Gestalt. “You Just Need to Close Gestalt,” is some advice from well-wishers. But in order to understand what gestalt is and correctly use this concept, you need to take a break from psychotherapy for a while and turn to the psychology of perception.
Literally translated from German, Gestalt means “Form, appearance, Figure,” and its derivative word Gestaltung means “design.” Other Russian analogues that are more or less suitable in meaning are “Integrity”, “structure” and “model”. The official date of birth of the term is considered to be 1890, when the philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels published his key work? ber Gestaltqualit? ten (“On the Qualities of Form”. This scientist supported the point of view of Immanuel Kant - that we cannot perceive the physical world directly. A person always interacts with information received from the senses - modifying it in his consciousness. Thus, any whole for us it is greater than the sum of its parts, because we also invest our perceptions in it.
This idea continued to develop during the 1910s-1930s, when psychologists began to actively study the perception of works of art. Scientists have found that when we look at a picture or statue, the main role is played by a certain holistic perception of the object, which is not reducible to the properties of the sum of its constituent elements. Figuratively speaking, when we look at a painting by Renoir or another impressionist, we do not notice and evaluate every stroke, but we see a single whole and it is this overall combination of colors and shapes that impresses us.
This holistic perception came to be called “Gestalt”. At the same time, Gestalt, an approach to perception, grew into an independent branch of psychology thanks to Max Wertheimer, a student of von Ehrenfels. In 1912 he published Experimental Studies on the Perception of Motion. The scientist described how two flashes of light, flashing in two different places at different times, can be perceived as one light source moving from one place to another - if the distance and time interval are chosen correctly (the optical illusion worked at an interval of about 60 milliseconds.
Thus, the observer did not perceive two separate elements, but a single whole. This supported the idea that the whole model was different from the simple sum of its parts. Similar experiments were carried out with music - Ernst Mach in his work “Analysis of Sensations” proved that changing the tonality and tempo of a melody does not interfere with identifying the motive. A similar experiment - but, attention, only with text - is now widely replicated on social networks: thanks to the ability to think in gestalts, you can understand a sentence, even if you change the order of the letters in each word and leave only the initial and final ones in place.
Nparmier, you can easily appreciate this phase.
Gestalt research was continued by the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin. He divided any image perceived by a person into a figure (object) and a background. The figure is what our attention is focused on, and the background is everything else. To show that figure and ground are mutually exclusive, Rubin created a famous drawing that can be “read” as either a vase or two faces, depending on what you focus on. When faces are the object, the vase becomes the background, but when the vase becomes the figure, the faces immediately and completely recede into the background.
After all, the concept of background and figure persists in everyday life - if we imagine that the reality in which we exist is the background, and various objects or processes are figures. When we have certain needs, we can “Pull out” figures from the background and consciously interact with them, and upon completion of the interaction, the figure merges with the background again. For example, we get hungry and look for food, and after chewing and swallowing a hamburger, we forget about this need and are distracted by something else.
In fact, the “Figure”, the gestalt, can be any process - infatuation with someone, a quarrel or a started business.
We remember unfinished processes better - this phenomenon is called the “Zeigarnik Effect” after the Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik. While still a student, she noticed that waiters in cafes perfectly remember all unfilled orders and instantly forget completed ones. Later, Zeigarnik conducted a series of experiments that confirmed that unfulfilled tasks create a certain tension in human memory.
This tension helps us not to forget about our needs, but in order for a person to be psychologically healthy, gestalts must be brought to their logical conclusion in a timely manner. An incomplete gestalt can cause an obsessive desire to return to the situation and “Replay” it. And the person begins to repeat previous patterns in changed conditions - for example, he provokes conflicts in new relationships that were unresolved with the previous partner.
The concept has also seeped into pop culture: in the animated series Transformers, a gestalt is a composite robot made up of several smaller robots. The name was coined by fans of the series, but then became official - perhaps because the robot really turned out to be a clear illustration of a complex term.
Close gestalt, what is it. Gestalt of past relationships
If everything in your power is not done and the gestalt is not logically completed, then it will be extremely difficult to move on in life.
Even if we assume that a person managed to build a new relationship under the condition of an open gestalt, he is unlikely to be able to live happily. There will always be a worm sitting inside it and “eating” from the inside. A person will always want to cope with an abandoned task, to say what was not said, to receive what was not given. Only a logical conclusion to the matter will help achieve spiritual harmony.
Closing the gestalt means starting to live again. Leaving the question open means repeating the mistakes of the past over and over again. A woman will subconsciously drag a bunch of old problems into a new relationship and wonder, “Oh my God, why does the same thing always happen to me.”
Don’t you understand why nothing changes in life and in love relationships? Finally, understand yourself, close the gestalt once and for all, move on with your life, it’s simple.
Not HERE and now, but precisely THERE, in past relationships you need to live through disappointment, express anger, express dissatisfaction, take revenge, end things. If they didn’t do this, they brought the problems with them and lived again. And this will happen over and over again, nothing will change either in life or in love relationships until past affairs are completed.
How often do we hear complaints: “In all past relationships, I was cheated on,” “My man didn’t appreciate me. I dropped everything for him, helped, was there, and he...”? Remember, if the same situations are repeated over and over again, in relationships with completely different people, this means that you are doing something wrong. And most likely, you just don’t engage in gestalt. In turn, this situation threatens:
- Psychological disorders – depression, apathy;
- Fears and mistrust towards the new partner;
- Unpreparedness for new relationships;
- Pessimism;
- Failures in all matters and new relationships.
If you can’t cope with all this on your own, then you need to turn to therapy that allows you to forget about your gestalt. Using various techniques, a specialist will help you develop self-awareness, relive situations and correctly forget about them. Typically, specialists use very gentle approaches to patients, and gradually, without traumatizing the psyche, free them from the “shackles of the past.”
The “Here and Now” principle in Gestalt psychology
Gestalt is what needs to be closed in order to be happy . And the principle of “here and now” is an approach to thinking that takes its origins from the philosophy of Buddhism. By the way, Fritz Perls carefully studied Eastern culture.
The psychotherapist always asks how the patient is feeling at the moment, what emotions and feelings he has. If a person talks about the past, the psychologist tries to bring him back to the present with questions:
- What is your relationship like now?
- How do you feel when you say this?
- How can this situation be corrected today?
- How does this situation affect you now?
This creates confidence that the client has control over the problem here and now. Even if it happened several years ago.
Understanding that a person should live at a given moment and hour is very difficult for us. We often get stuck either in the past or in dreams of the future.
Therefore, there are exercises on how to learn this. One of them can be done during breakfast, lunch and dinner. We need to focus on the cutlery that we bring to our mouth; during the process of chewing food; on the hand that reaches for salt. Here and now.
What is Gesheft? Translation, use, figurative meaning of the word
Gesheft – what is it? This is the name of construction companies, pawn shops and a festival in Odessa. This is the witcher's sword in the popular game. Where did this word come to us, which has become the slang of young people and a frequently used word among journalists?
Contrary to the opinion about the Jewish roots of the concept of “gesheft”, it appeared far from the Promised Land. There is no such word in Hebrew with a translation that would be correct. This is worth considering. There is no word with a translation that matches the meaning of the word “gesheft”.
This word came into Yiddish, which was spoken by European Jews. It turns out that it has German roots. It came to Rus' together with German traders, who often spoke Yiddish. In Odessa it has an original meaning and means “business”, “profit”. In modern Russia, it has acquired an ironic connotation; words such as “scam,” “kickback,” and “bribe” have become synonymous with it.
What dictionaries say
Kuznetsov’s dictionary defines the origin and meaning of the word as follows:
- Gesheft – from the German “geschaft”, which literally translates as “shop”, means a deal, a profitable deal.
The Dictionary of Foreign Words adds:
- Gesheft is making a profit from a business that requires high ethics and selflessness. This is profit, speculation.
Synonyms are the words: profit, barter, scam.
Use of the word
Gesheft is an integral part of common Odessa expressions:
- What's the deal?
- Small gamble.
- You never mentioned gesheft.
- What a gamble he makes!
- He has a profit from this.
Among young people you can hear that someone is doing musical gesheft - playing a musical instrument at weddings. Everyone has their own gamble: an official turns a blind eye to something and gets a “lamb in a piece of paper”, an apartment broker makes a combination for a fee, even a thief can have a successful gamble. At the beginning of the last century, Odessa words in Yiddish poured into prisons. The guards did not understand them, so there was a rapid spread of Yiddish in thieves' jargon. On it, the word “gesheft” means “profitable business.”
Quotes from the classics
Gesheft is a colorful and capacious word that is also used by writers:
- A.P. Chekhov uses it to describe the atmosphere of dishonest profit in the story “Champagne”: “Where is the drunken revelry, ... the triumph of gesheft...”.
- A. N. Rybakov, depicting the fussy and futile existence of one of the heroes of the novel “Heavy Sand,” notes: “His whole life was a gesheft.”
figurative meaning of the word
The figurative meaning of the word “gesheft” can have a derogatory connotation and is used in the names and definitions of investigative journalism. Thus, “gesheft from genocide” refers to the unscrupulous extraction of benefits, not always monetary, by unscrupulous politicians and businessmen. In this case, the word “gesheft” simply disguises the crime.
It is also used in an ironic sense. There is a well-known joke about a mother and son who walked around the market and bought vegetables. The son was carrying eggs in an armful. After a long bargaining at the tomato counter, the mother, having brought down the price, tells her son to take the anniversary ruble out of his pocket and pay. The son, worn out by the heat, puts his hand in his pocket and the eggs fall. The saleswoman says: “You are forcing me to make a gesheft at a loss” and reduces the price.
Gesheft in Odessa
Having started as a weekend event, the handmade festival in the seaside city has developed and continued. It’s not for nothing that they called it “Gesheft” - these are actually small profitable deals, small investments that quickly and profitably pay off. In the row of souvenirs, the seller wrote an announcement: “I am reducing the price. Bargain." A trip to Gesheft is beneficial for both the seller and the buyer.
An entrepreneur from Odessa founded a club for communication between business people and also called it “Gesheft”. Apparently, the word in the city is accepted as it was many years ago - meaning small-scale production, services, small benefits. Odessa residents say that in fact their Odessa language is real Russian, only earlier.
In fact, the word, which was used in narrow circles of Odessa businessmen, has become slang in our country. Here is another example of how language develops. Borrowing occurred and enriched the speech with a capacious expression. Now this word is in fashion, but in Efremova’s dictionary it is listed as outdated. This is what living speech means!
Definition
Gestalt in simple words is an image consisting of several independent elements perceived by a person as a single whole.
Our perception has a unique ability to connect separate objects together and create something new from them. This ability makes life much easier. For example, with its help we can easily recognize familiar faces. To do this, we do not need to look at a person’s nose, mouth, and eyes separately. We perceive the entire face.
The role of a gestalt is often a certain sequence of actions that the brain seeks to complete. An open gestalt is usually some kind of situation that we perceive as incomplete. For example, someone was rude to you in line at the post office, and you could not give him a decent answer. And now you spend the whole day thinking about this situation, turning it over in your head, looking for the right words.
This is an example of how an unclosed gestalt causes our energy to flow into nowhere and prevents us from focusing on the issues that really matter.
Here's another example - a positive one. You ironed your shirt, got distracted by extraneous thoughts and forgot to turn off the iron. Although you didn’t consciously notice it, your brain recorded that its usual sequence of actions turned out to be incomplete. After leaving the house, you felt very anxious and uncomfortable, which eventually forced you to return.
Gestalt therapy: concept, history, main tasks
Gestalt therapy today can rightfully be called one of the most effective techniques in modern psychotherapy. It is a humanistic psychotherapeutic direction, which is based on existential (awareness of life and life goals) and experimental-phenomenological approaches.
For the first time, the famous specialist Frederick Solomon Perls spoke about it. This event took place in the early 50s of the last century in the USA. Together with his wife Laura and colleagues, Mr. Perls combined substantially refined pre-existing psychoanalytic theory with several concepts:
- Gestalt psychology;
- phenomenological psychology;
- Zen philosophy;
- existential-humanistic psychology.
It should be noted that Gestalt therapy, although it has absorbed some ideas from Gestalt psychology, is not its applied branch.
Its main task is to help a person develop self-awareness, realize and complete destructive gestalts. The Gestalt therapist does not delve into the patient’s unconscious and does not observe him from the outside, but takes an active part in this process.
The specialist, basing his activities on the main principles of the humanistic approach, treats the client as an equal person. The therapist does not share with the client any bookish and useless advice, but simply helps him find his own right path, using general experience and current resources as a basis. It also helps the patient take responsibility for his life, emotions, reactions, judgments, actions.
To understand what exactly we are talking about, consider the following example. In a wretched hut on the river bank lives an unhappy man who does not even have money to buy food for himself. One day a kind stranger passed by his house, and the poor man decided to ask him for at least some food. The stranger had mercy, caught a fish, fed the poor man and moved on.
The next day the situation repeated itself: a stranger passed by, a poor man asked him for food. But this time the kind man did not directly satisfy the hunger of the poor man. He showed him how to make a fishing rod and how to fish in the river so that he would always have enough to eat.
In the modern world, Gestalt therapy is used in the following areas of life:
- pedagogy;
- conflict management;
- consulting;
- organizational development;
- personal development;
- team building;
- psychotherapy;
- coaching;
- development of creativity, etc.
Founders of Gestalt psychotherapy
The founder of Gestalt psychotherapy is considered to be Frederick Perls, a German psychiatrist of Jewish origin. He is called the creator of the three pillars of Gestalt therapy: awareness, responsibility and choice. The time when the first ideas of the Gestalt approach appeared was 1940-1950.
A rebel of his time, he opposed some of the postulates of Freudian theory and one hundred percent acceptance of it as truth.
Quote from the founder of Gestalt psychotherapy, F. Perls:
“You did not come into this world to live up to my expectations. Just like I didn’t come here to justify yours. If we meet and get along, that's great. If not, then nothing can be done.”
Gestalt prayer. Explanatory text
The text of this prayer is read when someone does not meet your expectations, or you do not meet someone’s expectations, due to your negative childhood experience.
Usually people have expectations (illusions) towards others and, conversely, other people very often want something from you. As a result of unjustified expectations, resentment towards each other always arises.
Any expectations of something from other people are caused by a certain mental mechanism called “fusion”.
This mechanism arises from the fact that each creature distinguishes itself from the mass, while at the same time being part of this mass. A person perceives himself as an individual, while striving to live in a group.
How to make life colorful?
The human psyche is designed in such a way that it is accustomed to dividing the world into “us” and “they”.
Within oneself, a person also experiences a state of merging. At different points in his life, for example, he is first a strict parent and then a helpless child. But at the same time, a person believes that he is a single whole.
When communicating with other people, on the one hand, we separate ourselves from them, but at the same time, we do not allow them to feel and be individual. We expect them to think the same way as we do, to want the same things as we do. We don't even ask other people if they want to be us.
For example, a father wants his adult daughter to return home early, but she does not want this. But they have mutual illusions towards each other. He expects her to come early, and she expects him to leave her alone and allow her to live her personal life.
The text of the Gestalt prayer should be read precisely at such moments when you feel guilty or are trying to blame someone else. In other words, when you yourself are a victim or are trying to turn another person into a victim.
It is better to read the prayer out loud. It’s even better if you pronounce it while looking into the eyes of the one with whom you are merging.
Incomplete gestalt - what is the essence of the problem
Gestalt is integrity, completeness. Refers not only to classic relationships between parents, friends, couples. In general, to satisfy desires, achieve goals, etc.
When someone is in a quarrel with a loved one or cannot find a job for a long time, it is very depressing, you must admit. Let's look at a couple of common life situations to understand what's what.
Examples
Imagine the situation. The man really wanted to become an artist, tried to draw, but then abandoned it. Time passes, everything goes as usual, but when he reaches into the closet for some things, he accidentally stumbles upon his work.
What's happening? He is upset because he remembers his desire, which he did not achieve . Then he walks around the apartment sad for a whole week.
Let's consider an unfinished gestalt using the example of a separation between a man and a woman. Let's say one of them decides to separate. As a rule, such news will come out of the blue in the middle of summer. The person will be discouraged and upset.
Perhaps he will fall into a state of hopelessness, deepen into a depressive state. He will be tormented by thoughts that it is impossible to return everything as before, to fix something.
This situation will remain unresolved if it is not worked out correctly in your head on your own or with the help of a psychotherapist.
Gestalt therapist. Don't wave your arms after a fight
No matter how strange it may sound, all a person’s problems arise from untimely actions. Didn’t finish what he started, didn’t forgive, offended, humiliated - all this becomes a haven of despair, which can accumulate for years, and then pour out in unacceptable forms. It is human nature to avoid problematic situations, put off decisions until later, and “accidentally” forget. But in the meantime, from year to year, many gestalts accumulate in the consciousness. What it is? These are all situations that a person stubbornly ignored or did not attach importance to.
You can often meet people who seem stuck in the past decade. And now we are not talking about aesthetes or freaks who deliberately prefer the fashion of the 20s or 60s. Now the conversation concerns those who still cannot say goodbye to their own past. For something to turn into an expensive vintage, at least 40 years must pass, but clothes that were in fashion 10 or 20 years ago look quite pathetic, funny and irrelevant. This is exactly what people look like who are stuck in the last decade, where they were 25, 30 or 35 years old.
In that distant past, there are a lot of unfinished business and missed opportunities, so people don’t want to leave that place and that time. They are still waiting (though they don’t know what). But as they say, after a fight you don’t wave your fists. We need to deal with the problems of the past as quickly as possible and continue to move forward.
It's really scary to constantly cling to the past, not admit your mistakes and try to pass yourself off as someone you, in fact, are not. Life passes and does so very quickly. Before you have time to look around, only a few gray days will be left of it. It is reasonable to ask: why then was life given to man? You won’t surprise anyone by stating the fact that a person is capable of anything. But if he is bound by the past, he is helpless.
Learning to live here and now is what Gestalt therapy encourages everyone to do. In life, a person is driven not by his head or mind, but by desires, feelings and needs. Everything a person does, he does for his own good. Such therapy is not developmental psychology, but psychotherapy. Very often at group trainings they talk about simple, one might even say elementary, things in the belief that this is an extremely complex and insoluble problem.
Gestalt therapists are sure that there are no healthy people; we are all a little weird. Therefore, in their approaches they use a simple strategy: “Accept!” And you have to accept it, and if it doesn’t work out, then you can read the prayer written by the founder of the Gestalt method like a spell.
Who would be interested in Gestalt psychology?
You will be interested in Gestalt therapy if you are interested in psychology and want to:
- learn about people's relationships in order to apply this both in your personal life and at work
- learn to manage your feelings
- change your life
- cope with stress, anxiety, irritation, depression
- support yourself and find your interest
- develop and bring new things into your life
- decisions
- develop creativity and spontaneity
How is Gestalt formed?
Let's take a closer look at how destructive gestalts are formed that poison a person's life. They are usually based on unpleasant and painful situations. The memory stores them in the “Current” folder, despite the fact that they are a thing of the past. Because the anxiety caused by them is associated with the present and the future.
For example, almost any conflict causes the appearance of an unclosed gestalt. Even if it is in the past, possible consequences can affect the present. Therefore, a person tries to bring it to its logical conclusion, constantly thinks about it, and in the end only strengthens it.
And our brain marks positive situations as “completed” and sends them to the archive.
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Reasons for the appearance of gestalts
To better understand what gestalt is, scientists conducted studies with representatives of different nationalities. They discovered an interesting pattern: people living in conditions of a primitive communal system are not susceptible to the formation of open gestalts. Moreover, even in a civilized society, the higher the level of education and social status of a particular person, the higher the probability of the formation of a gestalt in a particular person.
Why is this happening? The reason is simple: a gestalt is formed if a person’s achievements in life are important. An educated person often thinks about his past, evaluates the morality of his own actions, rethinks his choices and analyzes his mistakes. A representative of a tribe, unlike him, lives for today. He works, has fun, builds a house and starts a family, based on current needs. And he has absolutely no time to think about his own mistakes.
Why do you need to close gestalts?
Research by Gestalt psychologists is useful not only from a theoretical point of view, but also from a practical one.
It helps maintain mental health
Gestalt psychologists believe Raffagnino R. Gestalt Therapy Effectiveness: A Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence / Open Journal of Social Sciences that human needs successively replace each other when they are satisfied. These can be either natural needs such as thirst or hunger, or aspirations, dreams, plans for life.
If these needs have not been realized, they begin to disturb us and drain the resources of the brain and body. Such needs came to be called “unclosed gestalts.” They cause feelings of unresolved anger, pain, anxiety and other negative emotions.
This helps you stay organized and finish what you start.
Unclosed gestalts greatly influence all areas of our lives. This demonstrates the effect that was discovered by Zolotova N.V., Mazilov V.A., Bazikov M.V. The scientific heritage of B.V. Zeigarnik in domestic medical (clinical) psychology / Yaroslavl Pedagogical Bulletin, Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik. The researcher noticed that waiters remember current orders well and almost immediately forget completed ones.
The Zeigarnik effect shows that unfinished tasks are strongly imprinted in our memory. They haunt us, as the brain periodically reproduces them. Therefore, it is important not to delay resolving issues that concern you. Unclosed gestalts not only harm the psyche, but also distract from other matters.
It calms us down and gives us a feeling of control over the situation.
According to predictive coding theory, the brain's ultimate goal is to learn to predict a situation as accurately as possible. The correct guess is reinforced by a dose of dopamine. Remember the rapture you feel when you say: “I knew it!”
A problem solved on time brings a feeling of satisfaction and the feeling that you did everything right, because the brain’s prediction was confirmed.
