Dick Price

“…In my own work I have three keys: trust process, stay with process, and get out of the way. In other words, allow the space for what is happening without suppression and with trust. Don't suppose that a particular socially-conditioned way of life is the only correct way of being, and then define that, rather arbitrarily, as 'health.' There's a mystification in the language of psychiatry–at least as I experienced it–and given that mystification, there is justification for all sorts of brutalities…

A person who really contacts their experience feeds back with a degree of clarity. For example, when I can see a person entering into sadness, going into grief work and coming out the other side with clarity and openness and sense of life, that's satisfying for the person, that's satisfying for me… What I've learned to do is to really make it a practice for myself… The Buddhists call it the Wisdom of Equality when equal attention is given to whatever emerges. So whether it's a real interesting and vital session, or one that is not interesting and not vital, I can bring the same clarity of consciousness to either one. Whatever is presented to me is an object of my awareness…

…for me, Gestalt, more than being a therapy, or perhaps even a practice, is simply an alternative way for people to be present with one another. It's a way that is likely to be quite a bit more nourishing than many of the ways that people tend to be together. It's being available for another experience, just as that experience is, without trying to define it to be a particular way. I think that you could look at Gestalt as simply a way to be present with yourself in the world and a way to be present with another person or a group of people…”

“…Dick’s legacy at Esalen Institute is wide ranging. In the first few years, Dick ran the business from his jeans pockets: income into one pocket, expenditures from another, keys to available rooms in a third. He regularly performed miracles, rearranging the room sheet to find one more bed for an honored guest, another for the person in distress who needed a few days of refuge. Some of his legacy at Esalen lives in the rock walls he built, the brush he cleared, and the many details he handled daily for more than two decades.

Eighteen months of involuntary hospitalization earlier in his life fueled Dick’s commitment to creating an environment where human experience, whether ordinary or extraordinary, could be explored without suppression, coercion, or violation. Combining his interest in Buddhist practice with his Taoist approach to life, Dick adapted what he learned from Fritz Perls, creating a method that many of us continue to follow and teach. At Esalen, and around the world, a new generation of students finds guidance, healing, and inspiration in the process and principles he formulated.

Dick embodied his work. More accurately, the work he developed is an embodiment of who he was. He was fearless, funny, unpretentious, generous, and completely uninterested in promoting himself. Spare with his words, spacious in his presence, he truly trusted process, ours and his own. He never meant to teach by example, but many of us learned what we deeply needed to know by being near him. He wasn’t perfect. He was authentic. We are grateful.” ~ Christine Price, Dick’s widow

~ “Richard ‘Dick’ Price (1930 –1985) was co-founder of the Esalen Institute in 1962 and a veteran of the Beat Generation. He ran Esalen in Big Sur for many years, sometimes virtually single-handed. He developed a practice of hiking the Santa Lucia Mountains and developed a new form of personal integration and growth that he called Gestalt Practice, partly based upon Gestalt therapy and Buddhist practice. Price consciously applied psychological principles to his sense of self, and helped many people work do the same. His work remains at the core of the Esalen experience.” ~ Wikipedia

“…Dick Price had been misdiagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, and had been subjected to destructive treatment with neuroleptic drugs, electroshock and insulin shock… Dick believed that what is called psychosis is actually a healing process, or a shamanic journey that would naturally resolve the problems that precipitated the psychotic state — if treated with empathy and respect…Dick would invite people who were disposed to enter altered states to live and work at Esalen. When Dick found out that someone in the Esalen community was having a particularly difficult time, he would send that person to a room where they could safely work through their process. Ideally, he would assign two people who had experience with Gestalt Practice to sit with this person, staying with them in four hour shifts, 24 hours a day. Initially, the team would protect the person from harm, and make sure they received water and food.

Additionally, the team would listen and reflect what the person said, without judgment and with empathy. Since they were not professional psychotherapists, the team members would not attempt any kind of therapeutic intervention. No matter how delusional or incoherent, after about a week the person would start to make sense, and their consciousness would clarify enough so they could engage in coherent exchanges. At this point, some initial processing work might take place in the Gestalt mode. The person might begin to enter into dialogue with their own intrapsychic processes, in a way that was typical of open seat work.

When the person eventually became sufficiently coherent, Dick might invite them to re-enter the day-to-day Esalen community on a limited basis, and might even assign them light work duties. They might even start to attend community Gestalt Practice groups in which they could deepen their exploration of the material they had uncovered during their seclusion. Very occasionally, a person might have a difficult experience that could not practically be managed at Esalen — or their condition might begin to disintegrate further. In that case, Dick might decide that they would be better off in hospital. But in the majority of instances, a person who experienced an extreme state at Esalen would recover sufficiently in six weeks or so to re-enter normal life…Dick was really practical about this process. He did not hesitate to enlist medical assistance when it obviously became necessary…” ~ Copyright © 2016 by John F. Callahan for The Gestalt Legacy Project.

Photo ~ Christine & Dick Price