gestalt

is a configuration of figures (what is being attended to') and grounds (what is being ignored or overlooked').

that individual experience consist of gestalts, which are configurations of Figures (what is being attended to) and Grounds (what is being ignored or overlooked)... (NET)

is a whole experience that can span varying periods of time depending on the need being addressed. When a need is met the gestalt is completed. The individual is free to move on to addressing new needs as a space is created for these to surface.

A gestalt represents a whole experience that can span varying periods of time depending upon the need that is being addressed. A need to satisfy hunger may be met over a few minutes, or in the case of a gourmet meal may be lingered over, whereas a need to satisfy a 'hunger' for a fulfilling career may span many years. We human beings are inherently relational, it follows that these whole experiences are always formed in relationship with our environment. There is always, 'an interdependency of the organism and its environment' (Perls, 1947: 34). The diner and the meal inter-relate and one changes the other. When a need is met the gestalt is completed and the individual is free to move on to addressing new needs as space is created for these to surface. (DAVE MANN 100 POINTS)

is grounded in the idea that people structure their experience as whole, integrated organisms, and not in cognitive or affective fragment.

The basic tenets of gestalt theory are that people structure their experience as whole, integrated organisms, not in cognitive or affective fragment... (NET)

is the idea that perceptions are not atomistic sensations, but structured wholes in which the meaning of individual elements depended on their relation to the whole.

our perceptions were not, according to them, broken up into atomistic units called 'sensations', but were structured wholes in which the meaning of individual elements depended on their relation to the whole. (matthews 2006:)

is, as the meaningful whole of figure against ground, the basic level of perceptual experience.

In contrast, Merleau-Ponty argues that the basic level of perceptual experience is the gestalt, the meaningful whole of figure against ground, and that the indeterminate and contextual aspects of the perceived world are positive phenomenon that cannot be eliminated from a complete account. Sensing, in contrast with knowing, is a “living communication with the world that makes it present to us as the familiar place of our life" (PP: 79/53), investing the perceived world with meanings and values that refer essentially to our bodies and lives.

is a spontaneous organization of the sensory field in which there are only organizations, more or less stable, more or less articulated

The Gestalt is “a spontaneous organization of the sensory field" in which there are “only organizations, more or less stable, more or less articulated" (NP: 193/79)

gestalt, n.Definitions

gestalt