Editing Dick Price (section)

=== Gestalt practice ===
{{main|Gestalt practice}}

In 1964, [[Fritz Perls]], the psychiatrist who developed [[Gestalt therapy]], arrived at Esalen.<ref>Fritz Perls, ''In and Out the Garbage Pail'', Real People Press, Lafayette, CA (1969)</ref> During Perls' time at Esalen, Price became one of his primary students. He was also influenced by the work of [[Wilhelm Reich]], who had been Perls' analyst.<ref name=kripalno/>{{rp|360}} Price worked with Perls for approximately four years, from 1966 to 1970. During this period Price experienced a second brief manic break, arising from the unresolved trauma of his commitment. Perls declared this episode fully resolved and then told Price that it was time for him to start teaching Gestalt on his own.{{cn|date=April 2024}}

During the time that Price ran Esalen, he educated himself widely in Western psychology and [[Eastern religions]], including [[Buddhism]] and [[Taoism]].<ref name="Goldman"/> He drew from the work of many teachers who came to Esalen over the years. Gestalt practice provided a humane approach that pulled together all these strands of ancient and modern knowledge into a coherent technique, similar to [[shamanistic]] methods of healing.<ref name=kripalno/>{{rp|172}} This practice allowed Price to work with other people as real people, not as objects that needed to be "fixed" in some way.<ref name="Goldman"/> Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Price continued practicing, modifying, and teaching Gestalt at Esalen.

Price died in a hiking accident on November 25, 1985, when he was struck by a falling boulder.<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|158–59}} The method of Gestalt practice<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|157}} that Dick Price developed remains one of his most important achievements.<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|157–8}}