At that time, the psychoanalytic approach was firmly entrenched in the mental health training institutions,
supported by a vast literature and a host of journals and professional societies devoted exclusively to the
analytic approach. By contrast, only two books in Gestalt therapy had been published by 1952, when the
New York Gestalt Institute was established: Ego, Hunger and Aggression by F. Perls (1947) and Gestalt
Therapy by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951). The workshop method, developed by the Perls and later
used by, among others, Isador From, Paul Goodman, and Paul Weisz, proved to be a dramatic and effective
teaching model and a powerful way of recruiting mental health professionals for training. It was an
appropriate model for the needs and learning goals of the trainees. At that time, the participants in these
workshops were either practising therapists or advanced graduate students in one of the mental health
disciplines. Many of them had some previous experience as a client in therapy. Most of them knew a good
deal about psychotherapeutic theories and clinical practice, but little about what to do with a living client.
Gestalt therapy, with its emphasis on what to do and how to do it, provided some sorely needed tools, and
the workshop setting made it possible to see and experience the effects of the methods.
Given this history, we can view group dynamics and Gestalt therapy as two species from the same lineage.
From the phenotypes, or superficial characteristics, they do not seem to belong to the same category. They
do not look alike; they dress differently talk differently, and often do not think alike. Nevertheless, they have
the potential for mating with each other, and creating a new breed, a new synthesis.