How to close the gestalt in relationships with a man and a woman

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.

Gestalt therapy techniques

Gestalt therapy techniques are varied, some can be used independently, and some are preferably practiced together with a therapist:

Awareness of your own feelings. The goal is to get to the root cause, as well as evaluate the emotions and desires that arise.
Integration of polarities. The goal is to learn to avoid extremes, to imagine two conflicting figures who are engaged in dialogue, to try to find a compromise solution.
Working with dreams. The goal is to catch the clues of the subconscious.
Overcoming resistance. The goal is to replace habits that interfere with normal life with something else, observing whether internal resistance appears or not.
Empty chair. The goal is to “sit” in front of the patient the one who gives him the emotional experience. Looking at an empty chair, the patient must voice his complaints to the “opponent.”
Hot chair. The goal is a frank dialogue between the patient and the psychotherapist or psychologist, after which the patient must achieve emotional balance and make the right decision.

Techniques that are available for independent use:

Everyday gestalts. The simplest thing is to finish the job. Psychologists recommend making a list of unfinished household tasks and gradually (from simple to complex) completing them. Completed tasks should be immediately crossed off the list so that you can clearly see how many gestalts you have already been able to complete.
Love gestalts. In this situation, we can recommend a detailed study of emotions and feelings, as well as a frank conversation. If it is not possible to bring the relationship to its logical conclusion, you need to learn not to react emotionally to them. The work is difficult, but it can be done if you want.
Forgotten gestalts. Unfinished events are not always stored in memory, and if you experience causeless anxiety, but cannot find a “thorn,” then this is your case. Non-projective techniques, such as drawing, will help here. Often an image appears on paper that requires elaboration, and perhaps your discomfort is associated with it.

Prevention of incomplete gestalts:

Act. Just thinking is not enough, you must act so as not to “burn out”, and also so as not to create significant tension,
Express your feelings right away. Quite often people (especially women) speak in hints and riddles. When a man doesn’t understand them, the lady risks being left with an unclosed gestalt, so you shouldn’t create a fog, you need to immediately talk about your feelings and sensations,
Accept any condition. Pain and discomfort are the same natural states as joy and pleasure. Negative states should be accepted calmly,
Put desires at the center of attention. Often, incomplete gestalts can be imposed on a person from the outside; this must be stopped immediately,
Have responsibility. If you make a decision, you should understand that by doing so you are taking on a certain responsibility, and avoiding it means getting an unclosed gestalt. There is an exception here - someone else’s area of responsibility,
Compare your capabilities and desires. Of course, you want everything at once, but such dispersal does not lead to good. Resources (whatever they may be) have boundaries, and it is imperative to navigate them,
Ask for help. This applies more to men; the stronger sex is often afraid to ask for help from others - it tries to keep all problems to itself and not let other people into their experiences. In most cases, this position only brings harm. If you understand that the situation is becoming especially painful, and coping with it on your own is problematic, do not be afraid to ask for help from a psychologist.

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:

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.
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.”
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.

Features of an incomplete gestalt

In order to know how to close the gestalt in a relationship with a man, you need to understand that this particular phenomenon appeared in your life and accompanies it. Let's figure out the difference between an unfinished gestalt in a relationship.

If you have several gestalts (an unfinished book, an unfinished education, an unfinished letter and much more), you are most likely anxious, thinking about it, and cannot concentrate on anything. It is as if you are walking through a labyrinth or a vicious circle and cannot find a way out. All this hinders personal growth and prevents you from having a full-fledged personal life. A person starts a new relationship, and again it doesn’t end the way he would like. You are in pain and apathy. You consider yourself a failure.

There is a concept called the “memory effect on unfinished actions.” This means that the human psyche is most often focused on a specific goal that is most significant to him. And he doesn’t let him go until he achieves this goal.

In a normal life situation, this helps to achieve goals and solve problems. But it happens, especially in relationships with a loved one with whom there has been a break, that unclosed gestalts no longer act to their advantage. They harm new relationships. In addition, there are cases when it is impossible to complete the gestalt at all (if a loved one has died). And then the person, without closing it, continues to suffer, this takes away all his strength and does not give him the opportunity to start a new, happy relationship.

So, why is gestalt dangerous in relationships:

you experience constant dissatisfaction with life;
you have strong feelings for various reasons, psychosis, depression, suicidal thoughts;
you develop laziness and apathy, you don’t want to change anything in life;
you have psychosomatic illnesses;
you constantly go back to the past, even with new people.

If you keep thinking about your ex-lover, can’t look at anyone, and most importantly, are losing your relationship again, because you didn’t tell him anything at the end (and you had to say a lot - it’s accumulated!), then there is an unfinished gestalt here , of course, is obvious. But it happens that you seem to have finished everything (at least it seems so to you), but you cannot start life again. This means that somewhere “the door is not closed”, you did not let go of the situation, and it did not let you go.

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, and how to close it?

In the early 1920s of the last century, an unknown student at the University of Berlin, Bluma Zeigarnik, sitting in a cafe, observed the behavior of waiters: the workers easily kept in their minds long lists of orders of newcomers and remembered all those who had not paid, but barely remembered the list of dishes of those who I already paid for lunch. Zeigarnik suggested that people remember completed and unfinished tasks differently, depending on their importance. Later, the concept of the Zeigarnik effect appeared: unfinished actions cause tension in the body, provoking a person to return to them again and again.

Around the same time, Gestalt psychology was born, which claims that we think in holistic mental images. We suggest taking a closer look at gestalts and their influence on the human psyche.

What is Gestalt?

Gestalt is a currently relevant thought, intention, desire or feeling. Literally from German it means “figure”. Thanks to self-regulation, our body is able to “bring out” the most important “figure” at the moment, and push the rest into the background.

Let's say you come to someone's birthday, sit down at the table and immediately notice a bottle of champagne, but do not see salads, appetizers and beautiful table settings. Thus, your “figure” is alcohol, and the festive table is just a background. As soon as your need is satisfied (when you drink a glass of champagne), the gestalt will end, lose its relevance and give way to a new image. But sometimes this life cycle can be disrupted: unfinished business, like shackles, pulls back, draws out strength, and does not allow a new need to appear on the stage. The result is a feeling of “being” in the present, rather than living.

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 could not / did not want / were afraid to say or do something.

How can you complete a gestalt? Close it.

What does it mean to close the gestalt?

An incomplete gestalt is the feeling that a problem (or situation) from the past is affecting the present you. For example, you remember people with whom you once had a relationship or friendship, after which you feel bad. Or you realize that you are repeating the same mistakes.

When we have an open gestalt, we give part of the energy to it. We also transfer this experience into new relationships, which can contribute to the destruction of the relationship. We often dream about things that do not come true, depleting our strength and thus increasing our regret. As a result, we continue to attract people with whom we can live exactly that pain from the past and an identical situation, and thereby deplete our inner strength. It is in order to find peace of mind that you need to close the gestalt.

Closing the gestalt means working through your past and reliving it. This is working with yourself, not with other people. The result of this work is changes inside and outside. When the gestalt closes, the person and life around him changes.

How to close a gestalt?

There are three main steps that will help you do this.

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 with a pen and write down everything that touches a nerve, causes irritation and indignation.
Next, you need to think about it and list point by point what exactly you don’t like in this situation. How do you think things should have been and why? What should this situation teach you? What life experiences did you have to gain there?

And now that you have all the information about the “ideal” development and completion of this situation, you need to dive into it as deeply and completely as possible and live it again. And in the process of this re-living, throw out those feelings and emotions that you 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.

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

After the first two steps, it would be good to reconsider your life from the perspective of new experience - at least the main, turning points. This step 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, you will begin to feel more confident, more experienced and wise in life.

Why will closing the gestalt help you?

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 you are doing. As a result, your thinking changes, you begin to behave differently and feel differently.

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

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.

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:

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.”
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.

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.

Lyubol, or How to open a closed gestalt

A closed gestalt is fucking power! It is like a safe in a Swiss bank, securely locked and guarded. For those who do not suffer from grief from erudition, I will clarify that gestalt is an experience that stands out from other experiences here and now. There is a lot of this good, that is, different gestalts, in our minds, but one evil crap always stands out from the general background, drilling into a brain exhausted by unsatisfied needs.

The need lurks behind every painful hole in the head, but almost no one knows about it. And why the hell do you need to know, for example, what need prompts you to get drunk? You just want to drink - that's all! You don't care about philosophy! And drinking is a great infernal process, in the depths of which, in order of numbers, different demons are calculated in order: to get drunk from grief, to get drunk from happiness, to get drunk from thirst, to get drunk and forget, and so on. When you achieve enlightenment of the first level, that is, you begin to wonder why you are drawn to this particular swamp, and not to the neighboring clear stream, you are covered by the dusty bag of dialectics named after Hegel, and you fall into the horror of a meaningful life.

So, the closed Gestalt is a greeting to Hegel from Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy. When the experience is completed, it transforms into a new quality, and the second law of dialectics comes into play. There is no turning back! Opposites alternate like a kaleidoscope, opening and closing alternate like day and night, gestalt follows gestalt. Life is like a walk-through room in which doors are constantly slamming, opening and closing.

I've been waiting for love since I was 14 years old. A female creature that had not matured into a girl, giving weak and indistinct signals about her pubertal needs, sat on the windowsill, looked at the starry sky and listened to a broken record with Zatsepin’s song “The World Without a Beloved” from the film “June 31”. I dreamed of love and I remember exactly what I wanted. I didn't need a certain appearance, nor a certain educational or financial status. But my body knew exactly what it wanted to feel next to another person who was in a sober mind and in shorts. It was not about sex at all, but about everything at once. Body experiences are signals about everything that happens in the conscious and subconscious, and not just in between. The gestalt opened up and gaped like a cosmic abyss.

When He appeared in my life, I experienced deep disappointment. I didn't like his face, his big nose, his ears. I didn't even like the name. It seemed that everything was wrong, namely, not about the window sill and not about “June 31”. But the body did not allow itself to be deceived and turned on a deafening alarm. It tormented me with symptoms of hitting the target until I admitted that this guy was the one I was waiting for. Bingo! The interpeduncle, which has lost connection with the brain, is a bad adviser, and the intelligent body, connected to the head, does not deceive. We have been married for 17 years. Death separated us. The gestalt closed: I received everything I dreamed of ahead of schedule, and even more.

A few years later, having healed a little from grief, I felt a new emerging need - to build a mature relationship based on equality, mutual respect and the desire for self-realization. Sitting on the windowsill, it was difficult to dream about it. A teenager has a completely different level of awareness, different goals and aspirations. This does not mean that a mature woman does not need sex. It is needed, but its value, compared to the puberty period and the period of high reproduction, is completely different. In a mature personality, against the backdrop of many vital needs, completely different gestalts begin to stand out.

My gestalt went in search of an ally. Holy Kama Sutra, if only he knew what he would have to face! A stream of gestalts floated past him at the level of the windowsill. Every time my gestalt reached out to another gestalt, it turned out that my counterpart imagined personal growth as a process of endless insemination of the surrounding space. The fruits of insemination are not very important to such a gestalt; the potential is important. The higher the potency, the wider the circle of inseminated targets, the closer the gestalt is to closure. But either the opening does not correspond to the door, or the hinges are not lubricated, but there is no result. It is not even expected in the near future. It swings from side to side, it slams like a thunderclap - and does not close. No locks, no deadbolts. However, there are bolts. But they put it in the wrong place and in the wrong place.

Those with gestalts below the window sill cannot maintain a relationship with one partner, do not consider self-actualization as a component of close relationships, are in a state of various dependencies, try to dominate in order to prove their importance, and deny attachment. The atmosphere around me began to smell like stale baby diapers. The idea of fighting over molds and scoops in a sandbox did not excite me, as an adult woman, either in my heart or in my brain. There was a feeling that overripe teenagers of 40–50 years old were gradually beginning to degrade to the state of infants, dependent on their mother’s breast.

Geshalt is not Sesame, and you cannot tell him to “open” or “close.” Men with the gestalts of overripe immatures wide open have no power over their impulses, are not aware of their real needs, and do not feel the signals of their body above the waist. The doors of their gestalts were disentangled by a wild sexual hurricane.

It would probably have been easier to resonate with them if my gestalt had not collapsed. A huge number of women I know, disappointed in their first, second or even third marriage, continue to look for that very option. Dissatisfaction with the choice of youth motivates more and more attempts to get what you dreamed of in your youth. The door slams only when the volume is filled to capacity. That’s why many people start all over again: another white veil, another “bitter”, another attempt to gain satisfaction from the relationship. However, there is so little that corresponds to aspirations, that it feels like honey on the tongue when you pronounce “love”! A toxic admixture turns this sweet word into “lyugor” or “lyubol”.

I don't need a veil. I want to go further. I have no need to start anything on June 31st. At 50 years old, the level of aspiration is completely different. And I cannot open the old closed gestalt to suit someone else's needs. I do not lose the connection between mind and body. And I still know which lightning will flash when the two charges approach. And women and men pass by, having just climbed down from the windowsills. Advice to them and gestalt!

You can find even more interesting and useful information on how to create harmony in relationships and get maximum satisfaction from life here:

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.