Jack Aylward


During my several years of gestalt therapy practice, I have been continually impressed with the contributions of its early pioneers, particularly Paul Goodman, and Frtiz and Laura Perls. The combination of Frtiz and Laura’s clinical innovations in conjunction with Goodman’s anarchistic brand of pragmatic philosophy forms a true gestalt, the sum of which is qualitatively larger than each individual part. Consistent themes centering around organismic self-regulation and self-formation dynamics provide for a comprehensive therapeutic approach, one that has the unique clinical potential to operate from an individual, social, or political perspective in dealing with the multi-level pathologies encountered within the therapeutic experience. In addition, this has also served as my model in the training and supervision work that I have done over the years, culminating in my two books: Gestalt Therapy and the American Experience(2012) and its sequel, The Anarchy of Gestalt Therapy: A Proposal for Radical Practice (2018).