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This editorial aims to highlight the historical significance and connections between Gestalt theory and psychological morphology.

May 31, 2026Open Access

Editorial: Gestalt Theory and Psychological Morphology: An Introduction

Key Points

This editorial aims to highlight the historical significance and connections between Gestalt theory and psychological morphology.
Review of various schools of thought within Gestalt psychology.
Discussion of historical figures such as Wertheimer, Köhler, and Salber.
Examination of the interplay between these theories and the broader psychological landscape.
Outlined the historical origins and developments of Gestalt theory since the 19th century.
Identified key similarities and differences between Gestalt theory and psychological morphology.
Highlighted the lack of discourse between proponents of Gestalt theory and psychological morphology.

Abstract

It is very gratifying that this journal is dedicating a double issue to a psychological concept related to Gestalt theory, as it provides an opportunity to recall the diversity of Gestalt psychological approaches.Among the schools of Gestalt psychology, the "Berlin School of Gestalt Theory" with its historical founders Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, and somewhat later Kurt Lewin, is undoubtedly the most renowned.However, the so-called "Graz School" (Ehrenfels, Meinong, later Witasek and Benussi), the "Leipzig School of Genetic Holistic and Structural Psychology" (Krueger, Sander, Volkelt) and the somewhat later "Psychological Morphology" (Wilhelm Salber) can also be counted among the manifestations of Gestalt psychology in the German-speaking world.Gestalt theory and psychological morphology are linked by the fact that they were formed during a period of major psychological systems, which lasted from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century: Gestalt theory at the very beginning of the academic history of psychology (initially in 1890, then more sustainably from 1910 onwards), morphological psychology towards the end of the psychological systems (mid-1950s).Both are decisively influenced by a tradition that, in a departure from the one-sided natural scientific positioning of academic psychology, assigns a descriptive and understanding approach to the psychological object and declares this very specifically as issue of formation: as "Gestalt" "Theory" or, in Greek, "Morphé" "Logos".And yet there is little discourse between the representatives of these two related concepts.Perhaps for this reason, a few preliminary remarks are helpful, in which the common historical roots, the concordant visual experience, and the direct contact points between Gestalt theory and psychological morphology are considered. Conceptual foundationsGestalt vision and thinking owe their historical origins to Goethe's scientific concept.At the end of the 18th century, he broke with the practice of distinguishing and systematising living beings according to their external appearance.Instead,

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