Read complete books and articles on: Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt - gəshtältˈ [Ger.,=form], school of psychology that interprets phenomena as organized wholes rather than as aggregates of distinct parts, maintaining that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The term Gestalt was coined by the philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels in 1890, to denote experiences that require more than the basic sensory capacities to comprehend. In 1912, the movement was given impetus in psychology by German theorists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka as a protest against the prevailing atomistic, analytical psychological thought. It was also a departure from the general intellectual climate, which emphasized a scientific approach characterized by a detachment from basic human concerns. According to the school, understanding of psychological phenomena such as perceptual illusions could not be derived by merely isolating the elementary parts for analysis, because human perception may organize sensory stimuli in any number of ways, making the whole different from the sum of the parts. Gestalt psychologists suggest that the events in the brain bear a structural correspondence to psychological events; indeed, it has been shown that steady electric currents in the brain correspond to structured perceptual events. The Gestalt school has made substantial contributions to the study of learning, recall, and the nature of associations, as well as important contributions to personality and social psychology. Gestalt therapy, developed after World War II by Frederick Perls, believes that a person's inability to successfully integrate the parts of his personality into a healthy whole may lie at the root of psychological disturbance. In therapy, the analyst encourages clients to release their emotions, and to recognize these emotions for what they are. Gestalt psychology has been thought of as analogous to field physics.

See W. Köhler, The Task of Gestalt Psychology (1969); Max W. Productive Thinking (rev. ed. 1959, repr. 1978); G. Higgins, Gestalt Psychology and the Theory of Emotional Growth (1987); D. Rosenblatt, Opening Doors: What Happens in Gestalt Therapy (1989).

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12 of the Best Books and Articles on: Gestalt Psychology

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Documents of Gestalt Psychology » Read Now
by Mary Henle. 356 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...DOCUMENTS OF GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY DOCUMENTS OF GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY EDITED BY Mary Henle UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA...to the present volume. In his brief survey of "Gestalt...
2.

Born to Win: Transactional Analysis with Gestalt Experiments » Read Now
by Muriel James, Dorothy Jongeward. 299 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

A national bestseller in 1971, Born to Win still sells thousands of copies each year. The insights in the book are now fundamental to how we see ourselves. It was one of the first self-help books to analyze communication styles and its 50 gestalt exercises are as revealing as ever about the roles...
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A national bestseller in 1971, Born to Win still sells thousands of copies each year. The insights in the book are now fundamental to how we see ourselves. It was one of the first self-help books to analyze communication styles and its 50 gestalt exercises are as revealing as ever about the roles people reenact in their Parent and Child ego states. Photos.
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3.

The World in Your Head: A Gestalt View of the Mechanism of Conscious Experience » Read Now
by Steven Lehar. 298 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

The World In Your Head: A Gestalt View of the Mechanism of Conscious Experience represents a bold assault on one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in science: the nature of consciousness and the human mind.
Rather than examining the brain and nervous system to see what they tell us about the mind...
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The World In Your Head: A Gestalt View of the Mechanism of Conscious Experience represents a bold assault on one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in science: the nature of consciousness and the human mind.
Rather than examining the brain and nervous system to see what they tell us about the mind, this book begins with an examination of conscious experience to see what it can tell us about the brain.
Through this analysis, the first and most obvious observation is that consciousness appears as a volumetric spatial void, containing colored objects and surfaces. This reveals that the representation in the brain takes the form of an explicit volumetric spatial model of external reality. The world we see around us therefore is not the real world itself, but merely a miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an internal representation. In fact the phenomena of dreams and hallucinations clearly demonstrate the capacity of the brain to construct complete virtual worlds even in the absence of sensory input. Perception is therefore somewhat like a guided hallucination, based on sensory stimulation.
This insight allows us to examine the world of visual experience not as scientists exploring the external world, but as perceptual scientists examining a rich and complex internal representation. This unique approach to investigating mental function has implications in a wide variety of related fields, including the nature of language and abstract thought, motor control and behavior, as well as to the world of music, art, and dance, showing how the patterns of regularity and periodicity in space and time apparent in those aesthetic domains reflects the periodic basis set of theunderlying harmonic resonance representation in the brain.
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4.

Connectionism, Parallel Constraint Satisfaction Processes, and Gestalt Principles: (Re)Introducing Cognitive Dynamics to Social Psychology, in Personality and Social Psychology Review » Read Now
by Stephen J. Read, Eric J. Vanman, Lyn C. Miller. 28 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...implementation of the principles of Gestalt psychology that were central to the work...on the historical legacy of Gestalt psychology for social psychology. What...The...
5.

Approaches to Cognition: Contrasts and Controversies (Chap. 8 "From Gestalt to Neo-Gestalt") » Read Now
by Terry J. Knapp, Lynn C. Robertson. 334 pgs.

Collections: Education, Psychology, Entire Library

...In line with this interest, Gestalt psychology, with its emphasis on perceptual...approach is added, and the Gestalt Psychology chapter is now termed classical...Woodworth...
6.

The Legacy of Solomon Asch: Essays in Cognition and Social Psychology (Chap. 17 "Some Neo-Gestalt Psychologies and Their Relation to Gestalt Psychology") » Read Now
by Irvin Rock. 305 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...psychology. 3. Perception. 4. Gestalt psychology. 5. Asch, Solomon E. Solomon...265 PART V: GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY References...Analytic Gestalt Psychology 280 Information...
7.

Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology, Vol. 1 (Chap. 13 "Max Wertheimer: Modern Cognitive Psychology and the Gestalt Problem" and Chap. 17 "Natural Wholes: Wolfgang Kohler and Gestalt Theory") » Read Now
by Gregory A. Kimble, Michael Wertheimer, Charlotte White. 368 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...has been in the tradition of Gestalt psychology. Throughout her formative...interactions with the leaders of Gestalt psychology. Her initial contact with this...absurd...
8.

Theories of Visual Perception (Chap. 2 "The Gestalt Theory") » Read Now
by Ian E. Gordon. 256 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

Theories of Visual Perception 3rd Edition provides clear critical accounts of several of the major approaches to the challenge of explaining how we see the world. It explains why approaches to theories of visual perception differ so widely and places each theory into its historical and...
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Theories of Visual Perception 3rd Edition provides clear critical accounts of several of the major approaches to the challenge of explaining how we see the world. It explains why approaches to theories of visual perception differ so widely and places each theory into its historical and philosophical context. Coverage ranges from early theories by such influential writers as Helmholtz and the Gestalt School, to more recent work in the field of Artificial Intelligence. This fully revised and expanded edition contains new material on the Minimum Principle in perception, neural networks, and cognitive brain imaging.
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9.

Theoretical Models of Counseling and Psychotherapy (Chap. 7 "Gestalt Counseling") » Read Now
by Kevin A. Fall, Janice Miner Holden, Andre Marquis. 500 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

Theoretical Models of Counseling and Psychotherapy covers all the basic counseling theories, but goes one step further by exploring new, cutting-edge techniques, and focusing on the integration of various theoretical approaches.
10.

Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology: A Historical and Biographical Sourcebook (Chap. 5 "Gestalt Therapy: The Once and Future King") » Read Now
by Donald Moss. 457 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

An examination of four decades of research and practice in humanistic psychology, this work highlights the lasting contributions of humanistic psychology to the science of psychology and to the pursuit of personal and spiritual development. It explores the passions and goals of the founders and their vital legacy for the 21st century.
11.

Perceptual Organization ("Gestalt Theory as a Phenomenalism" begins on p. 345) » Read Now
by Michael Kubovy, James R. Pomerantz. 506 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library
12.

Topics in the History of Psychology Vol. 1 ("Gestalt Theory of Memory" begins on p. 115) » Read Now
by Gregory A. Kimble, Kurt Schlesinger. 414 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...Chapter 2, this volume . Gestalt Psychology. During the late nineteenth...twentieth century, another school, Gestalt psychology, emerged to challege both structuralism and...