Man is primarily an organism living in the environment and driven by natural needs.
The conversation about a person as an «organism» for Fritz Perls is more of a metaphor, but this metaphor permeates all the texts of Gestalt therapists. The organism, the environment, the needs of absorption and excretion, the whole cycle of contact — this is normal and that’s it. Everything else is a violation, in the elimination of which Gestalt therapy should help. Are other views possible? See →
- The real engine of life is not the head, not the mind, but desires, feelings and the energy of needs.
During the consultation, one of the main tasks of the Gestalt therapist is to find the energy of the client, to find what the client responds to vividly, emotionally. Talking about goals for a Gestalt therapist is only worth something if behind them is the energy of personal desires, if the person himself personally wants what he is talking about. «Necessary» is usually empty and rather someone else’s desire↑. Hoping for freedom, for the opportunity to achieve something through volitional effort, is stupidity. See →
- The personality (organism) tends to homeostasis rather than development.
For Gestalt therapy, the optimal way of personality development is seen in the most complete disclosure of the personality core and manifestation in all forms of activity carried out by a person, when the peripheral and individual levels function in harmony with the core that determines the essence of the personality and ensure the achievement of the inner identity of a person with himself. See →
- Each person, like an organism, lives his own life and takes care of himself first of all.
If you take care of yourself, this will cause understanding in the Gestalt therapist. If you care about someone else, this will cause the Gestalt therapist to ask: “Why do you need this? What is your need behind this? Why do you need it? Until you reduce caring for others to meeting your own needs, you will cause concern and anxiety in Gestalt therapists, arouse suspicions of a broken contact cycle. See →
- Man lives in an environment which he either conquers or which suppresses him.
From the book by F. Perls «The Practice of Gestalt Therapy». “Why does the action that began in the direction outward, toward the environment, not continue to develop in the same direction? Because a person met with an obstacle, which at that moment was insurmountable for him. The environment — for the most part other people — turned out to be hostile to his efforts to satisfy the need. People frustrated his intentions and punished him. In such a nervous state, a child — and as a rule this happens in childhood — could not fail to lose. To avoid the pain and danger of trying again, he gave up. The environment, being stronger, wins and imposes its desires against his desires.
However, as has been repeatedly shown in recent years, punishment does not eliminate the need for the behavior that is punished; the child learns only to restrain the corresponding reactions. The impulse or desire remains as strong as before and, not being satisfied, constantly organizes the motor apparatus — the posture, the pattern of muscle tone, the incipient movements — in the direction of open expression. But since the latter threatens with punishment, the organism begins to behave in relation to the impulse in the same way as the environment behaved, that is, to suppress it. Thus the energy is divided. A part of her still strives for the original and never attained goal; the other part is retroflexed to keep that outward part under control. Restraint is achieved by tensing the muscles antagonistic to those that are involved in the punished action. At this stage, the two parts of a person are directed diametrically opposite to each other and converge in a «clinch». What was originally a conflict between the organism and the environment has turned into an «internal conflict» between one part of the personality and another part of it — between one behavior and another, the opposite.
- The integrity of the individual as an organism: the relationship of the body, mind and emotions (experiences).
Man is a holistic being, the mind, feelings and body work as a single interconnected system.