Today, many scholars view Gestalt psychology, therapy, and its principles as radical and aggressive. It implies that an individual tends to discover the world by seeing the object as a whole while not focusing on its specific parts (Koffka, 2013). In this case, it suggests that people see what they want to see, and every individual creates his/her perception of the world (Koffka, 2013). In the context of this paper, it will be critical to understanding the main reasons for this viewpoint.
When comparing this method to cognitive psychology, Gestalt concepts can be discovered as a basis. Nonetheless, cognitive approaches are more advanced since they cover different processes such as memory, perception, critical thinking, and attention by explaining them from a scientific perspective (Singh, 2015). At the same time, neuroscience also studies people’s understanding and perception of the world but reviews it from the perspective of brain function (Singh, 2015). In comparison to the Gestalt approach, it seems that this method is more theory-based and explains the existence of particular phenomena instead of simply generalizing the observations. As for social psychology, it also discovers the behavior of people, but it links it to their perceptions and feelings while relying on social research and other theories (Singh, 2015).
Overall, all theories depicted above tend to study the key roots of human behavior. In this case, Gestalt psychology can be viewed as a basis for the modern sciences, but it is often criticized for being highly generalized and descriptive. Consequently, approaches such as neuroscience, and social and cognitive psychology were developed, and they exist and are actively supported today since they provide evidence for their assumptions and theories. A combination of these factors supports the identified principles while making them less criticized than Gestalt theory.
References
Koffka, K. (2013). Principles of Gestalt psychology. New York, NY: Routledge.
Singh, A. (2015). Social psychology. New Delhi, India: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.