Gestalt psychology: M. Wertheimer, K. Koffka, W. Keller, K. Levin

Gestalt psychology is a psychological direction that arose as a result of attempts to interpret, first of all, mental activity, perception, thinking and the personality itself. Gestalt psychology makes the principle of integrity the basic explanatory postulate. The key is how the individual perceives information. The direction under consideration arose as a result of the study of perception. The focus of his attention is the characteristic predisposition of the psyche to transform experience into an intelligible understanding of the whole. So, for example, in the process of perceiving letters with missing parts, consciousness tries to compensate for the gap, so a person recognizes the entire letter.

Concepts and principles of Gestalt psychology

The name Gestalt psychology comes from the German word gestalt, which translates as image, structure, holistic configuration. The concept of “gestalt” was introduced by H. Ehrenfels in 1890 in the article “On the quality of form.” In this work, he identified a specific feature of the property of transposition (transfer), which he called this concept. But he did not engage in further development of this theory.

Gestalt is a pattern, configuration, a certain form of organization of individual parts that creates integrity [1]. Moreover, it is an innate structure; a person is born with it.

Basis of Gestalt psychology:

1. The subject of Gestalt psychology is human consciousness, which must be studied according to the principle of integrity.
2. The method of studying gestalts is observation, tracking one’s own perception, reaction to events.
3. The central mental process is visual perception.
4. The process of solving a problem is thinking carried out through field structuring, in other words, through insight in the present, and not through a selection of skills formed through errors and trials.

For a better understanding of this terminology, the following examples from everyday life can be given:

• A person's appearance. Everyone has a certain set of body parts, parts of the face, but the image in each individual case is perceived completely differently.
• Having arrived on an excursion, a group of tourists entered the gallery to look at famous paintings. Few people began to peer into every stroke and evaluate it. Everyone saw a complete work of art - the drawing as a whole, its composition, the general combination of shades and shapes. In this way, there is a holistic perception of the picture, and not its elements. This perception is called gestalt. It is a complete structure.

The basic principles and laws of Gestalt psychology are presented in the following table.

The fundamental quality of Gestalt psychology is the desire for completeness, which manifests itself in the “Zeigarnik effect,” which consists in the fact that a person remembers incomplete processes better.

Representatives of this direction wanted to create a new type of psychology, which would be interpreted to perceive the facts of consciousness as the only mental reality, similar to the natural sciences, and physics was taken as a model. The relationship between the physical field and holistic perception was carried out by gestalts.

What problems does it solve?

Reflection - what is it in psychology, definition

The basis of Gestalt psychology is the desire to help a person understand himself, deal with his needs and learn to rely on his own strength.

After therapy, the client begins to better understand his psychological and physical needs. He understands who he is and how he needs to achieve his goals. His relationships with people change. The patient feels their mood, needs and desires. This is especially important for work that requires a lot of social contact.

Max Wertheimer as the founder of Gestalt psychology

The founder of Gestalt psychology is the German psychologist Max Wertheimer (April 15, 1880 – October 12, 1943). He was born in Prague and studied in private schools there. My father was the director of a business college, my mother studied art. After school, he graduated from Charles University and moved to Germany. There he began to study philosophy and psychology. Its leader was Karl Stumpf. In 1904, after defending his dissertation on the topic “Detecting the guilt of a criminal during an investigation using the method of associative connection of words,” he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Then, over the course of several years, Wertheimer developed control of witness testimony and studied patients with speech disorders.

In 1912, he began to work on the problems of the psychology of thinking and on the formation of the concept of problem solving and creative thought. Then his work “Experimental Studies of the Perception of Motion” was published. It was with him that the history of Gestalt psychology began. In his work, Wertheimer questioned the old understanding of the presence of individual elements in the perception of the environment.

The experiments consisted in the fact that, using special devices (strobe and tachiostoscope), the subjects were asked to look sequentially at two strips (one located horizontally, the second vertically or at an angle) at different changing speeds. When the interval was short, the lines were perceived as data simultaneously. With fast - sequentially. With an optimal movement of 60 milliseconds, one line could be seen moving into the position of the second. The movement was created as if it were real.

Thus, it was explained that with the sequential movement of an object, the perception of continuous movement is created: “when a certain point “A” is excited in the brain, a zone is created around it, where the effect of the stimulus is also felt. If point “B” is excited soon after “A,” then a short circuit occurs between them, and the excitation is transferred from point “A” to point “B” [2].

This phenomenon is called the phi phenomenon, which denotes the illusion of moving from place to place of two light sources that turn on alternately. This experiment proved that perception is not reduced to the sum of individual sensations. He also believed that phenomena such as proximity, similarity, closure and symmetry are perceived, as a rule, because consciousness imposes certain organizational principles on sensations.

After this work, in the 20s, the Berlin School of Gestalt psychology began to take shape in Berlin. M. Wertheimer, K. Koffka, W. Köhler, K. Levin began to think in this direction of perception, thinking, and needs. In 1921 they launched a new journal, Psychologische Forschung, in which they published various psychological articles. Thanks to their work, world psychology is changing. Such works include Wertheimer's articles: “On the doctrine of Gestalt” (1921) and “On Gestalt theory” (1925).

After his death, in 1945, the book “Productive Thinking” was published, on which the scientist worked for almost twenty years. This work presented the only relatively complete presentation of his theory. Wertheimer wanted to apply the principles of Gestalt to the creative thinking of people in order to consider the same problem from different angles, that is, as an alternating change of Gestalts.

He opposed traditional educational practices due to constant cramming. His opinion was that this method of study would not lead to a good understanding and knowledge of the material. A better understanding of the problem and finding its solution will arise if individual details are considered in connection with the overall situation. When solving a problem, it is necessary to move from the general to the specific.

The main weakness of the logical approach to the study of intelligence, in his opinion, was the following: “Traditional logic has little interest in the process of searching for a solution. It concentrates attention rather on the question of the correctness of each step of the proof” [3].

For the researcher, Gestalt psychology was a new and effective form of psychoanalysis. By experimentally studying the features of visual perception, he proved that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. This conclusion became fundamental in Gestalt psychology.

The history of this psychological trend

The history of the development of the direction of Gestalt psychology dates back to 1912, when Max Wertheimer published his first scientific work on this topic. This work was based on the fact that Wertheimer questioned the generally accepted idea of ​​the presence of separately existing elements in the process of perceiving something. Thanks to this, the 20s went down in history as the period of development of the school of Gestalt psychology. The main personalities who figured in the emergence of this trend:

1. Max Wertheimer.
2. Kurt Koffka.
3. Wolfgang Köhler.
4. Kurt Lewin.

These scientists made an invaluable contribution to the development of this area. However, more details about these representatives of Gestalt psychology will be discussed a little later. These people set themselves a difficult task. The first and main representatives of Gestalt psychology were those who wanted to transfer physical laws to psychological phenomena.

Wolfgang Köhler and his research

As mentioned above, the foundations of Gestalt psychology were also laid by the German and American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler (January 21, 1887 – June 11, 1967). He spent his childhood in Germany and graduated from school there. His father worked as a school director, his mother was unemployed and was raising her son. Köhler graduated from the universities of Tübingen, Bonn and Berlin. There he received excellent basic knowledge. At the age of 22, he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in psychology. At the same age he began to engage in scientific activities. In 1917, he wrote the book “A Study of the Intelligence of Apes” based on his observations and study of the behavior of these mammals on the island of Tenerife.

The essential idea of ​​the study was related to the fact that the monkey found various uses for an ordinary stick. It was a pole for jumping, a fishing rod for ants, a lever for opening, a shovel for digging, a weapon for threatening each other. She had small mammals thrown off her body, the electric wire was checked for charge, and much more. In other words, when the monkey simultaneously saw both the goal - a banana, and the means - a stick, then it had a holistic vision of the situation. Or this example: a monkey got used to getting fruit by standing on a box, the box was disguised by placing another monkey on it, so this box became part of another gestalt. In all these methods of application, it is possible to trace how human labor activity developed.

As a result, Wolfgang Köhler came to the following conclusions:

1. Humans and chimpanzees share intelligent behavior, which differs only in structure (degree of complexity).
2. The basis of behavior in monkeys, as in humans, is the image (gestalt) of the external situation.
3. The result of perception is insight as a holistic intellectual reaction of understanding the essence of what is happening. (Köhler called such inner illumination, sudden understanding and finding a solution the word “insight.”)

These conclusions did not coincide with the opinion of the American psychologist and teacher E. Thorndike, who believed that the behavior of animals in different situations depends on their mistakes, trials, associations (blind search for the right solution) or on sudden awareness, and they lack intelligence. But Köhler's research revealed facts about the invention and use of tools, and not just random samples. This proved that the beginning had been made of the development of mental abilities, in other words, intelligence, just like in humans.

The general scientifically proven conclusion of his work: “the anthropoid ape, not only in relation to some morphological and physiological characteristics, is closer to humans than to lower species of monkeys, but also psychologically is the closest relative of humans” [4]. This is the first factual substantiation of Darwin's theory of evolution from a psychological point of view.

Thanks to successful experiments on the study of perception and intelligence of chimpanzees in 1922, Köhler received international recognition and became director of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Berlin. His scientific theories are relevant and practical today. They are valuable and interesting because of the organic relationship between theoretical psychology with life and with psychotechnics.

In the book “Physical Structures at Rest and Stationary State” (1920), he reflected on the fact that the physical world, like the psychological one, is subject to the Gestalt principle. All processes and phenomena are interpreted by finding the corresponding structures in brain processes, which were explained based on the physical theory of the electromagnetic field of Faraday and Maxwell. There was an assumption about the existence of electromagnetic fields in the brain, formed under the influence of a stimulus, similar to the structure of the image. This was an important point in the theory of Gestalt psychology and solved its psychophysical problem.

Not stopping there, the researcher continued his research together with K. Koffka and M. Wertheimer. In 1929, their joint work “Gestalt Psychology” (Gestalt Psychologe) was published - a manifesto of the school of Gestalt psychology, a systematic and perhaps even the best presentation of this theory.

In 1938, Köhler wrote the book “The Role of Values ​​in the World of Facts.” In 1955 he moved to Princeton University, and in 1958 he became a professor of psychology at Dartmouth College. In 1959, his article “Gestalt psychology today” was published in a scientific journal. It was written about the influence of Gestalt psychology on American psychological science. Köhler compared the methods of American psychologists with the methods of Gestalt psychologists to solve the problem of the concepts of conditioning and motivation.

In the concept of motivation, he came to the following facts:

1. In human experience, motivation is a dynamic vector (...).
2. If there are no obstacles in the way, this direction coincides with an imaginary straight line drawn from object to object.
3. The direction of the experimental vector is the direction towards the object (towards a decrease in the distance under consideration) or away from it (towards an increase).
4. Strength may vary. [5]

At the end of the article, the author shares his desire to create a common work together with behaviorists.

Gestalt exercises

Gestalt therapy represents general therapeutic principles that help “oneself” learn to understand the mysterious labyrinths of one’s soul and recognize the sources of the causes of internal contradiction.

The following exercises are aimed at: simultaneous awareness of oneself and the existence of another. In general, they encourage us to step beyond the limits of the possible. When performing exercises, try to analyze what you are doing, why and how you are doing it. The main goal of these exercises is to develop the ability to find your own estimates.

Exercise – “Presence”

Goal: Focus on the feeling of presence.

• close your eyes
• Concentrate on your bodily sensations. If necessary, correct your posture
• Be natural every moment
• Open your eyes, relax them, remaining frozen in body and thoughts.
• Let your body relax
• Concentrate on the feeling of “being” (feel “I am here”)

After concentrating on the sense of I for some time, with your mind relaxed and silent, bring your breath into awareness and move your attention from “I” to “here”, and mentally repeat “I am here” simultaneously with inhalation, pause, exhalation .

Exercise – Feeling “You”

The purpose of the exercise: to be able to experience the state of presence “in another person”, that is, to be able to feel the state of “You” instead of the state of “Ego”. The exercise is performed in pairs.

• Face each other
• Close your eyes, take the most comfortable poses.
• Wait for a state of complete peace.
• Open your eyes
• Start having a wordless dialogue with your partner
• Forget about yourself, focus only on the person looking at you.

H. Exercise “I/You”

The exercise is also performed in pairs, you need to sit opposite each other.

1. Concentrate;
2. Eyes should be open;
3. Maintain mental silence, physical relaxation;
4. Concentrate on both the sensations “I” and “You”;
5. Try to feel the “cosmic depth”, infinity.

The purpose of the exercise is to achieve the state: “I” - “YOU” - “Infinity”.

Kurt Koffka and studies of perception in children

Another founder of Gestalt psychology is the German and American psychologist Kurt Koffka (March 18, 1886 – November 22, 1941). Born and raised in Berlin, he graduated from school there and entered the university under Karl Stumpf. He showed a special interest in the natural sciences and philosophy. In 1909 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Since 1910, together with Köhler, he participated in some experiments as a test subject for Max Wertheimer. At this time, he wrote the article “Perception: an introduction to Gestalt psychology.” It outlined the main principles and provisions of this direction. Then in 1921, as mentioned earlier, the three of them created the journal Psychological Research.

In the same year, his work “Fundamentals of Mental Development” was published. In it, the scientist used the methods of Gestalt psychology to study the mental development of children. I tried to illustrate that from birth children have a set of inaccurate, not entirely adequate images about the outside world. Over time, they separate and become more accurate.

For example, a newborn child has a vague image of a parent, the gestalt of which includes voice, face, hairstyle, and outfit. Therefore, if you change your clothing style or style your hair differently, a two-month-old toddler may not even recognize a loved one. But after about four months, this vague image is divided, turning into a series of clear images: voices, bodies, faces (with independent gestalts of eyes, mouth, hairstyle).

In 1922, his article “Perception: An Introduction to Gestalt Theory” was published in the nineteenth issue of the scientific journal “Psychological Bulletin”. From 1924 he was a professor at Cornell University, then at the University of Chicago, at the University of Wisconsin, and three years later at Smith College in Northampton.

He spent the spring and summer of 1932 on the Central Asian expedition. On the way I stopped in Moscow. At the Institute of Psychology he completed a report: “Overcoming the mechanism in modern psychology.” Later, this work was published in the journal “Psychology” under a modified title: “Overcoming mechanistic and vitalistic currents in modern psychology.” After the expedition, Koffka concluded: “in subjects in Central Asia with minor and rare deviations, all the same optical illusions were observed that subjects usually demonstrate in studies conducted by psychologists in Europe” [6]. A summary of his research was published only a couple of years later in the journal of genetic psychology, and few people knew about his conclusions, since they contradicted the conclusions of Luria, the organizer of this expedition. Therefore, the conclusions were published only several decades later; Koffka did not live to see this moment.

His main work is considered to be the book: “Principles of Gestalt Psychology” (1935). It especially vividly describes “experience”, “learning from mistakes” on the basis of examples illustrating thought processes, the development of children’s abilities to form and perceive thoughts.

Koffka studied children's perception of color. One of the experiments was as follows: the researcher asked children to find candy in one of two cups covered with colored cardboard. The delicacy was always under a dark gray lid, and not under a black one. When the experiment was repeated, but they took cardboards of dark gray and light gray, the children did not choose the second color, because they were not guided by a specific color, but by the correspondence “dark - less dark.” So the scientist formed the law of perception - “transduction”.

The works of Kurt Koffka, like the works of Köhler and Wertheimer, are included in the classics of scientific psychology.

Literature

• Arnheim R.
  Art and visual perception. - M.: Progress, 1974.
• Arnheim R.
  New essays on the psychology of art. - M.: Prometheus, 1994.
• Wertheimer M.
  Productive thinking. - M.: Progress, 1987.
• Dunker K.
  Psychology of productive (creative) thinking // Psychology of thinking. - M., 1965. P. 86-234.
• Martsinkovskaya T. D.
  History of psychology: a textbook for students of higher educational institutions / Editor E. V. Satarova. — 4th edition, stereotypical. - Moscow: Publishing House, 2004. - 544 p. — 10,000 copies. — ISBN 5-7695-1994-0.
• Arnheim R.
  Visual thinking. Berkeley and Los Angeles: California UP, 1967.
• Koffka K.
  Principles of Gestalt psychology. NY, 1935.
• Kohler W.
  Gestalt psychology. NY, 1947 (revised ed.).
• James R. Lewis.
  Encyclopedia of dreams. — P. 151.

Kurt Lewin and his dynamic psychological field theory

German and American psychologist Kurt Zadek Lewin (September 9, 1890 – February 12, 1947) studied the problems of personality, its needs, and the influence of social relations on it. In 1921 he became a teacher of psychology and philosophy at the University of Berlin. His views were based on the concept of Gestalt. He interpreted this concept as a field functioning as a single space in which individual elements are drawn towards it.

In 1926 he became a professor at the University of Berlin and taught there until 1933, because due to the mass repression of Jews he had to emigrate to America. In the article “Intentions, will and needs” (1926), he described experimental studies on needs and volitional actions. He considered aspiration – need – to be the basis of human activity in any form (action, memory, thinking).

In other words, his opinion was that a person’s personality lives and develops in the psychological field of the objects around it, each of which has a certain valence. For everyone it has its own sign, although there are those who repel or attract with the same force. Surrounding objects influence a person and thereby cause energy charges in him that cause tension.

When the balance between a person and a situation is disturbed, tension arises and the desire to take some purposeful action occurs. Lewin called this action a quasi-need. To satisfy your needs, you need to unwind. Discharge is carried out in a certain situation called a psychological field. Lewin created the “psychological field theory”, in which he explained human behavior [7]. In this regard, I investigated the problem of goal formation and goal-directed behavior.

Kurt also developed a theory of conflicts and identified three types:

In 1939, Kurt led the established group of researchers who studied the phenomenon of leadership. The effectiveness of the study was to identify three leadership styles: authoritarian, democratic and permissive. Moreover, he proved experimentally that it is the democratic one that brings the best results. In 1947 he participated in the creation of the scientific journal “Human Relations”.

Gestalt pictures

Changeling drawings (visual illusions): What do you see? What emotions are conveyed on each side of the pictures? It is not recommended to allow preschool children to view such pictures, as they can cause mental disorders. Below are the famous “dual” images: people, animals, nature. What could you see in each of the drawings?

In addition, the idea of ​​Gestalt psychology underlies such pictures, which are called “doodles”. Read more about droodles on this page.

With this article we wanted to awaken in each of you the desire to turn to yourself, to know the depth of your soul, to begin to take care of yourself - to open up to the world. Gestalt, of course, cannot make you richer, but it certainly can make you happier.

Karl Duncker and the thought process in problem solving

German-American psychologist Karl Duncker (February 2, 1903 – February 23, 1940) also made significant contributions to the field of Gestalt psychology. Born in the German town of Leipzig. He was educated at Clark University in Berlin, and in 1930 he became an assistant at the Psychological Institute in Berlin. Five years later he left for Cambridge, then to the USA.

His name is primarily known for his research on productive thinking and problem solving. Compared to Wertheimer and Köhler, Duncker described precisely the experiment revealing the thinking of Gestalt psychology, and did not criticize the opposite perception of thinking by other scientists. The most popular is his book: “Towards the Psychology of Productive Thinking.” In it, he displayed studies that experimentally studied the fact of the ability to move away from the usual understanding of things that has developed in life experience, that is, the mechanism of insight.

To understand something, according to Duncker, means to acquire a gestalt or to see its functional place in a gestalt [8]. Here are some examples from the field of perception:

• In the case when a melody is played in short fragments with long breaks, it ends up being difficult, almost impossible, to understand it as a whole. The same situation applies to the elements of a certain figure.
• While reading a book, at the moment when fatigue appears, but there is still strength to strain attention, the meaning begins to be lost, as if due to the loss of some words from the context. This happens not because the individual element becomes invisible, but because the similarity between two thoughts is not seen.

In these cases, so-called “sums of elements” are considered, rather than gestalts.

When solving problems, Duncker was primarily interested not in the final result, but in the process of thinking - reasoning out loud [9]. Moreover, the direction of the problem solving process depends on how the material was presented initially: with or without an image; what is the form of asking the question? He identified the following stages of the thought process:

1. The emergence of a problem, vision and understanding of the conflict.
2. Formation of the functional meaning of the elements of the situation.
3. The emergence of insight.
4. Formation of a functional solution.
5. Detailing the solution, applying it in this situation.
6. Examination.

In his tasks, the functional significance of the solution is important - a certain transformation of the original problem. It is worth noting that it is not abstract, common to different specific problems, since solving one will not help in solving another.

Using Dunker's experiment as an example, let us consider the description of the decision stages as a “decision tree”. X-ray problem:

- “In what way should a certain type of X-rays, which have high intensity and are capable of destroying healthy tissue, be used in order to cure a person of a tumor in his body (for example, in the stomach).”

The progress of the process of solving this problem can be traced in the following table compiled by Matyushkin [10]:

Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy

- a direction of psychotherapy that was formed in the middle of the last century.
The term “gestalt” is a holistic image of a certain situation. The meaning of therapy: a person and everything around him are a single whole. The founder of Gestalt therapy is psychologist Friedrich Perls
. Contact and boundary are the two main concepts of this direction.

Contact

– the process of interaction between human needs and the capabilities of the environment. This means that a person’s needs will be satisfied only if he has contact with the outside world. For example: to satisfy the feeling of hunger, we need food.

The life of absolutely any person is endless gestalts, be they small or large events. A quarrel with a loved one, relationships with mom and dad, children, relatives, friendship, falling in love, talking with work colleagues - all these are gestalts. Gestalt can arise suddenly, at any time, whether we want it or not, but it arises as a result of the emergence of a need that requires immediate satisfaction. Gestalt tends to have a beginning and an end. It ends when satisfaction is achieved.

Gestalt therapy technique

The techniques used in Gestalt therapy are principles and games.

The most famous are the three games presented below for understanding yourself and the people around you. Games are built on internal dialogue, the dialogue is conducted between parts of one’s own personality (with one’s emotions - with fear, anxiety). To understand this, remember yourself when you experienced a feeling of fear or doubt - what happened to you.

Playing technique:

• To play you will need two chairs, they must be placed opposite each other. One chair is for an imaginary “participant” (your interlocutor), and the other chair is yours, that is, a specific participant in the game. Task: change chairs and at the same time play out the internal dialogue - try to identify yourself as much as possible with different parts of your personality.
• Making circles. A direct participant in the game must, going in a circle, address the fictional characters with questions that concern his soul: how the participants in the game evaluate him and what he himself feels for an imaginary group of people, for each person individually.
• Unfinished business. An unfinished gestalt always requires completion. And you can find out how to achieve this from the following sections of our article.

All Gestalt therapy comes down to completing unfinished business. Most people have many unsettled tasks and plans related to their relatives, parents or friends.

Unfinished Gestalt

It is a pity, of course, that a person’s desires are not always translated into reality, and in the language of philosophy: completing the cycle can take almost a lifetime. The ideal Gestalt cycle looks like this:

1. The emergence of a need;
2. Search for opportunities to satisfy it;
3. Satisfaction;
4. Leave contact.

But there are always some internal or external factors that hinder the ideal process. As a result, the cycle remains incomplete. In case of complete completion of the process, the gestalt is deposited in consciousness. If the process remains incomplete, it continues to exhaust the person throughout his life, while also delaying the fulfillment of all other desires. Often, incomplete gestalts cause malfunctions in the mechanisms that protect the human psyche from unnecessary overloads.

To complete unfinished gestalts, you can use the advice that the wonderful poet, playwright and writer Oscar Wilde gave to the world a hundred years ago:

“To overcome temptation, you need to... succumb to it.”

A completed gestalt certainly bears fruit - a person becomes pleasant, easy to communicate and begins to be easy for other people. People with incomplete gestalts always try to complete them in other situations and with other people - by forcibly imposing on them roles in the scenarios of their incomplete gestalts!

A small, simple, effective rule: start by completing the simplest and most obvious gestalt . Fulfill your cherished (preferably not serious) dream. Learn to dance tango. Draw nature outside the window. Take a parachute jump.

Gestalt psychology today and its followers

The work of Gestalt psychologists laid new approaches to various problems - from creative thinking to personality activity. Various studies of the psyche have made it possible to understand the patterns of development of perception, thinking and personality, and to form experimental methods that are fundamentally different from previous ones [11].

The ideas of Gestalt psychology today have found their continuation not only in many areas of psychology, but also in the modern direction of providing psychological (psychotherapeutic) assistance - Perls' Gestalt therapy, which helps to heal oneself through the awareness of what has hidden inside.

Criticism

Gestalt psychology has many representatives and followers, but not all specialists have a positive attitude towards this direction. Throughout its existence, the school has been repeatedly criticized.

Some authors have pointed out that Gestalt psychologists spend a lot of time on theoretical justifications and conduct few experiments. Some consider the work of the new movement not so significant, especially in comparison with behaviorism.

The existence of insights is also questioned. Other psychologists were unable to repeat Keller's experiments, so they did not share his ideas. I. Pavlov especially harshly criticized the Gestaltists. He spoke negatively about the theory of studying something whole as a whole, since, according to the Russian physiologist, everything needs to be divided into parts.

Interesting. Pavlov gave a simple example. To understand the operation of a machine, you need to disassemble it into parts and study its structure. The physiologist believed that this is how one can understand the peculiarities of the functioning of the psyche.

Gestalt can be characterized from different sides. There are many contradictions in the direction, as the followers themselves admit. Due to the fact that the school is not so well represented in Russia, there are many scammers who, after reading 2-3 books, begin to accept clients.

At the same time, Gestalt psychology remains one of the most popular areas in psychology. The school is actively developing and does not stop there. In Russia, its representatives are also gradually appearing, they provide consultations and training of specialists.

Gestalt psychology is a relatively new movement in psychology. Therefore, you should not demand an ideal theoretical and practical basis from the school. New followers of the movement continue to conduct experiments, put forward theories and write scientific works.

With the help of Gestalt psychology, long-standing problems can be solved, especially internal ones. A person will receive techniques that can be used independently in moments of anxiety and worry.