60 Phrases of Fritz Perls, creator of Gestalt therapy

60 Phrases of Fritz Perls, creator of Gestalt therapy

Frederick Salomon Perls (1893-1970) He was a renowned German psychotherapist and psychiatrist famous for coining the term Gestalt therapy to identify the form of psychotherapy he developed with his wife, Laura Perls, in the 40s and 50s. With this type of therapy I sought to find the interconnection between the individual being and the environment with which we all interact daily, and today is the main idea behind this type of therapy.

The idea of ​​Gestalt therapy is to cure the problems that hinder the growth and productivity that occur in the success and prosperity of an individual's life. What advocates this type of therapy is that everyone has the right to live a full and satisfactory life, and Gestalt therapy is the way to adopt lifestyle and reform people's lives so that they are ambitious and prosperous. This therapy is recognized as a type of humanistic psychotherapy.

Discover these wonderful phrases from the Gestalt therapy pioneer.

Fritz Perls famous quotes

It is very rare that people can speak and listen. Very few listen without speaking. Most can speak without listening.

We live in a mirrors house and think we are looking at the windows.

If love and hatred live together, then one is confused.

Those who fight do not listen, those who listen do not fight.

Nothing changes until it becomes what it is.

Fear is emotion without breathing.

If one feels persecuted by an ogre and becomes the ogre, the nightmare disappears.

Teaching means showing a person that something is possible.

Our dependence makes us slaves, especially if this dependency is a dependency of our self -esteem. If you need encouragement, praise, pat in everyone's back, then you make everyone your judges.

The person who has the most control is the person who can give up control.


The only difference between a wise man and a fool is that the wise man knows he is acting.

Learning is discovering that something is possible.

Deliberate changes are not. The changes are made alone.

If you are bored, you are not paying attention.

Anxiety is the gap between now and after.

Mature means assuming the responsibility of your life, being alone. Psychoanalysis encourages children's state considering that the past is responsible for the disease.

To expect the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person, it is the same as waiting for a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.

Every time you refuse to answer a question, you help the other person to use their own resources.

Friend, don't be a perfectionist. Perfectionism is a curse and an effort. It is perfect if you let yourself be and you are.

I do my thing and you do yours. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am me, and if by chance we find ourselves, it is beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.

We live in a mirrors house and think we are looking at the windows.

Consciousness itself is curative.

As soon as you get something out of context, it loses its meaning. Loses its value.

When we understand that the demons they possess us are nothing but projections of ourselves, demons disappear alone.

Abandon your mind and focus on your senses.

I only have one objective: to impart a fraction of the meaning of the word now.

I know who you are and say what you feel, because those who bother do not matter and those who matter will not bother.

Our dependence makes us slaves to ourselves, especially if that dependence is on our self -esteem.


You cannot achieve happiness. Happiness happens and is a transitory stage.

A hundred plastic flowers cannot make the desert flourish.

Being in the world with your ups and downs, alone or accompanied, is part of the same thing: existing in the here and now.

Mature means assuming the responsibility of your life, being alone.

Do not push the river, it flows by itself.

Anguish is always the result of moving away from now.

The madman says: "I am Abraham Lincoln," the neurotic: "I wish I was like Abraham Lincoln", and the healthy person: "I am me, and you are you".

A truly whole person has to have a good orientation and also ability to act.

Fear of death means fear of life.

I know how you are.

If one refuses to remember his dreams, one really refuses to face his own existence.

The demands of perfection limit the individual's ability to act within himself.

If you need the stimulus, flattering and palmadites in the world's back, then you are making everyone your judge.

The past is only seen through our eyes kidnapped by the present.

We have become a society that hate pain and suffering. Everything that is not fun or pleasant, must be avoided.

Each one has the responsibility of guiding his life towards what he wants.


Every time you use the words now and how and you realize, then you grow. Every time you ask the question why, you decrease stature. You fuck yourself with false and unnecessary information.

We must become people capable of realizing the obvious.

There are two great lies: "I want" and "I try".

We do not allow ourselves, or is not allowed, to be entirely.

Pride and ego are two foreign bodies living within us.

Trying is lying. I will try to say that you don't have a serious intention to do it. If you really think to do it, say: "I will"; And if not, say: "I will not". You have to talk clear to think clear and work clearly.

All emotions are expressed in the muscle system. Ira cannot be visualized without muscle movement. Joy cannot be visualized, which is more or less identical to dance, without muscle movements. In the penalty there are sob and crying, and in sex there are also.

If one refuses to remember his dreams, he really refuses to face his own existence; to face what is wrong in its existence. One avoids fighting with unpleasant matters.

I can't understand how someone can be afraid and smile at the same time.

Let the plan for you arise within you.

A dream is a fragmentation of our personality.

The need for revenge grows and settled until you turn with it.

Loneliness is actually the place where you can connect with the feeling of belonging to the human.

The idea of ​​starting therapy is changing false people in real people.

Psychoanalysis encourages children's state considering that the past is responsible for the disease.

Getsalt therapy is about turning paper people into real people.

Our life is basically nothing more than a series of unfinished situations, incomplete gestalts.

If you have difficulty communicating with someone, search the resentments. You must find what you are resentful and express it and make your demands explicit.