In and out the garbage pail

A novel autobiography in which the author applies his theory of focusing on awareness, writing "whatever wants to be written." Partly in poetic form, often playful, sometimes theoretical, the book is a many-faceted mosaic of memories and reflections on his life - in the past and at the moment - and on the origins and continuing development of Gestalt therapy.

Frederick Perls, author of Ego, Hunger and Aggression, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, and (with Paul Goodman and Ralph Hefferline) Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, was born in Berlin in 1893. He practiced as a psychoanalyst in Germany until the ascension of the Nazis. He and his wife, Laura, moved to Johannesburg in 1934 where they both practiced psychoanalysis until they moved to New York City in 1946. There, in 1950, they established the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy. Frederick Perls died in Chicago in 1970.