Definition excerpted with permission from Ginger, Serge International Glossary of Gestalt Psychotherapy (Seven languages including English. Order from FORGE at 183 rue Lecourbe; 75015 Paris, France) Paperback 1995.
-from the Greek 'holos', the whole; pertaining to the whole. Perls was profoundly influenced by the holistic theory of J. C. Smuts, one of the forces behind the League of Nations, who in 1926 published Holism and Evolution, drawing on the ideas of Darwin, Bergson, Einstein and Teilhard de Chardin.
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