Laura Perls; Helped Develop Gestalt Therapy

Laura Perls, 84, widow of and a collaborator with her husband, Fritz, in the founding of the Gestalt school of psychotherapy. In the 1940s and ‘50s, the Perlses and others developed a blend of therapy that borrowed from Sigmund Freud, psychodrama and a German theory called gestalt in which the turmoils of childhood were subordinated to the treatment of current emotional conflicts. Today, Gestalt therapy has come to be a preferred approach by many analysts and other mental health workers. She trained as a psychoanalyst in Germany and practiced in New York after her husband’s death in 1970 but moved to her birthplace in Pforzheim, West Germany, earlier this year to be near her daughter. She died there on July 13 of a thyroid condition.