Gestalt psychology view on perception

Instead, his mind tries to show us that we should perceive our surrounding as parts of a greater whole. This psychology plays a major role in human sensation and perception. "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" is a commonly used phrase in the Gestalt therapy. Gestalt is a word meaning whole and he chose this word to shape the principles of his theories after he took the word to a groundbreaking psychological level (Wong, 2010). Gestalt therapy was an essential theory founded in 1940s and 1950s. The ultimate goal of a client is to be aware of their doings and how that can impact them, as well as learning to accept and put some value to themselves with an aim of becoming essentially and completely aware of themselves.

Therefore, holism mostly focuses on all aspects of a client's experience be it thoughts, behaviors, feelings, dreams and memories. This theory tries to analyze the physical gesture and non-verbal behaviors with an aim of uncovering the deep-rooted problem experienced.  The term "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" originating from Gestalt School of Psychology has its roots from the Gestalt school of theories where objects were seen as perceived within the environment as from the elements taken from the global constructs. The “whole” approach is used to define the principle of perception which is innate mental laws determined in the way objects are perceived (Wong, 2010). The image is made clearer by balancing it and its ground. In other words, Gestalt theories followed the belief of “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” (Cervellin, Loris, and Giuseppe, 2014).

The whole carries a different and superior meaning than its distinct components. When analyzing the “whole”, the rational process is used whereby the thoughts are used to make the leap from the comprehension of parts to realizing the whole (Ellis, 2013). The principal tries to show us our perpetual tendency to separate wholes from their original backgrounds basing this on the existence of some variables such as color or texture. Another principle is that of psychophysical isomorphism which tries to establish the correlation existing between the cerebral activity and the conscious experience. Gestalt theory explains the phrase, “The whole is other than the sum of the parts” which is sometimes mistranslated (Hamlyn, 2017). There exists a claim that the qualities attached to "whole" cannot be reduced to the qualities attached to its parts.

With Gestalt being famous for his work in perception, this essential aspect has been applied to almost every aspect of psychology. It is the main thing that influenced many psychologists be it developmental psychologists, cognitive and also psychotherapists. These laws are referred to as the "laws of the perceptual organization" When it comes to visual experience which is seen to be more than just an abstract explaining the features in the visual field, the features are experienced in a three-dimensional object (Ellis, 2013). This view supports the fact that the mind and the brain are very different aspects appearing in the same physical mechanism. The fundamental Gestalt law of perception is the one which seems to order our experience in an orderly manner.