Recently I wrote about Carl Rogers. While putting together that blog post, I rediscovered the "Gloria" tapes that every psychotherapist-in-training has likely had some exposure. The tapes were therapy demonstrations filmed in 1965. "Gloria," a young recently divorced women, volunteered to meet with Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, and Albert Ellis.
I haven't watched this tapes in years--the last time was perhaps sometime in the late 1990s. They are fun for me to watch. It is also interesting to see a lot of myself--both my history and my current practice--embedded within the words of these three men.
Let's start off with Fritz Perls. Along with his wife Lara, he founded the school of Gestalt psychotherapy. It's not a theory I think a lot about anymore--that's probably because the theory itself sits deep in my bones and works behind everything I have learned. In the early 90s I started hanging out at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, took several workshops, worked individually with a gestalt therapist for several years, and later participated in a gestalt therapy group for several additional years.
I'm indebted to this early teachers--Jody Telfair, Barbara Fields, Karen Fleming, Mary Ward, and Jackie Lowe Stevenson. There have been many teachers since then but none so central as these.
On to the show. Here is part one of the the full Gloria tape with Fritz Perls.
A friendly sort, eh? Before judgement sets it, put Perls in his time. This was 1965. It was a time of great social change and liberatory movements. Confrontation was in, as was, apparently, smoking.
