What is Gestalt?

In the Gestalt approach, a “Gestalt” is a completed, holistic psychological form: an emotional, behavioral, or life cycle that has a beginning, development, and natural ending.
If something is left unsaid, underfelt, or unfinished, an incomplete Gestalt is formed in the psyche. It reminds us of itself with tension, repetitive thoughts, or behavior.

Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory

Lewin proved:

• Unfinished situations create psychological tension.
• Tension keeps the unfinished cycle in the focus of consciousness.
• Completion relieves tension.

This is the foundation of what is today called “unclosed Gestalts.”

Empirical evidence: the Zeigarnik phenomenon

Psychologist Blum Zeigarnik experimentally showed in 1927:

• People remember unfinished actions twice as well as completed ones.
• The reason is the tension of incompleteness.
  

Later studies (Ovsiankina, 1928) proved:

• A person is automatically drawn to return to an unfinished action, even if he is not forced to.

This is the cognitive basis of the “need for completion”.

Neurobiology of incomplete cycles

Modern neuroscientists have confirmed the mechanism:

1) Neural loops of expectation
Unfinished experience activates:

• the dopamine prediction system (Schultz, 1998),
• cingulate cortex – a zone of conflict and incompleteness,
• insula – a zone of internal anxiety.
  

Therefore, the “unclosed gestalt” is a neurally active process that the brain is trying to complete.

2) Emotional incompleteness and the amygdala
Research by LeDoux, 2012 showed that unlived emotions continue to activate the amygdala even for years.
That is, if the emotion was not:

• realized,
• experienced,
• integrated — the brain reproduces the reaction again and again.

Specific examples of incomplete gestalts:

• a conversation you wanted to have, but didn’t dare;
• emotions that were suppressed instead of experienced;
• a decision that was postponed, although you knew internally that you had to act;
• a loss or breakup, after which there was no full experience of grief or acceptance.
  
  
  

When a gestalt is considered closed

A gestalt is complete when:

• there is no emotional “hook” — the mention of the situation does not cause a sharp reaction;
• the behavior ceases to be compulsive — it does not pull you to repeat the same scenario;
• there is a feeling of inner peace — there is no feeling that “I still have something to do”;
• the experience is integrated — a person draws meaning, lessons and moves on.
  
  Closing a gestalt is not necessarily a conversation with someone. This can be an internal acceptance, a ritual, a writing, an emotional experience, or any action that completes the cycle.

Do you need to close all gestalts?

No. This is one of the most common myths. The brain itself completes most experiences.

This is evidenced by memory models:

• Consolidation Theory (McGaugh)
• Default Mode Network (Raichle)

Most events are integrated automatically without conscious work.

This is scientifically confirmed by data on:

• extinction mechanisms in the amygdala,
• synaptic extinction,
• neuronal replay memory, which processes the “tails” of experience during sleep,
• automatic integration in the prefrontal cortex, which extinguishes irrelevant cycles.

We experience thousands of micro-episodes every day and the brain integrates 95–98% of them automatically. Artificially “scraping everything out” will lead to sensory overload, regression, and false reconstructions. Some of the inessential “gestalts” are just noise.

The Gestalt approach says:
“We work only with what has the energy of the “here and now.”

This is a professional principle.

Therefore, most of the unfinished “gestalts” (the event did not end, the thought was interrupted, someone did not answer, something was not said) simply dissolve, because:

• the emotional load is low,
• the experience does not cause bodily activation,
• the brain does not see the threat or importance.

This is an automatic process of self-integration.

It is necessary to close only those gestalts that:

• constantly return to thoughts, enter into obsessive thoughts (OCD-like loops);
• create emotional triggers;
• cause a strong emotional reaction and significance;
• affect the choice of partners, friends, work and behavior;
• repeat the same relationship scenarios;
• interfere with life, create a cyclical reaction and stress;
• manifest in bodily symptoms (psychosomatics);
• interfere with the formation of new connections;
• are associated with traumatic experiences.

There are situations that do not need to be actively “closed”, because:

• they end naturally (we simply forget);
• do not carry a significant emotional trace;
• are part of an experience that does not require processing.
  

An important detail: sometimes an attempt to “forcibly close” a Gestalt creates even more tension. A Gestalt ends when a person is ready to contact reality and live the experience.

Forced “closing” can be harmful

The Gestalt approach emphasizes: only a natural ending, not a forced one. Therefore, choose the psychotherapist you work with carefully.

Because an artificial “closing conversation” can:

• increase tension,
• reveal trauma,
• create false reinforcement.

When Gestalt work is truly critical:

• when the same type of relationship is repeated;
• when a person feels chronic guilt or shame;
• with constant internal conflicts;
• in the case of a traumatic experience that blocks development.

Then completing the Gestalt is the path to restoring inner integrity.