Jim Simkin
Encyclopedia
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
- 1984 Big Sur
Big Sur
Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
) was an early seminal figure in the history of Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt therapy
Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating...
.
Simkin received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, and practiced in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. He also was Chief Psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
at a large VA hospital. Like most psychotherapists
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
of his generation he was trained analytically. After working in therapy with Fritz Perls
Fritz Perls
Friedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
in the early 1950s, Simkin became enamored of the Gestalt approach, training and then doing co-therapy with Fritz. Later, he moved with his family to Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
and started a therapy practice in Beverly Hills. He invited Perls to join him, but the sharing of an office was short-lived. Perls discovered the Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute is a residential community and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, and spirituality...
and began doing gestalt workshops and trainings there. Perls and Simkin joined in leading training groups in gestalt therapy for professionals at the institute. Later, when a 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) parcel on the coast just North of Esalen became available, Simkin built a striking home on the property and started his own residential training institute there in 1969. Later in his life, Perls left Esalen.
Simkin's style was more methodical and less flashy than Perls' as could be inferred from his training program. Training consisted of a minimum of three residential months over a three to five year period. During the first year, trainees worked exclusively on their own self-awareness and observed their mentor in action in groups and individual sessions. During subsequent years they were able to work individually or in group with "patient models" who had to be referred by an outside therapist. All this work was supervised in vivo
In vivo
In vivo is experimentation using a whole, living organism as opposed to a partial or dead organism, or an in vitro controlled environment. Animal testing and clinical trials are two forms of in vivo research...
, and all work was videotaped for study. Simkin brought in world-famous trainers for two-day stints during the training month, so as to expose his trainees to different styles of doing Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt therapy
Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating...
, and hopefully prevent them from aping his own style. This was seen as essential to the approach by Simkin. Visiting trainers included Lore Perls, Isadore From, Daniel Rosenblatt, Bob Martin, Miriam Polster, Erv Polster, and others.
Simkin worked much in the manner of Perls, however, in that little attention was paid to group process. The work was done in the Perlsian hot-seat fashion, with the client interacting with the therapist and the therapist using the group as a foil. However, the residential model gave clients an opportunity to practice new behaviors in a family-like setting.
Simkin was a master at observing and tracking behavior, and at contriving interventions that struck to the core of his patients' issues. His use of paradox, his powerful personal presence, and his ability to zero in relentlessly on core issues were his trademarks. He also had a remarkable ability to find and appreciate the authentic core of his patients' personalities, and he used confrontation very effectively. Simkin walked the walk with his relentless commitment to being his own person and enabling others to find out and respect their own personhood. He is one of the early Gestalt therapists who took much from Martin Buber
Martin Buber
Martin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship....
's emphasis on the I-thou
I and Thou
Ich und Du, usually translated as I and Thou, is a book by Martin Buber, published in 1923, and first translated to English in 1937.-Premise:Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways:...
relationship.
Much sought after as a trainer, Simkin's program attracted trainees from all over the world. Simkin also traveled to do trainings in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Holland, and throughout the United States. In 1981 he became ill with leukemia but continued working until his death in 1984.