When You Don't Know Where to Turn / A Self-Diagnosing Guide to Counseling and Therapy

by Steven J. Bartlett

GESTALT THERAPY
For very rigid people who are always trying to
be someone they are not, who will commit
themselves to a challenging and usually
frustrating process of growth leading to
personal integration and genuineness.

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Gestalt therapy has its roots in Gestalt psychology, which was established early in this century by the German psychologists Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967), Kurt Koffka (1886-1941), and Max Wertheimer (1880-1943). The main contribution of Gestalt psychology consisted of studies of human perception. Gestalt psychologists demonstrated that perception reveals the existence of organized wholes that cannot be reduced to the sum of their parts. They called such an organized totality a Gestalt. (Outside of psychology, Gestalt in German means "form.")

A famous example, shown below, demonstrates how an object that you see can be closely linked to its background. Here, the figure and the ground can oscillate, depending on whether you concentrate on the faces or the vase. The figure depends on its background for its identity, and vice versa.

A famous illustration of a white vase set between the black silhouettes
of two faces in profile; at one moment you perceive the vase,
at another you see the two faces

GESTALT THERAPY