Gestalt Psychology - Gestalt Views in Psychology

Gestalt Views in Psychology

Gestalt psychologists find it is important to think of problems as a whole. Max Wertheimer considered thinking to happen in two ways: productive and reproductive.

Productive thinking is solving a problem with insight.

This is a quick insightful unplanned response to situations and environmental interaction.

Reproductive thinking is solving a problem with previous experiences and what is already known. (1945/1959).

This is a very common thinking. For example, when a person is given several segments of information, he/she deliberately examines the relationships among its parts, analyzes their purpose, concept, and totality, he/she reaches the "aha!" moment, using what is already known. Understanding in this case happens intentionally by reproductive thinking.

Another gestalt psychologist, Perkins, believes insight deals with three processes:

1. Unconscious leap in thinking.
2. The increased amount of speed in mental processing.
3. The amount of short-circuiting which occurs in normal reasoning.

Views going against the gestalt psychology are:

1. Nothing-special view
2. Neo-gestalt view
3. The Three-Process View

Gestalt psychology should not be confused with the gestalt therapy of Fritz Perls, which is only peripherally linked to gestalt psychology. A strictly gestalt psychology-based therapeutic method is Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy, developed by the German gestalt psychologist and psychotherapist Hans-Jürgen Walter.