Gestalt in psychology: what is it in simple words

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Let's figure out what an unfinished or unclosed gestalt is and how to get rid of it, with psychologist Yulia Nosova.

What lies behind the fashionable expression “unfinished gestalt” in psychology? Scientifically speaking, this is a broken contact cycle. Simply put, an unclosed gestalt is a situation that has not been brought to its logical conclusion, an unsatisfied need. A bummer, to put it simply. The human brain always strives to finish what it starts, and if it fails, that same unfinished gestalt arises. For some, this is a suddenly broken relationship. For some, it is a childish resentment that arose due to the refusal to buy a dog, a doll, or a car.

The human brain always strives to finish what it starts, and if it fails, that same unfinished gestalt arises.

It does not matter due to what need, material or emotional, this situation arose. Much more important is how it affects the quality of our lives. An unmet need is an express ticket to neurosis. It’s good if it’s just an everyday story that can be corrected. We bought it, repaired it, found it, moved on and moved on in stability and peace. It’s much more difficult when it comes to gestalts in relationships. Resentment, anger, sadness, grief - these are the components of an incomplete gestalt, necessarily seasoned with unspokenness, unlivedness.

At best, this leads to chronic discomfort that poisons our existence. Sometimes to us, sometimes to the entire immediate environment. Imagine an adventure lover who failed to find treasure on his trip to a wonderful island. He is so obsessed with the treasure that he now dreams about it day and night. If the family is “lucky”, every vacation he will go to this island until the end of his days or until the treasure is found (read, the gestalt is closed). If the family is not so lucky, all its members will travel to the ill-fated island. And it’s good if they have the opportunity to lie on the beach while this adventure lover is looking for the treasured chest.

What is Gestalt?

Gestalt (from German gestalt - “whole image”) is a certain entity consisting of several parts, but perceived by a person as single and indivisible. For our psyche, the role of a gestalt is most often played by a sequence of actions, having started which we feel the need to complete it.

We need the integrity of images. Although in most cases this need seems irrational, it was formed in the course of evolution. Our brain is more comfortable working with a whole image than with many small details. Thanks to this feature, we immediately recognize familiar faces without looking at the nose and eyebrows, and instantly recognize any household object without trying to analyze its shape.

Gestalt is also a powerful mechanism that allows you to keep unfinished things in your memory (and motivates you to complete them). For example, you can make a list of things you need to buy throughout the day. Coffee, sugar, napkins... Even without resorting to mnemonics and without writing the list in a notebook, you can easily remember a dozen items and keep them in your memory even the next day. But try to remember this list an hour after going to the store, and you will find that you have forgotten half of the items.

Gestalt helps us remember important things and forget them almost immediately when the job is done. And each of us constantly uses this feature of the psyche, without thinking at all.
But sometimes it fails, and some irrelevant things turn into unclosed gestalts. Sometimes these are really unpleasant and painful situations, and sometimes they are completely ordinary things, next to which we simply forgot to mentally check the “Done!” box.

How is Gestalt formed?

Usually a gestalt is formed on the basis of a disturbing memory. For example, during a quarrel you can be rude to a loved one, and then think about this situation and lament. It also happens the other way around. For example, having quarreled with an unpleasant person, you did not find the appropriate words to upset him. After that, you can scroll through this situation in your head many times , choosing the right words. Even though you understand that this is a pointless activity, you still continue to think about it.

The most unpleasant thing is that gestalt is almost always formed precisely on the basis of negative memories. Our brain perceives all pleasant events as completed and sends them to the “archive”. But he considers it necessary to think about the unpleasant ones. Therefore, even if we try to forget about an unpleasant situation, a negative image obsessively pops up in our memory, because our psyche needs to bring it to its logical conclusion. But it turns out the other way around - the longer we think about the event, the more convinced we become that we should have acted differently. Therefore, the gestalt not only does not go away, but is also consolidated.

Sometimes such a gestalt can be closed on its own. For example, if there was a repeated argument with the offender, and this time you “performed” absolutely successfully, putting the enemy in his place. A completely opposite solution is also possible: you made peace, found out the causes of the conflict, discussed everything and came to some kind of consensus. But in most cases, it is almost impossible to close the gestalt without the help of a psychotherapist.

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.

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.

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.”

What is Gestalt therapy?

If the gestalt is not closed, a person constantly attracts a problem that has long become irrelevant into his life. He himself does not realize that for several months or even years he has been carrying this meaningless emotional burden on his own shoulders. Gestalt therapy is an effective way to get rid of such destructive memories from the distant past that prevent a person from living a full life in the present.

A Gestalt therapy specialist knows how to find psychological “clamps” that keep a person in constant tension. This is quite a responsible job, since an unclosed gestalt, unlike many other psychological problems, cannot be cured with pills. There is only one way to get rid of it: find and neutralize it. This is exactly what a Gestalt therapist does.

One thing to keep in mind is that this form of therapy is not all that pleasant. We have to remember many traumatic events from the past, and this is usually quite painful. But this approach helps to get rid of the psychological block, throwing off a useless burden from your shoulders. When the gestalt is closed, memories no longer torment a person, even if he accidentally remembers those unpleasant events.

A look into the history of Gestalt psychology

Until the 1940s, the world of psychotherapy was dominated by Freud's method. His German student, Fritz Perls, together with his wife, revised their views on his theory. They added new concepts and slightly changed the way they communicated with the person in the session.

Gestalt Therapy : Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality is the first published book on the subject, written by him with Paul Goodman. According to its concept and principles, psychotherapy was carried out in the clinic (more precisely, just in the apartment) of the Perls.

What was this psychotherapy like? Fritz came into conflict with clients and raised a strong storm of negative emotions in them. A little later, group therapy was introduced because he considered the individual format too outdated.

On the Internet you can find rare historical footage of his Gestalt sessions, after watching which (though only with Russian subtitles, and not with Russian translation) you will understand his method:

Over time, this practice spread throughout Europe. Only the attitude towards people at the session became more loyal (what is this?). Although some avid Gestalt therapists still remain adherents of the old school and can afford to heat up the atmosphere.

Do you remember the pictures that show either a vase or the faces of people looking at each other? Some of this becomes the main figure, and some, accordingly, becomes the background for it.

Edgar Rubin studied this phenomenon. I came to the conclusion that some situations in a person’s life become the main ones and more attention is paid to them. Everything else fades into the background.

How can you use gestalts?

In most cases, we try to get rid of gestalts, but they may well be beneficial. Let's look at some of the most illustrative examples:

1. Task lists

. For many people, they add motivation and energy, helping them work more efficiently. If you also keep lists of tasks and are happy to mark those completed, then you are using the power of Gestalt for your benefit.

2. Memory of unfinished business

. We involuntarily use gestalt when we hold something important in memory (for example, a promise to call our parents at 19:00). And we remember this all day, not because we have a good memory, but because we deliberately left the gestalt open.

3. 15 minute rule

. You probably know this rule, which helps you do complex and tedious work. For example, you are faced with a routine task that will take 2 hours to complete. According to the “15 minutes” rule, you need to start right now, but after 15 minutes you can switch to other things. Quite often, gestalt comes into play, helping to complete boring work in one go.

4. Coupons with stickers

. We are talking about booklets in which you need to paste stickers in order to receive some kind of bonus at the end. The secret is that several stickers have already been pasted for you, and this forms a gestalt - the desire to add all the missing stickers, even if the bonus is cheap. You've probably been given such coupons by promoters or hypermarket cashiers.

The above example with stickers looks more harmful than useful, since marketers use the peculiarity of our psyche in their own interests. Hint: to close such a gestalt, just carefully crumple up the coupon and throw it in the trash with a sense of accomplishment.

Still, there are benefits to be gained from this format. For example, you can print out a similar coupon and stickers for it for yourself. Next, while completing certain (not very pleasant) tasks, you can paste in stickers, and when the coupon is full, you can buy yourself a reward.

This approach also works great with children. Does your child want a new smartphone? Print him a small poster with a picture of his goal and space for stickers. After that, give him another sticker for each achievement that you consider important.

Do you find yourself in a certain type of situation all the time? Do you encounter a certain type of person? Do you have a feeling of déjà vu? Feeling like you are constantly stepping on the same rake? One of the reasons for this phenomenon is unclosed gestalts.

Gestalt: remember everything

The word “gestalt” itself translated from German means “integral form, image, structure.” Therefore, when they say that the gestalt is not closed, they mean that some situation in the past remained unfinished. And this does not allow our subconscious to put an end to that story.

Relatively speaking, the subconscious worries, creates tension within us, and most importantly, forces us to behave in a certain way.

Firstly, so that, against our will, we look for or ourselves reproduce situations similar to those that remained unfinished, unprocessed, unlived in our past, in which we did not receive something important for ourselves. At the same time, we may not even remember the situation itself.
Secondly, so that we look for people who can become a replacement for those who were once significant to us and to whom we were able / unwilling / afraid to say or do something.

For example, often behind unfinished gestalts there are undeveloped relationships with parents. As children, we were completely dependent on them, on how good and obedient we were. In fact, obedience to our parents was a condition for our survival, so we were forced to restrain ourselves in many ways.

But unspoken reproaches, resentments, unexpressed anger towards parents and other significant adults have not gone away. They still live inside us. And the older we get, the heavier and more cumbersome this baggage becomes.

We spend a lot of energy carrying all this “good” inside us. And all because we learned in childhood: expressing your feelings and speaking directly about what you think is dangerous.

But how can we remember everything that has happened to us in life and that needs to be completed? After all, this is simply impossible! And what to do with these unclosed gestalts? How to complete them?

Yes, it is truly impossible to remember absolutely everything. But this is not necessary: and what right now hurts the heart and is rushing out is enough to start work. And everything less significant will be remembered later, after we have dealt with the most pressing things.

In addition, the situations that worry us can, in most cases, be divided into groups. And by working through the most disturbing situation in a group, we are actually working through other situations of this type.

Further. You definitely need to understand that closing the gestalt does not mean running to relatives or other “offenders”, starting to wave your fists, proving your truth, and sorting things out with them in a raised voice. Such behavior will be extremely unecological not only for our counterparts, but also for ourselves. Especially considering that some of the “offenders” are probably no longer alive.

Closing the gestalt means working through your past and reliving it. This is working with yourself, not with other people. The results of this work - the changes that have occurred within us - will definitely be felt by those around us on a non-verbal level. As a result, not only our relationships with them will change, but also our quality of life.

So, what needs to be done to close the gestalt?

There are three main steps.

1. You should begin to work through one of the situations that lie on the surface and are disturbing right now. It’s easy to isolate them: you need to take a piece of paper and a pen and write down everything that touches a nerve, causes irritation and indignation.

2. Next, we need to think through and list point by point what exactly we don’t like in this situation . How, from our point of view, everything should have been and why. What should this situation teach us, what life experience should we gain in it, etc.

And now that we have all the information about the “ideal” development and completion of this situation, we need to dive into it as deeply and fully as possible and live it again. And in the process of this re-living, we can throw out those feelings and emotions that we wanted to throw out, but were unable to do so. To say what they wanted to say, but never said. To do what they wanted to do, but never did.

An important note: living through a situation should take place not only and not so much at the level of the mind, but at the level of feelings and sensations!

And further. Don't try to complete this exercise the first time. Closing the gestalt is working with trauma, and this process is very unpleasant and painful. Not everyone can do this in one go. Therefore, it is important to give yourself the opportunity to immerse yourself in the situation as many times as necessary in order to finally exhaust it.

The main thing is that in the end there is nothing left unsaid, misunderstood, or unfinished. As a result, you must deal with all the regrets, resentments, anger - everything that weighs on you.

You can understand that the gestalt is complete only through experience - the next time you start living through this or a similar situation again and do not experience any discomfort.

3. After this, it’s good to reconsider your life from the perspective of new experience - at least the main, turning points. This task is very important because it helps change the way you think about yourself. As a result, the perception of oneself as a victim, the feeling of one’s own helplessness and worthlessness will noticeably decrease. And at the same time, we will begin to feel more confident, more experienced and wise people.

Why is this technique effective?

Firstly, working with gestalts destroys automatisms, that is, the habit of acting in a certain way in similar situations, without thinking about what, how and why we are doing. Secondly, it reorients thinking, feeling and behavior.

The destruction of automatisms occurs when we analyze what we did wrong in the past and work through alternative options for our actions, looking for the most suitable way for us in a particular case to respond to the situation.

That is, before performing a habitual action, we take a pause and begin to think about how else we can perform it. In the process of breaking the pattern, a reorientation of our old type of thinking to a new one occurs. Having started to think differently, we experience new feelings, and after them a new way of reacting and behaving is developed.

Help Masha return her parental “debt”

Let's look at a specific example of working with undeveloped relationships with parents as the most common and “sick” case. Let's take my client - let's call her Masha - and walk with her through the above three steps.

Masha is an experienced client, she understands and realizes a lot of things, so her example will be indicative. What follows are my comments, observations and excerpts from Masha’s diary of working on herself (published with her permission).

1. Study the situation

Masha is already well over thirty, but she still carries in her heart a grudge against her parents - that they did not give her enough attention, care, and love. And she is still waiting for them to “come to their senses” and finally return their “debt.” This prevents her from building relationships with other people and arranging her personal life (she is not married and lives with her parents). And this is what Masha wants to change first of all.

“What don’t I like about my relationship with my parents?

1. I don’t like the fact that I was and remain an unloved child.

2. I don’t like that in 99% of cases my parents (especially my mother) criticize me, humiliating me, ridiculing me and, it seems to me, always rejecting me.

3. I don’t like that when communicating with other people, I expect from them the love that my parents did not give me (I periodically catch myself doing this). And when I don’t get it, I begin to be capricious, like a small child, to do dirty tricks in order to take revenge on people for not giving me the love and attention that I need, and in the end I break off relations with them. Well, or they break off relations with me.

It turns out that even with other people I build and lose the same relationships as with my parents? It turns out that I am stepping on the same rake and moving in circles? And to break this vicious circle, do I need to change my attitude towards my parents? Perhaps this is the lesson that I should learn from this situation that repeats itself over and over again. The lesson is that I need to become emotionally independent, not dependent on my parents, to mature emotionally.

What do I ideally want? It is important for me that my parents give me warmth, take an interest in my affairs, praise me, and support me. What will this give me? It seems to me that then I will finally be able to feel safe, which means I will become more independent and will be able to communicate with other people on equal terms. The trouble is that I cannot force my parents to change their attitude towards themselves. It turns out that all I can do is change my attitude towards them. Maybe at least then something will change?”

2. What you don’t like about the situation and how to change it

When Masha, despite fear and resistance, nevertheless plunged into despair because of her relationship with her parents and when she heard within herself their usual: “You won’t succeed anyway! Yes, your hands are growing from the wrong place. What can you do? What else can we expect from you? - Resentment and indignation overwhelmed her so much that she could not stand it.

She began to sob, and claims that she had never dared to present to her parents finally poured out of her (she even now shouted them to herself, and not out loud, which is quite safe and at the same time no less useful). These were accusations of coldness, cruelty and harshness, indifference, and insensitivity. The fact is that they refused to take her to clubs (and she really wanted to learn to draw and play the piano as a child). The fact that they rarely let her go out into the yard with other children.

She complained that she always lacked frankness, heart-to-heart conversations, their affection and warmth. She admitted that so many times she wanted to come up and hug her mother or tell her something deeply personal, but every time she pulled herself together and forced herself to keep her distance and move away, fearing ridicule and insults.

It must be said that Masha continued this mourning for herself for several months and continues to this day. At first she was embarrassed by this, but gradually this embarrassment passed. Because, throwing out what had accumulated, at some point she began to feel relief - as if she had begun to lift a heavy load from her shoulders. And as Masha felt better, changes began to occur in her life, albeit slowly.

Now she is no longer fixated on her dislike. Although, of course, she is sad, thinking about how great it would be if she grew up in an atmosphere of love and care. But this is just sadness, and not serious mental pain. The sadness that always appears when you think about an important loss.

Masha's focus gradually shifts from her parents to her own life. She began taking piano lessons (which she dreamed of as a child and from which she now enjoys greatly), going out in public more often and communicating with them (instead of standing on the sidelines, as before), calling her few friends more often and making plans for how best to expand her social circle and what kind of people she would like to include.

She learns to perceive herself as an adult and treat herself with respect. This is still difficult, but there is already some progress. It is interesting that Masha’s parents also felt these changes and began to treat her with less disdain, sometimes they even turn to her for advice.

3. Reassessment of life

Now that Masha’s emotional dependence on her parents is decreasing, she is ready to begin to reconsider her life. This is what she managed to write down in her diary and discuss with me:

“Now, looking back, I can say that the coldness and detachment of my parents, despite the pain caused, even helped me in some way. For example, when I first entered school, it was much easier for me to get used to it than many of my classmates who grew up in hothouse conditions and had a carefree childhood. For them, sitting through classes and then doing homework was a real punishment, but somehow I immediately became interested.

A world opened up before me much more welcoming than what was waiting for me at home. I went to school with pleasure, studied with pleasure and graduated from school with a medal. There were no problems with entering the institute either.

And I started working already at the institute, and did not wait for graduation, like my fellow students from wealthy families. Because I was tired of my parents calling me a dependent, and in general I wanted independence. And by the end of the institute, I already had experience and work experience, so after my diploma it was easier for me than many of my fellow students to get a job in a good company with a good salary.

At school, however, I had no friends at all among my classmates: they seemed like children to me. But I always had friends who were older, more well-read, and deeper than me: I was interested in talking with them, learning something from them, learning from them (it was impossible to learn this from my parents due to their closed nature), adopting experience .

So it turns out that, due to lack of attention from my parents, I turned out to be much more developed than my peers, I matured earlier than them, it is easier for me to adapt to changing conditions and cope with difficulties, because I have no one to count on but myself. And for the same reason, it’s generally easier for me to get settled in life.

It turns out that all my life I looked at only one side of the coin - at the pain that my parents caused me. And I didn’t even notice the advantages that this difficult situation gave me.”

Completing gestalts is, of course, slow and labor-intensive work. But in order to deal with old traumas and improve relationships with others, it is worth making the effort.

From the editor

Oh, these relationships with our parents... How many nerve cells they killed each of us! It seems that the topic of conflict between fathers and children is inexhaustible. No matter how old you are - 13, 23 or 53 - you one way or another remain dependent on your parent’s opinion. Olga Yurkovskaya tells how to leave past grievances in the past and learn to live your own life : https://www.psy.systems/post/pyat-sovetov-kotorye-pomogut-vystroit-zdorovye-otnosheniya-s-roditelyami.

Writer Olga Savelyeva shares a story from her youth that everyone can understand and empathize with. At the age of 18, she first invited friends to her dacha, but at the last moment it turned out that she was not destined to be the hostess of the evening: her domineering mother refused to leave and received the guests herself. What to do when you don't decide anything in your life? Read Olga's story: https://www.psy.systems/post/apelsinki-gosti.

Resentment towards parents, experienced traumas and other unresolved gestalts sooner or later turn into “monsters” and “ghosts” that prevent us from adequately perceiving what is happening and building healthy relationships with other people. Read about how to recognize and neutralize your “monsters” and “ghosts” in the article by psychologist Elena Areshchenko : https://www.psy.systems/post/monstry-i-privideniya-kotorye-portyat-nam-zhizn.