Close the gestalt in relationships: how to do it right

The term "gestalt" translated from German means "image". In our lives, it is most often found in combination with the word “unfinished.” This designation indicates a complete unresolved problem from the past, an unprocessed psychological trauma, when we broke up with someone, suppressed an existing feeling, did not fulfill a promise given to another person, did not finish something and did not receive enough warmth from him. This left a heavy emotional residue on the subconscious level, which poisons further life and prevents the building of normal relationships in the future. Closing the gestalt in a relationship means working through your past, reconfiguring and restarting it in your mind.

What is an “unclosed gestalt”

“Incompleteness” in a relationship between a man and a woman is a serious emotional problem. There is a whole section dedicated to it in psychology. When it is present, there is always a desire to receive what was not given, to say what was not said. Only with the help of awareness and completion of the ended connection can you work through a difficult situation, restore internal balance and begin to build an ideal union, the stumbling block for the development of which was an unfinished romance. If you don’t do everything in your power and don’t close the gestalt in your relationship with a man, it will be extremely difficult to move on in life.

The logical conclusion of a love affair will help you achieve spiritual harmony. A closed problem means an opportunity to start life anew and not repeat the mistakes made in the past. If she remains open, the woman will constantly drag a bunch of old problems into the new union and then wonder why the same negative thing constantly happens. The concept of “closing the gestalt of past relationships” means deeply working through the past and reconfiguring it in your mind. Completely getting rid of incompleteness means that a woman should:

• Re-live the disappointment.
• Finish general business.
• Express dissatisfaction and anger.

Completing past love is difficult work on oneself, after which it will be possible to start a new life without the presence of moments in it that cause moral discomfort and dissatisfaction.

What is the danger?

If a person has accumulated a lot of daily unfinished gestalts, this will cause feelings of anxiety and restlessness.

In the case of relationships, everything is much more serious .

The danger of incompleteness is the following:

1. The individual constantly feels dissatisfaction with life and cannot understand the reason for his discomfort.
2. With strong experiences, people reach neuroses, psychoses, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
3. A person develops laziness and apathy. He continues to go with the flow, does not seek to change anything in his life, even if it does not suit him.
4. Psychosomatic diseases often develop, but doctors do not find their causes .
5. The individual is unable to move forward , build a career, or start new relationships.
   He constantly returns to the previous script, involving more and more new “actors” in it.

The Hidden Danger of Incompleteness

Complaints that all past partners cheated on a woman, did not appreciate her, and did not pay enough attention can often be heard. It is worth remembering that if in close relationships with different people the same negative situations arise over and over again, this means that there are mistakes in your behavior with your partner. You are constantly doing something wrong and, most likely, you are not doing anything about getting rid of incompleteness in the past. This situation may threaten you:

• pessimism;
• general dissatisfaction with life;
• internal psychological discomfort;
• mental disorders – apathy, depression;
• failures in all love affairs;
• lack of readiness for a new connection;
• the constant presence of mistrust and fears towards the new lover.

If the gestalt remains open, most of the mental energy is spent constantly maintaining the illusion of a love connection that does not exist. The mental and physical resources of women who have a history of “incompleteness” are depleted, which provokes a decrease in concentration, the appearance of irritability and insomnia.

What does incompleteness look like?

If we draw an analogy with a computer, we can see what happens if we don’t terminate a program correctly .

How about several programs? The equipment simply begins to freeze, produce errors and may even break down.

The same thing happens with the human psyche. Incomplete gestalts do not allow development, hinder personal growth and the establishment of new relationships . The person seems to be walking in a vicious circle.

He starts a new relationship, and they end with the same thing - a breakup. Then comes emptiness and apathy. And now the person blames himself or others, declares himself a failure, tries to discover a generational curse, etc.

The desire for completion is due to the memory effect on unfinished actions . The human psyche will focus on one goal until it reaches it. The more this task means to a person, the more difficult it is to be distracted from it.

Under normal conditions, this property helps to move forward, without being distracted by extraneous moments, and to achieve goals. But sometimes unfinished gestalts are very harmful to relationships.

After all, completion often depends not only on the individual himself, but also on other people and external circumstances. It happens that it is impossible to close the past gestalt at all , for example, in the event of the death of a loved one.

Therefore, a person walks in a vicious circle, finding himself in a “frozen” state; an unresolved goal takes away all his vital energy . First it takes time, then emotions, and then physically destroys a person.

How to recognize that you have an unfinished gestalt

To understand that you have become addicted to past love, it is not necessary to consult a psychologist. It is enough to be attentive to your psychological state. This will allow you to notice the appearance of several disturbing emotional symptoms, indicating the presence of “unfinished work”. You can understand that you are still in captivity of the past by the following signs:

• Memories of your ex-partner cause a persistent feeling of resentment. Only their disappearance can indicate complete liberation from a painful connection.
• All newly emerging relationships with men have the same development scenario.
• The desire to compare your former and current lover persists.
• There's always this urgent need to talk about him, even if you're telling your next girlfriend what an ass he was.
• Regularly search for information about your lover who left you through friends or social networks.
• Friendship with his relatives.

All this gives some semblance of closeness and kinship with the former partner, but provokes the emergence of severe mental anguish. You can continue to live such a life for years and not take into account the arguments of reason. However, if at some point you feel a desire to free yourself from the influence of someone who abandoned you, you should understand that the time has come to complete this gestalt, leaving everything in the past in the past.

Steps to the logical end as a path to freedom

No psychotherapist will help if a person devotes all his free time to mental suffering. Only constant work on one’s own behavior and self-control will be the main step towards liberation:

READ How to break up with the married man you love: advice from a psychologist

1. Changing route and habits. Perception and memory are influenced not only by the image of a person, but also by smells, sounds, music or surroundings. Psychologists recommend not visiting places dear to your heart, so as not to reinforce your emotions.
2. Destruction of "relics". It is advisable to get rid of things and significant gifts in one fell swoop, otherwise trinkets and photographs will remind you of past love.
3. Psychological method “Empty chair”. It is necessary to imagine your ex-partner sitting opposite - and tell him everything that is painful. It is necessary to voice grievances, complaints, talk through critical moments in relationships in order to let go of painful relationships.

If your imagination is tight or it’s difficult to talk to an empty space, you can express yourself in writing. The main task is not to send a message under any circumstances, so as not to provoke a real showdown. By writing down grievances, you can become aware of the existing problems that are preventing you from moving forward.

What does the concept of “close the gestalt” mean?

This thesis means that you must achieve, on a subconscious level, the disappearance of the need to spend energy replaying past situations and the experiences that accompany them. After this, you will be able to continue living a full life now and here, to create and build. To do this, you need to understand what exactly is left unfinished in your past, accept and work through it. For example, you notice that all your relationships with men have the same scenario:

1. You meet a man and begin to demand that he show you care and attention in everything, 24 hours a day.
2. After some time, the love affair ends.
3. You meet a new party, and the situation repeats itself exactly.

In this case, you need to think about what unfinished process remains in the past and forces you to regularly play this scenario. Who didn't give you enough care and love? You can correct the situation only by understanding which circumstance from the past has not been completed by carrying out psychological work with it.

Unfinished relationship syndrome and mental disorder

An unfinished relationship with a man or woman does not bode well if everything is left to chance. Adele syndrome is a mental disorder, the distinctive feature of which is the presence of love addiction and painful passion for the object of affection. It manifests itself as constant attempts to pursue the object of desire, a desire to participate in his life, a decrease in interest in other things, favorite activities, hobbies, and a reluctance to make new acquaintances. In this case, professional help from a specialist is already required; in especially severe forms, drug treatment is prescribed.

The consequences of an unfinished relationship for a man can be more painful, since representatives of the stronger sex try to hide or drown out the experiences themselves, and do not give vent to emotions, like girls. In addition, the occurrence of such situations greatly affects self-esteem, which immediately affects all areas of life and self-realization.

The occurrence of the effect of unfinished relationships is associated with the presence of an unclosed gestalt, especially if this situation is not repeated in life for the first time. Each person is able to cope with the problem on their own, but this does not exclude your right to turn to a highly qualified specialist for help.

Allow yourself to be happy now, don't live in the past!

How to independently close the gestalt in an ended love affair

You have serious work to do on yourself, which consists of working through the past and reconfiguring it in your consciousness. Such work will lead to changes in relationships with others and an improvement in the quality of life, but it means getting rid of psychological trauma, and therefore is painful and unpleasant. Not everyone can do this psychological work and close the gestalt on their own at once.

It is very important that you be able to give yourself the opportunity to immerse yourself in a situation that has remained unresolved and brings mental anguish, as many times as it takes to finally exhaust it. The best way to get rid of “unfinished projects” is to finish what you started. In our case, this is the final end of the relationship with a former loved one, independently dotting all the i's.

However, it is not always possible to do this in reality, so psychologists recommend resorting to psychological techniques in such a situation that can provide real help. There are three of them:

1. We need to start working through one of the situations lying on the surface that is currently causing concern. They are easy to detect: it is necessary to write down on paper everything that touches a nerve, provokes the appearance of indignation and irritation, deep melancholy.
2. Think through and list point by point what you specifically don’t like in the past situation, how exactly everything should have been, what the broken love could have taught you, what life experience it gave you. After receiving all the information about the perfect development and completion of the situation being overcome, you need to dive into it as deeply as possible and relive the pain. During re-living, it is necessary to throw out those emotions and feelings that you wanted to get rid of, but were unable to do so.
3. Reconsider your life from the experience gained, if not all of it, but at least the main points.

This tactic of closing the gestalt on relationships allows you to reduce the perception of yourself as a victim, get rid of the feeling of your own worthlessness and helplessness, and change your ideas about your personality. At the same time, you will begin to feel like a more experienced, confident and wise person.

Stages of the Gestalt Cycle

In fact, gestalt is a need of the body

It doesn’t matter in food, recognition, love, relaxation. Any desire formed by a person is transformed into a need.

And all resources and energy will be directed directly to its satisfaction. But on the way to achieving what you want, failures may occur, which is why incompleteness arises.

Each need goes through the following stages of development:

• Formation and awareness. What does it mean? For example, you wanted something sweet. The desire has been formed, all that remains is to realize it in order to further understand how exactly to satisfy it. At home there are only chocolates and cookies. But I don’t want any of the above. You realize that you are directly craving, say, strawberry cream cake.
• Contact of the body with the environment. There is no cake at home, so you need to get ready, take money and go to the store where they sell it.
• Satisfaction. I think it’s clear here, you bought and ate exactly the cake you wanted.
• Understanding the experience gained or assimilation. Now you are lying contentedly on the sofa. The food is digested, you feel full and satisfied.

But if you are too lazy to go to the store, you can fill up on cookies or sweets. Then there will be no joy and saturation. The cycle was interrupted, the stomach seemed full, but not what I wanted.

Or, for example, you might think that sweets have too many calories and eat healthy vegetables instead of cake.

The need remains unsatisfied, which threatens to fail at one fine moment, that is, instead of one uneaten piece, you empty a whole bucket of ice cream, washed down with milkshakes and other things.

The so-called protective mechanisms are triggered, which “stop” the satisfaction of needs at various stages.

They are necessary for our psyche, but it happens that they are triggered at a completely unnecessary moment, which is why they interfere. You will learn more about what protective mechanisms exist in this article.

Sometimes a person cannot completely understand what exactly he wants; he seems to feel the desire, but cannot isolate and recognize it. Energy accumulates, dissatisfaction grows, and along with it aggression

This is why it is so important to listen to yourself, your feelings and desires

Help from specialists

If you can’t cope with all this on your own, then seek help from a psychologist or other specialist who can help you forget about the “unfinished business.” Psychologists who help get rid of the negativity of a broken love relationship, which disrupts the quality of life, use various Gestalt therapy techniques. They are helping:

• develop consciousness;
• survive painful mental conditions and get rid of the burden of the problem;
• forget about your gestalt forever;
• start a life unencumbered by past problems with a new partner or restore an alliance with a former loved one on your own terms.

Typically, specialists use only gentle approaches in their work and gradually, without trauma to the psyche, free clients from the shackles of the past.

How to work through your childhood unfinished gestalts?

Unclosed gestalt is a very common problem. This is due to the fact that many people suffer from incompleteness that formed many years ago. If in adult life a person experiences difficulties due to childhood grievances, then in this case psychologists recommend several things.

Some nuances of closing the gestalt

Spiritual Economics testifies: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and prudence” (NRT, 2 Tim. 1:7).” This quotation from Scripture teaches that everything divine that is in man is manifested in a bright mind, fortitude and love. Such a weapon will help you overcome all doubts and even painlessly escape from a dead-end relationship. The main thing is not to forget about it and use it for good.

If you can close the gestalt of the former relationship, another interesting effect will open: when we begin to free the mental field from the image of the ex-boyfriend, to separate from him, for some reason he himself begins to look for a meeting and conversation. He seems to feel that he has been forgotten and, either having rethought everything, or not wanting to be abandoned, he strives to return your affection and love.

Only you can decide what to do with it. However, if you don’t mind resuming your relationship with your ex, listen to a few tips from psychologists and take them into account:

• You can’t immediately open your soul to meet him.
• The person who once abandoned you must make an effort, somehow invest in your union in order to get you back.

Otherwise, you will be faced with a repetition of the old scenario, but this should be a completely different, new and necessarily good story. Let's turn to the wisdom of the ages. In Spiritual Economics there is the following postulate: “In the same way, husbands should love their wives, love them as they love their own body. He who loves his wife loves himself." (NRT, Eph. 5:28). This means that the partner must respect and love his woman. And if your past relationship was toxic, you need to work through it on a subconscious level and change it so as not to fall into the same rake with your ex again. Even if you can’t be together, there is a chance to let new, but full-fledged, healthy relationships into your life.

How to build new relationships

Don't rush if it seems like the time hasn't come yet. There is no point in building a relationship with a new person just to prove something to your ex-partner. This only helps temporarily.

If we are talking about a full-fledged new relationship, then, first of all, you need to honestly admit to yourself that you are very worried. You shouldn't wear a mask of indifference when you want to cry.

It is important to be honest and open with yourself. It is important to build a model of future relationships and determine which mistakes should no longer be made. New relationships should be built only when there are no open gelstatts associated with another person.

Thus, an unclosed gestalt represents a rather serious psychological problem. This is the state that best suits the definition of “incompleteness.” The more such incompletenesses in a person’s life, the more difficult it is for him to build his happy future.

What will get rid of the oppressive problem?

You may suffer endlessly from déjà vu. The constant repetition of negativity between partners will not go away until you think about how to close the gestalt in the relationship and begin to put your thoughts into action. Only after getting rid of the unfinished business from the past will you have a real opportunity to start life with a clean slate and build relationships as a couple not the way they once were, but the way you want.

It is important not to forget the wisdom of Spiritual Economy. It contains the following postulate: “Husband, show your wife due favor; likewise is a wife like her husband” (NRT, 1 Cor. 7:3). This is a statement that relationships should be with giving and reciprocity. That is, the wife must receive from her husband everything that is due to her, and respond in kind. Achieving this will become possible after closing the gestalt of the former relationship.

If you realize that your current relationship needs a reboot, pay attention to our course “How to create a harmonious relationship in which there is romance, and you are supported, understood and heard.” He will help you understand what is currently dragging you down and get rid of the burden of problems, building a happy union filled with love and respect.

Impact on loved ones

If only the individual himself suffered from an incomplete gestalt, then this would not be so bad.

The saddest thing is that close people are involved in the process, often innocent of anything.

This is expressed in well-known situations. For example, a child dreamed of becoming a musician, but went to study to become a lawyer because his parents decided so.

Subsequently, all his life he will try to make his child a musician without asking his desire . Although it was possible to realize your dream much later, even in a slightly different form.

Also, a girl who was once betrayed by her lover will annoy her new lovers with her jealousy and constant control.

If the breakup occurred on the eve of the wedding, then the woman may develop an obsessive desire to organize a celebration, no matter what. This will be her goal and the meaning of the relationship, not the relationship itself.

Sometimes very difficult situations . For example, a pregnancy ended in miscarriage. After this, the woman is afraid to get pregnant again, so as not to experience new grief.

The diagnosis of “chronic miscarriage” or “unexplained infertility” often has nothing to do with physical problems. The girl is absolutely healthy. What prevents her from giving birth to a child is an unfinished gestalt, which provokes a repetition of the scenario.