Fritz Perls in Berlin 1893 - 1933 () von Bernd Bocian

Deutsche Vereinigung für Gestalttherapie: Greeting 11European Association for Gestalt Therapy: Greeting 13Preface to the English edition 15Preface and Acknowledgements (from the fi rst German edition) 17TOPICALITY AND THE WORK OF REMEMBERING 21I. BIOGRAPHICAL COMPONENTS 291. Formative Life Contexts. War Expressionism Psychoanalysis 292. The Jewish Context and the Educational Ideal of Classical Humanism 322.1 Jews in the German Empire. Between Antisemitism and German-Jewish Cultural Chauvinism 332.2 Bourgeois Humanism Turns into Nationalism 372.3 The Humanistic Educational Ideal. Individuality and Holistic Personality Development 412.3.1 Friedrich Schiller. The 'Middle Mode' and 'Living Gestalt' 423. Early Infl uences 433.1 A Family from the Eastern Reaches of the German Empire 433.2 The Perls Family. 'Creeping up the Middle-Class Ladder' 463.3 Childhood. Father Confl ict and Rebellion 483.3.1 'The Emperor has no Clothes.' 523.4 Experiences in School. The Subservient Mentality and Unsuccessful Triangulation 533.4.1 The Winners in Modernization. Concerning the Level of Jewish Education 533.4.2 Cruel Teachers and an Absent Father 573.5 Perlss Father. An Irregular Free Mason 613.5.1 'The Order of Humanists' and the Peculiarity of Life in Nathan Perlss Lodges 623.5.2 Grand Master Nathan Perls. Revisionist and Nonconformist 653.6 Experiences in the Theater. The Search for Emotional Truth 663.6.1 A Mother Who Loved Art 673.6.2 Max Reinhardt 673.6.3 Perls the Actor. Revealing False Poses 703.7 Sexuality. Freud and Kohut 733.7.1 Sexual Need and Hunger for Life 733.7.2 Perlss 'Sexual Problem' and Self Psychology 753.8 Medical Studies 784. War, Trauma, and Revolution 804.1 War and the Cultural Avant-Garde 824.2 Working for the Red Cross and the Initial Shock of War 854.3 The Front Line, Gas Warfare, Death. Field Theory as an Experience 874.4 The 'Jewish Census' and the German-Jewish Patriots 914.5 Bohemian Berlin. Injury and Opposition 944.6 The Trauma of War 964.7 Revolution and Murder Continue 1004.7.1 The Civil War of 1918/1919 in Berlin 1024.7.2 Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are Murdered. The Bohemian Scene Radicalizes Itself 1044.8 Perls in 'Peaceful Freiburg' and the Counter-Revolution in Munich 1064.9 Gustav Landauers Liberal Socialism 1095. The Artistic Avant-Garde in Berlin and the Expressionist Weltanschauung 1125.1 Perls in the Bohemian Circle Surrounding Salomo Friedlaender/Mynona 1155.2 Ego Dissociation and the Renewal of Humanity 1185.3 Hannah Höch. The Simultaneity of Perception. Constructivism 1215.4 A Precious Figure against a Nihilistic Ground 1225.5 Friedlaender/Mynonas Approach. Nietzsche, Polarism, the Middle Point 1235.6 The Dadaistic Revolt and the Gestalt Dada 1285.6.1 Fritz Perls 'Gestalt Dada' 1315.7 Raoul Hausmann. Philosopher of Dada' and Polarity Theoretician 1345.8 Otto Gross. Anarchism and Psychoanalysis 1365.8.1 Gross and Hausmann. Revolting against Ones Own Conventions 1385.8.2 Cultural-Revolutionary Psychoanalysis. Ones Own Authority as Opposed to the Authority of the Other 1405.8.3 The Need for Contact. Loneliness or Submission 1426. The Years of the Weimar Republic 1456.1 The Early Crisis Years. Anti-Semitism and Infl ation 1456.2 The 'Golden Twenties.' Americanism and the Coldness Metaphor 1486.3 Psychoanalysis. Initial Contacts 1536.3.1 Sigmund Freud as the Saviour 1536.3.2 Karen Horney. Human Involvement and Hopes of Growth 1576.4 Frankfurt. The Gestalt Concept or, Thinking in Terms of Context and Relationships 1606.4.1 Goldstein, Lewin and the Unconscious 1616.4.2 An Integrative Atmosphere 1646.4.3 Psychoanalysis and Gestalt Psychology 1666.5 Intermezzo at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute 1696.5.1 Attending Wilhelm Reichs 'Technical Seminar.' Resistance and Character Analysis 1736.5.2 Orgasm and the Genital Character 1786.6 A New Beginning in Berlin. Medicine and Psychoanalysis 1806.6.1 Working as a Physician 1806. 6.2 Learning and Suff ering at the Psychoanalytic Institute 1826.7 The Bauhaus Concept 1866.8 Political Polarization, Dialectics, and Alienation 1896.8.1 Perls Attempts to Take a Class Position 1916.8.2 Georg Lukács. Hegel, Dialectics and the Contextual Method 1947. The Concept of Totality 1987.1 Totality on the Left and on the Right 1987.2 The Transitional Gestalt and the Figure of Tension 1997.3 The Individualism of Lebensphilosophie 2018. At the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. 19301933 2048.1 Siegfried Bernfeld. The Gestalt Experience and 'Social Place' 2068.2 Wilhelm Reich. Politics and the Continuing Development of Active Technique 2088.2.1 Neocatharsis and Physical Resistance. From Ferenczi to Fenichel and Reich 2108.2.2 Masochism and Politics. Bernfeld and Freud against Reich 2139. Hunger, Chewing, Growing. Intellectual Approaches of Ones Own in Opposition to the Power of Psychoanalytic Interpretation and the German Tradition of Obedience 2159.1 Ernst Bloch. The Hunger Drive, Self-Extension, and the Dawning of the New 21710. Trauma Therapy and Figures of Steel 22010.1 The Trauma of War and 'Acting Out' Therapy 22110.2 Armored Men. Men of Steel 22511. Perlss Lessons from the End of the Weimar Republic 22911.1 Dr. Perls and the 'Marxist Workers School' (MASCH) 23011.2 Left Freudians 23111.3 Splitting instead of Integration. The Failure of the 'Anti-Fascist Action' 23511.4 The Marginalization of Wilhelm Reich 23711.5 Endangerment and Escape 24011.5.1 Confl uence and Projections Can Cost Lives 24412. Exodus and Death 24612.1 The Fate of the Perls Family in Berlin 248II. THE EXPERIENCES OF THE GERMAN-JEWISH AVANT-GARDE. THEIR TOPICALITY TODAY 2491. German-Jewish Experiences 2491.1 Kafkas Four-Legged Beings 2501.2 Universalism, Loneliness, Modernity 2511.3 Gestalt Assimilation Theory. A Biological-Sociological Resistance Metaphor 2532. Autonomy instead of Auschwitz: Confl uence Kills 2553. Perlss Topicality: Identity Work 2593.1 Nietzsche and the Artists 2603.2 The Multiplicity of the Subject 2623.3 Kafka and Perls. 'But' versus 'And' 2634. Mephistopheles As a Ferment for Integration. Perlss Leitmotiv 2644.1 There Is No End to Integration 2644.2 Mephistopheles. Disturbing and Complementing 2665. Conclusion. Expressionists, Émigrés, and Those in Search of a Homeland 267Annotations 269APPENDIX 295Institutions and archives consulted 295References 295Index 312

Using Fritz Perls as an example, this book recalls the representatives of an urban avant-garde culture who were driven out of Europe, emigrated, and for the most part found a new homeland in the USA. Many an element of the lost avant-garde spirit later found its way back to Europe in an enriched form. This monograph is the first to focus in greater depth on the German-European roots of Gestalt therapy. It thereby bridges the continents at the same time.

Bernd Bocian, PH.D. was born in 1954, and lives in Genoa, Italy. He works in private practice as well as in a Cooperativa Sociale. He is gestalt therapist, and was also trained in Reichian body work and psychoanalytic therapy. From 1985 to 2000 he was a member of the editorial board of the German journal Gestalttherapie (Ed. by DVG - Deutsche Vereinigung für Gestalttherapie - German Association for Gestalt therapy). He is author of various publications on the historical and contemporary relation between gestalt therapy and psychoanalysis (e.g. Bocian, B. / Staemmler, F.-M.: Gestalttherapie und Psychoanalyse 2000).