into external chatter. From this they, too — yes, it is easier.

In total, the overall result is that women become livelier and prettier.

In parallel, there are suggestions and theoretical loading, the suggestion of the necessary psychotherapeutic attitudes. Perls is not really fond of interpretations, more precisely, he makes them a little and often checks to what extent his guesses are confirmed by clients. He does not impose his vision.

Nevertheless, there are operational suggestions: “Sleep is a message to you. Your mother is your legs. You don’t need mom. You need to get rid of her … Your female part is deprived, it is suppressed by your male part.

What contributes to the effectiveness of suggestions? The effectiveness of suggestions is facilitated by the same demand, beloved by Fritz Perls, to be «here and now.» In addition to the fact that the appeal to the “here and now” unloads women from the negative, it also plunges women into a confusing trance, against which any suggestions to women pass easily and naturally. Any attention to one’s inner feelings plunges a person into self-hypnosis — this discovery of Klaus Schulz is known to any specialist psychologist. On the other hand, the requirement to be here and now, like any new and difficult business, where the client easily makes mistakes and is subjected to shouts “You are not here and now! Come back!» gives rise to confusion, against the background of which suggestions are also perceived more easily.

“Any psychotherapy is always hypnosis” — although this statement somewhat exaggerates the role of suggestions, it also emphasizes the enormous role of suggestions in this kind of psychotherapeutic work.

As for psychotherapeutic attitudes, Perls actively broadcasts them in a natural way for himself: he talks about assimilation, projection, mini-satori and awakening, about the importance of contact with one’s inner parts.

What can be fixed as the real result of the Fritz Perls session? The results can be assessed as worthy: even if the women did not learn anything, even if nothing serious happened inside them and their personal base did not change, but in a short time the women really felt better, the women cheered up, they felt good. Operative psychotherapy is not much, but sometimes it is very necessary, and Perls makes it fast and fun.

Note that in doing so, Perls did something extra. Having made an attractive show, in the mode of Ericksonian hypnosis, he advanced his theoretical views and attitudes. For example, that dreams and emotions are very important and serious, that they need to be talked about a lot and in the same spirit as Perls showed. It seems that in such matters every psychologist has the right to his own position.

More questions are raised by what F. Perls asserts during the course of the consultation. The fact that it is normal and natural to be in the position of the Victim, that we are not responsible for our emotions, that they come from somewhere inside us and they only need to be weathered: “ventilated”, as Perls will formulate it later. And most importantly — that all the answers you need to look only in yourself, in your body, your feelings and sensations, more and more plunging into the world of subjectivity. It seems to us that a healthy interest in objectivity, in reason, in self-direction and in an active position in life is another vector that can harmoniously balance the approach proposed by Fritz Perls.