Is it always necessary to close gestalts?
It is necessary to satisfy needs. To do this, it is important to be able to recognize them. To understand what requests are important and paramount, to find ways to meet them, to establish contact and to appropriate the experience. But this is not always possible.
A person is capable of interrupting himself or herself due to his or her traumatic experiences or character traits.
It happens that there is a lack of experience for some task. For example, a person does not know the Internet, does not know how to use a search engine and is afraid to find information. Then it may turn out that his interest – to learn more about something – remains unsatisfied. Or he will ask an incompetent acquaintance and, not having received enough information, too will remain unsatisfied.
The process of contact may be interrupted without the person’s participation. External factors intervene: natural disasters, illness, accidents, etc. Here, much will depend on the person’s abilities to withstand the tension of the arisen experiences and creatively adapt to the circumstances.
For example, the electricity was cut off, and the person, naturally, feels annoyed. Not recognizing his anger or not understanding its source, or being afraid to call a specialist, he can simply vent his irritation on his loved ones. The tension can be removed in this way, but there will be no satisfaction.
To get it, you need to act constructively: be patient and wait until the electricity is turned on. Or to direct the energy of the anger to find another source of information. It is also possible to obtain a solution to the problem from the responsible person – the electrician.
It also happens that it is impossible to close a gestalt because there is no one or nothing to contact. For example, it often happens that the person from whom we would like to receive love and acceptance is no longer alive…
Then the process of grieving comes to our aid, which includes experiencing shock, anger, sadness, gratitude. All of these feelings help a person understand and accept that they will not be able to meet their need at all or do it the way they would like. It is then the process of grieving that helps to close the gestalt.
