The Language, A Gestalt is a Learning Cycle
in Child Development-
Gestalt Development – Joel Latner – A gestalt is a learning cycle 

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You may wish to skip this section, skim over it, or read it. The vocabulary of gestalt is introduced by Latner (1972), who describes ‘putting on a mask’ in childhood development terms. This is a key to understanding individuals who cross-dress. Introjection is a normal part of learning. When you learn about how children learn, you tend to think about that development in a different way, with more empathy and clarity. Sometimes, the word introjection is used to describe a parent’s voice from the past that resides in the mind (Parent ego state). Any ideology from a parent can be injected into a child’s mind and reside there forever. This set of beliefs is called an injunction. An injunction is a set of beliefs swallowed whole. Like a morality play, it is introjected into the mind in a meaningful way, but also, often full of mystery. An injunction is when a person holds a set of beliefs in their mind and does not question them to their logical conclusion.  

The Self has characteristic ways of making contact in the process of growth…When we are at our zero point [the beginning of the learning cycle], prior to and after gestalt formation, our experience is of loose undifferentiated contact with the field [the environment]. We may feel we are as much a part of our surroundings as we are ourselves. We may experience a loss of distinctness as we appreciate the stillness of the night or the rolling of the ocean waves. In this state … we may feel we have become those waves. 

At such a point, we say we are confluent with what we are in touch with. Our boundaries have become permeable, and we appreciate the similarity of what we contact and ourselves. Confluence is the appreciation of sameness. It is the kind of contact in which little or no contact is felt. Instead, we experience our empathy through our surroundings. At such times, if we are with another person, we may feel we truly understand his [or her] experience because we seem to be having it as he [or she] does.  

Confluence is a major component in religious experiences of oneness, and it is the dynamic work in certain drug experiences. This quality of sympathetic resonance comes from maintaining contact with another at certain times and is also the basis for the knowledge and intimacy we have with others. It is the bridge from man to man. The privacy of our isolated self is gone; instead, we allow others to share our experience, to know us. At this point in the meeting, the contact is so true, and we are so compatible that we feel the experience of another’s existence.

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Another normal contact characteristic similar to confluence is projection. In projection, we also seem to dismantle the boundary of the self, but instead of taking on the existence of the other onto ourselves or merging with him [or her], we put our existence onto the other. The other person or object serves as a movie screen onto which we project one aspect of ourselves. In normal functioning, this is the fantasy process by which we visualize the environment differently from the way it presently is in order to test ideas for remaking the field. An Architect, viewing a wooded hillside, projects a country house onto it. Looking into the mirror, we project a mustache on our clean-shaven face or long hair on short hair. Along the way of creating a gestalt to meet a present need, we avail ourselves of our ability to see reality differently from its actuality, more in accord with our desires. Or perhaps we re-arrange aspects of the field in a different way than their previous arrangement: Thinking about how to rearrange the living-room furniture, or packing the car trunk. This process is the beginning of the invention of self. By abstracting the field and recasting it according to our needs, we can make art or scientific discoveries. This activity is central to all creative thought, artistic and practical.

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In health, we eventually gain responsibility for our needs and for what we have done. An example of this is an artist who makes over reality to suit his [or her] muse…He knows what is fantasy and what is outside of him.

Healthy projection is similar but stylistically linked more closely to confluence… By identifying the other with our needs or inventing them with our needs, we create a fantasy full of meaning. Though we may obliterate the actual other in the course of our invention—and even prefer what we have made over compared to what we started with—we do not believe our projections reflect the state of the field [the environment].

The undifferentiated state of the infant is the development precursor of projection and confluence. Boundaries are not yet well developed… the infant has no concept of self or others, so there can be no boundary. His environment is part of him, confluent with him.

Healthy introjection is similar to confluence but is stylistically linked more closely to the mode of functioning we have called ego than is confluence. It is clearer and more forceful. Introjection is taking on attitudes and behaviors without the process of gestalt formation. It is rote learning without assimilation. In introjected behavior, all we can do is play roles because we have not become what we are doing. The gestalt that is us has not been altered by including the new material in it. We take on introjections like we put on a mask.

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Healthy introjection is role play that is known to be so. It is the play-acting of a child or of an actor. In this way, we expand our possibilities, trying on new ways of being to see if they fit, or if we are interested in taking them in, or making them familiar and hence less threatening. (F.S. Perls used the example of a child who goes to the dentist, has the usual painful experience, and plays dentist after she comes home. She is trying to gain mastery of this fearful situation by taking the dentist’s role.

In introjection, there is a felt boundary since introjection requires that the self function predominantly in the mode of ego, searching out from the field the parts we introject. We know there is some difference between what we are and what we are doing. Imitation, copying, and role-playing are healthy introjections. In health, we discard them when we are done playing with them.

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Healthy retroflection is the self in the mode of ego ordering and regimenting our behavior according to the demands of the situation. It is what is called self-control. In healthy retroflection, we control ourselves by effort of the will, forcing our energies into precise channels perhaps different from the ones they would take without retroflection. Good examples of healthy retroflection are learning to type or learning to play a musical instrument. It is only through careful dedication and increasing control and refinement of our actions that we come to be able to do what we wish to do. The process of refining is retroflection. This is self-restraint under the auspices of the growth of the self. Healthy retroflection is discipline.[51]