Complete the gestalt how. Gestalt completion cycle.

Gestalt is an unresolved problem from the past. The word "gestalt" is translated from German as "image". This is what they call unprocessed psychological trauma. Because of it, an obsessive complex of images and unreacted emotions is formed in the present, which does not give peace. Closing the gestalt in a relationship means dotting all the i’s.

In simple terms, gestalt is some kind of unfinished situation from the past that interferes with the present. Moreover, the gestalt itself can be in relationships with parents, and this is reflected in love relationships. It is the first problem (childhood trauma) that is most often encountered among requests in a psychologist’s office. However, unfinished experience in personal relationships often worries people. So, how to close the gestalt in a past relationship with a man or woman? And is it possible to do this yourself?

What does it mean to close the gestalt in a relationship?

Closing the gestalt means going back to the past, living through a traumatic situation and ending it. Only after a person receives answers to all disturbing questions and expresses everything that has accumulated, he will be able to let go of the past and live happily in the present.

Example. Without explaining the reason, the man left the girl. He stopped answering calls, ignored messages, avoided meetings and did not make contact if a girl came to his work. After a while, she retreated, but the main question remained unanswered: “Why did our relationship end?” Since then, the girl has not been able to start a new relationship because she is afraid that it will end just as unexpectedly. She is also constantly looking for a reason within herself and has already made a small list of what is wrong with her. But she still can’t be sure that this is the case. In general, continuous doubts and a return to the past. Unclosed gestalt as it is. In this case, closing the gestalt means understanding why the relationship ended.

Why complete the gestalt?

Gestalt is a completed image, a completed picture or a completed action.

If a messy desk indicates disordered thinking, then what does a clean and tidy desk mean? Lawrence J. Peter, American educator and writer.

The Gestalt cycle includes 6 stages : Decide, Plan, Start, Continue, Finish and Complete.

The cycle of completion is necessary to achieve success in anything, to get the desired result, to complete what you started.

Have you ever in your life left some projects unfinished or failed when trying to break up with someone?

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Signs

It seems to you that you are walking in circles, stepping on the same rake - these are the main signs of an open gestalt. The essence of the phenomenon is that with an incomplete gestalt, subconsciously the person himself again and again creates conditions similar to those of the problematic situation from the past. And he himself finds people who will help him lose the situation. He repeats the traumatic story over and over again, wanting to understand it, but it all ends the same way: the story ends approximately in the same place as the last time.

But what other signs can you use to suspect an open gestalt in your relationship with a man/woman:

1. Resentment. Moreover, it can manifest itself like this: “I won’t call him myself,” “Fuck off, I still have to sort things out with her, waste time on her,” “Take a photo of me so that he understands who he lost,” “I saw his new girlfriend , well, she was scary,” “Is this her new boyfriend? Hmmm." That is, resentment is always closely related to anger, unexpressed claims, and aggression. Sometimes innocent people get targeted.
2. Subconscious comparison of the current partner with the previous one. You yourself may not always notice this, but if phrases like: “But he always knew how to calm me down”, “But she cooked better and hugged more tenderly” slip through, it means that the past has not yet been left behind. And even if the comparison is negative, it means that you have not yet let go of your ex-partner. For example: “You always understand me, but my ex didn’t understand any hints or direct requests.”
3. Mentioning your ex too often. It doesn't matter where or in what context. If you come back to this again and again, it means the wound has not yet become a scar. This same group of signs includes behavior in which a person continues to be interested in the life of his former partner through third parties or social networks.

Interesting! Many people believe that if a person often dreams, then this indicates an open gestalt. In fact, this is not necessarily the case; on the contrary, such brain actions may be an attempt to live through the trauma, to react to it at least in a dream. Our subconscious often fights trauma in this way.

Unclosed gestalt - example

Let's look at an open gestalt using the example of parents. In childhood, every child understands that his well-being depends entirely on obedience to his parents. If he is guilty of something, he will not receive sweets or will lose the opportunity to play a computer game. It turns out that the condition for survival for the child becomes dependence on the “mercy” of the parents. Whatever we think about this, the circumstances turned out that way.

How often have we been offended by our parents, how often have we swallowed the insult and remained silent? But all these unspoken and suppressed words have not gone away: they continue to exist in our subconscious and correct our actions, although we have already become parents ourselves. But why can’t we throw this burden off our souls and free ourselves from difficult memories and feelings? Because the axiom was learned from childhood: directly expressing your thoughts and feelings is dangerous.

What is most surprising is that improper relationships with parents spoil life already in adulthood. As children, we were not given enough love and attention, criticized (by our parents) and punished. And we (the children) expected to be appreciated and loved for who we are. And we transfer this expectation to other people: we expect to be appreciated and loved. When this does not happen, we take revenge on people for their “misstep” towards us. This is such a vicious circle.

But how can you get rid of this burden right now? To do this, you need to relive your past, comprehend painful situations and put an end to it. This is internal work with oneself with the help of a psychotherapist or psychologist. In the future, you can cope with this internal work on your own, step by step freeing yourself from traumatic situations from the past or present.

How to complete the gestalt in a relationship yourself

So, how can you independently close the gestalt in a relationship with a man or woman when breaking up? The same techniques can be used. Subconsciously, many people themselves turn to this. However, let's look at what is more common in one case or another.

With a man

Many women act on the principle of “wedge by wedge”, or rather “man by man”. They are looking for someone who will outshine the previous one, who will make them forget about their past partner, and in general about everything in the world. There is a restructuring of the gestalt. Another young man becomes a significant figure. True, this method also has disadvantages. First, you will again fall into the comparison trap. Secondly, subconsciously you yourself can interfere with building new relationships. Because of this, psychologists rarely advise using this method, but in some places you can find such recommendations, and it helps someone.

With a woman

If women more often “kick out” a man with a man, then representatives of the stronger sex choose work or some kind of hobby as an alternative.
They try to make friends, hobbies, and work the meaning of life, a significant figure. But there are also dangers here: the risk of suppressing emotions rather than getting rid of them, which will aggravate your condition and the likelihood of becoming a workaholic. The latter, in advanced cases, transforms into a form of addiction and a means of escaping reality. But again, this method helps some. Important! When closing the gestalt in a relationship with a man or woman using the methods described, do not forget to consciously work with manifestations of trauma. For example, learn to catch yourself thinking when you want to visit your ex-partner’s page on a social network again, and divert your attention to something else, forbid yourself to do this with all your might.

What is Gestalt

Gestalt is a Gestalt/Merriam-Webster whole that is made up of many components but is more than the sum of its parts.
To put it simply, a car is a gestalt, but a mountain of spare parts is not. The term gestalt itself can be translated from German as “figure,” but in this context it is more correct to designate it as “integrity.” The Lifehacker Telegram channel contains only the best texts about technology, relationships, sports, cinema and much more. Subscribe!

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The concept underlies Gestalt psychology. It was popularized Gestalt psychology / Britannica by German psychologists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka at the beginning of the last century. They tried to understand how the brain manages to adequately perceive a lot of chaotic data. For example, why do we define a melody in a different key as the same one, and not as a set of sounds or a different motive?

One of the first experiments of Gestalt psychologists showed that two flashes of light, lit alternately at different points, are perceived as one light moving from place to place. That is, you can see movement where there is none.

Later, the concept of Gestalt extended beyond the processes of perception. It has come to be used to explain how we make decisions, learn and think. According to the ideas of Gestalt psychologists, the brain “catches” certain images and forms holistic pictures Wagemans J., Feldman J., Gepshtein S., et al. A century of Gestalt psychology in visual perception: II. Conceptual and theoretical foundations / Psychological Bulletin - gestalts. At the same time, our motives and expectations have a great influence.

How to close the gestalt of past relationships

If you can get in touch with the person who is the center of the unfinished gestalt, then you can use the writing technique. You may have heard something similar before - the technique of writing without an address. In our case, when the object is reachable, the letter will have an addressee. It is also important to adhere to three rules for writing an appeal:

1. Sincerity. Talk to yourself first. Throw away everything “I didn’t really want to”, “I’m not offended by anything”, “Yes, it’s painful to worry about everyone here” and the like. Admit to yourself the feelings you are experiencing. Then write about those same feelings and thoughts in a letter. It is important to admit to yourself and to him (her) not only what you are experiencing now, but also what you experienced in relationships, what you were always silent about, what bothered you, what you liked, when you yourself were wrong and what you blame yourself for , what you were offended by, etc. And you can start by describing the present moment: “I’m scared to write this letter to you. I am afraid that my feelings will remain misunderstood and will be ridiculed. It's scary to bare my soul, but I need it. Please help me free myself - read this letter.”
2. I-statements. This technique is used to prevent and resolve conflicts. The point is that instead of “You statements,” you need to say “I statements.” Then any of your requests will not look like complaints or accusations, the person will be more willing to make contact. For example, instead of “You ruined my whole life,” write: “Since we broke up, nothing has been going well for me, I feel insecure, I’m often sad and sad, I’m angry. It seems to me that this is due to the fact that we were never able to calmly talk about everything. Let's meet sometime and dot the i's?"

Note! The I-statement technique is also useful to use in current relationships. For example: Instead of “You don’t care about me,” say “I worry and feel unwanted when you don’t respond to my messages. Could you pick up the phone more often, call back or send an SMS?” The I-statement scheme looks like this: your emotions in the first person + specific conditions, situations, human actions (maximum details and minimum generalizations) that bother you + your wishes, suggestions for resolving the problem situation.

1. Please reply to the letter. As an example, I suggested adding a request to listen to you at the very beginning of the letter, and now at the end you can write another request: “Please answer me.” But still be prepared for the fact that the person will not answer.

If the letter remains unanswered, write a second letter, but without an address. You don’t have to think about any rules and don’t be shy in your expressions. And after writing and reading it out loud to yourself, you can destroy the letter in the most cruel way. An alternative is to imagine your partner on the chair opposite you (you can sit a doll and stick a printed photo of your ex on it) and say everything you wanted. The same techniques are suitable for those who physically cannot make contact with the object of an incomplete gestalt.

Unfinished Gestalt

Examples of such gestalts:

• Work in progress, sweater, drawing;
• Unclear relationships and misunderstandings;
• A cluttered closet that you can’t sort out;
• Unfulfilled promises and debts;
• Unfulfilled desires;
• Unspoken thanks;
• Broken and useless things.

For psychological health, gestalts need to be closed.

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Unfinished actions are blocked. Inside there is a hotbed of chronic displeasure and anxiety. Unfinished gestalts take away attention and energy and prevent you from concentrating on new things. They overlap with current relationships, projects and slowly poison life. This is what drags along your heels and does not allow you to breathe calmly.

Gestalts make you want to return to the situation and replay it. This forces us to create the same conflicts in relationships, to transfer past problems and painful experiences to the present.

• A father who projects onto his son an unrealized desire to become a doctor and does not leave him an independent choice of profession.
• A guy whose girlfriend cheated on him, and he ruins all subsequent relationships with manic jealousy.

In addition, “incompleteness” can provoke neuroses, depression, addictions, stress and conflicts.

Follow the recommendations for closing gestalts to get rid of unnecessary things.

Mistakes that are best avoided

We have already mentioned that a mistake can be trying to knock out a wedge with a wedge. In addition to suppressing emotions and other dangers, there is another one - you can become an open gestalt for someone. You should not use a person for your own purposes.

The second popular mistake is “hold on, man” (true for girls too). Many people, especially men, suppress their true emotions in every possible way. A mask of indifference will not lead to anything good. Sooner or later, the subconscious will throw out everything suppressed. And it’s impossible to say exactly what this will result in: a nervous breakdown, illness, a quarrel with a random person, or something else.

Ways to close a relationship

Each of us sooner or later closes past relationships. It is important to understand at what stage of a breakup or separation - this can be done for sure.

Let's consider several ways, conditionally divide them into periods when a wound in the heart sounds painful, there is a craving for a person, the thread of which has not yet been broken. What can be done at this stage? It's simple: rebuild the gestalt. This method has been used by everyone who has survived a sick relationship. The point is simple: you need to focus your attention on the other person, but for this you need to communicate, and not suffer alone for your partner.

How to close the gestalt and let go of the past?

At the next stage, when the wound in the heart heals and the mind turns on, you need to clearly understand why you were so drawn into a sick, frivolous, difficult relationship. And it’s worth dwelling on this in more detail, since most of the mistakes in choosing a partner for a family, a lover for a romantic relationship, are made by you. Oddly enough, but it's true. There is no need to object indignantly, frown or deny. If you think carefully and put everything in order, everything will fall into place.

Basic gestalts: examples

Let's consider the main gestalts, which often remain uncovered.

Example 1. A girl dreams of becoming, say, a web designer, but her parents are sure that a pedagogical institute is better for her - she will always find a job. Following her parents' lead, the girl graduates from a pedagogical institute and begins working as a teacher at school. However, an unfulfilled desire torments her all the time. This manifests itself in irritability, insomnia, and psychological discomfort. It comes to neurosis. The girl decides to close the unfinished gestalt and goes to study to become a web designer. Her health is gradually improving, she is becoming a more balanced and harmonious person.

Example 2. A woman decided to sew herself a beautiful dress, but something went wrong during the process - sewing the dress turned out to be more difficult than she thought. As a result, she puts away the unfinished dress and buys herself a ready-made one in the store. Everything seems to be fine, but that same unfinished thing constantly catches the woman’s eye. The result is that everything she tries to do with her own hands either doesn’t work out, or she doesn’t like it herself, in a word, she can’t finish any work to the end. Why? Because mentally she returns to that unfinished dress, that is, the gestalt is open and it needs to be closed - the dress needs to be remade, altered, thrown out in the end. Then everything will return to normal.

Example 3. A young man was abandoned by a girl, and she did not explain the reason for their breakup, and the guy did not find the courage to ask her about it. Years passed, of course, the matured man had women, he even started a family - he got married and had children. But periodically his thoughts returned to that first girl - he was haunted by the question of why she left him. The wife saw that her husband was sad from time to time, and took it personally - apparently she was doing something wrong. Disagreements began to occur in the family, and things were heading towards divorce. Fortunately, the man realized that the reason for the discord in his relationship with his wife was nothing more than an unclosed gestalt, he turned to a psychologist, and his emotional state began to improve.

Goals of Gestalt Therapy

The main goal of Gestalt therapy can be described as expanding awareness. Psychologists have proven that most of our problems arise due to the fact that genuine awareness of reality is, as it were, replaced by intellectual awareness. We often develop incorrect ideas about others: we expect something from them, we ourselves “invent” their attitude towards the environment. Our false beliefs cloud reality and prevent us from experiencing full satisfaction in life. In scientific terms, there is a disruption in the process of formation and destruction of gestalt.

The work of a Gestalt psychologist is aimed at achieving clarity of consciousness in a person: if he correctly perceives external and internal reality, he will be able to quickly and, most importantly, independently solve all his problems and enjoy life. In the process of therapy, a person learns to become aware of himself: his true feelings and desires, bodily processes and thoughts. In addition, he begins to perceive the world around him and other people more correctly. Gestalt therapy does not give instant results, and it does not strive for this. A person’s behavior will not change as if by waving a magic wand: something new will not come and will not stay for long if there is not sufficient awareness of everything that you are doing and what is happening around you.

The result of Gestalt therapy is expressed in the acquisition of the ability to consciously choose one or another model of behavior depending on the specific situation. The life of a person who uses all aspects of his personality becomes richer and more fulfilling. He will not suffer from neurotic manifestations and will not be manipulated by others. In simple terms, Gestalt therapy teaches you how to stand on your own two feet.

Principles of Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy is based on several principles. The main ones are:

• “Here and now”: during the session it is important to determine what is happening with the patient at this particular moment. The therapist makes every effort to bring any “material” associated with the personality into the present moment. This approach allows us to identify how much the client does not want to live NOW, how far he runs from reality, remembering the past and fantasizing about the future.
• “You and I”: this principle reflects the desire for contact with other people. During the session, the therapist encourages the client to address certain statements to specific individuals. This is done through acting out situations that involve communication and interaction.
• “Subjectivization of statements”: the principle is based on a person’s involvement in everything that happens around him and his responsibility. Often we talk about something and at the same time seem to be on the sidelines, for example: “This is stopping me from climbing the career ladder.” In a therapeutic session, a person learns to use a different form, more objective: “I can do it myself!” This principle helps the patient to see himself as an active participant in life.
• "Continuity of Awareness." Perhaps this is one of the fundamental principles of Gestalt therapy. Continuous awareness of everything that happens around us allows us to fully control the situation and understand what is happening to us. A person will gradually refuse to clarify, verbalize and interpret the situation, while concentrating on his own feelings and bodily sensations - and this is the basis for correctly establishing connections between the “I” and the environment.

Do you find yourself in a certain type of situation all the time? Do you encounter a certain type of person? Do you have a feeling of déjà vu? Feeling like you are constantly stepping on the same rake? One of the reasons for this phenomenon is unclosed gestalts.

Gestalt: remember everything

The word “gestalt” itself translated from German means “integral form, image, structure.” Therefore, when they say that the gestalt is not closed, they mean that some situation in the past remained unfinished. And this does not allow our subconscious to put an end to that story.

Relatively speaking, the subconscious worries, creates tension within us, and most importantly, forces us to behave in a certain way.

• Firstly, so that, against our will, we look for or ourselves reproduce situations similar to those that remained unfinished, unprocessed, unlived in our past, in which we did not receive something important for ourselves. At the same time, we may not even remember the situation itself.
• Secondly, so that we look for people who can become a replacement for those who were once significant to us and to whom we were able / unwilling / afraid to say or do something.

For example, often behind unfinished gestalts there are undeveloped relationships with parents. As children, we were completely dependent on them, on how good and obedient we were. In fact, obedience to our parents was a condition for our survival, so we were forced to restrain ourselves in many ways.

But unspoken reproaches, resentments, unexpressed anger towards parents and other significant adults have not gone away. They still live inside us. And the older we get, the heavier and more cumbersome this baggage becomes.

We spend a lot of energy carrying all this “good” inside us. And all because we learned in childhood: expressing your feelings and speaking directly about what you think is dangerous.

But how can we remember everything that has happened to us in life and that needs to be completed? After all, this is simply impossible! And what to do with these unclosed gestalts? How to complete them?

Yes, it is truly impossible to remember absolutely everything. But this is not necessary: ​​and what right now hurts the heart and is rushing out is enough to start work. And everything less significant will be remembered later, after we have dealt with the most pressing things.

In addition, the situations that worry us can, in most cases, be divided into groups. And by working through the most disturbing situation in a group, we are actually working through other situations of this type.

Further. You definitely need to understand that closing the gestalt does not mean running to relatives or other “offenders”, starting to wave your fists, proving your truth, and sorting things out with them in a raised voice. Such behavior will be extremely unecological not only for our counterparts, but also for ourselves. Especially considering that some of the “offenders” are probably no longer alive.

Closing the gestalt means working through your past and reliving it. This is working with yourself, not with other people. The results of this work - the changes that have occurred within us - will definitely be felt by those around us on a non-verbal level. As a result, not only our relationships with them will change, but also our quality of life.

So, what needs to be done to close the gestalt?

There are three main steps.

1. You should begin to work through one of the situations that lie on the surface and are disturbing right now. It’s easy to isolate them: you need to take a piece of paper and a pen and write down everything that touches a nerve, causes irritation and indignation.

2. Next, we need to think through and list point by point what exactly we don’t like in this situation . How, from our point of view, everything should have been and why. What should this situation teach us, what life experience should we gain in it, etc.

And now that we have all the information about the “ideal” development and completion of this situation, we need to dive into it as deeply and fully as possible and live it again. And in the process of this re-living, we can throw out those feelings and emotions that we wanted to throw out, but were unable to do so. To say what they wanted to say, but never said. To do what they wanted to do, but never did.

An important note: living through a situation should take place not only and not so much at the level of the mind, but at the level of feelings and sensations!

And further. Don't try to complete this exercise the first time. Closing the gestalt is working with trauma, and this process is very unpleasant and painful. Not everyone can do this in one go. Therefore, it is important to give yourself the opportunity to immerse yourself in the situation as many times as necessary in order to finally exhaust it.

The main thing is that in the end there is nothing left unsaid, misunderstood, or unfinished. As a result, you must deal with all the regrets, resentments, anger - everything that weighs on you.

You can understand that the gestalt is complete only through experience - the next time you start living through this or a similar situation again and do not experience any discomfort.

3. After this, it’s good to reconsider your life from the perspective of new experience - at least the main, turning points. This task is very important because it helps change the way you think about yourself. As a result, the perception of oneself as a victim, the feeling of one’s own helplessness and worthlessness will noticeably decrease. And at the same time, we will begin to feel more confident, more experienced and wise people.

Why is this technique effective?

Firstly, working with gestalts destroys automatisms, that is, the habit of acting in a certain way in similar situations, without thinking about what, how and why we are doing. Secondly, it reorients thinking, feeling and behavior.

The destruction of automatisms occurs when we analyze what we did wrong in the past and work through alternative options for our actions, looking for the most suitable way for us in a particular case to respond to the situation.

That is, before performing a habitual action, we take a pause and begin to think about how else we can perform it. In the process of breaking the pattern, a reorientation of our old type of thinking to a new one occurs. Having started to think differently, we experience new feelings, and after them a new way of reacting and behaving is developed.

Help Masha return her parental “debt”

Let's look at a specific example of working with undeveloped relationships with parents as the most common and “sick” case. Let's take my client - let's call her Masha - and walk with her through the above three steps.

Masha is an experienced client, she understands and realizes a lot of things, so her example will be indicative. What follows are my comments, observations and excerpts from Masha’s diary of working on herself (published with her permission).

1. Study the situation

Masha is already well over thirty, but she still carries in her heart a grudge against her parents - that they did not give her enough attention, care, and love. And she is still waiting for them to “come to their senses” and finally return their “debt.” This prevents her from building relationships with other people and arranging her personal life (she is not married and lives with her parents). And this is what Masha wants to change first of all.

“What don’t I like about my relationship with my parents?

1. I don’t like the fact that I was and remain an unloved child.

2. I don’t like that in 99% of cases my parents (especially my mother) criticize me, humiliating me, ridiculing me and, it seems to me, always rejecting me.

3. I don’t like that when communicating with other people, I expect from them the love that my parents did not give me (I periodically catch myself doing this). And when I don’t get it, I begin to be capricious, like a small child, to do dirty tricks in order to take revenge on people for not giving me the love and attention that I need, and in the end I break off relations with them. Well, or they break off relations with me.

It turns out that even with other people I build and lose the same relationships as with my parents? It turns out that I am stepping on the same rake and moving in circles? And to break this vicious circle, do I need to change my attitude towards my parents? Perhaps this is the lesson that I should learn from this situation that repeats itself over and over again. The lesson is that I need to become emotionally independent, not dependent on my parents, to mature emotionally.

What do I ideally want? It is important for me that my parents give me warmth, take an interest in my affairs, praise me, and support me. What will this give me? It seems to me that then I will finally be able to feel safe, which means I will become more independent and will be able to communicate with other people on equal terms. The trouble is that I cannot force my parents to change their attitude towards themselves. It turns out that all I can do is change my attitude towards them. Maybe at least then something will change?”

2. What you don’t like about the situation and how to change it

When Masha, despite fear and resistance, nevertheless plunged into despair because of her relationship with her parents and when she heard within herself their usual: “You won’t succeed anyway! Yes, your hands are growing from the wrong place. What can you do? What else can we expect from you? - Resentment and indignation overwhelmed her so much that she could not stand it.

She began to sob, and claims that she had never dared to present to her parents finally poured out of her (she even now shouted them to herself, and not out loud, which is quite safe and at the same time no less useful). These were accusations of coldness, cruelty and harshness, indifference, and insensitivity. The fact is that they refused to take her to clubs (and she really wanted to learn to draw and play the piano as a child). The fact that they rarely let her go out into the yard with other children.

She complained that she always lacked frankness, heart-to-heart conversations, their affection and warmth. She admitted that so many times she wanted to come up and hug her mother or tell her something deeply personal, but every time she pulled herself together and forced herself to keep her distance and move away, fearing ridicule and insults.

It must be said that Masha continued this mourning for herself for several months and continues to this day. At first she was embarrassed by this, but gradually this embarrassment passed. Because, throwing out what had accumulated, at some point she began to feel relief - as if she had begun to lift a heavy load from her shoulders. And as Masha felt better, changes began to occur in her life, albeit slowly.

Now she is no longer fixated on her dislike. Although, of course, she is sad, thinking about how great it would be if she grew up in an atmosphere of love and care. But this is just sadness, and not serious mental pain. The sadness that always appears when you think about an important loss.

Masha's focus gradually shifts from her parents to her own life. She began taking piano lessons (which she dreamed of as a child and from which she now enjoys greatly), going out in public more often and communicating with them (instead of standing on the sidelines, as before), calling her few friends more often and making plans for how best to expand her social circle and what kind of people she would like to include.

She learns to perceive herself as an adult and treat herself with respect. This is still difficult, but there is already some progress. It is interesting that Masha’s parents also felt these changes and began to treat her with less disdain, sometimes they even turn to her for advice.

3. Reassessment of life

Now that Masha’s emotional dependence on her parents is decreasing, she is ready to begin to reconsider her life. This is what she managed to write down in her diary and discuss with me:

“Now, looking back, I can say that the coldness and detachment of my parents, despite the pain caused, even helped me in some way. For example, when I first entered school, it was much easier for me to get used to it than many of my classmates who grew up in hothouse conditions and had a carefree childhood. For them, sitting through classes and then doing homework was a real punishment, but somehow I immediately became interested.

A world opened up before me much more welcoming than what was waiting for me at home. I went to school with pleasure, studied with pleasure and graduated from school with a medal. There were no problems with entering the institute either.

And I started working already at the institute, and did not wait for graduation, like my fellow students from wealthy families. Because I was tired of my parents calling me a dependent, and in general I wanted independence. And by the end of the institute, I already had experience and work experience, so after my diploma it was easier for me than many of my fellow students to get a job in a good company with a good salary.

At school, however, I had no friends at all among my classmates: they seemed like children to me. But I always had friends who were older, more well-read, and deeper than me: I was interested in talking with them, learning something from them, learning from them (it was impossible to learn this from my parents due to their closed nature), adopting experience .

So it turns out that, due to lack of attention from my parents, I turned out to be much more developed than my peers, I matured earlier than them, it is easier for me to adapt to changing conditions and cope with difficulties, because I have no one to count on but myself. And for the same reason, it’s generally easier for me to get settled in life.

It turns out that all my life I looked at only one side of the coin - at the pain that my parents caused me. And I didn’t even notice the advantages that this difficult situation gave me.”

Completing gestalts is, of course, slow and labor-intensive work. But in order to deal with old traumas and improve relationships with others, it is worth making the effort.

From the editor

Oh, these relationships with our parents... How many nerve cells they killed each of us! It seems that the topic of conflict between fathers and children is inexhaustible. No matter how old you are - 13, 23 or 53 - you one way or another remain dependent on your parent’s opinion. Olga Yurkovskaya tells how to leave past grievances in the past and learn to live your own life : https://www.psy.systems/post/pyat-sovetov-kotorye-pomogut-vystroit-zdorovye-otnosheniya-s-roditelyami.

Writer Olga Savelyeva shares a story from her youth that everyone can understand and empathize with. At the age of 18, she first invited friends to her dacha, but at the last moment it turned out that she was not destined to be the hostess of the evening: her domineering mother refused to leave and received the guests herself. What to do when you don't decide anything in your life? Read Olga's story: https://www.psy.systems/post/apelsinki-gosti.

Resentment towards parents, experienced traumas and other unresolved gestalts sooner or later turn into “monsters” and “ghosts” that prevent us from adequately perceiving what is happening and building healthy relationships with other people. Read about how to recognize and neutralize your “monsters” and “ghosts” in the article by psychologist Elena Areshchenko : https://www.psy.systems/post/monstry-i-privideniya-kotorye-portyat-nam-zhizn.

Modifications of the experiment B.V. Zeigarnik

In studying cognitive factors, many scientists have tried to explain both the original effect and various studies that sometimes did not replicate the original experiment.

One of these scientists were employees of the University of Colorado.

In the first experiment, they attempted to compare the methods used by Zeigarnik (1927). However, one of the necessary changes was the use of mental tasks only, without including a task related to hand motor skills in the study design. The subjects were 39 students (25 women and 14 men) from the University of Michigan. This study used twenty word problems, including mathematics, logic, and analysis (Mosler, 1977). All of them were divided into separate groups and required from 15 seconds to four minutes for a successful solution. Each task was presented on a separate sheet of paper and had its own short name, for example, "Bridge".

The next step was subjective assessment using a scale. For each previously given problem, subjects were asked to rate how confident they were that their answer was correct.

Subjects were given the following instructions: “You will have a series of tasks. Please work quickly and accurately. Do not solve tasks intuitively: try to analyze everything and give a clear answer. As soon as you finish one task, you will be immediately given the next one. Don't worry if you don't finish the solution."

Following these instructions, subjects were presented with the first two problems. One was easy and each participant completed it within a period of between 30 and 210 seconds. The second was quite complex, and each subject was successfully interrupted by the experimenter between 15 and 60 seconds. The experimenter followed this pattern throughout solving all 20 test tasks. The test tasks were presented in the same random order for all subjects.

Immediately after finishing all 20 tasks, participants were asked to write about the tasks they could remember. The experimenter also asked participants to note how correctly they solved each problem that they could remember, based on their subjective assessment of correctness.

The results showed that participants recalled almost equally well both unfinished tasks and tasks that they had completed, and were absolutely confident in the correctness of their solutions.

It was concluded that confidence regarding how well participants performed on a task generated a sense of satisfaction.

They also found that free recall of completed tasks was slightly better than recall of interrupted tasks. However, this is not surprising, given that the subject spends significantly more time both when solving the task correctly and when solving it incorrectly, compared to the time period spent completing the interrupted task.

In another study, American psychologist John Atkinson focused on the motivational aspects of task completion. He also found support for the Zeigarnik effect, but noted that memory for unfinished tasks was also affected by individual differences between participants. Atkinson came to the conclusion that those subjects who approached tasks with higher motivation to complete them try to solve as many of them as possible and, accordingly, the number of unfinished tasks under a time limit increases. In contrast, if the participant was less motivated, the unfinished task status was less interesting to the participant and therefore less memorable (Atkinson, 1953).

Another variant of the classic experiment was M. Ovsyankina’s study regarding the desire of subjects to return to completing an interrupted task.

Its essence was that subjects were given a simple task to complete - for example, putting together a figure from different elements. When the task was almost completed, the experimenter interrupted the participant and asked to perform a completely different action. At this time, the experimenter had to “neutralize the stimulus” - cover the stimulus material with newspaper, paper, cloth, etc. After the second action was completed by the participant, the experimenter had to pretend that he was very busy with something and did not hear the subject’s questions, but at the same time, had to observe him. It turned out that 86% of participants returned to the first activity that was interrupted at the beginning.

Levine, having read the results of this study, was initially outraged by why adults would return to performing meaningless and stupid tasks such as simply folding shapes. But then he came to the conclusion that the emotional and psychological stress that arises in the situation of solving a task of any complexity must be removed, otherwise our consciousness will constantly return us to this unfinished action. It was precisely this “charged” or tense system that Lewin called “quasi-need” or the intention to do something at the moment, which, in his opinion, differed from the true need that constantly exists in the human mind.