German researchers such as Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler, and Max Wertheimer began studying the ways in which perceptions are formed and how the processes are determined by context, configuration, and meaning rather than by the simple accumulation of sensory elements. The researchers also identified several new perceptual phenomena. This focus on meaning, context, and configuration also informed the Gestalt psychologists' studies of higher mental processes, which laid the foundations for later work in cognitive psychology. Since the 1950s the term Gestalt has been adopted to describe certain forms of psychotherapy. The theory emphasizes awareness and the accurate perception of oneself, of one's needs, and of the world.
Experience can become unbalanced when a person avoids awareness of unpleasant events.
The person's holistic responses, or Gestalten, are then incomplete and may interfere with later experiences. An aware person instead lives in the present and is not unduly influenced by past or future events.