What is Gestalt?
Many people have heard about Gestalt psychology in one way or another. Despite the fact that this direction appeared not so long ago, its simplicity and effectiveness have earned the trust of people seeking to find mutual understanding with themselves. But even those who are familiar with psychology often ask the question, what is gestalt? How to correctly interpret this concept and why does closing them have a beneficial effect on life? Let's try to figure this out.
What is Gestalt and how did this concept appear?
This term comes from the German word "Gestalt", which can be translated as "structure" or "form". In the context of psychology and philosophy, Gestalt is a concept that is based on an understanding of the integrity and orderliness of human perception. But what does this mean?
When we look at a picture or a person who is opposite us, we do not think that they are made up of parts. Looking at the picture, we see not strokes of watercolor or pastel, or even blue, red and yellow shades, but a holistic image filled with meaning. When we listen to music, we hear a melody, not a set of notes. And when we encounter difficulties, we see and feel the problem as a whole, and not in individual aspects. It is with this holistic perception that Gestalt psychology works.
History of origin
The origins of the Gestalt approach go back to the early 20th century, when German psychologists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka explored the processes of perception and realized that our perception is not simply the sum of individual elements, but is organized into structured forms that form a holistic picture. Exploring the peculiarities of human perception, they built a whole direction based on the principle of holism.
Those who further worked in this direction went even deeper and noticed how we, ignoring some of the details, perceive the whole. Surely, many have come across pictures that everyone sees differently. For example, “Ruby Vase”: a picture in which you can see a vase or two faces. But the peculiarity of the human brain is that we can see either this or that, but not both options at the same time.
Principles of Gestalt psychology
The basic principles of Gestalt psychology are the following:
- the principle of integrity, which states that people perceive objects and phenomena as a single whole, and not as a set of isolated parts;
- Figure and Ground Principle: The Gestalt approach emphasizes that in our perception we identify one element as the “figure” and perceive the rest as the “ground”. This happens automatically and depends on contrast and context.
- Principles of Grouping: Gestalt psychologists have identified several laws of grouping that determine how we organize elements in a composition. These laws include the law of proximity, the law of similarity, the law of general direction and others;
- The Embodiment Principle: The Gestalt approach emphasizes the importance of the relationship between perception and action. Perception is formed based on how we interact with the world around us;
- principle of experimentation: The Gestalt approach places great importance on experimentation and experience in learning and understanding the world. To understand how perception works, we need to actively interact with the objects and phenomena around us.
The Gestalt approach is a powerful idea that allows us to better understand how we perceive and organize information in the world around us. This approach not only helps to unravel the peculiarities of perception, but also has applications in various fields, from psychology to design, from pedagogy to therapy, making it an important element for our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
