The experiments that the Gestalt psychologists set up are simple, and they really bring out the original wholeness. They were started on perception. For example, points were presented (Wertheimer's experiments). The subject combined them into groups of two points separated by an interval. In another experiment, lines were presented (Kohler's experiments). The subject saw not individual lines, but groups of two lines separated by intervals. These experiments showed that the whole is primary in perception. It was found that the elements of the visual field are combined into a perceptual structure depending on a number of factors. These factors are the proximity of elements to each other, the similarity of elements, isolation, symmetry, etc.

The position was formulated that a holistic image is a dynamic structure and is formed according to the special laws of the organization. Perceptual binding and restraining forces act in the visual field during perception. Binding forces aimed at binding elements to each other are of central importance. Their function is integration. It is the binding forces that explain the regularities in the appearance of structures during perception. Other, so-called restraining forces are aimed at disintegrating the field.

Perceptual work can take many forms: the closure of incomplete figures, distortions (illusions), etc. Some provisions were formulated, which were called the laws of perception in Gestalt theory.

The most important of these is the law of figure and ground, according to which the visual field is divided into figure and ground. The figure is closed, framed, has liveliness, brightness, closer to us in space, well localized in space, occupies a dominant position in the field. The background serves as the general level on which the figure appears. It is amorphous, seems to be located behind the figure, poorly localized in space.

Another law - pregnancy - expresses the tendency of perceptual organization towards internal order, leading in a situation of ambiguous stimulus configurations to a "good" figure, to simplification of perception. For example (see Fig. 1), if the subject is presented with two figures, then usually the first is perceived as one figure, separated by a line. In the second case, the subject sees two independent figures connected by their sides.

Another law of perception is the law of addition to the whole (“amplification”). If the figure is not complete, in perception we tend to see it as a whole. For example (see Fig. 2), a dotted figure is perceived as a triangle. This phenomenology was explained using the principle of isomorphism.

Structures are a direct reflection in the mind physiological processes in the brain, resulting from external influences, which in the form of afferent impulses reach the cortical fields. At the same time, physiological patterns were explained by the physical laws of the electromagnetic field.

The facts obtained in Gestalt psychology in the study of perception enrich the idea of ​​perception. Valuable practical conclusions were made on their basis. In particular, taking into account the regularity of the figure and the background, some techniques for disguising figures were developed, which were used during the war.

In Gestalt psychology, thinking was also experimentally studied (Köhler, Wertheimer, Dunker and Mayer). According to Köhler, smart solution consists in the fact that the elements of the field, previously not connected, begin to be combined into a certain structure corresponding to the problem situation. Wertheimer extends this principle to human problem solving. The condition for restructuring the situation, according to Wertheimer, is the ability to abandon the habitual, established in past experience and fixed by exercises, patterns, schemes that turn out to be inadequate to the situation of the problem. Go to new point vision is carried out suddenly as a result of insight - insight.

It is emphasized that although there is thinking single process, in its dynamics it is possible to single out stages, successive phases.

1) setting a problem based on conditions (the realization that there is a problem here. “Vision, the correct statement of the problem is often much more important than solving the problem”);

2) grouping, reorganization, structuring and other communication operations with the task in hand;

3) discovery of the structure by insight;

4) finding ways of implementation in accordance with this structure.

Dunker's research experimentally studied the fact of using elements of the situation in a new functional meaning when solving a problem, the ability to move away from the usual understanding of things that has developed in life experience, i.e. insight mechanism. In this regard, the main reproach of Gestal psychology is the underestimation of previous experience.

Moscow City Psychological and Pedagogical University

Faculty of Educational Psychology

Course work

on the course: General psychology

Gestalt psychology: basic ideas and facts

Student group (POVV)-31

Bashkina I.N.

Lecturer: Doctor of Science

Professor

T. M. Maryutina

Moscow, 2008

Introduction

1. The emergence and development of Gestalt psychology

1.1 General characteristics of Gestalt psychology

1.2Main ideas of Gestalt psychology

2. Main ideas and facts of Gestalt psychology

2.1 Postulates of M. Wertheimer

2.2 Field Theory by Kurt Lewin

Conclusion

Introduction

The present content of this work is devoted to Gestalt psychology, as one of the most influential and interesting directions open crisis, which was a reaction against the atomism and mechanism of all varieties of associative psychology.

Gestalt psychology was the most productive solution to the problem of integrity in German and Austrian psychology, as well as the philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

German psychologists M. Wertheimer (1880-1943), W. Koehler (1887-1967) and K. Koffka (1886-1967) and K. Koffka (1886- 1941), K. Levin (1890-1947).

These scientists established the following ideas of Gestalt psychology:

1. The subject of psychology is consciousness, but its understanding should be based on the principle of integrity.

2. Consciousness is a dynamic whole, that is, a field, each point of which interacts with all the others.

3. The unit of analysis of this field (i.e., consciousness) is the gestalt - an integral figurative structure.

4. The method of studying gestalts is an objective and direct observation and description of the contents of one's perception.

5. Perception cannot come from sensations, since the latter does not really exist.

6. Visual perception is the leading mental process that determines the level of development of the psyche, and has its own patterns.

7. Thinking cannot be considered as a set of skills formed by trial and error, but is a process of solving a problem, carried out through the structuring of the field, that is, through insight in the present, in the “here and now” situation. Past experience is irrelevant to the task at hand.

K. Levin developed the field theory and applying this theory, he studied personality and its phenomena: needs, will. The Gestalt approach has penetrated all areas of psychology. K. Goldstein applied it to the problems of pathopsychology, F. Perls - to psychotherapy, E. Maslow - to personality theory. The Gestalt approach has also been successfully used in areas such as the psychology of learning, the psychology of perception, and social psychology.

1. The emergence and development of Gestalt psychology

For the first time, the concept of "Gestalt quality" was introduced by H. Ehrenfels in 1890 in the study of perceptions. He singled out specific feature Gestalt is a property of transposition (transfer). However, Ehrenfels did not develop the Gestalt theory and remained on the positions of associationism.

A new approach towards holistic psychology carried out by psychologists of the Leipzig school (Felix Krüger (1874-1948), Hans Volkelt (1886-1964), Friedrich Sander (1889-1971), who created a school of developmental psychology, where the concept of integrated quality was introduced , as a holistic experience, permeated with feeling. This school has existed since the late 10s and early 30s.

1.1 History of Gestalt psychology

gestalt psychology psychology werthheimer levin

The history of Gestalt psychology begins in Germany in 1912 with the publication of the work of M. Wertheimer "Experimental Studies of Movement Perception" (1912), which questioned the usual idea of ​​the presence of individual elements in the act of perception.

Immediately after this, around Wertheimer, and especially in the 1920s, the Berlin School of Gestalt Psychology was formed in Berlin: Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967), Kurt Koffka (1886-1941) and Kurt Lewin (1890). -1947). Research covered perception, thinking, needs, affects, will.

W. Keller in the book "Physical structures at rest and stationary state" (1920) holds the idea that the physical world, like the psychological one, is subject to the principle of gestalt. Gestaltists begin to go beyond psychology: all processes of reality are determined by the laws of gestalt. An assumption was introduced about the existence of electromagnetic fields in the brain, which, having arisen under the influence of a stimulus, are isomorphic in the structure of the image. Principle of isomorphism was considered by Gestalt psychologists as an expression of the structural unity of the world - physical, physiological, mental. The identification of common patterns for all spheres of reality made it possible, according to Koehler, to overcome vitalism. Vygotsky considered this attempt as "an excessive approximation of the problems of the psyche to the theoretical constructions of the data of the latest physics" (*). Further research strengthened the new current. Edgar Rubin (1881-1951) discovered figure and ground phenomenon(1915). David Katz showed the role of gestalt factors in the field of touch and color vision.

In 1921, Wertheimer, Köhler and Kofka, representatives of Gestalt psychology, founded the journal Psychological Research (PsychologischeForschung). The results of the study of this school are published here. Since that time, the influence of the school on world psychology begins. Generalizing articles of the 1920s were of great importance. M. Wertheimer: "On the doctrine of Gestalt" (1921), "On Gestal theory" (1925), K. Levin "Intentions, will and need." In 1929, Koehler lectured on Gestalt psychology in America, which was later published as the book Gestalt Psychology (Gestaltp-Psychology). This book is a systematic and perhaps the best exposition of this theory.

Fruitful research continued until the 1930s, when fascism came to Germany. Wertheimer and Koehler in 1933, Levin in 1935. emigrated to America. Here the development of Gestalt psychology in the field of theory has not received significant progress.

By the 1950s, interest in Gestalt psychology subsides. Subsequently, however, the attitude towards Gestalt psychology changes.

Gestalt psychology had a great influence on the psychological science of the United States, on E. Tolman, and American theories of learning. Recently, in several countries Western Europe there has been a growing interest in Gestalt theory and the history of the Berlin School of Psychology. In 1978, the International psychological community"Gestalt theory and its applications" October 1979. The first issue of the journal Gestalt Theory, the official publication of this society, was published. The members of this society are psychologists from different countries world, primarily Germany (Z. Ertel, M. Stadler, G. Portele, K. Huss), USA (R. Arnheim, A. Lachins, son of M. Wertheimer Michael Wertheimer and others, Italy, Austria, Finland, Switzerland.

1.2 general characteristics gestalt psychology

Gestalt psychology explored the integral structures that make up the mental field, developing new experimental methods. And unlike other psychological trends (psychoanalysis, behaviorism), representatives of Gestalt psychology still believed that the subject of psychological science is the study of the content of the psyche, the analysis of cognitive processes, as well as the structure and dynamics of personality development.

main idea This school was based on the fact that the psyche is based not on individual elements of consciousness, but on integral figures - gestalts, whose properties are not the sum of the properties of their parts. Thus, the previous idea was refuted that the development of the psyche is based on the formation of ever new associative links that connect individual elements to each other into representations and concepts. As Wertheimer emphasized, "... Gestalt theory arose from specific studies ..." Instead, it was put forward new idea that cognition is associated with the process of change, transformation of integral gestalts, which determine the nature of the perception of the external world and behavior in it. Therefore, many representatives of this trend paid more attention to the problem of mental development, since development itself was identified by them with the growth and differentiation of gestalts. Based on this, in the results of the study of the genesis mental functions they saw evidence for the correctness of their postulates.

The ideas developed by Gestalt psychologists were based on an experimental study of cognitive processes. It was both the first (and long time practically the only) school that began a strictly experimental study of the structure and qualities of the personality, since the method of psychoanalysis used by depth psychology could not be considered either objective or experimental.

The methodological approach of Gestalt psychology was based on several foundations - the concept of a mental field, isomorphism and phenomenology. The concept of a field was borrowed by them from physics. The study in those years of the nature of the atom, magnetism, made it possible to discover the laws physical field in which the elements are arranged into integral systems. This idea became the leading one for Gestalt psychologists, who came to the conclusion that mental structures are located in the form of various schemes in the mental field. At the same time, the gestalts themselves can change, becoming more and more adequate to the objects of the external field. The field may also change, in which the old structures are located in a new way, due to which the subject comes to a fundamentally new solution to the problem (insight).

Mental gestalts are isomorphic (similar) to physical and psychophysical ones. That is, the processes that occur in the cerebral cortex are similar to those that occur in the outside world and are realized by us in our thoughts and experiences, like similar systems in physics and mathematics (so the circle is isomorphic to an oval, not a square). Therefore, the scheme of the problem, which is given in the external field, can help the subject solve it faster or slower, depending on whether it facilitates or hinders its restructuring.

A person can become aware of his experiences, choose a path to solve his problems, but for this he needs to renounce past experience, clear his mind of all layers associated with cultural and personal traditions. This phenomenological approach was borrowed by Gestalt psychologists from E. Husserl, whose philosophical concepts were extremely close to German psychologists. This was connected with their underestimation of personal experience, the assertion of the priority of the momentary situation, the principle of "here and now" in any intellectual processes. Related to this is the discrepancy in the results of their study by behaviorists and Gestalt psychologists, since the former proved the correctness of the “trial and error” method, that is, the influence of past experience, denied by the latter. The only exceptions were personality studies conducted by K. Levin, in which the concept of a time perspective was introduced, however, taking into account mainly the future, the purpose of the activity, and not past experience.

In the studies of scientists of this school, almost all currently known properties of perception were discovered, the significance of this process in the formation of thinking, imagination, and other cognitive functions was proved. For the first time, the figurative-schematic thinking described by them made it possible to present in a new way the whole process of forming ideas about the environment, proved the importance of images and schemes in the development of creativity, revealing important mechanisms creative thinking. Thus cognitive psychology The twentieth century is largely based on the discoveries made in this school, as well as in the school of J. Piaget.

Levin's works, which will be discussed in more detail below, are of no less importance for both personality psychology and social psychology. Suffice it to say that his ideas and programs outlined by him in the study of these areas of psychology are still relevant and have not exhausted themselves almost sixty years after his death.

2. Main ideas and facts of Gestalt psychology

2.1 Research of the process of cognition. Works by M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler, K. Koffka

One of the leading representatives of this trend was Max Wertheimer. After graduating from university, he studied philosophy in Prague and then in Berlin. Acquaintance with H. Ehrenfels, who first introduced the concept of Gestalt quality, influenced Wertheimer's studies. After moving to Würzburg, he worked in the laboratory of O. Külpe, under whose guidance he defended his dissertation in 1904. However, moving away from the explanatory principles of the Würzburg school, he departs from Külpe, starting research that led him to substantiate the provisions of the new psychological school.

In 1910, at the Psychological Institute in Frankfurt am Main, he met Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, who first became subjects in Wertheimer's experiments on the study of perception, and then his friends and colleagues, in collaboration with whom the main provisions of a new psychological direction were developed. - Gestalt psychology. Moving to the University of Berlin, Wertheimer is engaged in teaching and research activities, paying considerable attention to the study of thinking and substantiation of the basic principles of Gestalt psychology, which are set out in the journal Psychological Research founded by him (together with Koehler and Koffka). In 1933, he, like Levin, Koehler and Koffka, had to leave Nazi Germany. After emigrating to the United States, he worked at the New School for Social Research in New York, but he failed to create a new association of like-minded people.

The first works of Wertheimer are devoted to the experimental study of visual perception.

Let's take a closer look at this study. Using a tachistoscope, he exposed two stimuli (lines or curves) one after the other at different speeds. When the interval between presentations was relatively long, the subjects perceived the stimuli sequentially, and when the interval was very short, they were perceived as given simultaneously. When exposed at the optimal interval (about 60 milliseconds), the subjects had a perception of movement, that is, it seemed to them that one object was moving from one point to another, while they were presented with two objects placed at different points. At a certain point, the subjects began to perceive pure movement, that is, they were not aware that movement was taking place, but without moving the object. This phenomenon has been called phi phenomenon. This is special term was introduced in order to highlight the uniqueness of this phenomenon, its irreducibility to the sum of sensations, and Wertheimer recognized the physiological basis of this phenomenon as a “short circuit” that occurs at an appropriate time interval between two brain areas. The results of this work were presented in the article "Experimental studies of visible motion", which was published in 1912.

The data obtained in these experiments stimulated criticism of associationism and laid the foundations for a new approach to perception (and then to other mental processes), which Wertheimer substantiated together with W. Keller, K. Koffka, K. Levin.

Thus, the principle of integrity was put forward as the main principle of the formation of the psyche, as opposed to the associative principle of elements, from which images and concepts are formed according to certain laws. Substantiating the leading principles of Gestalt psychology, Wertheimer wrote that “there are connections in which what happens as a whole is not derived from elements that supposedly exist in the form of separate pieces, then connected together, but, on the contrary, what appears in a separate part of this whole is determined by the internal structural law of this whole.”

Studies of perception and then thinking, conducted by Wertheimer, Koffka and other Gestalt psychologists, made it possible to discover the basic laws of perception, which over time became general laws any gestalt. These laws explained the content of mental processes by the entire “field” of stimuli acting on the body, by the structure of the entire situation as a whole, which makes it possible to correlate and structure individual images among themselves, preserving them. basic form. At the same time, the ratio of images of objects in the mind was not static, motionless, but was determined by dynamic, changing ratios that are established in the process of cognition.

AT further research Wertheimer and his colleagues obtained a large amount of experimental data, which made it possible to establish the main postulates of Gestalt psychology, formulated in Wertheimer's program article "Research Relating to the Doctrine of Gestalt" (1923). The main one said that the primary data of psychology are integral structures (gestalts), which in principle cannot be derived from the components that form them. The elements of the field are combined into a structure depending on such relations as proximity, similarity, isolation, symmetry. There are a number of other factors on which the perfection and stability of a figure or structural unification depends - rhythm in the construction of rows, the commonality of light and color, etc. The action of all these factors obeys the basic law, called by Wertheimer the “law of pregnancy” (or the law of “good” form), which is interpreted as the desire (even at the level of the electrochemical processes of the cerebral cortex) to simple and clear forms and simple and stable states.

Considering perceptual processes to be innate, and explaining them by the peculiarities of the organization of the cerebral cortex, Wertheimer came to the conclusion about isomorphism (one-to-one correspondence) between physical, physiological and psychological systems, that is, external, physical gestalts correspond to neurophysiological, and with them, in turn, , correlate mental images. Thus, the necessary objectivity was introduced, which turned psychology into an explanatory science.

In the mid-twenties, Wertheimer moved from the study of perception to the study of thinking. The result of these experiments is the book “ Productive Thinking”, which was published after the death of the scientist in 1945 and is one of his most significant achievements.

Studying on a large empirical material (experiments with children and adult subjects, conversations, including with A. Einstein) ways of transforming cognitive structures, Wertheimer comes to the conclusion that not only the associative, but also the formal logical approach to thinking is untenable. From both approaches, he emphasized, his productive, creative nature, expressed in the “re-centering” of the source material, its reorganization into a new dynamic whole. The terms “reorganization, grouping, centering” introduced by Wertheimer described the real moments intellectual work, emphasizing its specifically psychological side, different from the logical one.

In his analysis of problem situations and ways to solve them, Wertheimer identifies several main stages of the thought process:

1. The emergence of the topic. At this stage, a sense of “directed tension” arises, which mobilizes the creative forces of a person.

2. Analysis of the situation, awareness of the problem. The main task of this stage is to create a holistic image of the situation.

3. Problem solving. This process of mental activity is largely unconscious, although preliminary conscious work is necessary.

4. The emergence of the idea of ​​a solution - insight.

5. Performing stage.

Wertheimer's experiments revealed negative influence the usual way of perceiving the structural relationships between the components of the problem for its productive solution. He emphasized that children who studied geometry at school on the basis of purely formal method, it is incomparably more difficult to develop a productive approach to tasks than for those who have not been trained at all.

The book also describes the processes of significant scientific discoveries (Gauss, Galileo) and provides unique conversations with Einstein on the problem of creativity in science and the analysis of the mechanisms of creative thinking. The result of this analysis is the conclusion made by Wertheimer about the fundamental structural commonality of the mechanisms of creativity among primitive peoples, among children and among great scientists.

He also argued that creative thinking depends on a drawing, a scheme in which the condition of a task or a problem situation is presented. The correctness of the solution depends on the adequacy of the scheme. This process of creating different gestalts from a set of permanent images is the process of creativity, and the more different meanings the objects included in these structures receive, the higher the level of creativity the child will demonstrate. Since such restructuring is easier to produce on figurative rather than verbal material, Wertheimer came to the conclusion that an early transition to logical thinking interferes with the development of creativity in children. He also said that the exercise kills creative thinking, because when you repeat it, the same image is fixed and the child gets used to seeing things in only one position.

The scientist also pays considerable attention to the problems of ethics and morality of the researcher's personality, emphasizing that the formation of these qualities should also be taken into account in training, and the training itself should be structured so that children receive joy from it, realizing the joy of discovering something new. These studies were aimed primarily at the study of "visual" thinking and were of a general nature.

The data obtained in Wertheimer's research led Gestalt psychologists to the conclusion that perception is the leading mental process, especially at the initial stages of ontogenesis.

The study of its development was mainly carried out by K. Koffka, who sought to combine genetic psychology and Gestalt psychology. He, like Wertheimer, graduated from the University of Berlin and then worked under Stumpf, writing his doctoral dissertation on the perception of musical rhythm (1909).

In his book Fundamentals of Mental Development (1921), and other works, Koffka argued that how a child perceives the world depends on his behavior and understanding of the situation. He came to this conclusion because he believed that the process of mental development is the growth and differentiation of gestalts. This view was shared by other Gestalt psychologists. Studying the process of perception, Gestalt psychologists argued that its main properties appear gradually, with the maturation of gestalts. This is how constancy and correctness of perception appear, as well as its meaningfulness.

Studies of the development of perception in children, which were conducted in Koffka's laboratory, showed that a child is born with a set of vague and not very adequate images of the outside world. Gradually, in the course of life, these images are differentiated and become more and more accurate. So at birth, children have a vague image of a person, the gestalt of which includes his voice, face, hair, and characteristic movements. Therefore, a small child (1-2 months old) may not even recognize a close adult if he abruptly changes his hairstyle or changes his usual clothes to a completely unfamiliar one. However, by the end of the first half of the year, this vague image is fragmented, turning into a series of clear images: the image of a face, in which the eyes, mouth, hair stand out as separate gestalts, images of the voice and body also appear.

Koffka's research has shown that color perception also develops. At the beginning, children perceive the environment only as colored or uncolored, without distinguishing colors. In this case, the uncolored is perceived as a background, and the colored is perceived as a figure. Gradually, the colored is divided into warm and cold, and in the environment, children already distinguish several sets of figure-ground. This uncolored - colored warm, uncolored - colored cold, which are perceived as several different images, for example: colored cold (background) - colored warm (figure) or colored warm (background) - colored cold (figure). Based on these experimental data, Koffka came to the conclusion that the combination of the figure and the background against which the given object is shown plays an important role in the development of perception.

He argued that the development of color vision is based on the perception of the figure-ground combination, on their contrast. Later this law, called transposition law, was also proved by Köhler. This law stated that people perceive not the colors themselves, but their relationships. So in Koffka's experiment, children were asked to find a candy that was in one of two cups covered with colored cardboard. The candy was always in the cup, which was closed with a dark gray cardboard, while there was never any black candy under it. In the control experiment, the children had to choose not between a black and dark gray lid, as they are accustomed to, but between dark gray and light gray. In the event that they perceived a pure color, they would choose the usual dark gray cover, but the children chose a light gray one, since they were guided not by the pure color, but by the ratio of colors, choosing a lighter shade. A similar experiment was carried out with animals (chickens), which also perceived only combinations of colors, and not the color itself.

Summarizing the results of his study of perception Koffka outlined in the work "Principles of Gestalt Psychology" (1935). This book describes the properties and process of formation of perception, on the basis of which the scientist formulated the theory of perception, which has not lost its significance at the present time.

Another scientist (a representative of the Leipzig group of Gestalt psychologists) G. Volkelt was engaged in the study of the development of perception in children. He paid special attention to the study of children's drawings. Of great interest are his experiments on the study of the drawing of geometric figures by children. different ages. So when drawing a cone, 4-5 year old children drew a circle and a triangle side by side. Volkelt explained this by the fact that they still do not have an adequate image for this figure, and therefore in the drawing they use two similar gestalts. Over time, their integration and refinement take place, thanks to which children begin to draw not only planar, but also three-dimensional figures. Volkelt spent and comparative analysis drawings of those objects that the children saw and those that they did not see, but only felt. At the same time, it turned out that in the case when the children felt, for example, a cactus covered with a scarf, they drew only thorns, conveying their general feeling from the object, and not its shape. That is, what happened, as the Gestalt psychologists proved, was the grasping of the integral image of the object, its form, and then its enlightenment and differentiation. These studies of Gestalt psychologists were of great importance for domestic works on the study of visual perception in the school of Zaporozhets, and led the psychologists of this school (Zaporozhets, Wenger) to the idea that in the process of perception there are certain images - sensory standards that underlie the perception and recognition of objects.

The same transition from grasping the general situation to its differentiation occurs in intellectual development, argued W. Koehler. He began his scientific career at the University of Berlin, studying with the famous psychologist, one of the founders of European functionalism, K. Stumpf. Along with the psychological received a physical and mathematical education, his teacher was the creator of the theory of quantum Max Planck.

After meeting with Max Wertheimer, Koehler becomes one of his ardent supporters and associate in developing the foundations of a new psychological direction. A few months before the outbreak of the First World War, Koehler, at the suggestion of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, went to the Spanish island of Tenerife (on canary islands) to study the behavior of chimpanzees. His research formed the basis of his famous book"A Study of the Intelligence of Great Apes" (1917). After the war, Koehler returned to the University of Berlin, where other members of the scientific community - Wertheimer, Koffka, Levin - also worked at that time, heading the department of psychology, which was previously occupied by his teacher K. Stumpf. Thus, the University of Berlin becomes the center of Gestalt psychology. In 1933, Koehler, like many other German scientists, emigrated to the United States, where he continued his scientific work.

Koehler's early work on the intelligence of chimpanzees led him to the most significant discovery - the discovery of "insight" (enlightenment). Based on the fact that intellectual behavior is aimed at solving a problem, Koehler created situations in which the experimental animal had to find workarounds in order to achieve the goal. The operations performed by the monkeys to solve the problem were called "two-phase" because they consisted of two parts. In the first part, the monkey had to use one tool to get another, which was necessary to solve the problem - for example, using a short stick that was in a cage, get a long one, located at some distance from the cage. In the second part, the resulting tool was used to achieve the desired goal - for example, to obtain a banana that is far from the monkey.

The question that the experiment answered was to find out how the problem is solved - whether there is a blind search for the right solution (by trial and error) or the monkey achieves the goal through spontaneous grasping of relationships, understanding. Köhler's experiments proved that thinking process goes the second way. Explaining the phenomenon of “insight”, he argued that at the moment when phenomena enter a different situation, they acquire a new function. The connection of objects in new combinations associated with their new functions leads to the formation of a new gestalt, the awareness of which is the essence of thinking. Koehler called this process "Gestalt restructuring" and believed that such a restructuring occurs instantly and does not depend on the subject's past experience, but only on the way objects are arranged in the field. It is this “restructuring” that occurs at the moment of “insight”.

Proving the universality of the process of solving problems discovered by him, Koehler, upon returning to Germany, conducted a series of experiments to study the process of thinking in children. He presented the children with a similar problem situation. For example, children were asked to get a typewriter, which was located high on a cabinet. In order to get it, children had to use miscellaneous items- ladder, box or chair. It turned out that if there was a ladder in the room, the children quickly solved the proposed problem. It was more difficult if you had to guess to use the box, but the most difficult was the option where the room had only a chair that had to be moved away from the table and used as a stand. Köhler explained these results by the fact that from the very beginning the ladder is perceived as an object that helps to get something high up. Therefore, its inclusion in the gestalt with the wardrobe does not present any difficulties for the child. The inclusion of the box already needs some rearrangement, since it can be recognized in several functions, as for the chair, it is recognized by the child already included in another gestalt - with a table, with which it appears to the child as a single whole. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, children must first break the previously holistic image - a table-chair into two, and then combine the chair with the wardrobe into a new image, realizing its new role. That is why this option is the most difficult to solve.

Thus, Koehler's experiments proved the instantaneous, and not extended in time, nature of thinking, which is based on "insight". Somewhat later, K. Buhler, who came to a similar conclusion, called this phenomenon "aha-experience", also emphasizing its suddenness and simultaneity.

The concept of "insight" became the key to Gestalt psychology, it became the basis for explaining all forms of mental activity, including productive thinking, as was shown in the works of Wertheimer, which were mentioned above.

Koehler's further research was related to the problem of isomorphism. Studying this issue, he came to the conclusion that it is necessary to analyze the physical and physico-chemical processes occurring in the cerebral cortex. Isomorphism, that is, the idea of ​​a correspondence between physical, physiological and psychological systems, made it possible to bring consciousness into line with the physical world, without depriving it of its independent value. External, physical gestalts correspond to neurophysiological ones, which, in turn, are associated with psychological images and concepts.

The study of isomorphism led him to the discovery of new laws of perception - meaning ( objectivity of perception) and the relative perception of colors in a pair ( transposition law) outlined by him in the book Gestalt Psychology (1929). However, the theory of isomorphism remained the weakest and vulnerable point not only of his concept, but also of Gestalt psychology as a whole.

2.2 Dynamic theory personalities and groups of K. Levin

Theory German psychologist K. Levina (1890-1947) was formed under the influence of the successes of the exact sciences - physics, mathematics. The beginning of the century was marked by discoveries in field physics, atomic physics, and biology. Having become interested in psychology at the university, Levin tried to introduce the accuracy and rigor of the experiment into this science as well. In 1914 Levin received doctoral degree. Having received an invitation to teach psychology at the Psychological Institute of the University of Berlin, he becomes close to Koffka, Koehler and Wertheimer, the founders of Gestalt psychology. However, unlike his colleagues, Levin focuses not on the study of cognitive processes, but on the study of a person's personality. After emigrating to the United States, Levin has taught at Stanford and Cornell Universities. During this period, he dealt mainly with the problems of social psychology and in 1945 headed the research center for group dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Levin developed his theory of personality in line with Gestalt psychology, giving it the name " psychological field theory". He proceeded from the fact that a person lives and develops in the psychological field of the objects surrounding her, each of which has a certain charge (valency). Levin's experiments proved that for each person this valency has its own sign, although at the same time there are such objects that have the same attractive or repulsive power for everyone.Influencing a person, objects cause needs in him, which Levin considered as a kind of energy charges that cause a person’s tension.In this state, a person strives for discharge, i.e. satisfaction of needs.

Lewin distinguished two kinds of needs - biological and social (quasi-needs). The needs in the personality structure are not isolated, they are connected with each other, in a certain hierarchy. At the same time, those quasi-needs that are interconnected can exchange the energy contained in them. Levin called this process the communication of charged systems. The possibility of communication, from his point of view, is valuable in that it makes a person's behavior more flexible, allows him to resolve conflicts, overcome various barriers and find a satisfactory way out of difficult situations. This flexibility is achieved through a complex system of substitution activities that are formed on the basis of interconnected needs. Thus, a person is not tied to a specific action or method of solving a situation, but can change them, discharging the tension that has arisen in him. This expands its adaptive capabilities.

In one of Lewin's studies, children were asked to perform a specific task, such as helping an adult wash the dishes. As a reward, the child received some kind of prize that was significant to him. In the control experiment, the adult invited the child to help him, but at the moment when the child came, it turned out that someone had already washed everything according to the court. Children tended to get upset, especially if they were told that they were beaten by one of their peers. were also frequent aggressive manifestations. At this point, the experimenter offered to perform another task, implying that it was also significant. Most children switched instantly. There was a discharge of resentment and aggression in another type of activity. But some children could not quickly form a new need and adapt to a new situation, and therefore their anxiety and aggressiveness grew.

Levin comes to the conclusion that not only neuroses, but also features of cognitive processes (phenomena such as retention, forgetting) are associated with a discharge or tension of needs.

Lewin's research proved that not only the current situation, but also its anticipation, objects that exist only in the mind of a person, can determine his activity. The presence of such ideal motives of behavior makes it possible for a person to overcome the direct influence of the field, surrounding objects, "to rise above the field," as Levin wrote. He called such behavior volitional, in contrast to the field behavior, which arises under the influence of the immediate momentary environment. Thus, Lewin comes to the important for him concept of time perspective, which determines human behavior in living space and is the basis of a holistic perception of oneself, one's past and future.

The appearance of a time perspective makes it possible to overcome the pressure of the surrounding field, which is important in cases where a person is in a situation of choice. Demonstrating the difficulty for a small child to overcome the strong pressure of the field, Levin conducted several experiments, and they were included in his film "Hana sits on a rock." This is a story about a girl who could not take her eyes off the object she liked, and this prevented her from getting it, because she had to turn her back on it.

Of great importance for the formation of the child's personality is the system of educational methods, in particular punishments and rewards. Levin believed that when punishing for not performing an act unpleasant for the child, children find themselves in a situation of frustration, as they are between two barriers (objects with a negative valence). The system of punishment, from Levin's point of view, does not contribute to the development of volitional behavior, but only increases the tension and aggressiveness of children. The system of rewards is more positive, since in this case the barrier (an object with a negative valence) is followed by an object that causes positive emotions. However, the optimal system is one in which children are given the opportunity to build a temporal perspective in order to remove the barriers of this field.

Levin created a series of interesting psychological methods. The first of these was prompted by the observation in one of the Berlin restaurants of the behavior of a waiter who remembered well the amount due from visitors, but immediately forgot it after the bill was paid. Believing that in this case the numbers are retained in memory due to the "tension system" and disappear with its discharge, Levin suggested to his student B.V. Zeigarnik to experimentally investigate the differences in memorizing unfinished and completed actions. Experiments confirmed his prediction. The former were remembered approximately twice as well. A number of other phenomena have also been studied. All of them were explained on the basis of the general postulate about the dynamics of tension in the psychological field.

The principle of discharging motivational tension underlay both the behaviorist concept and Freud's psychoanalysis.

K. Levy's approach was distinguished by two points.

First, he moved away from the notion that the energy of the motive is closed within the body, to the notion of the "organism-environment" system. The individual and his environment appeared as an indivisible dynamic whole.

Secondly, Lewin believed that motivational tension can be created both by the individual himself and by other people (for example, the experimenter). Thus, the motivation itself was recognized as a psychological status, and it was not limited to the satisfaction of one's biological needs.

This opened the way to new methods for studying motivation, in particular, the level of aspirations of an individual, determined by the degree of difficulty of the goal to which she aspires. Levin showed the need for not only a holistic, but also an adequate understanding of oneself as a person. His discovery of such concepts as the level of claims and the "affect of inadequacy", which manifests itself when trying to prove to a person the incorrectness of his ideas about himself, played a huge role in the psychology of the individual, in understanding the causes of deviant behavior. Levin emphasized that both an overestimated and an underestimated level of claims have a negative impact on behavior, since in both cases the possibility of establishing a stable equilibrium with the environment is violated.

Conclusion

Finally, in conclusion, let us dwell on a general assessment of Gestalt psychology.

Gestalt psychology is a psychological trend that arose in Germany in the early 10s and lasted until the mid 30s. 20th century (before the Nazis came to power, when most of its representatives emigrated) and continued to develop the problem of integrity posed by the Austrian school. First of all, M. Wertheimer, W. Koehler, K. Koffka, K. Levin belong to this direction. The methodological basis of Gestalt psychology was philosophical ideas"critical realism" and the provisions developed by E. Goering, E. Mach, E. Husserl, I. Müller, according to which the physiological reality of processes in the brain and the mental, or phenomenal, are connected with each other by isomorphism relations.

By analogy with electromagnetic fields in physics, consciousness in Gestalt psychology was understood as a dynamic whole, a "field" in which each point interacts with all the others.

For the experimental study of this field, a unit of analysis was introduced, which began to act as a gestalt. Gestalts were discovered in the perception of form, apparent movement, optical-geometric illusions.

Vygotsky assessed the structural principle introduced by Gestalt psychology in the sense of the new approach as "a great unshakable achievement of theoretical thought." This is the essence and historical meaning of Gestalt theory.

Among other achievements of Gestalt psychologists, it should be noted: the concept of "psychophysical isomorphism" (the identity of the structures of mental and nervous processes); the idea of ​​"learning through insight" (insight - a sudden understanding of the situation as a whole); new concept thinking ( new item is not perceived in absolute value, but in its connection and comparison with other objects); the idea of ​​"productive thinking" (i.e. creative thinking as the antipode of reproductive, patterned memorization); revealing the phenomenon of "pregnancy" (a good form in itself becomes a motivating factor).

In the 20s. 20th century K. Levin expanded the scope of Gestalt psychology by introducing a "personal dimension".

The Gestalt approach has penetrated all areas of psychology. K. Goldstein applied it to the problems of pathopsychology, E. Maslow - to the theory of personality. The Gestalt approach has also been successfully used in areas such as the psychology of learning, the psychology of perception, and social psychology.

Gestalt psychology has had a significant impact on neobehaviorism, cognitive psychology,

The theory of Gestalt psychology, mainly the interpretation of the intellect in it, was the subject of special consideration in the works of J. Piaget.

Gestalt psychology has been applied in the field of psychotherapeutic practice. One of the most widespread directions is based on its general principles. modern psychotherapy- Gestalt therapy, founded by F. Perls (1893-1970).

From this it is clear what huge contribution contributed Gestalt psychology to further development world science.

List of used literature

1. Antsiferova L. I., Yaroshevsky M. G. Development and current state of foreign psychology. M., 1994.

2. Wertheimer M. Productive thinking. M., 1987.

3. Vygotsky L.S. Collected works in 6 volumes, M, 1982.

4. Zhdan A.N. History of psychology: from antiquity to the present. M., 1999.

5. Koehler V. Study of the intelligence of anthropoid apes. M., 1999.

6. Levin K, Dembo, Festfinger L, Sire P. Level of claims. Psychology of Personality. Texts. M., 1982.

7. Levin K. Field theory in social sciences. SPb., 2000.

8. Martsinkovskaya T.D. History of psychology., M. Academy, 2004.

9. Petrovsky A. V., Yaroshevsky M. G. History and theory of psychology. In 2 volumes. Rostov-on-Don, 1996.

10. Rubinstein S.L. Fundamentals of General Psychology. M. Peter. 2008.

11. Yaroshevsky M. G. History of psychology. M., 2000.

12. Shultz D, Shultz S.E. Story modern psychology. St. Petersburg, 1998

During the period of an open crisis in psychology, along with behaviorism and psychoanalysis, a Berlin School of Gestalt Psychology. If behaviorists and psychoanalysts completely eliminated consciousness as a pseudo-problem from the zone of scientific analysis, then Gestaltists, on the contrary, considered consciousness to be the only mental reality. Accordingly, the subject of psychology remains the same as in the classical psychology of W. Wundt, but against principle of elementarism postulated the principle of integrity. "Gestalt" - with German language translated as "holistic form", "dynamic structure".

Officially, the Berlin School of Gestalt Psychology took shape in 1912, after the publication of an article by the leader of this school Max Wertheimer - "An experimental study of motion perception". The experiment was as follows: two strips-slots were made in the circle at an angle of 30 degrees (like the arrows on the dial). The experimenter successively highlights the left and right strips. It turned out that with a large time interval between illuminations different parties- one sees separately left and right stripes. At small time interval, a person sees the left and right stripes simultaneously. At average speed exposure changes: a person sees how a strip moving left to right (illusion).

The experience with illusions of perception was quite well known, but a new question was posed to it, which had no answer in W. Wundt's classical elemental psychology, which reduced any mental image to the sum of the initial elements, and all elementary sensations in consciousness to stimulation with specific stimuli. The question to the experiment was the following: how can the motion be explained by the sum of two fixed strips? The illusion of movement is an integer other than the sum of its two constituent strip elements. Wertheimer came to the conclusion that the whole exists as it is perceived and cannot be broken down into a sum of simpler parts. M. Wertheimer called this phenomenon phi phenomenon.

So, the main thesis of Gestalt psychology is the assertion of the primacy of integral forms in relation to its constituent components. At the same time, a holistic perception is characteristic both in a particular situation, and in ontogenesis, and in phylogenesis.

The elaboration of the idea of ​​a holistic one was carried out in several directions:

Max Wertheimer (1880 - 1943): thinking, perception.

Wolfgang Köhler (1887 - 1967) - animal psychology.

Kurt Koffka (1886 - 1941) - developmental psychology.

Kurt Lewin (1890 - 1947) - personality psychology, social psychology.

If in psychoanalysis and behaviorism the natural scientific ground was biology, then in Gestalt psychology, physics became the natural scientific ground, in particular – Maxwell's electromagnetic field theory . By analogy with electromagnetic field, perception is associated with the interaction not of individual sensory elements, but of the processes of objective reality, the cerebral cortex and mental reality ( organized as electromagnetic fields). This position can be illustrated by the following example: when we pour metal filings on a sheet of paper, under which there is a magnet, the filings are organized into a certain pattern: they do not touch with a magnet but experience the action of a force electromagnetic field. This means that the point is not in the interaction of individual elements, as is customary in atomism, but in relation to entire fields. By analogy with physics, physical reality organizes differently charged fields of the brain that organize mental reality. Such a one-to-one correspondence of phenomena in the physical, physiological and psychological fields is known in psychology as principle of isomorphism(identities, correspondences).

The philosophical premises of Gestalt psychology come from functional psychologyFranz Brentano , opposed to analytical introspection as an artificial distortion of the reality of living experience - phenomenological approach, focused on the study of pure, naive acts of consciousness, description of immediate experiences the language of life . It is in functional psychology that research interest is transferred from the content of consciousness to its functions in recognizing this content. In 1980, a student of F. Brentano Christian Ehrenfels introduced the concept to psychology gestalt quality, which is characterized by the irreducibility of the image of the whole to the sum of its constituent elements . For example, the melody remains the same even when the key changes, i.e. changing each note. At the same time, the image of the whole changes even when the parts are preserved: playing the same notes in reverse order. This means that the image of the whole is not determined by its parts.

The development of ideas at the Berlin School of Gestalt Psychology was also facilitated by a discussion with representatives Leipzig school diffuse-complex experiences, which was headed by a student of W. Wundt - Felix Kruger (1874 – 1948) The main ideological difference between the schools was the understanding of the genetic basis for the development of mental processes. AT Leipzig school considered the basis of development feelings and emotions, in Berlin school – perception.

More than 114 Gestalt laws have been discovered by Gestalt psychologists. The key law is The law of figure and ground according to which, some objects are always perceived clearly (figure), others - amorphously, unstructured (background). At the core field restructuring ( turning the figure into the background and vice versa) - insight , which Gestalt psychology considered the universal mechanism of thinking and adaptation. Literally insight means insight, a sudden perception of connections in the relations of objects among themselves in the visual field (“aha”-reaction, an analogue of Archimedean “Eureka!”). This is well illustrated by the experiments carried out by V.Kehler with great apes. A stick was placed in a cage with a chimpanzee. Outside the cage, but within the monkey's field of vision, was a banana. The monkey really wanted a banana, but she could not get it with her hand. After a series of unsuccessful attempts and throwing, the monkey was lit up with a hunch - she took a stick and took out a banana with it. This is the essence of insight: all objects were in the visual field of the monkey, but it was insight that made the connections between the goal (banana) and the means (stick) obvious.

law of pregnancy (pragnanz, law "good figure") asserts that consciousness strives for the most simplified and generalized perception (economically, symmetrically, simply). A good form is one that cannot be made simpler and more orderly. Good perception is organized according to the principles of proximity, similarity, common destiny, isolation, etc. If the object of perception does not have a good or integral form, then the consciousness itself will complete this form.

According to the law of constancy of perception, a holistic image remains constant when the conditions of its perception change. We see the world as stable, despite the fact that its illumination, seasonal colors, our position in space, etc. are constantly changing. This law is based on the influence of past experience. For example, we know that bicycle wheels are round, so when we look at the wheel at an angle and an ellipse is actually projected onto the retina, we will still perceive the wheel as round. This also confirms the thesis about the holistic activity of the brain (independence from the amount of sensory data).

Law of transposition argues that perception is based not on the distinction of individual stimuli, but on their correlation, that is, on holistic way. So, in the experiments of K. Koffka, at the initial stage, children were asked to find a candy that was hidden in one of the cups covered with colored cardboard. Usually, the candy was in a cup covered with a dark gray cardboard, while there was never any candy under the black cardboard. In the control experiment, the children had to choose between dark and light gray cardboard. If children perceived a pure color, then they would choose the usual dark gray cap, but the children chose light gray, focusing on the color ratio. This proves the primacy of the perception of integral forms. in ontogeny.

W. Köhler conducted similar experiments with chickens. At the installation stage, chickens were fed on dark gray tiles combined with black ones. In the control experiment, food was sprinkled on a light gray tile in combination with the usual dark gray. The hens chose a lighter square that had not been reinforced in any way before, rather than a dark gray one. , from which they are accustomed to peck. Thus, even if chickens do not react to individual color elements, but to color ratio, that is, on a holistic structure, then holistic perception is primary in evolutionary process.

M. Wertheimer applied Gestalt principles of learning to questions creative thinking, which he understood as the process of creating different gestalts from a set of permanent images. The basis of creative thinking was defined as understanding the problem as a whole analysis from the general to the particular, since understanding the entire structure makes it possible to see the problem from all sides, from different points of view and already meaningfully structure the elements of the task. However, in the practice of traditional schooling, according to M. Wertheimer, there is template formation and early transition to logical thinking from figurative , while understanding is formed precisely in the figurative plan. M. Wertheimer studied the negative effect of traditional teaching practice experimentally. The results of the study showed that the productive approach of children who studied geometry in a traditional school is much lower than even those who did not study geometry at all. M. Wertheimer outlined his views on the problem of creative thinking in the book "Productive Thinking" (1945).

Kurt Lewin introduced a personal and social dimension into the subject of Gestalt psychology. Taking as a basis the physical field theory and the Galilean approach, which explains the activity of any body only when interacting with other bodies, K. Levin proposed psychological field theory . The personality and everything that surrounds it is a field. Each object of the field has a certain charge for the personality - valence, which may be positive(attracts, forms the desire to achieve) and negative(causes disgust, forms a desire to avoid). Valence is not constant, but depends on conditions "Here and now" . Influencing a person, objects cause a person to have needs that are not related to the body (social) - quasi-needs that determine the behavior of the individual. Thus, Lewin explains the behavior of the personality as the result of the interaction between the personality and the situation (Freud explained behavior by the drives of the personality, behaviorists - by incentives), which expresses the idea of ​​integrity. Insofar as quasi-need , according to Levin, this is a kind of charged integral system that tends to discharge, then when the action is interrupted, a residual voltage remains that requires discharge, i.e. completion of the action, or gestalt. An unfinished action motivates the activity of the individual, including intellectual activity - this phenomenon has been studied experimentally and is known as "Zeigarnik effect".

Behavior is an alternation of cycles of tension and subsequent action to remove it. According to Lewin, all forms of behavior can be described with the help of such scheme. But, a person can be completely subordinate to external influences (field behavior), so it can rise above the field (volitional behavior) . Field behavior is determined by the external influence of the field, and volitional behavior is associated with overcoming the direct influence. "Stand over the field" allows time perspective.

In the American period of scientific creativity, K. Levin transferred Gestalt principles and field theory to the problems of group dynamics. Group behavior was explained by K. Levin through the influence social field, rather than the characteristics of its individual members.

The works of Gestalt psychologists laid down new approaches to the problems of thinking and activity of the individual. Within the framework of this school, a number of patterns of development of perception, thinking and personality that are relevant to this day have been identified, and experimental methods that are fundamentally different from the previous ones have been formed. At the same time, such provisions of Gestalt psychology as isomorphism and its physical justification, as well as antigeneticism, which denies the role of past experience, still attract criticism.

I am glad to welcome you, dear readers of the blog! I decided to acquaint you with various areas in psychology, and today I will start with the characteristics and tasks that Gestalt psychology sets itself briefly, so as not to tire with details.

The history of occurrence and characteristics of the direction

The founders are such personalities as Kurt Koffka, Wolfang Keller and Max Wertheimer, but it was Fritz Perls, his wife Laura and Paul Goodman who finalized the ideas and began to apply in their practice. They believed that it is natural for a person to perceive objects as a whole, without highlighting individual parts. To make it clearer, I’ll give an example: if you show a photo of a cat and ask what you see, most likely you will answer “cat”, well, maybe “animal”, few people would think to list all its components separately. But if you start to single out these components as part of the whole, this will be called gestalt.

Principles of Perception

The relationship between figure and ground

What is very valuable and important at the moment, where attention is directed, is a figure, and everything else that fades into the background, respectively, is the background. That is, I come to the opening of the store, where they arranged a buffet table, and I am very hungry, so at the moment I am only interested in food, and it doesn’t matter at all how many people are nearby, what color of napkins and in general, nothing but food. I can't even really distinguish what exactly the dishes consist of. Because a plate with sandwiches and other things will be a figure, everything else will be a background. But they can change places. When I feel full, I will become interested in something else, I will begin to highlight completely different needs.

Law of balance

It says that our psyche strives for stability, that is, as soon as a person singles out a figure from the background, he gives it a form convenient for him, the characteristic of which is determined by closeness, simplicity, regularity, completeness, etc. And if it meets these criteria, then it is customary to call it a “good gestalt”. Now I will try more about these criteria:

• Proximity - if the stimuli are nearby, they are perceived as one whole. The most banal example is when a guy and a girl who go together can be defined by others as a couple.
• similarity . Stimuli are perceived together if they have some similarities in shape, color, size, etc.
• Integrity . Our perception simply needs simplification and integrity.
• Closure - if something has an incomplete form, we will definitely complete it ourselves.
• Adjacency when the stimuli are close in space and time.

The main concepts that Gestaltists use in their work

• Organism and environment . A person is not considered separately from the environment, because interaction is constantly taking place between them, because the environment influences a person, and he, in turn, transforms it. There is even the concept of mental metabolism, which says that the body must give to the environment and receive from it. These can be thoughts, ideas, feelings, otherwise there will be no growth of this very organism, development and balance in general, as a result of which it may even cease to exist. I will try to give an example about the influence to make it more clear. When changes occur within us, they also occur in the outside world. So you accumulated anger at a colleague, and then something happened to your worldview, and you let go of this feeling, ceasing to expect something from him. And suddenly they noticed how his attitude towards you has changed, and he began to treat you differently.
• phi phenomenon – Wertheimer conducted one experiment, showing the subjects two straight lines, changing the time intervals, and found out that with an interval of 60 milliseconds, it seems to a person that these lines are moving, and he called this phenomenon a phi-phenomenon.
• insight - insight, an unexpected understanding of the essence of the problem.
• Contact boundary - that is, it is the border that separates "I" from "not me", and regulates the exchange in the process of contacting.

On the basis of all this theory, Gestalt therapy arose, which from its inception to the present day has occupied a leading position in psychotherapy. But it has made some additions and also includes other areas, such as psychoanalysis, the teachings of Reich or Otto Rank, using the principles of phenomenology, holism and existentialism.

Challenges set by Gestalt

1.Teach a person to be in touch with himself

That is, to realize what is happening to him, what feelings he experiences, to understand what he wants, what needs he satisfies, and so on. A person with a high level of aikyu will not be successful and happy if his emotional intelligence will be at a minimum. Unfortunately, schools and families rarely teach to recognize their feelings, to live them, to realize why they arose. A person who is not in touch with himself will shut himself off from emotions that he considers negative and ignore them, which will entail internal discomfort and various kinds of diseases.

2. Learn to be in contact with others

3. Learn to be "here and now"

That is, to be in reality, and not live in memories or dreams. Even if the therapy is for an event that happened a long time ago, the emphasis is on the experiences of the moment. The past cannot be changed, it is only possible to change our attitude towards it.

4. Show that there is no need to “poking around” in your unconscious

Since the most important and necessary will certainly lie on the surface. And it will be a figure. It’s really simple, and it makes life much easier, since there is no need to “think up” possible difficulties for yourself, cling to them and hold on. Once actual problem will be recognized and resolved, will appear new figure, etc.

5. Learn to live any feeling

A very interesting task, as it differs significantly from the methods of other areas in psychology and psychotherapy. Usually, after all, it is customary to deal with negative experiences, transform them into positive ones, cover them with some other emotions, or rationalize them. The idea is that if you consciously stay in the experience of a feeling for as long as it takes, it will change. That is, if you are sad, you do not need to purposefully amuse yourself, as the effect will be short-lived, if at all. It is better to immerse yourself in it, think about what it is connected with and allow yourself to be in it, then this sadness will pass, leaving space inside for another emotion to replace it.

The final stage of the gestalt

Perls, the founder of this trend, believed that a person must be mature, then he will be healthy and successful. That is, she must be able to take responsibility for her actions, be able to appropriate experience, even if it was negative, take risks and satisfy her needs on her own, interacting with others, and not manipulating them. Paul Goodman described just the cycle of experience, that is, the process of satisfying the need itself, so that, as they say, “the gestalt was completed”:

1. Precontact is a phase when a person has not yet identified a need. Well, for example, my stomach began to “boil”, but I still can’t understand why, maybe because I want to eat, or maybe indigestion due to breakfast.
2. Direct contact itself, when a person has already recognized what exactly he wants and begins to interact with the environment in order to satisfy the desire. Only here it is the impulse, and not already the process. That is, I understood what I want to eat and what kind of dish. Therefore, I decide to go to the kitchen to cook it.
3. Full contact. The phase of connection with the object of desire. Borders are erased, and actions take place here and now. Continuing my example - I cooked and eat.
4. Assimilation is comprehension, digestion, both directly and indirectly. figuratively. A very important phase, which does not always happen if you make a mistake in at least one of the steps described above. If we move away from the theory, and use the example of food, then I could incorrectly recognize the desire and cook soup, although I wanted, as it turned out later, sweets with tea. Then there will be no saturation from the soup, I mean emotional. Has it ever happened that the stomach is full, but still you want something? Because satisfaction has not come. Thanks to assimilation, a person develops and moves forward, because he does not have to return to the previous stages, then listen to himself, then experiment with ways to finally get what he wants.

Conclusion

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I don't live in this world to live up to your expectations
And you don't live in this world to match mine.
You are you.
And I am me.
If we accidentally meet each other, it's wonderful.
And if not, so be it.

See you soon, friends. Subscribe to blog updates, there is still a lot of material about practical psychology. Bye Bye.

In response to the limited possibilities for studying the mental, related to the psychology of consciousness by W. Wundt, the emergence in the 1920s of the new direction - gestalt psychology. Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967) and Kurt Koffka (1886-1941) met at the Psychological Institute in Frankfurt am Main. In their discussions and discussion about how the image of perception of visible movements is built, the ideas of a new direction of psychological research were born.

So, M. Wertheimer in his experimental studies found that visible movement occurs only at a certain interval between stimuli acting on the retina of the eye. He called this phenomenon phi phenomenon and as a result of the analysis came to the conclusion that it cannot be interpreted as the sum of sensations: the phi-phenomenon is a holistic phenomenon.

The results of the study of the phi-phenomenon were presented in an article by Wertheimer

"Experimental Studies of Visible Motion" (1912). It is from this article that it is customary to conduct a genealogy of Gestalt psychology. Its main postulate proclaimed integral structures as the primary data of psychology - gestalts, which, in principle, cannot be deduced from the components that form them. Gestalts have their own characteristics and laws. The properties of parts are determined by the structure they are part of; the whole is greater than the parts that form it - the idea is not new. It was important to be able to apply this proposition to research in psychology and to the understanding of the psyche itself.

For Gestalt psychology, the main target was structuralism with its interpretation of consciousness as a structure of "bricks" (sensations) and "cement" (associations). However, a closer look reveals that the adherents of Gestalt psychology rejected functionalism with no less decisiveness. Compared to the functionalists, the Gestaltists did next step in cognition, namely: they abandoned additional elements (or acts) that order the sensory composition of consciousness from the outside, giving it structure, form, gestalt, and approved the postulate that structurality is inherent in this composition itself.

Gestalt psychologists and behaviorists were distinguished by their attitude to the problem of consciousness. Among the behaviorists, consciousness was eliminated from psychology, from scientific explanations behavior. The Gestaltists saw their main task in giving a new interpretation to the facts of consciousness as the only psychic reality. Gestaltist critique of atomism in

Psychology was a prerequisite for the reorientation of the experiment in order to identify imaginative structures, or integrity, in the mind. It was impossible to achieve this goal without self-observation. But the two previous versions of the introspective method had to be rejected (Wundt's, which required the subject to report on the elements of "direct experience", and the method of dividing consciousness into "fractions", developed by the Würzburg school). Gestalt psychologists have developed their own version of the introspective method, called phenomenological. When entering reality mental life in all its fullness and immediacy, it was proposed to take the position of a "naive" observer, not weighed down by preconceived notions about its structure.

The point of view of Gestalt psychologists on the use of the introspective method was shared by a group of young researchers who worked in one of the main centers of experimental psychology of that time - the University of Göttingen. Among them stood out D. Kati and E. Rubin. They and other experimental psychologists who moved from an "atomistic" understanding of sensory perception to a holistic one, conducted their research in the same years when the school of Gestalt psychology was taking shape, and this school subsequently widely used their research. In particular, discovered by Rubin figure and ground phenomenon took pride of place among the basic laws of Gestalt. However, the program of the Gestaltists was much broader and more promising. They sought to transform psychology into an exact science, strictly following the general standards of natural science. So, M. Wertheimer, characterizing the phi-phenomenon, did not limit himself to describing it, but assumed that it has physiological basis, which was seen in the "short circuit" that occurs (at the appropriate time interval) between brain areas.

The concept of gestalt was not considered unique and peculiar only to the field of consciousness. Science was on the threshold of new views on the nature of the world in which a person lives: a systematic approach was born, and with it a new understanding of the relationship between part and whole, external and internal, cause and purpose. Gestalt psychologists tested their ideas in studies on the mental development of the child.

From the point of view of Gestaltists, the leading mental process, which actually determines the level of development of the child's psyche, is perception. Depending on how the child perceives the world, his behavior and understanding of situations change. K. Koffka believed that the process of mental development itself is divided into two independent and parallel processes - maturation and learning. He emphasized their independence, arguing that in the process of development, learning can either outstrip maturation or lag behind it, although more often they run parallel to each other, creating the illusion of interdependence. It was believed that learning cannot accelerate the process of maturation and differentiation of gestalts, and the process of maturation does not accelerate learning.

Gestalt psychologists studied not only cognitive processes, but also the development of the child's personality. Studying the process of perception, they argued that its main properties appear gradually, with the maturation of gestalts. Indeed, such properties as the constancy of the image, its meaningfulness, dependence on experience, are formed gradually and in a certain sequence.

Studies of perception in children, which were carried out in the laboratory of K. Koffka, showed that newborn children have a vague image of a person whose gestalt includes voice, face, hair, and characteristic movements. A child of one or two months old may not even recognize a close adult if he changes his hairstyle or changes his usual clothes to unfamiliar ones. But by the end of the first half of the year, this vague image breaks up, turning into a series of clear images: a face in which eyes, mouth, hair stand out as separate gestalts; voice and body images also appear.

Studies have also been conducted on the development of color perception. At first, children perceive the environment only as colored or uncolored, while uncolored is perceived as a background, and colored as a figure. Gradually, the colored is divided into warm and cold, and in the environment, children already distinguish several sets of “figure-ground”. Koffka formulated one of the laws of perception, which was called transduction. This law stated that children do not perceive the colors themselves, but their relationships.

W. Koehler believed that learning leads to education new structure and, consequently, to a different perception and awareness of the situation. If one or another phenomenon enters another situation, they acquire a new function. Awareness of new combinations and new functions of objects is the formation of a new gestalt, the awareness of which is the essence of thinking. Kohler called this process restructuring the gestalt and believed that it occurs instantly and does not depend on the past experience of the subject. In order to emphasize the instantaneous, and not the nature of thinking extended over time, Koehler gave this moment the name "insight", i.e. insight.

With children, Koehler conducted an experiment in which they were asked to get a typewriter, located high on a cabinet. It was possible to use different objects - a ladder, a box, a chair. If there was a staircase in the room, then the children quickly solved the proposed problem. It took more time if it was necessary to guess to use the box. The biggest difficulty was caused by the option when there were no other items in the room, except for the chair, which had to be moved away from the table and used as a stand. Köhler explained these results by the fact that from the very beginning the ladder is functionally recognized as an object that helps to get something located high, so its inclusion in the gestalt with a closet does not present any difficulty for the child. The inclusion of the box already needs some rearrangement, since the box can be conscious of several functions. As for the chair, the child is aware of it not by itself, but already included in another gestalt - with a table with which he introduces himself.

The child as one. The solution of this problem assumes that the children must first break the whole image "table-chair" into two, and then combine the chair with the wardrobe into a new image, realizing its new functional role.

M. Wertheimer studied the process of creative thinking in children and adults. He also found insight and concluded that it was related to the moment of restructuring the situation. In Gestalt psychology, the concept of insight(from English insight - discretion) has become key. Insight meant a transition to a new cognitive, figurative structure, according to which the nature of adaptive reactions immediately changes. He was given universal character. This concept became the basis for explaining adaptive forms of behavior among the Gestaltists, while the concept of “trial and error” of the behaviorists ignored understanding (i.e., the figurative-orienting basis of action), whatever it was, whether instantaneous or gradual. Adaptation was considered achievable due to the same factors that ensure the adaptation of the organism to the environment at all levels of life, including levels where the image is absent altogether. Gestalt psychologists and behaviorists also disagreed on the problem of the whole and the part: Gestaltism defended the idea of ​​integrity as opposed to the behaviorist view of a complex reaction as the sum of elementary reactions.

Gestaltism really put a lot of effort into the fight against "atomistic" ideas about consciousness and behavior, but there are differences between these two areas and a more significant, categorical order. Behaviorists tend to ignore the mental image. They, seeing in him not a psychic reality, not a regulator of behavior, but an elusive, ghostly product of introspection. For Gestaltism, the doctrine of motor acts, devoid of figurative orientation in relation to the environment, seemed to remove from mental activity her core.

W. Koehler wrote the book "Physical Gestalts at rest and stationary state", in which he sought to find a natural scientific explanation for the idea of ​​gestalt. Then came the book by K. Koffka "Fundamentals of Mental Development" (1921), and then the program article by M. Wertheimer

"Studies Relating to the Doctrine of Gestalt" (1923). These works outlined the program of a new direction, which organized its own journal - "Psychological Research" (before its closure under the Nazi regime, 22 volumes were published).

Serious experimental achievements of Gestalt psychology, associated mainly with the study of the processes of perception (mostly visual), are characterized by research conducted in the 1920s. Numerous Gestalt laws have been proposed (there are 114 of them). These included, in particular, the “figure and ground” already familiar to us and transposition(the reaction is not to individual stimuli, but to their ratio). Under pregnancy implied the tendency of the perceived image to take a complete and

“good” form (“good” was considered a holistic figure that cannot be made more

simple or more orderly.) constancy meant the constancy of the image of a thing when the conditions of its perception change.

M. Wertheimer argued that creative thinking depends on a drawing, a diagram in the form of which the condition of a task or a problem situation is presented. The correctness of the solution depends on the adequacy of the scheme, and a good scheme makes it possible to look at it from different points of view, i.e. allows you to create different gestalts from the elements that enter the situation. This process of creating different images with constant elements is the process of creativity, and the more different meanings the objects included in these images receive, the higher the level of creativity the child will demonstrate. Since such restructuring is easier to produce on figurative (rather than verbal) material, it is not surprising that Wertheimer came to the conclusion that an early transition to logical thinking hinders the development of creativity in children. He also said that the exercise kills creative thinking, since the repetition fixes the same image and the child gets used to seeing things in only one position. Therefore, it is incomparably more difficult for children who have been taught geometry in school on the basis of a formal method to develop a productive approach to problems than for those who have not been taught at all. Wertheimer sought to clarify the psychological side of mental operations (other than logical operations), which was described in traditional Gestalt terms: "reorganization", "grouping", "centering", etc. The determinants of these transformations remained unclear.

Regarding the connection between Gestalt psychology and behaviorism, M.G. Yaroshevsky writes that the ideas of Gestaltism significantly influenced the transformation of the original behaviorist doctrine and paved the way for neobehaviorism, which began to take shape at the turn of the 1930s. By this time, the main representatives of the Gestalt direction, fleeing Nazism, immigrated to the United States and settled in various universities and scientific centers. This was an external circumstance that led to the final disintegration of the school.

12.2. Dynamic theory of personality and Lewin's groups

Later, the largest experimenter and theorist in the history of psychology joined the three German Gestalt psychologists - M. Wertheimer, K. Koffke and W. Köhler Kurt Lewin(1890–1947). The focus of his scientific interests was not cognitive processes, but the personality as a whole. Levin was educated at three universities in Germany, studying at the medical and philosophical faculties with in-depth teaching of psychology, was a student of K. Stumpf. The main provisions of Gestalt psychology are reflected in Lewin's theory in the following provisions.

1. The image of the world, a phenomenon (in other words, a gestalt) is not created by synthesis of individual elements, individual sensations, but arises immediately as a holistic phenomenon. In other words, the gestalt is not a simple sum of parts, but is a holistic structure. Whole

It is not determined by the features of its parts, acquiring other qualities that are different from the sum of the properties of its parts. This is a gestalt weaving that bears the name supersummativity, Levin extended not only to the individual, but also to the group as a dynamic whole. Groups, as Lewin argued, have properties of their own that differ from those of their subgroups or of their individual members.

2. The image is created in the "now" through insight, past experience plays a less significant role in its creation.

Finally, Levin applied the principle of isomorphism, which asserts the identity of regularities in different sciences. Following him, the scientist used the system of description of mental phenomena adopted in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. He called his theory psychological field theory.

Levin proceeded from the position that the personality lives and develops in the psychological field of the objects surrounding it, each of which has its own charge (valency). Levin's experiments showed that for each person this valency has its own sign, i.e. represents a positive or negative significance. Objects, acting on a person, cause needs in him - they can be represented as a kind of energy charges that cause a person’s tension, which is why he strives for discharge, i.e. to meet needs.

As an objective basis for describing the psychological field of personality, Levin chose physics and mathematics. One of the most famous equations he derived describes the following pattern: behavior is at the same time a function of personality and psychological field.

Lewin identified two types of needs: biological and social, which he called quasi-needs. Needs are arranged in a certain hierarchy. Those quasi-needs that are interconnected can exchange energy. The scientist called this process communication of charged systems, thanks to which personal flexibility is achieved, a person is not tied to a certain way of solving the situation, and his adaptive capabilities, thus, expand. This happens due to the fact that the tension arising from some needs can be discharged by updating others. Levin confirmed these conclusions experimentally.

To investigate the formation of substitution actions, Levin designed a series of experiments in which children were asked to help an adult by completing a task, such as washing dishes. As a reward, the child received some significant prize for him. In a control experiment, when a child was about to help an adult, he was told that someone had already washed the dishes. The children tended to get upset or speak out aggressively against the alleged competitors. In this situation, the adult offered the children to perform some other task that was significant for them, which they had not completed before. Most children quickly forgot past grievances, instantly switching to another task, in

As a result, there was a discharge of voltage caused by a previously formed need. Some children, however, were not able to quickly form a new need, and their tension and anxiety increased.

On the basis of numerous experiments, Levin came to the conclusion that neuroses are associated with the discharge or tension of needs, as well as such mental phenomena and types of activity as features of cognitive processes, preservation, forgetting, and volitional behavior.

In the experiments of Levin and his students, it was proved that unrealized needs are better remembered than realized ones. The most significant discoveries under Levin's guidance were made in the theses of his students. So, one of the works in the 1920s. proved that an unfinished action is remembered longer than a completed one, due to the persistence of tension until it is discharged in action. This was discovered and proved by the domestic researcher B.V. Zeigarnik, who studied psychology in Germany. She discovered the hint for her discovery while sitting in the Berlin Swedish Cafe, when Levin, who often discussed psychological phenomena with his students here in the course of a casual conversation, once joked that the waiter remembers the entire order of the client exactly to the smallest detail, but only until he paid for it.

The scope of Levin's research and discoveries turns out to be quite broad. He owns the development of the theory of conflicts, the disclosure of the meanings of the system of educational methods for the formation of the personality of the child, the discovery of concepts level of claims and affect of inadequacy. These and his other discoveries have played a huge role in personality psychology, understanding the causes of deviant behavior and its correction.

Levin's works made it possible to analyze the factors underlying the volitional behavior of the individual, which allows the individual to overcome the pressure of the environment, other people, and circumstances. Such leading factors turned out to be intellectual activity, the adequacy of ideas about oneself, allowing not only to understand the situation, but also to rise above it, having realized one's quasi-needs. To indicate the opposite in form volitional behavior Levin introduced the concept field behavior, which arises under the influence of the immediate momentary environment and is completely subordinate to it.

After forced emigration to the United States in connection with the impending threat of fascism in Germany in the 1930s. Levin dealt with problems group dynamics, the theory of which has become actively used in group psychotherapy and other types of group work. The scientist discovered in his experiments the phenomenon shift to risk, i.e. the tendency to make riskier decisions in group discussions than alone. Individuals tend to make more conservative decisions. This is the origin of Lewin's famous statement that individuals are easier to change in a group than individually.

Levin owns the discovery of the effect and the introduction of the concept feedback , study and description of leadership styles. The research program he developed in the United States made it possible to study ways to increase group productivity and methods for preventing group distraction from

Intended goals; explore the types of communication and ways of spreading rumors, social perception and interpersonal relationships in a group. He also owns the first development of leadership training programs. The works he carried out in line with these trends allowed many of Levin's followers to call him the founder of American social psychology.

Topic 13. PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ITS DEVELOPMENT IN THE XX CENTURY

Theory of Z. Freud

Depth psychology includes a number of schools and is a broad area in modern psychological science. At the core scientific schools This direction is based on the position of the leading role of unconscious, irrational, affective-emotional, instinctive and intuitive processes, motives, motives, aspirations in the mental life and activity of a person, in the formation of his personality.

In the 19th century the idea of ​​man as a rational being and aware of his behavior dominated. This tradition prompted W. Wundt, solving the problem of the subject of psychology, to put forward consciousness as exactly what psychology should study. Sigmund Freud(1856-1939) put forward a completely different understanding of the causes of human behavior and introduced into the circle of interests of psychology a field of the mental that is different from consciousness. He compared the mind to an iceberg, most of which is located under water and is comparable to the unconscious, and a small part located above the "surface of the ocean" is comparable in scale to the sphere of consciousness. It was Freud who first described the psyche as a battlefield between the irreconcilable forces of instinct, reason and consciousness. The psychology created by Freud is not without reason called psychodynamic direction.

The term "psychodynamic" refers to the ongoing struggle between different aspects of our psyche. A person's personality is a dynamic configuration of processes in perpetual conflict. The concept of dynamics in relation to personality implies that human behavior is deterministic rather than arbitrary or random. Determinism extends to everything we do, feel, or think, including even events that many think of as random. Freud emphasizes the crucial importance of unconscious mental processes in the regulation of human behavior. He points out that not only are our actions often irrational, but also the very meaning and causes of our behavior are rarely available to consciousness.

Freud's theory is based on the idea that people are complex energy systems. Human behavior is activated by a single energy, consistent with the law of conservation of energy (i.e. it can go from one state to another, but its amount remains the same). Freud translated this principle into the language psychological terms and concluded that the source of psychic energy is the neurophysiological state of excitation. He further postulated that each person has a certain limited amount of energy that feeds mental activity. The goal of any form of individual behavior is to reduce the tension caused by

An unpleasant accumulation of this energy for him. Therefore, human motivation is entirely based on the energy of excitation produced by bodily needs.

According to Freud, the main amount of mental energy produced by the body is directed to mental activity, which allows you to reduce the level of arousal caused by the need. According to Freud, mental images of bodily needs, expressed in the form of desires, are called instincts. Freud argued that any human activity is determined by instincts. People behave this way or that way because they are motivated by unconscious tension—their actions serve the purpose of reducing that tension.

To explain the observed mental phenomena, Freud created topographic mental model. In accordance with this model, three levels can be distinguished in the mental life of a person: consciousness, preconscious and unconscious. Level consciousness consists of sensations and experiences that you are aware of at a given moment in time. Region preconscious sometimes referred to as "available memory; it includes all experiences that are not currently conscious, but can easily return to consciousness, either spontaneously or with minimal effort. Unconscious is a storehouse of primitive instinctive urges plus emotions and memories that are so threatening to consciousness that they have been repressed or repressed into the unconscious.

Subsequently, Freud created another model of human mental life, which was called structural. According to this model, three structures can be distinguished in the psyche: Id (“It”), Ego (“I”), and Super-Ego (“super-I”). The id signifies the exclusively primitive, instinctive and innate aspects of the personality; It functions entirely in the realm of the unconscious and is closely connected with the instinctive biological drives that energize our lives. The ego is the part of the psyche that is responsible for making decisions. The ego seeks to express and satisfy the desires of the id in accordance with the restrictions imposed by the external world. The Ego receives its structure and function from the Id, arises from it and borrows part of the energy of the Id for its needs. The super-ego in personality development appears later than other structures and is in fact an internal version of social norms and standards of behavior. Children acquire a super-ego through interaction with parents, teachers, and other "shaping" figures.

The development of the psychoanalytic trend led to the emergence of a number of theories, the authors of which sought either to expand Freud's approach to understanding the nature of human mental life, or to revise it. The most prominent theorists who parted ways with Freud and chose the path of creating their own original theories are Alfred Adler(1870-1937) and Carl Gustav Jung(1875-1961), who participated in the psychoanalytic movement from the very beginning and actively supported Freud's theoretical views. However, over time, they came to the conclusion that Freud attached too much importance to sexuality and aggression, considering them to be the focus of human life. Adler and Jung

They revised Freud's views and created completely independent theories that can compete with Freud's in terms of coverage of the main aspects of human behavior.

13.2. Analytical psychology cabin boy

K.G. Jung studied the dynamics of unconscious drives and their influence on human behavior and experience. But unlike Freud, he argued that the content of the unconscious is more than just repressed sexual and aggressive urges. In Jung's theory, called analytical psychology, individuals are motivated by intrapsychic forces and images whose origin goes back into the history of evolution.

Freud and Jung treated sexuality differently as the predominant force in the structure human psyche. Freud interpreted the libido mainly as sexual energy, while Jung saw it as a diffuse creative life force that manifests itself through the most different ways such as in religion or in the quest for power. In other words, in Jung's understanding, the energy of the libido is concentrated in various needs - biological or spiritual - as they arise. As a result of Jung's processing of psychoanalysis, a whole complex of complex ideas of such different areas knowledge like psychology, philosophy, astrology, archaeology, mythology, theology and literature.

Jung argued that the soul is composed of three separate interacting structures: the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. Ego is the center of the sphere of consciousness; it is a component that includes those thoughts, feelings, memories and sensations, thanks to which we feel our integrity, constancy and perceive ourselves as people. The ego is the basis of our self-consciousness, and thanks to it we are able to see the results of our ordinary conscious activities.

Personal unconscious contains conflicts and memories that were once conscious but are now repressed or forgotten. It also includes those sensory impressions that lack brightness in order to be noted in consciousness. Jung went further than Freud, emphasizing that the personal unconscious contains complexes, or accumulations of emotionally charged thoughts, feelings and memories that are associated with the individual's personal past or with generic, hereditary experiences. He argued that the material of the personal unconscious of each of us is unique and, as a rule, accessible to awareness. As a result, the components of the complex or even the entire complex can be realized.

collective unconscious most deep layer in the structure of the human psyche. It is a repository of latent traces of the memory of mankind and even our anthropoid ancestors. It reflects the thoughts and feelings that are common to all human beings and are the result of our common emotional past. Content

The collective unconscious is formed due to heredity and is the same for all mankind. Jung hypothesized that the collective unconscious consists of powerful primary mental images - archetypes - innate ideas or memories that predispose people to perceive, experience and respond to events in a certain way. Jung described many archetypes. Among them there are such as mother, child, sage, hero, rogue, death, etc. The number of archetypes in the collective unconscious can be unlimited. However, the most important for the personality are the archetypes of the individual psyche: Ego (the central element of personal consciousness, which collects disparate data of personal experience into a single whole), Persona (what a person strives to look like in the eyes of other people), Shadow (the center of the personal unconscious), Self (the central archetype of the whole personality, connects the conscious and unconscious parts), Anima and Animus (archetypes that reflect intersex relationships, ideas about the opposite sex).

Jung created his own typology of personalities, highlighting 2 types: extroverts and introverts. In addition, he divided people into those who are dominated by certain processes in decision-making: thinking, feelings, intuition or sensations. Analytical psychology in recent years has had a great influence on the intellectual searches of scientists in various areas Sciences.

13.3. Individual psychology of Adler

central position Adlerian psychology is that a person is a single and self-consistent organism. This statement is fixed in the name itself, since “individual” means “indivisible” in Latin. The individual is an indivisible whole, both in relation to the relationship between the brain and the body, and in relation to mental life. According to Adler, the main requirement for individual psychology consists in proving this unity in every individual: in his thinking, feelings, actions, the so-called consciousness and the unconscious, in every manifestation of personality. Adler defined the structure of a self-consistent and unified personality as a lifestyle.

Considering a person as an organic integrity requires a single psychodynamic principle. Adler brought it out of life itself, namely, from the fact that life cannot be imagined without continuous movement in the direction of growth and development. Only in moving towards personally significant goals can an individual be perceived as a single and self-consistent whole.

Recognizing the importance of heredity and environment in shaping personality, Adler insisted that the individual is more than just the product of these two influences. He believed that people have a creative power that provides the ability to manage their lives: free, conscious activity is a defining feature of a person.

Leading in Adler's theory is the position according to which all human behavior occurs in a social context and the essence human nature can only be comprehended through an understanding of social relations. Moreover, each person has natural feeling community, or interest, i.e. innate desire to enter into mutual social relations cooperation. Thus, individual psychology considers the harmony of association and cooperation between man and society to be necessary, and considers the conflict between them to be unnatural. Emphasis on social determinants behavior is very important in Adler's concept.

A firm adherent of the phenomenological tradition, Adler believed that behavior always depends on how people think about themselves and about the environment in which they should fit. People live in their own created world, in accordance with their own apperception scheme.

Individual psychology relies on several basic concepts and principles. In his work "The study of the inferiority of the body and its mental compensation," Adler developed a theory of why one disease bothers a person more than another, and why some parts of the body are affected by the disease more quickly than others. He noticed that people with a pronounced organic weakness or defect often try to compensate for these defects through training and exercises, which often leads to the development of skill or strength. Of course, the idea that the body was trying to compensate for its weakness was nothing new. Doctors have long known that if, for example, one kidney is not functioning well, the other takes over its functions and bears a double burden. But Adler pointed out that the process of compensation takes place in the mental sphere: people often seek not only to compensate for the insufficiency of an organ, but they also develop a subjective feeling of inferiority , which develops from a sense of one's own psychological or social impotence.

Adler believed that the feeling of inferiority originates in childhood. He explained it this way: the child is going through a very a long period dependence, when he is completely helpless and, in order to survive, must rely on his parents. This experience creates in the child deep feelings of inferiority in comparison with other people in the family environment who are stronger and more powerful. The appearance of this early feeling of inferiority marks the beginning of a long struggle for achieving excellence over the environment, as well as striving for perfection and impeccability. Adler argued that the pursuit of excellence is the main motivational force In human life. The desire for superiority and the feeling of inferiority, according to Adler's theory, are innate unconscious feelings and the two main sources of personality energy. They come into conflict with each other, which causes the formation compensation mechanism - the main mechanism of mental development. Adler identifies several types of compensation: full compensation, incomplete compensation, overcompensation and imaginary compensation.

Thus, according to Adler, virtually everything people do is aimed at overcoming feelings of inferiority and reinforcing feelings of superiority. However, feelings of inferiority different reasons may become excessive in some people. As a result, there appears inferiority complex - an exaggerated sense of one's own weakness and inadequacy. Adler distinguished three types of suffering experienced in childhood that contribute to the development of an inferiority complex: organ inferiority, overprotectiveness, and parental rejection.

The scientist came to the conclusion that the desire for excellence is a fundamental law of human life. He was convinced that this desire is innate, but this feeling must be nurtured and developed if we want to realize our human potential.

Adler put forward the concept lifestyle . It presents a unique way for the individual to adapt to life, especially in terms of the goals set by the person himself and the ways to achieve them. Lifestyle includes a one-of-a-kind combination of traits, behaviors and habits, which, taken together, determine the unique picture of human existence. According to Adler, lifestyle is based on our efforts to overcome feelings of inferiority and thereby reinforce a sense of superiority. From Adler's point of view, lifestyle is firmly established at the age of four or five. In the future, it is only corrected, but not changed. Life style is the main core of behavior in the future.

Another concept that occupies an important place in Adler's theory is the concept social interest, or sense of community . It reflects Adler's persistent belief that we humans are social creatures. The scientist believed that the prerequisites for social interest are innate. Social interest develops in social environment. Other people - first of all the mother, and then the rest of the family - contribute to the process of its development. Social interest arises in the relationship of the child with the mother, her task is to instill in the child a sense of cooperation, the desire to establish relationships and companionship. Father Adler considered as the second most important source of influence on the development of a child's social interest. The relationship between father and mother is also of great importance in the development of a child's sociality. If a wife does not provide emotional support to her husband and gives her feelings exclusively to children, they suffer, because excessive guardianship extinguishes their social interest. If a husband openly criticizes his wife, children lose respect for both parents. If there is discord between husband and wife, children begin to play with one of the parents against the other. In this game, in the end, children lose: they inevitably lose a lot when their parents demonstrate a lack of mutual love. According to Adler, the severity of social interest is a convenient criterion for assessing mental health human: normal, healthy people really care about others; their pursuit of excellence is socially positive and includes

Striving for the welfare of all people. Although they understand that not everything in this world is right, they take on the task of improving the lot of mankind.

Concept creative "I" acts as the most important construct of Adler's theory. When he discovered and introduced this construct into his system, all other concepts took a subordinate position in relation to him. It embodies the active principle of human life; what gives it meaning. That's what Adler was looking for. He argued that the style of life is formed under the influence of the creative abilities of a person. Each of us has the freedom to create our own lifestyle. Ultimately, people themselves are responsible for who they become and how they behave.

Where are the origins creative power human? What motivates her to develop? Adler did not fully answer these questions. It is possible that human creativity is the result of a long history of evolution: humans are creative because they are humans. We know that Creative skills bloom in early childhood, and this accompanies the development of social interest, but why exactly and how it develops remains without explanation.

13.4. The development of psychoanalysis in 1930-1950

The theory of Z. Freud gave impetus to the development of new concepts. If K.G. Jung and A. Adler emphasized that they disagreed with Freud on fundamental issues relating primarily to the structure of the personality and the mechanisms of its development, then the American psychologist Karen Horney(1885–1952) said she was only seeking to expand the boundaries of orthodox Freudianism. However, soon her research led to a revision of the main provisions of Freud's theory.

After graduating Faculty of Medicine, Horney went to work at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, where she worked until 1932. Then, at the invitation of F. Alexander, she moved to the United States, where many famous German scientists moved in connection with the advent of Nazism. In the United States, she founded her own association, which later became the American Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Like Adler and later Fromm, Horney came to the conclusion about the dominant influence of society on the development of the individual. The concept she developed was reflected in such books as New Paths to Psychoanalysis (1939), Neurosis and Human Development (1950). Horney believed that the structure of the personality is dominated not by the instincts of aggression or libido, but by an unconscious sense of anxiety, which she called feeling of deep anxiety. She associated this feeling with the feeling of loneliness and helplessness of the child in a potentially hostile world. The reasons for the development of a feeling of fundamental anxiety can be both the alienation of parents from the child, and excessive parental care. Horney identified physiological and psychological anxiety. Physiological anxiety is associated with the desire of the child to satisfy his pressing needs, therefore, it is possible to overcome it through simple child care.

One of Horney's most important discoveries is associated with the introduction into psychology of the concept of "image

I". This image, according to Horney, consists of two parts - knowledge about oneself and attitude towards oneself. The adequacy of the “I-image” is connected with its cognitive part and attitude towards oneself: a person’s knowledge of himself should reflect his real abilities and aspirations, and his attitude towards himself should be positive. Psychological anxiety is associated with the development of the adequacy of the "I image". Horney believed that there are several "images of I": "I am real", "I am ideal", "I am in the eyes of other people." The normal development of the personality and resistance to neuroses is ensured by the coincidence of these three "I-images". Therefore, both a negative attitude towards the child and excessive admiration for him lead to the development of anxiety, since the opinion of others does not coincide with the real "I image" of the child.

To get rid of a fundamental sense of anxiety, a person resorts to psychological protection, which is aimed at overcoming the conflict between society and the individual. Horney identified three main types psychological protection . The first of them is the desire “for people”, which is manifested in the compliance of behavior, the development of a neurotic need for affection, approval, care, admiration. The second type of psychological defense is the striving “against people”, which expresses itself in the aggressiveness of behavior, the development of a neurotic need for the exploitation of others, for power, for achievements. The third type is the desire “from people”, which leads to personal removal from others, ignoring their opinions, the development of a neurotic need for self-reliance and independence, the desire to be completely invulnerable.

Two more of Z. Freud's closest collaborators, W. Reich and O. Rank, created their own psychoanalytic concepts.

Wilhelm Reich(1897–1957) transformed Freud's ideas about the nature of neurosis. Unlike Freud, Reich believed that aggressive and destructive drives are not innate, but secondary and arise as a result of the negative impact of society on the individual. Reich was one of the first to study the phenomenon of fascism, as a result of which he concluded that fascism is an expression of the irrational psyche of the average person brought up by an authoritarian society.

Of great importance for practical psychology and psychotherapy was the concept created by Reich character shell, i.e. set of traits neurotic personality, formed as a kind of psychological defense mechanism. The body reacts to the collision of the personality with external difficulties by tension in the muscles and respiratory failure. recurring life situations, causing similar experiences, lead to the formation of neurotic personality traits in the form of "character armor" and develop chronic tension in individual muscle groups, which Reich called body armor. The scientist believed that the psychological defense mechanisms that inhibit the healthy functioning of the body can be countered by modifying them with a simple body contact. The vital energy suppressed by the body armor can be therapeutically released by direct manipulation of the tense area. He created techniques to reduce chronic tension in each muscle group, which in response to physical impact

They released their camouflaged feelings.

Reich's later work is more contentious and controversial, especially with regard to his understanding of sexuality. Reich argued that the cause of neurosis is stagnant sexuality resulting from dysfunction of orgasm. He developed the idea of ​​the existence of a universal sexual energy ("orgone energy") as a manifestation of a freely flowing biological creative cosmic life force that affects the emotions and intellect of a person.

Otto Rank(1884-1939) preferred to work with the emotional experience of the individual. The main source of anxiety, according to Rank, is the trauma of birth and the fear it causes. The defense mechanism in the form of blocking the memories of this fear causes, in turn, internal conflict. The unconscious desire of a person for a safe state merged with the mother is sublimated into various types activities. Rank's psychotherapy was aimed at overcoming memories of the "horror of birth".

Later, Rank identified as one of the main sources of neurosis the feeling of loneliness generated by the freedom received in the process of individualization. To compensate for the feeling of loneliness can establish various connections with others and awareness of the freedom of one's own will as an autonomous creative force that directs human activity.

In the 1930s there is the first concept linking the principles of depth psychology and behaviorism, the author of which was an American psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan(1892–1949). According to interpersonal theory Sullivan psychiatry, personality is a model of repetitive interpersonal interpersonal relationships. The leading unconscious needs that drive personality development are the need for tenderness and the avoidance of anxiety. Since there are so many sources of anxiety, the need to avoid it becomes dominant.

The personality is based on the "I-system", consisting of three structures: "good I", "bad I", "non-I". Thinking of yourself as bad is the source constant anxiety, and therefore the person seeks to personify himself as a "good self". To protect his positive personification, a person forms a special mechanism, which Sullivan called selective attention. It allows you to regulate not only your own personification, but also the images of other people, since the main causes of anxiety lie in communication with other people. Sullivan turned to the study of the role of stereotypes in people's perception of each other.

Despite the fact that Sullivan spoke about the unconscious nature of the leading needs that drive personal development, he disputed the view that they are innate. The scientist argued that aggression and anxiety develop in a child in the first days of life. Frustration of important needs for the child leads to the development of aggression. The way to resolve the frustration situation depends on which structure of the "I-system" is more developed. At

the "bad self" takes the blame; with a "good self" the blame is shifted to others. This idea of ​​Sullivan formed the basis of Rosenzweig's frustration tolerance test.

TESTS FOR MODULE 7

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The main idea of ​​Gestalt psychology is that the basis of the psyche is not individual elements of consciousness, but ……………, the properties of which are not the sum of the properties of their parts.

2. Continue the offer.

The creation of Gestalt psychology is associated with the name ………………

3. List the properties of perception discovered by Gestaltists.

Set a match.

5. Add.

The phi-phenomenon of perception discovered and named ... (by whom?) proved the irreducibility of perception to the sum of sensations.

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……………… considered the process of mental development as the growth and differentiation of gestalts.

7. Continue the offer.

K. Koffka called the dependence of the development of color vision discovered by him on the perception of color relationships, and not the colors themselves, the law ...

8. Add.

……………… (who?) experimentally proved the universality of insight based on instantaneous restructuring of the gestalt, not connected with past experience.

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According to field theory …………… (which scientist?), behavior is both a function of the personality and the psychological field, as it is influenced by various needs.

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K. Levin came to the conclusion that neuroses, cognitive processes, forgetting, volitional behavior are associated with ……… or with ……… needs.

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Experimental discovery the effect of maintaining tension from an imperfect action belongs to ……………… (to whom?).

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K. Levin introduced the concept of ………… behavior, by which he understood behavior arising under the influence of ………………, and opposed it with volitional behavior.

13. Continue the offer.

The main method of depth psychology is ………………

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under one of fundamental concepts psychoanalysis - by transfer - Z. Freud understood ………………

15. Add.

Z. Freud identified 2 main groups of instincts: 1) ......, 2) ......

16. Add.

mental life, according to the theory of Z. Freud, is expressed in three levels: 1)

……………, 2) ……………, 3) ……………

Set a match.

18. Add.

C. G. Jung called the archetype …………………

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The main force that determines the behavior and life of a person, according to A. Adler, is ………………

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A. Adler introduced the idea of ​​the existence of a subjective individualized system that can change direction personal development, communicate meaning to human life, create a goal and means to achieve it, and called it ………………

27. Add.

Overcoming psychological anxiety, according to K. Horney, is achieved due to the coincidence of three images of the “I”: 1) ………………, 2) ………………, 3)

….……………

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…………………… created the concept of “character shell”, that is, the totality of neurotic personality traits.

29. Set a match.

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