Involvement was not, however, always so harsh. I recall another professional group that I attended in New York in the spring of 1969. Asya Kadis, an elderly psychologist, was working with Fritz. Her mood was depressed, her foot in a cast, and she resented not being able to get up and around. She was not accepting her great age and infirmity. Her “should” system was operating full-force, and her hurt and futility resulted from her not fulfilling her expectations.
“I can’t get it up,” she said, referring to her broken leg.
“I know just how you feel,” said Fritz, one septuagenarian to another, his arm reaching out tenderly to make contact. “That’s the price of old age. Lately, when I find myself in bed with a willing woman, I feel the same thing. I can’t get it up, either.”
It was enough to lighten her mood for the moment.
Often, the emotionality came from Fritz’s no-nonsense approach and his great candor. Lloyd Aleksandr, who runs a center in Syria, Virginia, tells of attending The Association for Humanistic Psychology’s annual convention in Washington, D.C., in 1969. Fritz was giving a demonstration of Gestalt Therapy before, perhaps, some 5,000 people. A woman walked on stage, sat in the hot seat, and was engaged, rather informally and kindly, by Fritz.
He asked her name, where she was from, and her age. She disregarded the last question.
“Oh, so you’re going to play that game, eh?” he retorted.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. Will you repeat what you asked?”
“You repeat it,” Fritz said.
“I didn’t hear you,” she answered.
“Either stop playing games with me or get off the stage,” he retorted angrily.
The woman broke into tears. She protested her innocence and talked about illnesses she had suffered as a child, hearing problems that she had, and operations on her ears. People in the audience were aghast at the apparent cruelty and insensitivity of the fabled Fritz.
“I have heard nothing but lies for the last several minutes. Now either repeat what I asked of you or get out of here,” he added, glaring at her all the while. “I don’t work with liars.”
The sobs stopped, there was a pause, and the woman, in a soft voice, repeated word for word Fritz’s original question.
As with the coy lady, the following work with Beverly packs emotional wallop through Fritz’s simply giving feedback—reflecting the person back to herself and telling her things that her psychoanalyst wouldn’t. Here it is done with playful humor. Again, one can see how he works with the awareness continuum, trying to make Beverly aware not only of the role she plays in the moment but aware of those about her and of her own inner experiences:
Beverly: I guess I’m supposed to say something. I don’t have any interesting dreams. Mine are sort of patent.
Fritz: Are you aware that you’re defensive? I didn’t ask you in only to bring dreams.
B: You asked for them last night and I was afraid that would disqualify me. If I could manufacture a few.
F: Now you have a very interesting posture. The left leg supports the right leg, the right leg supports the right hand, the right hand supports the left hand.
B: Yeah. It gives me something to hang onto. And with a lot of people out there you kind of get some stage fright. There are so many of them.
F: You have stage fright and there are people outside. In other words, you’re on stage.
B: Yeah, I suppose I feel that way.
F: Well, what about getting in touch with your audience . . .
B: Well, they look very good. They have wonderful faces.
F: Tell this to them.
B: You have very warm faces, very interested, very interesting with—with a lot of warmth.
F: So then shuttle back to your stage fright. What do you experience now?
B: I don’t have any more stage fright. But my husband doesn’t look at me.
F: So go back to your husband.
B: You’re the only one that looks self-conscious. Nobody else looks self-conscious at me. (Laughter) You sort of feel like you’re up here, don’t you? Or sort of like your youngster’s up here? . . . No?
X (from audience, yells): Answer!
Husband: She’s the one who’s up there and she’s trying to place me up there.
F (to husband): Yah. You’ve got to answer. (To Beverly.) You have to know what I feel.
B: Well, he doesn’t usually answer. Did you want him out of character? (Much laughter.)
F: So, you are a clobberer.
B: You need an ashtray.
F: “I need an ashtray.” (Fritz holds up his ashtray.) She knows what I need (Laughter.)
B: Oh, no—you have one. (Laughter.)
F: Now I get stage flight. (Laughter.) I always have difficulties in dealing with “Jewish mothers.” (Laughter.)
B: Don’t you like “Jewish mothers”?
F: Oh, I love them. Especially their matzo-ball soup. (Laughter.)
B: I’m not a gastronomical Jewish mother, just a Jewish mother. (Chuckles.) I don’t like gefilte fish either. I guess I’m a pretty obvious Jewish mother. Well, that’s not bad to be. That’s all right. Matter of fact, that’s good to be.
F: What are your hands doing?
B: Well, my thumbnails are pulling at each other.
F: What are they doing to each other?
B: Just playing. I do this often. See, I don’t smoke, so what else are you gonna do with your hands. It doesn’t look good to suck your thumbs.
F: That’s also the Jewish mother. She has reasons for everything. (Laughter.)
B (jokingly): And if I don’t have one I’ll make one up. (Chuckles.) The ordered universe. What’s wrong with being a Jewish mother?
F: Did I say there’s something wrong with a Jewish mother? I only say I have difficulties in dealing with them.
There is a famous story of a man who was such an excellent swordsman that he could hit even a raindrop, and when it was raining he used his sword instead of an umbrella. (Laughter.) Now, there are also intellectual and behaviouristic swordsmen, who in answer to every question, statement, or whatever, hit it back. So whatever you do, immediately you are castrated or knocked out with some kind of reply—playing stupid or poor me or whatever the games are. She’s perfect.
B: I never realized that.
F: You see? Again the sword. Playing stupid. I want once more to restate what I said earlier. Maturation is the transcendence from environmental support to self-support. The neurotic, instead of mobilizing his own resources, puts all his energy into manipulating the environment for support. And what you do is again and again manipulate me, you manipulate your husband, you manipulate everybody to come to the rescue of the damsel in distress.
B: How did I manipulate you?
F: You see, again. This question, for instance. This is very important for maturation—change your questions to statements. Every question is a hook, and I would say that the majority of your questions are inventions to torture yourself and torture others. But if you change the question to a statement, you open up a lot of your background. This is one of the best means to develop a good intelligence. So, change your question to a statement.
B: Well, th—that implies that, ah, there’s a fault to me. Didn’t you intend it so? . . .
F: Put Fritz in that chair and ask him that question.
B: Don’t you like Jewish mothers? Did you have one that you didn’t like?
F: Well, I like them. They’re just a very difficult lot to deal with.
B: Well, what makes them so difficult?
F: Well, they’re very dogmatic, and very opinionated and inflexible, and the box that they construct for themselves to grow in is a little narrower than many. They’re less easy to therapize.
B: Does everybody have to be subject to your therapy?
F
: No. (Laughter.)
B (to Fritz): Did you ever switch chairs like this with yourself?
F (laughing): Oh yes—Oh! Even I get sucked in! (Laughter.)
B: You said you had problems with Jewish mothers. (Laughter.)
Husband: Do you understand now why I didn’t answer? (Laughter and applause.)
F: That’s right, because you see how a Jewish mother doesn’t say, “You shouldn’t smoke so much.” She says, “You need an ashtray.” (Laughter.) Okeh. Thank you.
Fritz would not pander to weakness. One recurrent theme of his was that “a question is the hook of a demand.” Refusing to answer most questions, he insisted, instead, that they be rephrased as the statements that they usually were. In the process, the rephraser retook his power and began to appreciate his question as a disguised and inauthentic way of making a comment.
Fritz saw his role as a skillful frustrator, helping the patient to find his own support instead of looking toward and manipulating the environment for support, or, as he more colloquially put it, “to wipe his own ass.” It was through his gruffness and unhelpfulness that many of those who worked with him came to realize their own self-sufficiency.
“He was a wisely cruel man at times,” recalled Alan Watts, philosopher, Orientalist, and fellow Esalen guru. “I remember one evening when there was a woman from the neighborhood who was in extreme distress because of her son’s troubles. She was very drunk. I was sitting with her and talking to her and I turned to Fritz and explained the situation. He looked at her with almost complete contempt and turned away.
“But he was wisely, in this sense, harsh at times. Because he had no false compassion. He wouldn’t be put upon. He understood the principle that false compassion is bad for the people to whom you give it. It does them no service. It simply increases their dependency and doesn’t set them free. And so, for that reason, many people considered him a harsh man.”
Arthur Ceppos, his publisher and friend, who saw Fritz evolve from analyst to legend, saw his clinical skills in this way: “I think that Fritz’s greatest contribution was his horror at how ridiculous man permits himself to become, and by becoming aware of how ridiculous he is, he can emerge into an identity that is no longer ridiculous, but is relatively free. This is the whole secret behind Fritz’s hot seat. He would show people how they made fools of themselves.”
And what about his contempt for needy people who would take the hot seat wanting to do no more than suck his teat? “Well,” continued Ceppos, “this is connected with the dignity thing. He felt that a human being should be dignified and that they shouldn’t try to suckle somebody else’s tit that way. Oh, a woman’s tit? That’s a different thing. This is for his own pleasure.”
Fritz’s work was constantly marked by his simultaneous attempt to illuminate and destroy people’s characters, so as to open them up and enable them to react to life, to go with life’s flow instead of being locked in to stereotyped one-note roles—be they moralists, optimists, crybabies, nice guys, or grouches. Just as consistent was his unwillingness to endure pretense. Some people would take his hot seat to work on real problems. Others seemed to invent problems just to get close to him. With this second group, he invariably reacted harshly, giving them just enough rope so as to expose both the phoniness of their complaints and the degree of their dependency—their desire to suckle some magic nourishment from him.
The only authentic non-problem-oriented occupation of the hot seat I know of occurred a few weeks before Fritz died. He was giving a four-day workshop for The Associates for Human Resources, a growth center in Concord, Massachusetts. It was the last complete program he was to conduct.
On the third morning, Lee Geltman, a bright young psychologist who looked and talked like a young Ted Kennedy, walked up to the hot seat and sat down. He looked at Fritz; Fritz looked at him. Fritz nodded; Lee nodded. Both men turned to face their audience. As the silence continued, there were periodic demands from people in the group that Lee should say something or return to his seat. He did nothing of the kind. He didn’t even answer.
Finally, one, then two members of the group, expressing the frustrations of many who desired to see a more dramatic and engaging show, stood up and threatened to drag Lee from the seat. I arose, positioned myself in front of Lee, and told them that they’d have to get rid of me before they removed him. I understood how Lee felt. I had watched Fritz work on several occasions by then, wanted to experience his hot seat, yet never had because I knew I had no dilemmas to work with. And here was Lee, expressing that same sentiment, in a direct, responsible, dignified, and honest way.
Fritz was amused and accepting of the entire situation.
Certain repetitive criticisms of Fritz as a clinician bear examining, for they describe, with some accuracy, I believe, both the man and his style, that “he simply was indulgent, giving in to what was convenient,” that “he had no patience for the daily, ongoing work of psychotherapy and so evolved the workshop technique, where he could be on stage all the time, help you get to the core of your difficulty very fast, but left you hanging as to what you were going to do about it,” that “he used the brief workshop as a way of maintaining his own uninvolvement,” and that “he was competitive with other men, was a lot easier, therapeutically, on needy women than he was on needy men—particularly if the woman was young and attractive.”
And yet, all these criticisms contain aspects that are positive, for Fritz set a standard that others might well adopt. His “indulgence” can be seen as a shameless commitment to do that which pleased him, not others. His impatience with “the long arduous task of psychotherapy” might be related to his teaching people that they actually have their own answers. That’s what his “take-home-a-Fritz-doll-to-advise-you” idea was about.
The most telling critique of Fritz’s work came from Will Schutz.
“I don’t like all those labels he used: ‘You are a Tragedy Queen. . . .You are a Bear Trapper.’ It’s like calling a kid clumsy. You give people labels, which then pin them. It’s a lot like diagnosis in psychotherapy. ‘You are a Paranoid Schizophrenic.’ It dehumanizes and puts you into a category. It also makes it seem that you are like all the others in that category.”
Fritz did have a way with phrasemaking. Without doubt, this descriptive name-calling can make it harder to change, for if you are that way, you’ll never overcome it unless you can learn to accept it, unless you can laugh at it. If you have a horrible label applied to certain ways of relating, you can’t accept where you are at and then go on to other things. Instead, you go underground and figure out another way to hide your attitude.
The polar and often conflicting elements in Fritz’s life and work have left their mark upon the psychology that he promulgated. Gestalt Therapy thus contains its own contradictions. Some of these are inherent in any therapeutic school, while others create a richness and despair unique to Gestalt Therapy. The major Gestalt paradox centers on its insistence that you tune into your own inner truth and follow it wherever it leads you. It is the same message that Emerson proclaimed, and, in contradistinction to other thinking within our society, it reflects a polarity similar to that which existed between Taoism and Confucianism in ancient China.
Those in accord with Lao Tse assumed that nature knew best and that people, freed from rules and conventions, would more naturally achieve a harmonious integration with the world and with each other. Confucius and his followers presumed the opposite: that a body of laws, rules, and social etiquette were necessary to govern men’s interactions and produce a better society.
Where the ambiguity arises is that Gestalt, for all its Taoist and Emersonian allegiance, contains within it its own set of “shoulds,” its own unwritten but ever-present prescriptions.
Some detractors, who considered Fritz Perls to be a man with few or no values, have misjudged him. He valued highly such notions as “follow your impulses, not your thoughts,” �
�favor your Underdog, not your Topdog.” And he had his own set of shoulds. People should be free and impulsive like him, they shouldn’t be uptight or defensive, and they should be willing to go into and explore whatever their craziness consists of. Another contradiction in the Gestalt movement involves the issue of accredited versus nonaccredited therapists, the credentialed opposed to the lay therapists. This issue arose directly from the split within Fritz himself regarding respectability and bohemianism.
Fritz aspired first to be a professor at Yale, later at Columbia, and finally at Georgia State University. He wound up teaching, instead, at unaccredited human-potential centers, such as Esalen, Chicago’s Oasis, and The Associates for Human Resources in Concord, Massachusetts.
The larger professional recognition Fritz always sought eluded him until the very end of his life. Along the way, he made do with what was available, picking up uncredentialed converts in droves. The result has caused both an unevenness and excitement in the Gestalt school. Many free spirits who may have spent a weekend with Fritz or read his books have, with impunity, billed themselves as Gestalt therapists. On the other hand, Gestalt has allowed any number of terribly creative and innovative people to become excellent practicing therapists in spite of not having had more-formal training. California’s Harry Sloan, a former dentist, and New York’s Ilana Rubenfeld, a former conductor, are, like Chicago’s Diane Berghoff Reifler, among the most capable Gestalt therapists I have witnessed. Each follows the Gestalt essentials of working with projections and the awareness continuum and of fostering emotional experiences. Yet, each works in his or her inimitable style.
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