Richard Price (October 12, 1930 – November 25, 1985) was an American Gestalt therapist, co-founder of the Esalen Institute in 1962, and a veteran of the Beat Generation.

He headed appliance manufacturing and design at Sears for their Coldspot brand, working extensively with Raymond Loewy, who was a close family friend.

In 1936, the family moved into the two-floor penthouse apartment in at 707 W. Junior Terrace, just off Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.

[4]: 70–72 [2]: 47–53  He did graduate work in the social relations department at Harvard University, although he left before completing his degree because of his frustration with the conservative, research-oriented faculty.

Dick knew most of the primary figures, including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder.

[4]: 38 In 1956, Price, still in the Air Force, experienced an episode of manic psychosis in San Francisco[1]: 142  which he later described as simply "a state", what he believed was a mental break that was transitory and which he needed to go through and experience rather than repress or manage.

[1]: 143 On December 7, 1956, his parents involuntarily committed him to the Institute of Living, an exclusive mental treatment facility in Connecticut.

[7]After he was hospitalized, he was discharged from the Air Force, and went to work for his uncle's sign company in Chicago, Price Brothers.

[1]: 146 In May 1960, Price returned to San Francisco and lived in the East-West House with Taoist teacher Gia-Fu Feng.

In 1962, using the Murphy property and capital that Dick had accumulated,[1]: 148  along with assistance from Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, Laura Huxley, Gerald Heard, Gregory Bateson and Frederic Spiegelberg (with whom both had studied at Stanford),[1]: 147  Price and Murphy founded the Esalen Institute.

[2]: 35–9 [4]: 46–7  In the middle of 1962, Abraham Maslow happened to drive onto the Esalen grounds and soon became an important influence on the development of the institute.

[2]: 359–60 [4]: 299 [1]: 156 Price's interest in the expansion of human potentials led him to investigate many avenues of research, including the exploration of altered states of consciousness with psychotropic substances.

[12] At Esalen, Price encouraged Grof to develop the therapeutic technique of Holotropic Breathwork, which functioned as a substitute for psychedelic drugs.

Perls declared this episode fully resolved and then told Price that it was time for him to start teaching Gestalt on his own.

[citation needed] During the time that Price ran Esalen, he educated himself widely in Western psychology and Eastern religions, including Buddhism and Taoism.

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.

[3] Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Price continued practicing, modifying, and teaching Gestalt at Esalen, until his death in a hiking accident on November 25, 1985, when he was struck by a falling boulder.

[1]: 157–8 Price would frequently hike the trails of the Santa Lucia Range, both for pleasure and for relief from the pressures of running Esalen Institute.

[2]: 358–61  Along with his role in founding and guiding Esalen Institute, he influenced many people's lives with his work in Gestalt practice groups.