Fritz Perls was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1893. He grew up in the bohemian scene in Berlin, participated in
Expressionism and
Dadaism, and experienced the turning of the artistic avant-garde toward the revolutionary left. Deployment to the front line, the trauma of war, antisemitism, intimidation, escape, and the Holocaust are further key sources of biographical influence. He was expected to practice law, following his distinguished uncle Herman Staub, but instead he studied medicine. Perls joined the German Army during World War I and spent time in the trenches. After the war in 1918 he returned to his medical studies graduating two years later, specializing in neuropsychiatry as a medical doctor, and then became an assistant to
Kurt Goldstein, who worked with brain injured soldiers. Perls gravitated toward psychoanalysis. In 1927, Perls became a member of
Wilhelm Reich's technical seminars in Vienna. Reich's concept of character analysis influenced Perls to a large extent. And in 1930 Reich became Perls' supervising senior analyst in Berlin. In 1930, Perls married
Laura Perls (born Lore Posner) and they had two children together, Renate and Stephen. In 1933, soon after the Hitler regime came to power, being of Jewish descent and because of their anti-fascist political activities in the time before, Fritz and Laura Perls left South Africa in 1946 and ended up in New York City, where Fritz Perls worked briefly with
Karen Horney, and
Wilhelm Reich. After living through a peripatetic episode, during which he lived in Montreal and served as a cruise ship psychiatrist, Perls finally settled in Manhattan. Perls wrote his second book with the assistance of New York intellectual and author,
Paul Goodman, who drafted the theoretical second part of the book based upon Perls' hand-written notes. Perls and Goodman were influenced by the work of
Kurt Lewin and
Otto Rank. Along with the experiential first part, written with
Ralph Hefferline, the book was entitled
Gestalt Therapy and published in 1951. Thereafter, Fritz and Laura Perls started the first Gestalt Institute in their Manhattan apartment. Fritz Perls began traveling throughout the United States in order to conduct Gestalt workshops and training. In 1960 Fritz Perls left Laura Perls behind in Manhattan and moved to Los Angeles, where he practiced in conjunction with
Jim Simkin. He started to offer workshops at
Esalen Institute in
Big Sur, California, in 1963. Perls became interested in
Zen during this period, and incorporated the idea of
mini-satori (a brief awakening) into his practice. He also traveled to Japan, where he stayed in a Zen monastery. Eventually, he settled at Esalen, and even built a house on the grounds. One of his students at Esalen was
Dick Price, who developed
Gestalt Practice, based in large part upon what he learned from Perls. At Esalen, Perls collaborated with
Ida Rolf, founder of
Rolfing, to address the relationship between the mind and the body. Perls has been widely cited outside the realm of
psychotherapy for a quotation often described as the "
Gestalt prayer": {{Blockquote|I do my thing and you do your thing. 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 I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped. In 1969 Perls left Esalen and started a Gestalt community at
Lake Cowichan on
Vancouver Island, Canada. There, he hosted eight educational films on his gestalt therapy, which were directed by Stanley Fox for Aquarian Productions, a film production company started by Perls associate Norman Hirt. Fritz Perls died of heart failure in Chicago, on March 14, 1970, after heart surgery at the Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital. ==Lifestyle==