The creator of Gestalt therapy is Fritz Perls, a former psychoanalyst who later expanded his views.
A talented and courageous researcher, Perls did not achieve much success as a psychoanalyst and spent many years looking for his own approach. Many years of his search (sometimes throwing) did not lead to success, in many ways he was hindered by his too creative, or rather, psychopathic temperament. Only in the last years of his life, in a party on Esalen, a group of enthusiasts helped him to promote the brand of his approach, using, among other things, the approach of Gestalt psychologists, well-known and attractive among psychologists.
From Gestalt psychology, Perls was close to the ideas of Wertheimer, Köhler and Lewin. Perls noted: «Most important to me was the idea of an unfinished situation, an incomplete gestalt.» The problem of the relationship between figure and ground, developed by the Gestaltists in the field of cognitive processes, was transferred by Perls to the field of perception of the world as a whole.
It should be noted that the authorities of Gestalt psychology disapproved of Perls’ innovations.
From Kurt Goldstein, Perls took the ideas of a holistic approach, according to which Gestalt therapy considers and analyzes the relationship «organism-environment», «man and his environment» — as a single system. It is worth noting that the holistic approach is more of a humanitarian than a natural science approach, and thus Perls built Gestalt therapy as a humanitarian psychotherapy — understandable to people, but far from science, at least from scientific clinical psychotherapy. At the very least, the concept of “field” popular in Gestalt has no observable features and cannot be the subject of scientific experiments.
The development of Gestalt therapy was also influenced by the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, who attached great importance to human bodily reactions. W. Reich, in particular, took the idea that the individual has a «protective shell», thanks to which resistance becomes a common function of the organism.
Gestalt uses some of the methods and ideas of Jacob Moreno, the founder of psychodrama, in particular the technique of working with the «hot chair».
In addition, in Gestalt therapy, the influence of some Eastern philosophies is noted.