Barry Stevens (1902–1985) was a writer and Gestalt therapist. She developed her own form of

Gestalt therapy Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility and focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist–client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life ...

body work, based on the

awareness Awareness is the state of being conscious of something. More specifically, it is the ability to directly know and perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of events. Another definition describes it as a state wherein a subject is aware of some infor ...

of body processes. For the

Human Potential Movement The Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose out of the counterculture of the 1960s and formed around the concept of an extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement takes as its premise the be ...

of the 1970s, she became a kind of "star", but she always refused to accept that role. She worked with, among others, the psychotherapists

Fritz Perls Friedrich Salomon Perls (July 8, 1893 – March 14, 1970), better known as Fritz Perls, was a Germany, German-born psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist. Perls Neologism, coined the term "Gestalt therapy" to identify the form of psychoth ...

and

Carl Rogers Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach (and client-centered approach) in psychology. Rogers is widely considered one of the founding fathers of ps ...

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...

and

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxle ...

were among her friends.

described Barry Stevens as "a natural born therapist."http://www.gestalt.org/Journal.pdf

Life

Stevens was born Mildred Fox. She later changed her name from "Mildred" to "Barry." She was married to the pediatrician Albert Mason Stevens,Kranz, D. (2011)
Barry Stevens: Leben Gestalten
In: Gestaltkritik, 2/2011, p. 4-11. who co-discovered

Stevens–Johnson syndrome Stevens–Johnson syndrome (SJS) is a type of severe skin reaction. Together with toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) and Stevens–Johnson/toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN), it forms a spectrum of disease, with SJS being less severe. Erythema ...

. Barry Stevens was a self-described "High School drop-out, 1918, because what she wanted to know, she couldn't learn in school." She and her husband moved to Hawai'i in 1934. Before Albert Mason Stevens's death in 1945, Barry moved to the mainland. She worked at Orme Ranch School near Prescott, AZ, and from 1948 to 1951 she was an administrative aide at

Deep Springs College Deep Springs College (known simply as Deep Springs or DS) is a private, selective two-year college in Deep Springs, California. With the number of undergraduates restricted to 26, the college is one of the smallest institutions of higher educat ...

, near Big Pine, California. She later worked as an editor in Albuquerque, New Mexico, then relocated to California. Barry Stevens is the mother of Judith Sande Stevens (1925-2011) and John O. Stevens (1935-2018) who was also a writer, Gestalt therapist and NLP-trainer, known as

Steve Andreas Steve Andreas (born John O. Stevens; 1935 – September 7, 2018) was an American psychotherapist and author specializing in Neuro-linguistic programming. Steve Andreas was the son of Barry Stevens (therapist), Barry Stevens, a writer and gesta ...

Publications

Her publications include ''Don't Push the River (It Flows by Itself)'', a first-person account of Stevens' investigations of

. It shows the author during a period of several months in association with

at Perls' Gestalt Institute of Canada at

Lake Cowichan Lake Cowichan ( Nitinaht: ʕaʔk̓ʷaq c̓uubaʕsaʔtx̣) (pop. 2,974) is a town located on the east end of Cowichan Lake and, by highway, is west of Duncan, British Columbia. The town of Lake Cowichan was incorporated in 1944. The Cowichan R ...

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...

, in 1969. Barry Stevens describes both Gestalt therapy theory and practice and her relationship with Fritz Perls in a sensitive way, thus creating a vivid image of Perls in the last months of his life. In addition she explored

Zen Buddhism Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), an ...

, the philosophy of Jiddu Krishnamurti, and Indian American religious practices in an effort "to deepen and expand personal experience and work through difficulties." Alternating with episodes from her earlier days, it became a "best-seller" in the circles of humanistic psychology. "We have to turn ourselves upside down and reverse our approach to life." Her earliest published work was "Hide-away Island" (1934) a loosely autobiographical novel about a woman on the far end of Long Island. She met Nakata Yoshimatsu, a former valet of

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

, in Hawai'i in the 1930s, and helped him to write down his recollections. She also wrote an article about Nakata that was published posthumously in 2000."Nakata - Son of Jack London", in: Jack London Journal, No 7, 2000, p. 9 - 25

Bibliography

*''Hide-away Island'', Barry Fox. New York, Greenberg, 1934. *''Person to Person: The Problem of Being Human'', by

and Barry Stevens, with contributions from

Eugene Gendlin Eugene Tovio Gendlin (born Eugen Gendelin; 25 December 1926 – 1 May 2017) was an American philosopher who developed ways of thinking about and working with living process, the bodily felt sense and the "philosophy of the implicit". Though he had ...

, John M. Shlien, and Wilson Van Dusen, Real People Press, 1967, (paper) and (cloth). *''Don't Push the River (It Flows by Itself)'', Real People Press, 1970. * ''Body Work'', in: ''Gestalt is'', John O. Stevens ed., Real People Press, 1975, p. 157 - 184, pbk. * ''Burst Out Laughing'', Barry Stevens, Celestrial Arts, 1985. *''Nakata - Son of Jack London'', in: Jack London Journal, No 7, 2000, p. 9 - 25. (published posthumously)

References

External links

at The Gestalt Therapy Page

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)
Memorial by Joe Wysong founder of ''The Gestalt Journal''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stevens, Barry 1902 births 1985 deaths Gestalt therapists Gestalt therapy

Life

Publications

Bibliography

Further reading

References

External links