Gestalt psychology arose in the twenties of the twentieth century and has a pronounced integrative character. M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler and K. Koffka (the founders of the new direction) decided that human behavior and his consciousness cannot be studied separately, this is a dead end. The human consciousness collects parts of experience into a certain integral structure, which is called a gestalt. If we briefly name the subject that Gestalt psychology deals with, it will be Gestalt itself.
The whole is not simply the sum of its parts. The task of psychologists is not to study individual processes of perception, but to explain by what principles these parts are grouped. This knowledge is used by the therapist to explain the patient’s behavior and help him become a more harmonious person.
Structural patterns of perception
Gestalt psychologists managed to discover several principles according to which human perception is organized. Here they are:
- Similarity. Those objects that are similar are perceived together: in shape, color or outline.
- Integrity. We simplify complex objects by combining them into a familiar form.
- Proximity. Objects located nearby are habitually grouped.
- Closedness. Most often we want to complete the figure so that it has a coherent shape.
- Completeness. Our brain knows how to complete the drawings, fill in the gaps so that the object takes on a complete look.
- Figure and background. When perceiving an object, it acts as a figure, the rest is a background to which we do not pay attention. In connection with this principle, there are a number of pictures that we can perceive in one way or another.
Perception, of course, is an interesting thing, but how can we apply this knowledge in practice? What can they be useful for?
General characteristics of Gestalt psychology
The Gestalt psychological movement in psychology arose in the early 1920s. in Germany. Its creation is associated with the names of M. Wertheimer (1880-1943), W. Köhler (1887-1967), K. Koffka (1886-1941) and K. Levin (1890-1947), who laid down the methodology of this school. Wertheimer's first work, which revealed the principles of Gestalt psychology, “Experimental Studies of Visible Motion,” was published in 1912, but the final formation of the new direction occurred after the First World War.
Gestalt psychology, as already noted, explored the integral structures that make up the mental field, developing new experimental methods. Thus, unlike other psychological trends (psychoanalysis, behaviorism), which radically revised the subject of psychology, representatives of Gestalt psychology still believed that the subject of psychological science is the study of the content of the psyche, the analysis of cognitive processes, as well as the structure and dynamics of personality development.
Nevertheless, leaving the subject of psychology virtually untouched, Gestalt psychology significantly transforms the previous understanding of the structure of consciousness and cognitive processes. The main idea of this school is that the psyche is based not on individual elements of consciousness, but on integral figures - gestalts, the properties of which are not the sum of the properties of their parts. Thus, the previous idea that the development of the psyche is based on the formation of ever new associative connections that connect individual elements to each other into ideas and concepts was refuted. Instead, a new idea was put forward - cognition is associated with the process of change, transformation of integral gestalts, which determine the nature of perception of the external world and behavior in it. Therefore, many representatives of this direction paid considerable attention to the problem of mental development, since development itself was identified by them with the growth and differentiation of gestalts. Based on this, they saw evidence of the correctness of their postulates in the results of the study of the genesis of mental functions.
The ideas developed by Gestalt psychologists were based on experimental research into cognitive processes. It must be emphasized that this school is one of the first that paid significant attention to the development of new, objective experimental methods for studying the psyche. It was also the first (and for a long time practically the only) school that began a strictly experimental study of the structure and qualities of personality, since the method of psychoanalysis used by depth psychology could not be considered either objective or experimental.
The methodological approach of Gestalt psychology was based on several foundations - the concept of mental field, isomorphism and phenomenology. They borrowed the concept of “field” from physics, in which the most important discoveries were made in those years. The study of the nature of the atom and magnetism made it possible to reveal the laws of the physical field in which elements are arranged into integral systems. This idea became the leading one for Gestalt psychologists, who came to the conclusion that mental structures are located in the form of various patterns in the mental field. At the same time, the gestalts themselves can change, becoming more adequate to the objects of the external field. A restructuring of the field may also occur, in which the previous structures are located, due to which the subject comes to a fundamentally new solution to the problem (insight).
Mental gestalts are isomorphic to physical and psychophysical ones, i.e. the processes that occur in the brain are similar to those that occur in the external world and are recognized by us in our thoughts and experiences, like one-to-one systems in physics and mathematics (so a circle is isomorphic to an oval, not a square). Therefore, the diagram of the problem, which is given in the external field, can help the subject solve it faster or slower, depending on whether it makes it easier or more difficult to restructure it.
The subject can realize his experiences, the process of solving a problem, but for this he needs to renounce past experience, clear his consciousness of all layers associated with cultural and personal traditions. This phenomenological approach was borrowed by Gestalt psychologists from E. Husserl, whose philosophical concepts were extremely widespread at that time and close to German psychologists. Associated with this was their underestimation of personal experience, the assertion of the priority of the momentary situation, the principle of “here and now” in any intellectual processes. This is also related to the results of the study between behaviorists and Gestalt psychologists, since the former proved the correctness of the “trial and error” method, i.e. the influence of past experience, denied by the latter. The only exceptions were personality studies conducted by K. Levin, in which the concept of “time perspective” was introduced, however, taking into account mainly the future, the purpose of activity, and not past experience.
In the research of scientists of this school, almost all currently known properties of perception were discovered, and the importance of this process in the formation of thinking, imagination, and other cognitive functions was proven. For the first time, the figurative-schematic thinking they described made it possible to re-imagine the entire process of forming ideas about the environment, proved the importance of images and diagrams in the development of creativity, revealing important mechanisms of creative thinking. Thus, cognitive psychology of the 20th century. relies heavily on discoveries made at this school.
Gestalt therapy methods:
- Role-playing games, “empty chair” technique. The patient is invited to see the opponent sitting on a chair and tell him everything that is boiling. This helps to get rid of negativity and also see a new solution to the problem.
- Dream analysis. Most often, a person is asked to write down all his dreams, and then choose the most significant one and act it out in life. This allows you to connect with the past that the patient denied.
- Beating the sofa with sticks sounds funny, but works to let off steam.
- The “I know that I…” technique increases the level of awareness, brings you closer to the self, and allows you to stay in the present.
I advise you to try one of the methods yourself. It shouldn't do any harm! Thank you for your attention, share the article on social networks, and see you again!
Best regards, Alexander Fadeev!
Biography
Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), creator of Gestalt psychology, was born in Prague. He was the second of two sons of Wilhelm and Rosa Zwicker Wertheimer. His father was the founder of a very successful and innovative business school called Handelsschule Wertheimer, and his mother was a professional pianist well educated in culture, literature and the arts. From an early age, his mother taught him to play the piano, and as he got older, Max received violin lessons. As a teenager, he composed chamber music and even wrote symphonies. It seemed to his parents that he would connect his life with music and become a professional musician.
Thanks to art, Max Wertheimer established social relationships, for example, with Albert Einstein. They often played chamber music and discussed philosophical and scientific problems. Max's friends and students recalled how he loved to improvise on the piano, and then ask them to guess what he was describing with this musical composition - a person or an event. He also liked to use examples from the works of various composers in his lectures and works to demonstrate the concept of structure.
Introduction to the works of Spinoza
Wertheimer became acquainted with the social and philosophical thought of his maternal grandfather Jakob Zwicker, who was so pleased with his grandson's maturity that on his tenth birthday he gave him some of Spinoza's works. Max Wertheimer's complete absorption in a book given by his grandfather led his parents to limit his reading. This did not stop him from reading Spinoza in secret, taking advantage of the kindness of the maid, who hid the book from her parents in her chest. Spinoza was not something new; he influenced Wertheimer for life.
Max Universities
Wertheimer, having graduated from high school (at the age of 18), could not decide which specialization to choose. Nevertheless, he chose the Faculty of Law at the University of Prague. There he studied law and law. By the time he graduated from university, he was more interested in the philosophy of law than in practice. He did not like that the trials that took place did not seek the truth, but were more interested in defense and prosecution. He was interested in ways to achieve the truth, and this made him work in the psychology of testimony.
In 1901, Max continued his studies at the University of Berlin, where he studied psychology and conducted research with Karl Stumpf and Friedrich Schumann. But his range of interests was wider than the main subject of study, so he also included history, music, art and physiology in the course of study. In 1903, he studied at the University of Würzburg with Oswald Külpe and received his Ph.D. The dissertation was devoted to detecting the guilt of a criminal during an investigation using the method of associative connection of words.
Early Gestalt theories
While working in Vienna, Wertheimer formulated ideas that became important components of Gestalt psychology. What is Gestalt psychology? This is a branch of psychology that focuses on issues of explaining the perception and thinking of an individual, with the key being how the individual perceives information.
It seemed to Max Wertheimer that psychology had become divorced from the concrete realities of everyday life: the problems at the center of academic psychology bore little resemblance to real human behavior. According to Wertheimer, it was necessary to develop methods that would meet strict scientific standards.
Doctoral studies
His doctoral research included the invention of lie detectors, which he used as an objective way to examine evidence. Another aspect of his work was the collocation method, which he created before C. J. Jung developed it as a diagnostic method.
Because Max Wertheimer was financially independent, he did not need to hold any academic position and could devote himself to independent research in Prague, Berlin and Vienna. He continued his work related to the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and also at the neuropsychiatric clinic of the University of Vienna worked with the anamnesis of patients with speech disorders and those who had impaired reading, with damage to various parts of the left hemisphere cortex. He developed new diagnostic methods that showed that speech impairment is associated with a loss of the ability to perceive ambiguous and complex visual structures. This work provides a link between Gestalt psychology and the theory of neurologists Ademar Gelb and Kurt Goldstein.
Heritage
The Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer was radically different from the psychology of Wilhelm Wundt, who sought to understand the human mind by identifying the constituent parts of human consciousness in the same way as a chemical composition that can be broken down into elements. To Sigmund Freud's complex approach to psychopathology, an alternative method was proposed, expounded by Max Wertheimer. The contribution to psychology of Windheimer and his colleagues is confirmed by familiarity with the names of their students in the psychological literature, including Kurt Lewin, Rudolf Arnheim, Wolfgang Metzger, Bluma Zeigarnik, Karl Danker, Hertha Kopfermann and Kurt Gottschaldt.
Max Wertheimer's books are currently used by students, doctors, and psychologists. These include:
- "Experimental studies of motion perception".
- "Laws of organization in perceptual forms."
- "Gestalt Theory".
- "Productive thinking."
“The incredible complexity of human thought is connected with something greater than the sum of its parts, something in which the parts and the whole are related to each other,” said Max Wertheimer.
The work of three psychologists
Max Wertheimer and his two assistants: Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, using their achievements and research, formed a new school of Gestalt, making sure that the segmented approach of most psychologists to the study of human behavior was insufficient. As a result of experimental research, Wertheimer's article “Experimental Research in the Perception of Motion” was published.
The First World War interrupted the joint work of Gestalt psychologists. Only after its completion did they continue their further research. Koffka returned to Frankfurt, and Köhler became director of the Psychological Institute at the University of Berlin, where Wertheimer already worked. Using the abandoned rooms of the Imperial Palace, they founded the now famous graduate school, in tandem with a journal called Psychological Research.
