The Society for Gestalt Theory and its Applications e.V. (GTA), which was founded in 1978, is composed of psychologists, psychotherapists, researchers and practitioners from other related disciplines, who come from both European and non-European countries.
Society for Gestalt Theory
The goal of the Society is to promote science, research, and practice based on Gestalt Theory. The GTA, originally grounded in the Berlin School of Gestalt Theory, seeks to provide an organizational framework for the promotion, dissemination, and further development of Gestalt Theoretical insights in various scientific disciplines and practical fields of work.
What is Gestalt theory?
Gestalt Theory is a general theory, interdisciplinary in nature, that provides a unique, non-reductive framework for viewing human experience and action. Gestalt theory expands our vision of human causality – beyond the traditional designation of genetics and experience (or learning) – to recognize the role of self-organizing tendencies, found throughout nature, in the order and function of psychological processes. This way of thinking – rooted in the insights of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ernst Mach, and Christian von Ehrenfels – crystallized into scientific theory in the work of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka, and Kurt Lewin. These visionaries rejected the traditional elementaristic, machanistic, and reductionistic views of mainstream psychology (which persist, often fully intact, to this day. The rise of National Socialism largely interrupted the fruitful development of Gestalt Theory within German-speaking regions: Wertheimer, Köhler, and Lewin emigrated or were forced to flee, while Koffka had already relocated to the United States. They contindued work in the United States, inspiring an a new continent a new generation of Gestalt Theorists, most notably, Solomon Asch and Mary Henle.
The Society for Gestalt Theory and its Applications seeks to provide both a scientific and organizational framework for maintenance and further growth of Gestalt Theory – in theoretical development, research, and practical application. Gestalt Theory is by no means limited to the concepts of “gestalt” or “wholes”, or to the „laws“ of perception, as many publications suggest. It has a much broader, even comprehensive, range of application, and constructive agenda, which recognizes:
- The primacy of the phenomenal: Recognizing the human experiential world as the only directly given reality, which remains a still largely untapped goldmine for psychological and psychotherapeutic insight.
- The interaction of the individual and the situation in a dynamic field: Experience and behavior are determined by this interaction, not solely by “drives” (psychoanalysis, ethology), external forces (behaviorism, Skinner), or fixed personality traits (classical personality theory).
- Connections between psychological phenomena: As interactive, mutually-influential relationships, rather than arbitrary linkages.
- Thinking and problem-solving: These processes are characterized by subject-appropriate structuring, restructuring, and centering of the given (“insight”) toward what is required.
- Memory develops and differentiates structures based on associative linkages, following a tendency toward optimal organization.
- Incompatible cognitions within a person lead to dissonant experiences and cognitive processes aimed at reducing this dissonance.
- In a super-individual whole like a group, there is a tendency toward balanced relations in the interplay of forces and needs.
Epistemologically, the Gestalt Theoretical approach corresponds to a critical-realist standpoint. On the methodological level, an attempt is made to create a meaningful connection between experimental and phenomenological approaches (the experimental-phenomenological method). Central phenomena are addressed without compromising experimental rigor. Gestalt Theory is not to be understood as a fixed scientific position but as an evolving paradigm. Through developments such as the theory of self-organization of systems, it is gaining significance beyond the traditional scope of psychology.
What does the GTA do?
The goal of the Society is the further development of Gestalt Theory in both theory and practice. As befits the broad scope oft he Gestalt Theoretic view, the GTA seeks to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.
The Society sponsors a scientific conference every two years, aimed to further developing and expanding the Gestalt Theoretical view. The official conference languages are German and English.
Members may also organize themselves into working subgroups, looking to apply and develop Gestalt Theoretical thinking to some specific field of interest. These areas currently include psychotherapy, education, art and design, medicine, and sports. In addition, the Society may periodically offer to all members workshops on particular topics of interest.
The official publication of the GTA is the journal Gestalt Theory: An International Multidisciplinary Journal. Published three times a year. It features original works that look to further advance of Gestalt Theoretical research and practice. It also publishes historically significant, but often hard-to-find publications. This initiative seeks to overcome language barriers and otherwise further reunite scientific communities partially separated by the emigration of prominent Gestalt Theorists in the 1930s.
Who can become a member?
Since the Gestalt Theoretical approach is inherently interdisciplinary, it allows for productive connections between various fields. For this reason, membership in GTA is open to anyone who is interested in applying the Gestalt Theoretical view within their own scientific discipline or practical pursuit.
