Gestalt Therapy Term Paper

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Gestalt therapy emerged from a multitude of philosophical, theoretical, scientific, and cultural roots. As a product of the early twentieth century, it would be impossible to divorce the evolution of Gestalt therapy from Marxism or existentialism, and indeed the theories of Gestalt therapy in part derive from those philosophies. Moreover, Gestalt therapy at least in part originated through a therapeutic application of the perception principles of Gestalt psychology. The relationship between Gestalt therapy and Gestalt psychology is both tenuous and controversial: "Gestalt therapists frequently claim descent from Gestalt psychology by quoting some of the classical Gestalt experiments in figure/ground information and figure/ground reversal ... Yet Gestalt psychologists have consistently denied any close kinship between their system of theory and research," (Sherill 1986). Still Gestalt therapy owes part of its theoretical framework to the work of Max Wertheimer, Ernst Mach, Christian von Ehrenfels, Oswald Kulpe, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka. While Wertheimer and other Gestalt psychologists did not concern themselves with existential matters as Gestalt therapists do, their discoveries in the realm of perception remain markedly similar to the philosophies underlying Gestalt therapy. Most notably, the term "gestalt," meaning "whole," applies itself equally to Gestalt psychology and to Gestalt therapy. However, the main concern of the Gestalt psychologist is human perception, whereas the main concern of the Gestalt therapist is self-actualization and self-awareness.

The key founders of Gestalt therapy were Fritz Perls, Laura Perls, and Paul Goodman. Their theories first become codified in the 1940s and 1950s, decades after the publication of key Gestalt psychological works like Wertheimer's 1933 Productive Thinking, and Kolher's 1929 book Gestalt Psychology. Perhaps the main contribution of Gestalt psychology on Gestalt therapy were the "gestalt laws," including the law of pragnanz, the law of closure, the law of similarity, and the law of proximity. Although these laws were used by Gestalt psychologists to describe mostly perceptual phenomenon, they can be easily extended to offer descriptions of human mental and cognitive processes.

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For example, the law of pragnanz (literally the "law of pregnancy") implies that the individual will gravitate toward experiencing "as good a gestalt as possible," (Boeree 2000). In other words, the human being naturally seeks wholeness in his or her visual perceptions. Applied to Gestalt therapy, the law of pragnanz would imply that the human being naturally seeks wholeness in his or her experiences of reality, and in his or her relationships. One of the keys to psychological healing is the achievement of wholeness, or gestalt.

However much they were influenced by the Gestalt psychological concepts of Wertheimer, et al., Gestalt therapy more resembles philosophies like Buddhism and existentialism than Gestalt psychology. "Gestalt conceives of the mind as an interference, as a way of blocking the total momentum of the organism in some way ... The mind is not even the noble part of the organism ... For most people the mind and the creations of the mind work against the body," (Becker 1993). One of the key issues in Gestalt therapy is "being here now," becoming aware of the body's sensations and feelings and silencing the mind's chatter. By being here now, the individual can best achieve a sense of wholeness, of gestalt.

Gestalt therapy was closely related to and influenced by humanistic psychology. Early humanistic psychology, in turn, was influenced by Gestalt psychology. Kurt Lewin and Kurt Goldstein, who worked with Wertheimer, Koffka, and Kolher, first applied Gestalt psychology to psychological issues outside the domain of perception. Lewin originated the topological theory, a "map" of human dynamics that represented a "life space," (Boeree 2000). One's life space included needs, desires, and goals. Kurt Goldstein proposed a "holistic view of brain function," and coined the term….....

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