Gestalt therapy founder. Unfinished Gestalt and “Projection”

The unfamiliar word “Gestalt” still hurts the ears of many, although, if you look at it, Gestalt therapy is not such a stranger. Many concepts and techniques developed by it over the 50 years of its existence have literally become “folk”, since in one way or another they are included in various areas of modern psychotherapy. This is the here and now principle, borrowed from Eastern philosophy; a holistic approach that considers man and the world as a holistic phenomenon. This is the principle of self-regulation and interchange with the environment and a paradoxical theory of change: they occur when a person becomes who he is, and does not try to be who he is not. This is, finally, the “empty chair” technique, when you express your complaints not to a real, but to an imaginary interlocutor - a boss, a friend, your own laziness.

Gestalt therapy is the most universal direction of psychotherapy, providing the basis for any work with the inner world - from combating childhood fears to coaching top officials. Gestalt therapy perceives a person as a holistic phenomenon, in which simultaneously and constantly there is conscious and unconscious, body and mind, love and hate, past and plans for the future. And all this is only here and now, since the past no longer exists and the future has not yet arrived. Man is designed in such a way that he cannot exist in isolation, as a “thing in itself.” The outside world is by no means hostile to us (as psychoanalysis claimed); on the contrary, it is the environment that nourishes us and in which our life is the only possible one. Only in contact with the outside world can we take what we lack and give what fills us. When this mutual exchange is disrupted, we freeze and life becomes like an abandoned circus arena, where the lights have long gone out, the spectators have left, and we habitually walk and walk in circles.

The goal of Gestalt therapy is not even to understand why we walk in this circle, but to restore freedom in our relationships with the world: we are free to leave and return, run in circles or sleep in the open air.

Granddaughter for grandmother

Gestalt therapy is called the granddaughter of psychoanalysis. Its founder, the Austrian psychiatrist Frederick Perls, was a Freudian at the beginning of his professional career, but, like any good student, he went further than his teacher, combining Western psychotherapeutic schools with the ideas of Eastern philosophy. For the creation of a new direction (as well as for Perls’s personal life), his acquaintance with Laura, a doctor of Gestalt psychology, who later became his wife, played an important role. The word gestalt (German) itself does not have an exact translation. Approximately, it denotes a complete image, a complete structure. At the beginning of the 20th century, a school of experimental psychology emerged, called “Gestalt psychology.” Its essence is that we perceive the world as a collection of integral images and phenomena (gestalts). Narmiper, bkuvy in solve can follow in any place - we still understand the meaning. If we see something unfamiliar, the brain first quickly tries to find what it looks like and adapt new information to it. And only if this fails, the orienting reflex is activated: “What is it?”

The postulates of the new direction were strongly influenced by the “field” theory developed by Gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin. Essentially, this discovery showed: the world has everything we need, but we see only what we want to see, what is important to us at this moment in our lives, and the rest becomes an unnoticeable background, rushing by, like the landscape outside a car window. When we are cold, we dream of warmth and comfort; when we are looking for boots, we look at everyone’s feet. When we are in love, all other men cease to exist for us.

Another theory - “unfinished actions” - has experimentally found that unfinished tasks are best remembered. Until the work is done, we are not free. She holds us like an invisible leash, not allowing us to leave. We all know very well how this happens, because at least once everyone has wandered around the table with an unfinished coursework, no longer able to write it, but also unable to do anything else.

In Perls's life there was a series of meetings that influenced the emergence of the theory of Gestalt therapy. For some time he worked as an assistant to the doctor Kurt Goldstein, who practiced a holistic approach to a person, not considering it possible to divide him into organs, parts or functions. Thanks to Wilhelm Reich, who introduced the bodily dimension into psychotherapeutic work, Gestalt therapy became the first direction to consider bodily manifestations not as separately existing symptoms requiring treatment, but as one of the ways of experiencing internal, emotional conflicts. Perls' views were also influenced strong influence ideas of existentialism of the 20–30s.

And, finally, the essence and philosophy of Gestalt therapy, its view of the world as a process, and of man as a traveler, its love of paradoxes, the desire for truth hidden in the depths of everyone - all this surprisingly resonates with the ideas of Buddhism and Taoism.

mission Possible

Perls based his theory on the idea of ​​balance and self-regulation, that is, in essence, the wisdom of nature. If nothing interferes with a person, he will inevitably be happy and contented - like a tree growing in favorable conditions, capable of taking everything it needs for its own growth. We are children of this world, and it contains everything we need to be happy.

Perls created a beautiful theory about the cycle of contact with the environment. What this is can be easily understood using a simple example of your lunch. How does it all begin? At first you feel hungry. From this feeling a desire is born - to satisfy hunger. Then you correlate your desire with the surrounding reality and begin to look for ways to realize it. And finally, the moment comes to meet the object of your need. If everything went as it should, you are satisfied with the process and the result, you are full and almost happy. The cycle is complete.

Included in this big contact cycle are many small ones: perhaps you had to finish or reschedule something to go to lunch, or you went to lunch with one of your colleagues. You had to get dressed to go out, and then choose from a variety of dishes what you wanted (and could afford) right now. Likewise, the lunch itself could be included in a larger gestalt called "Business Meeting" (or "Romantic Date" or "See You at Last"). And this gestalt is even greater (“Job Search”, “Career Advancement”, “Crazy Romance”, “Creating a Family”). So our whole life (and the life of all humanity) is like a nesting doll, made up of different gestalts: from crossing the street to the construction of the Great Wall of China, from a minute conversation with an acquaintance on the street to fifty years of family life.

The reasons for our dissatisfaction in life lie in the fact that some cycles of contact are interrupted somewhere, gestalts remain incomplete. And at the same time, on the one hand, we are busy (until the work is done, we are not free), and on the other hand, we are hungry, since satisfaction is possible only when the job is done (lunch is eaten, the wedding took place, life is good).

And here is one of the key points of Gestalt therapy. Perls focused his attention not on how the outside world interferes with us, but on how we prevent ourselves from being happy. Because (remember field theory) there is everything in this world, but for us there is only what we ourselves select from the background. And we can highlight either our powerlessness in the face of evil circumstances that did not allow us to dine, or the opportunity to somehow change them. Those who want, look for ways, and those who don’t want, look for reasons. And in fact, people differ from each other not so much in what circumstances they were given, but in how they react to them. Obviously, an employee who is inclined to feel powerless in front of a tyrant boss is much more likely to remain hungry, because he stops himself much more effectively than his boss.

The goal of therapy is to find a place and a way to interrupt contact, find out how and why a person stops himself, and restore the normal cycle of events in nature.

Stereo effect

Gestalt therapy is sometimes called contact therapy. This is its uniqueness. Until now, this is the only practice in which the therapist works “by himself,” in contrast to classical psychoanalysis, where the most neutral position is maintained (“ Blank sheet"). During a session, the Gestalt therapist has the right to his own feelings and desires and, aware of them, presents them to the client if the process requires it. People turn to a therapist when they want to change something - in themselves or in their lives. But he refuses the role of a person who “knows how to do it”, does not give directive instructions or interpretations, as in psychoanalysis, and becomes one who facilitates the client’s meeting with his essence. The therapist himself embodies that piece of the world with which the client is trying to build a familiar (and ineffective) relationship. The client, communicating with the therapist, seeks to transfer onto him his stereotypes about people, about how they “should” behave and how they “usually” react to him, and encounters a spontaneous reaction from the therapist who does not consider it necessary to adapt to a changing world the one with whom you are in contact. Very often this reaction does not fit into the client’s “script” and forces the latter to take a decisive step beyond the usual barrier of his expectations, ideas, fears or resentments. He begins to explore his reactions to an unusual situation - right here and now - and his new possibilities or limitations. And in the end it comes to the conclusion that, by building relationships, everyone can remain themselves and at the same time maintain intimate contact with the other. He gains or restores the lost freedom to get out of the script, out of the usual circle. He himself gains the experience of a new, different interaction. Then he can integrate this experience into his life.

The goal of such therapy is to return a person to himself, to restore freedom to deal with his life. The client is not a passive object of analysis, but an equal creator and participant in the therapeutic process. After all, only he himself knows where his magic door and the golden key to it are. Even if he forgot or doesn’t want to look in the right direction, he knows.

Responsible for everything

There are several “whales” on which the earth called “Gestalt therapy” rests.

Awareness– sensory experience, experiencing oneself in contact. This is one of those moments when I know “in my gut” who I am, what I am like and what is happening to me. This is experienced as insight, and at some point in life the awareness becomes continuous.

Awareness inevitably entails responsibility, but not as guilt, but as authorship: this is not happening to me, this is how I live. It’s not my head that hurts, but I feel pain and compression in my head, I’m not being manipulated, but I agree to be the object of manipulation. At first, accepting responsibility causes resistance, since it deprives the enormous benefits of psychological games and shows the “wrong side” of human exploits and suffering. But if we find the courage to face our “shadow”, we will be rewarded - we begin to understand that we have power over our own lives and over our relationships with other people. After all, if I do it, then I can redo it! We develop our possessions and sooner or later reach their borders.

So, after experiencing the euphoria of power, we encounter the uncontrollable - with time and losses, with love and sadness, with our own strength and weakness, with the decisions and actions of other people. We humble ourselves and accept not only this world, but also ourselves in it, after which the therapy ends and life continues.

The principle of reality. It is easy to explain, but difficult to accept. There is a certain reality (given to us in sensations), but there is also our opinion about it, our interpretation of what is happening. These reactions are much more varied than the facts, and they often turn out to be so much stronger than sensations that we take a long time and seriously solve the problem: is the king naked or am I stupid?

Gestalt therapy is sometimes called “therapy of the obvious.” The therapist does not rely on the client’s thoughts or his own generalizations, but on what he sees and hears. He avoids judgment and interpretation, but asks the questions “what?” And How?". Practice has shown that it is enough to focus on the process (what is happening and how it is happening), and not on the content (what is being discussed), for a person to exclaim that same “aha!” A common reaction to meeting reality is resistance, because a person is deprived of illusions and rose-colored glasses. “Yes, it was true. But it’s some kind of treacherous truth,” admitted one of the group members. In addition, reality sometimes forces a person to admit that the king is really naked, and then it will no longer be possible to live as before. And the newness is scary.

Here and now. The future does not exist yet, the past has already happened, we live in the present. Only here and now am I writing this text, and you read it, or remember what happened, or make plans for the future. Only here and now is change possible.

This principle does not deny our past at all. The client’s experience, the field of his life, does not disappear anywhere and determines his behavior at every moment, including during the session. And yet, here and now he is talking to a therapist - and why about this? What is here and now that could be useful (at the moment)?

Dialogue in Gestalt therapy it is a meeting of two worlds: client and therapist, person and person. When the worlds come into contact, in this contact it is possible to explore the border that exists between “me” and “not-me”. The client (sometimes for the first time!) experiences the experiences that arise in the process of interacting with someone who is “not me” while simultaneously maintaining his own identity. These are those I–You relationships in which there is I with my feelings, You with my feelings and that living, unique thing that happens between them (happens for the first time, this very minute and will never happen again).

This is a unique experience because the therapist is a person outside the client's life who does not need anything from him, and can truly allow the client to be himself and experience what he is experiencing without trying to influence his feelings.

Gestalt therapy is beyond morality and politics. Its only task is to make the client’s inner world accessible to him, to return the person to himself. She has no educational goals. She doesn’t care at all whether a person grows cabbage or rules a kingdom - it is important that everyone lives their own life, minds their own business and loves with their own love.

Walking together

In classical psychoanalysis and in everyday consciousness, individuality and society are opposed to each other. In everyday life, we often have the idea (and feeling) that another person limits our freedom, since it ends where our neighbor’s nose begins. Then the most logical conclusion seems to be that the fewer people there are around and the further we are from them, the more free we are, the easier it is to be ourselves. That is, psychologically speaking, loneliness is necessary for deep individualization. In most philosophical practices, the process of individualization involves immersion in oneself and withdrawal from the world.

Perhaps at some stage this is really necessary. But Gestalt therapy says: in order to come to yourself, you need to come to others. Go to another person - and there you will find your essence. Go into the world - and there you will find yourself.

But why does contact with the world and another person allow individualization to occur? Alone with ourselves, we can think whatever we want about ourselves. But we will never know if this is true until we interact with the world. A person may think that he can easily lift a car until he tries - in fact, this ability does not exist, but only fantasies about it. This is the false self, the false uniqueness. True uniqueness involves real action in the real world.

What happens to our uniqueness when it meets the uniqueness of another? Only when we come into contact with the world (another person) does our uniqueness take on a practical character. Two realities collide, giving birth to a third. In this way, the socialization of individuality occurs: a person’s originality is the uniqueness of his functions, and this determines his value to others. Individuality brought to the boundary of contact turns into a function for others. For example: “I’m authoritarian” - Well, then lead.” “I am a poet” - “And make your soul sing.”

Thus, we go beyond the definition of society as restraining frameworks and regulations; they simply cease to play a determining role. What becomes significant is what in a person is of value to others. And what in others is of value to this person. These are our experiences, experiences and ideas, our unique characteristics or simply abilities that others do not have. This determines our need for each other and determines our relationships.

Very sharp eye

Remember the prayer attributed to the Optina elders: “Lord, give me the strength to change what I cannot bear! Lord, give me patience to endure what I cannot change! And, Lord, give me wisdom to distinguish the first from the second!” I have the impression that Gestalt therapy is gradually teaching me this wisdom. She has made my life interesting because it helps me to be very selective, to quickly abandon what does not suit me, to search and find what I need. And everything that happens in my life: people, business, hobbies, books - this is what I like, is interesting and needs.

Gestalt therapy also gave me peace. I can trust the river that is my life. She lets me know when and where I need to be alert, and when and where I can drop the oars and just surrender to the flow and the sun.

Gestalt therapy - this is the method practical psychology, aimed at patients’ awareness and analysis of everything unspoken, suppressed and unfinished in life, with the aim of getting rid of problems and harmonizing the personality.

The Gestalt approach is based on its own theoretical theses, the postulates of psychoanalysis, elements of psychodrama and bioenergetics.

The founder of this direction is the German scientist - Fritz Perls, he used the theory of psychoanalysis for its development, which he constantly supplemented with his own conclusions. The holistic approach (the unity of soul and body, feelings and emotions) in Gestalt therapy appeared thanks to the works of psychologists Wertheimer, Koehler, Kurt Goldstein. The development of bodily sensations was positioned by the researcher Reich, and introduced elements of psychodrama Jacob Moreno.

Having undergone Gestalt therapy, a person begins to see, feel and understand his own personality not as a set of individual character traits, qualities, desires, prohibitions and abilities, but as a whole as a single organism that he can control. During the treatment process, the therapist helps the patient “extract” “painful” memories, images, thoughts, feelings from the subconscious and “work” on them.

In the end it should be gestalt(internal image of the problem and barriers to expressing emotions). His step-by-step analysis allows people to build harmonious relationships with themselves, loved ones and the world around them so as to receive pleasure and positive emotions.

Changing the usual perception of oneself, one’s behavior, reviving sincerity and the ability to rejoice, rethinking actions and relationships - this is what Gestalt therapy is in simple language.

In their consultations or group trainings, Gestalt therapists teach patients:

• always rely on your desires and needs, taking into account reality and circumstances;
• do not suppress your feelings and do not accumulate negativity;
• express oneself in communication, creativity, and activity.

The main provisions of the Gestalt approach are:

• developing an attentive attitude and quick response to any of your own emotions;
• enrichment, increase and preservation of internal energy;
• relaxed manifestation of bodily reactions;
• desire for authenticity (building harmonious relations with your body).

The cycle of actions in such therapy

Gestalt therapy is most effective for women(due to their emotionality), for men such long-term attention and careful analysis of feelings may seem like an exaggeration; they are usually guided by the arguments of reason and easily ignore their desires and needs for the sake of achievements and success.

Moreover, in society there is too emotional man is considered weak, so it is not easy for many representatives of the stronger sex to talk about their problems, even when meeting with a psychotherapist.

Basic methods and techniques

The Gestalt approach uses:

• working with feelings;
• exercises to express your state with body movements;
• analysis of dreams and memories;
• working with fictional characters (playing out situations and feelings).

The therapy process is considered effective:

• if it lasts no more than 2 years;
• shows patients the strengths of their personality;
• promotes a positive perception of oneself in the world.

Stages of Gestalt therapy:

• searching for problems, obvious and “disguised” negativity among clients, weaknesses their personalities;
• analysis and “release” of detected obstacles;
• building trust in one’s own sphere of feelings and learning to freely express emotions (taking into account social norms and rules).

The main role in any Gestalt methods is given to emotions, the movements of the mind are considered secondary, they are taken into account if they do not suppress the sphere of feelings.

Basic 5 emotions in Gestalt therapy

Task Gestalt therapist help the patient see how he “prevents” the satisfaction of his needs, what psychological blocks he puts up and together find acceptable ways to satisfy them.

Task client- reflection (awareness and expression) of one’s feelings and related actions.
The main strategy of Gestalt therapy is the development of the desire to accept oneself (personality change techniques are practically not used in it).

Therapists of the Gestalt approach use special terms in their work:

1. Interprojection. Substitution of real needs of people with imposed ones (by society, traditions, significant people).

2. Confluence (lack of boundaries between external environment and the body). The fusion of feelings and actions in order to obtain maximum satisfaction from life.

3. Retroflection. “Freezing” in the subconscious of your needs and desires.

4. Cycle contact. The process of forming an image of an obstacle in the client’s mind, expressing feelings regarding the problem, and destroying the gestalt.

5. Pre-contact. The stage of formation of a gestalt with a predominance of the sensations of its background (based on bodily sensations, an image of the dominant feeling arises).

6. Contacting. Free expression of feelings and overcoming emotional “clamps”.

7. Final contact. Identifying oneself with a gestalt image, awareness of the unity of feelings and actions.

8. Egotism. Self-interruption of the Gestalt therapy chain. Avoiding awareness of the need, preventing the transition to final contact and getting stuck in contacting.

9. Post-contact. Dissolution of the Gestalt figure into the background. Gaining and consolidating the experience of emotional and bodily expression of feelings.

Thus, the entire process of traditional Gestalt therapy is the formation of a figure and ground in the minds of patients and a gradual reflection of them internal work over psychological problems.

Here's what it is in simple words:

• awareness of your emotions in a state of rest;
• analysis of feelings and desires when a stimulus occurs;
• formation of a holistic image (gestalt) of the provoking factor and reaction to it;
• emotional response to it;
• catharsis (stress relief and satisfaction);
• return to a harmonious state

Exercises

Individual or group sessions with a Gestalt therapist allow
step by step, “expose” the emotional “trash” in the subconscious of clients, bring them to awareness of the problematic situation, teach them to express themselves according to their inner impulses and live in harmony with their body.

At the beginning of therapy, exercises are used to focus feelings and reflect them, then techniques for releasing negative emotions are used. The doctor performs general leadership through the process of forming a gestalt, it focuses patients’ attention on problematic issues, encouraging awareness of the need to freely express their emotions.

Examples of exercises:

1. “Hot chair.” The client sits in the center of the group (at trainings, participants usually sit in a circle) and is asked to talk about what worries him. After a dialogue with the patient in the “hot chair,” the trainer asks to express the feelings and sensations of other participants. They all must be in the center of the circle.

2. Awareness. Here patients talk about feelings and thoughts in the present moment.

3. Increased bodily manifestations during exercise. The therapist asks the training participants to exaggerate any non-verbal gestures, for example, turning finger tapping into a “drum roll”.

4. Shuttle movement. Injecting the background into the figure. If the client reports loneliness, the therapist tries to “color” the background as negatively as possible, i.e. focuses on bodily manifestations (trembling, squeezing hands or feet, etc.).

5. “Empty chair.” In this center chair exercise, patients do not engage in dialogue with real person, but with the imaginary, the dead or oneself.

6. Making circles. All members of the group speak to each other in a circle.

“Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Call me with you and I will understand.” Confucius (ancient thinker and philosopher of China).

Perhaps everyone knows psychology as a system of life phenomena, but only a few know psychology as a system of proven knowledge, and only those who specifically deal with it, solving all sorts of scientific and practical problems. The term “psychology” first appeared in scientific use in the 16th century, and denoted a special science that studied mental and mental phenomena. In the XVII – 19th centuries, the scope of research by psychologists has expanded significantly and covered unconscious mental processes (the unconscious) and the detail of a person. And already from the 19th century. Psychology is an independent (experimental) field of scientific knowledge. Studying the psychology and behavior of people, scientists continue to look for their explanations, as in biological nature person and in his individual experience.

What is Gestalt psychology?

Gestalt psychology(German gestalt - image, form; gestalten - configuration) - one of the most interesting and popular trends in Western psychology, which arose during the period of open crisis in psychological science in the early 1920s. in Germany. The founder is a German psychologist Max Wertheimer. This direction was developed not only in the works of Max Wertheimer, but also of Kurt Lewin, Wolfgang Keller, Kurt Koffka and others. Gestalt psychology is a kind of protest against Wundt’s molecular program for psychology. Based on research visual perception, the configurations " gestalts"(Gestalt - holistic form), the essence of which is that a person tends to perceive the world around him in the form of ordered integral configurations, and not individual fragments of the world.

Gestalt psychology opposed the principle of dividing consciousness (structural psychology) into elements, and constructing complex mental phenomena from them according to the laws of creative synthesis. Even a peculiar law was formulated, which sounded in the following way: “The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.” Initially subject Gestalt psychology was a phenomenal field, later there was a fairly rapid expansion of this topic, and it began to include issues studying the problems of mental development; the founders of this direction were also concerned with the dynamics of personality needs, memory and creative thinking person.

School of Gestalt Psychology

The school of Gestalt psychology traces its origins (ancestry) to the important experiment of the German psychologist Max Wertheimer - "phi - phenomenon", the essence of which is as follows: M. Wertheimer using special devices– strobe and tachostoscope, studied two stimuli in test people (two straight lines) by transmitting them different speeds. And I found out the following:

• If the interval is large, the subject perceives the lines sequentially
• Very short interval – lines are perceived simultaneously
• Optimal interval (about 60 milliseconds) – a perception of movement is created (the subject’s eyes observed the movement of a line “to the right” and “to the left”, and not two lines of data sequentially or simultaneously)
• At the optimal time interval - the subject perceived only pure movement (realized that there was movement, but without moving the line itself) - this phenomenon was called "fi-phenomenon."

Max Wertheimer outlined his observation in the article “Experimental studies of motion perception” - 1912.

Max Wertheimer - famous German psychologist, founder of Gestalt psychology, became widely known thanks to experimental work in the field of thinking and perception. M. Wertheimer (1880 -1943) - born in Prague, received his primary education there, studied at universities - Prague, in Berlin with K. Stumpf; from O. Külpe - in Würzburg (received in 1904 academic degree Doctor of Philosophy). In the summer of 1910 he moved to Frankfurt am Main, where he became interested in the perception of movement, thanks to which new principles of psychological explanation were later discovered.

His work attracted the attention of many prominent scientists of the time, among them was Kurt Koffka, who participated in Wertheimer's experiments as a test subject. Together, based on the results and the method of experimental research, they formulated a completely new approach towards an explanation of motion perception.

This is how Gestalt psychology was born. Gestalt psychology becomes popular in Berlin, where Werheimer returns in 1922. And in 1929 he was appointed professor in Frankfurt. 1933 - emigration to the USA (New York) - work in New school social research, here in October 1943 he dies. And in 1945 it was published book: “Productive Thinking”, in which he experimentally, from the position of Gestalt psychology, explores the process of solving problems (the process of determining the functional meaning of individual parts in the structure of the problem situation).

Kurt Koffka (1886 – 1941) is rightfully considered the founder of Gestalt psychology. K. Koffka was born and grew up in Berlin, where he received his education at the local university. He was always especially fascinated by natural sciences and philosophy; K. Koffka was always very inventive. In 1909 he received his doctorate. In 1910, he fruitfully collaborated with Max Wertheimer at the University of Frankfurt. In his article: “Perception: An Introduction to Gestalt Theory,” he outlined the basics of Gestalt psychology, as well as the results of many studies.

In 1921 Koffka published book “Fundamentals of Mental Development”, dedicated to the formation of child psychology. The book was very popular not only in Germany, but also in the United States. He was invited to America to give lectures at the universities of Cornell and Wisconsin. In 1927, he received a professorship at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he worked until his death (until 1941). In 1933, Koffka published book "Principles of Gestalt psychology", which turned out to be too difficult to read, and therefore did not become the main and most complete guide to studying the new theory, as its author had hoped.

His research on the development of perception in children revealed the following: the child, as it turned out, actually has a set of not very adequate, vague images of the outside world. This prompted him to think that in the development of perception a large role is played by the combination of figure and background on which it is demonstrated. this item. He formulated one of the laws of perception, which was called “transduction”. This law proved that children do not perceive colors themselves, but their relationships.

Ideas, laws, principles

Key ideas of Gestalt psychology

The main thing that Gestalt psychology works with is consciousness. Consciousness is a dynamic whole where all elements interact with each other. A striking analogue: harmony of the whole organism - the human body works flawlessly and properly long years, consisting of a large number of organs and systems.

• Gestalt is a unit of consciousness, an integral figurative structure.
• Subject Gestalt psychology is consciousness, the understanding of which should be based on the principle of integrity.
• Method Gestalt cognition - observation and description of the contents of one’s perception. Our perception does not come from sensations, since they do not exist in reality, but is a reflection of fluctuations in air pressure - the sensation of hearing.
• Visual perception – the leading mental process that determines the level of mental development. And an example of this: a huge amount of information obtained by people through the organs of vision.
• Thinking is not a set of skills formed through errors and trials, but a process of solving a problem, carried out through the structuring of the field, that is, through insight in the present.

Laws of Gestalt psychology

Law of figure and ground: The figures are perceived by a person as a closed whole, but the background is perceived as something continuously extending behind the figure.

Law of Transposition: The psyche reacts not to individual stimuli, but to their relationship. The meaning here is this: elements can be combined if there are at least some similar features, such as proximity or symmetry.

Law of Pregnancy: There is a tendency to perceive the simplest and most stable figure of all possible perceptual alternatives.

Law of constancy: everything strives for permanence.

Law of Proximity: the tendency to combine elements adjacent in time and space into a coherent image. For all of us, as we know, it is easiest to combine similar items.

Law of closure(filling in the gaps in the perceived figure): when we observe something completely incomprehensible to us, our brain tries with all its might to transform, translate what we see into an understanding accessible to us. Sometimes this even carries danger, because we begin to see something that is not in reality.

Gestalt principles

All of the above-mentioned properties of perception, be it figure, background or constants, certainly interact with each other, thereby carrying new properties. This is gestalt, the quality of form. Integrity of perception and orderliness are achieved thanks to the following principles:

• Proximity(everything nearby is perceived together);
• Similarity ( anything that is similar in size, color or shape tends to be perceived together);
• Integrity(perception tends towards simplification and integrity);
• Closedness(acquisition of shape by a figure);
• Adjacency ( proximity of stimuli in time and space. Contiguity can determine perception when one event causes another);
• Common area(Gestalt principles shape our everyday perceptions along with learning and past experience).

Gestalt - quality

The term “Gestalt quality” (German) Gestaltqualität) introduced into psychological science X. Ehrenfels to designate the holistic “gestalt” properties of certain formations of consciousness. The quality of “transpositivity”: the image of the whole remains, even if all the parts change in their material, and examples of this:

• different keys of the same melody,
• paintings by Picasso (for example, Picasso’s drawing “Cat”).

Constants of perception

Size constancy: the perceived size of an object remains constant, regardless of changes in the size of its image on the retina.

Form constancy: the perceived shape of an object is constant, even when the shape on the retina changes. It is enough to look at the page you are reading, first straight ahead, and then at an angle. Despite the change in the “picture” of the page, the perception of its shape remains unchanged.

Brightness constancy: The brightness of the object is constant, even under changing lighting conditions. Naturally, subject to the same lighting of the object and the background.

Figure and ground

The simplest perception is formed by dividing visual sensations into an object - figure, located on background. Brain cells, having received visual information (by looking at a figure), give a more active reaction than when looking at the background. This happens for the reason that the figure is always pushed forward, and the background, on the contrary, is pushed back, and the figure is also richer and brighter in content than the background.

Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy - a direction of psychotherapy that was formed in the middle of the last century. The term “gestalt” is a holistic image of a certain situation. The meaning of therapy: a person and everything around him are a single whole. Founder of Gestalt therapy - psychologist Friedrich Perls. Contact and boundary are the two main concepts of this direction.

Contact – the process of interaction between human needs and the capabilities of the environment. This means that a person’s needs will be satisfied only if he has contact with the outside world. For example: to satisfy the feeling of hunger, we need food.

The life of absolutely any person is endless gestalts, be they small or large events. A quarrel with a loved one, relationships with mom and dad, children, relatives, friendship, falling in love, talking with work colleagues - all these are gestalts. Gestalt can arise suddenly, at any time, whether we want it or not, but it arises as a result of the emergence of a need that requires immediate satisfaction. Gestalt tends to have a beginning and an end. It ends when satisfaction is achieved.

Gestalt therapy technique

The techniques used in Gestalt therapy are principles and games.

The most famous are the three games presented below for understanding yourself and the people around you. Games are built on internal dialogue, the dialogue is conducted between parts of one’s own personality (with one’s emotions - with fear, anxiety). To understand this, remember yourself when you experienced a feeling of fear or doubt - what happened to you.

Playing technique:

• To play you will need two chairs, they must be placed opposite each other. One chair is for an imaginary “participant” (your interlocutor), and the other chair is yours, that is, a specific participant in the game. Task: change chairs and at the same time play out the internal dialogue - try to identify yourself as much as possible with different parts of your personality.
• Making circles. A direct participant in the game must, going in a circle, address the fictional characters with questions that concern his soul: how the participants in the game evaluate him and what he himself feels for an imaginary group of people, for each person individually.
• Unfinished business. An unfinished gestalt always requires completion. And you can find out how to achieve this from the following sections of our article.

All Gestalt therapy comes down to completing unfinished business. Most people have many unsettled tasks and plans related to their relatives, parents or friends.

Unfinished Gestalt

It is a pity, of course, that a person’s desires are not always translated into reality, and in the language of philosophy: completing the cycle can take almost a lifetime. Gestalt cycle ideal, looks like that:

1. The emergence of a need;
2. Search for opportunities to satisfy it;
3. Satisfaction;
4. Leave contact.

But there are always some internal or external factors that prevent ideal process. As a result, the cycle remains incomplete. In case of complete completion of the process, the gestalt is deposited in consciousness. If the process remains incomplete, it continues to exhaust the person throughout his life, while also delaying the fulfillment of all other desires. Often, incomplete gestalts cause malfunctions in the mechanisms that protect the human psyche from unnecessary overloads.

To complete unfinished gestalts, you can use the advice that the wonderful poet, playwright and writer Oscar Wilde gave to the world a hundred years ago:

“To overcome temptation, you need to... succumb to it.”

A completed gestalt certainly bears fruit - a person becomes pleasant, easy to communicate and begins to be easy for other people. People with incomplete gestalts always try to complete them in other situations and with other people - by forcibly imposing on them roles in the scenarios of their incomplete gestalts!

A small, simple, effective rule: start by completing the simplest and most basic gestalt . Fulfill your cherished (preferably not serious) dream. Learn to dance tango. Draw nature outside the window. Take a parachute jump.

Gestalt exercises

Gestalt therapy represents general therapeutic principles that help “oneself” learn to understand the mysterious labyrinths of one’s soul and recognize the sources of the causes of internal contradiction.

The following exercises are aimed at: simultaneous awareness of oneself and the existence of another. In general, they encourage us to step beyond the limits of the possible. When performing exercises, try to analyze what you are doing, why and how you are doing it. The main goal of these exercises is to develop the ability to find your own estimates.

1. Exercise – “Presence”

Goal: Focus on the feeling of presence.

• close your eyes
• Concentrate on your bodily sensations. If necessary, correct your posture
• Be natural every moment
• Open your eyes, relax them, remaining frozen in body and thoughts.
• Let your body relax
• Concentrate on the feeling of “being” (feel “I am here”)

After concentrating on the sense of I for some time, with your mind relaxed and silent, bring your breath into awareness and move your attention from “I” to “here”, and mentally repeat “I am here” simultaneously with inhalation, pause, exhalation .

2. Exercise - Feeling “You”

The purpose of the exercise: to be able to experience the state of presence “in another person”, that is, to be able to feel the state of “You” instead of the state of “Ego”. The exercise is performed in pairs.

• Face each other
• Close your eyes, take the most comfortable poses.
• Wait for a state of complete peace.
• Open your eyes
• Start having a wordless dialogue with your partner
• Forget about yourself, focus only on the person looking at you.

H. Exercise “I/You”

The exercise is also performed in pairs, you need to sit opposite each other.

1. Concentrate;
2. Eyes should be open;
3. Maintain mental silence, physical relaxation;
4. Concentrate on both the sensations “I” and “You”;
5. Try to feel the “cosmic depth”, infinity.

The purpose of the exercise is to achieve the state: “I” - “YOU” - “Infinity”.

Gestalt pictures

Changeling drawings (visual illusions): What do you see? What emotions are conveyed on each side of the pictures? It is not recommended to allow children to view such pictures. preschool age because they can cause mental disorders. Below are the famous “dual” images: people, animals, nature. What could you see in each of the drawings?

In addition, the idea of ​​Gestalt psychology underlies such pictures, which are called “doodles”. Read more about droodles at.

With this article we wanted to awaken in each of you the desire to start taking care of yourself - to open up to the world. Gestalt, of course, cannot make you richer, but it certainly can make you happier.

Modern existential psychotherapy has many directions, one of which is Gestalt therapy.

The goal of this therapy is the awareness of the individual in an effort to increase self-esteem, fullness and meaningfulness of life, increasing actions that are aimed at improving communication and interaction with other people.

Life situations

To understand the essence of this concept, we can take as an example life situations which can occur in every person:

• A woman spends all her time at work, and even at home all conversations are related to her activities. My husband is offended by this situation.
• A mother who is constantly busy with the problems of her children, distracted by extraneous thoughts, made a mistake in her work documentation.
• While walking down the street, your head is busy with thoughts of broken feelings or a missed romance, without noticing the traffic light, you go to a red light.

Thus, a person, living in the inner world, thinking about what is unnecessary for him, lives an extraneous life. His memories and thoughts do not allow him to be in real time, to experience real emotions.

Or, on the contrary, everyday bustle distances a person from his dreams or goals. Instead of focusing on this, we do unnecessary, vain actions.

We live either in memories, which sometimes bring us suffering, or we are chasing a phantom - a dream that is unlikely to come true. As a result, this leads to divorce, heart attacks, illnesses, ulcers or dismissal from work. Having mastered the Gestalt therapy technique, you will be able to filter situations that are unnecessary for you.

Historical reference

This doctrine was developed by Fritz Perls (1893-1970). He was a psychiatrist with extensive experience, developed a method of treating people with mental illness. But already during the life of the scientist and to the present day, Gestalt therapy has grown from a psychotherapeutic teaching into something more. Now this therapy is used in all areas of life, as it helps resolve difficult situations in life.

Fritz Perls himself argued that man is a holistic creature, and not his assembled parts. Physical, spiritual and social aspects must merge into a single personality.

Each problem should be solved based not on the cause, but on its awareness. It is worth asking the question of how a person feels at the moment and how this can be changed, rather than looking for those to blame and not wondering why this happened. Perls therapy is aimed at realizing life in the moment, here and now, living a full life in the present moment, and not in the past or future.

In 1951, Fritz Perls, with his two colleagues Paul Gooden and Ralph Hefferlin, wrote his work “Gestalt Therapy, Agitation and the Growth of the Human Personality.” In 1952, the Gestalt Institute was established in the American city of New York. Back in 1913, the scientist began to study medicine from a philosophical point of view. Fritz Perls' reference book was Freud's Psychoanalysis.

What is Gestalt therapy?

A Gestalt therapist deals with it. Through suggestion, he focuses the patient on the “here and now” state, turning him into every moment of the present. A person begins to become aware of himself in real time, he develops a sense of responsibility, he begins to experience feelings and emotions now and here.

Basic methods of Gestalt therapy when working with clients:

• Focusing energy.
• Awareness of responsibility.
• Art therapy. The use of creativity and art in this treatment.
• Monodrama. Here are used role-playing games, productions, which allows a person to experience dramatic situations in a new way.
• Intersection of work with other types of psychotherapy, for example, the “hot chair” technique.
• Gestalt prayer, etc.
• Body-oriented therapy. It allows you to know your body and understand that the soul and body are one whole.

There are other ways to work with patients, but the main methods of Gestalt therapy techniques have been presented above.

Principles of this technique

The basis of this teaching was the following concepts and principles:

• Integrity. It is worth understanding that man is a holistic creature. Dividing him into psyche, soul and body is not able to help him realize his inner world.

• The principle of creating and destroying structures of Gestalt therapy. It is based on the needs and desires of a person. When the goal is achieved, the gestalt is destroyed.
• The meaning of a hardened gestalt, methods and techniques of therapy. There are also unfinished life situations in people's lives that negatively affect their psyche. During Gestalt sessions, the therapist helps the patient become aware of his unfinished business, mentally complete it, or bring it closer to completion. A person transfers this experience to daily life, which allows him to cope with many negative situations.
• Contact and its border. A person constantly has contact with visible things - the environment, people, animals, etc. There are also invisible contacts - energy, bioenergy, psychological fields, the presence of various information in life. The place where a person comes into contact with all these species is called the contact boundary. The goal of existing therapy is to create favorable conditions precisely at the border of such contacts.
• Awareness of reality. What is meant here is not that man knows his nature and the world. And the awareness that he is here and now. Realize this not with your mind, but with your feelings. To live not with a mechanical consciousness, when all situations and emotions occur unconsciously, but to move based on your inner content.
• Being here and now. Understand that everything important points in life are happening right now. With our minds in the past or future, we miss the present moment. The past is already far away, and the future has not yet arrived, so a person remains in illusions, forgetting about the present.
• The concept of responsibility. This is an important quality of an individual that comes from his awareness. If people begin to realize the real reality, then their sense of responsibility will be developed. It is very important to take responsibility upon yourself and not shift it onto others.

Which was formed in the middle of the last century. The theory of this direction includes a number of practices. This includes body-oriented therapy, traditional psychoanalysis, Gestalt psychology, psychodrama, as well as many other psychological trends and concepts. The term " gestalt" comes from the German word " gestalt", which translated means " figure" or " form" In simple terms, we can give the following definition this concept: gestalt is a holistic image of a certain situation. In scientific language it sounds like this: gestalt is an integral structure in the field of interaction between a person and his environment, which covers the gap between the emergence of a need and its satisfaction. According to this direction, a person and everything that is around him are a single whole. The founding father of this therapy is considered to be a psychologist Friedrich Perls.

Do you have contact?

Contact and border These are the two main concepts of Gestalt therapy.
Contact refers to the process of interaction between human needs and the capabilities of the environment. Satisfaction of certain needs is possible only when the man will come in in contact with the world around him:

• To satisfy hunger, food is needed;
• when we are thirsty, we start looking for water;
• To satisfy the need for communication, we look for other living beings.

The contact boundary is the place where the human body meets the outside world. Most often, a person perceives this place as the border between internal part his body and what is outside. However, these boundaries are not always so clear. So, for example, water is considered to be part of the outside world.
But what if a person drank water and it ended up inside him?

Identification and alienation:

Both of these phenomena appear at boundaries. Identification hides the division into “ mine" And " stranger", Where " mine"under any circumstances, dearer and closer. All positive relationships in the form of friendship, love and partnership are within internal boundaries. As for negative relationships, they are classified as alien, since they are constantly rejected by a person. As soon as boundaries are violated, a person almost immediately has numerous problems that he begins to overcome.

When does Gestalt occur?

The life of every person is endless gestalts, and they can be both small and large. A quarrel with a loved one, relationships with children or parents, falling in love, friendship, a conversation with a co-worker - all these are gestalts. Gestalt can arise at any moment, not by our will, but as a result of the emergence of a need that requires immediate satisfaction. Gestalt has a beginning and an end. It ends when satisfaction is achieved. Unfortunately, not all of a person’s wishes are always fulfilled without exception. As a result, completing the cycle can take either a second or a lifetime.

Ideally, the Gestalt cycle looks like this:

1. The emergence of a need;
2. Search for opportunities to satisfy it;
3. Satisfaction;
4. Leave contact.

Often this process is hampered by certain internal or external facts. As a result, the cycle remains incomplete, since the contact boundary is broken.
In case of complete completion of the process, the gestalt is deposited in consciousness. If the process remains unfinished, it continues to torment the person throughout his life, while interfering with the satisfaction of other needs. Often, incomplete gestalts cause malfunctions in the mechanisms that protect the human psyche from unnecessary overloads.

What can break?

1. Introjection - inclusion of attitudes, assessments or motives of other people into a person’s inner world without a critical attitude towards them. IN childhood Introjection is especially important as it helps the child become an individual. Pathological introjection is a consequence of the perception of all principles, ideas and habits in their entirety, without checking them for compatibility with accumulated experience.

2. Projection - represents a tendency to shift responsibility for what begins in a person to the outside world. People use projection most often when they are unable to manage their negative emotions. With the help of normal projection, it is possible to establish relationships with other people. As for its pathological form, it replaces reality.

3. Confluence or merger – state of absence of contact boundary. In such cases, a person loses awareness of himself. IN in good condition temporary fusion may occur in lovers or in mother and infant. The psyche of such people is most often independently identified in a short period of time. In the case of pathological fusion, people begin to control the behavior of other people beyond acceptable norms.

4. Retroflexion - the desire to do for yourself what you would like to do with others or receive from others. Pathological retroflexion in most cases is observed along with some kind of psychosomatic disease. Such patients intentionally hurt themselves. Some commit suicide.
It is clear that the gestalt in all cases must be completed so that a person has the opportunity to avoid all these troubles. If this does not happen, then you should consult a Gestalt therapist.

Gestalt therapist - what is his role?

A Gestalt therapist is a specialist who practices Gestalt therapy directly. All specialists in this area proceed from the fact that they are part of the therapeutic interaction. The Gestalt therapist is obliged to open up to his patient just as he opens up to him, that is, completely. Its role is to provoke reactions in the patient, as well as to play out situations." Here and now».

Words " Here and now“is considered to be the key concept of Gestalt therapy. Each of us remembers what happened to him before. In addition, we fantasize about our future all the time. Most often we don’t even think about what’s happening to us at the moment. In fact, we are living " Here and now" None of us can change our past.

So why remember him then?
Need to think about today and how exactly it will affect our future lives. This approach helps you look at your experiences and sensations differently. This is exactly what Gestalt therapists teach.

Gestalt therapy technique

Gestalt therapy is an experiential as well as existential approach to psychotherapy and counseling that is primarily based on experience. The purpose of this method is to expand a person’s own consciousness through the meaningfulness of his own life, as well as improving relationships with the outside world and other people. This method of therapy is based on several main concepts. One of these concepts is contact. Having learned to contact the outside world, with the people around him, as well as with his own outside world, a person can radically change his entire life. This approach also helps to gain the respect of other people, while taking one of the leading positions in society.

“Gestalt” - what is it?

Translated from German, this term means “ figure», « image», « form" From a psychological point of view, this term hides a specific organization of parts, which makes it possible to obtain a certain whole. As for Gestalt psychology, in in this case we're talking about about the direction of psychological thought, which is based on the fact that the study of certain parts does not make it possible to obtain a holistic image. Experiments conducted by specialists in this field have shown that the perception of each person is endowed with its own organization. Certain external stimuli do not have a mechanical effect on it.

What does our perception choose?

Contemplating the external world, perception selects only those things that are truly interesting to it or those that come first for it. So, for example, when feeling thirsty, the very first thing a person will see is a glass of water, and not the food that surrounds him. As soon as the thirst is quenched, attention will immediately switch to more tasty food. Our perception works in such a way that the most important figure comes to the fore. This applies not only to food, but also pain, the image of a loved one and even words. Everything else in such cases evaporates or loses its clear outlines. It turns out that a person simply does not see everything else, since everything else has no meaning for him. To illustrate this phenomenon, special pictures consisting of two images are used.

Man and the environment - are they one?

Each person is an integral sociological, biological, as well as psychological being. A person together with his environment is nothing more than a gestalt, that is, one whole. The world around us has a direct impact on the human body, and vice versa, each organism creates its own environment. The same thing happens in the case of interpersonal relationships. Each person is regularly exposed to the influence of the people around him, but he himself, through his behavior, often forces other people to change, both in a positive and negative direction.

Gestalt therapy technique:

Today, Gestalt therapy is most often practiced in groups. The technique for conducting such classes is as follows:

Hot chair: All group members sit on chairs arranged in a circle. In the circle there is a so-called “hot chair”, on which one of the members sits, and according to at will. A person sitting in a circle begins to talk about all the problems that concern him. All other participants can ask him questions, to which he must answer frankly. It is very important that this person feels warm atmosphere which will give him self-confidence.

Here and now: During the conversation, only those problems that concern people at the moment are discussed. No talking about the past. If someone plunges into past events, all other members of the group immediately switch him to reality. Everything happens unnoticed by the participants. During a conversation, all actions are performed tactfully.

Two roles: opposite the person who is sitting on the " hot chair", put an empty chair. The person must imagine that another person with whom he is in conflict is sitting on this chair. The client begins to play the roles of two people at once, while periodically changing his location. While on his chair, he speaks on his own behalf, but on the chair of an imaginary partner, he must speak on his behalf. In this way, he manages to understand the true state of the person with whom he did not have a good relationship. Most often, during such a conversation, the psychotherapist remains indifferent. He only monitors what is happening and draws his own conclusions. He can intervene in a situation only when it begins to have a painful impact on the patient.

Feedback: This term hides the patient’s constant psychological connection with his attending physician, who in this case plays the role of a mirror. By looking into this mirror, the patient manages to see his true face. He begins to look at the current situation differently, which helps him cope with it much faster and easier.

Action: The Gestalt therapy specialist makes every effort to ensure that his patient begins to act. Actions mean such qualities as activity, independent awareness, and initiative.

Now I realize: The essence of this exercise is to train the patient’s efforts and activity, which are aimed at analyzing the content of his consciousness at this particular moment. While performing this exercise, it is very important to regularly repeat the same phrase, namely “ now I realize...».

During these sessions, clients are able to:

• expand awareness;
• find your true place in the world;
• free yourself from memories of your past life;
• improve concentration of consciousness and thoughts.

Goals of Gestalt therapy:

The main goal of this direction is for a person to achieve a more complete awareness of himself. He will know:

• your bodily processes;
• thoughts;
• feelings;
• desires;
• needs;
• interpersonal relationships;
• relationship with the outside world.

As a result, the patient is able to control his behavior by applying certain aspects of his own personality. The lives of such people become more meaningful and fulfilling. They get rid of all neurotic and psychological complexes and symptoms.

Gestalt therapy practice:

This direction represents a specific psychotherapeutic methodology. Initially, practitioners used techniques drawn from a variety of therapeutic practices. So, for example, Perls used psychodrama techniques. Psychodrama is a method of working in groups, during which the tool of dramatic improvisation is used to change and understand the inner world. Today the list of techniques used is huge. It includes dance and body therapy techniques, as well as various types of art therapy in the form of music therapy and drawings. All of them help to develop a holistic image in five areas of a person’s life:

1. Emotional - the sphere of feelings and emotional experiences and the ability to understand and express them;
2. Social – cultural environment, complex of social relations, relationships with other people;
3. Physical – a complex of aspects of physical and material life, sexual maturity, material well-being, physical health;
4. Spiritual – knowledge about the surrounding space, knowledge of spiritual values, knowledge of oneself and the laws of life;
5. Rational – abilities for rational analysis, thinking, creativity, planning, foresight.

Where is Gestalt therapy used?

• family therapy;
• Gestalt pedagogy;
• clinical psychotherapy;
• trainings for representatives of certain professional groups;
• consulting organizations;
• trainings for people who strive to improve communication skills and personal growth.

Duration of the Gestalt therapy course:

This method of therapy is classified as a medium-term treatment method. This treatment involves at least 10 meetings once a week. Some patients have to undergo a course of treatment that reaches 30 meetings. It all depends on the problem, the tasks assigned to the specialist and some other facts.
Before use, you should consult a specialist.