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Basically, Gestalt therapy is concerned with the interaction between the organism and its environment (Baumgardner, 1975). In the healthy organism, many needs are present at any one time. These organize themselves into a hierarchy of importance, as a natural process. The most dominant need forms, or becomes figure. In order to satisfy this need, the organism searches its environment for the desired object, when the object is found, the organism acts to assimilate it. The Gestalt psychologists have extensively discussed the concept of the connection between the sensory and motor activities for many years. When the needed object has been assimilated, the Gestalt is closed, and a state of equilibrium is reached. The formerly dominant need recedes from awareness, and the energy thus freed is directed towards the next most dominant need. Organisms are thus self-regulatory or homeostatic. In this way, the organism is regarded as being "born with the capacity to cope with life" (Simkin, 1976, p.17). .
Many of the broad philosophical features of the Gestalt psychologists' work, such as the laws of pragnanz and closure, are related to a fundamental concept which runs through the whole of Gestalt therapy and Gestalt psychology -- that of equilibrium. The perceptual field and its underlying isomorphic cortical field are said to be dynamic wholes, which, like a magnetic field of force in physics, tends towards equilibrium. When the psychological field is disturbed by the introduction of new forces, the whole undergoes a new alignment of forces until equilibrium is once more established. In short, it is a fundamental property of percepts to tend towards stability, and to remain as stable as conditions permit. A technique of Gestalt therapy is the development of the continuum of awareness -- the therapist facilitating a person increasing awareness in himself/herself. Most people interrupt or block awareness if it is unpleasant, and avoid it, developing defense mechanisms such as intellectualization or flights into the past or future, anxiety, denial, deflection or other coping strategies.