Gestalt Flashcards
Humans perceive things as wholes and the whole is more than the sum of its parts
holistic
Life is best understood by knowing the subjective, internal rather than the objective, external
phenomenological
Awareness is ever-changing and each moment is one of choice based on evolving awareness. We are the creators of our own destiny
existential and choice
The path to wholeness and health is to interact with nature and with other people without losing one’s individuality
contact
Organism must be seen in its environment
field theory
seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and moving. Interacting with nature and surroundings without losing one’s sense of individuality
Contact
aspects of the individuals’ experience that are most salient at any moment
Figure/foreground
aspects of the individual that they are not presently aware of
Ground/background
aspects moving from background to foreground
Figure formation process
stuck point, customary way of being does not work
Impasse
aspects that move from back fore that are not completed or resolved
Unfinished business
stereotypical and inauthentic
Phony layer
fears keep us from seeing ourselves
Phobic layer
we give up our power
Impasse layer
we fully experience our deadness
Implosive layer
we let go of phony roles
Explosive layer
false distinction about different aspects of self
Past-present
Good-bad
Polarity
superficial relation with the world (instead of aware and intimate)
Lack of contact
blurring the differentiation between the self and the environment
Confluence
uncritically accept others’ beliefs
Introjection
disown certain aspects of ourselves by assigning them to the environment
Projection
turning back on ourselves what we would like to do so someone/something else
Retroflection:
process of distraction or veering off, so that it is difficult to maintain a sense of contact
Deflection
Focus on: Past Reductionistic Deterministic Unconscious Energy system seeking homeostasis Biological compulsion
Freud
Focus: Present Holistic Phenomenological Disowned parts Energy system seeking homeostasis Closure
Perls
Focus on the present, rather than past or future
Unfinished situations from past are worked in terms of person’s present experience of them
