The one thing: Contact.

Contact is a foundational concept from Gestalt psychology, developed in the 1950s, used by clinicians for 70 years, and almost entirely unknown outside Gestalt training centers.

Contact means showing up with presence, for a moment of interaction with yourself, with others, or with the world.

The quality of the contact you make determines the quality of every good thing in your life: Money, adventure, connection, new ideas.

To use the power of contact for yourself, learn how it works, the three domains where it happens, and the five disturbances that block you from getting what you want.

The 7-Stage Loop That Runs Your Entire Life

Every need you’ve ever had passed through the same Cycle of Experience.

Contact is the interaction stage of that cycle, where your needs gets met. It looks like this:

First, a Sensation. Something stirs in the body.
Second, Awareness. You notice it, and name your need.
Third, Excitement. Energy gathers around your need.
Fourth, Action. You move toward the fulfillment of your need.
Fifth, Contact. You engage with your need, directly.
Sixth, Resolution. Your need has been met, and fades.
Seventh, Withdrawal. You move on, and clear the field for what’s next.

Of the seven, Contact is the stage that delivers on the need. It’s the interaction phase, the moment you meet what you were reaching for.

Take one of the simplest needs there is: Hunger.

I feel something in my body. What is that? Oh, I’m hungry. (Sensation, Awareness) So I get up and walk to the fridge. (Excitement, Action) I eat. (Contact) The hunger fades, and I move on with my day. (Resolution, Withdrawal)

The same cycle runs underneath your complex needs too: Loneliness, restlessness, ambition.

Notice that the Cycle of Experience didn’t invent anything. It simply labels what’s actually happening. Words for a process you enact hundreds of times a day, whether or not you’ve ever noticed it.

Here’s where it gets fascinating. The three domains of Contact. Five contact boundary disturbances that block us from getting what we want.

By the end, you’ll know exactly where you get stuck.

The 3 Domains of Contact

The 5 Ways We All Block Contact

Gestalt psychology names, precisely, the 5 ways people block themselves from getting what they want.

There are 5 distinct contact boundary disturbances within you, operating around the clock, beneath the level of behavior. They are all forms of avoidance.

Once you can name them, you have the power to change your results.

Retroflection

Introjection

Projection

Deflection

Confluence

The 3 ways to use Contact.

Contact boundary disturbances are the blocking processes that stop you from making contact.

I spent a decade teaching the Gestalt approach to executives, small business owners, and entrepreneurs who needed advanced tools for their own business communication, management processes, interpersonal connections, creativity, and personal development.