Scientific Gestalt

Goldststein, Koffka, Khler, Lewin and Wertheimer were scientists who, at the turn of the 20th century, founded the gestalt approach in psychology. Fritz Perls (1944) recognized the potential of the gestalt approach in psychotherapy and founded what is now the widespread system of gestalt therapy. Perls understanding of gestalt theory was broadened by Zinker with recognition of stages of development of each gestalt so that what is now termed the Cleveland cycle of experience was recognized. Ray Edwards has proposed two innovations. First, it is shown that completion and grounding of the gestalt cycle of events facilitates re-energization of depressed people. Second, attention to Gendlins felt-senses, aided by use of David Groves clean subset of language, facilitates freeing post-trauma patients from the effect of recurrent nightmares and/or fl ash-backs. The relevant felt-senses are termed proto-fi gures and are usually phenomena like butterfl ies in the stomach, lumps in the stomach or throat and/or clouds are hanging over me. This present book sets these innovations in full historical context and reveals the gestalt system to be scientific in character. Malcolm Parlett, Ph,D. First Editor of the British Gestalt Journal commented on an earlier version of this book This is a thought-provoking read, a quirky and vividly argued alternative version of gestalt therapy that challenges most of the assumptions of contemporary Gestalt psychotherapy and will send many a reader fl ying to a computer to type a rebuttal. But Ray Edwards book is defi nitely worth a look at, not least for its acerbic criticisms and references to our past traditions. I recommend the self-published manuscript by an impressive maverick octagenarian gestalt thinker with strong opinions, complete with its copious spelling errors and other forgiveable selfi ndulgences.

Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory, and Practice is an introductory text, written by major Gestalt theorists, that will engage those new to Gestalt therapy. Editors Ansel Woldt and Sarah M. Toman introduce the historical underpinnings and fundamental concepts of Gestalt therapy and illustrate applications of those concepts to therapeutic practice. The book is unique in that it is the first Gestalt text specifically designed for the academic and training institute settings. Gestalt Therapy takes both a conceptual and a practical approach to examining classic and cutting-edge constructs.

This is Volume II of twenty-one in a series of Cognitive Psychology. Originally published in 1938. The war, differences of tongue, sentiment, and background all contributed towards making it difficult for English-speaking readers to welcome what they were the experimental methods and results of certain German psychologists. The gap thus created was not bridged until very recent times: notably by the publication in 1935 of Professor K. Koffka’s Principles of Gestalt Psychology. Even this important work, however, does not wholly effect the necessary transition from the German psychology of 1912 to the present day, and Professor Koffka himself mentions this in a Preface footnote of his book. The present volume is offered in the hope that it may play a part in completing the structure.

This is an examination of the history and the state of the art of the quest for visualizing scientific knowledge and the dynamics of its development. Through an interdisciplinary perspective this book presents profound visions, pivotal advances, and insightful contributions made by generations of researchers and professionals, which portrays a holistic view of the underlying principles and mechanisms of the development of science. This updated and extended second edition: highlights the latest advances in mapping scientific frontiers examines the foundations of strategies, principles, and design patterns provides an integrated and holistic account of major developments across disciplinary boundaries “Anyone who tries to follow the exponential growth of the literature on citation analysis and scientometrics knows how difficult it is to keep pace. Chaomei Chen has identified the significant methods and applications in visual graphics and made them clear to the uninitiated. Derek Price would have loved this book which not only pays homage to him but also to the key players in information science and a wide variety of others in the sociology and history of science.” – Eugene Garfield “This is a wide ranging book on information visualization, with a specific focus on science mapping. Science mapping is still in its infancy and many intellectual challenges remain to be investigated and many of which are outlined in the final chapter. In this new edition Chaomei Chen has provided an essential text, useful both as a primer for new entrants and as a comprehensive overview of recent developments for the seasoned practitioner.” – Henry Small Chaomei Chen is a Professor in the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA, and a ChangJiang Scholar at Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Information Visualization and the author of Turning Points: The Nature of Creativity (Springer, 2012) and Information Visualization: Beyond the Horizon (Springer, 2004, 2006).

A reinterpretation of the secularization of American culture, focusing on the political views of natural and social scientists from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Fundamentals of Cognitive Science draws on research from psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, linguistics, evolution, and neuroscience to provide an engaging and student-friendly introduction to this interdisciplinary field. While structured around traditional cognitive psychology topics, from attention, learning theory, and memory to information processing, thinking, and decision making, the book also looks at neural networks, cognitive neuroscience, embodied cognition, and magic to illustrate cognitive science principles. The book is organized around the history of thinking about the mind and its relation to the world. It considers the evolution of cognition and how it demonstrates how our current thinking about cognitive processes is derived from pre-scientific philosophies and common sense, through psychologists’ empirical inquiries into mind and behavior as they pursued a science of cognition and the construction of artificial intelligences. The architectures of cognition are also applied throughout, and the book proposes a synthesis of them, from traditional symbol system architectures to recent work in embodied cognition and Bayesian predictive processing. Practical and policy implications are also considered but solutions are left for the readers to determine. Using extended case studies to address the most important themes, ideas, and findings, this book is suitable for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology and related fields. It is also suitable for general readers interested in an accessible treatment of cognitive science and its practical implications. Please visit www.fundamentalsofcognitivescience.com for further resources to accompany the book.

The ideas of Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), a founder of Gestalt theory, are discussed in almost all general books on the history of psychology and in most introductory textbooks on psychology. This intellectual biography of Wertheimer is the first book-length treatment of a scholar whose ideas are recognized as of central importance to fields as varied as social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, problem solving, art, and visual neuroscience. King and Wertheimer trace the origins of Gestalt thought, demonstrating its continuing importance in fifteen chapters and several supplements to these chapters. They begin by reviewing Wertheimer's ancestry, family, childhood in central Europe, and his formal education. They elaborate on his activities during the period in which he developed the ideas that were later to become central to Gestalt psychology, documenting the formal emergence of this school of thought and tracing its development during World War I. The maturation of the Gestalt school at the University of Berlin during 1922-1929 is discussed in detail. Wertheimer's everyday life in America during his last decade is well documented, based in part on his son's recollections. The early reception of Gestalt theory in the United States is examined, with extensive references to articles in professional journals and periodicals. Wertheimer's relationships and interaction with three prominent psychologists of the time, Edwin Boring, Clark Hull, and Alexander Luria, are discussed based on previously unpublished correspondence. The final chapters discuss Wertheimer's essays on democracy, freedom, ethics, and truth, and detail personal challenges Wertheimer faced during his last years. His major work, published after his death, is Productive Thinking. Its reception is examined, and a concluding chapter considers recent responses to Max Wertheimer and Gestalt theory. This intellectual biography will be of interest to psychologists and readers inte

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