Ma gestalt-thérapie - Frederick Perls (cf. Estrella distante, 85)

"A veces creo que Lorenzo fue mejor poeta que Stein y Soto. Pero usalmente cuando pienso en ellos los veo juntos.
Aunque lo único que los une fue la circunsatancia de nacer en Chile. Y un libro [que los tres leyeron]... El libro se titula Ma gestalt-thérapie y su autor es el doctor Frederick Perls..." (Bolaño, Estrella distante, p. 85)

Gestalt psychology provided a framework for Perls's system. According to this psychology of perception, when organisms are confronted with a set of elements, they perceive a whole pattern or configuration, rather than bits and pieces, against a background.
Perls applied this concept to human experience, postulating that healthy persons organize their field of experience into well-defined needs to which they respond appropriately. For example, when various perceptions lead healthy persons to experience the Gestalt of hunger, they eat. On the other hand, a neurotic interferes with the formation of the appropriate Gestalt and does not adequately deal with the need. In another example of an unhealthy response, a person who has just received an insult may be angry but may partially or completely repress awareness of this anger.
Gestalt therapy seeks to resolve the conflicts and ambiguities that result from the failure to integrate features of the personality. The goal of Gestalt therapy is to teach people to become aware of significant sensations within themselves and their environment so that they respond fully and reasonably to situations. The focus is on the “here and now” rather than on past experiences, although, once clients have become aware of the present, they can confront past conflicts or unfinished business—what Perls referred to as incomplete Gestalts.