IJSP Number 6, 2024

29 3. THE “INNER CONVERSATION” IN GESTALT THEORY Among the Gestalt psychologists, it was Mary Henle who dealt most thoroughly with the phenomenon of "inner dialogs" [ 11; cf. 12 ] . With her approach, Henle also goes beyond how the "inner" conversation had already been addressed earlier by other authors in Gestalt psychology. Here we are thinking primarily of Karl Duncker, one of the first generation of Gestalt psychologists: in his studies on productive thinking and problem solving [ 13 ] , he instructed his test subjects to "think out loud". This instruction, which we have also adopted in Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy as an invitation both in psychotherapy and supervision, is obviously based on the idea that people often verbalize their steps and procedures "internally" in the process of solving problems. "This instruction 'think aloud' is not identical with the usual request for self- observation in thought experiments. While the self-observing person makes himself the object of thought, i.e. - in terms of intention - is different from the thinking subject, the person who thinks aloud remains directly focused on the object, just letting it 'have its say'." [ 13, p.2; transl. GSt ] This invitation to "think aloud" therefore stimulates behavior that is similar to the "egocentric speech" or "collective monologue" already discussed. It has a twofold direction: On the one hand, verbalizing supports the clarification process; on the other hand, verbalizing aloud fulfils the task of integrating this process into a collaborative event with another person. While Duncker deals with the specific question of the relationship between "collective monologue" and the improvement of problem-solving skills, other Gestalt theorists like Kurt Lewin and Kurt Koffka deal with other, more general aspects of the dynamics of the person's internal relationships, i.e. the interrelationships between different parts or functions of the person. This usually remains without direct reference to "inner speech". Mary Henle went far beyond these questions in the early 1960s. She sees "inner" conversations as the phenomenal form of the interplay of various ego functions that are of existential importance for the orientation and steering of behavior of the phenomenal ego in its phenomenal environment. Henle sees the frequently observed human tendency to personalize such functions of the ego ("my inner friend", "my inner critic", etc.) as an important moment for the close interrelationships between the intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships of humans. Her proposal is one of applied personality theory, with which she anticipated much of what the Dutch psychologist Hubert Hermans later attempted in his theory of the al self [ 15 ] . Henle examined a series of everyday statements that contained a "self- reference", i.e. in which I 1 said something about I 2 or to I 2 , so to speak. Examples: "I don't know what got into me." - "I wonder if I'm really doing the right thing." -