1. Gestalt cycle
• Also known as the cycle of awareness or cycle of experience
• Gestalt cycle has seven stages (Clarkson, 1989).
• 1. Sensation
• Something emerges from the background and draws our attention
• We sense and feel things.
• 2. Awareness
• These feelings and sensations come into awareness
• Our awareness is raised
• We become interested and notice the sensation
• This then becomes a new figure
2. • 3. Mobilisation
• We prepare ourselves to take action in order to satisfy the need
• Decisions are made and action is planned.
• 4. Action
• We engage in activity in order to satisfy the need
• Action occurs at the boundary between self and the environment
• It precedes full contact.
3. • 5.Contact
• We become fully involved in the action
• We are fully engaged with others or the environment
• At some point we become aware of a sense of completion
• 6. Satisfaction
• We become more aware that the need for action has been satisfied.
We can
• identify and enjoy the sense of satisfaction and completion
• There is acceptance and integration and we are ready to withdraw
4. • Withdrawal
• We finish with the action and feel satisfied
• We lose interest and let go of that particular figure
• There is a move back to equilibrium
• The next figure can now emerge for the cycle to begin again
5. Cycles of Gestalt
• Cycles of Gestalt can be small or large and can run over a short term
or long term .
• For example, as you sit reading,
• you may become aware of a sensation in your body,
• maybe your back is stiff from sitting reading too long – you decide it is
time for a break,
• maybe time to get up and walk around, stretch a little – you get up,
engage in the activity of moving and after a few minutes feel
• ready to sit down again and resume reading – this is a complete
simple Gestalt
6. • For example, a couple have been married for 22 years but the woman has
slowly
• become aware of a growing dissatisfaction with the relationship. Having
tried to ignore
• it, she now pays attention to the feeling, thinks and plans to do something
about it
• – she may choose to leave the relationship, take action and fully engage in
that process.
• This is a major life-changing event but is ultimately a good move for her
and, after
• a time, she sees herself as a single woman again
7. Organisimic self-regulation
• If we move through all seven stages, we will complete the Gestalt and
be available for the next figure to emerge
• This process of completion, or the desire to complete, is a key
principle of Gestalt therapy, known as ‘organismic self-regulation’
(Yontef, 1993)
