Changes

''[[Gestalt]]'' is a [[German]] [[word ]] [[meaning ]] an organized pattern or [[whole]] which has properties [[other ]] than those of its components in [[isolation]].

The experimental study of [[gestalt]]s began in 1910 with the study of certain phenomena of [[perception]], and led to a [[school]] of [[thought ]] known as "[[gestalt]] [[psychology]]" which was based on a holistic [[concept ]] of [[mind]] and [[body]] and which stressed the [[psychological]] importance of [[body]] presentation.

These [[ideas ]] formed the basis of [[Gestalt]] [[therapy]] as developed by [[Paul ]] Goodman, Fritz Perls and Ralph Hefferline.

When [[Lacan]] refers to the [[gestalt]], he refers specifically to one kind of oganized pattern, namely the [[visual]] [[image]] of [[another ]] member of the same [[species]], which is perceived as a [[unified]] [[whole]].

Such an [[image]] is a [[gestalt]] because it has an effect which none of its component parts have in isolation; this effect is to act as a "releasing [[mechanism]]" ([[French]]: ''déclencheur'') which triggers certain [[instinct]]ual responses, such as [[reproductive ]] [[behavior]].<ref>{{S1}} p. 121f</ref>

In other [[words]], when an [[animal]] perceives a [[unified]] [[image]] of another member of its species, it responds in certan [[instinct]]ual ways.

It is by [[identifying]] with the [[unified]] [[gestalt]] of the [[body]] [[image]] that the [[ego]] is constantly threatened by [[fear]]s of [[fragmented body|disintegration]], which [[manifest ]] themselves in [[image]]s of the [[fragmented body]]; these [[image]]s [[represent ]] the opposite of the [[unified]] [[gestalt]] of the [[body]] [[image]].