Barry Stevens (therapist)
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Barry Stevens (1902-1985) was a writer and Gestalt therapist. She developed her own form of Gestalt therapy body work, based on the awareness of body processes.
Self-described as a "High School drop-out, 1918, because what she wanted to know, she couldn't learn in school." (Source: Person to Person, About the Authors) Her publications include:
- Person to Person: The Problem of Being Human, by Carl Rogers and Barry Stevens, with contributions from Eugene Gendlin, John M. Shlien, and Wilson Van Dusen, Real People Press, 1967, ISBN 0-911226-01-X (paper) and ISBN 0-911226-00-1 (cloth).
- Don't Push the River (It Flows by Itself), Real People Press, 1970.
The book is a first-person account of Stevens' investigations of Gestalt Therapy, (this autobiographical episode shows the author doing this during a three-month period in association with Fritz Perls at the Gestalt Institute of Canada at Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island, in 1969), Zen Buddhism, the philosophy of J. Krishnamurti, and American Indian religious practices in an effort "to deepen and expand personal experience and work through difficulties. 'We have to turn ourselves upside down and reverse our approach to life.' " (source: "Don't Push the River.")
- Body Work in: Gestalt is , John O. Stevens ed., Real People Press, 1975, p. 157 - 184, ISBN 0-91226-15-X pbk.
- Burst Out Laughing, 1985
She is the mother of John O. Stevens who is also a writer and Gestalt therapist (he changed his name to Steve Andreas later).
Fritz Perls described Barry Stevens as "a natural born therapist."
[edit] External links
- "Memories of Barry Stevens" at The Gestalt Therapy Page
- Web site of Detlev Kranz, with pages on Barry Stevens and Gestalt therapy (in German, with short abstract in English, and bibliography of Barry Stevens' books and articles including translations into German)
