by Legesse Sana Dana

• The word “gestalt” is a German word that roughly means “the whole is more than the sum of the parts”., a configuration or patterns of elements so unified as a whole that it cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts.

• The term Gestalt was coined by the philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels in 1890, to denote experiences that require more than the basic sensory capacities to comprehend.

According to the school, understanding of psychological phenomena such as perceptual illusions could not be derived by merely isolating the elementary parts for analysis, because human perception may organize sensory stimuli in any number of ways, making the whole different from the sum of the parts.

Gestalt psychologists suggest that the events in the brain bear a structural correspondence to psychological events; indeed, it has been shown that steady electric currents in the brain correspond to structured perceptual events. The Gestalt school has made substantial contributions to the study of learning, recall, and the nature of associations, as well as important contributions to personality and social psychology.

• Gestalists believe that human beings work for wholeness and completeness in their lives. Each person has a self-actualizing tendency that emerges through the beginning of self-awareness and personal interaction with the environment.

• Self-actualization is centered in the present; it “is the process of being what one is and not a process of striving to become.” (Kempler, 1973,P.262).

• The Gestalt view of human nature places trust in the inner wisdom of people, much as person-centered counseling does.

• Each person seeks to live interactively and productively, striving to coordinate the various parts of the person into a healthy, unified whole. From a Gestalt perspective, persons are more than a sum of their parts (Perls, 1969).

• The Gestalt view that each person is able to change and become responsible (Hatcher & Himelsteint, 1997). Thus, individuals are actors in the events around them, not just reactors to events.

• Overall, the Gestalt point of view is existential, experiential, and phenomenological: the now is what matters. People discover different aspects of themselves through experience rather than talk, and individuals’ own assessment and interpretation of their lives at any given moment are what matter most.

• Fritz Perls• Born in 1893 into a Jewish Berlin

family• Medic in WWI for Germany, MD in

1920• Trained as a psychoanalyst• 1933, fled Germany to Holland & S.

Africa• 1946, went to America

Other contributors: Laura Perls, Fritz’s wife, and Paul

Goodman helped refine and enlarge the original ideas.

Jeon Fagan and Irma Lee Shepherd (1970), developed the model still further.

Gestalt psychologists find it is important to think of problems as a whole. Max Wertheimer considered thinking to happen in two ways: productive and reproductive.

Productive thinking- is solving a problem with insight.

This is a quick insightful unplanned response to situations and environmental interaction.

Reproductive thinking-is solving a problem with previous experiences and what is already known. (1945/1959).

This is a very common thinking. For example, when a person is given several segments of information, he/she deliberately examines the relationships among its parts, analyzes their purpose, concept, and totality, he/she reaches the "aha!" moment, using what is already known.

Gestalt therapy is associated with Gestalt Psychology, a school of thought that stresses the perception of completeness and wholeness. In fact, the term gestalt literally translated means “whole figure.” Gestalt therapy arose as a reaction to the reductionist emphasis in other schools of counseling and psychotherapy, such as psychoanalysis and behaviorism, which tried to break down the personality or client behaviors into explainable parts. In contrast, Gestalt theory emphasizes how people function in their totality.

• Wholeness & completeness• Trust the inner wisdom of people• Live integratively & productively• People are able to change and become

responsible• Persons are more than the sum of their

parts• Individuals are actors, not reactors• The now is what matters• Discovery of self occurs thru experience

rather than talk due to an overdependence on intellectual experience

• Unfinished business – earlier thoughts, feelings & reactions that still affect personal functioning & interfere w/present

• No unconscious just a lack of awareness• The more aware = more healthy• Body signs = awareness of a need to

change behaviors• Needs are brought to the fore and then

placed in the background when a new need will come to the fore

• Using “I” in place of “it”, especially when talking about one’s body

• Focus on how and what rather than why• Convert questions into statements• Do not diagnose

Unexpressed feelings These incomplete directions do seek completion: preoccupation, compulsive behavior, wariness, oppressive energy, and self-defeating behavior, and shows in some blockage in the body

Impasse- stuck point

Introjection- uncritically accepting others’ beliefs and standards without assimilating them to make them congruent with who we are. Passive incorporation.

Projection- disowning certain aspects of ourselves by assigning them to the environment. Seeing in others the qualities we refuse to acknowledge ourselves.

Retroflection- turning back to ourselves what we would like to do someone else or doing to ourselves what we would like someone else to do to us.

Deflection- process of distraction so that it is difficult to maintain a sustained sense of contact. Overuse of humor, abstract generalization, and questions rather than statements.

Confluence- blurring of the differentiation between self and the environment. High need to be accepted and liked. Playing safe.

In using introjection,projection, retroflection, deflection, and confluence, one lose contact with the environment, and lose boundary.

Phony layer – pretending to be something that one is not, often involving game playing and fantasy.

Phobic layer – an attempt to avoid recognizing aspects of one self that an individual would prefer to deny.

Impasse layer – no sense of direction and wonder how they are going to make it in the environment and drift into the sea of hopelessness.

Implosive layer – Feel vulnerable to feelings that they have defensively built.

Explosive layer – have intense feelings of joy, sorrow or pain. Become authentic with themselves and others.

• Counselors create an atmosphere that encourages clients to explore growth

• Therefore, counselors are personally involved w/clients & are honest

• Counselors are exciting, energetic and fully human

• Always use the present tense• Address all conversations directly• Help clients resolve unfinished

business

• Here & now, immediacy of experience• Action, experience feelings & behaviors• Now = experience = awareness =

reality• Past is no more, future does not exist.

Only the now exists• Attend to both nonverbal and verbal

expression.• Recognize that life presents choices• Help clients become more integrated &

mature• Bring together emotion, cognition, and

behavior

• Exercises are ready made techniques• Experiments are made on the spot• Dream work – become parts of the

dream, discover what is missing in the dream

• Empty chair• Confrontation – point out incongruities• Asking what & how

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References:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychologywww.answers.com/topic/gestalt-psychology