The so-called "Gestalt prayer" is a 56-word statement by psychotherapistFritz Perls that is generally taken as a classic expression of the kind of individualism that took "do your own thing" as a slogan in the United States in the 1960s. Psychotherapy is a set of techniques intended to improve mental health, emotional or behavioral issues in individuals, who are often called clients. These issues often make it hard for people to manage their lives and achieve their goals. ... Frederick S. (Fritz) Perls (1893 - 1970) was a noted German-born psychologist and psychotherapist. ... Individualism is a moral, political, and social philosophy, which emphasizes individual liberty, belief in the primary importance of the individual, and in the virtues of self-reliance and personal independence. Individualism embraces opposition to authority, and to all manner of controls over the individual, especially when exercised by the political... The 1960s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ...
The key idea of the statement is the endorsement of a focus on living in response to one's own needs; it also expresses an idea about people who respectively can help fulfill another's needs in fulfilling their own: when they "find each other, it's beautiful."
Immediately following that optimistic note, the final six words are "If not, it can't be helped." The statement has very often been published as a poster while omitting this line.
Text of "prayer"
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.
Gestalt is the Zen branch of psychology, which allows clients to become centered in the present moment, freed of the shackles of the past and fears of the future.
She explains, "Not until I met Fritz Perls in 1965 did I learn that he had applied some concepts of gestalt psychology in formulating a practice of gestalt therapy in a way that paralleled my own applications of gestalt psychology theories in the kind of art experience work I was doing.
Gestalt is a specialization, in a category by itself, but most psychologists have studied gestalt methods and have integrated these into their practices.
Gestalt psychologists, on the contrary, have the highest respect for disciplined thinking, one of whose finest achievements is science.
Gestalt psychology has formulated the hypothesis of psychophysical isomorphism, both as a position on the mind-body question and as a heuristic.
Thus, Gestalt psychologists have held that values are not arbitrarily attached to objects or actions, depending on subjective evaluation or on the individual's history of rewards and punishments.
Feeds |
Contact