Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that suggests one should look at the things in front of them as a whole instead of separate, this thought process states that things are easier to watch in their simplest states (Sabar, 2013). The way we seen the environment around us and the things that are in it become part of a whole, the system only becomes more complicated when our mind begins to all that is around it. This being said, the Gestalt school of thought plays a big part in our development of awareness and sensation (Sabar, 2013).
So how exactly did Gestalt psychology come to be? Well, one day Wertheimer was on his way home from vacation, when he stopped at one of the trains stations, he brought himself a stroboscope toy, which allowed him to take picture that looked as if they were moving (Hergenhahn, 2014). The only way to describe this would be to imagine a strobe light that has slits in the wheel, as the pictures are being taken some are accompanied by a flashing light (Sabar, 2013). When he seen this, he called this movement Phi phenomenon, which is the sequenced flashing lights that make us see an apparent motion (Hergenhahn, 2014). This is phenomenon is what gave Gestalt psychology its official beginning, but its discovery started with an Austrian philosopher named Christian von Ehrenfelsin, his work was simply built upon (Sabar, 2013). What’s even more interesting is that we see this on a daily basis, think about when you watch a movie or television show, these movies or shows are a selection of frames made to give the appearance of movement.
Literature Review. Gestalt therapy takes on a humanistic approach, many of its methods focus on the human mind and trying to understand how it works, while also looking at the optimistic parts of life (Bloom, 2009). Gestalt theory therapy implements the Kantian idea that we do not all see things the same way, so we cannot know reality because reality is interpreted by the person experience. Our variability involves that each individual is considered individually (Bloom, 2009). When you think about it, this therapy has something in common with Buddhism, both of them focus on developing attention and awareness.
Now let me talk a little about how Gestalt therapy uses phenomenological methods, they simply edited it to fit the practice, they have modified it to work with individuals, couples & families (Bloom, 2009). Phenomenology is about finding the obvious instead of interpretation, so in short, I found out from reading my first article that Gestalt therapy is pointing out what is already known (Bloom, 2009). Gestalt therapy allows us to live without pretending to be someone we aren’t, it allows us to become out true selves.
In the twentieth century, Gestalt psychology was just an experimental psychology, these experiments took place in a school founded by Kurt Koffka, Max Wertheimer, and Wolfgang Kohler and focused on visual perception (Sabar, 2013). Gestalt psychologist used phenomenological methods, these methods helped them conclude that the world is not seen in an objective but rather on our own interpretation, and modern neuropsychology only support this (Sabar, 2013). We can thank these three psychologists for their research, because without it we wouldn’t understand how perception and movement work (Sabar, 2013).
Gestalt’s theories can be used in different fields because of its simplicity, and that one of the great things about it. These theories help us understand the way we think and see reality, for example they help explain hallucinations or why we group certain things together, but no matter how successful, there is always someone to critique your work. Some critics complain that their approaches to perception can be vague, while others say they weren’t scientific enough (Farrands, 2013). Whatever that means. Gestalt therapy is also criticized for individualism, since some people say it isolates people causing them to lose social skills (Farrands, 2013).
When you work in a field that require communication and creativity on a daily basis you have to know a little bit about Gestalt Theory, otherwise how would you be able to get the attention of you customers. For people in this field, it is important to know how we interpret thing so that they can effectively prepare their speech and make a connection with the audience (Latner, 2015). I can describe the most common job that uses Gestalt psychology, it would be retail. It’s a little surprising, right, but in this field, you have to understand how the customer is viewing the items you are selling and prepare your best sales pitch to persuade them into buying more than what they intended.
Conclusions. Gestalt psychology had influence psychology in a lot of ways, mainly dealing with perception, memory and learning. It has taught us more about perception and movement, as well as given us a different world view, because of Gestalt psychology we can understand the minds ability to illusions and tell the difference between what is real and what is not. After reading all of these articles, I realized a lot of them repeated the same information, but I’ve learned a lot more about the origin of Gestalt psychology and what it is about from them.
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Essay on Gestalt Psychology.
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