Gestalt psychology sources, some suggestions

    Gestalt Therapy (O'Neill)
    • Gestalt Therapy and Gestalt Theory by Timothy C. McNamara, 2/10/97
      • (...)
        • Gestalt Psychology Sources and Barlow Article by Joe Wysong, Editor, The Gestalt Journal, 2/19/97

    Gestalt psychology sources, some suggestions
    by Gerhard Stemberger, Society for Gestalt Theory and its Applications (GTA), 2/20/97

    Thanks to Joe Wysong for posting the interesting Barlow-article (and thanks, Joe, for sending it to me by mail, it arrived well). I would like to comment on this article later on.

    I have posted today some remarks on the issue of Gestalt psychology and psychosis to another thread of this forum. There I gave some references to psychopathology related Gestalt psychological sources.

    In addition to Joe's recommendation of ELLIS' Sourcebook I would like to mention some 'classics' of Gestalt psychology which seem to be still available in English (in fact I bought them over the last months to improve my ability to communicate about all this in English):

    Max Wertheimer, Productive Thinking. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1982 (ISBN 0-226-89376-6). Paperback edition. [This book has a lot more to do with psychotherapy as one might think at first glance. In this context I would specifically recommend Chapter 7, Two Boys Play Badminton; A Girl Describes Her Office. I think it touches some central topics in psychotherapy thinking of people getting out of focus and in urgent need of re-structuring and re-centering and how to do so. There are close links to Adlerian thinking in this too.]

    Wolfgang Köhler, Dynamics in Psychology. Liveright, New York 1968 (ISBN 0-87140-087-1). Paperback edition.

    Wolfgang Köhler, The Place of Value in a World of Facts. Liveright, New York 1966 (ISBN 0-87140-107-X). Paperback edition.

    Wolfgang Köhler, Gestalt Psychology. Liveright, New York 1992 (ISBN 0-87140-218-1). Paperback edition.

    Kurt Koffka, Growth of the Mind. Transaction Books, New Brunswick 1980 (ISBN 0-87855-784-9). Paperback edition.

    Kurt Goldstein, The Organism. Zone Books, New York 1995 (ISBN 0-942299-96-5)

    Mitchell G. Ash, Gestalt Psychology in German Culture. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995 (ISBN 0-521-47540-6). [Well, that's no 'classic' of course, but provides a lot of information about the further advancement of Gestalt psychology in the German speaking countries after its prime days, covering a time span from 1890 up till 1967. Perhaps this is just the thing some people are looking for to get an idea about later developments of Gestalt psychology.]

    Mary Henle, 1879 and All That. Essays in the Theory and History of Psychology. Columbia University Press, New York 1986 (ISBN 0-231-06171-4). Paperback edition.

    There are some more, mostly edited by Mary Henle as I remember, and of course the book of Solomon Ash on Social Psychology, but I don't have them at hand, so I'll leave it at that.

            • Another article on Gestalt therapy/Gestalt Psychology by Joe Wysong, Editor, The Gestalt Journal, 3/2/97
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